Duncan Farlong was his new master's name. He was not, as Bishop had first thought, a fulltime adventurer, but an innkeeper. A native Neverese from West Harbor a town further down the coast and squarely within Neverwinter territory. He recognized the name, it was Dayven's hometown. He knew better than to ask if he knew him. The less Duncan knew about Bishop, the less actual power he would have over him. There was precious little keeping the boy from stealing off into the wilds again, except the idea of both the Neverwinter guard and the Circle of Blades coming after him if the innkeeper let slip that he yet lived. Despite himself, Bishop found himself liking the older man. He left him alone, gave him an attic room with a fireplace and a softish bed to sleep in, and didn't ask too many questions. He even brought up the occasional bowl of soup during the first week Bishop arrived there and was afflicted with a fever that left him sweating and delirious.

The bolt in his chest had brought with it something nasty - some poison that had him lagging behind the rest of the company all the way to Neverwinter, but thankfully waiting until he was within the walls of Duncan's inn, the Sunken Flagon, to rob him of all sense and strength. He realized afterwards that it must have been a concentrated formula of a drink all the assassins took with each meal, meant to build enough immunity to the poison within that they could handle it with fear. Handle it with their hands to brew it and coat their weapons in it, not take a bolt soaked in it right to the chest. He imagined it would have killed him, even with all the help from his new companions, if he hadn't had some resistance to it already.

On the evening of his ninth day in Neverwinter, the fever had gone down and the aches gone out of his bones, though the ghosts he'd left behind still haunted his sleep. He ventured down into the inn, catching a glimpse of himself in a looking glass, bearded and gaunt like the refugees he'd seen in Luskan during the war.

"You look like death warmed over," Duncan, who was sitting, smoking and writing a letter called across the room, "And smell even worse. There's barrels out back, give yourself a scrub and I'll find you some new underclothes, we'll have to burn those."

Bishop had never really felt one way or another about Neverwinter. He knew vaguely that the village he'd spent his first eight years in was governed by the city, but that meant next to nothing. It was Luskan one year, Neverwinter the next, every time there would be another skirmish, more soldiers to stand around and harass the villagers. But even in Luskan, none of the dock urchins cared about their own home or its enemy. They fought for Luskan because they were conscripted - sometimes pressed into service - not because they gave two shits about the doings of lords. They did whatever put bread in their mouths. Looking out of the attic window his first day feeling somewhat healthy, he saw it was smaller than Luskan, but cleaner, though the dock district smelled just as bad. When he walked out into the bathing area out back, he didn't see any bodies, and that was definitely an improvement.

Back inside, naked but for a blanket and sitting in front of the fire to dry himself, he finally had the opportunity to assess his situation. He was alive, something he had neither intended nor planned for, with a few more gnarly scars to show for it. The fever had left him skin and bones, but he could feel some of his old strength returning. He had gotten himself out from under one master, and now he evidently had another, though during the weeklong trek from the remnants of Barnslow to Neverwinter City, neither Duncan nor any of his companions had ever raised a hand to strike him for disobedience or recalcitrance, though he showed plenty of both. There was the matter of what, exactly, the innkeeper would expect from him in return for room, board, and silence.

It was then that the man himself burst into the room, "You in there, Bishop?"

The boy jumped several feet in the air and wrapped the blanket around himself to preserve something like modesty, "Gods almighty, if I'd known this is what you were interested in, I'd have let you hand me over to the Luskans!"

"Don't flatter yourself," Duncan said, averting his eyes, "I was just coming up to say you should come down, have a drink."

"I ain't your friend."

"I'm the closest you've got to one in this town," Duncan said, "And you've got too many enemies to be picky. Something good has happened, I want to celebrate before the whole bar gets taken over by rioting drunks."

"You're stubborn," he said.

"I am," said Duncan, "And you're stuck with me."

Dressed, Bishop made his way back down to the barroom. The first time he'd seen it, his head spinning and his joints aflame, it had seemed vast and cold. Now, though empty, it was warm and a bit smoky from the two large fireplaces at either end of the room. There were a few dockworkers eating bowls of soup in the corner, murmuring quietly to each other. A couple of prostitutes with black roses in their hair, looking healthier than their counterparts at the Cuckoo's Nest, were talking to each other in one corner, their conversation punctuated with raw, raucous laughter. Not the fake giggles he was used to hearing from ladies of the night when they were pretending their clients had just said something hilarious, but guffaws bubbling up from their bellies and ringing around the rafters. Neither of them noticed him looking in their direction. Gods, I must look worse than I thought.

He pulled stool up to the bar. The bald man who'd initially pulled the bolt from him was in the kitchen peeling spuds, and Duncan sat behind the bar. In the corner, a bard, a bearded fellow with gaudy gold rings spilling from his right earlobe, was playing a splendid lute with a tone like warm honey. He paused a moment to let the melody wash over him.

"Caine Lethellon. Thinks he's a prodigy," said Duncan, glancing at the bard and pushing a tankard across the bar, "He's talented and gets people to buy more drinks. Too bad he's an asshole."

"Could say that about most people."

"You're a bitter little thing, aren't you," said Duncan, "You can't be more than twenty. What could have possibly happened to you to turn you rotten so early?"

"I'm seventeen," Bishop said, truthfully, "And I've got my reasons."

"Seven hells, you're just a child," Duncan sighed, his expression shifting from one of annoyance to one of pity, "Guess it's the beard."

"So are you going to take the ale away?"

"Nope. I've seen what happens to men who vex you," Duncan said, "I have no interest in becoming smoked meat."

Bishop laughed mirthlessly. It didn't feel good. Well, it did and it didn't. It was extraordinarily satisfying, remembering the old man protesting as his son strung him up, realizing the young man was stronger than he was - and even more sadistic. Offering to cut him down before the flames came if he just admitted what he did. But it didn't bring any kind of answer. Hearing from the old man's mouth how he'd violated his own child among the scores of other wretched sins that spilled out wasn't any kind of catharsis, everyone already knew it had happened.

"What did he do, anyway? Please tell me. Or wait, no, don't tell me. Is it going to make me feel better that I let you get away with such a grisly murder, or worse that someone can have done something to deserve something like that?" Duncan asked.

"The latter," Bishop said, and changed the subject, "So you said that something good happened, what is it that's got you drinking when you should be concentrating on your customers?"

"Well, you might have wondered what we might have been doing in Barnslow in the first place," Duncan said.

"It never occurred to me to care."

"Humor me."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a nice sort of chappie and I'm giving you ale among many other things," said Duncan, "Bloody hell, they don't really teach you manners in the assassin's guild do they?"

"Say it a bit louder, why don't you," Bishop hissed.

"Psht," Duncan scoffed, "This is my bar, nobody believes a damn thing I say in here. Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, the reason we were in Barnslow was that we were tracking down my brother's daughter. She left their home in West Harbor follow some boyfriend when she was fifteen, been gone ever since."

"And how long ago was that?"

Duncan sighed, "Seven years."

"Bit late for that all then," Bishop said, "Why's her dad want her back now? And why didn't he want her back before?"

"My brother… half brother. He's an elf. Do you know any elves?"

"A few. They're just like us, just don't age."

"Not my brother. He's not like us. Nothing he does makes a lot of sense," Duncan said. He took a sip of his ale, frowned, and poured himself a tumbler of whiskey instead. He shoved one over to Bishop, who did the same. It seemed the innkeeper really just wanted company on a slow night. They clinked glasses, downed the whiskey. Then looked at each other, each poured another, and did the same again. "He raised me. He's got a few… hundred years on me, maybe. Elves. You know."

The whiskey helped, but being somewhere warm and relatively safe from the claws of the Circle of Blades or the baleful eye of Cyric was really what made Bishop relax for the first time since he'd been a child. "My sister raised me," he said. It felt weird, saying something true, and personal - even something so innocuous as that - to someone.

"So you know how it is. If she asked you to find her daughter, you'd go find her, right?"

"She's dead."

"Sorry to hear that. But you know what I mean."

"I probably would. But she wouldn't have let her kid get away for seven years without going after them herself," said Bishop, wondering if it had been true. He'd been troubled by that vision he'd had as he lay dying. She didn't want to see him. She sent him away, sent him back into his body to be brought back from the brink, "So what's the good news? Your niece has been gone seven years, she's likely dead. Or is it that you've found her, married to a lord with three fat babies?"

"Somewhere in the middle. I just got a letter from my brother that she's arrived home, back to West Harbor. He says she's in bad shape, but will live. It's good news."

"Just now, huh? Did he say where she came from?" asked Bishop.

"He doesn't say," Duncan said, "But in any case, that's that out of the way. Thing is, that leaves me with a question… what am I going to do with you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The whole reason I'd taken up my sword again was to find her. Now she's found. And I've got a former assassin in my inn, for whom I'm no longer sure I have a use, whom both Neverwinter and Luskan would be very happy to get their hands on."

Bishop felt like he'd been dashed with a bucketful of icy water, the contented buzz of the whiskey draining from his face along with most of the blood that had been there.

Seeing the boy's face go pale, Duncan poured him another whiskey, "Relax, that's not what I meant."

"What did you mean, then?"

"You owe me a favor," Duncan said, "I'm not a cruel man, or an unreasonable one. I have no love of Luskan, nor do I particularly care for the Neverese constabulary. I'll call it due when I need it, and you'll know what that's what I'm doing."

"And in the meantime, while I'm waiting for you to need me, what am I to do? Sit around here drinking with you, make it look like you've got friends?" He tipped the whiskey down his throat, stifling a cough.

"There's work. There's always work. There's high tariffs on Luskan tobacco and Ruathym whiskey right now, there's money for those as are able to skirt the border guards, bring it here. I have buyers," said Duncan.

"You want to send a trained assassin as smuggler?"

"I'm not sending you for anything," said Duncan, looking at him over the whiskey bottle with muddy brown eyes, "I'm just telling you that there's money to be made. Work to be had. Good, honest work… albeit a bit illegal. You don't have to stay, but if you leave and I don't know where you are, just know you've got about a month before I assume you've absconded, and then… well I'm sure the Circle of Blades would be very glad to find you."

"Why keep me here?"

"I've put myself at considerable risk already, not turning you over to the Neverwinter authorities," Duncan said, "I'm a practical man. Who knows when I'm going to run afoul of someone that needs killing."

"Or your niece goes missing again," Bishop said.

"If you're a good boy, I'll bring you home for Midwinter," Duncan said, "But otherwise I'd thank you to stay well away from the family I have left."

"I know a tobacconist in the docks who'll sell you the good stuff," said Bishop, changing the subject, "I'll need some money to get it in the first place."

"Good man," said Duncan, "Now help me finish this bottle."