The street performer was gone from his previous spot, but his belting still echoed through the streets as she walked them, approaching the inn.

It wasn’t all legible, the lines she could pick out were just as charged as those of the previous song.

“We could have never won this!” the singer’s sonorous voice thundered from afar.

“So hate us and see if we mind!” he challenged.

Zel decided to give the man a couple coins once she wrung her payment out of Quincy, if he even had that money on-hand. If he didn’t, she’d just have to extract payment some other way, whether by way of law or otherwise.

At last she had reached the inn, and she stepped in through the front door. The inn was relatively empty, but there were still perhaps a dozen patrons, all of whom immediately turned their gazes to her when she entered. She couldn’t blame them. There he was, behind the bar, smiling and cleaning a glass as he spoke to one of the patrons.

Quincy followed that very patron’s head turn, and at the very moment his eyes fell upon her, he briefly shrank back at the sight. Still, he didn’t seem particularly fearful or guilty.

“Oh dear, messy hunt?” he asked her as she approached. “I take it you want your payment.”

A simple nod. He returned it, gesturing for her to follow him to the backroom.

The very moment they sat down, he began questioning, trying to figure out just how much she knew. He had no reason to suspect her, but she didn’t exactly try to hide that something was amiss.

“So how’d it go? I take it not as well as it could’ve, considering the ah… The wounds. And all the blood. And the stench.”

Zelsys wasn’t in the mood to play this social game.

“Don’t try to blow Fog up my ass, Quincy,” she growled. “I had a nice talk with your maneater friend before he begged me to end him. You’re paying me three hundred plus hazard pay or I let the governor know you sent beast-hunters to be eaten.”

Quincy grew quiet at that, his smile fading. She had expected him to try weaseling his way out of it, or to get angry, but… He didn’t. He just shrank in his seat, and where he had once exuded unparalleled positivity, he now radiated an equally intense aura of grief and remorse.

He gave a slow nod, tears welling up in his eyes, “I understand. Did… How much did he tell you?”

A sigh of resignation escaped her mouth.

“He said to tell you he’s sorry. He died quickly, if that helps at all.”

Quincy wiped his tears and put on a smile, but it was crooked and pitiful.

“Of course he did. Don’t show me his Azoth, I don’t want to see it. How’s five hundred gelt and you forget about all this?”

Zel reached out with a bloodied hand.

Quincy shook it without hesitation.