A/N: TGIF. I just had not quite the week from hell, but definitely the week from purgatory. Oof. Anyway, as much fun as it is to make everyone chuckle, this story is winding down; anyone paying attention back at the beginning (either in chapter 1 or 2, I think) would have noticed I said it has 17 chapters total. This one has a tad more politicking and some sorcery I invented that I'm actually rather proud of. Also the usual smart-ass remarks. I like those. Enjoy, and drop me a line.

Disclaimer: not my characters, world, or quote. It is my spell though, and I like it.

Chapter 14

"Your job is to find better ideas, mine is to cut holes in the ones you have…"

Steven Brust's Iorich pg. 235

Unfortunately, one of the problems with going to bed fully clothed is that you then wake up fully clothed. And that just feels gross. It felt even more gross than usual since I was covered in dried blood and sweat too. That particular outfit was totally shot, especially the white bits.

Step one of the day: shower, get clean clothing, change the bedsheets. Step two of getting some food was severely delayed when I rediscovered the fact that I had no food in the apartment; sleeping had kind of knocked that revelation out of my head. The bread and cheese I'd run off with the afternoon before I'd gotten myself killed had been the last of it.

Muttering curses, I left the apartment and wandered down the street to a stand where I could buy some fresh pastries with meat baked inside them. I ate more than I usually would have; my body was burning extra calories as the spells worked on me yesterday continued to fix up bits of me that were broken. The good news was, I felt much better than I had yesterday. The bad news was, I still ached. A lot.

Breakfast finished, I teleported to the office and this time actually made it up the stairs. The entire time, the flowershop owner continued muttering about men and rampant stupidity. It made me snicker. As a result, I walked into Wufei's office grinning a bit.

"You're feeling better," Wufei remarked, looking up from his paperwork.

"Oddly enough, a good night's sleep tends to do that." I sat on the extra chair since I didn't feel like standing for extended periods of time was a good plan. And I'd made it up the stairs so I needed a rest break. "What's the word on the street? And in the palace?"

"It's only been one day. This may not be representative." Wufei sat back and stared at the wall. "But so far nothing has gotten out of control. I'll start with the palace, because that is the more relevant set of news. Heero's story of contracted outside help and assurances that this is the end of the problem seem to have carried enough weight to stop any sort of group action before it started."

I leaned back against my chair. "I think you spent too much time talking to the diplomat, 'Fei."

He ignored me. "Basically, there are no signs that any of the other houses are going to attack the Jhereg. They seem to be viewing the assassination attempt as someone's personal grudge that has now been taken care of." Wufei almost quirked a smile, which immediately made me suspicious. "Were you aware that Quatre is the Issola heir?"

"Wait, what?" I sat bold upright, winced, and settled back. "Are you saying we just conspired to foil an assassination attempt with the next Issola emperor?" I shook my head. "I don't think I have the words."

Wufei snorted. "Mark down the date." I flipped him off. "Anyway, Quatre's involvement also helped stop any panic before it started, especially with the nobles."

I rubbed at my face with my hand. "So basically, Heero shut the guard up and Quatre shut the nobles up and now everybody's happy."

"Basically, yes."

"Oh good. So what's the street situation?"

Wufei shuffled some papers. I still haven't figure out if he's looking for notes he wrote when he does that, or if he just likes to shuffle papers. "Zechs was discovered with a dagger through his head in a warehouse early this morning. Apparently someone anonymously tipped off the local constables so they would investigate."

Not me, which meant it was Wufei. I nodded. Having killed the man would send a message to his employer, and the message was useless if no one found the body. It would send a message to my employer too. Hopefully that one wouldn't be 'Hire me again!' and would be closer to 'I'm done, so fuck off!'. Either way, the body being found was good for business.

"Some version of events has trickled down onto the street," Wufei continued. "No one has quite put all the pieces together yet, but there are rumors that Zechs was killed by an assassination attempt that went south and separate rumors that someone attacked the Empress." He almost-shrugged. "If the full story is not officially out soon, the rumors will get close enough and it won't matter."

"General feeling about Zechs being dead? Are we looking at a war starting from this direction and not the other?"

"To put it simply, no one cares. I spent some time in Howard's bar listening to the gossip−"

"Mark down the date."

"Shut up, Duo. The general reaction seems to be to shrug it off. Looking at the attempt on the Empress, I overheard one man say that anyone who tries to kill the Empress is, and I quote, 'messed up in the head,' end quote. Even when people fully connect the dots, I believe they'll just shake their heads and say Zechs had it coming."

"Well that makes my life easier. This may have all worked out."

"Not quite yet. The employer is still unaccounted for, unless Trowa did manage to get the location." Wufei rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I'd rather not have this whole mess happen all over again, if possible."

I grinned. "Aren't you glad now I brought Trowa in on this at the beginning?"

"No," he said with a straight face.

I made a face at him. "You're no fun. Actually, that one's complicated. Yes, Trowa got the location. But it was that warehouse where I ended up fighting Zechs."

"So we're back at square one because you didn't wait for backup." Wufei glared at me.

I put my hands up defensively. "No, we are not. And you would have taken off after him too if you could have. I didn't know in advance that anyone besides Zechs would be at the warehouse, okay?" I waited to see if an argument was going to happen.

Apparently, Wufei decided to let it go. "So why aren't we back at square one?"

"Because I actually did see the boss before I ended up fighting for my life, and I threw a tracker at him."

"Did it take?" Wufei looked ready to forgive me for taking off on my own if my spell had worked.

"I think so. I won't know for sure until I activate it; I asked Trowa if he would help since he's probably more likely to get it on the first try. I threw one of mine at him because I figured he'd catch anything else." That spell was one of the reasons I had the rep I did for pulling off impossible jobs. A while ago I'd needed to track someone who was expert at getting rid of tracer spells. So instead of trying to use the usual spells, I made up a new one by working backwards.

Instead of sticking a beacon on the target and following the mental signal, I stuck an almost invisible spell on the target that worked like a lodestone and put the beacon on something else. The closer the beacon got to the 'label' on the target, the stronger its signal got. It had taken me a few tries to get the beacon side to work right last time, though, and I needed it to work the first time now since there was no chance of re-sticking the lodestone side on if I accidentally screwed it up.

Searching that way took longer since it was something like playing 'hot-cold' with sorcery, but no one can remove a spell they don't know to look for. And I kept that one quiet. Until now, at least.

"What are you going to do when you find him?" Wufei asked.

I smirked. "I'm not going to."

"Come again?"

"My contract was to take out Zechs. I did that. My part in this is over. The only reason I tagged the boss at all is because I'd rather not have a repeat of the nice, friendly blackmail that got us into this. I'm not going to track the boss. I'm going to hand the locator to the council and make them do it."

"And they are not going to kill you because…?"

"Because I talked to Trowa. The boss's name is Treize. Ring a bell?" It hadn't clicked with me until this morning; being dead messes with your thought processes some.

Wufei frowned a bit, thinking. "High level Jhereg, some part of that mess last year on the north side of the city." I could tell when he figured it out. "Suspected of being on the Jhereg council."

"Yup. I'm betting that one's true. Or was true. I don't know who pissed who off or how and I don't think I care. But I'm betting there was a falling out, possibly involving personal violence. Treize's version of retribution is leveling the entire house. The rest of the council tries to keep it quiet because they don't want anyone to know that a council member actually managed to leave the council with his life intact. So they hire me without telling me either who is behind the assassination attempts or that the goal of the attempts isn't actually to kill the Empress."

Wufei looked skeptical. "A plausible theory, I suppose. But why would a former council member attempt to destroy the house? I believe it would make more sense to vanish."

I shrugged. "It might have something to do with whatever the argument was in the first place. It also just might be that Treize realizes he can't get out of this alive anyway so he just wants to take everyone else with him. If there actually was a war, the first people targeted on the Jhereg side would be the council. Maybe he can't leave. Maybe he's off his rocker; he is trying to start a war."

"And any of those are possible, as are a dozen things you haven't mentioned. Are you willing to bet your life on your conclusions?"

"Of course. I'm stupid that way." Wufei looked like he wanted to bang his head on his desk. "If it makes you feel better, I'm nearly dead sure about most of it. The only things I'm not sure about are what caused the council argument, and why Treize decided to hire assassins rather than skip town. And I don't think either of those matters. Actually…" I chewed on my bottom lip for a second. "It may be better if I don't know. That way the council can't decide I'm a security threat."

Wufei eyed me and apparently decided I was going to win the stubborn contest again. "How much back up do you think we can get away with this time? And when will you contact Trowa? If you are going to get me killed, I'd rather do it sooner than later."

I almost argued about his coming along, got glared at, and gave it up as a bad job. "If you come, please stay out of sight."

"I'm not you."

"Fair point. Um. I can pick the place, so how about the Black Log? Should be easy to get some backup in there and I know where all the exits are." This time the meeting would be in my territory. "I'll contact Trowa now. If he's free, I'll ask him to do the spell now and the meeting can be around noon."

Wufei shook his head. "I'll get the enforcement in place."

"Do me a favor and do it from the office this time? Finding you in an alley again is not on my list of fun things to have happen."

"Doable. Now go away."

"Fine, fine."