“An old, bald man, with a cane and bushy brows?” Steyza repeated my description to confirm if she’d heard right. After a nod from me, she downed her entire glass of wine, twiddled her thumbs and looked down into the empty glass in quiet contemplation. It was like she forgot my presence.

I looked out the window that starry night whilst I waited for her to come back to the present. Why did that information bum her out like that? She knows him, but what’s the deal?

Donna unabashedly flew out of me and stared right into Steyza’s eyes. She took a page from my book and gently held the elf’s chin, forcing eye contact. “He’s your father…”

Whoa! Easy now! How can you be s–

“Yeah,” Steyza meekly admitted.

Well then, don’t let me interrupt.

“We, haven’t really been close, after a certain incident. I don’t know why he’s involved, but if he wants to mess with the Genuk family, then it most certainly has to do with that bill they want to pass.”

I poured myself a glass of wine, a very little glass. “You won’t ravage my body if I pass out, would you?”

The question smacked her right out of her own mind. “I–you–ugh. Yes, I will. Matter of fact I’ll invite my friends over to do it too.” She began going along with my shenanigans. I could see another Donna on my hands in a couple months. “Anyway, this is cause for concern. Eric, I know a top investigator in the TEA. We’ve got to report this. Don’t worry, we can trust him to keep a lid on things as long as legally possible.”

That suggestion irked me a little, and I peered at her in doubt for a hot second, then relinquished the desire to keep whoever this investigator was, out of it. But still, I had to confirm. “What’s the TEA? And you do realise it spells ‘tea’, right?”

“Oh, I forget you’re not from around here sometimes. It’s the Tyrr Enforcement Agency. They basically police the country of elves.”

“So, it’s backed by the government, right? It’s not some independent unit?”

“Yeah. They’re as legitimate as you can get.”

That set me at ease a little. If this investigator she spoke of could say “Eric was acting in service of the TEA when this little girl was kidnapped”, that would actually be good for me. I wouldn’t have to Voidwalk to go where I wanted to if things turned messy. So, yeah, we decided to consult this “top investigator” before we made any rash decisions. Wanna guess who it was? Well, I’m just some words on a screen, or piece of paper–whatever–so I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I can tell you what I was thinkin’.

Hydra’s holy ass! Hope I didn’t do anything illegal that night, I thought back on the night I got deadass drunk. Turned out, Sidgeirano – or just Sid for short – was that “top investigator” she spoke about! He sure knew how to have wild nights. He sure was laid back and cool as a student in the Rizt institute. But he was nothing of the sort when engaging in his work.

We were in his study the next evening, debriefing him, whilst he drew little pictures with magic from his fingers and linked a lot of what we said back to things he was already investigating. I told Steyza everything that happened, and she in turn, told him. But it’s not like Steyza told me everything that happened. She didn’t explain what this ‘incident’ with her father she brought up last night was. And who’d go to law enforcement knowing that their father just set up a kidnapping? Unless Sid would find some way to leave those details out or alter them in his report. Many ideas were swirling about in my head, but was it my place to speculate and make decisions on matters that probably weren’t accurate? I didn’t have concrete proof that the things going through my head actually happened. So, I let Sid do his work.

“There’s been some turbulence in the government as of late, especially amongst the Families, especially regarding the Genuks. Like you said,” he sat on his chair and rolled over to a dresser and got some documents out, perusing them, “this most definitely has something to do with the SMC bill. So, let’s see,” at this point he was basically talking to himself, “who benefits from kidnapping the weakest link in the Genuk family? A link that can’t fight back, means it has to be protected. To protect that link, the Genuks would go to great lengths. If the bill is given the go, which it mostly already is, and Fenral pulls a stunt like this prior to the final poll of votes, it could only mean he wasn’t in favour of the bill passing. Now why wouldn’t he want the bill to pass? Hmm…” Sid’s eyes gleamed. “Steyza! Is Fenral currently in need of SMCs for some reason?”

He was amazing, truly. That ability to string together relevant questions that could turn into leads proved to me that Steyza’s title of “top investigator” wasn’t just some wine-induced praise. And to think he was furthering his education as someone so good at his job meant that he was extremely motivated. I wouldn’t want him sniffing up my secrets.

Steyza shrugged at first, “I don’t know. We haven’t, been in contact,” she said, sounding more like something to admit.

“I see. It’s alright. Well, moving on. Eric,” he called my name, “my apologies.” I was a bit bemused by that. “It’s not that I don’t believe your story, but as an investigator, your information is something that must be confirmed, otherwise I might be following a not-so-accurate source. So…”

“So?”

“You said you have to meet with Fenral again, right?” By the way, Fenral is the bald dude who wanted me to kidnap the Genuk kid if you didn’t already realise. And also, Steyza’s father, like Donna figured out somehow. Small world, eh?

“Yeah? What do you have in mind?” I asked.

“If I can get close to the meetup point, I can confirm he indeed wants to kidnap Christina Genuk. Once I have that, I could basically give myself a lot of freedom to pursue this case without worrying about the TEA higherups chewing me out for it. Tell them it was all in the name of justice, you know? But uh,” he rolled his chair over to me, “let’s get this straight. You can’t actually kidnap the girl, even if the deal with Fenral goes to a favourable direction. Once you make the deal, I’ll take it from there. We can just fake the kidnapping if we’re really desperate, but it probably,” his voice went up an octave there, “won’t go that far.”

“What’re you sayin’, man?”

He rolled in even closer to me, and gestured Steyza to join our little circle so he could speak as softly as he could. Did he think someone was eavesdropping in a basement ten metres below ground? I knew then, that he really got a kick out of his job. The guy genuinely enjoyed solving stuff. “Here’s what I had in mind…”

The next day, around noon, whilst Steyza was busy at work teaching magic sequences and the whole shebang, I went to see Fenral in the same abandoned tower we talked in. And guess who followed me religiously whilst in my Invisibility? Sid.

Elves mana span really was poor. He’d usually use his own cloaking spell, but would have to find a place to hide himself so he could conserve mana. Plus, he could still be seen even in whatever spell he usually used, like a silhouette but instead of shadow, you would see that strange distortion of air, like heatwaves in the distance. It was perfect for unsuspecting people, but should his target have a keen eye, he’d be busted.

“Have you come to a decision, haggler?”

“Yes. I want a thousand coins.”

“What?! You jest…”

I tried keeping my snigger back but failed, “Yeah, yeah, I do. The five hundred will do. You got it?”

He grumbled a bit, then walked off to a dark corner of the outlook tower and retrieved a satchel. “Here’s your damn coins, you extortionist! You get half now, and half when I see the child. Want to count them?”

“Nah, I trust your old age has brought wisdom enough to not play me. So,” I leaned back onto the wooden chair, “Christina Genuk, huh? Anything special you want me to do?”

“Let no one see you. The child is almost never by herself, except when she sleeps. Get her then. Also, get it done within the week. Once the festival begins, the Genuks go on a little vacation together for the duration of the festival. I don’t know their arrangements for accommodation during this time. And once the festival begins, the bill would be officially made into law at that point. This is extremely important. Do not disappoint me.”

“My other half of the money is extremely important. Don’t disappoint me either,” I replied. He grumbled something and wobbled off. Sid and I got out of there after a while. It was time to let him do his magic, but something rubbed me the wrong way. Didn’t know what it was, so I let it go.

I informed Steyza what happened when she got home. Was I waiting in her house for her because I entered without permission? Maybe. “Phoenix’s feathers!” she jumped and placed a hand on her chest, breathing slowly. “What did I tell you about appearing like that?!”

“That you like surprises?”

“You a–argh!” she stamped and went to her kitchen. Or maybe I should call it a winery. “Anyway, how’d it go today?”

“When’s the Mirage festival starting?” I confused her with the seemingly unrelated question.

“Uh, four days from now?”

“Oh wow! Guess that’s not good. Well, turns out I gotta steal someone’s daughter in the not very romantic way before the festival starts. And seeing that we may have to stage a fake kidnapping, I want to ask, you know where the Genuks live?”

“Y-yeah. Wow! Yes, um, east of here. Mansion behind the biggest factory.”

I got up, “Alrighty! Better get my ass over there, then. But uh,” I sat back down, “after a few drinks, eh? How was your day?” Those few drinks made hours go by, and no matter how I tried to steer the conversation toward this incident between she and her father, she kept dodging it until she fell asleep on the couch. I lifted her up after washing the intoxication from my blood with some light magic and tucked her into bed.

“So, that was a dead end. To the Genuks?”

Yeah. After a couple hours of flight, and asking strangers for directions like a tourist, I arrived at the SMC factory. Just like Steyza said, behind the factory was a large field with a mansion in it. It gave my house back in Methelia a run for its money. Voidwalk and some stalkerish behaviour led to me discovering a shocking little detail. Sid and three Genuks were talking in some reclusive room, so of course I eavesdropped.

“Must be a madman,” one of the Genuks exclaimed, folding his arms.

“I could arrange for a faux-kidnapping. Christina won’t be touched,” Sid assured them.

Donna rubbed her chin in my head. What? I inquired.

“You’re thinkin’ of waltzing into that convo, but don’t. Just stay undetected for a while.”

Why?

“Dude, c’mon. A TEA, talking to one of the most prestigious and richest families within Tyrr, in the middle of the night, drinking alcohol with them, in a secret room?”

Well, when you put it like that…

“Shady as hell, man. Shady as hell.”

So, I heeded her advice and stayed put. Her intuition would be proven right yet again.

“We can double your payment if you set up a situation like that,” a Genuk said to Sid.

“Yes,” a woman agreed, “if we put someone in Christina’s place and allow the child to be taken, then allow the kidnapper to ask for his ransom, we could make quite an example out of him. No one else would try a stunt like this again.”

“My daughter,” the elf who seemed the eldest spoke, “has a friend who sleeps over from time to time. With enough effort, they would look alike. We just need word of when the kidnapper is coming, and we will remove Christina from the room and leave her friend alone.”

“That’s a brilliant plan,” Sid raised his glass and they drank to concrete their deal. What an interesting development this was. Sid was dirty all this time, but I couldn’t let him know that I knew that just yet.

The next morning, he requested to see me and filled me in on the plans. He made it seem like he was a law-abiding man, emphasizing the lie of faking a kidnapping, saying he’d already spoken to the Genuk family and they agreed to it as long as no real person was actually involved. But I knew better. He told me where the Genuks were and the night after, I would do the deed.

Of course, I had to inform him and make it look like I trusted him, and I had to make it look like I could let Fenral trust me. This was a tight squeeze I was in. Sid said all I had to do, was pretend to Fenral that I did kidnapped the girl, then appear at our rendezvous point and he’d lie in wait for Fenral to appear, then arrest him.

I went along with that plan for now. Steyza had to be kept out of the loop at that point. I wanted to minimise my interaction with her for fear of the lies I’d have to tell her. I didn’t want them coming ‘round to bite me in the ass and I couldn’t afford to have her show signs of distrust towards Sid, because that man could detect a lot of stuff.

Talk about a rock and a hard place.

“Ready to be a good bad guy?” Donna asked whilst I hovered over the Genuk household. The time had come.

Ready.

“Go kidnap someone’s poor child in the name of justice.”

Man, if this was Tacari, I’d literally kill everyone involved. With a sigh, I came out of Voidwalk after making it look like I broke in through the iron fence. Wind cutter did the job. I used Invisibility instead of Voidwalk, as the former would still ensure footprints were made in the mud and alert Sid, who would then alert the Genuk to remove Christina from the room. I climbed up to the windowsill, wiggled a Hydrotendril through the ventilation blocks and unlocked the window. My goodness. I’m like Flynn in his young days.

“Except he stole because of greed.”

Yeah but at least he didn’t steal children.

“Good point. Too far to turn back now. Do what you have to do.”

Stepping inside and making sure to leave the dirt of my shoe on their hardwood flooring, I looked on the bed and around the room. Just one girl, as planned. Sid came in at that point, quietly so he wouldn’t wake up the girl. “Eric,” he whispered, “change of plans. Now, I know I said you wouldn’t actually have to take anyone, but my higherups say they can’t arrest the kidnapper if no one’s kidnapped.”

I looked around, and pretended to be shocked. “Are you fucking with me?! You expect me to take a little child?!”

“Don’t worry! My team is already doing recon on the place where you meet with Fenral. They’re already in place. Nothing will happen to her!”

“Won’t that make me out to be the kidnapper then?!”

“No,” we whispered back and forth, “they’re all my buddies. We will make it so Fenral was the one who did it, not you. You’re already cleared! We can go drinking again after!” he beamed.

I sighed and placed my hand over her, then closed my eyes. “Catch that bastard!” I said, faking my hesitation-turned-resolve to him.

“I will!” he said. Before he could retreat into the darkened corners of the room, I grabbed the girl up and the moonlight gave her just enough light to see our faces, something I knew he didn’t want to happen. He turned away and I flew off with her, holding her mouth from screaming. She fought against me until I used a simple sleeping spell on her. Sorry, kid.

A couple hours later, and I met with Fenral in a cave shielded from view by a waterfall. And of course, Life Perception showed there were no “buddies” of Sid waiting around anywhere, as expected.

Candlelight showed the face of the girl and Fenral forked over another satchel with my remaining payment. “What do you want with her anyway?”

“That isn’t your concern, haggler. Your payment is given in full,” he walked off with her slung over his shoulder. “And haggler. We were never here. We’ve never met each other before.”

I nodded, placing a Light Link on the girl and having another clone shadow her. If anything got too serious, he would intervene even if it meant blowing my cover. So, it went as expected for Sid, the Genuks, and Fenral.

The next day, the Genuks kept Christina in hiding, and reported their daughter missing. I’d no idea how they shut up the family of the actual kidnap victim, but they did. The next night, Fenral’s old cane would be heard clonking the stone ground of yet another cave. He was quite the careful man. The Genuks who set all this up were the ones present, after a letter came to their family the day after the kidnapping, telling them where to meet, and who not to come with, like TEA.

But of course, Sid was there, hiding like the snake he was. Poor Steyza was still of mind that we didn’t actually kidnap anyone, but I’d imagine by this time she began getting suspicious because she didn’t hear news of her father’s arrest yet – which, according to the plan Sid and I fed her, should have happened last night when I went to meet Fenral in the waterfall-enshrouded cave.

Anyway, back to the present. The three plotting Genuks and Fenral was in a cave walking toward each other. I, unbeknownst to Sid, hid there, just as he did. But what would come when Fenral opened his mouth would surprise us all.

“Great Genuk family. I apologise for making myself out to be the kidnapper, but I knew I could get your attention this way.”

“Huh?!” one of them, who seemed like the son of the other two present, didn’t understand what was going on. No one did, really.

“I am but a mere witness. Your daughter, I know where she is. And the one who took her, I know where he is as well. I saw him dragging her unconscious body to a cave. I often fish at night, that’s when I saw it all! The human! It was the human!”

“Best for you if your tongue spits truth, mister. Where are they?!” the father got understandably upset. No one was expecting this turn of events.

“I may be as bad as the kidnapper for demanding something like the kidnapper would, but I’m an old man who wants to live just a little longer. Your bill, on synthesized mana crystals. If you ensure the Morrhiggans continue to be supplied, then I can continue my treatment, and hopefully see my grandchildren for a few more years. If you promise me this, I will point you to where your girl is.”

“I see. Child’s play of a request to grant, old one. You will have your treatment, if you tell us where that filthy creature is holding her.”

My mind was doing backflips at this point, and I’d imagine so was everyone else’s. Everyone thought Fenral was against the bill for SMC control passing, but it was the exact opposite. He wanted them to pass it, so he would have a greater amount for whatever treatment he spoke of. Morrhiggans? Weren’t they one of the five great families in Tyrr? I asked myself and Donna nodded inside my head.

“The Genuks would be forced to play along. Which means they would be forced to believe that you kidnapped the girl, otherwise it would blow up and everyone would know they had a mole on the inside of the TEA, which is not good for business if it meant they could lobby people with governmental power.”

So, summary?

“Your ass is going to get thrown in jail for kidnapping because that bastard framed you. Well, you did actually kidnap the girl, so he’s not exactly lying. The Genuks have to go with it, because their involvement in kidnapping someone else’s child will come to light. They’d be ruined.”

“Of course. Please, follow me!” the old Fenral tottered out the cavern, and led them by the nose for a few minutes. Finally, we entered another cave blocked by a waterfall, not at all the one I delivered the kidnapped girl to.

So much backstabbing…

When we came to the place, the Genuks had a little discussion outside by themselves before entering. Sid, staying hidden was also part of the conversation. In fact, he initiated it. “We’ll take the girl back, pretend she’s Christina. After we take her back, we get rid of her immediately. She’s, seen my face. She could say things we wouldn’t want her to say.”

“How did it get to this?” the head of the family made a rhetoric.

“We’ve no choice,” the son enforced. “We invited her over, not Christina. That never happens. If that information gets out, we’ll be under heavy investigation. It’s better to kill the kid.”

They all nodded in unison. “So be it then. Let’s wrap this up quickly.”

“Yeah,” I said, coming out of Voidwalk, “I guess we should wrap this thing up.”

Fenral’s eyes opened wide. Sid backed away. The Genuks were as confused as can be, especially so when a few government officials, and dozens of TEA officers removed my Invisibility spell and announced themselves.

“So,” I strolled about the cave, “remember when you first went to tell the Genuks what happened, Sid? I was there for that meeting. That’s how I knew you were in cahoots with them.” My clones came out of hiding as well. “I had my clones shadow you, and you as well, Fenral. Oh, I wouldn’t dare leave the Genuks alone. Each of these officials were with my clones the entire time, gathering evidence against you all. Enjoy prison life.”