To be honest, Leonard had been to Druce's city house before, a few years back. Which was to say, he'd broken in, just to see if he could, had a good rummage around the man's office, sadly not finding anything too incriminating, and stolen a pricey piece of jewelry and a pricier bottle of wine.
He still remembered the taste of that wine whenever he was unfortunate enough to cross paths with the man, and it helped him keep his tongue. Mostly. Even though he'd shared the bottle with Mick, who'd consumed the lion's share of it.
Len supposed he was just a touch annoyed, professionally, that he hadn't found any entrance to an underground complex then. But really, he hadn't been looking for one. He'd hoped for some sort of incriminating something, sure, but cults and their dead leaders hadn't entered into it.
The world, as always, was strange.
He walked in at the gate, Sara at his side, both of them in dark and nondescript leathers, no weapons visible. Two guards tried to stop them, but they didn't get so much as a blow in. Sara left them both lying on the ground, moaning, and the two Guild leaders kept walking.
More guards rushed out the door toward them. Leonard stopped this time, holding his hands out, as did Sara.
"Your boss will want to see me," he said casually as the guards hesitated, startled by his unexpected action. "Trust me. And her, too."
His smile grew. "I have…a bargain…for him."
Leonard had been right. (Though Sara had no intention of telling him that yet.) Faced with a thief offering one of the things he wanted the most, Druce, even while laying low, couldn't resist. And rather than emerge from his hidey hole with his purloined prince and his dead warlord, he chose to have the thief and the assassin brought to him.
The guard blindfolded them both, but Sara had an assassin's senses, and she knew Leonard's were no less keen. They both stayed silent as the guards guided them into the depths, down stairways and through corridors, finally coming into a room that echoed with their footsteps and contained the sound of only one other person breathing.
Sara was staring right at Druce when her blindfold was removed, and she was rewarded with an actual flinch when her cold eyes met his. The Council leader recovered quickly, stepping back, but Sara kept her eyes on his even as Leonard tilted his own head from side to side as his blindfold was removed.
"Ah," the thief said, as casually as if he was meeting Druce at an eatery on a city street. "There you are, Druce. I get it, I really do, but that was a little more complicated than I expected."
The other man, visibly annoyed at Leonard's flippancy, raised his chin. "Thief," he said with a note of disgust tinged with curiosity. "You said you had…a bargain."
Leonard smirked at him. "I do." He glanced around a bit. "However. I'm curious too. Where is he?"
Druce curled his lip. "What is it you think you have that I want?"
Leonard's expression was unimpressed. "Answer my question," he drawled in Druce's face. "And I'll answer yours."
It was rather amusing to see the pompous Council leader struggle with his annoyance versus his desire to get what Len presumably had. After a moment, he jerked his head in an irritated nod, taking a step back and to the side, eyes on them.
"You have what I want," he said directly, flicking back and forth between them. It wasn't quite a question. "Show me."
Leonard inclined his head, and then suddenly flourished the dark ruby, holding it up so the light caught it. But even as Druce stepped forward again, eyes fixed on it, Len brought forth the blue Oculus stone, wrapped in his other hand.
"Ah, ah," he said. "I do have the means to destroy this thing. Do you think I'd be that careless?"
Druce dragged his eyes away to stare at the blue stone, eyes widening in realization and fear…and greed. "How…"
"Thief. Remember?" Leonard smirked at him. "I know my business. As does the assassin here." He tilted his head toward Sara, who kept her face still and her eyes cold. "Anyway. I want to see. Show me. Then we can deal."
Druce stared at them, then seemed to recollect himself. He took one more step backward, then another, and Leonard and Sara followed him, drawing farther away from the pair of guards who'd brought them there.
"How did you figure it out?" Druce asked, tone cold as they moved through a corridor, toward a room that seemed even bigger and more open.
Len snorted. "Your attackers in the street? The one still standing ran for the cult of Savage. From there, not so hard."
Druce rather obviously hadn't quite figured that. He paused, staring at them, then shook his head.
"Come," he said curtly, stepping back into the room. "If you must see."
Savage was there. Or, his body was. Sara took in the form of the man, dark-haired, with what she (with a good amount of experience in such things) considered a cruel mouth and ego in his very posture, even considering that he was quite dead. The preservation field kept the warlord's corpse pristine, but Sara couldn't help a surge of disgust she kept from showing.
Leonard studied the body clinically, as if he was, indeed, simply curious.
"Why?" he asked Druce, as if asking the time of day.
No evil mastermind can ever truly resist explaining his plan, and Druce was no exception. "Hunter is weak," he shot back. "For all his so-called diplomacy, the Thanagarians are beasts. They will attack, one of these days, and we need to be ready. Better yet, we need to attack first!"
Len looked unimpressed.
"Ah yes. And take all their lovely, lovely land," he drawled. "And their mines. Yeah, I'm sure. Anyway…" He turned away, presenting his back to Druce in clear insult. The other man's eyes narrowed, but he couldn't miss that Sara was still watching him—and was, at least, smart enough to know she was a danger even with no apparent weapons. "…let's deal."
Len sauntered back to the first room they'd been in, slower this time, and Druce had no choice but to follow. Sara kept her eyes on him, pacing him, and was gratified to see how the man watched her warily. Still, he gave her no clues to the prince's location, no glancing toward any particular doors or other such gestures, and that unsettled her.
Len reached the other room first and turned, folding his arms, every bit like he was the one in control here. The guards were gone, which Sara found very interesting. Druce seemed to want witnesses to this less than he wanted that measure of safety—and apparently, he really did think Sara and Len were only out for themselves. In that case, they'd have no reason to kill him as long as he met their price.
Leonard lifted his chin. "I have the stone," he told Druce. "You want the stone. I daresay you need the stone. Ready to deal?"
Druce stared back, disgust warring with greed on his face. But he hesitated, and that sent a ripple of alarm along Sara's nerves. She moved toward Leonard with alacrity, threat in her posture—but that didn't seem to be what was distracting Druce.
The Council head nodded to himself then. "The other stone. The blue one. Do you know what that thing is? What it can do?" he asked, uneasiness and avarice in his voice.
Leonard lifted an eyebrow at him. The truth was, Wells had given them some information about the Oculus stone, but Druce seemed to have more, or to think he did. "Do tell."
Druce's mouth tightened in what seemed, to Sara, to be frustration and anger, but it wasn't actually directed at them this time.
"Jurgens was a member of my line," he said sharply. "That should belong to me. Do you know the power…" He shook his head roughly. "No, of course you don't. You're no more intelligent than your predecessors, for all you seem to have a certain cleverness."
Sara, who ignored the muttered words, could feel Leonard restraining the urge to bristle beside her. Any false humbleness on the part of them both aside, Druce's words were so far off the mark as to be comical—but his comment about Jurgens, that was something they hadn't known.
For the first time, she felt a breeze, even so far below the ground, tickle her neck.
Leonard eyed Druce. "Why," he drawled, letting a little bit of his annoyance enter his voice, "don't you tell me?"
The older man just couldn't resist the urge to hold forth. "That stone, that Oculus," he said, starting to pace. "You're right that it could destroy the adamant gem. One of the few things that could. But if Jurgens' writings are correct, it also can be used to control time itself. Not," he added quickly, turning, finally realizing that he was perhaps giving them information that wouldn't help his cause, "in your hands. Only I know how to use it. Only I can use it correctly, to pull time back into the shape it should be."
Something about Druce's voice and his expression had every one of Sara's nerves on edge. The man truly believed what he was saying, that was clear. And she'd already decided she never, ever wanted to see a world in which Zaman Druce said how things should be.
She could kill him. Easily.
But they still didn't know where Jonas was.
Leonard was almost certainly feeling the same unease, but he concealed it well. "Yeah, well," he said nonchalantly, "I can still use it for the first purpose, if I need to. So perhaps we need to get this deal done so we can all move on with our lives."
Druce frowned at him. "I want them both," he said. "Both stones. That's the deal. Name your price."
Leonard named a number so quickly that Sara, without knowing what she did, never would have guessed that he'd been taken by surprise. They hadn't expected Druce to know what the Oculus stone was, let alone more about it than they did.
It was a high number. Absurdly high, really. High enough that there should be no way even Druce could mobilize that kind of funds so quickly. Which was, she thought, rather the point.
The man hesitated. Then he quickly named a lower number—not so much lower as Sara had expected, really, but low enough that Leonard started to sneer at him.
But then Druce spoke again. And he offered them just what they wanted.
"And the boy. The prince. You can take him, too. He will fetch a fine price—either ransom him back to his father or reap the rewards if you return him," Druce said with a shrug. "By noon tomorrow, it will be a moot point anyway. Or keep him, if you wish. With the Oculus, I'll have no reason to be worried about him."
The breeze, which really shouldn't have been there, stirred Sara's hair, but she didn't move, watching Leonard, whose expression was opaque. Then the thief nodded.
"I want to have the kid in my hands before I trade anything," he warned. "And he better be in good condition."
Druce seemed, if anything, pleased at the response. He lifted his voice, calling, and two guards appeared, from down a corridor that'd been obscured by a wide pillar. Druce issued orders crisply, and the men both nodded and vanished, one back down the corridor, the other past them and back the way Sara was pretty sure they'd come the first time.
There then followed an awkward time in which Druce tried to look like he wasn't dealing with a thief and assassin, and Leonard inspected the room they were in as if he owned it. Sara kept her eyes on Druce, the better to unnerve him, while the faint breeze whistled very faintly in her ears.
The second man returned first, holding out both a bag and a folder to Druce. The Council leader inspected them both, then nodded and eyed Len.
"This holds a portion of the sum in gemstones," he said, holding up the bag. "And this…" He nodded to the folder. "…holds the remaining portion in orders for banks out-kingdom. I presume that…" His lip curled again. "…you'll want to leave as soon as you can, given your actions."
Sara, who knew even after a short time how very much Leonard A'Centralis loved his city, saw the look that flew over Len's face, but it was apparently too subtle for Druce, who wouldn't understand anyway. He didn't say anything, and they continued to wait.
They heard Jonas before they saw him, showing the command of invective beyond his years that he'd shown in Druce's message. The harried-looking guard marched the angry boy into the room at the end of a knife, something that made Len physically twitch, although Druce, fortunately, was also watching the boy and didn't see it. (The breeze intensified.)
"Still the same guttersnipe trash that your father is, despite his current, temporary station," the Council head said, the sneer in his voice. "And your grandfather was as well, despite his once-noble line. Ah, well. That shall be remedied soon."
Jonas glared at him, then flicked a curious glance at Len and Sara. Len kept his face impassive, although Sara could see what an effort it took him to do that, and she prayed fervently that Jonas wouldn't find a way to spoil this setup.
But the boy was bright, as well as brave. He turned his gaze back to Druce, opened his mouth, then closed it, continuing to glare.
Druce looked back at Sara and Leonard, waving a hand at the prince. "There. Is the payment sufficient?"
Leonard studied the boy clinically, then held out his hand for the bag and folder. Druce clearly didn't want to hand them over but knew perfectly well that the thief wasn't going to trade without knowing the value of what he held. He handed Len the bag of gemstones first, looking uncomfortable while the thief inspected them, then the folder. Len took longer to go through that, but it seemed unlikely that Druce would expect anything less. He waited, as did Sara. And it gave her a few moments to think about something she hadn't considered until now, although she'd bet Len had.
The plan had been to give Druce the adamant ruby, then for Leonard to arm and throw the Oculus stone in the complex as they left, giving them some time to get out of there. Harry hadn't been fully aware if the stone's effects would be purely physical or more…esoteric, but he'd said they'd have time to get away.
But that had been before they realized that Druce knew what the stone was. And beyond that, that he knew more about it than even the head of the Mages Guild and could very possibly deactivate it…and use it for entirely worse things than what they'd planned.
They couldn't let him have it. They couldn't even remotely risk that.
Sara took a quiet breath, shifting a little to feel the dagger in her underarm sheath. Druce glanced at her, and she opened her mouth…
But it was too late.
"OK," Len said abruptly, closing the folder. He looked at Druce, who looked away from Sara. "I'm going to give the bag and these papers to the boy. And then Sara will take him and start to leave. And I'll give you the items."
"Leonard," Sara said.
He didn't look at her. Neither did Druce.
"Fine," the Council head said coldly after a pause. He must have realized that they weren't dependent on him to get out of here.
Jonas took the items Len gave him and took a few hesitant steps toward Sara, who took his hand and pulled him near.
"Leonard," she said again, a horrible realization starting in her heart, even as she took a step backward, toward the corridor out.
"Go," Len told her, without looking.
"Master Thief," Druce told him sharply, "produce the items!"
"Leonard!"
Len gestured, and he had a stone in each hand again, pulled from wherever on his person he'd had them hidden. The ruby in his left, the blue Oculus in his right.
Druce smiled, an eager, evil expression. "Yes," he hissed, reaching toward the stones.
Leonard tossed the ruby toward Druce, smirking as the man bobbled it before catching it. Then he looked down at the blue stone, tightening his fingers around it.
"Sara," he said. "Get going."
She took another step back, pushing Jonas behind her. The boy wouldn't know how to get out of here without her, she was going to have…
"You have just enough magic to prime it," Harry had told him. "It doesn't matter which kind. Just do…this."
And the Oculus started to glow blue. Leonard didn't let go.
Druce's eyes widened, and he finally realized that this wasn't going to go at all according to his plans. Leonard raised the stone above his head then looked over his shoulder at Sara.
"Get him out of here!" he yelled.
Sara stared back, feeling tears in her eyes. "No!" she yelled in return, even while knowing she had to…she had to.
"Just do it!"
Druce grabbed his arm, getting a hand on the blue stone, and Sara could see the light begin to change, intensifying. There was an odd pressure in the air, and Jonas cried out.
Sara, hating herself, grabbed the boy and ran. Down the corridors, up the stairs, even as guards pushed past her on their way down to the subterranean complex. A noise had started behind her, or maybe it was just a feeling, a shock wave, the end of the world.
As they emerged from the house, they ran right into Harrison and Mick, as Kendra and Carter swooped down to claim Jonas. The mage seemed to know from the look on Sara's face what had happened, or maybe he'd figured it all out from Zari's eavesdropping. At any rate, he promptly turned and began hauling Mick backward, even as the big man (who was supposed to still be at the Thieves Guild hall) struggled against him.
Sara waited to be sure that no one was going to try to do that to her, then turned, ready to run back in.
The blast knocked her right off her feet.
After the dust had cleared, a team of mages and artificers helped make sure things were stable so a group of healers and other would-be rescuers and investigators could venture into what remained of Druce's city house.
Fortunately, the former Council head had only kept a skeleton staff on, to help sell the illusion that he was with the others at now-former Lord General Declan's property, and most of the bodies found were cult members and turncoat soldiers and guardsmen.
Sara insisted on being part of those who went down to the basement, even though, on some level, she knew what she'd find—or not find. So did Mick.
They found the complex, and a hidden office with much of Druce's correspondence, plotting insurrection, war, and regicide.
They found Savage's body, no longer under a preservation spell and really quite thoroughly deceased.
They found a cracked, dark, shattered ruby.
Druce was gone.
And so was Leonard.