“<Do you want to be free?>” Khazmine whispered soft and low, with a reassuring tone. “<I can sneak you out of here, if you wish…>”

“<What? How can I believe you? You're a thief.>”

“<Not by preference, missus,>” Khazmine confessed as she lowered her hands. “<I have a little boy back home. He's sick, and I have no other way…no choice at all… If you let me go, I'll help you get out of here. Please, missus, I just want to get home to my boy…>”

A twitch in the woman's lips grew as she contemplated the tempting offer. Her eyes traced the outcast's carefully to assess Khazmine’s sincerity before her gaze lowered to the floor. The willowy slave stuck out her tattooed ankle for Khazmine to see, and she muttered her defeated reply. “<I-I can’t. I can’t leave the property. It’s  the warding, you see…>”

Now the tattoo made even more sense to Khazmine. In addition to marking a person as “property,” the sigils could be “keyed” to stay within certain boundaries. So long as this slave had the mark of her master’s house, she was effectively confined to the grounds.

The outcast frowned at the disappointing realization. Dominion magic was outside of Khazmine’s abilities, and she knew of no one even among the Solanai who could bond or free slaves. It was a rare—and therefore, expensive—ability to use, so Lord Farthing must have spent a tidy sum to ensure that his slaves couldn’t leave. Short of Lord Farthing dying, or releasing his slaves on his own, there was no hope of escape.

Khazmine bit her lip from behind her bandana and sighed. “<Then I am sorry, missus… Truly.>”

This poor woman’s trouble was more than the outcast could handle at the moment, and Khazmine was at a loss for how to help. The slave woman hugged her parcel once more before loosening her grip on it. Trembling hands offered the package to Khazmine, who detected the weight of small vials wrapped in cloth, and what felt like a loaf of sweet thistle-wheat bread within.

“<Could you… Could you leave this by the southwest gate house when you go?>” The slave’s voice faltered anew at placing trust in some sneak thief who would steal from her master. “<I would do it myself, but…>”

And now the slave’s lash marks made sense, too. This woman was likely caught several times in the past and hadn’t gained any significant skill in stealth since her last round of “punishment.”

Without a word, Khazmine wedged the parcel into her tucked-in shirt that was under the black vest, as the outcast would need both hands to climb. Khazmine fished around in her small vest pocket for a scrap of paper and finally broke the silence.

“<You want any message with it, or leave it as is?>” Khazmine asked as she discovered the parchment scrap had soaked up too much moisture from the earlier rains to be written on.

“<No message…>” the slave woman replied. “<I can’t risk being found out...>”

“<Understood,>” Khazmine replied with a nod and made for the door. The outcast briefly turned back to bid the slave woman farewell with as much sympathy as she could muster. “<I really am sorry. Perhaps, someday…>”

The outcast’s footfalls landed noiselessly in the night, leaving Khazmine to listen to her troubled inner thoughts and banging heartbeat ring in her ears. She made a note to memorize the terrain as much as possible, in hopes of coming back this way again.

It was an easy distance from the southwestern window of Lord Farthing’s manor to the desired drop-off for the slave woman’s parcel. Patrolling guards rarely strayed this far into the grounds, leaving the outcast largely alone. Khazmine slinked around a decorative column and stopped short once she overheard a rustling sound near the post.

“Cerys? Is that you?” The scraggly man who’d tried to sneak through the guard posts earlier made his presence known, and Khazmine homed in on his location without difficulty. “I know you said to wait, my love, but—”

“Please, sir, save your sweetness,” Khazmine muttered to quiet this stranger’s enthusiasm. The outcast slid the parcel along the damp ground, which prompted the beleaguered servant to snatch it on the spot. “She sent me instead.”

“She did? Wh-what happened? Is Cerys hurt?”

“I saw no fresh wounds, sir,” Khazmine admitted, sighing in relief at not having to lie.

“Can you tell me… Does she still want me to wait?” The ragged man clutched his parcel as if his very life depended on the outcast’s response, putting Khazmine in an uncomfortable position.

“She risked discovery to have that delivered. That’s all I know,” Khazmine replied through a frown. It was dangerous to fill a man with false hopes, but equally problematic to leave him in despair. “She wants to leave the manor house… to be free.”

A soft crinkle from the parcel and a sniffling nose was all Khazmine could hear from her hiding place. Was that enough of an answer for him?

“Then I won’t give up either. Thank you…”

Heavy footfalls displaced puddles as the broad-shouldered servant man shambled away into the night. The outcast managed to peek behind her column and get a better look at the ragged man and confirmed her suspicions from earlier.

A human.

It was frowned upon for a human and an Outsider to form an attachment, as Khazmine knew, all too well. She couldn’t imagine the hardship of falling for someone the world deemed “unsuitable,” and tamped down the wellspring of emotions that reminded the half-breed of her own star-crossed parents.

Whatever the consequences, Khazmine had honored her promise, and tried not to dwell on the details. Unaware of the underlying situation, the outcast had set into motion events that she couldn’t possibly foresee or understand. Only time would tell whether it would bring salvation…or ruin.

---

Rhythmic, agitated sounds of armored pacing reverberated in the healer’s hovel as Jaycen Mevralls continued his full-dark watch. Seated at a nearby desk lit by a single candle on a cheap brass stand, Rida’s hands shook as he tried to place a glass lid over a particularly difficult specimen disc. The weary healer gave a deep sigh before giving up on the disc and breaking the concert of percussive noises.

“Jaycen, please, you’ll wear a hole in the mat,” Rida groaned. “We knew it might be late when she got back. Have a little patience.”

“I knew this plan was foolish,” Jaycen chided before stopping to run both hands over his face and push back his hair. “What if she’s found out, or captured, or worse?”

“It’ll be fine,” Rida insisted. “Look at me. I’m not a bit worried.”

Jaycen scoffed at the southerner’s nonchalance. It was easy for him to be so carefree; Rida didn’t have a stake in Khazmine’s welfare, but the lieutenant…

A bevy of worrisome thoughts rushed to Jaycen’s mind as he shifted weight in place from foot to foot like a teetering statue. Even if he left now for the white gates, the gate master wouldn’t admit the Solanai warrior unless it was a “real” emergency. It would take a fire, flood, or outbreak of some horrid circumstance to get those gates open after full-dark. Anyone could leave Holloworth after curfew, but Jaycen was helpless to enter, and no amount of fretful pacing would change that. A light went off behind his viridian eyes as the lieutenant landed on an idea.

“Oh-no-no. Don’t even think about it, mister,” Rida scolded, rising from his fruitless task. “If you get caught, that’s jail time. I mean it. No ether spikes are allowed in Holloworth. You know that…”

“If I get caught,” Jaycen pressed. “I haven’t been idle, you know. Her training’s given me a chance to extend the range of them. I bet I could—”

Both men stopped dead at the sound of the front door creaking open. Rida had left it unlocked in anticipation of Khazmine’s arrival hours ago, and they’d each forgotten about it. Jaycen’s hackles went up immediately, and all traces of worry and fear seeped out of him in a flash. His immense hand gestured for Rida to stay back, and the southerner fearfully grabbed onto a dusty fireplace poker as an emergency bludgeon. The healer crept towards the chamber door just in time to hear Jaycen call out.

“Khazmine!” Jaycen bellowed as he scooped up the startled outcast into a bracing hug, knocking off her hat and silver wig as he did so. “Where have you been? We were worried about you.”

“I knew you’d be fine,” Rida replied with his best attempt at sounding unbothered. The southerner stuffed his weapon into the sword rack near the entryway, much to the outcast’s visible confusion. “So, how did it go? You kept us up this late, and I want details, young miss.”

“You waited up for me? But it’s so late,” Khazmine croaked from Jaycen’s pincer-like grip. The burly lieutenant lowered the outcast until her feet grazed the floor, only then releasing her from his clutches.

“Well, I couldn’t sleep even if I’d tried,” Rida teased. “This rowdy raddilbak kept stomping around, wondering when you’d return. He was a half a minute away from—”

“Hush, <Dorian>. Just leave it be,” Jaycen interrupted. “None of that matters now that she’s back. Did you…did you have any luck?”

Khazmine bit her bottom lip to contain her excitement. Her eyes met Jaycen’s and Rida’s in turn, until the outcast could contain her joy no longer. A handsome, toothy grin filled both men with relief as Khazmine confirmed their hopes. “Yes, I daresay I did.”

“Go on, go on!” Rida urged, with excitement filling his golden eyes anew. “Was it the hospital?”

“No, I never made it up there,” Khazmine admitted. “I, uh, had a run-in with some drunken son of a local lord and ended up helping an injured boy…” The outcast explained the details of her adventure as Rida’s single candle dripped wax  and flickered in the night, shrinking all the while. “And we ended up at the marquis’s house, where he—”

“Whose house, miss?” Rida asked, to Jaycen’s confusion. The healer had permitted Khazmine to explain without interruption until this point, not even scolding the half-breed for “casting from flesh.” Yet this minor detail stuck in the southerner’s craw.

“Oh, Marquis Banebury's house,” Khazmine added. “He has a narrow building called Banebury Hall, filled with all sorts of ingenious machines and—” The outcast’s voice trailed off as she recognized the look of horror on the healer’s face.

“Banebury Hall…” Rida echoed. “You went inside?”

“Of course, and the marquis said he would be willing to help, for a price.”

Rida strode silently to peek through the door where Aranthus and Pavo were sleeping soundly in the next room. The healer tugged it shut and walked back to where his fellow stay-up-lates were gathered, looking to Jaycen for insight. The Solanai had none to give, having not experienced much of Holloworth since his arrived. Jaycen didn’t know, couldn’t know, about the strange old man and his mechanical devices. Rida rubbed his thumb and index finger against the corners of his mouth to tug away the uncomfortable sensation before replying.

“It pains me to inform you…that Marquis Banebury is not a viable option for Pavo.” Rida crossed his arms in front of him, mostly to keep his fidgeting fingers from being seen. “He’s a strange old man who runs all kinds of weird experiments and tinkers with—”

“Like you?” Khazmine interrupted. Even Jaycen was taken aback by how forceful the outcast’s rebuttal became. Khazmine gestured at Rida with an outstretched arm and waved a pointed finger at him accusingly. “You’re a healer, yes? And you run experiments with those, those specimen discs, yeah? What’s the difference?”

“It is different, miss,” Rida struggled to explain. “I use healing magic to help people recover from injuries. The marquis, he, he does things that are…unnatural. At least, so I’ve heard.”

“So, you don’t even know for sure?” Jaycen interjected, taking the outcast’s side. “<Dorian>, come on. You know better than to place faith in rumors.”

“It’s not just rumors, I tell you!” Rida’s voice cracked at his sincere pleas as he looked to Jaycen and Khazmine for understanding. “He’s a weirdo, a charlatan, he’s, he’s not like us!”

Khazmine’s expression curdled on the spot. She liked Rida, and had come to respect him, but this stance was intolerable. Not only had he resisted the outcast’s mission to explore Holloworth to begin with, but now Rida wanted to abandon the most promising lead that Khazmine could have hoped for.

Rida couldn’t help. The hospital wouldn’t help. And Lord Vythorne of the holy house would certainly destroy them both if he found a wild magician in the arms of a Deceiver. This was the only option—they had no choice. Tears welled up in Khazmine’s eyes as she strained to keep herself composed. In times of trouble, was there truly no one else who would save a little orphan boy and spare him a painful death?

Leather gloves creaked as the outcast clenched her hands into tight fists. It took every ounce of restraint she had not to scream in the healer’s face. Instead, Khazmine took a deep breath, tamped down her sorrow, and asked Rida the one question he had no proper answer for.