Chapter Fifty-Two: Contractual Intelligence

The first rule of doing business abroad was to cross the language barrier.

I had seen this law confirmed many times in my Ermeline days. Men reasoned in terms of tribes and communities, between members and outsiders. A foreigner was always treated worse than a local in great and subtle ways. People would make fun of them in their own tongue, knowing they wouldn’t be understood; they would seem like easy prey for swindlers and conmen eager to make a quick buck; or certain matters would be kept from them, because they wouldn’t understand the situation.

Wealth and political clout helped close that gap, but they could never truly erase it. By contrast, outsiders who knew the language always enjoyed a certain degree of respect, because they had made an effort to fit in.

Hence why I insisted that everyone aboard learn the Shinkokan tongue.

“Niga nae daehaeseo nani-o wakatte…” Marika smiled sheepishly, sweat dripping from below her red headband. “Irunda?”

“What do you know about me?” I translated.

“Good,” Soraseo said with a genuine smile. She very much enjoyed being able to speak with someone in her native tongue, even someone who didn’t speak it fluently like Marika. “I will answer now. Nega nae chingu-raneun geol ara, Marikasan."

I know that you are my friend, I translated in my head. From the way Marika blushed, she understood it as well.

The Shinkokan language was quite difficult to grasp because it was actually a mix of two different ones. From what I gathered from Soraseo’s teachings, the country used to be split in two for a long period and neither side was willing to surrender their own native tongue after unification. The empire’s linguists settled on creating a highly contextual mix that used the grammatical rules of one and words from the other.

Ever the professional, I’d taken good care to ask Soraseo about her homeland and prepare our team for our trip there. Since her power made it easy for her to master a language, I had her seal her knowledge of the Shinkokan tongue in a headband, regain it, and then begin to practice with the others. I expected that we would all speak it fluently by the time we departed from Goldport.

Now if only we could all get along. I gave the Colmar’s lounge a cursory glance. Chronius stood in a corner, his attention firmly focused on the drifting clouds beyond the portholes. He did his best to ignore Mersie, who kept him in her line of sight at all times even as her butler served her tea. It’ll be a while before they can cooperate as a cohesive unit, if ever.

Those two’s enmity stood in stark contrast with Beni and Erika, who quickly struck up a fast friendship. They occupied the table near ours, albeit one swamped with chemistry books rather than Shinkokan scrolls. Beni transformed a small wooden puppet into an iron one in a flash of light before presenting it to his new tutor.

“Amazing!” Erika clapped happily. “You’re a real magician, Beni!”

The boy smiled with pride. Between her and Tehri, Beni loved to collect big sister figures and felt comfortable around them. Or maybe Erika reminded him of his mom.

Considering Erika would likely stay with us for a while and Beni needed practice to master his Class, we had debated about revealing his true nature as the Alchemist to her. I’d expected a stronger pushback from Marika considering her panicked reaction to the story leaking out when Beni first gained his power, but she proved less adamant than I thought.

“From what I gathered, she knew her father was a Hero from the start but kept it secret when he asked her to,” Marika had argued back then. “She understands the risks we’re exposed to. Besides, I can tell she’s a reliable girl.”

I also suspected that the fact Erika and Beni hit off quickly also helped. She probably reminded Marika of Tehri.

However, Marika did insist that I write up a contract for Erika and her father to sign to prevent any leaks. I had to purchase her ability to reveal that information to outsiders. While Erika felt too pleased about being considered trustworthy enough to be involved in ‘Heroic business’ to complain about the contract, her father reacted with skepticism.

“You might regret tying our tongues like this one day,” Chronius had warned us with his usual stoicism, and while I was tempted to agree, Marika wouldn’t budge on this matter. Even telling them about her son’s powers at all was a tremendous show of faith on her part.

Thankfully, this risk had already paid off. Erika was proving to be an excellent tutor for Beni, especially after I granted her access to Colmar’s journal. The Alchemist’s power could turn any matter into another with a touch, but it struggled with a potent requirement: namely, the user had to at least vaguely understand the chemical composition of what he intended to turn his target into. Since Beni lacked his predecessor’s century-long experience, he had to study extra hard to catch up.

“Alright Beni, we’ll try something harder this time.” Erika flipped the pages of a chemistry book until she found an entry on alloys. “Let’s go with stainless steel next. You’ll have to add chromium on top of carbon and iron.”

“You are quite the tutor, Erika,” Marika said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to pay you for your services? I can afford it.”

“No need, m’lady,” Erika replied, her eyes wandering to Colmar’s journal. “Getting access to this kind of research is worth more than my weight in gold. Mister Colmar was truly a genius ahead of his time. His notes on emergence are fascinating.”

“Emergence?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“It’s a well-known theory about how a complex entity gains properties and behaviors that its parts do not have on their own.” Erika handed me Colmar’s journal; the page she settled on showed a very detailed sketch of a human skull and its contents. “Like this. Mr. Colmar discovered that no specific part of a brain is responsible for consciousness, and that this phenomenon only appears when all of them work together. It’s revolutionary!”

Interesting. I’d mostly read Colmar’s entries on his personal history, especially when it related to his investigation of the Purple Plague and the Knots, and neglected his more scientifically-minded observations. I had been more interested in getting to know my friend as a person than reading technical notes on subjects that often escaped me, in spite of all the skills I had accumulated.

Browsing through his observations on how very tiny parts of the brain called ‘neurons’ interacted made me realize my mistake. As a disembodied soul occupying a piece of clothing, Colmar had gained a keen insight into the nature of consciousness and how it related to the brain.

“How is it that brain damage can cause amnesia, when a soul does not require one to accumulate knowledge?” I read in my head. “Were a soul to be extracted from a body and that vessel was left functioning, could it continue to learn and grow on its own not unlike a newborn? Multiple cases of previous life memories proved that the souls of the deceased reincarnate through the Soulforge, but the world’s population has only grown since its creation. Hence, where do new souls come from?”

I would usually leave these esoteric, existential questions to researchers and philosophers, but Colmar’s words struck a chord with me. They fit into another project of mine.

“Mind if I borrow this for a moment, Erika?” I asked her.

“Oh, of course not, sir!” Erika hastily handed me back the journal. She was still unused to being surrounded by so many Heroes. “I didn’t think a Merchant would be interested in biology.”

“You’d be surprised,” I replied with a small chuckle. “Inspiration comes from unexpected places.”

Mersie stopped her surveillance of Chronius long enough to smile at me. “You have an idea in mind, Robin?”

“Always.” Although it was a bit too early for me to make a judgment on its viability. “Don’t mope in a corner, Mersie, come and join us.”

Mersie’s smile widened further as she answered in a familiar tongue. “Oresama amugeotdo morundaneun geol ara.”

I wasn’t the only one who glanced at her in utter surprise. I’d spent enough time in Soraseo’s presence to tell that Mersie’s accent was near perfect.

“You can speak Shinkokan?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Milady is well-versed in Riverlandian, Archfrostian, Iremian, Everbrightian, and Shinkokan,” Camilus replied as he poured his mistress her share of tea. “Though I would say her Fire Island dialect needs some work on the accent.”

“I have your teachings to praise for my successes, Camilus, and my missed lessons to blame for my shortcomings,” Mersie mused. “I hope I didn’t butcher your native tongue, Lady Soraseo.”

“You did not.” Soraseo gave her a small, respectful nod. “I am impressed. You spoke in a tone that was…” She scowled and struggled to find the right expression. “Tongue twisted?”

“Tongue in cheek?” I suggested.

“Is the tongue not always hiding behind the cheeks?” Soraseo shook her head. “Your metaphors never cease to confuse me, but I confirm the meaning.”

Mersie proved her supremacy over a foreign language the same way I did: with a joke that I’d somehow missed.

“You should join us when we set sail for the Shinkoku,” I told Mersie. “You would fit right in.”

Mersie sipped from her tea, her gaze calculating. “Maybe,” she said without too much confidence. “Depending on how things go in Goldport…”

Chronius briefly glanced at her, and then returned to staring at the clouds in grim silence. Fortunately, Eris chose this moment to teleport into the room in a puff of smoke before an awkward silence could fall onto the lounge.

“You have a knack for appearing at the best of times,” I told my lover. “Are you doing it on purpose?”

“Of course I do. One should always strive to be memorable, Handsome.” The sight of our work tables amused Eris to no end. “My, my, since when have you all become so studious? This is the second time I’ve found your nose buried in books while teleporting in.”

“We’ve left those wild phases behind us,” I replied. “For now.”

“Good, because I kinda miss them.” Eris boldly sat on my lap as if she owned it, much to Mersie’s slight dismay. “Is Miro behind the flying wheel again?”

“He volunteered,” Marika replied. “I'll relieve him in two hours.”

While Mirokald’s power indeed made him the perfect fit for the job, I had grown convinced that he simply came to enjoy guiding the Colmar and watching it drift across the clouds. I also suspected that he yearned for moments of solitude now and then.

“Honestly, I’m looking forward to it,” Marika said while stretching her neck. “I can’t wait to take my brain off from all this grammar.”

“Mind if I pick your brain first?” I asked. “I know you won’t, but I’ve got to ask first.”

“Aren’t you feeling bold today, Robin?” Marika chuckled. “But sure.”

“I have good news for you too, Handsome,” Eris said before brazenly snatching Colmar’s journal out of my hands. “Remember that publisher you contacted to distribute our late Alchemist’s works? Well, I’ve arranged for him to visit us in Goldport, free of charge.”

“You did?” Something about her mischievous smile aroused my curiosity. “Are you planning a prank, my naughty nun?”

“Of a sort,” she replied with an enigmatic wink. “You won’t be the punchline, I promise.”

Now I found myself deeply curious. Eris clearly struggled to suppress her laughter. What could be so possibly funny about me meeting a book publisher?

“I’ve also paid a visit to our fellow Heroes and spread the word about what we’ve learned,” Eris said after returning the journal. “The Spy is following the Devil Coin trail too, though they insisted that I don’t visit them again to avoid blowing their cover. They said they would contact us in time.”

Soraseo picked up on her odd wording. “They?”

“I don’t know what they truly look like,” Eris confessed. “The Spies of the world can change their voice and appearance at will, though unlike Robin or the Rogue, they do not need another’s… contribution. Their Class can even hide its own mark.”

I could see why they wouldn’t want Eris to contact them. The Spy was a Vassal Class of the Bard specialized in infiltration. Many tales spoke of older generations saved from death’s jaws in the nick of time when one of their enemies revealed themselves as their ally in disguise. I doubted that Knot members would likely react kindly to the Wanderer popping up out of nowhere to address one of them.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Whatever the case, I was relieved to know other Heroes worked to foil Daltia’s plans. The more of us who focused on her, the lower her chances of winning.

“I’ve also met with the Necromancer and the Shaman,” Eris said. “Since they’re currently in Goldport’s vicinity, they’ve agreed to meet with and help us destroy its Blight.”

Mersie’s head perked up, as did Chronius. “That’s… good,” said the former, her voice laced with anxiety. “Good…”

“It’s quite the fortunate coincidence,” Marika noted.

“They were on their way to board a ship and meet with Professor Chandraj in Irem, since they’re his Vassal Classes,” Eris explained. “They’re a weird pair, but they’re both talented exorcists. I can vouch for their professionalism.”

That said quite a lot coming from her.

“I’m gonna take a pause from the Shinkokan lessons,” Marika decided, her hands swiftly removing her headband. “Sorry, Seo.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” our friend replied, her fair face morphing into a bittersweet expression. “I had happiness conversing in my native tongue with another. I missed it very much.”

Her answer broke my heart. Marika and I exchanged a brief glance, which Mersie caught on. She sipped her tea a moment before addressing Soraseo in Shinkokan."Neorang renshu hago sipeo.”

I would like to practice with you, I translated in my head.

Mersie’s words broke Soraseo out of her pensive mood. "Gippeuge, Mersiesan,” she replied in Shinkokan, with the two soon engaging in conversation. I suppressed a sigh of relief.

Marika quickly decided to change the subject. “Anyway, Robin, what did you want to discuss with me?”

“Let’s go for a walk first,” I replied before closing Colmar’s journal and kissing Eris on the cheek. “Care to come with us?”

“With pleasure.” Eris rose up from my lap. “I teleport so often that I almost forget to stretch my legs now and then.”

The three of us left the lounge soon after for the engine room. I took a moment to admire the airship’s pulsating pipes and the subtle ways the metal walls vibrated from the flow of essence coursing through them. The sight only reignited my desire to test out Colmar’s theories and put them into practice.

“Your ex has a good heart, Handsome,” Eris said. “I can see why you were so fond of her.”

“She does,” I confirmed. Moments like this gave me hope that my old friend could one day break out of her vengeful mindset and build herself a new, better life.

“I worry about Seo though,” Marika replied. “I thought she was getting better after Walbourg, but…”

“She misses her homeland as much as she fears returning to it,” I guessed.

“Yeah.” Marika nodded. “She feels that way to me too. I’m not sure if she’s ready to face her countrymen again.”

“The die is cast, Marika,” Eris replied while looking aside. “You can’t overcome your past if you do not confront it.”

She probably said these words for her own sake rather than our friend, but Marika nodded in understanding nonetheless. She too had to face her past trauma in the form of her ex-husband and came out stronger for it.

We finally reached the engine room. The very essence furnace that fueled our airship roared there, its alloyed steel frame thrumming as automated ropes and pulleys poured runestones in its burning embrace. Heat and steam coursed out of its long brass pipes spreading across the Colmar.

If our airship was a body, then this place was its beating heart.

“It’s quite hot in here,” Eris noted. “Are you planning to open up a sauna, Robin?”

“Next year,” I replied, much to my friends’ amusement. I paused to examine the machinery. I found it quite impressive how everything worked in tandem to keep us leagues above ground. “What do you think of that emergence theory Erika mentioned?”

“Well, we stand before one of its illustrations,” Marika pointed out. “The Colmar does not require much of a crew because we animated its individual parts until they all worked together in harmony."

I nodded sharply. “My thoughts exactly. Thanks to my power and yours, we’ve managed to animate the Colmar and the Vernisla beforehand. It’s quite the achievement.”

“You created a marvel, but you’re hardly pioneers when it comes to animation,” Eris replied with some skepticism. “Irem managed to create golems that didn’t require harvested souls to function. The Colmar’s real strength is its ability to fly.”

“You see…” I smiled as my hand caressed a piston. “I don’t believe that’s the case.”

Marika squinted at me. “What are you getting at, Robin?”

I presented her with Colmar’s observations on the brain and soul. “Colmar wondered how consciousness worked,” I explained while Marika and Eris read on. “I’m asking that question myself. If you give an object the ability to learn, to remember, to act, all these tiny pieces that make up an individual… then at which point will that object become a person?”

Marika’s skin turned milky white in spite of the heat. She had caught on to my idea. “You want to see if the Colmar can achieve sentience?”

“Yes!” I confirmed with enthusiasm. “Exciting prospect, am I right?”

“Quite the frightening one, yeah!” Marika protested. I took it as an invitation to step up my game and convince her. “Robin, you’ve seen Will’s work. You know what it takes to imbue an object with a soul.”

“That’s the beauty of the idea, we aren’t going to steal someone’s soul and incorporate it into the Colmar; we’ll see if it can gain one on its own by incorporating all the tiny parts that make up a person except that one.” I smiled ear to ear as a bold, catchy name for the project suddenly came to mind. “I want to create the first Contractual Intelligence.”

“It’s an interesting trail of thought, Handsome,” Eris replied, albeit with some reservations. “However, you shouldn’t ask yourself whether you can do it, but whether you should.”

“She’s right!” Marika shook her head, her face pale with disbelief. She was usually happy to join in my projects, but that one seemed a step too far for her. “By the Goddess, Robin, why would you want to imbue our ship with a mind of its own? What’s the point?”

“Besides the insight it will give into consciousness and the human condition?” My smile faded away. “I believe that this project will help us destroy Daltia’s crown.”

Eris’ eyes widened, her gaze quickly turning thoughtful. “Emergence…”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “All hints that we have so far indicate that she intends to unite the disparate souls she collected into a single Artifact of tremendous power, or at least fuel it. The thing is, we don’t understand yet how all of these tiny parts will assemble into a greater whole. And in the worst case scenario, where we fail to stop Daltia from forging her crown in time–”

“Understanding the process might teach us the means to reverse it,” Marika whispered, her hand stroking her chin. “Or at least sabotage the false Artifact.”

“We do not know enough about the mechanics of the soul either, since our Classes won’t let us affect them,” Eris continued. “The Devil of Greed enjoys a huge lead over us in that field of study.”

I could read between the lines. Daltia spent many centuries experimenting with her Merchant class in order to master the secrets of the soul. Her research led to the creation of the Devil Coins, the Soulforged Adamantine items preserving the Demon Ancestors’ immortality, and her own keen insight into how the masses’ beliefs affected our Classes. When she and Eris diverged, the demon kept most of that knowledge and left us to fumble in the dark.

“Since my Class won’t let me directly affect souls without triggering its safeguards, I was thinking about researching them indirectly,” I explained. “We vaguely know demons can function without a soul by filling an empty husk with a person’s darkest desires, but are they truly autonomous or still connected to the original soul? If so, can we reverse the process? Where do souls come from?”

“I can already tell you that Daltia does not know the answer to that question,” Eris replied. “She wouldn’t need to purchase souls if she could create them.”

“I don’t expect this project to yield all the answers either,” I replied. I had no doubt Daltia already tried a similar approach in the past, if only to complete her Artifact. “But any insight we can glean could give us the edge in the final confrontation.”

Eris remained skeptical. “I’m not sure you fully comprehend the consequences of this project of yours, Robin. You cannot create new life, then put it in storage and forget about it.”

I scoffed. “Eris, are you saying I would make a poor father to my baby ship? I’ll take my responsibilities.”

“Not with that attitude, you won’t,” Eris replied calmly. She took in a long, deep breath. “There was once a Ranger who thought she could create a new form of life beholden to her will alone with the Devil’s help, and she used her creations to cause untold amounts of pain and destruction. Your homeland is still dealing with the consequences of their mad ambition to this day.”

I winced. She had hit a nerve. Eris helped the first Ranger create the beastmen with an atrocity that she bitterly regretted to this day.

“Beastmen weren’t a mistake,” I argued, before quickly catching myself. “Their creation was the result of an immense act of cruelty, true, but many of them have made this world a better place. Colmar helped save Pangeal, and the Hunter Class selected Mirokald.”

“What I am saying is that we are treading on dangerous ground, Robin,” Eris warned me. “You cannot put that lightning back in its bottle, even if you did so to prevent a storm.”

“But we aren’t sure if lightning will strike at all,” I argued. “The entire purpose of this exercise would be to understand how consciousness works. Besides, we are trying to create an individual, not a species.”

“The Arcane Abbey won’t care about the difference, and they won’t take kindly to it either,” Eris replied. “That’s the thing, Robin: we’ll be opening a door leading into a dark abyss. We cannot know where it leads.”

“I could say the same of all adventures,” I countered. “We may soon face an enemy with the power to bend all of Pangeal to her will. I’d say we can afford to take risks.”

Eris scowled. She of all people understood the scale of her demonic self’s ambitions and the consequences of her victory. Taking down Belgoroth had cost us a teammate and demanded that we take great risks too.

“I agree that we should act boldly if we hope to win,” Eris said after reconsidering. “But did you see the amount of care a smart animal like Mirokald’s stonetusk requires? How do you intend to manage a moving ship a hundred times its size?”

“She’s not wrong,” Marika conceded. “The Colmar is our main means of transportation. Granting it sentience means it may refuse to follow orders or behave abnormally.”

I thought it over. They had a point. I’d suggested using the Colmar as a test subject since we already did half the job by animating its parts without considering the potential consequences of our airship misbehaving.

“You share the same flaw as all Merchants, Handsome,” Eris said with a heavy tone and a knowing look. “You think too big. I would say to start smaller. A living toy will be less fanciful than a talking ship, but it will be much easier to manage and take care of.”

She meant the toy as a joke, but I took it as inspiration. “What if we built something for Beni?”

Marika’s head perked up. “Beni?”

“You worried about his safety, so what if we built him a bodyguard?” I snapped my fingers. “Nay, what if we built him a friend?”

“Like a pet golem?” Eris mused. “That would spoil him a bit too much, don’t you think?”

“You can’t put a price on a child’s happiness,” I replied with a wink.

Marika crossed her arms and pondered my proposal. “Will had to steal souls to power his golems,” she said. “He thought it proved he was the better blacksmith, that he could create weapons fueled by human will. His ‘real children’, I think he called them.”

“Your late husband was a madman,” I replied. “You’re a better person and weapon exorcist than he ever was.”

“I know that.” Once Marika’s words would have betrayed a hint of insecurity; now they simply carried her confidence. Killing Will, defeating Belgoroth, and seeing Beni recover the use of his voice let her escape her ex-husband’s shadow. “But if your plan succeeds and we give a golem a life of its own without stealing that of another, then it will prove Will wrong; that he never had to kill to create artificial life. It sends a message.”

She wanted to inspire others to follow in her footsteps, and to ensure that her husband left no lasting legacy.

“Okay, Robin, I’m sold,” Marika decided. “That’s your wildest, maddest, boldest idea yet, but I’ll do my part to make it happen.”

“I guess we can at least try,” Eris said, albeit with some skepticism. “And I suppose your Class’ safeguards will forewarn you should you violate its ethics.”

“I’ll listen to my mark, I swear,” I said. I wouldn’t repeat her mistakes.

Eris nodded sharply. She wasn’t entirely onboard with the project, but she was willing to take a gamble in order to stop Daltia. “What would you require from me, Robin?”

“Contracts,” I replied. “Our goal will be to gradually infuse Beni’s new friend and protectorwith pieces of humanity until it achieves personhood, but I can’t take too much from someone without killing them. You’ll need to help me find candidates willing to part ways with small parts of themselves, then have them sign the appropriate contract.”

“Dear, are you giving me more mailing work?” Eris playfully wagged a finger at me. “A good man wouldn’t overwork his girlfriend like this.”

I chuckled and lightly kissed her on the lips, much to Marika’s bemusement.

“I’ll be sure to compensate you for your trouble, Miss Belarra,” I promised.

“No need.” Eris glanced at the furnace with a thoughtful expression. “You’re right, Robin. This might just make the difference.”

Besides a few bits of turbulence, we safely left Erebia and reached the Riverland Federation without issue.

It felt so strange watching my second homeland through a porthole above the skies. Though I was born in Archfrost, I’d spent most of my life in this country, scraping by in the city of Ermeline until I could take down Sforza and make a new life for myself. I’d left the Riverland Federation a nobody and came back as Robin Waybright, the Merchant who had helped Knight-King Roland defeat the Lord of Wrath.

I could expect a warm welcome… and an explosive one from the Knots.

According to Chronius’ sources, his former allies retained a strong presence in the city in spite of Mersie’s attempts to wipe them all out. Hence we all decided on a subtler approach by taking a slight detour along the coast. Our best bet was to stay beneath notice and obscure our movements as much as we could until we caught up to Daltia’s flow of Devil Coins.

A combination of Mirokald obscuring our movements by hiding in the clouds and Mersie’s knowledge of the region let us approach Goldport relatively undetected. We had the Colmar land in an isolated area away from prying eyes and then entered the city by land.

And thus Fiorella Salvadoreen, the last heir of Goldport’s old ruling house, returned as a nameless traveler.

“I’m disappointed,” I said as Mersie and I walked across the piers. The rest of the team was busy preparing our accommodations or following other leads elsewhere. “There’s nothing golden about this port.”

The city breathed wealth and trade, with hordes of ships traveling up and down the rivers giving the country its name and venturing into the Spring Sea beyond. Cogs, carracks, galleys, skiffs, and even warships swarmed the western harbor in the shadow of great warehouses and noble mansions.

But the piers were still made of wood and stone rather than gold.

Mersie cracked a small smile, which I appreciated. “A Merchant like you should know when to embellish a little, Robin.”

“Embellishing means there’s a grain of truth to it,” I countered as we walked up toward the nearest Trade Guild office. Though House Salvadoreen was gone, Mersie still exerted considerable influence on the city’s administration and we hoped to recover shipping reports that would let us track down Devil Coins’ holders. “They should have called it Rockport.”

“My family did not pick that name,” Mersie replied, her smile fading into melancholia. “Truthfully, I don’t even remember who first coined it.”

I studied her expression for a moment. As I expected, returning to her hometown after so many years weighed on her mind. The memory of her late parents hung over this entire city. I’d felt the same when I returned to Snowdrift, so I understood her all too well.

I should alleviate her mood however I could.

“How about you show me the city around?” I asked. “Perhaps the answer will come up in the most unexpected ways?”

“Careful, Robin,” she teased me back as we walked among a crowd of whalers and sailors. “I’ve heard the Assassin lurks around here. You never know what kind of dangerous woman you might encounter in a back-alley.”

I’d missed our banter. I opened my mouth to tease her back when a familiar feeling coursed through my spine.

Mersie’s head abruptly snapped to the side at passersby, as did mine. The impression lasted less than a second, but my friend’s reaction confirmed my suspicions.

“You sensed it too?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mersie confirmed, her eyes searching the crowd. “One of us just passed by.”

Another Hero walked by us without introducing themselves. I looked around, searching for them, but the sensation did not return. Whoever our colleague was, they had already left for a reason I couldn’t fathom.

At least I noticed a startling and very unpleasant detail.

My coin purse felt considerably lighter.

I immediately grabbed it. Although I felt briefly reassured when my fingers closed on its leather, my relief didn’t last. The coins inside it had vanished.

I froze in place as my mind struggled to understand what just happened. The purse was still there and tightly closed. There was no way anyone could have pilfered the coins without either taking or opening it, unless…

My foil had introduced themselves in a most typical fashion for their kind.

“I take back what I said, Mersie,” I complained in annoyance. “You should have called this place Roguesport.”