Rose sat in her reconstructed chair in the tavern common room that showed no indication that anything out of the ordinary had taken place here. The oil lanterns flickered overhead casting shadows across the spotless wooden floor, which shone like it had only been installed earlier in the day. All the round tables were in their rightful places, each with five or six chairs behind them. If anyone were to walk in, all they’d find is a particularly clean common room with a musty scent of fresh wood. They’d probably want to spend the night. If the common room was that clean, imagine the bedrooms.

  Rose sat at the table closest to the counter, with Korin beside her. The little murderdoll – sorry, Elsie – lay in the lap of her silk dress, little hands beneath her head with her eyes closed. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the doll. It seemed so sweet and innocent – almost childlike in the peaceful manner in which it slept. Except she’d seen firsthand its little bouts of murder.

  She had been sure Elliott was animating it, if not for the fact that she couldn’t feel any mana flows when Elsie moved. She had never heard of anyone being able to hide their flows, but then she was beginning to realise that much of what she’d thought was true might not be true at all.

  Elliott, standing on the opposite side of the table, plonked the sack of ore down before them. Isabel sat to his side, hands folded in her lap. Both of them had their eyes fixed on Korin.

  “So, you’re saying you can’t pay us for this?”

  “I apologise profusely,” Korin said, bowing his bearded head to his chest. “With my membership from the Guild rescinded, I don’t have that kind of money. Especially not for three ores.” There was a slight hesitation in his voice at the end there, like he couldn’t quite believe that Elliott had easily dismantled three Elemental Lords.

  “But,” Korin added, “if you take me with you, I can help you get a good price for it. Just not in the Bizayn Empire.”

  “I’m sure I’m capable of finding someone to trade this with,” Elliott said.

  “But I have local knowledge,” Korin offered, wiping his brows. “I have Guild contacts. I could help you with the dwarves if you visit our lands.”

  Elliott’s eyebrows rose as his mouth curved slightly. “A dwarf? Of course you are. I was wondering why you’re so short!”

  Rose had a closer look at Korin. He had a bald head with big, bushy eyebrows and a huge silver beard that sat almost on his stomach. A stomach that strained against his autumn brown tunic. She’d never seen a dwarf on Earth, even though she’d read about them in books. Looking at Korin, she had to admit the books were rather accurate.

  “And you want to follow me?”

  Korin met Elliott’s eyes. Elliott smiled at him. “Be honest.”

  “I don’t really have a choice. If I stay here, I’m dead. If I go with you, I might be dead. Better to perhaps die tomorrow than certainly die today.”

  “I think I just wouldn’t die at all,” Elliott said with a grin. He exchanged glances with Isabel, who shrugged her shoulders.

  “Fine,” Elliott said. “You can come with us. I won’t stop you from leaving later, but you understand what happens if you betray me?”

  Korin nodded.

  “Wait! That’s not what you told me,” Rose protested. Elliott turned his small, black eyes on her.

  “You’re different.” He gave her a wink and a smile, as he took the seat next to Isabel. It begged the question how she was different but he didn’t give her the chance to ask. “Now, what have you learned?”

  “The remnants of the Rhian citizenry have been herded into the southeast of the town,” Isabel answered. “I found someone among them who says he has the information we’re seeking, but he wants something first.”

  “What?”

  “He wants us to help them leave the city and take them to the Forest of Shadows, where the rest of their people are.”

  “You think he’s telling the truth?”

  “I think it won’t hurt us to help them,” Isabel replied, a sort of melancholic smile on her face.

  Elliott tilted his head back, looking to the ceiling. “Don’t tell me you’ve found yourself a project?!” He turned his head back to Isabel. “If they don’t have the information and suddenly they’re all missing from the town, it’s not going to help us with that low profile, is it?”

  “You need to see them, Sir.”

  There was a look that passed between the two of them, almost as if they were communicating with their eyes. Then Rose felt such a faint burst of mana from Elliott that she wasn’t sure she didn’t imagine it. But then she could see the two of them talking to each other, but she heard nothing. He must have been using some sort of silence spell, blocking her out. She concentrated on their lips as if she was a master of lip reading. Their body language was neutral, as were their facial expressions. What were they saying? And how dare they close her out?!

  Suddenly, Elliott stood up and turned to her and Korin.

  “Let’s go. Get whatever you need. I doubt we’ll be returning. You have five minutes.”

  He stood and walked towards the front door, taking the sack of ore with him. Isabel followed him out. Korin bounced off his chair and waddled back behind the counter, rushing into the room back there. Rose studied Elliott as he walked. He was different to the rumours she’d heard about the Murderhobo. He was said to be a loner. A ruthless killer. No rhyme or reason to what he did. She hadn’t believed it.

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  She lowered her eyes to the sleeping Elsie.

  She’d always assumed the Murderhobo was some sort of shadowy organisation of S rank killers working together, no matter what the rumours said. That’s what made sense. It was the only thing that made sense in the wake of her parents’ death. She’d always assumed it would have taken a small army to massacre them. How else could her family’s security – multiple S and A ranks – have been torn apart like that?

  But now she understood that it might have just been these three. Heck, maybe it had just been one of them.

  As she watched Elliott leave the tavern, she no longer questioned whether he could have massacred her family alone. What she wanted to know is why. She’d seen another side of him in the short time they’d been together. Ruthless, practical but also…kind in his own way? He definitely had affection towards Elsie and Isabel, that much was apparent. But he didn’t need to bring Korin with him. And it seemed they were headed to rescue the Rhianians. Who was this man, really?

  She found herself rising to follow them, scooping Elsie in one hand as gently as she could while grabbing her staff in the other.

  She was conflicted. She had been since they’d got here. Her heart said one thing, while her mind said another. She hadn’t given up on her desire to avenge her parents, but she’d seen enough that she knew she wasn’t even close to where she needed to be to confront him. And she knew that he was both the enemy that she sought and the mentor that she needed.

  For now, she needed to follow, as galling as that was. Following the murderer of her parents, hoping he would teach her so she could…murder him?

  She giggled as she joined Elliott and Isabel on the tavern steps outside.

  “Something funny?” Elliott asked.

  Rose met his eyes. “Just laughing at the ridiculousness of this situation,” she smiled. Elliott glanced at Elsie sleeping peacefully in Rose’s hand.

  The town square was quiet and the rain had died down. Much like the tavern, anyone walking past wouldn’t have a clue of what had transpired here. Rose glanced briefly at Isabel. She really was beautiful with that bronze tan, long flowing hair to her waist and those striking green eyes. But then, she had that outrageous axe on her back which kind of ruined the image. There was nothing delicate about the weapon.

  There had been nothing delicate about the way Isabel had dispatched her opponents so competently either. Rose had been around dangerous people before, but they looked dangerous. What unnerved her most about Isabel and Elsie is they looked anything but. Even Elliott, for all the weapons he carried, looked more like he was trying too hard than dangerous. Nobody could ever need that many weapons, but maybe that was the point.

  The tavern door opened, and Korin joined them, though there was no indication of why he had gone back to his office except for the leather pack he carried on his back, as large as his torso.

  “I can carry the ore for you, Elliott,” Korin offered, putting the leather pack on the floor ahead of him and opening it. The opening had a shimmer of light to it, like a pool of water. “If you want to place it in here.”

  Elliott had a curious look on his face, as he glanced at the bag. “Is that for inventory?”

  Korin nodded, a smile on his face. “This one has sixty-four slots. Found it in my last dungeon raid.”

  Elliott placed the sack of ore through the opening, and that shimmer of light widened out to accept, sealing smoothly once the ore was inside. Korin closed the flap over the shimmer and swung the pack onto his back.

  She felt another small flare of mana from Elliott and raised an eyebrow in his direction.

  “Invisibility and Silence. No need to draw attention,” he laughed. “Lead the way, Isabel.”

  Isabel guided them away from the tavern, down through a couple of side streets and then led them through a maze of intersecting alleys, leading them further away from the centre of the town. Eventually, they emerged into a narrow muddied street, lined on both sides with wooden huts. Some reached as tall as six storeys, haphazardly strung together with slanted walls leaning into each other. The dim glow of candles flickered from windows set at irregular intervals.

  [Float]

  Rose hovered an inch or two off the floor, keeping her reinforced silk slippers out of the mud. She saw no reason to wade through the sludge when she could glide over it. That wasn’t so for Elliott. His boots sinking ankle-deep into the ground didn’t seem to bother him at all.

  The stench in the streets was almost as bad as the sewer had been and for the same reasons. Human waste had been bundled into shallow trenches to the side of the road. Rotting food scraps had been discarded to the sides. As they followed Isabel’s directions, she saw emaciated figures huddled in doorways, babies crying in the arms of their mothers. Men in dirty vests and knee-length shorts stalked the streets like zombies looking for a meal. Here and there, others had crowded around fires trying to keep themselves warm.

  “Why is it like this?” she replied.

  It was Korin who answered. “The war. The Rhianians they were able to capture were rounded up here.”

  “For what?”

  Korin turned to her, eyebrows drawn together, a grim look on his face.

  “Execution or slavery,” Elliott answered.

  He said it like he was discussing the weather. Like this was something normal to him. She looked at the soulless eyes of those around her. An utter loss of hope in their grimy faces, knowing what their futures held.

  She almost nervously giggled again, realising Elliott was these people’s only hope of survival. This must have been what they were discussing back in the tavern. Isabel convincing him to help, maybe? Whether he was doing it out of some sort of morality of his own, or to please Isabel, it made her wonder why her parents hadn’t deserved the same mercy.

  Isabel directed them along another narrow passage, barely wide enough for them in single file. The odd rat squeaked as it scurried by in the dark and eventually, they reached a three storey hut, a wooden door in its centre with a cracked stone step at its base, flanked by windows on either side.

  Elliott dropped the invisibility spell and eyes turned towards them with some gasps. Some of the people moved away, fear in their eyes.

  Elliott knocked on the door as Rose hovered behind him near a muddy puddle. At the doorway of the neighbouring hut, she saw a young man, maybe of an age with herself, with wild, loose blonde hair, flanked by two older gentlemen in tattered clothing with unshaven chins.

  “Does it bother you?” Elliott asked her, drawing her eyes to him.

  A soft creak spared her from needing to answer, the wooden door slowly inching open. An older bald man stood on the other side, as emaciated as the rest, silvery tufts dotting his chin. He wore a vest and trousers cut off at the knees, similar to the others she had seen. He ran his eyes over them and when they settled on Korin, he smiled, a gap in his teeth.

  He ushered the four of them into a cramped room, a dim oil lantern in the centre casting flickering shadows across the walls. Rose took a spot in the corner, Elsie still sleeping in the palm of her hand. Korin came to stand beside her, but Isabel was nowhere to be seen. Where had the maid gone? She’d been there just a second ago!

  “I’m Daveran,” the man said.

  “Elliott. I hear you have information that I’m seeking.”

  “You need to help us get out first. That’s what I told your maid.”

  Elliott smiled. “I can do that but I want to speak to your leader.”

  “I’m the representative for my people.”

  “Sure you are. But I’d rather talk to the young man listening from behind that wall.”

  Rose glanced at the wall Elliott was pointing to, beyond the door that led into the cramped room. It was the wall that separated this house from the one next door. The one where the young blonde man had been sitting outside.

  Daveran’s eyes flickered to the wall briefly before he caught himself. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure, you do,” Elliott replied.

  “Now, go and get him for me please. I won’t ask again.”