He knew. Somehow, that marquis knew… Khazmine fretted to herself while skulking alone on the slick surface of a damp marble roof after dark on the northern spire of Holloworth. Twin moons rose high above, but were obscured by dissipating clouds, granting the outcast sufficient light to navigate by, but not enough to be observed from the herringbone streets below. The half-breed’s borrowed boots granted her ample traction to stand upright, but she frequently threatened to topple over from gliding on the slippery stone roof. I haven’t used any Deceiver magic in ages, and yet, that old man…

Khazmine stopped dead and posed like a lurking gargoyle as yet another round of wandering guards below meandered past her perch. It was not yet full-dark, so she hadn’t expected so many patrolling pairs to pass through at regular intervals. Waiting for these lumbering fools to get out of her way was the most tedious part of this caper so far. And if her guess were correct, the outcast would only have a few minutes before the next round of guards made their circuit this close to the manor houses. If she wanted to make it past the last watch post, Khazmine had to act now.

A deep inhale filled the outcast’s lungs to bursting as she readied herself for a running bound from rooftop to rooftop. It was a challenging jump to make under normal circumstances, and the rain-slicked roof sapped the poor youth’s speed. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the luxury to be worrying about it now. Instead, a fresh spurt of ether flooded her limbs as Khazmine’s ether core awakened anew. Rhythmic footfalls thunked on the hard surface, as the outcast prioritized speed over stealth for this acrobatic feat. In a heartbeat, the dark-clad Khazmine sprung with full force and perfect form to graze the heavens with her tremendous leap.

D*mmit! Khazmine cursed silently as her gloved fingers scurried feverishly for a handhold. Despite her best efforts, the outcast’s jump was just short of a full success, and the resulting leap ended with torso and legs slamming against the watch post’s high wall. Damp and scrambling, Khazmine dragged her body up to the flattened apex of the rooftop, where she could finally catch her breath and wrestle with the mountain of questions that plagued her thoughts since her chat with the marquis that afternoon.

“How much is a cure worth to you?” Rowyn had asked with a curious, off-putting stare.

More than tongue can tell… Khazmine scoffed at the only answer she could give to Banebury’s cryptic inquiry. If the old marquis had a way to repair Pavo’s ether core, what wouldn’t the outcast give?

Seeing Pavocinis’s pained expression and trembling body tugged at Khazmine’s heartstrings to the point of breaking them. The outcast had failed once to save someone she’d cared about, and wasn’t about to let it happen again. That single failure stung more than words or blows ever could, leaving a deep scar in the outcast’s spirit. Blood or no blood, Pavo and Aranthus were family now, and that mattered above all else.

Still, this entire job doesn’t sit right with me. Khazmine tugged at her black vest and re-tied the dark bandana she’d borrowed from Marquis Banebury, tucking the knot under her hat. The silky cloth smelled foreign and had a strange texture that was impossible to replicate with local thistle-wheat fibers. It wasn’t just instinct; everything about the old man and his wondrous, narrow mansion left Khazmine with more unanswered questions than she felt comfortable tolerating.

How did the marquis cure the fetch-and-carry’s wounds so quickly? Did little Ellory have healing abilities? Looking down at her own limbs, Khazmine raised a brow at the injuries that were nothing but a memory now. Not even dark bruises remained from Hallem’s sword strike or the outcast’s injured leg. Did it have something to do with that crystal shard in his strange device?

And those voices…

The marquis had detailed the “side effects” of his special treatment, but that only confused Khazmine further. All the outcast had understood from Rowyn’s overly-complicated rambling was that he was some sort of scholar—a “scientist,” as he called it—who specialized in non-magical medical research. Alas, while Khazmine was at least literate, that was the extent of her education, and she failed to follow the marquis’s explanation. Frankly, it was already a miracle that Khazmine could read to begin with, so she didn’t fault herself too much for not understanding everything the marquis had said.

Khazmine understood all she really needed to hear anyway—this Banebury fellow could help. Granted, he was a decidedly strange individual, but Rowyn was at least interested in offering aid to the half-breed’s dying family. There were no guarantees that private healers or the Holloworth Hospital would deign to turn Khazmine’s way, and they’d likely ask for a debutante’s dowry in gold stags for even looking at Pavo. All things considered; Marquis Banebury’s request was a fraction of such a fortune by Khazmine’s estimation.

All he wanted in exchange for looking at poor Pavo was a little “night work” from the agile cut purse.

So be it. If this is what Master Rowyn wants, then there’s no point second-guessing it now.

Assuming the marquis’s directions were accurate, Khazmine had two possible targets for her quarry—the manor houses of Lords Skelfrig and Farthing. House Skelfrig consisted of landlords who held dominion over the arable land outside of Old Sarzonn and handled the vast majority of crops grown for the city. Meanwhile, House Farthing was involved in trade goods and mercantile businesses. Considering the outcast’s less-than-stellar experience with each distinguished house, it was down to a coin toss whether to go with either choice. Khazmine fondled a silver doe in her hand and prepared to let fate decide.

Before she could flip her coin, a ripple in the shadows below caught Khazmine’s attention. Sharp Outsider ears tensed at the timid footsteps of a young man trembling near a break between guard posts, and the outcast hunched to get a better look at him. The poor creature was clearly an abused fetch-and-carry, bearing the marks of his master’s displeasure, and drenched from the recent deluge that slicked Khazmine’s rooftops. He was too agitated and his ears too swollen to hear the approach of footsteps in the distance. The scraggly man motioned forward, and was just about to lunge into the light to make for the gap between walls when—

BANG!

“Oh, aye! What in blazes was that?” one half of a nearby wandering guard pair jolted at the sound of metal on metal. His other half lowered a spiked polearm and readied to investigate the reverberating clatter. The two guards shambled off in their fine armor, barely missing the tattered man cowering in his hiding place. With their attention diverted to a metallic garbage skip in a shadowy back-alley, the guards failed to notice the confused fetch-and-carry skulk away, back into the darkness.

Up on high, the outcast grinned at her ploy. A hint of ether and a technique taught to her by Major Barshaw was all Khazmine needed to secure the young servant’s safety. Sure, it had cost her a silver doe, but this man was about to be caught after curfew by those guards, and almost certainly beaten for his folly. The satisfaction of scaring the daylights out of these Holloworth goons was a welcome bonus that lifted Khazmine’s mood tremendously.

Now one coin lighter and keen to abandon fate’s influence altogether, Khazmine opted for the more geographically convenient of the targets—Lord Farthing’s gaudy mansion on Capstone Hill. The outcast scuttled deftly among the darkened recesses between obstacles, meandering to the southwestern end of the manor house. Khazmine climbed up to an undefended second story window and made her way indoors without making a sound.

Ew. Khazmine scoffed at the room’s interior where she’d snuck in. Lavish textiles and shiny baubles cluttered the space, making it difficult to navigate around in the dark. All flash and no substance, the word the outcast was looking for to describe this monument of luxury was “glamorous,” though “unsightly” was a fair descriptor, too.

Farthing must have more stags than sense, it seems…

Nothing in the room was small enough to steal, and Khazmine’s mission was far more pressing anyway. She’d need every pocket at her disposal for this ambitious heist and had no time for browsing. The outcast waited by the door for all sounds in the hallway to diminish before sneaking around the mansion in search of an infirmary.

Tension hung in the air as Khazmine made her way through each available door. There always seemed to be some servant or other gadding about the halls, and the outcast had almost been found out twice already. Finally, after a dozen or so dead ends, Khazmine found exactly what she was looking for.

The back wall shelving unit was loaded from top to bottom and there stood a proud line of glass bottles filled to their brims with potent healing salves and foreign liquids. Khazmine glanced at a scrap of oil cloth Marquis Banebury had given her and tried to match the symbols to those on the dimly-lit bottles. It should have come as no surprise that the outcast’s plunder were the only ones in Farthing’s inventory that had a faint, electric-blue glow.

Gotcha! Khazmine grinned broadly as her gloved fingers wrapped around the first bottle. Into a spacious pocket it went, followed by all that was lined up behind it. The outcast fought off euphoria that threatened to engulf her as each pocket grew heavier with liquid treasure. Five, no, SIX. Six bottles, can you BELIEVE it?

The outcast was so caught up in the warm satisfaction of reaching one step closer to curing Pavo’s illness that she failed to notice the sounds of soft footfalls approaching. A creak from the heavy infirmary door jolted Khazmine to awareness, and she dropped to the floor as quietly as she could. A tall, willowy Outsider woman in a knee-length work tunic crept into the infirmary and started rooting around in the shadows for something stowed in the hollow of a storage bench.

Unfortunately for Khazmine, her descent was anything but flawless. A small vial of antiseptic teetered on the wall shelf’s edge where the outcast had struck it on her way down, bobbling back and forth until it plummeted to the floor with a crash.

“Who’s there?” the Outsider woman whispered accusingly to the darkness. Her arms trembled fiercely and wrapped around the parcel she had liberated from its hiding place. “Come out now, or I’ll scream!”

D*mn. Khazmine silently scrunched her nose and brows before slowly ascending from her crouched position with hands raised shoulder-high. She managed a quick glance at the woman before pleading her case in a heavily accented Outsider tongue. “<Don’t, missus. I don’t want no trouble now.>”

“<Wh-who are you?>”

“<Just a poor girl, lookin’ for a break,>” Khazmine replied as she tried to edge slowly towards the door. “<I need some medicine, that’s all.>”

“<Don’t come any closer, or I’ll scream,>” the woman hissed at Khazmine with unconvincing fury. Even a child could have noticed the terror in the Outsider’s strained voice. Perhaps it was Khazmine’s unusual accent, or her black clothing, bandana, and hat that was so frightening. The marquis had said the outfit looked dashing, but the outcast thought she more closely resembled a highwayman or a brigand ready for plunder. Regardless, Khazmine inched closer to the door, until the Outsider was less than an arm’s reach away. “<I’m warning you; I’ll do it…>”

“<No, you won’t…>” Khazmine stated firmly without breaking eye contact. Only the outcast’s piercing blue eyes could be seen under her swaths of black cloth, giving Khazmine an eerie, frightening appearance. These same eyes scanned over the Outsider and spotted little details that helped fill in the gaps to this woman’s identity.

The tall, thin figure was chronically under-fed. Long, scabbed over lash marks on her forearms and calves were traces of discipline inflicted on her. Her tunic bore no adornments or finery to speak of, despite this woman’s affiliation with the garishly opulent House Farthing. A clipped ear and tattoo on the woman’s ankle finished painting the portrait of the Outsider in Khazmine’s mind.

A slave.

Khazmine took another step forward with her head bowed and stare unbroken. The slave woman flinched at the outcast’s proximity, and she hugged the secret parcel even tighter to her chest. By the looks of things, this Outsider was desperate to hold onto whatever was in the wrapped package, even risking being attacked by a thief or beaten by her master for it. Khazmine strained to figure out what could have driven this slave to endanger her miserable life on a nocturnal caper when the pieces fell into place in her mind with a start.

With a knowing smile and calm, quiet voice, Khazmine whispered what she guessed the slave woman wanted to hear.