“Do you understand?” Jasper asked. “Training a Vision is almost akin to preparing someone that will try to kill me.”

Melinda’s mouth hung slightly open in shock. She snapped it closed and ran a hand through her hair.

“Barbaric. I’ve known Linna for several months now. She’s nothing like that!” The merchant protested.

“You used to know Linna,” Jasper corrected. “She’s a Vision now.”

Melinda harrumphed. “We’ll see about that. But I assume this means you won’t be teaching her?”

“Eh. I’ll do it,” Jasper said with a careless shrug of his shoulders.

“What? Then why did you tell me all that?” Melinda’s nose wrinkled. Jasper gave the merchant a coy smile and waved his hand dismissively.

“Just so you were aware of how much of a favor I’m doing you,” Jasper said.

His earthen chair crumbled to the ground as Jasper stood up. He brushed the dirt off his pants and pointed an accusatory finger at Melinda.

“But don’t forget you owe me for this. A lot,” Jasper said. He bared his teeth to the merchant, a gesture which likely would have been a good bit more intimidating if he hadn’t been disguised as a human.

Melinda swallowed. Jasper let a smile cross his face and he bobbed his head up and down eagerly.

“Well, glad that’s out of the way! I’m going to go find my protégée,” he said, clapping his hands together like a gleeful toddler.

He ambled off down the line of wagons, whistling a merry tune to himself. Melinda pursed her lips as she watched Jasper go. The Vision entered the growing crowd of caravan workers and vanished without a trace.

Melinda turned to Ethan and pursed her lips.

“I get the feeling I made a mistake, but I don’t know what it is,” She said.

“You’re probably right,” Ethan agreed. “But don’t worry too much. I’ll make sure she survives Jas- ah, Jill, at the very least.”

“Thank you, Jackson. Say, I never introduced you to Linna. How will Jill know what she looks like?” Melinda asked.

“Unless you have a lot of young islander women working with your caravan, I suspect he will just look-”

The air shattered as a sonic blast tore through the early morning. People dropped to the ground and covered their ears.

“Bring me Lima!” Jasper’s voice boomed out from the center of the camp. Melinda winced and covered her ears with her hands.

Shouts of confusion and anger rang out from among the caravan workers. Once all the guards got back to their feet, they drew their swords and warily made their way toward the source of the commotion.

“You can’t be serious,” Melinda muttered in a mixture of shock and fury.

“I should probably go find him before something unfortunate happens,” Ethan suggested as he failed to suppress a smile.

The merchant looked over to her fallen workers and all the cargo they had dropped. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, muttering under her breath.

“That might be best,” she said curtly.

A large crowd had formed around Jasper by the time Ethan arrived. To his surprise, the gremlin had yet to assault any of them. The swordsman pushed his way through the sea of people until he reached the center.

A very confused guard was standing beside Jasper. The Vision was scratching his chin furiously, his tongue protruding slightly from his mouth. He suddenly raised a finger to the air victoriously.

“Linen!”

“Nope. Nobody here by that name either,” the guard said.

Jasper let out a string of curses and pursed his lips in concentration.

“The woman we are looking for is called Linna,” Ethan said as he walked over to stand beside Jasper.

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” the Vision said as a frown crossed his face.

“We do have a young woman by the name of Linna in the fourth wagon from the back,” the guard said after thinking for a short while.

“Wrong one, I reckon,” Jasper said.

“We’ll take our chances,” Ethan said. He picked Jasper up by his collar and gave the guard a nod before slicing through the crowd toward the back of the caravan.

“Put me down, you overgrown beanpole!” Jasper snarled, kicking his feet helplessly.

“I have no idea how you’ve managed to survive this long,” Ethan said as he dropped Jasper to the ground. The gremlin landed on his feet and taught the swordsman a few new words in the gremlin language.

“I was just trying to find out where Linda is!” Jasper said.

“Linna,” Ethan corrected. “Why are you pretending not to know her name?”

“So she doesn’t figure out who we are. The Jasper she met knows her name,” Jasper whispered with a conspiratorial wink.

“You have to be kidding me,” Ethan said as he desperately tried to keep his face straight.

Jasper wiggled his eyebrows and Ethan lost his composure, letting out a laugh before he covered his mouth and shook his head.

“Jokes aside, we do need to keep our identities hidden,” Jasper said. “The girl seemed nice enough, but she’s an Asharr pirate. We don’t know if she’ll toss us under and get Bartholomew’s contract broken. I don’t want that fat monster coming after our key,” Jasper said.

“Really? The gremlin is labeling someone as untrustworthy? That’s ironic,” Ethan observed.

Jasper winced, but he didn’t change his stance.

“Fair point. We can disregard the Asharr part, but the issue still stands. We can’t take any risks. Not now. We’re at the end of the line, Ethan. If Linna proves herself to be trustworthy, we tell her. Otherwise…”

Ethan sighed but nodded in agreement. Jasper started to walk again, but then he paused and glanced over his shoulder at the tall man.

“Are you sure her name is Linna?” He asked.

“Yes,” Ethan replied curtly. “Don’t make me hit you.”

“Fine, fine. Let’s get this over with,” Jasper said.