Yvonne wasn't exactly a textbook beauty. As an adventurer, she had a rough, rugged appearance, and her messy hair, along with her dark eyes, made her seem more formidable than friendly.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t popular, in her own way. Nick barely had to clean her up a little, removing some of the less artistically placed stains from her clothes, and giving her skin a quick wash with water, to make her presentable.

  He doubted any man who would visit an establishment like the Gilded Mirror would go there for her, but he needed her charm to work on a different kind of audience.

  “Eeeh? And then what happened?" asked one of the two girls hanging from her arms, her high-pitched tone as much a performance as her low neckline and perfectly styled hair.

  Yvonne shifted, clearly uncomfortable being the center of attention, but dutifully kept the act going. “We fought, of course. I’m not going to let anyone disrespect me like that, especially not a little man whose ego has inflated beyond any reason.”

  Giggles followed as the maids lived vicariously through her stories, and Nick fought back a snort. Yvonne might have been hesitant to serve as a distraction, but she was doing an excellent job.

  Ladies’ Parlors were not necessarily seedy establishments, even though they were often grouped with the more upscale brothels. For one, there was no sale of flesh allowed inside, and the patrons weren’t even all men.

  People from all walks of life needed someone to listen to their troubles or to boast to, and while that sometimes led to more intimate moments, it wasn’t expected. Most of the time, they functioned like host clubs, just with a more curated sheen.

  Nick didn't know why such a place was in a town as small as Long Reach, but he would find out before he left.

  And most importantly, I need to know why Barron was using this place to take orders. Someone here is a contact for the Hones’ faction.

  So far, they had been seen as a novelty, since a lone female adventurer and a teenage boy weren’t exactly common sights. But despite the town's bustle, Nick sensed only three other customers.

  Since only twelve young women and two young men were available to talk, that wasn’t a sustainable rate. That, above all, was the damning evidence he needed.

  Feeling confident that he was in the right place and that the hostesses were too busy with Yvonne to bother giving him a second look, he slipped away toward the bathroom, then turned right and headed for the stairs while slipping the [Ring of Unknowingness] on his index finger.

  The light woods and frilly decorations gave way to a more practical atmosphere on the upper floor, as rows of rooms awaited those lucky few patrons that the girls liked enough to serve more thoroughly, but he ignored them and kept moving until he reached the last door, behind which he sensed a study.

  A bit of careful telekinesis made the physical lock give way, while the magical alarm he could sense across the floor was bypassed by levitation.

  I could disrupt the magic, but I don’t know how sensitive the matron is, and while she cannot sense me with the ring, she might be able to tell if her magic is being tampered with.

  The owl figurine appeared next, flapping around him before landing on his head and accepting his sensory connection, which allowed him to bypass the ring’s curse and see again.

  The room featured a large desk with spreadsheets and legal papers of all kinds, and a bookshelf filled with more ledgers.

  If Nick had relied only on his physical senses, he could have spent days checking everything for hidden codes or orders, but fortunately, he had both Barron’s memories and his spiritual senses to guide him. So, he floated up to the top bookshelf and plucked a seemingly mundane ledger out.

  Unlike all the others, this one showed traces of greed and fear, both emotions that stood out in the relatively subdued atmosphere.

  Nick checked once more to make sure he wouldn't trigger another alarm, but was relieved to find nothing else waiting for him.

  Flipping the papers open, he tilted the owl’s eyes to get a good look, then began reading.

  On the third night after the waxing crescent, prepare a private chamber for the guest with the silver feather. Offer him all courtesies and naturally include the usual questions during his stay. Good friends want to know if the harbor winds have changed and if any new ships are expected before the month’s end. If he presents gifts, record them discreetly and ensure they are passed along untouched. Do not stay in the room after he settles.

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  Most entries were like that. Just vague enough to avoid incriminating anything or anyone, yet still good enough evidence for Nick’s purposes that something shady was going on.

  The person arriving with the green ribbon should receive careful attention. She should not be rushed, as her comfort is essential for encouraging honest disclosures. Let her speak freely about her frustrations with the gardeners and those caring for the upper terraces. Our friends expect details about the new seedlings planted there. Any mention of rot or overgrowth must be recorded precisely. She will leave her payment in pressed flowers; wrap them securely. Escort her to the back stairs when she departs. She dislikes being watched.

  At least two dozen more were easily linked to this intermediary business. Some were so vague he couldn’t make sense of them, but by the time he reached the last pages, Nick was more than certain that the matron knew exactly what kind of business she was involved in.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing immediately actionable. He could kidnap and interrogate the woman, but someone with extensive spy experience was likely to have highly effective ways to withhold their secrets, even if he tried to alter her mental state using spiritual magic.

  The most he could gather was that whoever was sending her these messages was very eager to keep the town militia from noticing, which, along with the strange comments Malik’s friend had made, told him the sleepy town wasn’t so sleepy after all, and that internal conflict was brewing just beneath the surface.

  That was, until the last entry, which had been written much more recently, probably that morning, judging by the slight wetness of the ink, and that gave Nick a way forward.

  A day after the full moon, prepare the red study for the gentleman wearing his fur-lined coat. He should be greeted with the utmost discretion and shown more respect than our usual patrons, as his pride is as great as the heavens—he speaks not just for himself, but for those whose instructions we follow. No intermediaries will come before him; the next instructions will come directly from him. Do not interrupt, question, or linger—simply listen, remember his words, and only transcribe them after he leaves. He won't offer payment, as none is needed. His visit alone is our summons.

  It was a much more direct order than any of the previous ones, and given how recently it had been added and that Nick knew the full moon was that very night, he now knew of a secret meeting scheduled for just the next day.

  He found the way the message was written to be strangely more blunt than the others, almost as if it had been sent by someone else, but he couldn’t exactly do a calligraphic study then and there.

  He went to great lengths to smooth out the wrinkles in the ledger and placed it back exactly as it had been before he arrived, then left the room without disturbing so much as a speck of dust.

  Extracting Yvonne proved to be the more complicated part of the entire heist, as the number of girls listening to her stories and giving her doe-eyed looks at her rugged appearance had tripled.

  As they started to get dirty looks from other patrons and their actions disrupted regular business, he found an unlikely ally in an older woman, whose styled hair and high-quality makeup made her look in her early forties, even though her actual age was probably at least half again as much.

  Soon enough, they were out of the Gilded Mirror, and Nick had to stifle his laughter at Yvonne's grumpy expression.

  “Did you manage to find what you needed, at least?” she asked once they were far enough.

  “Your sacrifice was not in vain,” he consoled her, earning a grunt of acknowledgment.

  “I’m pretty sure at least half of them didn’t even realize I was a woman,” she grumbled, and he had to look away to keep himself from bursting into laughter.

  “Well, you’ll be happy to know you’ll get your chance to impress your femininity upon them tomorrow evening because we’re going back,” he told her, and this time, he couldn’t hold it together when she looked back in such a horrified fashion.

  Full moons weren’t necessarily as magical as many people believed. Sure, they held symbolic significance in numerous traditions, and their link to the tides gave some branches of water magic extra power, but surprisingly few rituals depended on them, despite what most beginners assumed.

  The only ones who truly benefited from them were those who needed either the stabilizing effect of moonlight—which probably meant the caster shouldn’t have been trying whatever they were doing, since relying on external factors for stability was a quick way to die—or those who relied on a cyclical effect to anchor themselves, in which case it wasn’t the full moon they needed, but rather a good enough fixed point in time.

  The latter was true for almost all curses that activated with the full moon. Lycanthropy might have been the most well-known, but it definitely wasn’t the only one, and Nick didn’t need to know exactly which curse’s activation had woken him up to realize something bad was about to happen.

  Outside the town’s walls, within the tent camp where the refugees had set up, unnatural beasts were roaming, using the shadows to hide their ungainly bulk, yet drooling at the thought of sinking their fangs into soft, pliant flesh.

  It was that hunger, even more than the pulse of curse magic, that woke Nick up, and within a minute, he was flying through the night at full speed, barely having taken the time to alert the others to what was going on.

  All thoughts about the strange power struggles in Long Reach were put aside for now; even the latest news Malik brought about a real rift between the town militia and the local lord couldn't compare to the danger they faced.

  With the Shard in his hands, he could fly without worrying about running out of energy, and he could do so at very high speeds. Soon, he was over the camp, a grim look on his face as he sensed more of the creatures emerging from the tents.

  Unlike what he initially believed, it wasn’t an infiltrator pretending to be a refugee, nor was it a creature that had sneaked through the night to feast on the innocent people.

  Instead, the entire refugee camp had come alive under the full moon. After the disorientation caused by their bodies changing under the curse’s power passed, they began moving toward Long Reach with terrible intentions.

  There was no more time for hesitation, so Nick swung the Shard down, unleashing the most thunderous [Lightning Bolts] he could summon, lighting up the night with a golden yellow, and waking the entire town to the danger they faced.

  Though it had been only a secondary objective, he still watched in satisfaction as the monsters that had emerged from what he believed to be humans fell under his wrath.

  Unfortunately, only those directly hit by the blast were taken down. The others reacted very quickly, avoiding most of the blast, and realized their cover was gone.

  The howls they released were genuinely terrifying, but also carried a magical component that was easily dismissed by [Blasphemy], giving Nick the awareness to notice several of them split off, trying to get over the walls before the defenders could organize.

  The Shard swung down, and the night became day.

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