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I leaned closer, careful not to make a sound.

“When?” Curringham’s assistant said, as if to no one. He bent down and pretended to retie his boot.

“Tonight. Before dawn,” the hooded figure answered. My shoulders relaxed slightly. The voice was not the dark, commanding voice of the Shadow. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t the hooded menace. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t working for him.

“Same port as last time?” the assistant asked his boot.

So this had happened before. Now I just needed to know exactly what I was witnessing.

The stranger threw a small pouch on the ground as his answer. It landed with a soft clunk. The assistant swiped it off the ground and fitted it into his boot. At the same time, he pulled a bundle of papers from his belt. He stood up and leaned against the post, sliding the papers to whoever stood in the shadows.

I caught a glimpse of the blade holstered at the hooded man’s belt as he reached for the papers. The hilt was not wrapped in leather or made of steel, but wood. Thick twists of branches formed the handle extending up along the stone blade. It was Elven made.

They were almost unheard of in the kingdom. And those that did exist were displayed over the hearths of rich men, not strapped at the side of some unknown traveler. No Mortal miscreant would carry such a weapon. No Halfling could afford it. Whoever stood beneath that hood came from the other side of the Burning Mountains.

Without another word, the stranger disappeared back into the shadows along the carriage path. I started to follow him but froze at the edge of the roof. Too many questions were spinning in my head. Why had someone from the Faeland come to visit Curringham’s assistant? Did this mean that the lord had struck an alliance with the Dark Fae after all? Was the person beneath that cloak Fae? An Elf? A Halfling?

I needed answers. And I knew my best chance to get them would be from the young assistant rather than whoever had disappeared into the night. For the first time as the Blade, I wished I had a partner. She could watch the boy at the manor while I went after whoever he had met with.

But I worked alone. I sat down on the roof and waited for the assistant to sneak out of the manor and lead me to whatever was waiting at the ports.

Curringham’s assistant didn’t come back outside until an hour before sunrise. I walked behind him, too far back for his Mortal senses to notice, but he never left my sight. He walked down to the older ports, where the poor begged for passage in exchange for work and criminals would slip through crates of stolen goods.

He looked out of place in his well-tailored tunic and clean boots among the decrepit docks. Tattered sails hung loosely along the boats. The docks themselves were worn; entire planks of wood rotted away. No one here would spare the coin to replace them.

The assistant walked onto a small ship namedAuriela, a beautiful name for a pitiful vessel. I leaped off the dock just as it was pulling out and hid behind one of several large crates. I opened the lid and was surprised to find it was stocked with food. Flour and cured meats. Jam and grain.

Why would the Dark Fae be trading in staple goods?

I listened closely. There were only two heartbeats on board, the steady tempo of the assistant and a quieter one, presumably the captain.

I pulled my hood forward to ensure it covered my face and then I moved.

I crept into the small steering cabin first, the frail old man driving the boat was standing beside the wooden wheel. I wasn’t sure if he would be strong enough to swim back to the docks this far downstream, but a chance was better than the sureness of my blade. He didn’t have time to shout before I hoisted him out of the room and into the gray water. I sighed in relief when I saw his head emerge. His frail arms started paddling toward the docks.

The assistant didn’t even notice the splash, giving me time to grab some rigging. He turned as I lifted my arms to strike his face and wrapped the ropes around his torso. He started to shout but I slipped one of the small blades from its slot in the leathers along my sleeve and held it to his throat.

“You only live while no one knows I’m here,” I whispered coldly.

He stopped, looking at my face even though he could not see it. I sat him atop a crate and tied the rope to an anchor beside the mast.

“You scream, I kill you. Understand?”

He nodded.

“Good. I saw you speaking with that male. I want to know why.”

“I bought myself some Elven armor—” I stuffed part of his tunic into his mouth as he let out a blood curdling shriek. I had pulled out one of his fingernails with the pliers from my boot.

“Lying will only bring you pain. Want to try answering that again?” I pinched another nail with the pliers.

He nodded. I slowly pulled out the gag from his mouth.

“They wanted to know who the lord was meeting.” He coughed. “And how often.”

“They?” I had only seen one.

“Sometimes it’s someone different. I never really see their faces, but the other one was...” He bit his lip as if to keep the words from spilling out of his mouth.