"They're back!"

"It's about time," says Enturi. "Lower the rope ladder."

Lynae climbs swiftly up the ladder. I follow, a lot more slowly. One rung at a time.

"Hurry up, Arq!" Enturi urges. "If you hadn't noticed, the mists are gone. Anyone and everyone can see you now. What if the watch wanders by?"

I pull myself in the little window and collapse onto the floor. I swear, if I could just lift one of my arms, he would be a dead elf.

"Slime off," I say.

"Ai damn!" exclaims Enturi, eyes wide. If I didn't know better, I might think he was actually concerned. "What the rot happened to you?"

"Egg stalker. Jeamo tried to escape in the sewer and got stung. When we went in to retrieve him, I got stung too."

"Sorry about that," interjects Lynae, copper eyes flashing apologetically. "I should have parried to the left. I wasn't thinking." I should be angry at her. But she did better than some of Jet's deadliest hands would have in that sewer, killing the bug after I was taken out. It was a mistake, but not a fatal one. Barely.

"How big was it?" asks Bolin.

"Longer than the wagon. Taller than me. Not quite as big as the ogre half-breed in the next room, but a lot more dangerous. Just ask Jeamo." I unwrap the human's severed head and roll it across the floor. "The egg stalker mostly killed him. Lynae just gave him the deathslice."

"I was trying to remove and kill the eggs so we could bring him here for questioning," she explains, a bit defensively. "The extraction proved . . . fatal."

"That's fine," Enturi says. "There is enough information here to answer our questions about Norien's death."

While Jet's girlfriend and I were fighting a vicious, wagon-sized insect in the sewer for the right to kill Jeamo, Enturi had remained here in the studio quietly reading records. Typical. Somehow, I always end up doing the dirtiest work in my unwilling partnership with the pretty boy. At least I had the better companion. Bolin, who didn't fancy climbing down the rope ladder, had scavenged the myriad of little torture instruments hanging on the walls. Metal is expensive in Elftown, and I figure he'll melt these down for use in his side business producing weapons and armor for the enforcers of the local ward bosses, like Jet.

Enturi's reading paid off. Turns out Jeamo was more than a sick monster who got off on the ritual torture and murder of helpless elves. There was a purpose to his perversion.

Jeamo was a sorcerer too. He tortured and mutilated his victims in blood and incense-infused magic rituals.

"What sort of magic requires blood and pain and death?" Lynae asks softly.

"Evil!" Bolin blurts out.

"Powerful," I say.

"Occult," says Enturi. "These are divination rituals."

"How do you know?" asks Bolin.

I scowl. Because he's a stinking sorcerer himself, beard! Are you really that dense?

"It's in the records," replies Enturi. "Along with the information acquired from the divination."

"Which is?" I ask. Enturi squirms, then speaks reluctantly. "A detailed summary of the doings of the ward bosses. All six of them, including Jet. Their hideouts, operations, stash. Number and identity of enforcers. It's all here."

"By the Deep!" Bolin interjects. "Jet isn't going to like this."

"Oh, I think he'll be pretty happy," I smirk. "Happy to learn what his rivals are up to. Their strengths, their weaknesses, their secrets. Happy that we intercepted this information so no one will know what he is up to. Yeah, I'll wager he'll be as happy as an ogre with a man-haunch."

"I think I better have those papers," Lynae says steadily, holding out her hand. I glance at Enturi, whose reluctance is written as clear on his face as the tattoos of the nameless. I stifle a laugh. Looks like Enturi-take-the-credit-for-everything just got outmaneuvered. His desire to present the records himself is plain. But what can he do? Say no to Jet's girlfriend? No. He hesitates for a few moments, then presses the linen papers together and hands them to Lynae, who deftly slides them into a pocket inside her cloak.