"Madame?" I turn, watching as the kid slowly emerges from a shadowy alley. He shows a wooden coin which has a poppy in front of a five-pointed star. The Thieves’ Guild Emblem.

I left Ran playing with the puppies of one of the sprites pet hounds. The puppies are a few weeks older since she last saw them, and she acted like a puppy herself upon seeing them, lanky and gangly and nippy, if hundreds of times their size.

It made her happy. And it gave me a chance to slip away. Perhaps that was why the queen winked when she brought the puppies into the star garden and pagoda room.

The boy wrings his hands, eyes darting to the shadows of my face and mask then to the grey and brown rocks around us that are slimy from things thrown from the above windows. I made my way to Lower just in case the Thieves’ Guild had received my message. And since Lower doesn’t have the expensive waste removal like Mid and Upper, the waste just sits back here until someone picks it up or it rots. Most of the time, it just rots, leaving a lovely aroma behind.

I turn and gesture for him to speak. It seems they received my message.

"M-Mistress wishes to s-speak with you. Urgent like, Ma’am." He gives me a note, then disappears into the shadows.

Ahhh, well. It seems the Mistress has found me. That was fast.

I left the orb slash opes thing with the fairies. I didn’t want to bring something like that with me into a din of thieves and cutthroats.

I walk to the edge of the buildings leading from Lower to Mid, pausing in the shadows. There are a few guards stationed about at the bridge about eight or nine horse lengths from me, keeping the riffraff from the other side of the river.

I sneak down below the guards and under the bridge, using the shadows of tents, barrels, and wagon crates. I unhitch a tiny rowboat. A man wearing a patched jacket and threadbare breeches that barely make it past his knees approaches. Hairy legs and feet stick out from the breeches, and I try not to grimace at the smell.

I pass him a copper and the note and he moves back to the bench where he sleeps.

Easing the rowboat away from the sandy and trashed area beneath the bridge is a bit nerve-wracking since there are guards above and splashing is a big no-no since I’m borrowing the Thieves’ Guild’s boat. If I draw attention to one of their possessions, they’d be peeved.

The more criminal inspired Guilds each have portions of the city, and they use those places as entrances to the Undercity, for bringing supplies down below. I’ve been told the Undercity was once a dwarven refuge... but, I don’t know if dwarves are alive anymore. But now, part of me wonder if is they are in hiding, like the fairies and Eldertrees.

I shake off my thoughts, turning my mind to my objective. The little entrance that hides in a cavern beneath the other side of the bridge.

Why Madame insisted I come this way… if it’s just for laughs, I’m gonna stab her. This is one of the most obscure entrances. I hate being on a small dinghy in the middle of a huge, glassy lake.

I would've scorned the meeting and made the Red Mistress pick out another meeting place, but there are answers I need and she's the only one who knows. Such as when and where her underlings got the Opes and why they had it.

My Gift flares, and I curse as it curls into my soul, thankful Mom’s nowhere around to hear the word Hans taught me. Jenny and Mom would put us both in the barn with the horses.

And… what the heck is that? Something curls behind me, just under the surface, anticipation and glee coming from the… creature. Shoot, shoot, and triple shoot. I did not need to know there was a super big… thing stalking me in the water.

My palms sweat and I almost lose hold of one oar.

You’ve gotta be kidding me.

I turn, seeing nothing but glassy black water reflecting the waterlights of the bridge and the little sprinkles of stars that emerge from between the clouds above now and then.

I turn around, and the far side of the lake is just as far as the shore from where I came. Grand.

A few choice words come to mind, but I bite them back. Good thing Mom ain’t no mind reader or I’d have a hiney thwacking from here to next week.

I row faster, feeling the thing hum with pleasure when its prey tries to get away.

This monster is getting on my nerves and making my heart jump in erratic patterns. I don’t like it and it’s making me feel stabby.

With a sigh, I stop paddling. I know I’d better face this thing, because there’s no way it’s letting me get away. It’s hungry and it’s fast.

I let the boat drift to a stop, having to coach myself into such a thing. It goes against every beating thread in my body to stop and face an unknown entity stalking me cause it wants to eat me. I now feel for the rat stalked by cats. This is a horrible thing to feel.

I grab two daggers.

I’m not going down without a fight.

Even if the thing is so large it'll feel like tiny needles to the creature.

I latch onto the emotions and glimmering thread of this monster, grimacing at the slimy and partially oily feel of the thing, and gather what will power rests beneath the fear and shout a mental, STOP!

I wince and almost drop my daggers at the backlash of that one word. It feels like something’s chopped my brain up and spit me back out. I blink the tears from my eyes, watching the water with bated breath.

Ripples branch out along the surface of the water as something beneath the glassy face moved. I can’t tell if it stopped or moved forward.

Prickles of dread race up and down my spine and it feels like a hand is clenching my lungs, making it hard to breathe. The thing is way closer than I thought it was. It’s so close… I could probably reach out a hand and touch it.

Two specks of light wink at me through the water… I thought they were waterlights from the bridge, but no. Those are daggum eyes.

They are slit like a snake and narrow at me. The eyes are about four feet a part.

What are you, little prey, that you speak to me?

I am the Guardian.

Titles mean little to me. I think I shall eat you.

I growl. I am tiny, mighty one. Do you not think a larger meal would befit one of your size? Thank you, Jenny, for your manners in etiquette.

Is the little prey calling me fat?

I almost choke on my spit. Did I offend it?

Erm… no. But you are big. And I would barely be a small stick to your might.

It blinks. Brave, this one. Perhaps I shall listen. What do you propose?

I think fast, hoping Hans doesn’t kill me because I’ll need him to send a runner to the market and confiscate some of my funds I told him to invest. Would you rather have cow, fish, or pig? I ask, sending a picture of each to the creature.

Ripples grow some fifteen horse-lengths behind it as a large fin-like thing pokes up from the surface and the eyes come a minuscule closer.

Any. But how do I know you will make good on your proposal?

I can feel its belly rumble as if it were my own, and empathy grows in me. I know what it’s like to be hungry. I will, in return for safe passage of me and any other human or creature through these waters, provide a weekly tithe of meat. But should you eat any humans or creatures, the deal is off.

It debates. The selfish hunger within wars with the part that does indeed want more than spindly human.

No, I think not. It thrashes below me, and I almost panic, looking for a way out… and then I feel it.

You are in pain, I say softly.

He grumbles, but it doesn’t scratch what he feels. Something… there. Something imbedded into his skin, swollen and bloated from the foreign invader and where his claws had tried to dislodge it only to shove it deeper within, dangerously close to its heart… or a similar organ. I wasn’t entirely sure what exactly was there other than it was dangerous to prick.

A few more hands breadth and he would be dead.

Its snout is so close I could reach out and touch the scaled nose that snorts, throwing water all over me and into my boat. Each nostril is bigger than my head.

I gulp.

The snout is three of me across and five of me in length. The rest of the body is the size of Sir Han’s home.

It was right there the entire time?

The world spins for a minute, my head floating yet also feeling heavy on my neck. I have come across many things… but this is different. My terrain is of earth, not of deep dark depths that could hide something this big. I decide I don’t like water anymore and will not visit water for a long, long time.

Let me help you.

A harsh chittering and the water thrashes. I grab the sides of my boat, barely keeping from capsizing.

A little thing like you, help me? it scoffs.

Let me help you, I dig into my Gift, push with my mind, and lace the words with steel, slowly closing around the other mind until I feel as if I’ll break.

But the creature moves, even as it struggles against the trap in its mind, and exposes its underbelly. Water streams from the lighter malachite under scales like a miniature waterfall as the wound is slowly exposed.

A gasp escapes my lips as the jagged red lines and the shaft of wood with mere feet protruding from what I know is a ballista bolt from one of the king’s fleet. I’ve none of my mother’s ways as a midwife, but I know my way around a wound.

And this one needs help I can’t give.

I take a deep breath and release it, holding tightly to the slithering, aching form in my brain that I’ve somehow caged.

Aria, don’t you dare—

I cut Ran off, shoving her from my mind.