The inside of the inn was funky with the scent of dried sweat, old termite-chewed wood, and sandy rock. The smell, however, came less from the inn itself and more from the townspeople of Astrail, who were slamming down jugs of dry vine wine as they chatted endlessly about everything and anything. This was apparently an evening routine most people here faithfully followed.

  Among the dozen or so round oak tables, only one practiced wordless squatting. Those sitting at the rest of the tables would have scrambled out if they knew that two—technically three, if Alira counted herself—Ravon bloodline and the daughter of their lord were quietly having their meal with them.

  Calix sat beside Alira, digging into a piece of steak—steak that looked like it would have to be chewed as many times as rubber would need to be before it could be swallowed. Alira bet it was the worst he likely had ever had. But he carried on with his meal as if he weren’t at all affected by the fact that he had allowed himself to join the party of three, none of whom welcomed him.

  And Lillian apparently just noticed she was holding her knife and fork in the wrong hands despite the etiquette lessons drilled into her head. Her hands shook, dropping the utensils onto her plate of very expensive salad with two loud clangs. She quickly picked them up and pretended it didn’t happen. The wires in her head seemed to have short-circuited since Calix showed up. He was the heir to the duchy and the future lord her father had to serve after all.

  Raine looked unbothered on the surface, but looking closer, he was stabbing at the chunks of potatoes way too hard. Alira wondered if the potatoes looked like the duke and his associates to Raine and hoped one of them didn’t resemble her in his eyes.

  She had mostly stopped caring about the two half-siblings after the showdown in front of the Mycorrhiza building. If Raine had a favorability bar for Alira and if the bar had any progress, it likely reversed, suppressing the zero mark into a negative value the moment he caught her with the duke’s son and hunting dog, not to mention the fact that Calix was one of the primary suspects of his mother’s killer.

  The suspicion came from the fact that the woman’s remains were entombed in clear crystal for display, and Calix’s main element happened to be Crystalline. Things fell right into place with the Mother symbol engraved on her and the duke’s alleged association with the cult.

  Alira scoped out the last spoon of nut pie. She would ask for a third serving, but that would be too eye-catching considering the price, even more so than the too frequent glances already being thrown at their table.

  Other than being a little sour about her missed opportunity to act all mysterious, everything was going relatively well. She was here to show Raine the cultist hideout to earn his willingness to advance his alchemy skills. Calix being here was good news with some downsides, but nothing too bad. More importantly, it was future Alira’s problem.

  Current Alira benefited from bringing him along. If they encountered any cultists, she just had to hide behind him.

  The four of them finished their early dinner without a word spoken. Alira got up to get some breathing room before they left, not for herself—she was home to the warm atmosphere and loud people—but rather for Lillian. She definitely didn’t want the girl to get indigestion from staying too long and too close to her future boss, especially since they were heading out to the sewer in a few hours.

  “We’ll rest for a while. You two should as well,” Alira waved, dragging a dazed Lillian. It didn’t seem like a good idea to leave the two Ravon by themselves, but Alira couldn't care less if she tried. “We leave at ten.”

  Alira wore a corset above a dark shirt, tugging it tight to avoid getting caught on something. For the first time since she’d been on Staywes, she was wearing pants instead of a dress or a skirt. While it wasn’t completely alien for women to choose the clothing deemed for men at this time and place, Alira had seen women in pants way too few times, as she’d like, with knights and guards being the exceptions. She had her hair tied behind, leaving not a strand loose, completed with a black cloth mask that clung to half of her face up to just below her eyes.

  Appropriate for a stealth mission. At least, she thought so.

  Lillian had a similar get-up. The only difference was her hair parted into two braids, completed with light purple hair ties. After a short nap and thanks to Alira’s reminder of an upcoming dive into the sewer, she’d overcome her tension that came from Calix’s presence.

  “What do you think Lord Calix and Raine are up to?”

  Alira shrugged. “Why ask me? As far as you know, I’m just a street cat who got lucky to be picked up by the duke. You should’ve already guessed this is my first time meeting this older brother of mine.”

  { Siblings as good as strangers. I can relate to that part. }

  Xia’s hoarse voice rang inside her skull—raw as if he’d just woken up. Alira felt tingly all over. One would think she should’ve gotten used to the invasion of personal space by now. As for whatever Xia was seeing, she really couldn’t care less if she tried. The guy had been suspiciously less talkative, but with him being on the other side of the world, she didn’t see a reason to worry.

  “Yes, but you know Raine, don’t you?” Lillian retorted, dragging her back to the physical realm. “At least better than me...”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  “I don’t. Really.” Alira didn’t know Raine at all. She knew about the protagonist of Dual POV. Not Raine, she found out.

  Alira wasn’t even sure if the two were at each other’s throats at this point as they were speaking. There was a chance that only one of them might return. Despite Calix being much stronger than Raine at this point, with the protagonist’s plot armor, it was hard to tell who would come back. Naturally, she rooted for Raine—he was her ticket home after all.

  With the night chill wriggling into her clothes and brushing at her fur, Alira was a few minutes away from going back inside the inn. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the two half-siblings emerged from the corner of the alley before she changed her mind about the late-night outing.

  Alira scanned Raine from head to toe. No visible injuries. Calix didn’t look roughened up from a fight either. His usually masklike face seemed slightly tenser than usual. Alira guessed their fight must have been verbal mostly. From the look of it, Calix didn’t win. Neither did Raine, whose golden eyes were burning a tint brighter than normal.

  Lillian beamed up, almost tripping as she joined them to take her place beside Raine, away from Calix. Clearly, standing out in the cold hadn’t been enjoyable for her either. Their destination was a tunnel right outside the town that served as the sewer outfall.

  Alira caught up with them with unhurried steps. With the two true Ravon on each side, Alira took note of how similar their scents were. Blood truly didn’t lie. She nudged Raine at his side, earning a questioning hum from him.

  “How did you get him to follow you to do whatever you two went to do?” she asked. As much as she knew she should just stay curious, it was definitely out of character for Calix to actually listen, let alone oblige Raine’s request to talk privately. The two didn’t have a single conversation in the novel despite the numerous and fairly frequent clashes.

  “You can’t see your answer?” Raine leaned toward Alira, keeping his voice low to ensure the other two couldn’t overhear. Lillian stepped away with a pout in understanding but didn’t complain.

  “Why are you asking like you don’t have dwindling numbers on your Role’s aspects too?” Alira shot a side glance at him. “Shouldn’t you know very well about the limits of unique Roles?”

  That was enough to shut him up—after all, Raine hadn’t told a single soul about his Role. It was enough proof of her ability to see. He still didn’t look like he wanted to share the trick he’d used.

  “Come on, Raine. Be a little kinder to me, yeah? I’m here in a stranger town, a few hours before midnight instead of my cozy bed for your sake, you know.”

  Raine exhaled, defeated. “I told him that if he does, I'll tell him everything I know about you.”

  Wow. Alira couldn’t find the right words in her limited vocabulary to express her opinion about getting sold out so easily. Anything other than ‘well, damn.’

  Even more than that, she was in disbelief to hear that Calix was actually curious about her. He didn’t look like he was. Not just to her—Calix didn’t show any emotion toward anything, even to his own death. He was a static character who remained the same until his last breath.

  Like father, like son, again. Both of them seemed to be acting unlike themselves for whatever reason, to Alira’s dismay. It was like they were on an inside joke she couldn’t understand.

  The town remained just as rowdy as during the day, only with the clamors muted as its liveliness relocated indoors. Most people on the streets were headed in the opposite direction as the four of them, toward the town square from the outskirts, to join their fellow townspeople in the inns.

  Long, thick candles burned inside streetlamps on both sides of the main street leading into the heart of the town, the number lessening as they left the town. Soon, the dead of the starless night swallowed them with the thin crescent moon hidden behind thick masses of cloud. Cobblestone street shifted to a modest dirt path once they passed the last row of cottages.

  Raine took out his light-emitting locket of an artifact to light their way. There was no sign directing to the town’s sewer outfall; there was no need for one. One glance around would point at the gaping maw of dark brick, set into the barren hillside beyond the town. Yellowish dry grass brushed against boots.

  Alira had strolled all the way here after lunch to check out the terrain. Back then, a few workers and a uniformed alchemist busied themselves with the dirty work that came with a prosperous town with a few thousand residents. One that had no river nearby to dump their waste into.

  The scent hit them from a dozen steps away. Alira’s eyes watered at the assault despite the mask’s best effort to protect her sharpened sense of smell. Cold, damp breath of decay and ammonia slithered out from the tunnel. A heavy, vertical grate of thick, rusted iron bars barred the entrance, in design, the exit.

  The gate could be lifted by a winch mechanism. The alchemist in charge had used a simple Position Exchange cast with a specific target nearby, as far as Alira had observed. With five blood vials in her pocket and the pattern of the cast memorized, she just had to figure out exactly which object it was.

  Alira was scooping around the surroundings when a flash of light came from behind. Crunchy slash of rusty metal sounded, echoing throughout the tunnel. She turned around to see the gate sliced clean in the center.

  Calix tilted his head, motioning for her to lead the way. For a second, Alira doubted whether she’d forgotten to tell him this was a stealth mission where they should try not to alert any cultists—at least before they were ready to flee or fight. Definitely not before they had even made it inside. Raine had already moved, his footsteps unapologetically bouncing against the sewer’s walls.

  Alira sighed. Without a doubt, the callous nature ran in their blood. This was becoming less of a dangerous raid and more of a casual night stroll. A tour inside the Retriever’s den. Rather than for her own safety, Alira was far more worried about how the two siblings might wreak havoc beneath the town’s floor.

  “Give me a minute,” Alira said, taking out the vials filled with pig blood from her pouch. The scarcity meant they were stupidly expensive, costing as much as an entire pig would normally. It couldn’t be helped. Unlike Raine, who could still rely on magic, she only had alchemy for herself. There was Xia, but the cost would be even greater.

  She glanced at the cleared ground to the side of the tunnel, perfect for a quick alchemist circle. Since she didn’t need to use alchemy to open the tunnel gate, Alira decided to use the blood vials on something else instead.

  Just in case, she told herself.