Astor’s life savings were meager. And by meager, they were hardly enough to last anyone a month of living and eating regularly. However, for a child her age and status it was an impressive amount to have saved.

She was proud of her savings.

She didn’t want to spend it all.

She didn’t think she particularly had a choice now though. Spend or die as it were. Or rather, accept the circumstances as they were. Astor had accepted a lot of things in her young life. Not everything she was proud of and not everything that she was willing to change.

She wouldn’t accept this.

Anything but this.

Not when she’d accepted everything else. And so she accepted that she’d have to spend all of her meager savings on acquiring the help necessary.

Astor placed the shabby looking pouch full of miscellaneous coins onto the counter between herself and the handyman. Her sharp eyes glared pointedly at the lounging man who regarded her with a certain level of curiosity.

Rem Canary.

He’d only lived in the village for about two years, arriving as though on the run from a questionable past before he set up shop as a jack-of-all-trades and lived in relative peace. He was the person who could be hired for a reasonable fee to do any job, from fixing up a roof to hunting down a lost pet, Rem was reliably competent and always completed his job with a rather precise calculation to the amount he’d been paid for it.

Rem didn’t have a set amount he charged but if you paid him with only one tali, then you would only get one tali’s worth of work. Likewise, if he was handsomely paid he would ensure that his performance was worth your money.

It gave him a reputation as a dependable miser.

In an ideal world, Astor would pay him much better for the task she had in mind. If she had the money, she would pay him enough to ensure that there would be absolutely no question about the quality of his work.

Astor knew something about Rem that no one else did. It came with being a child that was hugely ignored by the entirety of the village, she was able to see and hear things that no one shared with anyone else.

Because of the information that Astor had on Rem she was confident of two things with absolute certainty. The first was that he was the only person who was absolutely qualified to assist her. The second was that he would indeed be pitiless when it came to the money between them.

He was a man who was heartless to humanity but loyal to money.

Astor watched impassively as Rem carefully dumped out the contents of her life savings and counted out every single coin with a calm patience that unnerved most people. It made Astor anxious. She could feel the time ticking by with absolute clarity and she wanted to get an answer as soon as possible.

“Alright.” Rem began, folding his fingers beneath his chin as he stared evenly at his client. There wasn’t even a hint of a business smile upon his lips, another unique aspect to a man who lived and died by the availability of clients, he never bothered with the niceties. He always let his work speak for itself. “What’s the job?”

Astor swallowed thickly. This was going to complicate matters significantly if he didn’t accept her request but still heard her story. She decided to keep her request as vague as possible to begin with.

“I need you to find someone for me.”

Rem raised his eyebrow elegantly at the sheer ridiculous nature of the request. After all, everyone knew everyone within a village this small and now that all their exits to the outside world had been cut off by the encroaching vines of the forest, there was no possibility of a person remaining hidden within these confines.

“I’m interested.” Rem said but his eyes were clear of any such emotion. He was lying but Astor didn’t care about that. She hadn’t hired him for his honesty, only his capability. “Who could you possibly want me to find while we’re all trapped here?”

He thought she was a foolish child. An idiotic brat who didn’t comprehend that they were all trapped in this new prison of vines and roots with currently no hope of escape. No axes or even fire had made any significant progress in freeing them from their prison.

And if they couldn’t find a way out of a way to survive entirely self sufficiently, they would all die.

In a dire situation such as this even money had become somewhat worthless and yet she came here with her life savings to ask him to ‘find someone’ as though it would make any difference to their situation.

Astor didn’t mind being the fool though. She’d survived far worse indignities.

“I need you to find the murderer.”

Rem froze momentarily before a slow smile played across his lips and he tapped the counter between them thoughtfully. He had the air of a cat that had watched a mouse do a particularly interesting trick while evading certain death.

Astor didn’t miss how unconcerned he was about matters either.

Everyone else was reasonably terrified and coping with the dreadful panic in their own unique ways. Rem had the look of a man who’d looked death in the eyes far too many times to find a passing greeting with him to be worth any note at all.

Knowing what she did about his past, he probably had done just that.

“That’s an interesting request.” Rem’s eyes drifted down to the coins, clearly making his mental calculations of just how loyal he would need to be to his job for this amount of money. She knew that the amount didn’t match the difficulty and so she was doomed to have a subpar job.

But a subpar job done by a capable individual was far better than one done by an unskilled fool.

“Do you mean the one who murdered that girl three days ago?” Rem asked, eyes fixed on Astor in calculation.

“Yes.” Astor clenched her fists at the memory, her mouth forming into a firm line and her eyes staring determinedly into Rem’s. She needed to find out who was behind the heinous crime. To find out and stop them. To find out and punish them. “Will you do it?”

Rem tapped a coin and slipped it into his pocket, a spark of legitimate interest glimmering in his dark eyes. “Yes, I’ll find the killer. Shouldn’t be too hard, in the circumstances. One might consider ousting a murderer in all of our best interests. You’re quite the bright kid.”

Astor could recognize sarcasm when it was being directed towards her but she chose not to engage. The important part was he’d accepted.

She clenched her fists in her lap before standing up and leaving. It was quite characteristic of Rem that he didn’t ask why or even bid her adieu. He simply didn’t have enough interest in humanity.

He was just the right sort of person for this job for just that reason. He wouldn’t be loyal and he wouldn’t be good or kind but she didn’t need any of that.

She needed results.