“Five years on the run from the very men in that room and you want me to go in there and sit with them? Are you insane Loren?”

“They know you're not a Traitor, Sylvie. They have a plan, but they need you.”

Sylvie's jaw twitched. “Loren, I'm not going to...”

“Oh, and they said to tell you that you still owe them fifty gold from the last poker game.”

Sylvie looked at him for a minute and gave him a rude gesture with one hand. She stepped around him, and went into the room where Harken, Quinton, and Firkin waited. She put on a vision spell as she sat down. “It's only thirty gold, and Harken owes it to me.”

Loren went in the room and quietly sat in a chair off to the side. His body language made it obvious that he was only there to facilitate the meeting. He was leaving it up to the other four people to work out anything else on their own.

“Sylvie...” Harken sighed. He was wearing his usual Hymerine armor, and it flashed in the light as he shifted forward.

“Oh don't worry. I'm not going off on one of my rants, yet, so start talking.” Her tone was dark.

The three men all tried to talk at once, then looked at each other. Firkin finally cleared his throat. “A lot of it begins from before we were ever born, and a young kingdom called Vanihan suddenly gained an unprecedented political coup against many other kingdoms. Vanihan suddenly went from nobody to somebody in a very short period of time.”

“Yes, yes. Spare me the history lesson of how the war against Gamriel started with Vanihan managing to score numerous trade contracts, embargoes, and banking grants that severely decimated Gamriel's power.” Sylvie sounded bored.

Firkin gritted his teeth. “Anyway, there were many spies insinuated into Vanihan's court at that time. They did their best to knock the upstart country back to its proper place, but somehow the King won with what he later named the Golden Guard. Some of the recruits were spies and assassins that he somehow convinced to wait and see what he would make of Vanihan.”

“His Great-Grandfather was one of those spies. Their duty is to Gamriel, and they are blood-bound at birth to serve Mage-King Jaralt.” Quinton quietly interjected.

Sylvie watched Firkin glare at Quinton. Firkin was wearing a soft outfit made varying shades of gray that let him blend in the shadows and be almost invisible. She nearly stiffened in shock when she realized he was wearing clothing spun from the cotton of her home-lands. Mage-senses and magic spells would just slide right off of him. Add the layers of protective spells and padded chain-mail, and it would be nearly impossible for a mage or a warrior to get even a scratch on him.

She turned her attention to Quinton. The man was wearing dragon-hide armor again, but it was a completely different set than the last time Sylvie had seen him. She wondered how many sets of that kind of armor he had. She nearly sighed. She missed her armor and weapons that she'd had as part of the Golden Guard. “And is this the part you tell me why I'm here?”

Firkin briefly closed his eyes. This was going to burn like acid. Quinton looked over at him and nodded. “Well, as he said, it begins with that blood-binding. Specifically mine.” He shivered at the way Sylvie seemed to look through him instead of at him as he told his tale for the second time that night.

At the end of it, Sylvie shook her head briefly before focusing on Quinton. “And where did you get the idea that I might know how to break a blood-binding?”

“Your father wrote a book about it.” Quinton's voice was still quiet, but there was a thread of amusement running through it.

Sylvie coughed in shock. “By the Gods is there anyone who didn't guess?”

Harken snorted. “Your father, maybe?”

Firken shrugged. “I found out ten years ago from the Guard that escorted you here just after you turned sixteen. He was in his cups. I was a co-worker of 'that sweet devil-child'. That was all it took to get him babbling like a brook. I put a forgetfulness spell on him afterward.”

Sylvie snapped her head toward him. “Why would you do that? You could have gotten me out of the Golden Guard that much sooner”

Firkin paused. “Would you believe that I didn't think about it at the time?”

Harken, Quinton, Sylvie, and Loren all answered at the same time. “No.”

“I thought not.” He sighed. “Your father returned to court about two years after you joined the Golden Guard. You were guarding the King at court one day when a young lady of quality tried to refuse to have her powers blocked for the sake of an alliance. He used a spell to force her to drink the potion in front of the whole court. No one moved when he did it except for you.”

Harken and Quinton stared at the woman before them. Her dark curls seemed to drink in the light, and she was wearing a dark green tunic and leggings decorated with matching lace. She shifted uncomfortably in the chair and Firkin continued.

“I only heard you because I was right next to you. You countered the potion as it entered her mouth and turned it to water. The girl was smart enough to act dazed and let herself be led away. The next day, she was missing. There was a large scale search for the girl, and it took a month to find out that she was a sworn Covenant of the Sisters of Bershin. Not even the King dared to even try to pry her out of there. Now, I saw your face when you looked at Hillyard, and I knew you'd never go near him until you knew that you could match his spells. I decided to give you the time.”

Quinton snorted. “You didn't know she was his daughter at that time. Aren't you spies better at keeping your lies straight?”

“I figure he admired your guts, and your sheer audacity.” Harken stated. “How many would chance a long stay in the castle cells for a stranger? He was probably slightly enamored of you, as well. I mean, if you were my type, I'd probably be baying at the moon if I could get you to look at me twice.”

Sylvie was in disbelief watching the color rise on Firkin's neck. He was professional spy. He shouldn't be blushing. It made him look cute. “Ignore Harken. He likes tweaking people on everything.”

“At least he didn't somehow put a giant teddy bear that looked exactly like me in the middle of my bed holding a letter telling me to find a freaking Ghost Spider that I've been trying to find since the day I joined the Golden Guard.”

The room burst with laughter. Harken was the first to quiet, though he had a huge grin on his face. Sylvie felt her heart turn. That was much better than the twisted mockery she'd seen all those months ago in Brushtown.

Then, Harken shoved Firkin's shoulder. It was just a friendly guy shove, but it made the air go out of Sylvie's lungs in a whoosh. Harken was the best there was at seeing through people's lies and bull. Where Harken was, Quinton was usually close behind. Sure enough, he shoved Firkin's other shoulder.

Sylvie swallowed hard. There was the camaraderie and friendship she'd missed out on in the past five years. Not only that, but she trusted her two ex-partners and their perceptions more than anything else. It hit her that they believed that Firkin was not the Dark Mage. Her chest hurt as she realized that she had to trust Firkin and whatever plan they'd come up with. “So, from what you said, I should only have been suspended according to your plans. Not declared traitor?”

Firkin nodded. “Precisely. I don't go around killing innocent people, but one you were declared a Traitor, it was safer to make sure you stayed away.”

“You worked with Loren to make sure of that, didn't you?”

Both Loren and Firkin shifted uncomfortably. Then Firkin shrugged. “Five years ago, when you broke the Darkening spell, you'd already been declared a Traitor with a kill-on-sight order. I found you, still chained to that damn altar. I didn't see or sense anybody else as I got you out of there.”

“So that's how I ended up being cared for by the Timeos order in the first place.” She sighed as Loren and Firkin looked at each other and shrugged.

Harken spoke. “We could spend hours with one of your perfectly orchestrated rants that you use to distract people and avoid something you don't want to do, Sylvie, or we could get on with our plan.”

Quinton chimed in. “I don't know about you, but I do want to see the insides of my eyelids at some point tonight.”

The room was silent for a couple of heartbeats before Sylvie grinned. “You caught me.”

“You caught yourself when you said what you did earlier tonight. You know, the line where you said that you weren't 'going off on one of your rants, yet.'” Harken smirked as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“And really,” Quinton continued. “It was pretty obvious after the dog incident.”

Sylvie twitched. “You promised to never bring up the dog incident again.”

“Sylvie, when you're playing kissy face with a dog five minutes before you go on a rant about letting 'dangerous creatures' loose on the training ground, it's pretty obvious that you're trying to avoid something.”

Sylvie groaned. “All right, all right. No rants, tonight. I'll let you get the beauty sleep you need. I'll even help with that pesky blood-binding so we don't have a dead Firkin on our hands.”

"You will? I thought you would have held me in place for Mage-King Jaralt to kill me thoroughly."

Sylvie grimaced.  "Yes, I will.  After you tell me the plan."