Not having heard any sounds from outside, it was with surprise that I found myself entering a very crowded bar. A spacious room hosted many tables, some round, some rectangular, at which were seated various people. It was a wonder anyone could hear themselves talk in this hubbub, yet discussions were somehow still happening. That, and card games.

The bar proper was also filled, its tender too busy serving drinks to notice a new arrival. In fact, nobody seemed to be paying me any mind, which fit my purposes just fine, as a confrontation here would have had disastrous results.

I stayed close to the wall, not moving as tried to find Aostin. It took me a few minutes, but fortunately, he had not sat with his back turned from the entrance, so I chanced to see his face. Much like the other patrons, he was not looking at me. It appeared I was going to have to get closer, for Aostin was seated all the way to the back of the room. Worse, he was engaged in deep conversation with the people at his table.

Not seeing any better strategy, I started walking toward him. I was careful not to attract attention by keeping a measured pace. Being conscious of every step made for an awkward gait, but given the absence of any exclamation, I deemed my approach a success.

“They sent me to fetch you, Aostin,” I told the man, “and I do not believe it can wait.”

There was no way to avoid the attention of the people at his table, but I trusted Aostin would handle the situation. The four people he had been talking to did a double take, then fixed their gazes upon me, fear in their eyes. They stayed silent, though, so I chose to ignore them and watched Aostin instead. He was now displaying the same look of shock as his companions, but I noticed he had reacted much slower than the others. I suspected he might only be pretending. Why? And what was this sudden change in everyone’s reaction to seeing me about?

“Gentlemen, it seems my past may have finally caught up to me,” Aostin solemnly said to his table, before standing up.

This pretty much confirmed that my colleague was purposefully misleading these people. This manipulation seemed to serve my purposes, so I took little issue in it.

“Shall we discuss it here?” I asked him, keeping things vague enough that he could stay in control of whatever narrative he was building here.

“No. I shall accompany you outside.” Aostin answered, already heading for the bar’s exit.

As we both left the establishment, I was glad to see the bouncer had yet to return. It would have been a shame to find myself taken by the guard or whatever reinforcement the man had no doubt left in search of.

“I sensed Lord Derrien’s distress,” Aostin said. “What’s going on?”

I had not understood souls to be capable of transmitting emotions from so far, but I still knew too little about the matter. I was going to ask for clarifications once the situation became more appropriate.

“Loann was captured during my mission in...” I paused for half a second, “Lord Derrien’s house, who believes the captors to be headed to a Locomotive and sent me to inform you of the fact.”

“Ah,” Aostin said, gravely. “Well, at least the Locomotive will not be departing soon. Part of the shipment was delayed, though I haven’t yet found out why. It doesn’t mean Loann is out of danger, but that improves his chances significantly.”

He sighed.

“Follow me,” he instructed, and started walking.

The leisurely pace he kept surprised me, but I complied.

“There’s very little I have been able to find about you. In fact, I mostly just found out that something wasn’t related to you,” Aostin announced, still making slow progress. “You’ll be glad, I hope, to know that you didn’t kill those people you mentioned.”

I frowned. It was reassuring, in a way, but also left more questions. I hoped Aostin would continue to prove so freely giving with his answers. Still, I had to ask. “Thank you for trying to help, but should we not hurry?”

“Running isn’t my strong suit,” he admitted. “And as I’ve said, the Locomotive is stuck, so we probably won’t even be needed.”

That was fair. He might be armed, but neither of us looked like we would be of much use in a fight. I realized I was actually worried about Loann. Though not a friend, he had treated me fairly. Outside my kidnappers, I knew no one.Little surprise, then, that I started growing attached to the few people that would accept to interact with me, no matter how adversarial our first encounter might have been.

I recognized this was a rare opportunity to ask questions, so I took my chance.

“Aostin, what happened to these people, then? Do you know?”

“A very dangerous conflict escalation between at least one of the Lords and Netacari,” he informed me. “From the dagger you had, we suspect Lord Vallo is involved, but Lord Derrien has no stake in this and will not make the accusation. Bad timing for whoever took action, though, given Lady Azeline’s presence in the city.”

Aostin evidently liked to talk, though he would need to go into more details for me to understand exactly what was going on. Asking for clarifications might prove to be an error, however. I believed the man to be an information dealer, but I had very little to offer. There was the magical probe situation, which I did not think anyone aware of. A dangerous proposition, given that I knew nothing of its implications. For now, I decided on trying for more questions. Challenged, he might answer. Bored, he would stay quiet, and getting anything else out of him would become much more difficult.

What kind of question would keep the conversation going, then? Nothing so trivial as basic information about where we were. Lord Derrien and Lord Neventer were equally stall subjects. What about the Locomotive? No, people seemed to know plenty about it, and I was going to see it at the end of our walk, was I not? I assumed the gold ingots were never to be mentioned, so I could not ask about these, either. I was mildly curious about the use of enchanted stones for lighting everywhere. Indeed, I had yet to see any fires since my arrival. This would not prove interesting for Aostin, though.

Oh. Could I ask about Yaelle’s past? She had been unwilling to share, so it showed the question was not trivially answered. Was Aostin a gossip?

Before I opened my mouth, I reconsidered. Yes, it might be challenging enough for Aostin to answer, but it might also be an awful choice of topic. Given that knowing would not actually be of any use to me, I chose another question.

“Do you know what I shall be sent to retrieve next?” I asked him. “I assume no more tests are necessary.”

I was betting on the information not being intended to be known yet.

“Yes. If everything went right on your visit to Lord Derrien’s house, I know exactly where you’re going next,” he said. “You, the Ghost of Auersten, are going to be... delivering mail!”

Aostin burst out laughing.

While it still left me in the dark about my next assignment, his answer had pointed out something I should have realized to be the best question to ask. Indeed, it might even stroke his ego.

“I noticed people seemed scared of me at the bar,” I remarked. “I take it this is your doing. The Ghost of Auersten?”

“That’s how I dug information on you. You’re pretty unique, so it wasn’t hard to fish out what people knew. I went with a rumor about a man blank as a ghost offering the darkest of services,” he explained. “If you had done work before, someone would have told me. Also, it will make people less likely to want to pick a fight. It’ll help you do your job, too. We might even get some particularly interesting requests out of it.”

The man was obviously proud of his work.

“Thank you,” I said, not entirely sure that was something I should be thankful for.

Silence fell. Damn it. I needed to find something else to ask, or Aostin would stop sharing.

I decided to take a risk.

“Ever heard of Central?” I ventured, referring to the message the magical probe had delivered.

My companion stayed quiet for a moment as we walked through yet another dark and empty street.

“You are hiding something,” he accused, frowning.

Shit. Well, that was the result of trying to deceive someone specializing in information retrieval. Not my brightest idea, all things considered.

“No, I don’t know of anything called Central. Not just Central, anyway,” Aostin replied, despite the conversation having turned slightly sour. “Where did you hear that name?”

I hesitated on whether to answer for a few moments, which I was sure he took notice of. I finally reasoned that this was actually just about the best moment for me to come forward about it, for I was alone with Aostin. If he became hostile, I could surely outrun him.

“Last night, or maybe very early this morning, I was sent some kind of probe,” I told him. “I woke up because it fell on me. Grabbing it activated an enchantment, which seemed to scan my mind, getting some random pictures of what I had seen on the day before. Once this was done, the artifact told me my name, that Central had been informed of my failure to report, and that I could expect severe consequences if I did so again.”

“I swear I have no idea what Central is,” I quickly added. “I might have told Nouel, given the magical nature of the probe, but it has been a while since I last saw him.”

Aostin was silent, which was not reassuring.

“It might even have just been a dream,” I desperately continued. “That thing was an enchantment, right? Yet, it activated when I held it. I can’t activate enchantments without a soul, right? It makes no sense!”

Still no answer. I felt panic rising.

Finally, Aostin spoke.

“What name did it call you?” he asked, voice cold.

Not really the question I had been expecting.

“Eriol Corneau,” I obligingly answered.

“I don’t know of any Lord Corneau,” Aostin accused. “Are you absolutely sure?”

Why was this the part he focused on?

“That is what the message called me, yes,” I confirmed. “How much of a problem is this?”

“Eriol,” Aostin slowly explained, “you are currently working for Lord Derrien, are you not? Being addressed as anything but Eriol Derrien shouldn’t be lightly. You might hav-“

“What? We take the family name of the Lord we serve?” I interrupted him, too surprised to let him finish.

“The family name?” he asked, visibly confused.

Oh, I knew where this was going. I hit my forehead with my palm. More divergences in semantics. Not the best of times to find out about a new one, but that was just my luck.

“Family names are not indicative of loyalties,” I explained. “Just consider it a way to specify parentage.”

“No name to indicate a Binding, then? That must be confusing,” he remarked. “I’m not familiar with any region using this convention.”

Unfortunate. This misunderstanding would have been very useful otherwise.

Aostin said nothing for a moment.

“Fine,” he finally declared. “I guess that makes you Eriol Corneau Derrien, then.”

I understood the implication here: the Derrien last name made it clear I was still part of the group.

“Thank you,” I said, this time meaning it.

“As for the magical impossibility, yes, Nouel’s your best bet,” the information dealer advised me. “Don’t count on getting your answer just yet, though. He’s gone for at least a month.”

Well, that could wait. I was glad that Aostin had taken the revelation about this morning’s experience in stride.

We walked in silence for a while longer. I now understood why he had not tried to run the distance. Indeed, I was surprised the sunrise did not arrive before us, given how long it took.