“All rounded up. We did our own sweep. Streets were empty,” Levian said as he strolled into the tiny mayoral office and threw his hands up. Typhos, as always, stood dutifully at his side.

Vassago grunted.

“Pity, really,” Levian continued. “Perhaps your men cleaned up too well. I was hoping for a bit of sport.”

Vassago grunted.

“Don’t strain yourself, Vassago,” Levian said.

Vassago almost grunted a third time, but finally glanced up at the dark-haired Elite standing in the doorway. His master gave the man his best disarming smile.

“Where’s the mayor of this dump?” Levian asked. “Does this backwater village even have one?”

“He is away from those who mean him harm,” Vassago said.

Vassago sat at the former desk of Mayor Orcus Alder, wearing a pair of too-small reading spectacles that did not seem to befit someone of his build. Typhos had, of course, long since learned that there was much more to strength than dumbbells and crunches.

“I mean, physically, where is he?”

“Away from those who mean him harm,” Vassago repeated flatly.

His blue-eyed master bellowed a laugh and clapped his hands.

“What’s that about?” Levian asked, still half-laughing. “Come on. What am I, the Bane? Some horrible nightmare from Below?”

“Capella’s orders,” Vassago said, eyes focused on the paperwork scattered across the desk. “Apologies, Vega.”

Levian sighed and shrugged. He spun, long-backed coat flaring as he walked out without another word, clearly annoyed by the Ace not rising to his provocations.

Vassago shuffled some papers quietly, choosing one out of the stack and beginning to read. Typhos watched curiously as his master spun around in the hallway and walked right back in.

“Anybody escape?” Levian asked, poking into the room with an eager expression.

Vassago grunted.

“Is that a yes?”

The Ace sighed. “The mayor’s son,” Vassago said after a moment. “He disappeared this afternoon. One of our men reported a boy matching his description. He fled into the Pines.”

“The Pines?” his master mused. “To Ulciscor, then. That’s good. That’s what we wanted.”

“Yes,” Vassago said, exchanging the paper in his hands with another.

“What’s this, then?” Levian asked, stepping into the room. He waved at a large cylindrical blue bag on the floor.

“It’s a bag,” Vassago said dryly.

“No, no,” Levian said excitedly. “It’s a traveling bag!” He reached inside and pulled out a shirt— plain gray— and held it, stretching it out. “Curious. Very curious. Look at the size, Vassago. Kid size.” He paused. “The mayor wouldn’t fit in these, right?”

“Most definitely not.” Vassago grimaced.

“His son, then.” Levian emptied the bag, clothes and gourds dropping to the floor in a rattle. “But why leave it behind?”

Vassago muttered something under his breath. Typhos thought he caught a swear.

“What?”

“I’m not interested in detective games, Vega,” the Shield’s Ace said, setting his jaw. “If Ulciscor knows what the mayor knows, so be it. All the more reason you should let me work in peace.”

Typhos’s master frowned. Then, oddly, he smiled. He must have noticed something.

“Last question. The window. What’s with that?”

Vassago glanced to the side, to the window frame missing glass. Typhos had noticed it from outside earlier. No pane, and if it had been broken, there were no shards in sight. Not on the floor here, nor outside, far below.

“Villages,” Vassago said.

“Villages.”

“In Rixator, my people often do this. Some have shutters. Others simply have nothing.”

“We aren’t in Rixator,” Levian said. “It rains here a tad more than once a lifetime. Flocks— it snows here!”

Vassago shrugged.

“Never mind,” Levian said. He sighed. “I’ll go bother Asmari instead. She’s more fun.”

Typhos’s master spoke of bothering Vassago’s superior— Asmari Capella, the Emperor’s Shield, the Third Elite— so casually. Levian was the Second Elite, but that did not actually rank him higher. It was improper in Asundrian custom, rude even, to address someone of equal or higher rank by their forename, but custom and tradition rarely seemed of consequence to Levian Vega. A fact Typhos had grown all too familiar with over the years. Recently, Levian had asked him to think of all but Munitio by their forenames, even himself, though he still had to call him ‘Master Vega.’ He had no idea why, but he did as his master requested, even in his own thoughts.

Vassago replied with a wordless shuffle of papers, and the Elite turned to leave. Typhos followed him.

From the corner of his eye, Typhos saw the Shield’s Ace draw a photograph from his pocket and begin to study it. He seemed almost… melancholic. It was a very curious sight indeed.

Levian had exited the office properly smug this time. Sometimes, smugness was all you needed, Typhos’s master often told him.

“Come, Ty,” he said without looking. He knew the command would be obeyed, as always.

Typhos and Levian passed soldiers in light brown uniforms— yellow at the throat— as they descended the staircase and ventured out into the desolate village.

Before passing the white gate, Levian spun to face the stone building one last time. It stood tall yet quiet, devoid of any life other than the Shield’s men. Capella-Rixator soldiers stood on either end of the building inside the gate, scanning empty streets.

“My apologies, Honorable Elite,” Levian whispered in a mock soldier tone. “We have orders to keep you out of the garden. No sleuthing today!” He turned and smiled at Typhos. “Oh, I’m ever so sorry, your Supreme Elitefulness, Asmari is— rather conveniently— not to be disturbed and twit twit twit.” He rolled icy blue eyes and walked off. Typhos followed wordlessly.

The sun was waning quickly, plunging the sky into evening. It would be night before the pitiable thing even took notice.

By now, all two hundred and twelve citizens of Castitas had been collected and packed inside the constable’s office. Even the dead ones. Those fourteen dropped the actual population below two hundred. The Empire presence, then, of course, ballooned it well over that number.

“The mayor’s son,” Levian mused. “He’s running for Ulciscor.”

“I see.”

“I suppose…” Levian began, halting in the street. “He’ll have a hard time getting votes.”

Typhos stared blankly. Levian met that stare.

“Your humor is boundless, master,” Typhos finally said. “In that you are unable to bound— or reach— any significant distance with it.”

Levian smiled, just for the faintest moment. It seemed real, but it couldn’t be.

“Still needs work,” Levian said, walking again. “I’ll make a comedian out of you yet.”

“I thought you were training me to be an assassin.”

“I’m training you to be everything, Ty. You are my life’s work, little apprentice.”

It was a lie, of course. Or perhaps another joke. His master had a terrible sense of humor, so it was difficult to tell the difference. Typhos said nothing. His master waited until they were out of the last Capella-Rixator soldier’s earshot before he continued speaking.

“There was a second man, perhaps a boy. I do not know for certain, but Rixator seems to think it well if I guess my time away. I am not so patient, as you know well.”

Typhos nodded gravely. How he knew.

They rounded a corner, rounded any prying eyes and ears.

“Zaba,” Levian said softly. “Niya.”

Night had come. The day had been foolish, careless as always. An invisible finger had pinched the sky as if it were a candle flame, snuffing it from fleeting orange to enduring darkness. Two figures stood eerily still in the shadowy cobblestone street, cloaked from head to toe in patterned robes of crimson on black.

“Two have fled this place. The mayor’s son— and another. An older boy, or perhaps a young man. Likely, both are heading to Ulciscor as we speak. Ty, you saw photographs of the mayor before we departed. What of his son?”

“You have shown me his son as well.”

“Great,” Levian said. “Provide them with a description, then return to my side.”

Typhos bowed acquiescently. It did not surprise him, hearing his master suggest disrupting Jester, a plan of the emperor’s own design.

Levian Vega was swift. And he was decisive.

“Enter the Pines,” Levian said to the cloaked pair. He commanded them with a powerful voice that demanded obedience, harder than iron and sharper than the finest knife. “Find those two. Kill them both.”