There was a plain looking fellow with a shaven pate standing around giving blessings to the party guests, and reciting what I could only assume were passages from a local holy text. When I saw his face, the pattern magic activated and I could tell who he was. Balthazar Robles: High Priest, or chaplain, depending on who you asked. He was in charge of affairs of faith within the castle, giving last rites, taking confessions, and administering magical healing where necessary. I gave him the sort of polite greeting one would usually give a man of the cloth, and he in turn bowed to me with steepled hands.

  "Howdy, padre," I said, instinctively, with instant regret. Thankfully he didn't seem irked.

  "Greetings to you, ward of the heavens," he said, then, he stopped, and started staring at me pointedly. "I do beg your humble pardon, but might I ask you something?"

  I knew where he was going with this, but I played along, "anything you'd like, but, I'm not in the market to change religions." I rubbed the back of my neck the way I usually do.

  He waved his hand, "'tis nothing so trite as a proselytization. Forgive me if this is rude, but," he hesitated, "could you be a traveller from another world?"

  There it was. Yep. So, according to the dossier, the high priest was granted "soulsight" as a divine gift, which allows him to see the color of someone's soul. King Illorend has the same power, albeit for a different reason, which was something that I didn't know until reading the dossier. "His majesty told me that it is possible that the high priest will know, at a glance, that you are not of this world, if he understands soulsight well enough," he'd said. Reckon that's why his majesty was so quick to accept that I'd been summoned from another world; not that I thought he needed further proof than his daughter's own word, mind ya.

  I lowered my voice, feigning shock, and whispered, "how did you know? Nobody ever believes me whenever I mention it!"

  "Saint Luca saw fit to empower my eyes with the ability to see the nature of a person's soul; I noticed that yours was of a different color from everyone else's. I did not wish to intrude, the truth is that soulsight behaves not like a lantern which may be lit and unlit."

  "Ah, think nothing of it, pal," I said, "hey may I ask you something too?"

  "Blessed is he who spreads wisdom, and answers seekers thereof in good faith" he said, eyes closed, "please, inquire at your will."

  "So what is the difference between a priest, a cleric, and a mage who can cast healing spells and such?"

  "Ah," he nodded, "I would be happy to elucidate. A priest is someone chosen by one or more of the divines and is granted a fraction of their power. Our mana comes not from within, but is instead a revocable gift afforded to the chosen; it is also the only well from which spells of the divine and holy disciplines may be drawn. A cleric is a priest who has learned how to use weapons and armor, carrying no deeper meaning behind it. A mage who focuses on healing is instead referred to as some variation of white magus or other - but the majority of the divines empower healing magic in some way, and so priests are actually better at it than arcanists. A priest who is also a healing mage can employ both divine and arcane power to heal but such a dual path is prohibitively difficult."

  This was interesting. "So my friend is a priestess and a mage, but um, she seems to have no problem with doing both."

  "Ah, I take it that your friend is an elf, half-elf, or a beastfolk; forgive me, I often think in terms of human limitations and that is my sin. Those people are exceptional in that regard. Indeed I have only heard of individual true mage/priests among the elven races, but the beastfolk, especially the fox-ears, are also quite adept at it. I see the confusion on your face, well, the true reason for it isn't known even to the wisest and there is much debate. Worry not. Is there aught else?"

  Well, actually, I was more thrown by the existence of fox-eared people, but that's not important.

  "Yeah you said your powers were revocable, what does that mean?"

  "Plainly put, if I defied Saint Luca's tenets and performed some horrific deeds, I would lose access to them and need to seek penance ere I could use them again."

  "Ah, that makes sense," I said. Damn that was enlightening. This priest is a very accommodating soul. Nothing in Hanzo's documents suggested corruption or anything like that. It ain't like my old world where God's power didn't cause bad eggs inside the clergy to get struck by lightning if they did something evil; free will and a hands off approach as it were. I hadn't seen him cast any actual spells here so it was difficult to say whether this kind old guy was putting on a front, having transgressed. Heck, giving away information might not even be bad enough to qualify for all I knew.

  I bowed to the priest again, "Thank you for the lecture, your um, grace, honor, er-"

  He laughed, "I am nothing of the sort, I am but a mere preacher, selected to be a conduit for powers beyond my worth."

  That was rather nice, and intriguing. Add this guy to the list of nice ones. There's folks that claim humility and then there's this guy, with talent on loan from gods, being all self-deprecating. Well I put that aside; I only had two more suspects to look for, so I stopped for a cheesecake square and checked in on the princess. Yep, she was fine; chatting with three noble ladies and daintily sipping on champagne - wait, it probably ain't called that here. The princess assured me that she was enjoying herself, and subtly urged me to complete my investigations; such a trooper. That sweet, scrumptious square of tangy dessert was so good that I went for another one. I had just got done savoring it when I ran into the next suspect, or rather, he nearly ran into me. Yeah, his pointy little nose smacked right into my calf.

  "I do beg your pardon, I ought to pay more attention when I run, oh dear, my spectacles! Where did they?"

  I scooped up the spectacles I saw on the ground and handed them over to the little man with a big bushy mustache and bald head, who was prostrate and looking around the entirely wrong area. Doctor Walter Willard Wangdoodle, gnome, age 302, from the city of Rockbottom. Hanzo's prisoner never mentioned how tall the traitor was, and being a demihuman wasn't out of the question either. The longer lived folks tended to spend a great deal of time honing their crafts, so they were often prized employees in human kingdoms. As far as I could tell, the good doctor was the only male member of the court who wasn't human and he was therefore the only non-human suspect. Let's see, Doc Wangdoodle left the gnomish lands for unknown reasons; Hanzo surmises that this leaves open the possibility of him being an exile or a criminal. He also dabbles in, alchemy? Oh! Now there's a topic of conversation I'd need to pick his brain on, if he doesn't turn out to be the one who dunnit of course!

  "Oh, thank you m'boy," said the doctor, accepting the spectacles, "I'm Walter Wangdoodle, her majesty's personal physician."

  I reached down and shook his hand, "Victor. Special guest. You must be doing a swell job if her majesty is lookin' as healthy as she is."

  He nodded feverishly, "yes, yes, despite her repeated attempts at rendering my efforts all for naught - that woman consumes entirely too much salt." He gulped, "I mean her majesty consumes entirely too much salt. Salt in the soup, salt on the pheasant, salt everywhere! Every day! No good, I say!"

  "What's that do, imbalance the humors?" I said, jokingly.

  "Humors? What nonsense is this? No, no, I mean that her blood pressure is going to become a problem if this keeps up!"

  I folded my arms, "huh, so y'all know about that here."

  He nodded, "of course! And do you have any idea how rare it is to find a mage who can reverse that condition in these parts? Once it requires adept-grade magic to cure, I can't do anything for you anymore and that's that!"

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  If I recalled correctly, adept was something on the order of the sixth out of ten grades of magic. Beginner, gag, and utility shared "grade zero", novice was grade one, and so forth up to archmage grade.

  "Here I thought everybody relied on magic for healing," I said, "well call me Daniel Boone cuz I might be a mite bewildered."

  "Sorry sonny, I don't know who that is, but, to answer your question: no, the average layperson does not seek out magical healing for every little thing. It isn't as though one can turn any old corner and run into a healer; and good luck finding a single one in some isolated one-horse town. Some of the most talented white mages become adventurers because, well, adventurers tend to get injured - a lot. Plus, healing magic hurts the undead. In the case of my folk," he frowned, "we're not very good at magic at all. Alchemy, on the other hand, and the sciences! Now that's our wheel of cheese! You humans have a veritable glut of healers compared to a gnomish city."

  I took the expression "our wheel of cheese" to be a gnomish idiom, and laughed, "I'm learning a lot today. So since you couldn't cultivate powerful healers through mages and priests, you had to compensate by learning how the body works and ways to fix its problems without the aid of magic."

  "That's right! But we are not entirely without magical healing in Rockbottom; the king of Anaura made us a good deal back when I was a little pebbleknocker. In exchange for semi-regular deliveries of alchemical goods, the elves sent a rotating roster of healers to offer services free of charge." He smiled, "A fair deal, I think, especially after I caught Crimson Death and they cured it."

  So the gnomes of Rockbottom respect the princess' dad huh? This guy's starting to sound less like a suspect, but I can't rule him out entirely. Then again I am, as a human, making assumptions about this guy who likely has an alien mind with completely different logic. For all I knew, he could have done it "for science!" and you just read that in a German accent and imagined a redheaded boy with glasses. None of these facts about his childhood, including having contracted some nasty disease, were in the dossier so he could be lying. Still, even if he really liked the king perhaps he assumed the elves would win the war? No matter what I did I was able to give a reason why he might still go through with the plot - yeah, from what I understood the two teams were separate.

  The guy who leaked the info probably had no idea what they were planning with Anau- I stopped myself. No, that person had to have known about the attack on the princess, and we were counting on it. Hanzo had said as much. There had been two meetings: one for the east, one for the west. The inside man had been to the western meeting, Hanzo's prisoner had only attended the eastern meeting, and the leader of the eastern team, the one with the manzanita wand, had been at both. Well mister inside man couldn't have warned the elves in time even if he desperately wanted to, so I wasn't going to think about that too much; his crime was against the human realm, after all - no duty to report - but if it was the doctor, he'd just be a bigger asshole for it; that went for the spymaster too.

  All right, one more left, then I'm gonna enjoy the festivities a bit before the first dance. So where is that planner of urban development anyway? I was starting to get tired of talking to all of these courtier types; I wonder if there's magic for endurance and such. I asked around for a bit, and well, this went nowhere; yep. Damn it Hanzo, update your dossiers. Mister Ronson retired two months ago, and was living down south in a little cabin by the sea - the new urban planner ain't been selected yet! Okay fine I'll give the guy a break, most of his information was alarmingly recent and frightfully accurate up to this point. I'm the idjit who didn't bother to ask the queen about Ronson.

  I found the princess again and she joined me to watch the stage show. There was more juggling, of actual fireballs this time, followed by a comedy routine which I found hilarious; thanks to the princess' lessons I'd gained enough understanding of Common to get some of the potential puns, and this guy really pulled it off. Aw come on princess, at least try to react to the wordplay - everybody's a critic. After the jester finished his show, and everyone applauded, the jester exited the stage and went over to where Meli had been standing; oh was it showtime? Yes!

  The queen tooted a little trumpet that she had nearby and everyone fell silent as she announced that the time had come for the first dance. Everyone was directed to sit, or stand, around the dance floor for a special presentation. First, Pal Mal snapped his fingers and the lights in the room dimmed; must be magical tools, he is a light mage after all. Then both he and Meli started channeling mana into my smartphone, and after a few moments a cone of light burst heavensward towards the ceiling; the entire ballroom looked up and were immediately moonstruck, literally. There it was, the very same sky that I'd seen on the very night that I'd been summoned to this world. The large, pale blue Azune, the smaller bright reddish-orange Topazune, a string of stars like the milky way on a clear night without any light pollution whatsoever, the way the black parts of space took on a slight purple tinge from the effect, caught in 4k.

  That sky was so damn awe-inspiring that I just had to take some pictures, and I even did a timelapse video; I won't go into the details of how, but thanks to light and pattern magic, the attendees and our hostesses were all bearing witness not to a pattern crafted from memory, but a compound magic spell with direct access to my smart phone's SD card. Sure, a mage skilled with illusions could pull this off, but the size of the effect, plus the level detail and the duration cost of keeping it active without the caster needing to concentrate on it for the length of even one song (a difficult task by itself, I was informed), would have put the mana cost straight into the "no way" zone. What we just did was create this world's first projector - and then the music started.

  That was our signal; the princess and I took to the dance floor. The queen gave us the honor of starting, giving us ample stage time to show off. Our gazes met, this was it, a crucial step in the plan. Hand in hand we started to move to the sound of the orchestra. With the princess following my lead, we were focused, in the zone, stepping together in near perfect harmony; of course we had rehearsed this a little, but the princess was already a princess with decades of ballroom training under her belt. Around the dance floor we went, locking our gazes whenever our positioning allowed; yes, that's the sort of intensity that makes people pay attention. She moved with such elegance that it was difficult to believe that she was real. I spun her about and caught her in my arms again, yes just as we practiced. Every pivot had the synergy of a well-disciplined infantry, every sway of our legs like a well-oiled machine. At some point other pairs had begun to join us on the floor, but we paid them no heed. After what seemed like an eternity, the music finally faded and the lights returned to the level they had been at when we first arrived. Oh, Meli had found herself a dance pardner - is that the Duke of Middlebrook?

  The queen and her daughter were clapping, "oh that was splendid, dearies," she said to us, "please, won't you come up here and introduce yourselves?"

  All eyes were on the royal dais. We gathered, our party, and ventured forth.

  The queen was really hamming it up. "What a charming display! My Felicia and I are both thrilled! Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the two heroes who rescued me from brigands just over a month ago: The adventuring party, Red Lightning!"

  She turned her gaze back upon us, "Now, are you going to keep up your end of the bargain, dearies?"

  I nodded, and knelt, "Thanks for havin' me at 'cher party! I'm Victor Alexander Kirkland, adventurer."

  Of course I took a bow from the crowd and stumbled, feigning a deeper state of drunk, which elicited some laughter. I positioned myself so that everyone in the ballroom was visible to me. All right, princess, I've taken my base, it's the bottom of the 9th and you're up.

  The queen turned to the princess, "And how about you, darling?"

  The windup, and the pitch.

  The princess curtsied, "your most serene royal majesty," she began, "you have honored us greatly with your gracious invitation, and are a most exquisite hostess. I am Illiana Verissa tael Anaura, fourth princess of the elvish kingdom of Anaura, sixth-born daughter of his venerable majesty King Illorend, second of his name, lord monarch of Anaura."

  Grand slam!

  Stunned reactions all around. There scattered mutterings of varied natures:

  "Oh, I should have known that maiden was a princess."

  "She certainly has that look!"

  "I didn't know the elven king had six children"

  "Such a high-ranking personage, a mere party guest?"

  "Gah, and I told her she had a nice ass!"

  The Queen and Princess Felicia had a slightly different reaction.

  "When you…when you say you are the daughter of King Illorend - does that mean, dearie that," both Felicia and Arabelle's eyes brightened, they beamed like a friggin laser, and grasped the princess' hands, crying out in unison "you're Valyrian's sister?"

  The princess said, "er, well, yes, um-".

  Princess Felicia cried aloud "can I have his autograph?"

  The queen whispered, "can I have him - cough - is he yet unwed?"

  Felicia's face soured, "mom, don't be vulgar!"

  The princess was flustered, and the crowd was having a lark about it. Well. Not the entire crowd. There was one man whose reaction wasn't awe, that wasn't drunken disbelief, mere surprise, or regret at having flirted so shamelessly with someone who turned out to be a princess. No. It was a look of pure terror, abject horror, the visage of a man who looked like he had just seen a ghost, a man who had just borne witness to something that hitherto, he had believed to be beyond impossible. Yes, there she was, the princess whom you thought was supposed to be dead, not only very much alive but looking damn good while she was at it. Just as planned: I've got him. I can say this with absolute conviction, there is zero doubt in my mind:

  I know exactly who the inside man is.