"I'm afraid Daeghun's warned me about you," Marshal Cormick said gruffly as he finished fastening the Watch badge to the rim of Isaviel's cloak, "But I am willing to be convinced out of the things he told me. And you're a Harbourman, so I know you're tough…" he paused, levelling a relentless stare into her eyes, "But that also means I'll take no excuses. A failed job is a job badly done, nothing else."

Isaviel muffled a laugh when his eyes went to those arrayed behind her; Neeshka, Elanee and Khelgar. All of them looked utterly out of place with their worn leathers or tatty robes in the brightly lit, well-furnished headquarters of the Watch. A thin, well-dressed servant was pottering about the room, watering plants, and the sound of Captain Brelaina's shrill voice could be heard coming from outside, where she stood shouting out commands for the daily drilling of recruits in the vast yard.

"Actually, we've been thinking," Isaviel began, trying to hold back a glare when Cormick instantly looked at her with suspicion, leaning back against the broad oak table behind him, chainmail and leather protesting loudly, "We aren't exactly the subtlest of groups, if you take my meaning. As I am sure you have realised…we would not be the most ideal of groups for undercover work or infiltration, which…Duncan…told me you'd be most in need of."

"That's true enough," Cormick huffed, his eyes now lingering mistrustfully on Neeshka. A man of cold stares, evidently – an ageing man beginning to look a little too weighed down by all that armour. No wonder Moire had such an easy time of it, Isaviel realised.

"I thought we might be able to help the city in another way. I read one of the flyers on the wall at the gates here, and I thought maybe we could help out with the army at Old Owl Well, instead?"

"Hmph," Cormick frowned, "That might make more sense. The job they're advertising is for a couple of people plucky enough to impersonate replacement Waterdeep emissaries long enough to get captured and infiltrate the Orc camp. It'd be a one-shot thing, and you'd not have to keep up any…tricky pretences that the Watch might have needed. If it's a permit into Blacklake that you're after, succeeding at saving the 'other' captured Waterdeep emissary, Issani, might just do the trick. The city would be in your debt for saving its reputation –and for averting the growing Orcish threat. Those monsters have been getting too close to occupied lands for our liking."

"Good, so that's settled then," Isaviel grinned widely, but Cormick called for her to wait.

"You'll still need that badge to report in at the garrison at Old Owl Well, so don't be so quick to scorn it. And here, you'll need this list to get all the things appropriate for your cover."

"Right," Isaviel winced, looking down the list and then back up to look at Cormick with sceptical eyes, "The clothes listed for 'ladies' do not seem well suited for fighting."

"Well. You're a Harbourman, " Cormick shrugged, "You learned to swim in your clothes, didn't you?"

"I liked him. He looked like he'd be good in a brawl," Khelgar was saying of Cormick once they reached the Dolphin Bridge, crossing back over the Neverwinter River to the Docks from the bustling, fruit-and-spices scented Merchant District. Ah, the smell of mouldering fish.

"Yeah. Before he started to rot at least," Neeshka put in with a snort, pulling her cloak more closely around her shoulders as they passed a merchant cart freshly loaded from boats at the quays – even in this bright sun, for she was more nervous than ever about belying her demonic heritage. Her tail particularly seemed an issue for her, as if she was expecting anyone and everyone to confront her. Isaviel felt there was more to this than just caution.

"He seemed an honest man to me," Elanee argued, "It is men such as that which a city beset with unlawfulness needs."

Isaviel ignored the rest of their musings, lagging a little behind, staring absentmindedly to the left, to the east, where the great mountains bordering that side of the city towered up to the clouds, bluish at that distance, but still visibly snow-capped. If it were not for the heat generated within them, warming the river waters which could then be channelled about the city, Neverwinter would be as icy as the rest of the Frozen North. Meanwhile, the high walls of the two adjacent districts limited one's view of these most lived-in areas of Neverwinter, allowing one only to observe a general mass of red-tiled roofs and the odd spire here and there.

Behind her she knew she could have seen the hill upon which rose the opulent Blacklake District so clearly, topped by the grand Cloaktower of mages and the sprawling Castle Never. Coloured marbles, blue granite paving slabs…all could be seen to glint in the sun distantly, unreachably. She had been there once, to seek the Order of the Even-Handed at the Temple of Tyr. It was a vast building, bordering the Tomb of Betrayers rather pointedly. The reigning Lord Nasher was a devout man and liked to make his opinions on faith clear.

Blacklake at least was an immaculately clean, hopelessly richly adorned place. No struggling shops of street ware sellers could be found there, only the 'best' shops, only the 'best' families, the noblest, the most longstanding. She felt almost afraid of returning – how very different from West Harbour it had been when last she went. Getting back out into the wilderness to combat the Orc lair in the Crags near Old Owl Well would be a welcome relief, she found. This came as something of a surprise – she had always seen Neverwinter as a refuge before her return to West Harbour, but now nowhere felt safe. She had been sleeping poorly, and when she did sleep all she saw were the burning houses of her home town, Amie dead on the ground, and all she heard were the screams of the dying, the burning…

She and Neeshka parted with Khelgar and Elanee at the entrance to the Docks. They refrained from explaining why, but Elanee's searching look suggested she knew they were up to no good. Still, Khelgar was too eager to return to the tavern, to hunt out more fights than consider their motives. Elanee could find solace from her suspicions in the communal herb gardens just beyond the walls, a short walk from the back door of Duncan's establishment.

"I thought they would never go away," Neeshka complained from within her conspicuously raised hood as they ducked down a side street to take the Back Alley path to Moire's abode.

Isaviel did not respond, watching her friend's strange, nervous behaviour closely. Yes, there was something wrong. Neeshka did not normally seek to hide her entire visage, regardless of her rather conspicuous heritage, but today was different.

"You know you're being more obvious by hiding yourself, don't you Neeshka?" Isaviel asked in exasperation when her friend flinched away from a passer-by for the third time in a row.

"It's nothing," Neeshka sighed, half-heartedly pulling back her dark hood so that it still clung forward over the curve of her horns, but at least pushing the cloth back over her shoulders. Her face, now that it was clearly visible, looked pale and drawn, and her eyes would not stay still, searching every shadow and alley they passed, the face of every one of the people, whether raggedly clad or otherwise, who passed them.

"No, it's not," Isaviel corrected, putting a hand on the Tiefling's shoulder and stopping her at the mouth of the dark, narrow path to Moire's hideout. The one where they had first fought Bladelings, "If it's bad enough to make you this nervous then it's something. And I need to know – I can't have another set of pursuers that I know nothing of along with those Gith."

After a long pause, Neeshka nodded feebly.

"Once we're back from Old Owl Well, I will tell you – I promise…"

"You two! Moire has been expecting you," a deep voice rumbled from close at hand, and not for the first time Isaviel turned to look up at the hulking form of Caleb to wonder how it was that he always managed to sneak up on people so successfully. Scarred, freshly bruised from some recent ruffian's assignment, and far heavier and more muscular than the average employee of Moire's, he was the odd one out in the Guild of Thieves.

"No need to come out to meet us, Caleb, we've been intending to see her, too," Isaviel pointed out, pretending to smile sweetly.

There was something even more aggressive in his eyes than usual. When her scar started to ache, she took it as a signal. She was ready for his swing when it came and dodged accordingly, simultaneously unsheathing the dagger in her boot and driving it into his stomach before his lumbering frame could compensate its balance. Holding it there, she pushed and twisted until he groaned from the pain, staggering back against the wall to collapse into the dirt and the darkness.

"Did Moire send you to kill me? Or was it someone else?" Isaviel hissed, wrenching her dagger free to step out of the pooling blood, "Tell me truly and I will send for the Watch to find you a healer."

"She…sent me to…kill you," Caleb gasped, and Isaviel's look darkened.

"How many guards?"

"None. She consults with the…Dark Wizard alone."

"What dark wizard?" Neeshka demanded, but Isaviel had heard enough, cutting Caleb's throat with a kukri and turning away, heading straight for the door of Moire's hideout, "Hey! I thought you said you'd call for the Watch?"

"I was lying, Neeshka. He tried to kill me and I never liked him. And anyone who refers to someone only as 'the dark wizard' knows nothing else of them," when Isaviel turned her eyes were blazing with rage, "Now. I believe we should find out why Moire called for that to happen in the first place, don't you?"

"The Githyanki are searching for her because they know she possesses some of the silver shards. It may have been easier to let them kill her earlier, when she had only one of the pieces, but now with two…how long could it be before she wished for more? Before she wondered what they make. Moire, you have long been a followed of our…Way. Do this thing for all of us, recover these shards and bring them to me yourself," the Dark Wizard told the slender woman before him. His image was blurred and shimmering within a bubble of magical energy; a projection from afar.

"Of course, Garius. I have already sent out my best man to dispatch her," Moire nodded, turning away with a swish of expensive coloured silks to pour wine into a glass from a gilded jug, as opulent as anything ever was in the Docks District.

The whole room stank of wealth, gaudy in a way that had long ago grown unfashionable in the Blacklake. A silver chandelier hung directly above the wizard's image, carved with panthers and bears with eyes inlaid with semi-precious stones. A few ancient tapestries, pilfered from houses fallen in the great Plague those ten years past hung on the walls, depicting ancient Netheril and its epic fall. Moire had always seen it as fittingly ironic. The carpets were woven with fine Damaran furs, all of them with corners stitched with generous triangles of gold threads. Amassed spell tomes, to prove conquests over wizards and inspire respect and fear in her employees, were arrayed in five ornate bookshelves across the room on a raised platform, within which burned a marble-framed fire.

"I will be waiting at the Fifth Tower in five days' time, I promise to you my lord," the ageing Thieves' Guild mistress promised, raising her newly filled glass towards the image of the Dark Wizard with a slight smile on her thin lips, only slightly emphasising the subtle lines around her eyes.

"I hope that you do," the man's dark-clad form shifted, giving brief clarity to a pallid, ageing face and fittingly icy eyes, a strange bronze chain hanging around his shoulders, displaying a large black gem, "Or else you will meet your death as befits a traitor. Unless that justice has already been performed you for your…negligence." His smile was thin as he suddenly broke off the connection.

Moire closed her eyes in relief, taking a long drink from her glass and enjoying the wine. Garius always made her uneasy, as much as she was avowed to do his bidding. When she opened her eyes again to see that all too familiar, deceptively delicate form before her, golden eyes blazing seemingly with a light of their own, she gasped and dropped her glass to shatter on the floor at her feet. As the red wine pooled on the floorboards at her feet, soaking through her cloth slippers, Moire tried to subtly reach behind her for a knife, but Isaviel got there first. The older woman hissed as the Elf exerted far greater strength than one might have expected and held her arm there.

"Who is it that you work for?" the Moon Elf demanded, "What kind of cult need fear what the Githyanki…"

Moire cut her adversary's next word off when she twisted away, with disregard to her own pain, grasping the metal jug full of wine and seeking to smash it over Isaviel's wretched blue locks…only to have her arm caught in a determined grasp. Looking about, she saw Neeshka's pink eyes searching her own, not quite so hateful as the Elf's…just confused, maybe a little regretful.

"Black Garius would welcome you into his Way, Neeshka," Moire said desperately, "A power as great as that of your heritage…you could learn it. You are the best thief I have ever known, the Shadows love you…"

"I hope you burn in the Hells, Moire," Neeshka said at last, her look grown cold with a shared glance past her former employer to Isaviel, "You betrayed us once. I won't believe your lies."

"The King of Shadows will have both of your souls!" Moire snarled, her anger rising over her fear, knowing there was nothing else left to her, "The King of Shadows will make you pay for all you have done," she told Isaviel, seeing those hateful gold eyes and the grim line of those enviously full red lips…

The Moon Elf did not deign to reply, but brought a dagger to Moire's throat. And all that was left was death, and those golden eyes.

"Watch! Watch! Someone call the Watch! Oh, thanks be to Tyr, I'm so glad you came!" Isaviel gasped as some obliging young men, wearing badges of the Watch, rushed to the two bodies lying at her feet.

"What happened here?" they demanded.

When their hands went to their swords and Isaviel heard the ringing of a blade behind her she realised she had been caught out. Before she could speak she felt an arm move around her neck, bringing a dagger against her skin. She had dressed herself in the plainest dress from Moire's house that she could find, so as to look most like a Dock's District dweller as possible. That was not the issue here – they could not suspect her of a murder, for she appeared unarmed and vulnerable, long hair falling well past her waist and not bound up as if for a fight. And Elves were relatively common in this place of Faerûn-wide commerce, so the problem was not her unlikely heritage, either.

"Is this how you treat all young women who raise an alarm in the street?" she gasped, but the two men in front of her ignored her, going to turn over the fallen body of Moire. The one behind her smelled strongly of sweat and drink and she could only hope that Neeshka was paying close attention to their rapidly failing ploy.

"What happened here?" one of the men asked her eventually, turning around to sneer more effectively in her direction, "And don't tell me any sob story about how those two were robbed, or 'she attacked him in an argument and when he killed her from rage he ended his own life'. It's all lies – I know that's Moire."

"Fine," Isaviel sighed, and pulled down the side of her cloak of her shoulder, so as to best display her Watch badge, "I was just doing my duty for Captain Brelaina. Now unhand me before I report you to Marshall Cormick."

"Ha! As if we'd let you get that far. You've gone and murdered our best employer…neither my wife nor my mistress will be mighty pleased to hear I can't feed 'em," the Watchman laughed bitterly, "You would have soon learned what pittance we're paid, hound. Really, I'll be doing you a favour."

"Agreed. Cut her throat and be done with it. We'll say all three attacked us and we had no choice," the other man nodded, only for his eyes to go wide as he looked past the hulking form holding Isaviel. A wolf leapt out of the dark alley, sparing no time in knocking him to the ground screaming, and tearing out his throat.

The man behind Isaviel tightened his grip, the sharp edge digging into her skin and drawing blood. Marshal Cormick's words came back to her unexpectedly: you learned to swim in those clothes, didn't you? As the more vocal Watch member still living drew his sword and rounded on the wolf, which was now lapping up the blood pooling around its twitching victim, Isaviel tried to fight back. Struggling against the unseen man's grip she bit down on his restraining arm with as much force as she could, and felt blood fill her mouth. Retching at the taste she spat it out, hearing him roar with pain, his grip loosening significantly – enough for her to kick back at his shin and bend to unsheathe a dagger from her boot…only to have her hair grasped and pulled back hard, sending her reeling back. Her cry was muffled by the blood-covered hand that came up to cover her mouth, the other bracing against her shoulder. He is going to snap my neck, she realised.

The other Watch member had never reached the wolf, which seemed unconcerned by the whole affair, for Neeshka had descended upon him from the low, half-tiled half-thatched roof behind him. Holding two throwing daggers into his shoulders, she wrapped her legs around his waist from behind, so pleased with those boots she had found in Moire's hideout. The ones with serrated 'spurs' clearly intended more for combat than riding. Her hold on him achieved in this bloody fashion, she had brought her tail up to wrap around his throat and a swift twist and wrench of the supernaturally strong, scaled appendage had ended his life before he could effectively claw at her grasp on him.

Isaviel took all of this in, clawing at the thick, bleeding arm of the one who held her to no avail. Distantly she heard a low twanging sound, and a whistle of air. She felt the man holding her tense, felt his grip dig into her shoulder and still she fought, kicking and scraping, biting…and then he let out a strange gurgling, choking sound. His grip on her loosened, and she felt something cold and sharp, like the tip of a dagger, scrape against her shoulder blade as she dodged out of the way to let him fall into the bloody mess the wolf had made of the first man.

"Now that's a pretty sight," a low, rough voice drawled, and Isaviel looked up to see the man Duncan had called Bishop lowering his bow, a cruelly satisfied grin on his lips.

"You shot him?" Isaviel asked in bemusement.

"Yes. And now you owe me," he growled, but he was still grinning as he approached, Neeshka scrambling to Isaviel's side as he wrenched his arrow free from the fallen brute's back, "I came upon your friend there fighting some of those Bladelings. I didn't much like the idea of them creeping into The Sunken Flagon while I slept, so I thought it would be in my best interests to help."

"And just now?" the Moon Elf asked, wincing as she brought a hand up to her neck.

"Why not? I saw how they behaved, and they had it coming to them."

"That's all fine," Neeshka interrupted, her voice high and frenetic, "But what are we going to do about the bodies?"

"Well, they're nowhere near Moire's hideout," Isaviel pointed out, "And it's dark – no one could have got a look at us clearly."

"Leave them to rot then," Bishop shrugged, "It sounds like you had the sense to dump your earlier kills far from their lair – and to wait until night to do it."

"Glad you approve," Isaviel sneered sarcastically, and his eyes burned in her direction.

"Alright. I'm all for leaving them…but what about the Bladeling we had to kill?" Neeshka asked, and looked in puzzlement as Isaviel's smile grew in the dim light of the night-time city.

"How far are they?"

"Just down there, at the end of the passage…"

"Let's drag them closer. I've a pretty story to weave to Cormick," Isaviel smirked eventually, and Bishop laughed.

"Clever girl."

A few hours later Isaviel, Neeshka and Bishop sat at the end of one of Moire's two long tables which stood at each far side of her main audience room. The wine she had spilled had stained the corner of one carpet, but her blood had been spilled more sparingly. Now they were making diligent use of the rest of her stores of that wine, while Bishop's wolf Karnwyr slept apparently soundly curled up by the fire. No pet had ever looked less adorable, Isaviel surmised. The beast still had blood around its mouth.

"I still can't believe she named me in her will," Neeshka was saying, talking as slowly as she could and still slurring her words, wafting a roll of parchment across the table as she stumbled over to regain her place at the head, "I can't believe she made a will at all."

"Moire has an empire of thieves and contacts all along the Sword Coast. Whatever that cult was that she had a part in, whatever ties they think they have to that dead King of Shadows…she had that business to think of too. And you heard her say it yourself – you're the best she ever saw. The crazy bitch had some sense in her after all," Isaviel grinned, raising her glass to her friend and taking a sip. She for one was having no trouble keeping a straight head.

"Sounds like she expected to die, to me," Bishop pointed out more gravely.

He stood as Neeshka sat, to stalk around the room still clutching a wine bottle and taking a long swig as he went. Through his cold demeanour he was a handsome man, Isaviel could not deny it. His hair was dark, just as were his eyes, his skin tanned, with a thin scar across one cheekbone. Defined muscle could be seen through his thin tunic now that he had discarded his leather jerkin over the back of his chair, as could the thick lines of what looked like burn scars on one shoulder. He paused at the far end of the table, catching her looking, and tossed her a pear which waited in a bowl there. She caught it by reflex a hand's breadth from her shoulder and bit into it, enjoying staring him down. He may have fought her in the tavern when she raged at Qara, but he had helped them with Bladelings and the Watch, and he was fair to look upon.

"I for one am glad we came away from this with more than we started. We have a well-defended hideout all of our own now that Moire is gone – and you're all welcome to stay with me. This place is big enough for everyone," Neeshka was saying , "And we'll be rich. Isaviel…I want you to be my partner. I might be the best thief, but you're…you're thebest…"

The Tiefling swayed a little on her chair and seemed to lose her train of thought. She had come up with her plans for the hideout more coherently when sober, after Isaviel had returned from The Sunken Flagon with the news that Cormick would be informed forthwith by the obliging Sand and Duncan. Elanee had rushed to apply ointment to the cut on her neck, and everyone seemed to have found it utterly plausible that Bladelings sent to look for Isaviel might have murdered two people in the street while attempting it.

"What are you the best at, Elf?" Bishop asked with a slow smile, continuing his walk across the room, his strides those of one who is confident in their control of a situation…and the slight swagger of one who knows it, "The mistress of pretty smiles?" he only laughed when she glared.

While Bishop headed through the side door to get more wine, Isaviel headed in the opposite direction, to the doorway which Neeshka had managed to break into earlier. It had been trapped and warded, but the Tiefling had skills at disarming both, and they had found it led to the newly dead Moire's extensive living quarters. It would appear that she kept no full-time servants, employing them to clean all but her own private rooms and to cook in a kitchen at the other end of the building, which was a converted block of houses. Not all of the rooms could be reached without crossing a back alley but the whole place operated within one great barrier of protection for which only certain members of the Guild knew the password. There were rooms in each part of the block which were free of this, set up to look like viable aspects of the sprawling property of some rich merchant who liked to keep up a home close to the quays from which he acquired revenue. It was all very well thought out, very well protected.

Moire's rooms were lavishly decorated and there was a vault tucked away behind a heavy bookcase which it had taken both Neeshka and Isaviel to budge. The Tiefling had broken into that as well, revealing the Will and chests of gold or jewellery and gems, all ill-begotten, along with a small table at the centre of all of this. Upon its warded surface lay three thick books, each keeping logs; one of commerce with the Shadow Thieves of Amn, one of information on the Neverwinter Guild itself and one of contacts and activities all the way down to Athkatla. But for all of their searching in the documents they had found there and elsewhere, there was nothing to say that they now had the power to get into the Blacklake. The Cloaktower of the Arcane had put a lockdown on all communications, and the mages there had far more power than any Watch organisation. It would still be necessary to act for the army to infiltrate the Orc camp and gain standing to get to Aldanon.

Isaviel picked her way, barefooted, across the soft carpets of Moire's bedroom, searching cupboards, wardrobes, drawers of clothes, armour, weapons…until she came to what she sought. There was a whole side room, separated from the sleeping chamber by a thin red curtain, dedicated to disguise. Mostly this consisted of rags or apparently tattered dresses, wizard or priest robes, a few children's toys, a walking stick, even a mask. That which caught the Moon Elf's eye was a white embroidered shirt and rich blue trousers, along with a simple cloth hat. Yes. This would be very useful.

"There you are," Bishop's voice startled her, and she spun around to see him approaching, holding out a scrap of parchment to her, "You might find this of some interest."

" 'We have successfully played our part. The Priest has been installed with Logram Eyegouger. See that you contact G and learn your part in all of this. L,' " Isaviel paused a moment, then nodded to herself, "'G' would be Garius, that 'Dark Wizard' I saw her talking to. The 'Priest' must be one of the people associated with that cult they seemed to both be a part of. But 'L'? I have no idea."

"The Eyegouger Clan is the greatest Orc clan in the area. All the others who live near them in the Sword Mountains pay fealty to them. You would do well to stay out of their way," Bishop said firmly.

"I can't. I have to infiltrate their lair to find out…" she paused, and Bishop seemed unconcerned by her lack of trust in him.

"So that is why you appear to be considering dressing in men's clothing," Bishop sneered, "You will never pass for a man, you know."

"Of course I know," Isaviel passed him by, arching an eyebrow at him, "And I will take that as a compliment," he just shrugged, so she continued, "But swathed in all the furs one needs for the cold winds of those mountains, the clothes will matter more than the face…or the form."

She did not wait for his response but headed back to the room in which they had left Neeshka, only to see that the Tiefling had fallen asleep at the table. Karnwyr remained dormant also. Sighing, the Moon Elf took another seat, one further from the snoring half-demon and the wolf, and took the wine bottle from Bishop as he offered it wordlessly to her before sitting opposite, kicking booted feet up onto the table and reclining against his chair, watching her closely.

"Tell me about West Harbour, Elf. I'm thinking I might like to join the Orc-killing party. Might be that I'm sick of the sight of your dear old uncle's tavern, and target practice is more the thing for me."

"Only if you tell me how you know my uncle," Isaviel countered, "And why you're in this city now, when you've not been for the last year."

"Now that's not a fair trade," Bishops's eyes had grown stormy again, "I'm not offering a trade. I'm offering my bow to your Orc-killing party, not my life."