“Be sure to maintain your cover aboard ship, no matter what transpires,” Xixaxa told McKenzie and Leni. “It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the trolls may have sympathisers, or agents in their pay, tasked with maintaining surveillance over any air traffic which would infringe on their territory.”

“Wait, is that a thing? Troll Renfields?” McKenzie asked, surprised.

“Ren what now?” Leni asked.

“He was a guy who, wait, never mind. It means traitors,” McKenzie said.

Leni nodded. “It happens. They can be useful, if you have leverage over them. Lock someone’s family in a cage and threaten to eat them, people will do almost anything.”

“Classy,” McKenzie commented.

“Just another thing I intend to help stop,” Leni said.

“Trolls also, historically, have had allies. Willing allies, we must assume – other races who delight in death and destruction,” Xixaxa added.

“Who the fuck would knock around with trolls?” McKenzie asked, surprised.

“You, until recently,” Leni pointed out.

“That wasn’t by choice,” McKenzie reminded her.

“Not everyone and everything has your oh-so-high standards, though, McKenzie,” Leni said.

“You should be on your guard at all times,” Xixaxa stated. “If the airship is diverted away from the target because you are detected, you will have tipped your hand to no avail – and if you have to approach by some other means, your task will be nigh-on impossible. Quite apart from infiltrating the city of the trolls, the wastes of the Valanti desert are not to be travelled lightly.”

“We ride the ship all the way to the bad guys, no matter what. Got it,” McKenzie said decisively.

“No matter what?” Leni equivocated. “Won’t that mean putting fellow passengers and crew in danger?”

McKenzie made a dismissive gesture. “Nah, it’s all good. Five minutes after I step off that ship, I’ll do the thing, everyone’ll see trolls for what they really are, and-”

“It’s not gonna be that easy, McKenzie. Even if you succeed-”

“When,” McKenzie corrected her.

“Okay, even if we agree it’s a ‘when’ situation, a bunch of innocent people will still be surrounded by trolls, only now they’ll know exactly how fucked they are,” Leni finished. “Do you have a solution for that?”

“No,” the Archmage said. “We do not. Those people will be – what is the earthen term? Collateral damage. They will have been sacrificed for the greater good.”

“That,” McKenzie said, eyes narrowing, “sounds dangerously like the sort of thing you-know-who would say.”

“Good – I was choosing my words to mimic his as much as possible, because you need to be absolutely clear that what you are proposing is, at best, a reckless risk of people’s lives, and more likely it is a certainty that many people will die,” Xixaxa looked at him intently as she spoke. “Make no mistake – this is the price that must be paid for this plan to succeed.”

“OK, you’ve made your point Xixxy. New plan required,” McKenzie held his hands up in acceptance.

“Unfortunately, this is still the approach that maximises your chances of success,” Xixaxa told him.

“I’ll come up with something,” McKenzie said.

“Or I will,” Leni added.

“No, you just do what I say,” McKenzie overruled her. “You are not on the planning committee. You’re, like, an added extra.”

“I’m not in the killing people business anymore, McKenzie – not like some people,” Leni said darkly, or at least as darkly as the reification of ‘sweetness and light’ could achieve. “Would this plan get past your ethics committee?”

“How do you know about that?” McKenzie asked.

“I couldn’t help but overhear it while I was tied up helpless in a sack thinking I was doomed, as a part of one of your other plans. Also couldn’t help but notice the irony, not gonna lie,” Leni told him dryly.

“Okay, point one: whatever, you earned your little spell in that sack and a lot more besides. Two, this is a private side gig,” McKenzie said. “Not official Guild business. This is personal.”

“Know what?” Leni asked. “I agree: it felt pretty bloody personal being bait in a sack. It’s gonna be personal for the people we’re putting in danger, too. So, to restate: come up with something, or I will.”

McKenzie didn’t have an answer for that.

- o O o -

McKenzie was actually starting to look back with fondness on Leni’s days as a vicious troll, because at least then she hadn’t had feelings, or wanted to talk about them. At length. He’d never been one for talking, himself, and had always looked down, slightly, on people who had a need to unload their feelings on others and share things. This was definitely not something he did.

“It’s not like I want to be here with her,” McKenzie told Shaveen. Shaveen was one of the maids employed aboard the Posh Elf Titanic – a pretty girl whom McKenzie would have guessed to be maybe Indian, but of course there was no India here: she was from Vyrinios, and had a broad working-class Vyrinian accent (at least belowdecks, when she wasn’t in front of passengers).

He’d struck up a friendship with her after she’d clocked his ‘registered servant’ tag and dark expression while she was cleaning Leni’s cabin: she’d invited him belowdecks to have a drink with a group of the other servants, which he had done, mostly to spare himself another session of listening to Leni’s soul-searching.

In turn Shaveen seemed to have taken a shine to him: to the point where (after a few boundaries had been established, and Shaveen had resolved the point that McKenzie-Wednesday was not cheating on the nice elf lady) they’d just got finished with making Shaveen’s hammock swing around wildly, with their clothes piled underneath it. McKenzie liked Shaveen – she didn’t want to ‘discuss her growth as a person’, she just liked, well, hanging out in her hammock with him.

“Weds, babes, it’s fine and you don’t have to explain a thing,” Shaveen told him, with a reassuring kiss. “I’m not judgin’. I won’t tell her nuffin’ neither, don’t worry ‘bout that.”

“No, that’s fine, it’s, um, an open relationship,” McKenzie said, for the umpteenth time internally cursing Leni for the ridiculous choice of cover story.

Shaveen snickered meaningfully. “Yeah, Weds, that much I can figure out. You’ve fallen on your feet, there, she’s seems proper lovely, your elf lady. Some of ‘em can get right shitty with you, but Lady Elleniralla, y’know, makes you feel all ‘awwww’ when she smiles.”

“Trust me on this, she is not all rainbows and butterflies,” McKenzie said decisively. Everyone, from the lowliest of the servants to all but the most sneering and unpleasant of the passengers, seemed to be completely charmed by the new Leni. She couldn’t so much as turn around without provoking smiles and laughter, and far from her edits to the plan resulting in her being ostracised as an elfmaid having an affair with a human, the actual result had simply been that the elven population of the ship (ie, almost everyone) now looked at him like some sort of chancer that was taking advantage of an impressionable young elfmaid.

“Never fuckin’ are, are they?” Shaveen sympathised. “Why are you with her, anyway? If you don’t mind me askin’?”

McKenzie sighed. “It’s a work thing. It started out as a cur- um, contractual obligation type deal, neither of us really liked the other but we had to work together, no choice. Then that was brought to an end by, well, I suppose you’d say a senior colleague intervened, and I thought – great, that’s the last I’ll see of her, but it turns out that even without the whole cur-, um, contract thing I’m still stuck with her. Until the end of this job, at least.”

Shaveen patted his arm. “Always the same, innit? The boss says jump, we ask how high. Still, it’s money, right? And she doesn’t seem like your usual run of stuck-up elf. Also – I’m okay with this is an ‘open relationship’ too – but how ‘stuck with her’ is it when you’re sleeping together?”

That bloody cover story, he thought.

“Well, she has gone through some pretty big changes recently,” McKenzie allowed. “But I’ve got history with her, we really didn’t always get on. What she used to be like...that’s a pretty big thing to get over.”

“I’ve got a cousin like that. Total bitch when we was kids, but she’s really nice now and we have a laugh about it. People do change, Weds,” Shaveen said, with a sympathetic expression.

“Not this much, trust me,” McKenzie grunted.

“But it’s good money, though? Does bodyguarding pay well?” Shaveen asked. “On top of the side benefits.”

McKenzie snorted. “No, this job is pro bono, but it’s only a one-time deal and I’ve only got to put up with irritating elves for a while.”

“I hear that,” Shaveen agreed with a roll of her eyes. “The officers is the worst, on this crate. It’s like they’re lookin’ right through you, like you’re not even a proper person.”

McKenzie didn’t like the elven officers either – they all shared the same lack of humour that he assumed Shaveen was referring to. The other passengers could be deeply irritating entitled twats, but at least you heard them laugh from time to time.

“Yeah, they are a bit off,” McKenzie agreed. “And also, for the record, you can tell Lady E to her face what we’re doing. I know this is a shipmates with benefits type deal we have here and I am absolutely fine with that, but I am not in any way ashamed of you.”

“Aw, Weds, you soppy twat,” Shaveen said endearingly, and kissed him again. “You’re alright, you are – but let’s both not make our working lives any harder, yeah? Lady Elleniralla might be all modern and okay with it, but my boss’d go spare, only in a really creepy and intense way.”

“Understood, ma’am,” McKenzie answered, with a joke salute.

“I gotta work,” Shaveen said, giving him one last kiss before performing, with commendable agility, a gymnast-style dismount from the hammock that ended up with her landing lightly on the deck, where she proceeded to pull on her uniform – an unnecessarily frilly pale-blue dress.

“I probably have, aswell,” McKenzie sighed, and performed his own hammock-exit: managing to clonk his head on a beam and nearly fall over in the process, which made Shaveen laugh, albeit slightly sympathetically.

“Will you be free at watch change?” Shaveen asked him. “Will you, in fact, manage to remain conscious ‘til watch change? You don’t half knock yourself about Weds.”

“For you, I will make sure I am,” McKenzie grinned at her.

“Yeah, you definitely are a soppy twat,” Shaveen smiled at him from the doorway of her tiny cabin – one she shared with three other girls, which made scheduling these little get-togethers a bit of a pain. “Good job you’re better in a hammock than getting’ out of one. See ya later, Weds.”

McKenzie gave it five minutes before leaving, and made sure he couldn’t hear anyone out in the gangway when he did. The servants – mostly young human women - were overseen by a particularly humourless elf officer, and while fraternising was not officially forbidden, the officer acted as if everything was forbidden.

He’d reckoned without innate elven stealthiness, though. The officer in question – an elf woman with a particularly hard glare that’d give even Danandra some competition – was standing between McKenzie and the stairs.

“You are aware,” the officer said, “that these are the women’s quarters?”

“Ah. That’d explain all the women,” McKenzie replied, having run out of politeness-fucks to give a couple of days ago: they were already five days into the voyage. The tedium of elven disapprobation had only been broken by Leni’s bouts of existential angst, a few pleasant interludes with Shaveen, and three texts from Buzz, emphasising that Something Was Wrong but not providing anything further in the way of details. McKenzie hadn’t bothered replying to the last one.

“What, then, is your reason for being here?” The officer asked, unimpressed.

“Random security check,” McKenzie lied, with a shrug. “Gotta make sure there’re no weapons around. Assassins could be anywhere, after all.”

“That is not your responsibility,” the elf stated flatly. “There are no weapons on this ship.”

“Except in secure storage,” McKenzie corrected.

The elf woman glared. “Indeed. In any case your presence here is not welcome. Confine yourself to performing your duties in your mistress’s bedchamber, not that of the slave girls.” There was no mistaking her meaning, but McKenzie had picked up on something else.

“Slave girls?” He asked, moving closer to the officer in a not entirely unmenacing way. He’d been seeing a lot of Shaveen – almost all of her in fact – so he knew she wasn’t branded as a slave: but if there were slaves aboard, then there was about to be a very serious incident.

“Servants,” the elf corrected. “This shipping line does not, of course, condone the use of slave labour.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to put those Melindronian clients off, would you?” McKenzie nodded.

The officer, like all of them, was immaculately groomed and perfectly turned out: white uniform sparklingly clean and ironed to precise perfection, even though Shaveen said they didn’t make use of the servants for that, or indeed for anything: nobody at all was permitted in the officer’s quarters, they were that uptight.

This sartorial perfection and generally well-scrubbed appearance was, of course, down to the small point-sources of magic that they all wore: the insignia of the passenger line, on their chest, and a bracelet – Shaveen’s boss had one of each too. Personal glamour charms, McKenzie had been told, the magical equivalent of airbrushing your profile pic: pin one on and you too could always look like the best version of yourself at all times – at least until the charm wore off, or someone with magical training looked closely.

Or, of course, someone who possessed the legendary (and legendarily dangerous) quintessence touched them and drained off all their magical oomph. McKenzie toyed with the idea for a moment – would she have to do her laundry properly if she didn’t have recourse to the glamour charm? He held off, though: no telling what chain of events that could set off, low profile and all that.

The elf woman wasn’t impressed by McKenzie’s looming, although an expression of distaste did cross her features at his proximity. “We are sympathetic to the concerns of all our clients,” the elf woman told him.

“Sure you are,” McKenzie said. “Anyway, lovely chat, would you mind awfully letting me past? Gotta get back to those all-important bedchamber duties.”

The elf officer gave vent to a very soft snort, and stood aside. McKenzie moved past, and up the stairs.

“Disgusting, low creature,” he heard her hiss.

McKenzie paused on the stairs, and looked back. “Heard that, but it’s cool – I’m a professional, so I’ll just let it pass and you definitely won’t regret saying it, at all, ever, not something you should stay up worrying about in the slightest, I’m not at all into holding grudges and getting my own back in some kinda maliciously creative way further down the line, not a problem at all and you can just relax. Okay? Good. Bye.”

The elf officer’s eyes widened momentarily, in surprise and, McKenzie thought he could detect, a little fear. I bet she said that in elvish and assumed I couldn’t understand, he thought.

He carried on up the stairs, smirking to himself, and found his way to his (or really Leni’s, he supposed) cabin. She was not in – handy, because his phone vibrated shortly thereafter.

This caused an immediate guilty start – what if it was her? Then he got himself under control: it wasn’t like he was married to Narra, they’d barely really known each other – and in any case, it was Christine, his superpowered ex-girlfriend who was now just a friend, calling from Earth.

“Oh hi,” he said, answering it. “Stuck-up elf insulting services, how may I offend the pointy-eared dipshit of your choice today?”

“Hey McKenzie,” Christine replied. “You okay man?” She sounded concerned.

“Never better,” McKenzie replied. “Just having a beer in the Guildhall bar, on my lunch break.”

This was obviously a lie, but he’d already told Christine that he wasn’t going to be posting everything he did on social media any more, and wouldn’t always be able to talk about what he was doing – if an enigmatic mystery figure could send communications to his phone, then it was perhaps best to assume that a) it wasn’t 100% secure, and b) maybe other people could do the same thing. Either situation militated against posting everything you did on Twitter and having conversations about it. “How are you and the others?”

“We’re all good here, apart from, well,” Christine replied, sounding uncertain. “Um, okay – this is weird, but I think we have a message for you.”

“Well, that’s fine, Christine, you’ve got my number, ring me whenever you’ve got something to say to me, even if it is weird. We’re overpowered freaks of nature, weird is what we do, right? Wait, should I use Psyonara on the phone? Secret identity and all that.”

“I think that ship has sailed, to be totally honest McKenzie,” Christine replied. “What I mean is someone left a message with us, for you,” Christine said.

“Narra?” McKenzie asked quickly, forgetting his rationalisations of moments ago.

“No, not Anaharra, still nothing on that front, sorry,” Christine said quickly. “It’s...look, you know how Jimmy’s a tech genius in exactly the same way that you aren’t, right?”

“Thanks for that, but yes, point taken, go on.”

“Okay, so our computers are locked down tight. Nothing in or out without his firewalls say it’s OK. Then today we all get exactly the same email,” Christine said.

“Don’t you guys get a lot of unsolicited email from weirdos, though? You average about three marriage proposals every minute, don’t you?” McKenzie asked.

“This was to our private email addresses, though, addressed to us by name, and-” Christine’s tone changed from ‘freaked out’ to ‘freaking pissed off’ very abruptly. “Wait, it wasn’t you, was it? I swear to God, McKenzie, we’ve gone into full-on security alert over this, if this is you pranking us then I am about to lose my shit with you like never before, and that includes the space laser thing!”

“That was not my fault!” McKenzie protested. “What did they expect, putting a big red button on the control panel with ‘do not press’ written underneath?”

“It didn’t just say ‘do not press’, though, Crowbar, did it?” Christine asked rhetorically – forgetting, in her ire, to not use his made-up name.

“Well, no,” McKenzie admitted.

“And what did it say?” She pressed.

“It said, ‘do not press, that includes you Crowbar’,” McKenzie further admitted.

“And the rest!” Christine growled.

“And ‘we really mean it, we’re the US Department of Defence and we know what we’re doing’,” McKenzie finished, slightly guiltily. “Look, it was only one satellite and it was an old one anyway, and-”

“Did you send the email, McKenzie?” Christine interrupted.

“No!” McKenzie said. “Honest, cross my heart and hope to die, I have not emailed you.”

“Oh, okay,” Christine said, calming down instantly, as she tended to. “Then I’m sorry for dragging that up again – this email has got me a bit rattled.”

“Any chance I could hear what it said?” McKenzie asked.

“I’ll forward it on to you,” Christine said.

McKenzie’s phone blipped at him a moment later. He opened the email.

Tell him to take my warning seriously, Christine, he is in danger – from Buzz.

“Oh,” McKenzie said. “Him.”

“Who is he?” Christine asked.

“You know how I mentioned I was getting tip-offs?” McKenzie asked.

“Yes - you know his name now? ‘Cos apparently he knows mine, and Susie and Jimmy’s.”

“No, no, that’s just the nickname I’ve given him – or her, or it, I don’t know anything, really,” McKenzie replied. “He’s being a bit of a dick, to be honest – if it’s that bloody important he could phone me with proper information, he’s just been spamming me with vague but portentious texts. Meh, it’s probably nothing,” he concluded.

“Well, Jimmy and Susie don’t agree. This is a big deal, McKenzie – nobody should be able to penetrate our security that way. The only person – or, like, cyborg or something – oh shit it’s an evil robot, isnt it?”

“Wouldn’t totes rule it out,” McKenzie told her, then put her on speaker while he sent a text to Buzz. Not cool, man, Pysnoarea is doing her nut now. Boundaries, mate, boundaries. “But don’t jump to a wotsit, for all I know it’s Le-, it’s you-know-who.”

“He says not,” Christine said.

“Fuck, you asked Lemuel?” McKenzie asked, irritated, then: “Bugger.”

“Okay, workplace surveillance is not part of the deal, boss, so I’m going to count down. No offence, but this is a private conversation between friends. One, two, three-” Christine said.

Bollocks, McKenzie thought to himself. He’d started to get used to the rules of his new world – which included Lemuel, his hated ex-boss (and still, technically, Christine’s boss), being able to detect when his name was used, and hear what was said afterwards for a short time. He’d got in trouble that way before.

Christine counted off until they could be sure Lemuel wouldn’t receive a report. McKenzie waited.

“-twenty,” Christine finished. “McKenzie! I thought you were on top of this now!”

“Yeah, my bad, sorry,” McKenzie apologised. “You haven’t told him about Buzz, have you?”

“No, just that we got a weird email, no details,” Christine confimed. “Jimmy’s going to try and trace the sender, but, well, I’ll be honest: he used a whole lot of words, and my takeaway from it all was just ‘this is really difficult’. So don’t hold your breath.”

“I wasn’t anyway,” McKenzie said. “Did you reply?”

“We all did, we haven’t heard anything back.”

“Yeah, he’s funny that way,” McKenzie frowned. “For what it’s worth, sorry that you guys got dragged into my shit.”

“What are you in the middle of, McKenzie?” Christine asked.

“Told you – a beer, and bearing in mind he’s the disembodied soul of an ancient assassin haunting a building, Revlius does a surprisingly good line in light lunches,” McKenzie replied.

“OK, operational security. I get it. I just worry about you, Crowbar. What if you come up against something really, really scary?” Christine said, with a catch in her voice.

“Christine, I’m in charge of the really scary somethings. I am the head scary thing,” McKenzie reassured her.

“I meant like, I dunno, a dragon. They can fly and breathe fire. Fire, McKenzie!” Christine semi-yelped down the phone.

“Okay, that’s just in films. Dragons aren’t real, Christine,” McKenzie said.

“In the same way magic and trolls and elves and vampires and werewolves aren’t?” She pressed.

“Yeah, point taken. Danandra said they haven’t been seen for hundreds of years, anyway: I’ve got other shit to worry about,” McKenzie told her.

Christine sighed. “I wish I was there,” she said, in a small voice. “I could help.”

“You don’t want to be stranded here, and anyway, you help people on earth, Christine,” McKenzie told her.

“Not so much, these days. People sue for damages because they get slightly hurt while you’re saving their goddamned life. The police and the FBI are always up in our business,” Christine sighed. “There’s talk of bringing us into the CIA, so we have to do as we’re told. I think we pissed the boss off when we helped you, so this time he isn’t lobbying against it. Honestly, I think the world is moving on from people like us.”

“Okay, remember how I told you that being a supervillain pays loads better?” McKenzie grinned into the phone. “And if you’re getting hassled by the old bill and the feds anyway...”

“Stop it! I am not turning to crime,” Christine protested, with a laugh.

“OK, my point is, you don’t want to get stuck here,” McKenzie said.

“Don’t I?” Christine said, serious again. “Magic and elves and, holy shit, are there unicorns?”

“Fucked if I know,” McKenzie replied honestly.

“I could totally work with a magic unicorn buddy. I’d call him Mr. Horny and ride him all the time,” Christine said, enthused.

“Stop, rewind ten seconds, try again,” McKenzie told her seriously, after a pause.

“Thank you, I had only just realised how that sounded. I would call him Mr. Pointy, and we would be BFFs and have adventures together,” she edited her last sentence.

“Loads better,” McKenzie said, wandering over to the balcony. Below, the land had turned from green to yellow – the desert. “But I don’t know if they’re real, and anyway didn’t you say you had a boyfriend now? He might not appreciate being left behind.”

Christine made a soft snorting sound. “Yeah, we weren’t that serious – or at least it turned out that he wasn’t that serious. I just don’t think it’s good for my mental health being in a long-term relationship with someone who could kill me with a thought,” she said, doing an impression of a man who, McKenzie felt, was probably called Chet, or Brad, or Chad.

“What a tosser,” McKenzie commented. “All the best girlfriends can kill you with a thought. He knows nothing, his loss.”

“I don’t think Todd would agree with you,” Christine replied. “He knew exactly what he wanted, made sure he got it a few times, and then moved on without losing a thing.”

“Todd. Well, I was close,” McKenzie said.

“Pardon?”

“Never mind, I didn’t mean to say that out loud. Sounds like you’re better off without him – you deserve, and will find, someone who is less of a twat,” McKenzie reassured her. “I grant you that does not sound like a high bar in his case, but you know what I mean.”

“How about you?” She asked.

“Let’s not go there again, Christine, I feel our friendship is in a really good place right now and I value it too much,” McKenzie replied.

“Har har, McKenzie. You know what I meant,” Christine rebuked him.

“Sorry.”

“Are you still pining after the wolf princess?” She asked. “Or have you actually not overcommitted this time?”

“Ouch,” McKenzie said. “Not gonna lie, that stings a bit. But as it happens I am having a sort of a holiday thing with a nice girl I met via work.”

“What, another assassin?” Christine asked. “Ooh, does she dress in black, carry throwing knives and have a dark and mysterious past?”

“They pretty much all tick at least two out of those three boxes, but no, not another assassin,” McKenzie explained.

“Wait, you’re dating a target?” Christine gasped. “Does she know she’s a target? That sounds more like the premise for an action movie than an actual real-world relationship with a long-term future.”

“Okay, I feel I should explain – again – that the modern Assassin’s Guild is no longer just about killing people for money, if indeed it ever was,” McKenzie said. “It’s not just killers and targets, we do all sorts now, we have ethics, we’re more like the IMF or something. Anyway, this is just a normal girl, we like hanging out, we’re both okay with it being about, well, not to beat about the bush, sex and fun, no strings attached.”

“I’m happy for you, McKenzie!” Christine said, slightly gushily. “This is probably exactly what you need to get back into a good relationship headspace. Seriously, I could kiss this girl.”

“Nice of you to say, but I’m not sure why you’re so invested in my love life,” McKenzie asked, slightly confused.

“’Cos I did you over pretty badly, McKenzie,” Christine said, after a moment. “My therapist says I’m still dealing with residual feelings of guilt because I blame myself for you ending up in exile.”

“We’ve already had this out, Christine, it’s not your fault, and we were pretty much over anyway – but how come my situation is coming up in your therapy sessions? And also – you have a therapist?” McKenzie frowned.

“Well, yeah – she doesn’t know who I am, so I’ve had to sort of change a few details. You joined the Dutch Foreign Legion and are now out in Africa, rather than another planet,” Christine explained.

“There’s a Dutch Foreign Legion?” McKenzie asked, confused.

“Of course, they’re famous. There’s been books and movies and everything,” Christine said. “They have those special Dutch hats with the flappy bit.”

“Yeah – your therapist knows who you are,” McKenzie said.

“She totally doesn’t!” Christine objected.

“I will bet you fifty gold imperials she is not at all surprised if you tell her,” McKenzie stated.

“Is that a lot?”

“Shedloads – but my money is safe,” McKenzie said.

“Ha! It totally isn’t. You’re on,” Christine cackled.

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun,” McKenzie cackled back at her.

“I gotta go,” Christine said. “Someone’s planning to hijack an experimental jet-rocket, or rocket-jet, or something. Big billionaires toy, anyway.”

“Make sure you invoice them appropriately,” McKenzie advised.

“I’m not in this for the money, McKenzie,” Christine said. “Even rich people deserve protection.”

“Do they though?” McKenzie said wryly, as the door opened. “Speaking of which, I gotta go too, I’m probably supposed to be doing stuff. Keep me in the loop?”

“Will do. Enjoy your totally-real lunch,” Christine said, laughed, and hung up. McKenzie tucked his phone into a pocket.

Leni walked in, with a trio of elfmaids in tow: daughters of other passengers, with whom Leni had taken to hanging out. They were all young (by elf standards), all blonde, and they all had the usual elven overly-multisyllabic names which McKenzie had already forgotten – he just thought of them as Dorks, Squawks and Awks.

As with every other pointy-eared passenger, he found them unbelievably annoying, but to be fair they were at least not hostile, superior or snide like their bloody parents. Maybe they thought they were being all cool and edgy, hanging out with the girl that was openly having an affair with a human.

“Ah, there you are Wednesday,” Leni said.

McKenzie looked down at his feet and up again. “So it’d seem,” he said.

Leni frowned. Despite the weakness of the joke, Dorks gave vent to one of her usual semi-embarrassed giggles and blushed: if elven propaganda was accurate and they really were blessed by the gods with grace and wisdom, Dorks had traded it all in for gawkiness and social ineptitude: she also quite obviously had a painful crush on McKenzie. Squawks also laughed, but in a loud, braying tone that had earned her the nickname. Awks – a student mage, apparently, and so hung about with various magical amulets and talismans that even looking sideways at her was a confusing welter of conflicting magical signals to McKenzie – gave a minimal smile from behind the ever-present stack of books she carried with her everywhere, but said, as usual, nothing.

“See you later girls?” Leni asked, holding the door meaningfully.

Cue more laughter from all of them except Awks as they dutifully left. Dorks hovered in the doorway for a moment with a hopeful backwards glance, but then followed her two friends. Leni closed the door.

“So you’re back, then,” she said, in a quiet, flat tone.

“Seriously don’t have to be,” McKenzie replied.

Leni stropped over to a small chest on her bedside table and opened it. Within was a small glass globe – she touched it, or rather stabbed at it somewhat angrily with a finger – until it began to glow. McKenzie felt a background sussuration of magic: this was a privacy talisman provided by the Archmage.

“Rather be belowdecks with a maid, would you?” Leni asked, now that nobody could overhear.

McKenzie frowned. “Well, yes,” he answered, confused.

Leni sighed. “Sorry, of course you would be. I just found out and I am conflicted. I have the impression that I should feel happy on your behalf that you’re seeing someone – not sure why, still working out the details of the whole having empathy thing.”

McKenzie sat down on the sofa. “Um...thank you, I think?”

“Is that normal? I mean, two people, only one of whom I even know, are fucking. So what? What possible difference could that fact make to me, personally? And yet it seems like a positive development for you, and therefore I have feelings about it.” Leni sat down on the end of bed – she had to jump up onto it first.

Here we go again, McKenzie thought. “Yes, Leni, that is probably within the bounds of normal.”

“OK, good. That might therefore be why those feelings are mixed, one of the ingredients sloshing around in there being quite a big ol’ dollop of anger about the fact that your love life is interfering with the mission. We have a cover story to maintain, McKenzie! Your random maid shagging habit is going to expose us!” Leni remonstrated.

McKenzie sighed. “I’m not working my way door to door through the serving girls’ quarters, Leni, her name is Shaveen and we are two adults in a relationship. This is a normal thing that normal people do.”

“But you’re supposed to be doing that with me!” Leni objected.

“Okay, one: ew. Two: that’s a fiction that we made up, or that you made up, rather. And three: so what? Another normal thing that happens quite a lot is that people cheat. The bloke that’s knobbing his posh elf boss lady is also having it away with one of the maids, ooh, that never happens, how suspicious!” McKenzie said sarcastically.

“And this Shaveen’s okay with that, is she? That you’re cheating on the hot elfmaid?” Leni asked. “On this hot elfmaid, in fact?” She pointed to herself.

McKenzie threw up his hands. “Argh! That’s not real, Leni! But if you must know, Shaveen is a nice girl and didn’t want to be a part of that, we only started seeing each other seeing each other when I told her that the fictitious relationship that doesn’t actually exist was an open one anyway and you wouldn’t mind. She actually quite likes you, for some bizarre reason.”

“Wait, you lied?!” Leni asked.

“No, Leni, I would actually have to contradict something that was real to do that, wouldn’t I?” McKenzie reminded her. “You made up the lie, not me.”

“Even so, you purposefully risked our cover just so you could get laid?” Leni asked, frowning.

McKenzie paused: “Okay, when you put it like that it sounds kinda shitty, but it honestly wasn’t like that.” He then remembered Leni was not a puzzled, confused and hurt girl but a vicious troll, or at least very recently had been: “But the hell with that anyway, I’m in charge of this mission, your cover story idea was a pile of hot rubbish, and in any fuckin’ case it doesn’t matter. Nobody cares, Leni, or at the very least if they do care it’s just to gossip about it or extra reason to look down their nose.”

“Okay, well, in that case, then Lady Elleniralla is officially on the outs with you,” Leni crossed her arms and glared.

“Fine, if that’s the way you want to play it, I suppose it makes sense – but like I say, I seriously don’t think anyone else has any fucks to give anyway,” McKenzie shrugged.

“It makes me feel angry and betrayed that you are cheating on me with Shaveen,” Leni insisted.

McKenzie sighed. “Only I’m not, though, am I? That is a cover story, Leni.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Leni demanded.

“Honestly starting to think you might not have the best grip on it, yeah,” McKenzie told her, with an unsure expression. “Would it help if I told you I did it in order to gather intelligence? The staff gossip.”

“No – and you literally only just thought of that right now, didn’t you?” Leni accused him.

McKenzie shrugged. “Since it wouldn’t have helped anyway, yeah, I literally just did.”

Leni continued to glare, then – in a very charming way – made a fist and thumped herself in the chest. “You know what actually hurts, McKenzie? In here?” She thumped her chest over her heart again.

“No, but I’m almost positive your feelings on it are about to enter the conversation,” McKenzie noted dryly.

“It’s that I found out about it from a sneering, stuck up, new-elf-money asshole in the passenger’s lounge just now. It’s all over the ship, apparently. ‘Of course, unlike some people, I prefer not sharing my personal possessions with the help’, was the exact wording used. He went to some trouble to inject it into the conversation, by the way,” Leni told him.

“So?” McKenzie shrugged. “A dickhead was being a dickhead, what do you care?”

“I care because you didn’t even think it was worth discussing it with me, before you jumped into bed with a serving girl,” Leni told him.

“Actually it’s a hammock,” McKenzie corrected her. “Also they’re really difficult to jump into, you have no idea how many times I’ve banged my head getting in or out of that thing, and don’t even get me started on the chafing if the blanket moves out of position and-”

Leni’s expression at that point could have rivalled Danandra’s in terms of pure megawatts of are you for real? Even McKenzie, usually as blithe and blasé as a lion trotting past a herd of wildebeest, elected to shut up.

“Seriously?” She asked. “That’s something you truly thought was worth mentioning right now?”

“Oh-kay, not helpful, granted,” McKenzie admitted, in a tired tone. He got up and started poking in what would, in another place, be referred to as the cabin’s mini-bar, but here was just a chest with some drinks in it. “I seriously don’t get why you are so het up over this, Leni, why would you even care what I do in my spare time?”

“We are in this together, McKenzie. I’m here because I thought the right thing to do was to show the world exactly what trolls are, even though I am troll catnip and they all want to get their hands on me. I have volunteered to infiltrate a gods-damned troll city armed only with a pretty face and an engaging laugh. The fucking least you could do is keep me in the loop on things that affect that,” Leni told him.

“Fine, so noted,” McKenzie replied with another shrug, pulling out a bottle of something blue, and sniffing it. “You are hereby officially informed that I’m having a sort of holiday thing with Shaveen and I have chosen to tweak the cover story from made-up-implausible-relationship to made-up-implausible-relationship-is-an-open-relationship. Happy now?”

“No, I am not,” Leni told him, and huffed. It was pretty and appealing, of course. McKenzie ignored it. “You have made me unhappy. I don’t like it at all. And why is it implausible? Why am I so bloody untouchable?”

“You know why,” McKenzie told her, going over to the long window with his drink. “No offence, Leni, but the bargepole long enough hasn’t even been invented yet for me to go near you,” McKenzie scoffed.

Leni went very quiet and very still, and just stared at him for a good few moments.

“Because I am not as much of a dick as you,” she said, getting up off the bed, “this is me telling you that I have taken your very well considered and totally not selfish at all change to the cover story into account. I would appreciate advance notice if you decide to change it again, because some of us are actually treating this mission as something they are really, really invested in succeeding!”

McKenzie heard the door slam, and didn’t turn around.