One-Stringed Harp

Chapter Four: Too Many Locks, Not Enough Keys

Diving to the floor turned out to be a fantastic idea, as the Elfire blast erupted from the far wall of Fletcher's hidden workshop and spewed embers in all directions. Hot splinters fell on Lucia like snow, but were rather less pleasant to brush off. The mage who had cast the spell was looking all too pleased with their helplessness, but he didn't take advantage of the opportunity to incinerate her or Calill. He flung another Elfire arbitrarily, setting racks of bows and stacks of books ablaze, then darted out the door. The lock clicked.

By the time the swordmaster had regained her sense of the floor, let alone climbed to her feet, the fire had swept around the room to engulf every bit of treated wood and dry paper it could. It was insane; no one would set their own fabulous manor blazing just to kill a couple of intruders. It was absolute madness.

As the observant reader will by now have determined, madness was to Calill what Thursday was to most other people. Sometimes it was everywhere, sometimes it wasn't, and in the long run it didn't really have any effect on what mattered, so there was no point getting worked up about it. Because of that, by the time Lucia was thinking 'absolute madness' for the third time, Calill was using a magical gale to fling the anvil through the locked door.

"Anything to salvage?" Lucia asked, returned to reality by the thunderous impact.

Calill hefted the book she had been reading from. "Pyro McImmolation didn't see I was holding this behind my back; everything else is libre en flambé. Please let's run before someone sees us in these hideous maid outfits." They did run, leaping through the smouldering splinters of the door and leaving only ash footprints trailing through the bedroom.

Predictably, the blast had attracted some attention, so at the first opportunity the duo slipped into a sideroom – it turned out to be a literal dressing room, lined with at least one tailor's entire life's work – and let the stampede occur outside. Some servants smelled smoke and ran to escape the house, others stormed by with buckets of water in hand, not realising how vast the conflagration already was. By silent agreement, Calill and Lucia shed their suspiciously soot-grimed outer disguises and re-camouflaged themselves in modest finery. The sage wanted to stay and apply her makeup again, but there was a break in the hallway traffic, and Lucia led the charge.

The lower floors were still too full to risk approaching, so they looked instead for a window with strong ivy growing around it outside – ideally, they hoped for a latter, but if distressed, sufficiently bouncy hedges would do.

"This is impressive," Calill murmured, keeping a watch as Lucia attempted to work a window open. "I knew Fletcher was a snake – possibly viper, possibly constrictor, I haven't decided yet – but if we are found, this makes for a fiendish plan. It's all worked perfectly."

"His house is on fire," Lucia grunted, working against the years of rust. Didn't these people ever want fresh air?

"Yes, and it was especially brutal of us to do that," Calill agreed.

"What?"

"That's all he has to say. I do have a certain talent with fire, you know. We broke in, set the building ablaze, stole clothes to disguise ourselves, then left again and came up with some foolish story about a mystery workshop and a Sagita mage igniting his own House. But for a family this rich, the repairs will be nothing, and the evidence has been wiped out at the same time that we've been discredited. …We were probably meant to die in the fire, mind you."

"This entire day has been carefully and masterfully sculpted–" with a final push, she forced the pane to slide up "–out of freaking crazy."

"I'd bet my best shoe closet that this book is the most important one," Calill went on. "Let's get it well out of here, then figure out how to cause Fletcher some terrible inconveniences."

"You go first, then." Lucia was done arguing with Calill on Fletcher's apparent pure innocence; she didn't think there was anything so terrible about a secret bowyer's workshop, but apparently Fletcher did, and had assigned mages to make sure that no one would visit it twice.

"Fine. Hold this." Calill thrust the book into the swordmaster's hands and clambered through the window, using the sturdy trellis bars like an inconvenient and overgrown ladder. It was just as well no one could recognise her in her current undecorated state, because she was sure she looked ridiculous. There were such things as clothes to secretly flee a hostile fortress in. These were not them.

"On the positive side, I suppose we're relatively safe now," Lucia mused, trying to make sense of the ideograms on the book cover. "Even if Fletcher were here and knew we survived, he wouldn't think we had picked up anything of value, and even if he knew we had the book, he'd want to keep it safe. I mean, I've never heard of this 'Falling Star' bow, but if this lordling is trying to make another, he'll want the reference…"

"Lucia, did you perhaps perform even the most cursory survey of the area before suggesting that we egress by this particular vector?" Calill called up to the window. Lucia mentally groaned. That sort of formality was guaranteed to mean something was hideously, hideously wrong.

"…Why?"

"Because this is the training yard of the Sagita guardhouse." Lucia leaned out and saw Calill surrounded by at least two dozen soldiers, and although Calill was a powerful sage, the forest of blades aimed at her probably deserved odds in any potential battle.

Early as it was, Lucia wasn't one to hold onto a trump card when it could be doing good. She thrust the tome out to show the battalion below. "Hold on, you lot! If you even think about hurting her, this book gets turned into confetti, and trust me when I say Fletcher Sagita will not be happy about–"

A firebolt from above tore the book from Lucia's hands, and it fell in flaming shreds to the courtyard below – a handful of soldiers stepped aside to let it pass, and backed off further when a second flare incinerated the lot of it. Standing on the roof above them all, the same mage looked down with wretched superiority. Lucia immediately began calculating which soldier she would want to land on to give Calill her best shot. A good shot of wind magic could clear a path, if only briefly…

"Let them pass," said the mage. Everyone stared up in surprise. "By order of Lord Sagita. We are fortunate that your misadventures did not wreak further harm on the manor, and as the damage has been determined as accidental, we shall be lenient. Begnion and Crimea must remain friends, after all." He smirked, and Lucia hated him a little more. "However, if you trespass again, House Sagita will bring against you the full force of Begnion law. Now get out."

Gatrie lay back far enough that the hot water rolled up to cover his ears, filling them with the usual gurgling sounds – something like a frog being rolled down a rubberized metal sheet. It was soothing and desperately necessary, but even as part of his mind melted into a steamed haze, another part rebelled against feeling the slightest pleasure. He had no right to feel good about anything when Sothe was barely a day dead and his killers – by act or by association – were still breathing anywhere in the country.

It would have been easier if it were anything but his fault. Maybe random brigands on the road, or Sothe's own curiosity taking him too far, but the fact of the matter was that Gatrie had tracked the thief down, asked for his help, used every argument and coercion he had available, and then sent a fifteen-year-old boy to his death. Not intentionally, of course. Like that mattered.

As he cursed himself further for this, the door opened, a water-muted female voice screamed, and it banged shut again, bouncing slightly open from the force of impact. Enough for him to hear the conversation taking place outside.

"There's a water buffalo in my bathtub!" Calill shrieked.

"That's Gatrie," said Nephenee's voice.

"It's actually pretty easy to tell the difference. Gatrie has fewer horns and would make a lousy coat," Boyd chimed in.

"What's he doing in there?" she demanded.

"Aching!" the general called back, and winced at the protests of his muscles.

"We've had a bad day," Boyd said, by way of explanation. "Mind you, the Apostle was nice enough to use a Mend staff on the hole in my shoulder, so things are looking up for me. Where've you been, cornering the Begnion shoe-futures market?"

"…Maybe you should start from the beginning," Lucia suggested. Gatrie sunk back until only his face was open to the air; he didn't need to hear any of the battles repeated. It had been bad enough dealing with that general the first time, especially after their armor got locked together.

They had struggled with the jammed metal for a long time, all without result, before a berserker charged by outside the room, shouting something about success. She had disengaged some catch, opened her platemail at the back, and emerged from her armor like a butterfly from its cocoon. Luckily, she hadn't drawn a weapon and taken the opportunity to kill him, because Gatrie wasn't at all sure he could have unlocked himself from an empty suit of armor fast enough to fight back, either.

Instead she just tossed off another quip about why I had sent a kid to do my job, then took a leap out the window and into the fish pond. The rebelling part of Gatrie's head flared again with renewed fury. I swear to the goddess that when I get the chance – and I will – I am going to kill that wench.

"…And then there was this tea-girl like a ninja, it was crazy…"

And in a building with two gorgeous ladies – not counting the one who's plainly got a thing for Boyd – I had to meet with the evil one instead of the one who takes three hours to serve tea stylishly. Although he wasn't doing anything except soaking and, as previously mentioned, aching, Gatrie still managed to stop cold. Oh goddess… the kid was sixteen and probably spent his whole life on the streets of Crimea. I bet he never even got to kiss a girl. What the hell is wrong with me? I should have just let him go when he said it wasn't any of his business. I am such an idiot.

"That's pretty brutal," Lucia agreed, grimly, as Nephenee finished describing the battle in the tea-room. "And here I thought we had been doing badly. All I got were a few seared fingers and an introduction to Astrid's fiancé." There was a pause, Gatrie guessed she was looking up at Calill's grandfather clock. "Of course, in another thirty-six hours or so, they'll be married, unless we can prove he's up to something sinister."

"You believe me now?" Calill asked.

"Yes. It's pretty foolish of him; if it weren't for the mage trying to roast us both where we stood, I'd probably have shrugged the whole thing off as eccentricity. Instead, even as he covered his tracks, Fletcher's convinced me that he had tracks to cover. And I'm not willing to assume that the mercenaries you fought were working for anyone but House Sagita," the swordmaster stated.

"Definitely. Gatrie filled us in on some of the things he and Sothe have been tracking over the last few weeks–" Boyd began.

"Sothe's here too?" Calill asked. She sounded pleased for the first time in hours. "Excellent. That boy's like clay ready to be shaped. He's got the attitude, but what he really needs to attain style is the right look, maybe with a little less green… what?"

"Eh… we didn' tell ya 'bout Sothe yet, did we?" Nephenee realised.

"What about him?"

Gatrie began rhythmically knocking his head against the side of the tub, letting the ringing metal and the turmoil of the water block out even the most muffled speech. When he stopped, and tentatively raised his head above the steaming surface, the general didn't hear anything coming from the other room, even whispers. Maybe Nephenee had mentioned his state of mind. He really didn't care.

"I don't understand," said Calill at last. "How can he be that distraught when the only evidence you've got is the word of a couple of mercenaries that So–" Gatrie scowled as someone cut the mage off; all right, maybe he did still care a little.

"Why bother lying if they didn't know Gatrie was listening?" Boyd asked. "Heck, why bother lying if they did know he was listening? If Sothe could prove them wrong, he'd have done so right now. According to Gatrie, it didn't even sound like they knew who Sothe was at the time. Just… fwip."

The general could imagine Boyd miming an archer loosing an arrow, and winced as he imagined the fatal blow again. Arrows were not a clean way to die, if such a thing ever existed. The shock of impact, and the strange pinching feeling that didn't give way so much as it was overtaken by a wave of pain. And the hideous warmth of spilt blood, so silky and soft, and then… he didn't know. Every time in his life Gatrie had thought he was going to die, he had been wrong, so he had no idea if it was anything like what he imagined.

As he pictured those few seconds for the hundredth time, some part of his mind that was paying more attention caught a phrase on the air and stamped it hard across the inside of his head. There was something like an eruption, and then he was dripping hot water all over Calill's floor.

"What did you say?" the general demanded.

"I'm not saying anything until you correct your state of dress," said the sage, who had clapped her hands over Nephenee and Boyd's eyes.

Gatrie looked down at his white kilt-and-toga combo. "What? I grabbed enough towels."

"There may not be such a thing," Calill remarked.

"And why did you cover my eyes?" Boyd asked.

"The alternative was too cruel to imagine," the sage replied, but let the younger soldiers go. "All right. Which part are you referring to? I was just telling them about the mage ambush at House Sagita–"

"Workshop. You said there was a workshop. And a lot of bows. Sothe was… I mean… Sagita killed him!"

"That's quite a leap, Gatrie," Lucia said, cautiously. The general looked like he could break a fortified bulwark with his forehead and not notice until the next day. "There's no proof of any such thing."

"We haven't had proof for anything yet," Calill mused. "I knew Fletcher was evil on instinct. You knew immediately that we had to do something to stop Astrid from being forced into marriage. Gatrie, I haven't heard the story in detail, but I get the impression you started your personal crusade on a certain hunch, too."

"…Something like that," he muttered, apparently still not sick of reminding himself that his wild speculation had led to et cetera et cetera dead thief.

"Which means that war-honed instinct is all any of you have had to call on, and we've already managed to get a very clear indication of our opposition and the problem we have to solve," she concluded.

"Wait, what do you mean 'any of you'?" Lucia inquired.

"I, of course, have refined urban awareness and cuttingly incisive perceptions."

"You're using words that mean the same thing again."

"They're called synonyms, dear."

Gatrie managed to draw their attention back with a hammer-fist to the wall. "Excuse me, but if you wanted to start being relevant again any time soon, that would just be magical."

Calill was taken aback, but returned to her point quickly. This wasn't a side of Gatrie they were familiar with, and she didn't especially care for it. "Well. We know Fletcher Sagita is planning something. We know he has a strange obsession with bows, including the purely mythical. We know he sent mercenaries to steal something from the Begnion reliquary. And we know that Astrid is somehow important to his scheme, otherwise I doubt he'd take the risk of marrying her at a time like this."

"Excepting one possibility," said Lucia.

The sage glared at her friend, interjecting in the middle of a perfectly erudite monologue. "What's that?"

"He could hones'ly be in love with 'er," Nephenee said, somewhat dully. She was plainly feeling more reserved than in the morning, what with innocent people dying all around her and Boyd nearly getting an internal draught installed. For a moment, everyone looked as pensive as she did, considering this option.

"To hell with that," Boyd decided eventually. "If he does, it still won't matter, once we convince Astrid that he's a scheming murderer. And if he doesn't, that's one more reason to take him out fast."

"It would be so much simpler if he would just send assassins after us," Lucia said. "At least, if they were considerate enough to bring Sagita identification, maybe signed orders from Fletcher."

"Not tonight, thank you," said Calill. "We lost too much today. It's past midnight. Tomorrow is our last chance before the wedding, and we will bring Sagita so far down he'll change time zones, but not until tomorrow."

"You expect me to sleep?" Gatrie growled.

"Yes. You need to recover more than any of us. And if I must, I'll use a staff."

"You never learned how to cast spells with sleep staves."

"Spells? Who needs that kind of finesse? I was thinking more 'mild concussion'."

"…I have every reason to detest you."

Nevertheless, by the time dawn had broken, Gatrie was forced to admit the sage was right. Healing magic was an excellent start, but sleep had erased the last of his fatigue and sharpened his thoughts considerably. Sothe was still dead. Fletcher Sagita was not. Within two dozen hours, he intended to even the score, with or without the help of Begnion or his friends.

"It was a bowstring," Boyd stated over bacon. "The thing they stole from the reliquary. Someone tied a shiny medallion on it as a disguise, but it was really some kind of enchanted bowstring. I mean, it cut through metal, and it was the only thing those mercs were after."

"I agree that makes sense, given his workshop, but every bow in there was torched," Lucia pointed out. "And you would have noticed if they had stolen something else, however well disguised it might have been."

"I know, and that's confusing, but if we could find any other copies of those books you saw–"

"What happened to Sothe?" Nephenee asked, abruptly. Everyone looked at her, then Gatrie, then back to her, this time wondering if it was possible that her farmland upbringing had involved more severe head trauma than they had previously imagined.

"What part of 'dead' isn't clear?" Gatrie asked, flatly.

"Th' 'why' part," said Nephenee. "Fletcher's let all o' us go free, more 'r less. Only people who've bin killed were Sothe an' the man in the reliquary. I'm wonderin' why."

Gatrie was quiet for some time before answering. "I heard about Astrid's betrothal getting finalised a few weeks ago, from Oscar through Tanith via who knows where. I remembered what she said about hating the idea, back when we were in the army. Figured a good place to start was seeing if Sagita was in the secret laguz trade. Found Soren in Gallia. He knew where Sothe was, goddess knows how, and said I could do worse than trying subtlety for the first time in my life.

"Sothe knew Astrid pretty well, too, so he only took a few days to convince. We weren't getting anywhere from the outside and time was running out, so he got into their messenger service and went the espionage route. Couple of days later I'm following one of Sagita's undercover messengers through the palace, waiting to hear what orders he's delivering to those mercs, and it was nothing but 'Go ahead with the theft', whatever that was. The guy also reported that they had – he reported what happened, and I guess I sort of went berserk."

"…I'm sorry," said the halberdier.

"None of it was your fault," Gatrie said stonily. "What's now?"

"That still doesn't explain why they would–"

"I am so bored with this," said the general, abruptly rising from the table. "The rest of you can keep playing detective. I have an uppity lordling to thrash." He slipped the remainder of his armor on, not yet concerned with all the straps, and marched out of the apartment. The others watched him go, not protesting. Often Gatrie was a people person, especially if the people in question were gorgeous women. This side of him, the angry loner, was an equally ridiculous stereotype, and still he wore it with perfect sincerity. They knew better than to follow.

"When he's done breaking things," said Lucia, "we had better know where to stand to pick up all the pieces that will prove Sagita's up to something sinister. Even if we can't touch him ourselves, I'm betting the Apostle will tear him up with a smile."

Fletcher was pacing, and to anyone who knew him, it would have looked like a sign that he was edging towards utter breakdown. This was one of the trickiest parts, and required too much improvisation, too fast. The sage had been an unexpected complication, especially since the sage had been ridiculously lucky in picking up his prized tome on her way out of the manor. Kicking the dew out of the long grass with each step, he watched the girl's approach and muttered to himself.

"Assassination? Impossible. Dishonorable. Sabotage? Nothing to sabotage, not that I want anyone knowing about. Drat. Laguz trade? I'd rather not accuse father of anything that hideous…" The lord's gaze settled on the horizon, the distant mountains still blurred by dawn fog. Mountains in the northeast. Far enough beyond, a whole nation of mountains, one that had been conveniently treacherous.

"Good morning, Master Fletcher," said Astrid, arriving with her horse in tow. "I was pleased to receive your invitation back to the archery grounds."

"Good morning, Lady Astrid!" Fletcher exclaimed, pivoting to her with a wide smile. "If you're happy, I'm happy – and I thought we could both use the relaxation, given how much else is going to happen over the coming days." His words gave Astrid pause; he had reminded her of the wedding tomorrow, one that she still hadn't precisely agreed to. Astrid was the only one who thought her opinion mattered, of course, but her stubbornness was formidable.

"…Indeed," she said at last, still hedging. It didn't matter; he simply needed the few further moments to think, and then an opening. Fletcher coughed politely.

"Astrid, I'm afraid I have some troubling news about your friends," he said. She frowned, confused. "From yesterday morning – Calill and Lucille?"

"Lucia."

"Yes. Her especially. She's one of Queen Elincia's personal retainers, and I'm afraid the new Queen is still rather wary of House Sagita. My father had strong ties – hidden, subtle, but strong – to Daein until shortly before the war began, and it seems even now Crimea is determined to prove he's guilty of some such thing or another – they invaded House Sagita, and, well, it may have been unintentional, but it's hard to believe, considering the damage wrought…"

The fresh new day was utterly lacking in novelty, and to Gatrie's sensibilities felt all too much like the day before. Yesterday they had all – independently, even – made the same mistake, and gone looking for evidence to what Fletcher was up to. Pointless. Useless. What they needed was proof that he was up to something, and then they'd be allowed to make him as dead as he desperately needed to be. Even in his anger, Gatrie knew better than to kill a noble without proof for the Apostle.

If necessary, he would tear the whole of House Sagita apart to find it, and part of him felt like doing just that, if only to spite the cheerful sunshine and tranquil breeze blowing through the streets. But Sagita was sure to have covered himself on every angle he could, now that his workshop was a barbeque pit and he knew Gatrie and the others were after him. He couldn't rely on carelessly discarded incriminating anything–

Ah.

People were harder to keep tucked away. The mercenaries at the palace hadn't been wearing Sagita colours, of course, but they had also been professionally adept at their job, and didn't seem to think much of the messenger who reported Sothe's death. That suggested independents, hired just for this occasion, including that regrettably attractive general with hammers and the charm of a viper with the flu.

Well, Begnion's capital was an upstanding city, but somewhere there had to be a mercenary guildhall or something – a place to look up those who were willing to do most anything if it coincidentally ended with sacks of cash in their hands. Oh, how heroic of me. I'm going to try to sneak up on a murdering wretch when I already know where he lives. …If necessary, he would then tear the guildhall apart with his bare hands until they told him what he wanted to know. This thought cheered him up a bit.

"And that leaves us alone," Boyd remarked, still watching the door where Calill and Lucia had left moments earlier. "Astrid will believe them, right?"

"Why wouldn' she?" Nephenee asked. "Friends, ain't we? Comrades-in-thing."

"Arms," said Boyd, absently. "I don't know. We haven't even met Fletcher, but everything I've heard tells me he's going to be ready for them, wherever they catch up with Astrid." He shook his head, knowing that tagging along with the women would, at best, only slow them down a little. "So what do we do with bruises to nurse and a fashionable apartment to ourselves?"

"I'd be likin' t' know why ya keep askin' that question," said Nephenee, grinning at him. Boyd flushed red, and was low enough on blood that this made him slightly dizzy. "It's enough t' make me think ye've already got somethin' in mind."

"Ah, stop it," Boyd muttered, averting his gaze. That only lasted a moment, and then he locked eyes with the halberdier again. The number of things in the room not being said skyrocketed, but they held it long enough for most of them to not need saying any more. Boyd matched her grin, and was perhaps on the verge of actually saying something when Nephenee's eyes snapped wide open.

"Soren!" she blurted.

"…What about him?" Boyd asked, suddenly frowning hard.

"Ah, you stop it," said Nephenee, waving off his reaction. "Listen, Lord Ike 'n Lady Elincia'll be here fer Astrid's wedding, right? Soren's sure t' go wh'rever Ike does, an' if anyone's gonna know what that string was for, it'll be 'im. Am I right 'r what?"

Boyd thought for a moment. The things that I didn't say sounded like a lot more fun… "It's better than sitting around being useless until Calill or Gatrie needs us to bash someone again. Let's go."

It took Gatrie most of the morning to find the mercenaries' guild, but he did. The old stone looked like it would be tough to take apart with just his hands, but with a good mining axe, that was still a backup plan. He marched directly to the door, took a defiant pose, pulled one fist back to hammer the portal open – and clanked back down the street as fast as he good in that much plate armor.

"Subtle, Gatrie," he told himself. "You're going to be subtle until you can kill Fletcher in the face. That means not tipping off your enemies at the first opportunity." Reluctantly, he unfastened the straps on the majority of his armor – all but the greaves and bracers – and stowed it in an empty woodbox in a side alley.

He considered the lance, but eventually settled on keeping it at hand, like a good mercenary should. Gathering a handful of coal dust from the box beside it, he darkened his hair almost to blackness, then calmly marched back down the street. That gave him something more like the typical arrogant soldier look, perfect for questioning the guild-people about recent jobs, or perhaps directions to a band specialising in high-profile intrusion commissions. One way or another, he'd find them.

Still no one was entering or leaving the guildhall as he approached. Either it was closed, or this was the slow season for sellswords in Begnion. Uninterested in either option, he barged in and swept the main hall with the critical eye of a seasoned adventurer taking stock of his surroundings.

He couldn't help but notice that he was surrounded by unfriendly faces, including the female general not two feet in front of him. She hadn't replaced her armor, yet, but he was similarly underdressed for the occasion.

"I was a little predictable, eh?" he asked.

"I could practically taste your obliviousness from a block away," she agreed, nodding.

"Okey-dokey," said Gatrie, blandly. He flexed muscles in preparation to break her nose with his forehead, felt a sudden thump at the back of his head, and his world crumpled into peaceful unconsciousness.

Astrid charged down the course, having pulled far ahead of Fletcher – he was good, but she was a veteran paladin, and the only way to make the course a challenge was screaming down at maximum speed. She feathered a trio of targets in rapid succession, letting the tattoo of drumbeats bring her back to a comfortable, almost meditative state, almost like she had never left the army. She could imagine Titania running on her right flank, Kieran covering her left, the three of them racing to reinforce footsoldiers ahead – like Lucia and Calill, who mysteriously burst out of her imagination and onto the course.

She skidded to a halt between the women and whirled about for a moment before remembering that there were no Daein soldiers or pirates to battle. "What are – how did you find me?" she blurted.

The sage and swordmaster shared a steely glance. "We need to talk," said Lucia.

"Don't be rude," Calill told Lucia, offhandedly. "It took a lot of effort on our part, Astrid, but eventually we managed to ferret out this place's location from one of the Ceffylau attendants. We've been walking all morning, so please don't rush off again before we can explain."

"You can't marry Fletcher," said Lucia.

"Will you stop leaping ahead?" Calill demanded, noting Astrid's sudden bewilderment. "Excuse her, she's being much too forward."

"Much too sane," Lucia muttered.

"What are either of you talking about?" Astrid demanded. Her horse snurfed at her outburst, and she stroked its mane to calm it again. It was a good horse. It was likely the only friend she'd ever had who never made life a hundred times more complicated in the space of a blink.

"Fletcher Sagita is an evil mockery of a real human and you can't marry him tomorrow, no matter how much easier it would make your life. He has something despicable planned, he hired mercenaries to sack the palace, and Gatrie thinks he killed Sothe," Calill listed with flat intensity.

"Gatrie? Sothe? What in the world… dead?" Astrid repeated. Calill didn't know what to make of her expression; instead of distress, sadness, or even confusion, she seemed to be disappointed. Maybe even angry. Well, anger was good, as long as it was directed at– "I can hardly believe this, Calill. I thought you were better than that. And you, Lucia. Or was it your idea?"

"Eh… what?"

"Fletcher told me about Elincia's orders. Now, if you were just concerned for my sake, that would be one thing. Until yesterday, I thought this was going to be the worst chapter of my life. But to try to sabotage this whole affair just because your Queen is suspicious of House Sagita's dealings with Daein is not my idea of friendship!" Astrid snapped.

"Do you feel at all like you're being savaged by a bunny?" Lucia whispered to Calill.

"It's about that level of surreal, yes," the sage agreed, then spoke up. "Astrid, neither of us has any idea what you're talking about – do you really think we'd lie about Sothe being dead?"

"And to say that Fletcher murdered him? What kind of gibberish is that? I'll tell you: it's gibberish meant to shock me so long that I call off the wedding, offend his parents, and the whole thing falls through!"

"Astrid, you're raving a little–" Lucia began, in what she probably imagined was a conciliatory tone.

"Raving! How dare you! If we hadn't both fought under Lord Ike, I wouldn't even know your name, and you would rob me of a chance a peace and perhaps even happiness because of political grudges!" she growled. "I've heard already heard about the fire, so don't bother lying about that, either. Accidental or not, I'm shocked by the very notion of it."

With a click like the lock of an impassable prison door, Calill realised what had happened to Astrid, that the firm, brave young woman would be replaced by this lunatic. She was tired of living in fear for her future, tired of being an ordeal for her entire family. It wasn't hard to see that Fletcher – if he had been what he said and nothing more sinister – would be a good match for her, and Astrid was too intent on holding onto that to listen to warnings that would make her defy Lord Ceffylau again.

It didn't hurt that her fiancé had pre-emptively packed her with a neat web of lies, either. Lucia didn't even know if Sagita had ever been connected to Daein, but it made for an interesting story if you were prepared to accept that Lucia herself had no personal honor or sense of duty to her former comrades-in-arms. And Astrid was right on one thing: they didn't know each other all that well. Maybe it wasn't such a stretch.

"Lady Astrid, if it were anything but the most serious of concerns–" the swordmaster began.

"–We would be content to leave you to your own hideous choices and let you suffer the consequences," Calill finished for her, suddenly wearing an expression as friendly as a rusted mace. "But apparently you've lost the courage that raised you above the rest of the Begnion nobility, and until you put in the effort to recover it, feel free to keep deluding yourself."

Lucia boggled at her companion, which would have been quite a spectacle under normal circumstances. In this case, no one noticed.

"How dare you," Astrid repeated coldly. She heard distant hoofbeats, and saw Fletcher round a corner in the distance, finally catching up again. "It's time you left the Sagita estate, I believe."

"Trust me, Astrid, by the time this is over you'll wish you had listened to us," Calill insisted.

"Are you threatening me?" she growled.

"No," said Calill, the indignation seeping out of her. "I'm trying to help you. Lucia, let's go. It's a long walk back into the city." High above them, the ocean wind began drawing clouds in off the coast. By the time they returned, the sky would be iron-grey, without a hint of sun shining through.

Gatrie awoke with all his limbs attached, no new bruises except the one at the back of his skull, and all his blood right where it was meant to be. Compared to the last few days, he was already off to a fantastic start. On the negative side, of course, he was shackled at the wrists and ankles, tied to a sturdy thing that might have been a chair and might have been a polearm rack, and in a very dark room with no weapons at hand. So. Chances weren't great that he had been rescued by a ninja tea-girl society while he was unconscious. At least not one of the good ones.

"I still can't believe we're not killing him," said a voice from nowhere – Gatrie quickly decided that whatever big closet they had locked him in didn't have thick doors. There were mercenaries standing guard outside.

"Yeah, well, that's the order. No killing any of them," said a similar voice. Gatrie grinned in the darkness. It was a very good day when your enemies needed you alive. "At least not unless he's causing serious trouble and we've got a good place to stow the body." Well, damn it. The chances were approximately ten thousand to zero that their general didn't have a good place for his body already picked out. So much for the simple plan.

Carefully and wincing, Gatrie touched the back of his head against whatever wall or furniture was behind him. The swelling was already going down – he had to have been out for a couple of hours. Hours? Oh. Of course hours. If Sagita was trying to play this the subtle way, all he needed was for Gatrie to be conveniently locked up until the wedding was over. That confirmed that the wedding was important, but it gave Gatrie all the less time to work with, too. He had to work quickly.

So much for the complex plan.

Though it was only the afternoon, the city was dark as dusk and rain was lashing the windows when they returned to Calill's home. The lamps were out; Nephenee had scrawled a surprisingly legible note and left it on the table: Out fetching genius, back later. N&B. Well, legible if not comprehensible.

"I am racking my brain," said Lucia, "for any idea of where we turn to next, and all I can think is that we just got routed by the person we're trying to save. Astrid doesn't believe us. Sagita's covered all his tracks all too well. Even if we could convince her, the Apostle couldn't act without proof of whatever he's doing; Lady Elincia told me all about the catastrophe with Reyson and Oliver."

Calill slumped in a chair, rereading Nephenee's note and demanding that it explain itself. Lucia didn't think she had ever looked so tired in the entire Daein war. She reached over and placed a friendly hand on the sage's shoulder. Calill glared until she removed it. "I know," she agreed, rubbing her eyes. "This is ridiculous. How is it possible that we go this far and still get kicked in the teeth? It's been almost two days of constant conflict and we have nothing. Nothing!" She scowled and thumped her head on the table again.

An echoing thump placed several torn, smudged pages on the polished wood in front of her. Calill and Lucia's eyes travelled up, from the papers to the gloved hand holding them down, all the way up to a face that was darkly and oddly cheerful for all the battering it had plainly taken, not to mention the grime and torn clothes.

"And now," Sothe informed them, "my victory dance." He spun away from the table and burst into triumphant motion.

After a few silent moments, Lucia said, "Well, it's happened."

"…What has?" asked Calill, blinking blankly as she watched Sothe moonwalk across her parlor.

"I have reached the absolute maximum threshold. I can no longer be even slightly surprised."

"Oh, yes. You get used to that."

They continued to watch Sothe dance.

"You know, he's actually pretty good."