Ethan awoke to echoing snores and whispering rasps, stirred from his slumber by a sharp beam of sunlight breaching a broken window pane and striking him full in the face.

  He blinked against the intrusion, mind sluggish and eyelids sticky with sleep, sitting up to assess the offender. A shaft no more than an inch wide and a foot long, angled just enough to target his eyes and nowhere else.

  A tired sigh escaped his cracked lips.

  He rose stiffly, adjusted his arcane cloak, and cast his gaze about the ruined tap room. The others remained sprawled in their makeshift cots – mundane cloaks used as duvets, bedrolls, or crude padding against the uneven floor. Arthur and Matilda lay in the far corner, pressed together in the manner of those without hearth or shame.

  “Wake up,” Ethan exclaimed, neither sharp nor gentle – just audible enough to be heard.

  The usual chorus followed: groans of protest, muttered obscenities, and a few muffled coughs. Still, limbs began to shift and rise, reluctant though they were.

  The snoring, however, continued uninterrupted. A low and rhythmic rattle, not unlike a millstone grinding gravel, emanated from above. It had persisted through the night, setting the rafters to subtle tremors.

  Ethan ascended the stairs, stepping lightly to avoid the spots where the boards gave under weight, and entered the first-floor chamber responsible for the acoustic assault.

  Simon lay alone, sprawled across the ripped mattress of a broken bedframe long since stripped of its meagre finery. His mouth agape, each breath sounded like the dying wheeze of an asthmatic bull.

  “Wake up,” Ethan repeated at the same volume. Simon smacked his lips, turned over, and resumed the stertorous symphony.

  One cannot say I lacked the courtesy to try.

  Ethan stepped closer, leaned down beside the sleeping rogue’s head, and placed two fingers from each hand in his own mouth. Then he loosed a sharp, piercing whistle, high and sustained.

  Simon exploded upright with a strangled scream, limbs flailing like a man flung from a carriage. His hand instinctively grasped for the sabre beside him, eyes wild and unfocused until they settled on Ethan’s unsmiling expression.

  “Pissin’ fuckin’ hellfire, Ethan! What in Dante’s seven fuckin' hells was that?!” he bellowed, blinking away sleep and fury. “Can’t wake a man civilly? You arse-spawned, goat-fuckin’, rot-chewin’–”

  Ethan turned and walked away before the tirade reached full steam. The stairs creaked beneath him as he descended, the barrage of profanity following at his back like poorly-aimed musket fire.

  Downstairs, the scene was lighter. Mary snorted into her sleeve, Warren allowed himself a small smirk, and Matilda chuckled so hard her ample middle jiggled beneath her apron.

  “Let me guess,” Ethan began as he passed the cold fireplace. “No food.”

  “Afear’d not, me luvver,” Matilda said with a grimace, one hand on her hip and the other rubbing her empty belly. “They’m marauders ate every crumb an’ drank every drop. Oi bain’t ‘ad a chiggy wig fer a two-day now.”

  Arthur, sitting cross-legged by the wall, yawned into his hand. “Clay’on’s a three-hour ride north, sure as pits. Byn sure to ‘ave a bite once we’m there.”

  “I ain’t makin’ it past the first ruddy mile,” Simon muttered from the stairs, dragging his boots like a sulking child, with one hand on the broken bannister and the other on his growling abdomen. Matilda scoffed.

  “Might we stop in the city?” Lyra offered, glancing at Ethan. “Break our fast and acquire some supplies.”

  Ethan nodded slowly. “Clayton is near enough. The detour will not jeopardise the schedule. Very well.”

  Mary’s gaze flicked to the wooden coffer resting lopsided on the broken-legged table, and she asked: “What’re we doin’ with the box, then?”

  Every eye fell on the strongbox.

  It sat squat and grim, its iron bands blackened by soot, its lock untouched. The ill-gotten gains within weighed more than mere silver – they carried implications. Guilt, temptation, justice.

  “What do you mean, what?” Ethan’s tone was flat. “It is our prize. We bled for it. We take it.”

  “It may become a curse in the city,” Lyra countered. “That much wealth, and with no provenance? It stinks of murder. It invites questions we would do well to avoid.”

  “I concur,” Warren added, brushing ash from his cloak. “Blood-soaked coin has always brought ruination. No good shall come of it.”

  “And what would you suggest?” Ethan asked.

  “Leave it with Matilda,” Lyra replied, gesturing to the ruins about them. “Much of it was likely taken from this very place. Let it rebuild the inn.”

  Matilda’s eyes widened, expression slackening, gaze jumping between the strongbox and the group.

  Ethan folded his arms. “Nonsense. There are Helveconean shillings in that box, and Falchovarian francs besides. The spoils are pan-national, and so are the crimes that acquired them. By your logic, we must track down every last victim and return a fraction. That is neither justice nor practicality – it is idiocy. The wealth is ours by right of conquest.”

  Thus, the room divided. Ethan and Simon stood for retention. Lyra, Warren, Mary, the innkeeper, and even the coachman for relinquishment.

  “Ya what? Turnin’ yer nose up at coin now, Mary?” Simon shouted. “After takin’ a knuckle to the gob for it?”

  Mary shrugged. She wiped her bruised jaw with the back of her hand and hissed softly from the pain. She offered no further answer.

  The debate soured. Reason gave way to insinuation, and civility was the next casualty.

  We will be at each other’s throats soon.

  Ethan’s expression did not change, but his tone sliced through the din like a sabre. “Enough.”

  The room froze.

  His gaze passed over each of them, measuring not their feelings – irrelevant – but their level of obstinacy. Lyra alone met his stare without faltering, though her hands trembled slightly at her sides.

  He could end the matter now. One order, and Simon and Warren would carry the chest. The rest would protest, but only briefly. Yet the cost was steep. That kind of power play bred deep resentment, the sort that waited for an opportune moment to strike.

  Even in success, resentment leads to dire consequences. As Tyrant Phalaris can attest.

  His eyes drifted to the chest again. There had to be another way.

  Then, as if prompted by providence – or perhaps just desperation – an idea formed. Something not quite generous, nor entirely fair, but just cunning enough to be called a compromise.

  “We shall open the coffer,” Ethan declared, his tone mild but precise, the faintest curl at one corner of his mouth suggesting something wry. “Each person who so desires may extract one fistful of coin and jewel – indiscriminately. No picking or sifting. Whatever fits in your hand, you take. The remainder shall remain here with Matilda, to fund restoration of The Ashton's Arms. Even with our share deducted, there is sufficient for repairs, a full staff, and, if she pleases, a holiday to somewhere that does not smell of soot and scorched barley.”

  “I second that proposal,” Lyra replied swiftly, voice warm with relief. She gave Ethan a nod heavy with unspoken thanks. He did not bother returning it.

  Simon opened his mouth, but Ethan’s cold glare intercepted the impulse to object before sound was formed. Mary and Warren exchanged glances, muttered their thoughts in silence, and finally nodded their assent.

  Then, Matilda erupted.

  “Thieves!” she roared, jowls shaking, bloodshot eyes bulging. “Oi’ve bled fer that money! Was raped fer it! Me ‘usband died fer it! Thee bain’t takin’ none of it! It’s mine!”

  Arthur, caught in the gravitational pull of her tantrum, attempted some verbal support – quiet, uncertain noises, drowned instantly beneath the onslaught of Matilda’s foot-stamping rage and her repeated shrieks of “MINE! MINE!”

  Ethan inhaled deeply through his nose, and upon the exhalation he reached beneath his cloak and drew his pistol with practised ease. The mechanical -click of full-cock was all it took for silence the dissent. All eyes turned to him, every gaze locked on the muzzle levelled squarely at Matilda’s contorted face.

  “Very well, listen here, ye rancid auld harridan,” he began, voice low and roughened by the Aury brogue he usually kept suppressed. “We didnae need tae stay in this reekin’ midden. Didnae need tae lift a finger when those daug-cunts came fer ye. Didnae need tae cut every last one o’ ‘em doon like pigs at the knacker’s. An’ we sure as shite dinnae owe ye a single fuckin’ farthing out o’ that chest.”

  He gestured briefly towards the closed strongbox.

  “That’s pilfered. If it belongs tae anyone, it’s the deid. The only reason Ah’ve even entertained the notion o’ sharin’ it wi’ ye is ‘cause Ah value order over mutiny. Not ‘cause Ah’ve any sympathy left fer some moth-eaten crone scrapin’ through the dregs o’ the tail end o’ her sorry life. So here’s yer choice, and mind it well: take the offer, or take half an ounce o’ lead straight through yer doddering fuckin’ skull.”

  “Thee w-wouldn’t…” Matilda rasped, voice brittle. Her rheumy eyes fixed on the pistol as though the bore would suck her soul out.

  “Wouldnae?” Ethan snarled, trying to wrest control of his voice back. “I go back tae my employer, and I tell him we arrived too late. Bandits hit first. Poor Matilda, raped and killed. What a shame. Then, on the way tae Clayton, we’re hit again – more o’ the bastards, and Arthur, poor sod, bleeds out on the road.”

  He blinked, the ferocity bleeding out of his eyes as his gaze settled into something sharper. Colder. Precision, not passion.

  “My companions will back the tale. And if they don’t? Worst I’ll get is a reprimand and a few guineas off the top. Meanwhile, you? You’ll be a corpse – a used-up, broken auld bitch stuffed beneath the floorboards o’ some piss-stinkin’ tavern that’s no fit fer even thrice-damned vermin.”

  He stepped forward, pressing the weapon between her eyes. She looked cross-eyed at the pistol, whole body trembling.

  “So I’ll say it once more: choose.”

  No further argument was made.

  Ethan, Simon, Mary, Warren, even Arthur – red-faced and twitching – each took a fistful from the coffer. The click of gold and clack of gems echoed through the ruined inn like a funeral bell. Lyra watched them all with open-mouthed disbelief, but offered no comment. The look on her face spoke volumes already: betrayal, disappointment, resignation – none of which Ethan acknowledged.

  Matilda exploded anew when the prize-share commenced, unleashing a stream of shrill curses fit to peel paint. Her fury only increased as they packed their belongings and made for departure. When the coach pulled away, she chased it a short way, wheezing with effort, waving a crooked fist in impotent outrage. Ethan imagined her voice still carried on the wind long after the inn had disappeared behind them.

  The image brought a faint twitch of amusement to one corner of his mouth.

  Arthur had suffered the brunt of her verbal assault, but neither his guilt nor his pride proved stronger than his avarice. Head down and face red as raw beetroot, he said:

  “Oi ‘ate meself fer it, bu’ not takin’ thac money’d've been as daft as a box o’ frogs…”

  Ethan did not respond. He had no interest in Arthur’s rationalisations. Matilda had received enough to rebuild The Ashton’s Arms and live the rest of her days in modest comfort. The rest had gone where it always belonged – to the victors.

  Mary and Warren received endless teasing for their change of heart. Simon was relentless, prodding their sensibilities with barbed humour, and laughing so hard he doubled over at times. Every fresh reminder was met with a frown from Lyra and a dry shake of the head.

  Their mood lifted somewhat as the coach trundled down what remained of Crystalrock’s High Street. A lone food vendor had set up beside the ruins of a collapsed chapel, the scent of roasted barley cakes and cooking mutton cutting through the morning cold. They purchased what they could. Simon, ever industrious, flirted his way into a bottle of amber-coloured liquor for half price. He held it up like a trophy as he clambered aboard again.

  “Gents, dames – behold!” he proclaimed with a grin. “Food for bellies and spirits for the soul. Simon Gershom, everyone, always at yer service!”

  Ethan leaned back against the wood of the carriage, letting the scent of fried batter and cheap alcohol mix in the air.

  Crystalrock was little more than a jagged silhouette against the hazy afternoon when they finished their meals and began passing the bottle about. The town dwindled behind them in silence, its blackened chimneys and shattered slates reduced to brittle shadows beneath the overcast sky. Mary and Warren withdrew into the carriage’s cramped interior, each feigning sleep to avoid further ridicule. Ethan, Lyra, Simon, and Arthur occupied the roof and perch, limbs hung lazily from the railings.

  A tight fit, but just enough for relative comfort.

  Lyra took a tentative sip from the bottle, then convulsed in a coughing fit so violent it painted her ears purple. She held the bottle at arm’s length, wiping her mouth with a kerchief plucked from her pocket.

  “What is this vile concoction?” she rasped, her voice hoarse. “It burns like turpentine and smells like bilge-water.”

  “Rotgut!” Simon cackled, already red in the face. “Strongest piss this side o’ the northern coast. Pickles yer liver, one sip at a time!”

  “Oi’d drink this shite by the crateful wi’ me gads in Clay’on some years back,” Arthur declared, seizing the bottle with a grim sort of reverence. He took a mouthful, then wheezed through clenched teeth. “Dear God, bad as I ‘member it.”

  He took another sip.

  Ethan said nothing, letting the bottle make its rotation. His gaze drifted lazily across the surrounding brush, noting the occasional flicker of animal eyes reflecting from the grassy roadside moors, the distant silhouettes of granite outcrops breaking in the wind. His ears filtered for hoofbeats, wheels, anything out of place.

  “Ethan?” Lyra’s tone alone made it sound like a question.

  He grunted, eyes still on the road.

  “Those bandits… the ones from the inn. They said they were looking for me.”

  “Not many individuals in Helvecone of your distinct appearance,” he replied evenly, watching a crow flit overhead.

  She gave him a look, half pout and half glare. “You know what I mean. How did they know where to find me?”

  He tilted his head to glance at her. “Ah, that. Simple enough, really,” he looked at Simon, already suckling the bottle again. “We have a traitor in our midst.”

  Simon promptly choked on his swig and sprayed the rotgut across his breeches, hacking away as though he had inhaled embers. Ethan snorted, the very picture of malicious satisfaction. The timing of the reveal was well manufactured.

  “What?” Lyra’s voice rose with genuine shock.

  “Who?” Arthur’s hand twitched nervously toward the bottle in Simon’s grip, knuckles pale.

  Ethan offered a shrug and wrenched the liquor away from the sputtering rogue. He raised it to his lips and sipped, then recoiled as though he had just kissed the mouth of an open sewer.

  “That’s giving me the boak,” he muttered, repulsed. Still, he took another swig and passed it back to Arthur.

  “Ethan, do you or do you not know who the… traitor is?” Lyra’s tone had turned clipped, but even still, she paused to whisper the word as though it could summon the devil.

  “I do not,” he said, more with exasperation than evasion. “But let us apply reason. None of us knew about this assignment before we were summoned, aye?”

  “Well, yes,” she replied, her brow furrowed.

  “Which means the only individuals who could have informed the Falchovarians were Richard Best, his inner circle, or those trusted enough to be privy to the operation. None of us – no one in this stagecoach – had the opportunity to inform our enemies after the mission was briefed. Unless, of course, someone managed to sneak out of the Nightingale during the night.”

  “No,” Lyra said uncertainly. “But I was asleep…”

  “Well. The floors in that inn creaked like old gallows under a hangman’s tread. If anyone had left, we would have heard it. I asked William and his wife before we left, but neither of them saw anyone sneak in or out during the night. By the bye, that exonerates you two,” Ethan shouted, fist knocking on the compartment’s roof. “Sleep soundly, for you are no longer suspects!”

  “Prick…” Mary’s muffled voice responded from below, just audible.

  Ethan declined Simon’s offer of another drink. His speech was already beginning to blur at the edges, and he made it clear he had no intention of succumbing to stupor before Clayton.

  “Arthur and Simon are likewise cleared. I saw neither leave, and their snoring provided sufficient proof of presence. Also, you’re a damned gossip, Arthur. I heard you bending William's ear until well past midnight.”

  Arthur coughed and took a silent gulp.

  “That leaves Richard, Rupert, their guards, the messenger tasked with informing the inns, and every other soul connected to Best's office. We do not know enough to narrow it down further. Speculating now would be as productive as arguing with a tombstone. I suggest we drop the matter and proceed with caution.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He retrieved the bottle again and downed another portion, face screwed tight against the taste.

  “With that out of the way, I am drunk enough to attempt sleep despite the bumps of these fucking gravel pits. Wake me once we reach Clayton.”

  Ethan stretched out along the length of the roof, boots dangling over the back end, cloak’s hood pulled over his head.

  He adopted the stillness of slumber, but behind the makeshift blindfold, his eyes remained open, fixed on the shadowed lining of the garment. He was nowhere near as inebriated as he claimed. Instead, he remained alert, ears attuned to every creak and jolt of the carriage, mind occupied with calculations and deductions.

  If someone has betrayed us, then that someone has done so before we even left Oaleholder. Richard Best knew Falchovarii would make a move on Lyra. Is one of his informants a double-agent? If so, why not send someone professional instead of paying-off deserters? Lack of time to prepare? The mission was rather spontaneous…

  Such and a dozen other thoughts beset his mind, running through every conceivable scenario in this plot.

  Lyra let him be. His impertinence had grated on her nerves, no doubt, which had been his intention. Dislike begets unapproachability, unapproachability begets solitude, solitude begets peace.

  Conversation died and did not return. The weight of suspicion had settled over the group, stifling any appetite for levity. The coach rattled onward toward Clayton, the wheels turning against packed gravel and deep cart ruts, their path surrounded by rolling tors and rocky outcrops.

  No one spoke for the remainder of the journey, their silence louder than words.

  They arrived in Clayton without incident several hours later, dusk beginning to creep over the horizon.

  Lyra nudged Ethan’s shoulder as the ramshackle mining settlement came into view. He sat upright, pushing grease stricken hair from his eyes, and studied the terrain in silence.

  To describe it as a 'town' was charitable. Yet 'village' implied too much structure and too little sprawl. The Barony of Clayton existed in a state of civic limbo – part industrial camp, part permanent settlement, all disordered.

  Wooden cottages squatted haphazardly between ragged cliffs, patchy grasslands, and gravelly flats, their placement apparently dictated by whim or necessity rather than foresight. The centre of the settlement was a sprawl of canvas tents, their seams greyed with dust and grime, pitched with equal disregard for symmetry. There were more than a dozen, each one an access point to the veins of lead, iron, and copper that ran beneath the ground. The sole purpose of the barony’s existence.

  From their vantage on the ridgeline, Ethan observed lines of miners emerging from the tent flaps in single file. Covered in grit and sweat, they glistened beneath the low amber sun like spent cannon shot – battered, dull, and only notionally human.

  Each bore a wicker basket on his back, bound by ragged rope and weighted with ore and stone. They trudged to waiting carts – drawn by squat horses or sturdy mules – and tipped out their burdens in silence. By nightfall, the carts would depart for Crystalrock. If the merchants were lucky, they would offload directly to a smith at a premium. If not, the ore would sit in a warehouse until sold at standard fare. The carts would return by daybreak.

  Then the cycle would begin anew, as it had done for almost two decades.

  Their coach lurched abruptly to one side, wheels biting into loose scree near the cliff’s edge. Ethan took the reins from Arthur, who was slumped over the coachman’s bench with his hat askew and breath reeking of fermented rotgut. Simon was in no better state, having finished the bottle somewhere between the last bend and the death drop.

  "Where are we staying, Arthur?" Ethan asked dryly, adjusting the coach’s descent onto the winding road.

  Arthur mumbled something indecipherable, then leaned out and vomited in a long, threadbare arc. Ethan caught the words 'Clayton Inn' somewhere between the retching and a half-slurred apology.

  They descended past wind-swept piles of excavated shale, organised into vaguely conical heaps beside the road. Once at the base, the coach rumbled into Clayton proper. The town’s residents limped and lumbered through the streets – men whose vertebrae had long ago accepted permanent curvature from years of mining and hauling stone.

  Ethan’s gaze drifted automatically to patterns – clustered foot traffic, direction, expressions tensed by some variety of severe emotion. Several larger groups of miners appeared to be heading the same way, their path obscured behind a low tor. Given the hour, Ethan assumed they were making for the taverns in the area – thirst trumped hunger among men of such constitution.

  Most remained hunched, resigned to the routine of survival, but some looked up as the carriage rolled past, dusty faces drawn. Clayton rarely welcomed visitors. Any interruption to its eternal rhythm was cause enough for a glance.

  "Chinny fuckin’ reckon! Archie’s back, me gads!" a voice bellowed from a passing group, followed by a crescendo of shouted jeers.

  "Yoo!" they called in drunken chorus.

  "What’d’ee do wif the baron, ey!?"

  "Who killed 'im!"

  "Why'd’ee come back, thee gravelly grockle-shite?"

  Their taunts were creative in cadence, if not in substance.

  Arthur feigned insensibility, swaying pitifully on the bench with his head bowed. Yet Ethan noted the tears running down the man’s cheeks, cutting rivulets through the grime on his face and disappearing into his dirty moustache.

  As they rounded the rise, Ethan’s suspicions were confirmed. The building ahead was unmistakable – two storeys of broad-beamed oak, the largest structure in Clayton by a fair margin. Signage nailed under the slanted roof read: Clayton Inn and Tavern.

  "One cannot fault them for candour," Warren remarked, poking his head through the compartment window to gaze the ostensibly sole public house within the barony. "When one has a monopoly, invention becomes superfluous."

  “Dey can call it the Fuckin’ Shitesmear fer all I care,” Simon declared drunkenly, sprawled next to Arthur with arms flung wide. “Long as the drink flowsh, I’m yer man ‘til midnight.”

  Lyra fidgeted besides Ethan, fingers drumming on her knees. The bench was narrow, and he felt the tremble in her shoulder immediately.

  "Problem?” he asked, one hand reaching to grab his pistol.

  She stiffened, spine straight and shoulders set. Then, slowly, she released a long breath and began twisting a lock of platinum hair between her fingers.

  "We’ve arrived…” the pale elf murmured, voice tight and measured. “Which means it is my turn to fulfil my duties. I suppose I am experiencing something akin to stage fright.”

  Ethan exhaled through his nose in mild amusement, the sense of danger evaporating. "You? Slayer of vagrants, breaker of bandits, magic scourge of the mundane? And you are fretting over a ruin? Poppycock."

  She smiled – a soft, fragile expression – and her posture loosened, the knee-tapping coming to an abrupt end.

  They arrived at the stables. Ethan dismounted and tethered the horses to a simple but well maintained post. Arthur, now barely ambulatory, leaned hard into Warren’s shoulder. Ethan took the keys from the coachman’s belt, locked the compartment doors, crouched beneath the vehicle, and reset the security lever he had spied Arthur disable earlier that morning. A quick inspection of the wheel locks satisfied him that the coach would not be stolen by any opportunistic locals.

  He followed the others inside.

  The tavern’s common room was cavernous, far larger than its exterior had implied. Beyond the wooden fa?ade, the walls transitioned seamlessly into chiselled sandstone and granite – hewn from the very cliff it was backed onto. Support beams thicker than ship masts lined the vaulted ceiling. The floor was scrubbed but for the most persistent stains – years of alcoholic spillage, hearth soot, and blood drops from broken noses etched deep into the grain.

  Miners filled the space wall-to-wall. Tankards clattered, pewter mugs clanged, voices rose and fell in ale-soaked crescendos. The scent of sweat, smoke, and roasting provisions hung like a damp curtain. A small platoon of serving girls navigated the chaos with practised agility, ferrying drink and bread and meat to the dust-covered clientele.

  At the far end of the room, where timber gave and stone reigned supreme, stood the tabernacle itself.

  The tavern counter.

  Behind it, a bearded man with arms like ale kegs moved from cask to cask with mechanical urgency. He filled tankards with foaming ale and passed them to waiting punters with rhythmic nods. When he spotted the group, he gave a short tilt of the head – acknowledgement and instruction both.

  Ethan nodded back once and waited silently at the edge of the queue, feeling the ale-yeast infuse into his hair and garments. The man offered a brief grin beneath his beard, all teeth and tobacco-stained whiskers, before returning to his task.

  Casks lined the bar and shelves behind it, the latter holding both cheap rotgut and more distinguished spirits – though few of the latter had been touched. The logic was simple: quantity over quality. Why sip gin when a pint of ale came cheaper, lingered longer, and struck harder?

  Eventually, the man finished serving the throng of punters, shouted for a wench to mind the taps, and approached the newcomers while wiping a pewter with a rag that might once have been white.

  "Gregory Drinkwa’er, a’ yer service," he said, voice thick with Crowg County’s granite and gravel.

  "Gud ta shee 'ee agayn, Greggs," Arthur slurred, one arm flailing in an uncoordinated attempt at a handshake. Instead, he struck the edge of the bar and teetered forward, saved from toppling only by Warren’s steadying grasp at his collar.

  Gregory cast the coachman a glare but refrained from voicing anything. The innkeeper was of middling height and stocky build, his hair a coarse nest of brown curls draped over his ears, and his beard thick enough to obscure most of his lower face – though still incapable of masking the lack of a chin beneath. His cotton shirt and trousers bore countless stains – dried ale, damp patches, a spatter or two of unidentifiable origin – giving him the air of someone familiar with his business and living in his element all at once.

  "Ethan Harbinger. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Gregory," Ethan spoke formally and with clarity, tone even and posture straight. "These are my companions: Warren Macintosh, Mary Brown, Simon Gershom, and Lyra. A messenger should have arrived ahead of us to confirm our lodgings."

  Gregory raised an eyebrow and looked the group over, eyes lingering a fraction too long on Lyra. "Well, bain’t’ee a roight plum Aury cand, ey? Be’er than they’m hunchback gads in this ‘ere backwa’er. Ha!" he barked a laugh, presumably amused by his own sharp wit. "Aye, aye, jockey come through this mornin’. Booked three rooms upstairs, 'e did. Two wi’ twins, one wi’ a double. Dunno who’ee lot answer to, but they paid clean ‘nuff, so all’s giggles an’ gravel, sure as pits."

  Lyra blinked slowly, brow knitting as she attempted to decode the dialect. From her expression, no progress had been made.

  Gregory reached beneath the counter and retrieved a bundle of iron keys, held together by a leather cord. He let them jangle conspicuously above the bar.

  "Double bedroom – dibstones rules," Ethan declared immediately.

  "Get plaice’d, ya dogfish! That were too quick by half!" Mary snapped, though the momentum of her complaint faltered.

  "You will be rooming with Lyra, regardless. Your opinion is irrelevant."

  "Oh... aye," she muttered, subdued.

  Gregory wheezed a coarse laugh and handed the double-room key to Ethan, then passed the other two to Mary and Warren respectively. Simon made no move for the key, having entered a state of intoxicated ungovernability some time ago and stalked away to harass the local female populace.

  "This ‘ere soot-faced bal atal can go kip in the pigsty, loik ‘e deserves," Gregory muttered, punctuating the sentiment by spitting a yellow glob onto Arthur’s boot. It began solidifying as soon as it landed, absorbing the dirt caking the footwear.

  Arthur glanced downward, said nothing, and bowed his head. Clayton’s residents evidently had no forgiveness for him for failing to prevent Stonewater's demise, and he offered no argument in return.

  "Linens, towels, an’ bone soap’ll be in’ee rooms," Gregory explained with an absent wave. Lyra had stopped pretending to follow his speech and would undoubtedly seek Mary’s interpretation later. "Draw yer wa’er from the well dipper ou’side. If thee needs summat hot, come an’ say it. Oi or a wench’ll fill in the morny. Break anythin’, thee pays fer it. No rowdy business, mind. Thee," he jabbed a calloused finger outward, finding Simon in one instant. "Aye, thee. Look loik trouble’ee does."

  Simon grinned from across the counter, eyes bleary but speech surprisingly crisp. "One o’ us is a clergyman, an’ the rest’re ugly. Doncha worry, Jerry – no trouble!"

  "Thank you, Gregory. We shall go deposit our belongings," Warren gave a slow nod, then began the arduous task of dragging Arthur away. The drunken coachman tripped with every step.

  Gregory returned the gesture with a grunt and turned back to the swelling throng at the bar. The harried woman he had left in charge was being overwhelmed by patrons shouting conflicting orders. Gregory bellowed several curse-laden instructions at her, then at his punters, and at God Himself, before vaulting back into place behind the taps.

  Lyra and Mary departed to inspect their room. Ethan, meanwhile, returned to the coach and retrieved his heirloom rifle, carefully rewrapped in oilcloth, before heading upstairs. He selected the best hiding place in his chamber – a small crawlspace above the wardrobe, dry and just out of reach – then returned to the tavern common room.

  Warren had opted to leave Arthur snoring inside the carriage, face buried in the compartment’s upholstery. Simon had vanished entirely, likely assimilated into the crowd with a pint in one hand and a stolen coin purse in the other.

  The air was denser than before. Warmth radiated from the candles and bodies both, the scent of roasted onions mixing with yeast and sweat. His companions were assembled around a long oaken table near the wall. Warren had joined the queue, already three patrons deep.

  "Diligence over comfort," Ethan announced as he approached, tone flat, eyes scanning the exits and sightlines. "We must locate our contact and reconnoitre the area before any drinking commences."

  "Oi, Ethan – come off it, yeah? Don’t be a killjoy," Simon said, emerging from the throng and sitting himself at the table with a tankard and pasty. “Aerda ain’t goin’ arse over tits if we rest our tits and arses a spell and see the bastard at dawn.”

  Ethan stared down at him. "What are you even doing here, you toper? I thought rotgut put you into torpor."

  "Ha!" Simon laughed over a mouthful of pasty. “Sleep’s for pantywaists! Down here’s ale for drinkin’ and lasses for winkin’!”

  Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled. Slowly. Deeply. His mind flicked through the list of reasons why he continued to suffer the imbecile’s company.

  The list was short. And getting shorter.

  "Very well. Do as you please. I shall find our contact myself."

  "I will accompany you," Lyra rose from her seat and began to follow.

  "You are supposed to be under protection. Moving in groups is safer. Stay here."

  “I ain’t no fry, ya pompous pout,” Mary interjected, tipping her chair back onto two legs with a grin. “But she’s tougher’n a crab’s claw, that one. Let the wee whiting out a bit ‘fore she gets her binnacle up her arse and starts chewin’ the plaster.”

  Ethan’s gaze shifted from Mary to Lyra. Her eyes were already on his, wide and hopeful. Understanding dawned quickly. It was not merely a matter of exploration – she desired distance. From the tavern, from the noise, from them.

  He could not fault her. They had all been crammed together for the better part of a month, barely a minute to themselves. It dawned on him, irritably late, that he needed the same. The need for solitude had snuck up on him like rust on a blade – slow, silent, corrosive.

  His displeasure must have shown. The table fell into fragile quietness. Warren arrived but lingered distant. Lyra took a hesitant step back, catching her foot on the leg of a stool.

  Ethan sighed, his jaw slackening, shoulders relaxing. "You’re all pricks,” he muttered, reaching into his cloak for a papelate.

  “Knew you’d come round, huffer-puffer,” Mary laughed, letting the chair fall forward.

  "What?" Lyra looked around, genuinely puzzled. Ethan said nothing, only lifted the cup-held candle from the table, used it to light his papelate, and returned it without spilling a drop of wax.

  "Come on," Ethan intoned, face sour, smoke trailing from his lips. "Try and remember this was your idea. Too late for regrets."

  Lyra followed in Ethan’s wake, still uncertain but clearly relieved to be moving.

  The sun had long since vanished behind the hills, casting the world in a thick, overcast darkness that swallowed detail and edge alike. Illumination came only from the flickering lanterns clutched in the gnarled hands of weary miners – habitual fixtures born of long days spent underground, now transferred above without ceremony. The township itself boasted no streetlamps, and with the tavern drawing in most of the living, the rest of Clayton lay like a fresh corpse, motionless and dim, save for the soft rays peeking out of shuttered windows.

  They moved against the tide of bodies flowing toward the tremendous public house, threading past slurred voices and sluggish limbs, until they reached the wide cluster of tents pitched at the settlement’s centre. Scores of labourers filtered out in slow trickles, their clothes soiled with dust, backs strained under the weight of filled baskets. Some barked orders; others muttered curses under breath. All smelled of rock dust, sweat, and piss.

  Ethan approached the largest figure among them – a foreman, if his size and bearing were any indication. The man was smeared with mineral grime, hair matted to his brow, and the whites of his eyes stood in stark contrast to the coal-black dust etched into every line of his face.

  "Good evening," Ethan offered curtly, voice clear and formal, papelate held between his fore and middle fingers. "I wish to speak with the man responsible for overseeing the mining operations in Clayton. Would you happen to know where I might find him?"

  “Gree’in’s,” the man replied with a sharpness to the edge of his voice.

  "The overseer – where is he?" Ethan tried again.

  “Ahh, gad… she now, she be,” the foreman grunted, scratching his tar-black cheek and leaving markings in the dust. “Used to be ol’ Baron Maxie, God rest ‘im well. Good’un ‘e were – fair, smart, bain’t pinch the coin like some – paid on top ‘e did, when the hauls were fat. Leader, real ‘un. Aye, God bless ‘is bones.”

  The man’s throat bobbed and his voice cracked on the final syllables, as if emotion had caught up with him before reason could steer him back.

  Ethan raised a brow but said nothing. He had assumed the baron’s title had been acquired rather than earned, a vanity bauble worn by a second-rate tyrant playing at politics. Instead, the deceased appeared to have held genuine loyalty from his people. This revelation produced a faint twinge in his chest – quickly suppressed.

  He pressed on.

  "A tragedy, to be sure. Even in Oaleholder, we lit a candle in remembrance of Baron Stonewater's passing," Ethan lied, effortlessly.

  Lyra shifted beside him but held her tongue.

  “Aye, knew’ee noble and kind by look of’ee,” the foreman said. He clapped a rock-dusted hand on Ethan’s shoulder, leaving a smear of soot on his cloak. “Oi done lit one meself, din’ Oi? When we ‘eard it come down. It’s ‘is missus now, Baroness Maria S’onewa’er. She be runnin’ it all. Keeps ‘er office yonder – ‘bout ten minutes off, thac way.”

  He pointed toward an indistinct blotch in the darkness, its boundaries poorly defined. “Thee’ll see the S’onewa’er crest over the door. Looks loike a frog wi’ antlers, thee’ll know it.”

  Ethan inclined his head in acknowledgement, and Lyra followed his gesture a beat later with an approximation of politeness.

  “Wait on now,” the man called again, rummaging in a crate. He handed Ethan a dented brass lantern, the flame inside still strong. “Dark an’ sharp, thac road. Scree’ll take a leg if’ee bain’t wise. Go on – bain’t no trouble.”

  They accepted the lantern with thanks and moved on. Ethan found the light unnecessary – his eyes parsed the gloom as though it were merely overcast grey – but he kept it burning for Lyra’s benefit.

  “This is turning into a damned farce,” he muttered once they were well clear, taking a drag from his papelate.

  “What?” Lyra’s voice had risen slightly, frustration mounting. “I could barely make out a single word. Are we even speaking Helveconean any more?”

  Ethan exhaled sharply through his nose, smoke escaping his nostrils like a bellows. “Some approximation of it, yes. To the untrained ear, Crowgspeak is as lucent as apoplexy.”

  She threw him a narrowed glance. “Do you think the baroness will refuse us access to the mines?”

  “She might.”

  “Why?”

  The papelate’s tip glowed orange as he took another drag, crackling softly.

  “Because I killed her husband.”

  Lyra gasped sharply, head snapping to face him fully.

  He had debated telling her for some time now. Calculated the risks. Decided, in the end, that the old technique of strategic transparency might serve him better than misdirection. People trusted those who offered secrets of their own. He gave one freely, and might extract another in kind.

  Moreover, the truth was not especially dangerous. The murder had been contracted through criminal channels, but even they were not without their snoops. Better the truth came from him directly than from a high society rumour or taproom gossip.

  What Ethan processed as methodical pragmatism, Lyra experienced as open-throated horror. She stopped walking, her mouth parting slightly.

  “Why?” She echoed the question, the context now bloodier.

  He merely shrugged. “Because Richard Best paid us to do it. One thousand guineas, if you are curious. Fair price for a life, though admittedly underwhelming for a Peer of the Realm.”

  Lyra turned away and murmured something inaudible, her voice a cracked shell barely holding itself together. Ethan did not press her for clarity.

  They walked in silence the rest of the way.

  The headquarters appeared abruptly out of the gloom – a squat, windowless structure assembled from timber planks scavenged from whatever trees grew in this godforsaken hinterland. Two lanterns burned dully on either side of a thickset door, casting long shadows across the mud-caked crest of House Stonewater nailed above it. A green toad with golden antlers, just as they had been warned.

  Ethan stepped forward and rapped thrice – sharp and brisk.

  “Enter,” came a feminine voice from within.

  He threw the straw butt of his papelate into the scree and pushed the door open.

  The interior was as utilitarian as the exterior had suggested. Wooden walls warped with moisture and age were choked by a battalion of overburdened bookshelves. Ancient tomes, brittle scrolls, and crumpled maps were stuffed into the gaps like battlefield dead. Where shelving gave out, the walls bore pinned parchment – maps of the tunnels below Clayton, annotated in a meticulous, if hurried, hand. Depths, angles, shaft junctions – all charted with obsessive precision.

  The tunnels beneath the earth stretched far beyond the township’s modest borders. Miles more, perhaps. That explained the seemingly endless procession of miners. They were not digging one mine. They were carving out a buried kingdom.

  A monstrous, ten-legged table dominated the rear of the expansive chamber. It bore the scars of its years – ink stains, knife grooves, rings left by careless mugs. The redwood desk by the entrance was a stark contrast: bare, save a ledger, a quill, and an inkwell. The matching chair behind it remained empty.

  The baroness stood at the long table, adorned in muted blacks, half bent over a spread of open documents. Her bearing was stiff as iron, even in repose. Her expression – unreadable. A hawk in a dress of mourning.

  Her features gave no clear indication of age – though the crow’s feet at her eyes and the hard set of her mouth suggested experience over youth. Her hair, chestnut and plaited tightly, hung down her back, swaying faintly with each subtle movement.

  Ethan noted the style. Not noble. Practical. Functional. The kind worn by those who worked with their hands, not merely signed papers with them.

  “Who are you,” she said without looking up. “And what do you want?”

  Refined – that was a word for her accent. Not like the churls littering the rest of Crowg County. It was a voice that had learned to survive in rooms where neither lace nor lineage mattered.

  Ethan cleared his throat and straightened his posture – reflexive muscle memory from a different life, when tutors rapped wrists and demanded dignity.

  “Ethan Harbinger, your Ladyship, accompanied by Miss Lyra. We were dispatched by Mister Best to investigate the Ailbean ruin beneath your township.”

  He gave her a formal incline of the head and added, with fabricated solemnity: “Our condolences on the passing of Lord Stonewater. He was a great man.”

  Lady Stonewater snorted loudly, finally looking up from the table. A brittle guffaw escaped her. Then another. Within moments, her body shook with quiet hysterics. Until, finally, a strange, sharp mirth burst from her lips as she doubled forward over the mess of maps, hair plait swaying like a pendulum.

  Ethan exchanged a glance with Lyra – dry suspicion meeting wide-eyed worry. The last thing they needed was a lunatic in charge of the mines.

  The baroness’s laughter died slowly, leaving behind the hollow echoes of someone long emptied of joy. She wiped a tear from the corner of one eye with the back of a gloved hand.

  “Oh, the irony,” Maria Stonewater sighed, casting her gaze heavenward. “It is almost enough to make one believe in fate.”

  She looked back to them, voice suddenly honed to a razor’s edge.

  “Richard Best sends me my husband’s murderers.”

  Lyra flinched. Her gaze snapped to Ethan, who remained still as granite.

  He said nothing. He did not blink.

  How does she know? The question struck like flint. No witnesses. No trail. No evidence left behind. And yet–

  “Do not look at me like that, Lord Cadefal,” Baroness Stonewater said, leaning forward. Her tone dripped with condescension, her every syllable slow and deliberate.

  Ethan’s jaw tensed. The title landed like a physical blow.

  “Oh yes, Your Grace, I know exactly who and what you are,” she added venomously. “You may not remember me – understandable, you were but an infant suckling at Elspeth’s teat when last we met – but I knew your parents. Knew them well. Perhaps better than you ever did.”

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