It was the big day.

  As Clare returned to her apartment, following her new routine, she found the streets more packed than she was comfortable. Apparently a lot of people, many in costumes, were going to the Lontenese ceremony. In the previous days, the advertisement about it, despite them having flooded the Holy City with informative pamphlets earlier had become significantly more aggressive. Now they were advertising themselves through the entire press, from the more prestige broadsheets to the cheapest tabloids. Anyone who knew better would have said that they sounded desperate to have as much people as possible present for whatever their festival was.

  Not that Clare actually cared, of course. Right now, her only objective was putting her research to a point in which she felt safe abandoning it, and bringing Hil to a safer location. That was all.

  Fortunately, now she had a lead, even if it was a massively small one. Her sister had contacted her from the capital of Lastria, apparently the investigation onto Yadesh had advanced significantly, even if she wasn’t in much liberty to divulge any of them by phone and she had always been much more of a stickler for rules than Clare had ever been. Still, what she did told her was interesting enough. She had looked into the agency that Yadesh rented their eagles from and found another name there, that of one Ocrusio Manade.

  Now, Clare had no idea of who that was, but it sounded like the name of an archetypical Lastrian aristocrat, and after pressing her sister, Clarissa, she confessed that it was the name of a Pantaveran aristocrat. But, of course, there was a catch. Manade had been dead for some twenty years. Someone else had been doing business in the capital in his name. But at least it was something to hold on into to continue investigating. And, her sister had claimed that things in the capital may become calmer soon, although, of course, she couldn’t say why.

  Thinking about all of it made her groan aloud, as she was entering the building. But all thoughts of it suddenly left her mind when a cold shiver went down her spine. Something was wrong, deeply wrong. She rushed to the apartment, her bag of groceries still in hand and found the door open. The bag felt from her arms.

  She ran inside, calling for Hil and getting no response. Everything looked normal, no signs whatsoever of struggle, the only thing out of the ordinary was an open window, but it led to the street and Clare hadn’t seen anything. She had trouble breathing. That was the second worst scenario in her mind and cursed be her luck it had become true.

  “Clare? What’s wrong?” She heard Hil’s voice right behind her. She turned around slowly, grabbing the blade she had hidden under her backpack and found herself face to face with the Elf. Apparently completely safe. She was holding the bag.

  “Hil?” She asked. The Elf nodded, a puzzled expression in her face.

  “The door was open.” Clare said. “You should always close it and then lock it, remember what situation we’re in!”

  She didn’t want to neither yell at her nor scold her, but she couldn’t control it. All the panic she had inside had to go somewhere. She felt like shit. Saints! She was a spy. People like her are supposed to keep their emotions in check, to know better, to keep their heads cool specially in moments like those, in which normal people could be horrified at such a terrible scenario.

  “I locked it.” Hil said, shrinking upon hearing Clare’s voice, her ears moving down.

  Clare blinked. “Are you completely sure of that?”

  Hil nodded.

  “Where were you? For how long? Did you talk to anyone?” Clare asked, rapidly, she needed to get to the bottom of it before anything got really out of hand. There was a chance someone had entered the apartment while the Elf was gone.

  “I was down the hallway, at Miss Menote’s apartment. I… um… Maybe five minutes. I went there, knocked, she opened the door, and we maybe talked for a minute before I heard you calling my name.” The Elf had taken seat in a chair, she was looking down. Clearly she couldn’t take the scolding, and Clare felt sorry for her, but she could apologize later, there was a worse problem.

  She didn’t know any Miss Menote. As far as she was aware, all the other apartments in that floor were empty. “Hil, what did you two talk about?”

  The Elf seemed slightly confused for a moment. “I think we were going to talk about how long have I been in town. She said she had never seen an Elf before. There are not many of us this far west, you know.”

  “Is that so?” Clare asked back. “I should also talk with this Miss Menote if she’s new in the building then, which is her apartment?”

  The Elf opened her mouth to say it, but suddenly her expression changed. She didn’t say anything.

  “Hil? Do you not remember which is her apartment, down the hall?” The Elf shook her head, she could tell something was deeply off. “Can you then tell me what she looks like?”

  The Elf’s expression went blank, it was a strange expression of surprise, which suddenly changed into one of fear. She could not. She had encountered someone and had apparently forgotten much of it. It wasn’t the same circumstances or the same vanished memories, but the idea of it made Clare’s blood run cold. She felt it in the air, there was magic around. Clare’s first thought was going down the hallway, right at that moment, and kicking every door in, just to check if she found the bastard, even if her rational mind was trying as desperately as it could to shut down that thought, let she end up in even deeper trouble than she already was.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Such a shame that she has forgotten, isn’t it?” The voice of a woman said behind Clare, she turned around as quickly as she could only to find a chilling sight standing at just a handful of paces away from her. All in black, hooded, faceless and with a glove pointing at them, two charges of a spell ready.

  “Miss Menote?” Hil asked, her voice small. Clare was thankful that she couldn’t see her reaction.

  “For a brief moment, yes.” The hooded figure answered. “Not the greatest face to wear, but alas, it isn’t like this plan has gone well at all.”

  Clare’s mind was racing. She didn’t have any gloves, and there was no way the mage wouldn’t cast the spell the very second she reached for her blade. Hil was fast, but the moment she gave her a signal the mage would also know who to shoot first. As things stood, they were completely stuck. The most rational thing was stalling for time and trying to get information.

  “Did I ruin it?” The spy smirked.

  “Yes, quite. I didn’t expect that the Elf would get away before even fully stepping through the threshold. It was quite an unfortunate timing. That said, I do have both of you already on sight, so if you would be good girls and stay very still, we can finish this up quickly and as painlessly as possible. Does that sound good for you two?” The voice was sickeningly sweet and condescending, but at the same time, Clare noticed that it was slightly changing, acquiring the tone of a younger woman and not that of an old lady. It gave her the creeps.

  “No, we will refuse, on the grounds that we probably can’t quite stay still upon encountering the murderer of our friends.” Clare said. She was managing to keep her head cool, good.

  “Technically speaking, that wasn’t me, but I can understand the confusion. That operative is no longer active, their mission was a success and their harvest plentiful enough. My mission, however, is to get you two. And you have given me quite an amount of trouble having escaped to Cegran, and hidden this well.” The voice seemed to no longer be mocking them, it sounded sincere, and frustrated. “Do you two morons know how hard is to investigate when you’re like this?”

  Clare blinked. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, it sounded beyond surreal to her. But if the conversation was casual, maybe she could ask something without that much risk to her life, maybe.

  “Then, maybe you could just not pursue us and let us stay.” She said, her lips drawing a grin. “If we have anything you’re interested in, we’ll just give it to you and call it a day. How does that sound?”

  “That would be a good deal indeed. Unfortunately, obviously, what I need is to have you two. And I don’t think you’ll come in peace, so I will have to put you both to sleep.” The hooded figure stated, casually.

  Clare tensed up, screaming to her own brain not to pick up the blade behind her back. She couldn’t see Hil, but heard her whimpering behind her. The poor girl was terrified, for her this had to be like reliving her worst nightmare.

  “That said, however, the offer is still tempting enough. Let us make a deal then. You will answer a question I ask you, and in return I will answer one you ask me, and then I will put you to sleep.” The faceless mage said.

  The obvious response would be a no, but it wasn’t like Clare had other plans at the moment, so time and information, that was as much as could get.

  “Very well, ask.” Clare said, a bit louder than she wanted, gritting her teeth. Her composure was being quickly drained and there may not have been much left.

  “Would you like to go to a party?” The hooded mage said. The spy staggered, of all the possible questions that one was the least in her mind. But, of course, it caused everything to click. The Pantaveran name, of course… Whoever these people were, they were from Lonte, and given that their network was rather large, as far as she could tell, it made sense that they may be serving some aristocrat, one using a false name, and probably related to the ceremony that was going to happen that very night. The mage was probably sent to ‘clean’ them up because they’d be doing something there and they didn’t want any loose ends.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have the dresses for it. But if we did, sure, a party sounds fantastic given how stressed I am right now.” Clare grinned. “Now, may I ask you?”

  The hooded mage nodded. Clare’s mind raced through the maelstrom of questions that she wanted to ask, as there were so many, and discarded all the ones that would give her any actual information. Not that she didn’t want it, quite the opposite, as it has already been said, but instead, she wanted to keep them talking. And found just the one.

  “What was in the box?” Clare asked.

  The mage tilted their head, slightly, quizzically, wordlessly asking her to clarify.

  “The one that was inside the dungeon, what you people sent the Danlavius Company to collect. And what I assume was the reason you attacked us and made them disappear” Clare stated. As she did, she slowly moved her hand towards the blade, carefully watching for any sign that the hooded bastard was going to shift into the attack. There were none.

  “Ah, that.” The mage answered, casually. “It wasn’t a box.”

  Clare blinked. She didn’t risk asking the obvious followup, knowing this kind of bastard they’d probably take it as her breaking the rules and shoot.

  “It was a coffin.” They said. “Yes, I know it looked quite small to you, obviously things had to be disguised to transport what we needed safely. Looking like this is hard enough to cross borders, imagine how it has to be to send parcels and not have them immediately investigate what you’re sending. Plus, it’s far too heavy for the average eagle.”

  That last one was obviously a lie, but Clare was more than willing to accept it. Her hand was already on the hilt. She pressed her weight into the floor, the moment the mage made the slightest movement, as could be the one of their thumb to unleash the spell, she’d jump and go for a direct stab.

  Her rational mind was telling her that the previous faceless mage they actually fought, the one who got Otto, was too much for them, and this one would most likely not be any worse. But it wasn’t like the actually had any other options whatsoever. Her teeth were grinding to hard that she felt blood inside her mouth. At this point it was only a matter of time.

  The thumb moved, just slightly, and for Clare things went in slow motion. She leaped into the air, blade on hand, it shone as she swung it, directly for their arm. Faster than she had done in a very long time. It connected. She sliced through their arm as if it was merely made of a soft clay. It felt to the floor with a quiet thump.

  No blood came out.

  It grabbed her face with the other arm. She could feel Hil jumping into the attack right behind her, she didn’t have the time to scream.

  The last thing she saw, as her vision went black when they both hit the floor was the wounded side of the cut-off arm as the hooded thing was to reattach it. It was light gray, slightly porous. It wasn’t flesh, it looked like clay, like the kind children play with.