“…that’s about it. I’m not an underling of House d’Artagnan, just a mercenary for hire.” The Knight, Dumas, continued to tremble as Gaius drew little lines along his nape with his knife. The boy found such an act particularly thrilling, given that he’d promised to let the man in front of him to go free if he answered his questions correctly.

“So, why did you assault me? I was flying over to Lumari when you decided to ram me. Do I look particularly nice to bully?” Gaius asked, having conveniently twisted the events of their first encounter into a little lie. “Or did you want to hold me ransom and earn some gold that way, hmm?”

“I didn’t see you there!” Dumas replied, his tone one of protest.

Gaius wanted to giggle, but his face was stoic as he said, “There are literally a dozen different ways you could have proceeded, but you chose to take one directly in my path. You know how open the skies are, so there’s almost no way that you ramming me was a coincidence.”

“It was like you appeared there in my path all of a sudden!” exclaimed Dumas. “I literally didn’t see you!”

“So, it was an accident of unbelievable proportions. Right. And I’m the ruler of the Five Lands,” replied Gaius. Despite his seemingly angry exterior and the innocent manner in which he argued against the man, the boy had made sure to seize the initiative in the conversation. He didn’t want the conversation to fixate on his sudden appearance, after all.

He glanced at the translucent screen laid out in front of him. Isabelle, and presumably her family, was already fifteen kilometres away. It was probably the benefit of virtually everyone in the family being a Soldier of a Squire, since they could go on for longer distances at higher speeds.

“Alright, fine, I apologise,” said Dumas. “How do you want to settle this?”

“Do you have bronze coins on you?” Gaius asked back. “Give me all of them, and…this knife hanging by your belt. It’s too pretty for me to pass up.”

“Of course it is.” The man gritted his teeth, and undid the knife from his belt. “This baby cost me three months of my salary.”

“Well, it’s a low price to pay for your life,” said Gaius. “I can kill you and take your knife that way, if it makes you feel any better.”

“I prefer having a long life, thank you.” Dumas passed the knife and a bag the size of his palm over, and the boy received them both with his free hand. “Am I free to go now?”

“Yes, and try not to ram others by accident next time,” said the boy, lowering his own knife. The Knight scooted away the moment the knife left his skin, and without sparing another look back, continued on a distinctly different bearing compared to his original one.

“That works for me too,” Gaius murmured, satisfied that the man had been subtly diverted away from the fleeing Lorenze family. Dumas had been hired to search an area slightly further than what the city’s guards could cover, but with the boy’s interference, catching up to his prey was now a pipe dream.

And on the off chance that he did…well, Isabelle was a Knight too, and poor old Dumas had been forced to give up the weapon he was used to. He was reasonably sure that the girl would be able to give the man who’d lost his main weapon a run for his money, or even defeat him overall.

Chortling to himself, the boy descended upon Lumari once again. Now that he was up close, he couldn’t help but frown. For a family discredited and placed on death row, their escape would have been nothing but even more political ammunition to delegitimise the old rulers of the city. Of course, capturing and executing them would be even better, but there was little reason to be that desperate about capturing them.

Gaius couldn’t help but think back to the Altar of Gods that Isabelle’s grandmother had mentioned. Perhaps they wanted to execute the entire Lorenze family and let the Altar soak in their blood or something.

He smiled at that inane thought, and then began to turn invisible. It didn’t take long before he was strolling through the walls of Lumari, dodging men on patrol and trying to eavesdrop on conversations. After a particularly artful sidestep, and a whole lot of yawns, the boy concluded that the soldiers on patrol were like mushrooms.

Kept in the dark and fed bullshit. Most of the soldiers on the wall were cursing at the jailbreak of the “traitors”, although he noted that some of the quieter ones were happier than the others for seemingly no reason. Intrigued, he moved closer.

“…days will be gone too.” Two men were staring over the battlements, at the swath of darkness in front of them.

“Tax increases, corruption, they’ve been steadily increasing for the past half-year,” whispered his companion. “Without them, the people of d’Artagnan will abandon restraint entirely. It’s time to leave this place with your family.”

He sounds like one of Flynn’s agitators…maybe it’s someone he sent? How far can his influence reach now? Gaius rubbed his nose. It was entirely possible that there were far more people working under the scenes to prime this city for a takeover from within, like what was going on in Elinaris now. After all, why takeover one city, when taking over the adjacent ones were easy enough?”

Gaius couldn’t help but admire the nerve of the otherworldly crime lord. He knew how to pick his targets — and the fact that the former rulers of Lumari had been deposed off had probably tipped the scale for him. He hadn’t returned to Elinaris yet, but the boy had the feeling that Flynn was probably the true ruler of that tier two city.

“Yeah, I know. But you aren’t leaving yet?”

“I’m not sure,” replied the possible agitator. “I’m getting second thoughts about leaving.”

“What do you mean?”

Gaius took another step. He could sense the opening line for recruiting dissidents into a resistance organisation coming right up.

“Like…why should I leave? Lumari…no, Lorenze is my home. I’ve lived here since childhood, and House Lorenze has always treated us well. Why should we roll over and accept d’Artagnan as our new rulers?” The man clenched his fist. “I’m not content with this! They’ve poisoned our fellows with lies, turned brother against brother with that Reporting Agency of theirs…”

He looked at his companion. “Is that really what a good House would do?”

Gaius nearly nodded in agreement. He wasn’t really sure now, at this point, if the man in front of him was sent by Flynn or was he truly genuine in repaying House Lorenze.

But that was an issue for another day. Gaius took out a small pile of notes, a hundred gold each, and rolled them up. Making sure not to disturb the environment, the boy floated over to the two conversing men, and then placed the small roll of notes into the wannabe-resistance leader's pockets. They were too engrossed in chatting to notice, and Gaius snuck away as stealthily as he came.

Nodding to himself in self-satisfaction again, he left the city.