Sonja was getting good at sleeping in a bumping carriage. Heading north back to Skyrim this time, she awoke to see both Dagny and Charos still opposite her and still awake. This carriage was at least covered, she thought. She looked out of the back in the hopes of recognising any sort of landmarks, but there was nothing. Still just rolling green hills and distant trees. Still Cyrodiil, then.

There was evidence of tears on Dagny's face, but at that moment her eyes were clear. Her large Redguard bodyguard hadn't said another word since they'd left the Imperial City. He met Sonja's gaze briefly, then looked away. Dagny coughed and wiped her nose.

"I have no idea what's going on," she said. "What's been going on. For years, it turns out. I should've . . ."

"There's no way you could've known the letters were being stolen," said Sonja, though she thought that there had to have been some way to work it out. Then she remembered how long it had been since she'd heard from her father, back in Markarth, and the thought died.

"Still," said Dagny. "I should have gone home." She looked up from her hands. "You got to tell me what's happened."

Sonja looked at Charos, who was still looking studiously out the back of the carriage.

"He won't say anything," said Dagny. Charos, indeed, didn't say anything.

"What do you want to know?" asked Sonja. She couldn't think of where to begin. Maybe if she was a Whiterun native, she thought, the words would roll right off her tongue. Or maybe if she was a Whiterun native, she would have been just as biased against Dagny as everybody else.

"Tell me what happened to Frothar," said Dagny. "And my father."

Sonja stared at her hands. There was no way she could think of to make the news sound any better. "He fell . . . it was a riding accident, they said."

"Bullcrap," said Dagny. Sonja's surprise must have reached her face, because she added, "My brother was a better rider than me. Better than our uncle used to be, even. He fell once when he was a child. Then never again."

"Your uncle, Hrongar, was kidnapped," said Sonja. "We rescued him," she hastened to add. "Someone was trying to kill him. Left him for trolls in Labyrinthian."

"Is that what happened to your arm?" asked Dagny, pointing at Sonja's shield-arm, which she was still holding stiffly in her lap. Sonja nodded. Dagny looked at her hands. "Someone's got a grudge against my family," she says. "Did you find who did it?"

"We hit a wall," said Sonja. "Brenuin, the beggar, paid some bandits to do the job."

"Brenuin? Where would he have gotten that kind of gold?" asked Dagny.

"We thought he was just a middleman," said Sonja, though she felt a flush that most of the detective work had been Aela's and Thaegoth's. "By the time we got to him, someone had tried to kill him too. He's recovering . . . somewhere safe." Sonja remembered that neither Aela nor Thaegoth had actually told her the place, arguing that the less people knew, the better.

Dagny was silent. Sonja looked at her for a time before the sight of that face creased by sadness and anger became too much for her. She glanced over at Charos, then out the back of the carriage, where a light wind was blowing in the sun. She wasn't cut out for consoling, she thought. Or this investigative turn the Companions' job appeared to have taken.

"Do you know who'd want to stop messages getting to you?" she asked.

Dagny shook her head. "It could have been weeks until I heard about father, otherwise." Her voice caught on the first word as she asked, "How did that happen?"

"He . . . he didn't sit his throne again after Frothar died. Old age, or grief took him," said Sonja.

"I knew he was old," said Dagny. "But I never thought . . ."

There was another long silence. Sonja imagined how she would feel if she received news her father had died, without her getting back to Markarth to see him. She didn't even know if he was still in the guards, or whether his drinking and proclivity for starting fights had gotten him kicked out. Time had been that was an asset in the Markarth guard, but not in these less warlike days. She shuffled her feet on the bottom of the carriage and sighed. Probably making a trip home would be the right thing to do. But probably she didn't feel like it. Probably she wouldn't.

Charos coughed. "Do you not have a younger brother?" he said in his deep resonant voice. "He would ascend the throne were you to fall, if I understand the system correctly."

"You think Nelkir is behind this?" asked Sonja, glad that somebody else had brought it up. She had never encountered Balgruuf's third child since arriving in Whiterun, but nobody spoke well of him in town, that was for sure.

Charos nodded shortly at her, but Dagny was frowning.

"He's a little creep," she said. "But I don't think he'd kill the entire family to put himself on the throne. I don't even remember him being that interested in ruling. Mostly he just pulled stupid pranks and got himself into trouble. Father yelled at him a lot."

"If you want my advice," said Charos, "you will do away with this brother as soon as you ascend to the throne of Whiterun."

"Were you hired to give advice?" asked Sonja, regretting the sharpness in her tone.

"I was hired for many things," said Charos, meeting her gaze. "I now accompany my lady free of charge."

As Sonja headed gradually northwards, Thaegoth led Mirath south, into Falkreath. He retraced his earlier steps when he had fled into Skyrim, leading his ex-colleague around to the west of the hold's capital, where the trees rose taller than anywhere else in the province.

Thaegoth spent most of the journey with his fists clenched, focussed on putting one foot in front of the other. He didn't want to turn to see if Mirath was still following, but the soft footsteps were confirmation enough. Always pattering behind him. This had been his idea, but already Thaegoth was regretting the whole operation. Maybe he would have been better off staying back in—but no. Then he would never have met Sonja.

It wasn't until they were well into Falkreath hold, actually quite near the ruins where Thaegoth had hidden the Boots of Springheel Jak, that Mirath spoke.

"So that was a front, was it not?" he asked. "For the benefit of those fine new friends of yours." Thaegoth was silent but for some grinding of his teeth, so Mirath continued. "There's got to be something else going on. Some longer job you're running. You're in contact with the local Guild. Highly provincial, I can only assume. Hard to imagine there's anything worth having in this—"

"There is no front," said Thaegoth.

"Going through the back door again?" asked Mirath, and Thaegoth did not turn to see the grin he knew would be spread across that face. That face that he'd never wanted to punch more than he did now.

"We're here," said Thaegoth, leading them just west off the road to a small stone ruin, circular and domed. The slope was shallow enough for them to climb up and Thaegoth dropped easily among the long grass in the central glade, wading over to the chest, still where it had been the last time he'd come through. Mirath hesitated above on the edge.

Thaegoth rummaged behind the chest where he had stashed the boots, quickly pulling out the package and holding it aloft.

"Open it," said Mirath, walking around the top of the ruin, closer to where a tree sprung up against the stone, rising above the limits of the rim. The dark elf rested an arm on a branch and crouched. Thaegoth sighed and was working at the string on the package when he started to hear a buzzing sound.

He looked up to see a green fuzziness forming in the trunk of the tree. There were several cracks and a humanoid figure became visible. He realised then he was staring at a creature Aela had warned him against: a spriggan.

One of its gnarled hands reached up and curled around Mirath's ankle. It pulled, sending him down onto his back in the glade. He cried out, trying to crawl away, though the spriggan's grip remained tight.

Thaegoth saw a way out then. Do nothing. Keep the boots, vanish into a new identity, let the spriggan do as it would to Mirath. Maybe he could convince Sonja to come with him, maybe head to High Rock. Always places for the mercenary-minded there, so went the reputation. And then he thought of the look that would be sure to come across her face when he told her how he'd abandoned an old comrade-in-arms, thief or not.

Thaegoth dropped the package, drew his sword, and leapt forward. His first strike did not sever the spriggan's arm, but it did cut deep enough that it released its grasp from Mirath's leg, who scrambled back and up and drew his own long knife.

Thaegoth hacked a few quick times at the spriggan, before a rush of stinging draining things in his vision forced him back.

"Would it kill you to bring a sword?" he yelled.

"I'd have brought an axe if I knew we'd be fighting gods-damned trees," returned Mirath, coming forward with his knife nonetheless, cutting ineffectively at the woody exterior of their foe. Thaegoth, realising simply waving his hand would not dispel the small creatures that were draining his energy, hewed forward, swinging near-blindly. One strike landed true enough, cutting into the spriggan's heart. It let out a sound like an exhalation of breath, and collapsed.

Mirath was breathing heavily, staring at the still body. Thaegoth sheathed his sword, picked up the package that had brought them there, and held it out to Mirath.

"Keep them," he said, which sent Thaegoth's eyebrows right up. Mirath tried and failed at affecting a casual shrug. "I'll tell them you fell down a ravine or something. Seems like the sort of country to have lots of them."

Thaegoth looked down, then shook his head, thrusting the boots into Mirath's chest and letting go, forcing the latter to catch them.

"You got what you came for," said Thaegoth, turning towards the narrow passage that would take him outside the ruins. He couldn't find the energy for climbing back up the way they'd come in. And he certainly wasn't trusting that tree enough to climb it.

He was most of the way through the doorway before he heard Mirath's voice. This time, he turned.

"What kind of life is it?" he asked. "Being a Companion, I mean."

"I don't know," said Thaegoth, feeling very tired. "I haven't been at it that long. But . . . solving things, helping people, it's . . . like nothing else. The feeling through your bones, walking through a town where people smile at you rather than look away."

Mirath was silent, looking at the package in his hands. Thaegoth lingered for a moment, some old faint hope rising in his chest. But Mirath said nothing.

"Safe journey," murmured Thaegoth. He turned and left the ruin. All the way back to Whiterun, he kept checking over his shoulder.