Bihaind di blu tempel at mitnigd.

  I read Dogface’s note for a third time. Then I crumble it in my fist and set it aflame with a fancy lighter I got on the market. I never want to be unable to start a fire out in the wilds again.

  The place was easy to find. Only one gigantic blue-colored building towers over the surrounding houses in this city. I seem to be at the limit between a middle-class district and the more impoverished sectors of town. Behind the temple means just over the wall that separates both districts. I slip through a guarded doorway, clad in invisibility. None of the sentries notice me.

  I step into a side alley to reappear where the guards can’t see me. The streets are empty at this hour of the night. Nothing moves except a few rats darting into the shadows, scared of my sudden materialization out of thin air.

  I scrunch my nose. The stench of decay and waste clings to the narrow alleyways like a sickness. The air is thick with the mingling scents of unwashed bodies, cheap ale, and rotten fish. Mud squelches beneath my boots. Well, mud and whatever else is mixed in there. It feels familiar and alien at the same time. Almost as if I didn’t belong to a place like this any longer after spending so much time immersed in the pure air of the wilderness. I shove the thought out of my mind. Don’t get picky.

  I stroll further behind the temple, around crooked and decomposing wooden doorways and missing cobblestones. Dogface is nowhere in sight. It must be too early. It was easy to slip away from Yuileen and Kamoe once the tiredness of the journey caught up to them, and they went to sleep. I would have gone to sleep, too. My eyelids are falling closed every time my attention wanders. But I need to know what Dogface is doing here.

  Did The Crow send him to help me find my way back? I would choose nearly everybody else after that chaotic failure of a heist we went on. I don’t even know why The Crow insisted on sending him with me into that castle. Dogface might be a decent enforcer because he can be somewhat intimidating when he wants to. But he is too clumsy and careless when there is a need to be subtle. Sometimes, he can be more of a hindrance than a help.

  Scratch that. He isn’t the brightest rat in the streets, even as an enforcer. He is a loyal dog, though, always trying to get The Crow’s attention. He practically adores and would die for our boss.

  I should have gone alone. I would have been able to do the job alone way easier and cleaner. Did The Crow send Dogface with me because he doesn’t trust me enough? Maybe he feared I would discover what that compass was good for and decide to keep it instead of finishing the job. What if the presence of Dogface here is not to help me find my way back but to rein me in? I shudder, a disturbing thought.

  I wiggle my spatial ring off my finger and hide it inside my cheek like a hamster. It’s slim enough not to stand out nor hinder my vocalization.

  Someone shrieks in some alley. Faint laughter rings in my ears and then goes quiet again. Someone whistles behind me. I turn around. Dogface has arrived in the company of a pair of pock-faced thugs, so similar to each other that they can’t be anything but twins.

  “Joo, Kivi,” he greets me. A grin splits his face from ear to ear. “Fancy company you keep these days. I barely even recognized you in that outfit.”

  “I had to adapt. You know how it is,” I answer. I feel a bit wary. Why has he not come alone? “Maybe I can make a side gig out of it.”

  One of the twins snickers. The other one pokes around in his nose. “Your friend has guts, Dogface. Most stay away from the fancy kind of people.”

  “That, or a lack of common sense,” mutters Dogface, barely audibly.

  Excuse me?

  “How did you even come here?” I ask, leaving unsaid that I don’t know how he even knew where to find me. “It’s not like it is easy to arrive.”

  “Oh, that.” He looks around, like searching if somebody could be eavesdropping on us. “I came with The Crow.”

  I blink. What? My entire worldview threatens to crumble. I feel like I am standing on cracking ice. The Crow never leaves my hometown! Well, not for long. He sends people for whatever he needs. Or at least he used to. The world I am familiar with seems fragile, suddenly, like a mirror reflecting a distorted reality, about to break and burst apart into the unknown.

  “What is The Crow doing here?” I ask, trying to find some sense to grasp, to anchor me.

  “Well.” Dogface looks at me, grinning again. “He took over the local gangs.”

  “He did what?” I blink again. Did I hear that right?

  “Your boss was amazing!” exclaims one of the Twins, gesticulating wildly. One of his arms impacts his brother’s hand, who grunts because the ball of snot he was playing with goes flying. Charming lad. “He went into all the gang headquarters and sent the heads of their bosses tumbling down the streets.” He did what? “There is only one big gang now, the Crow gang.”

  I look at Dogface, asking him with my eyes without emitting a word.

  “You can believe him,” he says. “We are all here now. The Crow brought everybody over.”

  I step back, trying to take it all in. Since when did The Crow fight in person? “Wait, you said they are all here now. Why didn’t Dante come to meet me?”

  “Well, you see…” Dogface looks down, suddenly meek and sheepish. No! A clump forms in my chest, heavy like lead, weighing me down. No! “He didn’t make it.”

  I gasp, my breath stolen. My mind is plunging into darkness. “Fuck,” I mutter. Something fundamental collapses inside me, leaving a hollow space that slips through my fingers like smoke. “Dante… How?”

  I can feel Dogface’s gaze falling on me, judging my reaction. Does he even care? “Well, you know when those guards realized something was amiss?” I do, for sure. It’s his fault they found out about us that soon. Hot fury ignites inside me, battling for supremacy with the numbness that has swallowed the echoes of the memories of Dante’s voice. “The bastards were hot on our heels until they got wind of you. We managed to slip through to the tower where your rope was, you know?” He looks at me, searching for a reaction. I only stay there, frozen. Only part of my attention remains with him. “I told him we had to bolt, but he was stubborn. Said we had to wait for you. I told him it was stupid, that he could wait… That we could wait once we got down and away from the castle. But he decided to stay back.” I remain silent, lips pressed together. “Then a guard saw him, and he had to race down the wall in a hurry like I told the idiot. But he wasn’t fast enough, and the guard cut the cord when he was halfway down.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The fire roars inside my mind, at Dogface, at The Crow, at me, yearning to burn me in my failures and careless decisions. I should have been stricter instead of listening to Dogface on that heist. No! No! It’s not my fault. If it is someone’s fault, it is The Crow’s for not trusting me and sending me alone. The fire sputters and fades, leaving only dying embers simmering in the cold emptiness. My stolen breath returns in a wheeze.

  “Who’s this Dante guy?” asks twin number one.

  “Just some dude we knew.” Dogface makes a dismissive wave with his hand. The embers nearly reignite. “Not a bad lad, you could count on him, but he did rat us out in the end before biting the dust.” His boots squelch in the mud as he steps closer to a building and leans against it. He wipes and shakes his boots against the uneven wall, barely getting them cleaner before stepping back into the street. “We should go. The guards by the door to the fancy side of town are too close.”

  “Where?” I rasp.

  “To the base.” Dogface looks around the corner and starts stepping and slipping through the mud further into the slums. He looks back briefly to check if we are following him. I realize I am following him out of pure inertia, still distraught. The twins have fallen in behind me, boxing me in. Why do they walk so close? Don’t they know about personal space? “You still got that thing The Crow wanted, right Kivi?”

  “Sure,” I mutter.

  “Good.” His face seems to brighten. He stands straighter as if a weight has fallen off of his shoulders. “The Crow isn’t here right now, but the Miniboss is. He will know what to do.” The twins snicker at some unspoken joke.

  Miniboss does seem ridiculous as a monicker. I have no idea who that is supposed to be. A new lieutenant, in all likelihood. A survivor of the locals? We shuffle forward between the shadows. There aren’t any street lights here, only the odd wandering rays of brightness that reach over from other parts of town.

  “So, what happened when this Dante guy sang?” asks twin number two, shuffling through the mud, a bit too close for my comfort.

  “Well, The Crow’s name got out, and they started to search for him downtown.” Dogface stops and looks back towards us. “The funny thing is that ‘twas The Crow that led the search party for himself.” Both twins snicker. “He only had to silence a few people who knew his face.” More snickers. “It still got too hot there, though. That is why we all came here, I think.” The twins grunt in acknowledgment.

  That must be why The Crow came to this city out of a million places where he could have tried to establish himself. I suppress a snort. Once I give him his stupid compass, I’ll step out. I am sick of this, of this life, of being kept in the dark. Maybe I can continue to pretend to be a noble for a while, let my new acquaintances pamper me, and then go somewhere where I only need to rely on myself, where I can tinker with runes in peace, evolve my gathering vortex to get stronger because you need to be strong enough to defend your freedom in a pinch. Now that Dante is gone, what else is keeping me here? The Crow? I snort. He will only care about me as long as he has a use for my skills.

  Dogface guides us into an alley and weaves between heaps of rotten planks, some nailed together, some falling apart. He lifts and shoves a few out of the way, revealing a hidden, rust-covered trapdoor. It swings open on oiled hinges, revealing a staircase going downwards. A wrinkled face appears, greets us with a grunt, and vanishes back into the shadows.

  A waft of stale air welcomes me inside. It reeks of damp wood, spilled alcohol, and people keeping close together like cattle. Under it hides the distant smell of ammonia and decay, indicating that there must be an entrance into the sewers somewhere. Are there even sewers here in the slums? It may be just the outside. Flickering torches cast shadows across warped and soot-covered beams and sagging shelves cluttered with rubbish, from rusted daggers to half-empty bottles and broken glasses.

  Voices mumble in the shadows. Jagged faces turn towards us. Sharp and feral eyes take me in, then shift away after seeing who accompanies me. Hands shift idly near bad-hidden blades. Maybe they want you to know they are armed. They look like they should know how to hide them.

  Dogface guides me into a backroom. The stench of sewers is harsher here, hitting me like a physical blow. It smells of rot, waste, and dead rats festering in stagnant waters somewhere in the dark. I may have to throw the clothes I am wearing away or rip them apart and keep them as rags. A shame. This is my invisibility set, a waste of good ink. I’ll never get enough of the stench out for people not to notice me in the nicer parts of town.

  “Wait here,” commands Dogface. “I’m gonna fetch the Miniboss.”

  The twins snicker. I lean back against the wall. At least it is a solid stone wall here, not more rotten planks.

  Dogface reappears in the company of a slim young man clad in fine-tailored black leather. I take his scrunched nose and scowling face in. He can’t be more than a few years older than me.

  “Ugh,” he grunts, face a picture of disgust. Our eyes meet for a brief moment. Then he looks back towards Dogface. “Is this the bitch that tried to steal my future?”

  What now? First, rude. Second, what in the seven hells is he talking about?

  Dogface grunts in acknowledgment. What is this? A setup?

  The man rushes over and pins me to the wall without warning and holds each of my arms beside one of my ears. “Where is it?” he hisses. His breath washes over my face, stinking of beer and shellfish.

  “The what?” I try to free myself, but he is physically stronger than me, and I don’t have much leverage. Should I knee him in the balls? No, keep calm. “Who the heck even are you?”

  He blinks. His grip loosens up a bit. “You are saying you don’t know who I am?” He turns towards the other three men, dropping one of my arms. “Why haven’t you told her who I am?”

  “He is The Crow’s nephew,” clarifies Dogface. “He is…”

  The young man whirls around towards me. “I’m the Dark Prince,” he interjects, pointing at his chest with his free hand. Dogface scowls behind him, seeming frustrated for some reason. The twins hold their bellies, reining laughter into silence.

  Now that I think of it, there does seem to be a resemblance between him and The Crow and with Dogface, too. I nearly gasp as my mind makes the connection. Are they all related? I would have never thought that The Crow and Dogface were family. But maybe they are. It’s not the nose, the chin, or even the cheekbones that are similar between all three of them, but their relatively small forehead and how their eyebrows seem to touch each other, even if The Crow and this Dark Prince guy shave the area above their nose.

  “And that should mean something to me?” I ask.

  Something hot erupts beside my face. A blue flame flickers between the man’s fingers. He is a mage then. “Be careful how you address me, wench.” He starts to pat me down with surprisingly soft and manicured hands. They progressively grow eager and frustrated, pinching and grasping around my belly. “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?”

  He looks up at me. “The compass, you idiot! Are you dumb?”

  “He is the client for our job,” Dogface tries to shed light on my confusion, which I am not entirely faking.

  “Oh,” I mutter. Wait. What? The compass is for him, not for The Crow himself or some noble who paid through the nose for it. Don’t tell me that I suffered all this time for this prick. You know what? He can go and fuck himself. The Crow, too. I’ll keep it for myself and find out what all the fuss is about.

  I swallow my spatial ring down. A bit of stomach acid won’t damage it. They are designed to survive a hell of a beating. It may even seem that I am just swallowing out of fear. “I hid the compass,” I lie, keeping eye contact and a straight face, how The Crow taught me. “It is way too hot of an item to carry with you all the time.”

  Flames come to life again, burning close to my face. My hair coils and singes under the abuse. “Where?” I try to flinch back, but the wall is still there.

  “Don’t mar her face, Kevin.” For some reason, Dogface comes to my rescue. “The Crow won’t like it.”

  Kevin the Miniboss scoffs, but his flames sputter out. He takes a step back, suddenly seeming a bit wary. “She still needs to tell us where she hid it.”

  “Sure,” I say. “It’s in the forest close to a town, a few days of travel downriver.”

  “What town?”

  “Well, err,” I mutter, twiddling my thumbs. “I never thought about getting the name. I had other worries.” Kevin looks at me like I’m useless. “It’s not hard to find, though. It’s the first bigger town on the left side of the river from here out.”

  “Liminea, then,” mutters the dark-clad man. “That’s a problem. It will cost time and money to make up an excuse to get us through the tunnel.

  “You’ll still need me to show you where in the forest I hid it,” I pretend to remind him. “Or you will be searching for ages.” I need to keep my value high.

  He seems to have nearly forgotten about me and paces around the room, muttering. “We will need to bribe the guards that guard the passage towards Cherry-blossom Valley again. There is no way we can be back before their watch-turn rotates.” He stops at the entrance and looks back at us. “Lock her up ‘til I or The Crow says otherwise,” he commands. “I need to get us a ship.”