Alph leaned his head back against the cold, vibrating brass of the sewage pipe. His vision swam for a second before focusing on the woman standing before him. Without the mask, her features stood out against the grime of the lower district. Her skin possessed a deep, blueish hue, like twilight caught in a bottle. Short, grey hair framed a face that looked younger than her lethal movements suggested.

  He found himself staring at her eyes. They were brown, but a sharp red tint burned within them, catching the dim light from a distant street lamp. He’d heard stories of the dark elves, the reclusive tribes that shunned the surface world, but seeing one here, acting as a guild assassin, felt like stepping into a myth.

  Nylessa shifted her weight, her brow furrowing as she caught his stare. She wiped a smudge of soot from her cheek, her expression hardening.

  "What are you looking at?"

  The suspicion in her voice snapped him back to the present. He realized he’d been gaping like a tourist.

  "Nothing!"

  Alph shook his head, the movement rattling his teeth, and looked away; his pulse finally began to settle. The realization that Nylessa who had just rescued him, was from a race he often read about in the novels Torsten brought him at Oakhaven, momentarily floored him.

  "Oh! I get it."

  Nylessa’s tone shifted from sharp to realization. She let out a small huff, reaching up to tap one of her ears. They were pointed, but they didn't have the elongated, sweeping length described in the old scrolls.

  "I am not a Dark Elf, I am a Half Elf. See? They aren't as pointy as a pure elf. My father was human, or so the tribe elders said when they weren't trying to ignore me."

  She rolled her eyes, the red tint in them flickering as she turned to peer back down the alley they’d just traversed.

  "Don't go getting all weird on me because of the skin. It’s just pigment. Well, pigment and a bit of a temper, but that’s mostly the human side."

  Alph wiped sweat from his forehead, his fingers coming away black with soot.

  "I wasn't... I just haven't seen someone like you before."

  Crap, what am I saying to her? Alph thought, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. This isn't the time for cultural exchange, you idiot. Focus.

  Alph drew the dagger from his belt. The obsidian blade sat within its leather sheath, coated in a thick, cooling film of Pavel's blood.

  "The job is finished," he said, his voice a low, raspy rasp.

  Nylessa stared at the blade. The red tint in her brown eyes caught what little light remained in the alley. Her gloved fingers twitched but stayed at her side. "You're... really giving it back? I didn't think you would. Most men would've kept a blade like this for the silver alone."

  "Very well," Alph vocalized, his voice deliberately lacking depth. "If you don't want it," he said, drawing the sheath nearer to his torso, "I can keep it."

  Nylessa lunged forward with the sudden, she snatched the sheath from his hand, her movement a sharp gust of wind in the cramped space. She tucked it securely against her hip, her lips pulling into a stubborn, defensive pout.

  "I never said you could keep it," she muttered, her pride clearly wounded by his indifference. "It’s mine. I just... wasn't expecting a you to have a sense of honor."

  A faint twitch pulled at the corner of Alph’s mouth. He shook his head, feeling the coarse wool of his collar rub against his throat. The coppery scent of Pavel’s blood still lingered in the cramped alley, thick and cloying.

  "I held up my end," Alph said. He narrowed his eyes, watching the way her fingers gripped the sheath. "Now you keep yours."

  Nylessa bit her lip, her ears flicking back in a display of irritation. She gave a stiff, reluctant nod. "I’ll get you an audience. But hear me," she said, her voice sharpening like a whetstone on steel; "the guild runs on blood and results. They won’t open the gates just because I asked."

  I don't need her to hold my hand. I just need the door open.

  She straightened her posture, though her gaze skittered toward the damp, moss-covered brick of the opposite wall. "Besides," she added, her tone dropping to a defensive mumble, "I don’t have much pull with the agents anyway. You'll have to survive the trials on your own."

  Alph weighed the risk. She acted as nothing more than a messenger, a way to get his foot through a door that usually stayed barred with iron and blood. The guild wouldn't care for her recommendation if he couldn't prove his worth in the pits. I’m the one who has to convince the executioners I belong among them.

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  "The Stinky Mole," Alph said, his voice flat. "Tomorrow at sundown?"

  Nylessa’s short bob of grey hair swayed as she gave a sharp, negative jerk of her chin. Her brown eyes, marked by that faint red tint, narrowed in professional focus. "Too soon. I have a contract to finish. I won't be available for at least two days."

  Alph offered a curt tilt of his chin. The delay served his purposes; his limbs felt heavy, and the adrenaline was beginning to ebb, leaving a dull ache in its wake. Two days is plenty for me to recover. "Two days. Don't make me wait."

  He pivoted, his boots finding purchase on the slick, mossy stones of the alley floor. As he retreated into the gloom, he glanced at his sleeves. The blood had dried into stiff, dark patches that crunched when he moved his arms. The metallic scent clung to the wool, thick and incriminating.

  I can't walk into the smithy looking like a butcher. He needed a fresh set of leathers and a bucket of lye before the first light of dawn hit the mountain peaks. Alph broke into a steady, rhythmic jog, his silhouette vanishing into the labyrinth of brick and shadow.

  Nylessa stood rooted to the damp cobblestones, watching the boy—Raven—recede into the shifting gloom of the lower district. His silhouette moved with a strange, rhythmic efficiency that didn't quite match the heavy, blood-soaked wool of his commoner’s clothes. He didn't look back once.

  A slow smile tugged at her bluish lips, pulling against the dry skin.

  "Interesting fellow," she mused, her voice barely a ripple in the quiet alley.

  She reached down, her gloved fingers tracing the wire-wrapped hilt of her returned dagger. The leather of the sheath felt tacky, the cooling blood of a nobleman acting as a gruesome sealant. Most people she had seen interested in this line of work were either desperate thugs or preening blades-for-hire, but this one had a cold, methodical weight to him.

  Better get back to the guild and report my success, she thought, her mind already spinning the narrative.

  The city was already waking up to the chaos at Duskryn Manor. She could imagine the rhythmic whistles of the dwarven patrols echoing from the upper tiers, a frantic staccato that signaled a high-profile mess.

  The commotion he caused while escaping is perfect. If I claim the hit was mine, my reputation will climb higher.

  A soft giggle escaped her, muffled by the collar of her cloak. The thought of the guild's grizzled veterans begrudgingly acknowledging her "flawless" infiltration tickled her. She hadn't technically struck the blow, but in the Assassin's Guild, a kill confirmed was a kill earned, regardless of whose hand held the steel.

  She shifted her weight to start toward the hidden entrance of the sewers, but a sharp, stabbing heat flared in her side. She hissed, her hand flying to her ribs. The memory of Raven’s shoulder slamming into her chest flashed through her mind—the raw, explosive power that had flattened her against the brick like a discarded rag.

  She looked down at the faint, dark bruise beginning to bloom beneath her leathers.

  Brute, she thought, though the irritation was tempered with a playful spark. I ought to return the favor one day.

  Nylessa took a breath, adjusted her mask, and leaned into the darkness. Her form blurred, the blueish hue of her skin blending into the deep indigo of the pre-dawn shadows until the alley was empty, leaving only the scent of copper and rain behind.

  The heavy oak desk groaned under the impact of Master Bailiff Jurgen’s fist. The blow sent inkwells rattling and launched a flurry of parchment scrolls into the air, their ribbons fluttering like startled birds before settling back onto the scarred wood. Jurgen’s chest heaved, his snow-white beard tangling into a chaotic nest of bristles as he exhaled a sharp, indignant huff.

  "A noble!" Jurgen’s voice rumbled from deep within his barrel chest, vibrating the stone walls of the station. "Killed in his own residence. On Golden Coin Street, no less! Right under our very noses."

  He leveled a thick, calloused finger at the four patrolmen standing at attention. The dwarves shifted, their chainmail clinking in the suffocating silence of the office.

  "And you lot," Jurgen snarled, his eyes narrowing into slits of flinty gray. "You allowed the culprit to vanish into the fog like a common street urchin."

  Morna stepped forward, her hand resting on the pommel of her sidearm. Her face remained a mask of professional discipline, though a vein throbbed at her temple.

  "Master Bailiff, the perpetrator did not act alone," Morna stated, her voice steady despite the heat in the room. "An accomplice deployed an alchemical smokescreen, masking their retreat into the lower tiers. My men followed protocol. Furthermore, the conditions we discovered in that manor’s basement... had the killer not acted, I would have castrated that foreign pig myself for what he did to those girls."

  Jurgen’s face turned a shade of bruised plum. He leaned over the desk, his shadow looming large against the flickering torchlight.

  "Excuses!" he roared, spittle flying into his beard. "And Morna, do not dare question the law in this office again. Do not make me forget you are my niece before I strip that rank from your shoulders."

  Morna tightened her jaw, her gaze dropping to the floorboards. She swallowed the retort rising in her throat.

  My rank as the Chief Arrester was gained through her efforts, not because of you. As if you ever cared for anything but the ledger, she thought, though her lips remained pressed into a thin, white line.

  "Go!" Jurgen commanded, waving a hand toward the door as if shooing away vermin. "Scour the city. Contact your rats in the Assassin’s Guild and see if a bounty was cleared on Duskryn’s head. I want a name, and I want results before the Council demands my head for this lapse. Now get out!"

  Morna turned on her heel, her cloak snapping behind her as she led the patrolmen out into the cold, gray dawn of the upper tier.