Allana watched the man run towards the burning warehouse with a grim smile. So far, everything was going according to plan.

  Well. Mostly.

  Allana had known that her fight with Shawe had been likely to end with her wounded, but she hadn’t expected him to be willing to take even a poisoned stab in exchange for getting such a serious hit on her. Had she lacked the resilience of an Initiate level boon, there was every chance she’d be dead by now–and even with that advantage, she didn’t quite feel up to moving.

  She had planned around the possibility of getting hurt, at least, but her answer to the situation was taking her damn sweet time

  “You don’t look like you’re doing so hot,” Ebba finally observed, as she crossed the rooftop.

  “Took you long enough,” Allana growled. “Thought Spider said you were the fast one in the Guild.”

  The scrawny girl smiled–and it lit up her otherwise plain face, briefly lending her features a beauty beyond the sum of their parts. “I had to make sure he wasn’t laying a trap,” she tried to claim–but she didn’t put very much energy into hiding her satisfaction.

  “Great, happy you decided to come out before I bled out. Potion?”

  “You wouldn’t have died,” Ebba reassured her. “You're a survivor–even Spider thinks so.”

  “And aren’t I happy to hear that. Potion. Now.”

  Ebba rolled her eyes and finally produced the expensive crystal vial that held the last of the three potions Allana had stolen from a Consortium alchemist a couple days before, a high potency regeneration elixir.

  The moment the bright red liquid touched her lips, Allana blew out a breath of relief, the wound in her side promptly beginning to close. The potion would take time to do its work, as the best potions did, but Allana didn’t have any more time to waste.

  “Alright,” Allana muttered to Ebba, grunting as she hauled herself to her feet, trying to ignore the itching burn of her healing wound. “Let’s see how fast you are. Keep up.”

  #

  Caden looked up at the plume of dark, roiling smoke darkening the sky. It was impressive, really–not only could he see the black brume, he could smell the cinders in the air and hear the crackling of the flames. He had to keep looking back at the warehouse to confirm that it wasn’t truly burning.

  “It’s so realistic,” he commented. “How are you doing that?”

  Spider, sitting cross-legged on the ground next to him, eyes closed with focus, murmured their reply. “Practice,” they said simply. “Phantasms–illusions of the mind–are easy. You're co-opting the target’s senses, so their thoughts take care of most of the details. Glamours are much harder to do well–but they exist for everyone who can see them, not just whoever you’re focusing on. Can’t break them with an effort of will, either.”

  Caden nodded, still impressed. Illusions, like most schools of magic, required more study and knowledge than a simple gift ability, so Caden couldn’t just copy Spider’s gift to mimic them. Still, he was fascinated by the process.

  “You should get inside,” Spider reminded him. “Shawe will be here soon.”

  “Right,” Caden nodded. “You’re sure you’re safe out here?” The other two Guild thieves had bound the remaining guards then taken their leave–Spider was fastidious about protecting their people.

  Another curt gesture. “My veil will be that much more effective without trying to cover for you too.”

  Caden nodded, then darted forward and slipped inside of the warehouse, purposefully leaving the door open behind him. While he was waiting for Spider to finish their work on the mercenaries and get the smoke glamour set up, Caden had taken the time to change. Already, he had left off his preferred leather vest and cotton tunic and breeches, replacing them with rough, homespun clothing like those preferred by many of Correntry’s working class, but now those, along with his slouch cap, had vanished as well, replaced instead with a third outfit, this one of close-fitting black cloth, complete with a shawl to hide his bright hair and a mask that covered his face from the nose down.

  The warehouse was packed with an assortment of barrels and crates, bolts of cloth and piles of canvas bags. In one corner, small heavy lockboxes were stacked in an orderly cube, while another held a group of small wine kegs. Much of the stock was stamped as property of Barret’s Fine Goods, but Caden saw at least a half dozen other company names scattered around too–including the most incriminating of all, the Avery Company name emblazoned on an elaborate locked chest.

  As Allana had explained it, the variety of goods served as a cover. Barret’s luxuries, in particular, included chocolate beans, tobacco, tea leaves, and liquor of all kinds–an assortment of smells that hid the characteristic signs of fetter from even high level awareness. There was no way of telling where the fetter was hidden–which was why Caden unlimbered his two clubs, and unceremoniously started smashing everything.

  #

  Tenebres watched with satisfaction as the wardens easily cut down the minor fiends. It hadn’t been easy to keep them focusing on destroying over killing, but it had at least been a sufficiently chaotic motivation that the little fiends hadn’t fought the directions too hard. And while the imps were intimidating to un-gifted civilians, they were little more than brief distractions to the battle-hardened wardens.

  As if on cue, as Oli cut through the last of the imps, half a dozen brawny men, all wielding metal-wrapped clubs, emerged from a side street and into the market.

  Tenebres smirked. Normally, he was sure, the hired mercenaries would’ve hesitated before diving into combat with a group of experienced, wary wardens–but apparently Spider had some trick they were able to insert into the thugs’ minds, making them see not a squad of wardens backed by two silver knights, fresh from a fight and ready for another, but a handful of rampaging gnolls.

  The mercenary guards had the advantage of surprise as they attacked the “gnolls,” but the wardens were skilled enough to weather that assault to little effect, and they quickly turned it around on their attackers. Tenebres was far from a student of combat, but he had to admit, the consummate skill of the wardens in defeating the guards without landing a single lethal blow was impressive.

  With a sigh, the boy sat back down, lowering himself away from the window and resting against the wall of the little attic. His part in the plan was over–and as much as he wanted to stay involved, skulking out after his friends would accomplish little. Allana had told him, once his fiends were handled, to simply stay out of sight and wait for someone to come around.

  The surprise on the guards’ faces when the illusion broke was more than worth any frustration he felt, anyway.

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  #

  The mercenary’s club rebounded from Olivia’s shield, and she moved before he could rebalance himself. It would’ve been simple to open his chest with a single cut, but Olivia stayed carefully conscious of where they were, and who they were fighting alongside. Instead of going for the killing blow, the squire stepped inside of the brawny man’s reach and punched out with the hand that still held her sword.

  There was an upsetting crunch as the hit broke something in the guard’s mouth, and he fell to the ground. Moments later, phantom chains sprang from the ground to bind him in place, the wardens bringing their Arbiter gifts into play to capture the mercenaries. Later, no doubt, they’d be interrogated by Arbiter jailers and magistrates, but there was no time for that at the moment.

  “I saw another down that way!” Adeline called out, pointing down the side street the guards had emerged from.

  Evan, the warden leader, shouted back, “Go! We’ll catch up soon!”

  Adeline didn’t hesitate, and Oli took off after her–thankfully, with a couple more wardens following behind her. The plan hinged on the wardens being there to arrest Shawe, after all.

  “Keep up!” Oli called back to them–and then she started really running.

  Running was rarely a truly useful skill to have in combat, but the stamina and physical endurance it provided had become a valuable part of her training routine since she returned to Correntry. Olivia started most mornings with a jog around the four markets, a distance of a few miles. Besides that training, Olivia possessed the rare combination of a strength, speed, and stamina boon. She was tall, long-legged, and wore only light cloth armor. Simply put, when she pushed herself, Olivia could run, and she soon left both the wardens in her dust, even successfully catching up to Adeline before the knight-gallant could reach the warehouse.

  They were just in time. Even as the two knights turned the corner to the warehouse, a dark-clothed figure landed hard on the street in front of the warehouse, a wave of wind washing out from him as he broke his fall. Overhead, the illusory smoke began to rapidly thin out.

  Olivia figured that this had to be Shawe. The mercenary leader was lean and tall, his dirty blonde hair mussed with sweat from his run across town, and his eyes were wide with anger as his face swung from the open door of the warehouse to Adeline and Oliver.

  And then he moved, and Oli’s respect for Allana grew. The mercenary was little more than an ebon blur as he spun on the two of them, and Olivia couldn’t imagine how her mentor could’ve possibly kept up with his sheer speed.

  Of course, Adeline was still ready for him.

  #

  Allana crouched behind Spider, sheltered by the illusionist’s veil, along with Ebba and Caden. Now that they were no longer maintaining the smoke signal that had drawn Shawe into their trap, the old celestial was able to focus exclusively on maintaining the veil and keeping them hidden.

  “This couldn’t have gone better,” Allana mused quietly.

  “It’s not over yet,” Spider cautioned her. “The wardens haven’t made it. He can still make a break for it.”

  Allana saw her confident smile reflected on Caden’s face. They hadn’t known Adeline for long, but they had both practiced against the knight–at the same time as Olivia, even. Adeline’s gifts were not the most powerful in a one-on-one fight, but the knight more than compensated for any shortcoming of her abilities with pure skill.

  Shawe was fast, but Adeline was good, and in a matter of moments, she showed the difference between an experienced mercenary and a knight-gallant of the Argent Order. Adeline didn’t even conjure her second blade–she met Shawe’s tarnished knife with her shining longsword, and the fight wasn’t even close.

  “Rogue’s cloak…” Spider breathed as they watched the fight. “Who is that woman?”

  “A friend,” Allana said proudly.

  Recognizing he was outmatched, Shawe tumbled backwards. His eyes were no longer angry, but terrified, and his gaze darted around, looking for an escape. Adeline visibly tensed, ready to jump after him–but he had hesitated a fraction of a second too long.

  Wind gathered around the mercenary’s feet, and he sprang towards the roofline above–and slammed into a curtain of light, a barrier of pulsing gray magic that threw him back to the ground, stunned, in the center of the circle that had just formed around him. Shawe’s eyes went wide–then a ring of dull light appeared around his neck, like a collar, and insubstantial chains shot up from the ground, connecting the ring to the circle on the ground and locking the mercenary in place.

  “Time to go,” Spider warned, standing up.

  “But–”

  The master thief cut Caden off. “No. Shawe’s been caught, and your friends are there to make sure he doesn’t talk his way out of it. I’m not risking the wardens piercing my veil.”

  Allana nodded sharply. “She’s right, Caden. Come on, let’s go get Seo. Oli and Adel know where to meet us once they’re done.”

  #

  That night found the five adventurers at the Silken Web, somewhere they were sure they wouldn’t be overheard, sharing drinks not only with Spider, but with the rest of the Guild as well.

  It had taken hours for Adeline and Olivia to get out of the Warden's Office, as their involvement in the affair had to be documented with the thoroughness expected of Arbiter gifted. By the time they made it to the Web, the others were well on their way to a deep, celebratory drunk, but the two knights at least had a detailed summary of what had happened in the aftermath of Shawe’s arrest.

  Adeline’s recommendation had been enough to ensure the wardens checked inside the nearby warehouse, and the fetter supply was easily found amidst the smashed boxes. Once Shawe was dragged before a magister, gifted with the most powerful of the Arbiter’s blessings, and questioned under an axiom of honesty, the truth had come out. Even if the mercenary boss couldn’t account for the attacks on Rillwillow Market or the ransacked warehouse, Shawe had been compelled to reveal his involvement in the fetter trade.

  While he had attempted to shift blame to his employer, Jacob Avery, that tactic had been less than successful. The wealthiest man in the city would, of course, not be arrested on the accusation of a single mercenary drug smuggler, but considering the use of an Avery Consortium warehouse to store the drug and the involvement of a mercenary band that was well-known to be frequent contractors for the Consortium, the wardens had enough evidence to petition for an investigation into the company. If nothing else, the financial and reputational hit to the Consortium would be considerable, and Spider speculated that the other major trade companies would be circling like sharks, ready to tear apart the carcass of Avery’s holdings.

  While the wardens wouldn’t admit any fault, Shawe’s testimony had been enough to take suspicion off of the Thieves Guild, and Spider was prepared to take advantage of the opportunity to have their people lend a helpful, if subtle, hand in the wardens’ investigation. It would be a long road to restoring the once-renowned Guild to its previous glory, but both Spider and their planned successor, Ebba, were ready to walk it.

  Adeline’s final note of interest was the companies whose goods had been used to hide the fetter supply. While it would be months, at best, before the wardens were able to dig into those companies in any great detail, they were able to rapidly ascertain that two out of the three (with the exceptions of Barret’s Luxuries) were based out of Valley Hearth, one of the most crucial farming regions of the heartlands. Nothing had been suggested explicitly, but the warden commander had made it clear to Adeline that if she happened to take the initiative upon herself to look into the valley, the Warden's Office wouldn’t get in the way.

  It had been months since Allana and Tenebres had first discussed the possibility of becoming adventurers, since they had met Cadence and Olivia, but for the first time, Allana actually felt like one of those storybook heroes. She had tricked a powerful villain, beaten him through cunning and planning and the aid of those around her, and helped to improve an entire city as a result.

  The whole multi-week plan had managed to earn Allana more than a little credit from the Rogue, pushing her well past the halfway mark towards Initiate with the gift of the trickster. That experience warmed her soul, but it was nothing compared to the simple pleasure of sharing stories and drinks and the glow of success with the people who had become her closest friends.

  Late in the night, Allana found herself sitting on her own, nursing a cup of gloam whiskey, fiddling with a tarnished coin she had strung on her charm bracelet and staring out one of the Web’s clouded windows at the blurred night sky, thinking of another night, another glass, another round of stories, another friend, and wishing that Geoffrey could see her now.