The Rootwater Inn was slow that night. It was a resting day and the work week started the next morning, so most folks who weren’t either wealthy or alcoholics were already at home enjoying an early supper. This lack of customers was fine with Valir and the rest of the staff, who were all tired from being up the night before. Jasper was still upstairs sleeping, recovering from his near-death experience the day before. Lianna, who had finally emerged from her room around dinner time, leaned on her broom and yawned. Apparently she hadn’t slept well either. “Can’t Kel just enchant the floor to not let dust settle? Maybe magic away the dirty dishes and mugs.”

Kel laughed - “my master, Caaron, used to say that the best magic was that which you did with your own two hands. Chief-most of which was cleaning.” Why hasn’t he responded to me?, he silently wondered.

“He just said that so that you’d clean for him.”

“Probably so,” he shrugged with a chuckle.

Valir tapped him on the shoulder. ”Can you organize the pantry? It’s a mess thanks to the rush we had the other night. Jasper was supposed to take care of it, but I finally convinced him to go see the healer.”

“I can do that,” Lianna offered.

“No, I need you sweeping.”

The girl made a face, but didn’t offer any further protest.

Kel nodded. “Sure - I’ll get right on it,” he said before making his way to the cellar. It was, indeed, a mess: jars of jam had been piled unceremoniously beside the shelves; grain had leaked from a hole in the bag and piled on the floor like sand in an hourglass; there was a dusting of flour over everything. The previous weekend had been a busy one and some of the staff were a bit more careless than Valir. Jasper had finally agreed to visit the healer. Kel would not have been surprised if the bard was sitting at the Mare, sipping a pint instead of with Mercier drinking a tincture. It was curious - just how had he escaped death that night? There was no way he had been wearing armor -it would have been far too thick to wear under his clothes like that. His cloak and tunic had been ruined - that was something Jasper had been fairly pissed about, once the dust had settled. And he hadn’t just dodged it - the bruise on his abdomen proved that. So magic, then? It had to be.

There’s no magic in me, he remembered Jasper saying. Gobshite. What else was he lying about? He stacked more jams and continued clearing out some cheeses that were obviously too old to use.

Back in the great-room, Valir hummed as she wiped down the bar. The door creaked open and she looked up to see two men wearing light traveling cloaks, descending down the stairs into the great room. They were rough looking: One had a bald head and a scar along the underside of his left eye. The other had a shock of blond hair and pockmarks from a childhood disease dotting his face. The wore the smiles of men unaccustomed to smiling.

“What can I get you, then?” She asked.

“Small beers and some mutton. Been on the road for quite a while.” The pockmarked man leered at her, but whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself. That was good. Valir didn’t want to get cited for smashing patron’s faces with goblets again.

“Happily,” she said, without smiling.

As she was preparing their plates, her odd feeling about the two men worsened. It wasn’t just their appearance or demeanor - she was used to a bit of drunken ogling occasionally. Rather, it was the way they were looking around the room, which was mostly empty. That in itself wasn’t odd - sell-swords like Trixy seemed to always have a wary eye out, even when resting. But this was different. They weren’t looking out for themselves. They were looking for someone.

She laid the plates out in front of the two strangers and poured them each a mug of small-beer, complimentary with the meal. As Valir made to hastily retreat to the kitchen, the pockmarked man grabbed her arm.

“By the by,” he said pleasantly, as if he hadn’t just seized her wrist, “have you seen a lad? Young fella, only thirteen or thereabouts. Brown mop of hair, about yea tall. He held his arm out to demonstrate the height. Kel would have fit just under his outstretched hand.

“Cant say that I have.” She wrested her arm from his grip and backed up a pace, squaring up to face him directly. He didn’t seem to care one way or another.

“Name of Kel. Kel Fellow.”

She prayed that her eyes didn’t give her away. “Name’s not familiar either. We’re a family business, so I don’t concern myself with strangers.”

“That’s good. He’s a criminal, so probably best you don’t.”

“Ah, well I hope you find him soon. No place for riffraff like that here. Not unless they pay well.” She winked and moved to the side of the

She called Lianna, who had been sweeping and pretending not to overhear the conversation, over to her. “Dear sister, could you go attend to the guest in the musician’s suite? He requested lunch.” The girl gave her a knowing look and hurried away. When Valir turned back, the pockmarked man was waiting.

“We know he’s here, you lying wench.” He loomed over Valir, grabbing her by the shoulders, “Now where is he?”

Kel was reading the animal language primer, mumbling along to practice his mammalian pronunciations, when Lianna burst through the door.

“I think there’s trouble. Some men in traveling clothes asking about you.”

Before he could get a word in, a voice boomed from down the hall in the great room. “Kel Fellow, you in ‘ere?” For a moment, they both just looked at each other, terrified. Kel knew, instinctively, that this was his fault. The magic parchment - it must have been the parchment. How stupid of him. Caaron may have been the one who had it at first, but someone else must have gotten it.

Lianna shook her head silently. “Don’t go,” she mouthed.

“Come out or were going to hurt your innkeeper friend here.” Leanna and Kel’s eyes widened. Valir! He dropped the primer on the bed and hurried out the door, the girl quick on his heels.

The large bald man held Valir by the neck from behind. She didn’t seem to be hurt. Kel came out with his hands raised above his head. He could hear Lianna shuffling into the room, against the back wall, behind him. He had hoped she would stay back in his room. The pockmarked man was closer than he had expected, leaning against the bar. “Don’t try any magic, boy. We know all of your tricks - heard you’re quite the little sorcerer.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kel grimaced, holding his arms outstretched in a show of surrender.

“Right then. Smart boy. You let us take you out of ‘ere and no one gets hurt.”

Kel nodded, inviting him to approach. As the pockmarked man got closer, Kel pivoted and let loose a familiar whipping motion with his fingers, flinging a fluid stream of bright green acid directly into the his face. He ducked under as the mercenary flinched backwards and dove forward to punch the bald man holding Valir with a gust of wind, but a strong grip on his tunic jerked him back, sending him tumbling to the ground. He looked up to see the pockmarked man glaring at him, his face reddened and splotchy where he had been splashed, but looking none the worse for wear otherwise. He quickly ran through a series of gestures and aimed a blast of light at his attacker’s face. The grizzled mercenary glared at him, clearly unphased, and kicked Kel square in the stomach.

Kel felt the wind go out of him, his belly seeming to flip inside out. He tried to get up as quickly as he could, but a knee to the head knocked him back down to the spinning floor.

Smirking, the mercenary pulled aside his cloak to reveal a small twisted talisman, a strange thing made of feather and bone that hung around his neck.

“I told you,” he said evenly as Kel saw stars, “we know all of your tricks. That’s why we brought protection.” He grinned a grin that was about half-teeth and pulled the boy up by the collar, turning him to face his associate who was still holding Valir.

Kel was paralyzed: He hadn’t been fast enough. He could have taken on one of these men, sure, but two was too much. On top of that, his magic was useless. What was that talisman? He had never seen one before.

“Come with us quietly now or she gets her throat slit, savvy?” The bald man, who had been silent until now, spoke.

“Fine.” Kel raised his hands in surrender, this time in earnest, as he gingerly pulled himself up from the floor. He held still while the toothless man bound his hands. When they were finished, he looked around expectantly, waiting for them to let Valir go and walk him to the door. Instead, his captor held him fast where he was. His associate did the same, tightening his grip on Valir. Her breathing was rapid and ragged, but she didn’t give the mercenaries the satisfaction of any kind of exclamation.

“What are you doing?” Kel asked, not caring now if fear was obvious in his voice.

“You tried to hurt me, you little shite. We can’t pay you back in kind - your contract is too valuable. But this will be almost as good.” Kel watched in horror as the man drew a long dagger and held it to Valir’s eye. “Now hold still, you bitch. This will only hurt a lot.” He drew his wrist up, aiming the point at her dilated iris.

Poe. The word was spoken before Kel even had time to think. He could only hear his own racing heartbeat pulsing in his ears. Dust motes floated, frozen in the rays of the sun through darkened glass. The dagger glinted, bright and deadly in the hands of someone he wanted dead. Dead. That was all he wanted them to be now, these cruel men. His heart spoke this wish in a language older than man.

And Poe, the obedient demon, obeyed.

There was no definitive beginning to it - blood simply erupted from both men. The alien thing had been separated from its host long enough that it was no longer pretending to be docile. It was angry. It was bloodthirsty. And it was overjoyed at both feelings. The shadow leapt between the two, a silhouetted dancer that bathed in viscera as the mercenaries fell to the ground, one split from groin to sternum, the other decapitated. The dagger clattered at Valir’s feet, a severed hand still gripping it.

Poe stilled, floating just off the ground and turned to Kel. And now? it said, without speaking. Its dark eyes stared at him expectantly, blood dripping down it’s sleek, black body and down to the ground. The bodies that had been men until recently lay face-down, seeming to drown in spreading crimson pools.

“Can you get rid of them, somehow?” Kel was numb. The anger in his chest was still there, quickly fading like warmth on a winter night. Those had been people. Live, talking people. And in seconds they had become…piles of meat. “Just…I don’t want to cause trouble for my friends. Make them disappear.”

Poe nodded and set to work, though whatever it was doing, Kel didn’t dare watch. No one did. There were sounds, though - crunching and sloshing noises. Then the scent of sulfur and ozone.

Leanna was cowering in the corner of the room, a trembling arm held up in front of her face as Valir tried to comfort her. “Not again not again not again.” Her other arm clutched her side where, Kel knew, a long scar marked her past encounter with Poe.

Done. The demon was once again at his side, waiting. The bodies and the blood were all gone without a trace. Only the talisman that the pockmarked man had worn remained, a single souvenir of the carnage. “Nothing more. Disperse.” Revulsion and guilt were battling for supremacy inside him; Kel wasn’t sure which was more powerful.

Poe huffed disappointedly and vanished, shadows seemingly rising from the floor to swallow it up.

There was quiet in the Inn for a moment. Sounds of the outside world bled through the windows and the walls, sounds of everyday life far removed from the horrifying violence had just occurred. Children laughed, merchants hawked their wares, weary travelers exchanged pleasantries as they passed from the town gates.

Valir glared at Kel with her thankfully unscathed eyes, eyes that were filled with the emotion he had seen before, with Beverly, but never in such intensity. Disdain, disappointment, and hate.

“Get. Out.”

“I can explain. You have to let me -”

She picked up the now-hand-less dagger from where it had fallen at her feet and grasped it with both hands. She pointed it at his neck. “I said get out!”

Kel packed his bags slowly, still in shock. He had known what would happen if he released Poe again. Beverly, the wise woman, had warned him. But he had done it anyway. What could he have done, though? They were going to hurt his friends. Then again, he had gone ahead and hurt them anyway, in a way. Despite his guilt, Kel felt another part of himself that wasn’t actually angry or sad. A die had been cast and these were the circumstances. These men had come after the wrong person and they had paid for it. It wasn’t his fault. Or theirs, really. It was just life. He shook his head and tried to feel something for their deaths but nothing came. He truly didn’t care. More than anything, he was mad at himself for revealing where he was. Angry that it was his lot to be chased. Sad that he now had to leave.

He didn’t bother saying anything further to Valir as she tried to calm her sister in the darkened corner of the great room. He hefted his bag onto his shoulder and walked as stoically as he could when she turned momentarily, if only to glare at him again as he passed. Lianna was too busy crying to say goodbye.