When they got home, they found they had managed to miss a war.

Well, that was perhaps a slightly over-dramatic way of putting it. In the couple of weeks that they had spent getting to Whiterun and back, the ever present civil war had spilled over into the Rift. A couple of forts had changed hands, there had been some skirmishes well away from the city, and the end result was that Jarl Laila Law-Giver had gone into exile (or had gone to bewail her sorrows into Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak's ear), and the city of Riften was now ruled by Jarl Maven Black-Briar. Whether most people in the city had even noticed the change of ruler was questionable. Business went on as usual. It certainly made little difference to the Thieves Guild. Maven had all but run the city for so long anyway that it just meant the bribes got paid direct to the Jarl herself instead of lining her pockets by a more indirect route.

Mercer received Brynjolf and Mena back with a grunt, took the letter that Brynjolf had found and read it with a frown on his face. "Same symbol as at Goldenglow." He placed a finger on the paper. "We need to identify this."

"My contacts didn't recognise it." Brynjolf put the Honningbrew letter side by side with the newer one. "Handwriting's the same as well."

Mena was standing well back from the two men. Mercer looked up and frowned at her. "Something you wanted to say, girl?"

"Only that the writer's a woman."

Both men looked at her.

"And how on earth would you know that, lass?" Brynjolf looked curious.

"This." She laid a finger on the paper. "She wears a woman's bracelet on her right wrist. It's indented the vellum in two places on this letter, one on the other, where she's rested her hand while considering the next sentence. Fine chain links, too delicate for a man."

Mercer held both letters up to the light. "Not convinced. Those marks could be anything."

Mena shrugged. "As you say." She seemed disinclined to argue.

Mercer waved her away. "Go and take your stuff to Delvin and Tonilia anyway. Good work, Redguard, looks like you've brought us a decent amount of coin from that trip."

As Mena left, Mercer read through the Honningbrew letter again. "Pull up a chair, Brynjolf, and pour yourself a drink. There's mead in the jug." He had a sour smile on his face. "It would appear that our adversary, whoever she is, is trying to take us apart indirectly by angering Maven Black-Briar. Clever. Very clever. And it could so easily have worked if you and your Redguard girl hadn't found these letters."

"You sound almost admiring, Mercer. Maybe we should think about recruiting them rather than killing them if we manage to hunt them down."

Mercer snorted. "You may well jest, Brynjolf, but this is a plan that seems to have been years in the making. This is someone who is both clever and patient, and that's a dangerous combination. Just don't mistake my admiration for complacency. Our nemesis here is going to pay dearly for what she's done. Because at last she's made a mistake."

Brynjolf looked curious. "How so?"

"This." Mercer traced a finger down the letter. "We know who the contact is - Gulum-Ei in Solitude. I've been wanting an excuse to take a proper look at what that lizard's been up to for a very long time - and it seems I should have been keeping a closer eye on him. Oh, I know he's been useful, Bryn, having someone on the inside with the East Empire company was worth all the petty annoyances. But this isn't just the lizard creaming off the top of the pickings before passing them to us. This is treachery, pure and simple, and he's going to pay for it."

"Now, hold on a minute." Brynjolf held up a hand. "I can't believe that Gulum-Ei is mixed up in this. Let's face it, that idiot Argonian couldn't find his tail with both hands. I know he could scam a beggar out of his last septim, but as a criminal mastermind - it's laughable. He simply hasn't got the brains for it."

"I would tend to agree with you." Mercer refilled Brynjolf's mead cup and took a swig from his own bottle of spirit. "So he's been manipulated - but at least there's a fighting chance that the stubborn old cuss knows who he's dealing with. But getting out of him who he's been dealing with...well, that's something else."

"Do you want me to go to Solitude?"

"No, Bryn, this one I'm going to deal with myself. You'd try bribing him, and it wouldn't work, he'd take your money, send you off on a fool's errand and then lie to you when you got back. No disrespect to you, what you do for the Guild you do well. But Gulum-Ei is a different kettle of fish. As I said, I wanted to check on him anyway."

Brynjolf frowned. "Mercer, you're not thinking of a ...permanent solution there, are you?"

Mercer's mouth quirked in a one-sided smile. "I'm not going to kill him, if that's what you mean. Just going to remind him who we are. If I hang around there for a few days and keep on his tail, sooner or later he'll tread in something he can't scrape off that easily. He's been useful in the past but as you know the pickings from the East Empire Company have been slim for a while, and I may well manage to find out why while I'm there."

"Fair enough." Brynjolf stood up. "Who do you want as second? Vex?"

Mercer shook his head. "This one I'll do alone. Nothing that I'm likely to need springing from jail for there, unless our mysterious adversary turns up, and if she does, she'll have a nasty surprise waiting for her. Go rest, Brynjolf, you've earned it."

Brynjolf wandered back through to the Flagon, deep in thought. It hadn't escaped him that although Mercer had dismissed Mena's assessment that their adversary was a woman he had then referred to the unknown opponent as "she" all the way through the conversation; clearly he had paid some attention to the Redguard's analysis. And he couldn't be sorry that he wasn't about to have to trek across the country on a cart in midwinter only a day after getting home from the Whiterun job. But Mercer had always been the one who was most adamant that Guild jobs were not to be done singly, and now he was breaking his own rules.

Vex was nowhere to be seen when he entered the Flagon, nor was Tonilia, and nor was Mena. Delvin was occupying his usual table together with an older man that Brynjolf didn't recognise. Delvin beckoned. "Come and meet Herluin Lothaire, Bryn. He's an old friend of Philbert's and now that Philbert has deserted us..."

"He's what?"

"Oh, nothing dramatic. He decided he's spent enough years down here in the cold and the damp cooking up potions and poisons, he only stayed because it was completely impossible for us to get another alchemist. But now things are looking up a bit for us, he persuaded Herluin here that we weren't as much of a lost cause as people thought, and Herluin's taken over. We had to clear out an alcove in the Flagon for him though, he took one look at Philbert's corner of the Cistern and flatly refused to work there."

"I don't blame him." Brynjolf nodded to Herluin. "Welcome to the Guild. Del, at least that gives you another Breton round here to talk to."

Herluin drained his mug. "Well, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I have some brews that need attending. Brynjolf, if you have any specific requirements come and talk to me later and I'll see what I can do."

As Herluin left, Brynjolf took his seat at the table. Delvin was looking unusually smug. Brynjolf frowned. "All right, out with it, Delvin. What's got you so happy?"

"We've had a win over in the west, boss. I got a special job request come in from Markarth about ten days before you went to Whiterun, and I sent Dirge and Rune over to do it. They came back yesterday. The client was very happy. Very happy indeed. So happy, that he's now opening a lot of doors for us in Markarth. Guards looking the other way, bit of respect being shown. Partly how we got Herluin, he came with them from Markarth and he said he'd heard we were back in business. And I gather your little job in Whiterun went well on all counts too."

Brynjolf laughed. "And how would you know that, Del?"

"Well, Tonilia was purring like a cat that got the cream after she saw what Mena brought back with her. Coffers are going to be better this winter than they've been for twenty years. She and Vex and your Mena have gone out to offload some of the stuff on Riften shops, the pieces that don't need careful placing. But I got her to leave the daggers behind. Did Mena show you them?"

He frowned. "No, the lass just said that she'd taken a nice matched pair from the armorer in Whiterun. Why?"

"Take a look at them, boss. See if you recognise them."

Delvin produced a cherrywood box and opened it, inside it a pair of shimmering green glass daggers rested on a bed of black velvet. Brynjolf picked one out and balanced it on the side of his hand, it rested there with hardly a tremble. "Excellent balance. Made for a woman or an elven hand by the look of them, they're lighter than my blades." He turned it over. "Some wear on the blade itself, this has been reground at least once. Looks like Morrowind glass, it's paler than the stuff we mine here. Reminds me of the weapons they forged in Vvardenfell before the Red Mountain eruption, but probably a much later copy."

"You're not getting it, boss. Look at the hilts."

He examined the hilts. "Red leather, some wear. Hang on, these are named." He tilted them up to the light. "Left hand blade is called Memory, right hand blade is called Vengeance. And there's something else...oh..." His voice tailed off.

Delvin nodded grimly. "Yes. Both blades carry thiefsign. Memory has the sigil for betrayal, Vengeance has the sigil for death. Hand carved beside the name. Now, I ask you. Who carried twin glass daggers, specially commissioned for her by Gallus? Who knew thiefsign well enough to carve it on her blades? And who have we been hoping for years was dead and gone?"

"Karliah." In Brynjolf's soft Nord accents, the name became an obscenity.

"Karliah," Delvin agreed. "Now, Bryn, I know what you're going to say, that her daggers appearing is no proof that she's alive. For all we know, the bones of that murdering Dunmer moulder somewhere in a cave in Skyrim and some scavenger found her blades. I hope that's the case. But I don't think it is."

"Why not?"

"Because I recognised the box as well. Made for her at the same time as the daggers. A scavenger might have found her blades but she wouldn't have carried the box on her. Bryn, we have to consider the possibility that she's alive, and that she sold these in Whiterun."

"Have you told Mercer?"

"You must be joking. Given he isn't sane on the subject of that Dark Elf at the best, presenting him with proof that she's probably alive and well would be just about enough to tip him over the edge. I wouldn't trust him not to shoot the messenger."

"I hear you." Brynjolf thought for a moment. "Who else has seen these?"

"Nobody. I took them off Mena before she went to talk to Tonilia, told her I'd get them appraised elsewhere."

"Right, let's keep it that way. Mercer's off to explain a few things to Gulum-Ei, that gives us a few days to decide what to do about these." He rested his head in his hands. "Why now? Why, after all this time is that bitch surfacing?"

"Wish I knew, boss. It isn't going to be for a good reason, any way you look at it."

"Understatement, Del. Major understatement."