EV B2 Chapter 50, 51 & 52

// I really wanted to post this earlier, but I got in my head a little bit. I was starting to feel weird about posting EV as I know most people are here for legion and so I figured I would just post a few chapters at a time and it would feel less like spamming people with stuff they didn't sign up for.

//Sadly I wrote one chapter and then sitting on it made it hard to write the next one. Eventually, I just buckled down and figured out where I was going with the arc and knocked a few out. I don't plan on trying to do a big release intentionally again. I'll just try and publish them at the end of the day they are written. If I get more than one done then great.

EV B2 Chapter 50:

We didn't leave the challenge for some time. We ran through it again and again, sometimes working on teamwork, sometimes trying to push each of our individual skills to their absolute limit. I let my mind wander in the free moments.

The more I thought about the problem, the largest issue I saw, and honestly did not have a way around, was that all of my intelligence about Valhalla, the afterlife, metaphysics, and everything essentially came from Loki. As much as I thought I liked the guy, I no longer trusted him as much as I probably should. Even if we were to be friends, I figured I would be a bad friend to completely count on him for everything. It just felt unfair.

And, well, he wasn't exactly the most trustworthy friend either. He was my—well, he had his own game, and I definitely didn't want to alienate Loki. That would go poorly for all of us. As much as I didn't like it, we were heavily dependent on him. But that would have to change slightly. At least, I'd have to have other options so that he didn't have me over a barrel.

Unfortunately, everyone I knew was either inconsequential or also heavily tied to Loki or Astrid through Loki's wife, and Alana through Loki directly, and, by some extent, me. So I would need to meet others.

The Temple of Tyr seemed like it was not necessarily a bad place to start, but it might not suit as well. Another place to start was looking at who Astrid had been tangling with, not necessarily to align with them. Still, it might be a gateway into finding the other powerful factions in Baja. Even having to think about this made my head hurt.

It wasn't something I wanted to do. Loyalty had always been a core aspect of my personality. All throughout my life, I had only had a few jobs, and my career had lasted nearly thirty years at the same company. If Loki had been straight honest with me, I would have been working for him unquestionably for far longer than was probably healthy. But it sucked that that wasn't possible.

It didn't seem like Loki knew how to have a proper relationship without at least jokes and a certain level of uncaring for those he didn't really consider people. I watched as Alana and Astrid worked together to whittle down a group of plant monsters they were slowly leading around in a circle. Astrid's face bore a now familiar expression—a constant grimace of pain as her class and blessing forced it onto her. She said it got better, and she adapted and learned how to ignore it. But, well, it wasn't pleasant.

And Alana had a look of pure focus as she chain-cast one spell after another in a perfect sequence, with the timing of an orchestra conductor, every single beat hitting exactly where it was supposed to be, and no plant monster making it a step out of reach. And, well, it was a beauty to behold.

Astrid and I were talented fighters, but Alana was a savant. And, well, just like anything she was good at, she was very good at. And anything she was bad at, she was very bad at. Luckily for all of us, she was very good at combat and understanding the flow.

It was a bit of a relief as I realized that I wouldn't have to control our battles. I was too close up to be the tactician. I wanted to be in things' faces, fighting and everything. But as long as I was with Alana, she would always have a view of the entire battle, and it took a load off my mind.

It did, however, remind me of one of the other major problems, that both of my allies needed significant leveling. Now that Astrid had a class, it made sense to push her as hard as possible. Alana just needed more combat experience, both so they could fight at my side fairly without being in danger from just being near the fights I was in, and also, well, if we wanted to move forward.

And that came to one of the biggest problems: what did moving forward mean?

The only thing I could confidently say was that there was some place beyond Valhalla Proper. There were some Tier five place that should exist, but I still had no idea how to get there. Completing a challenge wasn't enough, but that was the next step.

Beyond that, though, well, I had a nasty hunch that it would involve favor from a god. I remembered a few conversations with my Valkyrie. Mary had mentioned something about roots, Valhalla, and moving past. Still, it had been a long time since I had seen her. And, well, I wasn't sure I could trust her either.

Not that she'd really given me any cause to doubt, but the way Loki had talked about her, I was probably just being paranoid. I eventually decided that all this thinking was doing me nothing, and I needed to talk to my groupmates before I made any real decisions.

With them so much in on all my secrets, it still felt weird. But they should have as much input as I did on choosing our next path.

We exited the challenge with a significant number of levels under the girls' belts and, after a brief stop to exchange our loot, significantly richer. This was good because the rent we had paid for the training room had expired today, and we were looking for. needed to get—a new private location.

The conversation I wanted to have should be as private as possible. I knew that the challenges were monitored, and if I was going to attempt to speak without Loki listening in, it would have to be someplace inconspicuous. I wasn't sure—it was always possible that he had some fragment of himself always devoted to following my every move. But if that was the case, there wasn't much I could do. And I suspected it was more likely not me that he was able to follow. Still, rather the token in my bag, as he hadn't been able to randomly contact me before that, and he actually hadn't made an appearance since I had retrieved Astrid.

It worried me, the fact that he knew there was something going on. We wandered the streets, speaking of our progress, until I found where I was looking for. It wasn't exactly Norse at all, but rather a Roman-style bathhouse. Well, sort of Roman style. There was a lot of cultural mixing going on here. Apparently, there were Norsemen involved in Roman or Byzantine empires or such, though whether or not they were still actively practicing the Old Norse religion didn't seem to have much impact on what they were here.

After all, I was here, and that meant there were such desires to be catered for, even amongst those locals. Not that I had ever met one, but this small remnant remained.

"Let's clean up a bit," I suggested. Both of them gave me odd looks but made no protest.

When I left my things in a locker and walked out into the bath with the towel, I found the two of them already there in the water, their towels draped along the sides of the pool. I slipped in on the opposite side and controlled my gaze to make sure that I only ever looked them in the eyes.

"I'm sure there were easier ways of getting us naked," Astrid quipped in a dry tone.

I laughed, feeling for the first time in a while that I wasn't actually actively being watched.

"I don't know, it didn't seem particularly hard."

This caused Alana to snort and Astrid to roll her eyes. I appreciated some good banter, but our time here was limited.

"I'm pretty sure that someone can listen in on us through some of the equipment we might have, and this seemed to be the best bet without extremely high-powered magic that we don't have access to, to having a private conversation," I quickly explained.

Both Alana and Astrid made faces that I couldn't quite decipher.

Anyways, I barreled onward before we could get distracted.

"We need to talk about what our actual plans are."

"Besides just getting stronger?" Alana or Astrid asked.

"Uh, yes. Besides just getting stronger, there are several things we need to accomplish. From making sure we have independent sources of information that can be verified outside of Loki, to finding whatever criminal element you are engaged in"—I nodded to Astrid—"it seems that they at least were rivals of the Cult of the World Eater in some manner. Even though that might be more of a ploy of Loki or Sigyn as well."

"We need to find out what changes when we complete a challenge. We need to find out more about the higher levels."

And suddenly, I had a flashback to an extremely high-level woman telling me to find Alana. I gave her a look, and she nodded slightly.

"And we also need to figure out what happens next. After Valhalla proper. How do we get there? Do we want to get there? What is the best way? Are we prepared for when we do?"

Instead of immediately jumping onto any one of these topics, Astrid picked up on Alana's look and turned to her.

"What do you know about the higher levels?"

"Um, not much, but... well..." Alana hesitated. "One of my teachers offered me a bet, and I called in a favor to make sure that Myles attended my graduation."

"Hmm," I hemmed. "And could you get in contact with either that woman, your teacher, or..." I paused, trailing off, remembering that Alana hadn't mentioned too much of this when she recounted her story, though she only spent a few hours telling me it, when it must have taken her much longer to recall every detail—and I had never actually asked where she came from.

Alana thought for a second and shrugged. "Probably. Though... well... I'm not sure that she'd be interested in working with us. I don't think they would have a bright view of Loki's followers."

I raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe that is something we advertise to anyone."

"No, we don't," Alana said, blushing slightly, "but, well..."

"Did word get out about you?" I asked, nerves starting to spike. If she were a known associate of Loki and she'd been seen around me...

She shook her head. "No. But there are certain ways to tell a blessing. And with certain favors or ceremonies the group is part of, they might try to check. And I don't think your disguise spell is powerful enough to—"

"Okay, well, we don't necessarily need to go there," I jumped in. "Just, we want more, maybe common information, just from independent sources. It's actually better that they don't like Loki. Do you think we could—you could maybe get drinks with them or, I don't know, go just hang out socially?"

Astrid and I studied Alana, who nodded but seemed embarrassed by the attention. She shifted slightly, and I remembered to keep my eyes high, looking at her face.

"I think so."

With that, I sighed and leaned back, looking at the ceiling as I slipped slowly into the water, running my hands through my hair to remove as much grime as I possibly could. After a second to think, I resurfaced and shook my head slightly.

"Okay. When we get back to our new base for the next week, we'll go over our gains from training. But I think we need a break from that. Alana, why don't you go make some friends while Astrid and I do a little bit of detective work?"

EV B2 Chapter 51:

I woke up alone. We had decided that we needed to hold on for the night, get enough food, and sleep so that we'd be rested. Neither of the other beds in the room had anything, and Astrid's was undisturbed.

She was sitting down at the table as I came downstairs, where Alana was nowhere to be seen. Astrid, though, wasn't just awake. She was working. I could hear the soft sound of graphite being dragged against wood, and from the motion of her shoulder, it looked as if she was drawing something. But that was the only part of her that moved. The rest of her body was in a frozen stillness as she was sitting at a table hidden from the window, hunched over several different books splayed out on the table in front of her. It looked awkward and uncomfortable, but as I walked around and saw her face, it was as rigid as the rest of her self. She probably heard me coming, but she didn't glance up or say anything.

I stood in front of the small table in the small apartment that we had rented for the week, wishing that we had something like a refrigerator so I didn't have to have a breakfast of warm cheese, stale bread, and dried meat. The room was cold as well, and neither woman was bothering to start a fire. Only the long-dead charcoal remained from the previous occupants. The sounds of the bustling street outside in the pale light filtered through the room, making it feel a lot later than it actually was. Looking outside and seeing the light, I realized I had slept in more than I had intended to.

I placed a few logs in the fire and, with a bit of freeform arcane magic, lit them.

"You've been up long?" I asked.

Astrid grunted a noncommittal sound that made me suspicious. I slowly crossed the room and pulled out a chair to sit down at the table with her. She still didn't look at me. Her hands kept working, smearing the charcoal as she adjusted some sort of geometric shape across the table. I studied the jagged lines intersecting in a seemingly random pattern that I could not find any order from, but it was clear that it wasn't just a doodle.

 "Couldn't sleep?" I asked.

She shook her head, her eyes finally glancing up at me before flashing back down to her work.

"Didn't need to."

I waited, and she corrected herself.

"Didn't want to."

I let it go.

"What's the sigil?"

"It was something from my captivity," she said, producing a note, a piece of paper she had found somewhere with a different image drawn on it. "I remember this. I think it was their divine mark."

I looked closely at the drawing she passed over to me, and I shook my head.

"Maybe it's not Loki's," I said.

I rolled back, pushed up my sleeve, and indicated Loki's blessing, revealing the familiar ink buried in my skin. The crawl jester's had its unsettling grin. There was a little bit of color now, but it was nothing vibrant. Astrid stared at it, fixed. She reached out and touched it with one finger and turned back to the symbol she sent me.

"This is different."

The image was clearly not a jester but more of a mask when I looked at it a certain way—one that was less mocking and more cruelly smiling.

"I can't think of anything I would know from myths that would tie this to anything besides Loki," she said, exasperated. "I don't know of any other trickster gods, at least not in the Norse pantheon."

I shrugged.

"It could be many things."

We sat there in silence, studying the symbol and the thing she was drawing on the table. I pushed my chair back, stood up, and tapped the keg that had come with the purchase of the house. I had no idea what it was, but a foul-smelling mead flowed into the two cups I had on me. I passed one over to Astrid as I sat down again, and she drained half of it without toasting. I sipped at it briefly and regretted it before putting it down. It was way too strong, especially for this early, and I still hated mead.

She made one final stroke to the charcoal symbol on the table before placing the not-Loki's blessing symbol on it. As she adjusted the paper slightly in the light, something shimmered.

"Wait," I said. "Hold still."

I reached out and grabbed her hand so she couldn't move the paper more. She tilted it slightly, and a faint waft of smoke came up out of the paper.

"What was that?" I asked.

She didn't answer immediately. She held the page, lifted it up, and studied it before tossing it in the hearth. As the paper burned, the charcoal on the table moved. It formed a new symbol—an eye wide and unblinking, scrawled as if it was some sort of caveman drawing. And we both stared at it until it blinked at us.

I was left staring at it as spiderweb cracks appeared across the surface of the table, too fine to be anything besides cut with a razor, too precise to be anything accidental. The soot shimmered—shimmered—and then, without heat or smoke, the center of the eye crumpled inward and hardened into a small black rock the size of my palm. It sat there with nothing, and I reached out and picked it up.

Astrid stared at it like she'd expected it, and I could feel it shift on my palm as if it were pulling me. I looked over at Astrid with expectations in my eyes, and she glanced down at the notes before looking up at me, understanding that I was asking for an explanation.

"It's a locator."

I frowned, looking at it.

"Resonance magic is going to lead us to whoever drew the symbol?"

Astrid grimaced. "Not quite. If I got it right, it should be more about seeking a pattern. Anything with that mark," she pointed toward the paper still burning in the fire, "should draw it. And it should give you a general idea—whoever's, at least whoever's holding it, of where the nearest images are. It should work better with me, though."

"Makes sense," I said, handing it over, not worrying about doing that particular task. "It's probably pulling us towards someone wearing the mark," I suggested.

"Could be. Or some sort of ritual site," Alana threw in.

"True. I guess we really don't know. But so far, it's our only—it might be our best method of finding something. Unless Alana comes back with information. Our only other choice is to try to track down the drugs, but there are too many different people selling those, and we just don't have enough insider knowledge."

Astrid nodded. I looked down and asked some clarifying questions.

"How far does it reach?"

She shrugged. "Um. It won't cover all of Valhalla, but within a few miles, maybe."

I frowned. "That might not be enough."

She nodded. "I know, but... well, at my level, anything besides divine magic probably won't get you much better."

I grimaced, not thinking that I wanted to talk to Loki anytime soon.

"Well," I said, "that we can find it, but it makes me think that it's not a blessing. I'm almost confident that Loki would never allow someone like me to be found out so easily. If someone could just find anything drawn on me..."

"I agree. I should—no, I think it's a purely mortal organization or—"

I shook my head. "I don't think those really exist. This is just too chaotic for that. And there's no continuity. It could be some sort of temporary thing, but they just wouldn't have the power. My guess is that some sort of faction or some weird religion that has lasted past death."

Astrid didn't seem convinced, but she just blinked slowly at me, and I sighed. I put down the glass of mostly untouched mead and put a hand comfortingly on her shoulder.

"Good job. We have our lead. But you need to sleep."

She shook her head, but I squeezed her shoulder slightly.

"No. I think we need to head out soon. But in your state, you're going to be a liability. At least two hours of solid sleep." I insisted.

She looked like she wanted to argue but looked down and muttered, "Of course, Miles." She stood up and trudged upstairs with the gait of a person on their last legs.

I took her seat and closed the books in front of her, stacking them up so they wouldn't get damaged before having a small meal while watching the people walk past through the small window.

***

I had long since finished eating and was reading one of the magical textbooks that Astrid had left, trying to improve my ability to work with arcane magic, which was starting to lag behind my illusion magic by a significant bit. That was when the front door was unlocked. I didn't get up, but a weapon appeared in my hand under the table.

I heard the familiar stride as Alana strode through the door. She stepped in like she belonged, but not like the noble she once was—now with a confidence that spoke of experience rather than pedigree. Her coat was stained with soot, not just the ash that continually floated around the city with the snow. There was a copper scent of blood in the air as well.

But watching her move, it was clear that she had no injury. Her eyes were slightly dilated, and I could tell from her breathing that she was a little bit amped up on adrenaline. She just closed the door behind her before sitting down across from me at the table.

"I'm back," she said.

"You were out early," I responded.

She shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."

"Should I catch you up?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No. She spent most of the night down here. After I felt more rested, I wanted to get a head start. I know I wasn't working as hard as you and Astrid did with all the running around you two do."

I smiled, knowing that her casting was not that much less strenuous.

"Well, I'm glad you got a head start on things because, well—Astrid and I made some progress as well."

Alana's chin dipped slightly as she focused on. I poured out and discarded a cup of warm mead for her. She sniffed it and put it back down with a grimace.

"The fuck is that?" she asked, and I couldn't help but sniff.

"Nothing fit for drinking. It was the welcoming gift as our landlord tried to poison us, I'm sure."

Switching the topic back, I pulled out the charcoal disc that somehow didn't leave any smudges and was as shiny as black could be. I placed it on the table before sliding it over to Alana.

"It's a locator spell to find patterns of a mark she noticed some of her captors had. They are... maybe not independent from a god, but maybe a source of independent information."

Alana nodded, and I paused, waiting for her to speak. Eventually, her eyes left the black disc in front of her.

"I found something, too," she said, and I just let her explain. "I made contact with a few... with a few of my old contacts."

"Okay. I know. Is that why you smell of blood?"

She shook her head. "No. That was a little trouble I ran into heading back." She pulled out a knife and began wiping it down with a rag. "It's not a big deal."

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Did anyone see you? Were you recognized?"

She shook her head. "No."

I let the matter drop.

"Okay, then. Glad you stayed safe. We should just wait for Astrid to wake up, and we'll move out."

"Move out where?" Alana asked with a faint smile.

I inclined my head toward the black disc in front of her.

"Wherever that takes us."

EV B2 Chapter 52:

The streets hadn't woken up properly yet, but there was a constant bustle of traffic. It was always going on, though. Mid-morning seemed to be the latest time before all those who got to bed at a regular time woke up—well, regular for Valhalla. I supposed back in my old job, I would've been up hours ago, but not here. And many of the people who had been up all night drinking and partying had already gone to bed.

I started to hear the cries of vendors, staffed by avatars of various divine patrons selling fish. That must have been caught somewhere else, as I had yet to see a river that could host any fish here. The noise must have woken Astrid up as she emerged from the bedroom with dark circles under her eyes, but her posture was still straight, and she did have a little bit more liveliness than she had when we had sent her to bed.

Alana had already cleaned all of her gear and was practically bouncing, ready to go, where I had just been finishing up my studies. Things had gone relatively well, and I had managed to improve my handling of arcane mana. I hadn't been able to get a spell that worked off of it purely—everything was just too entrenched with illusion magic—but all my skills had been improved by a measurable amount, as the aspect that would actually reinforce the movement rather than just the misdirection had been shorn up. I still had a long way to go, but for now, it was worthwhile.

Alana bounced impatiently, completely geared up for battle. I didn't have anything besides my normal clothes on, forgoing the leather armor I would normally wear, but I expected that it wouldn't stay peaceful. Not if we continued down this path.

The polished carbon disc was in my pocket, but until I touched it, I couldn't actually feel which way we were going. But as we all filed outside and locked up our little apartment, I could tell exactly which direction to go, if not how far east and down. We started heading in that direction in no particular hurry. Occasionally, one of us would stop for a brief moment to talk with one of the vendors. Those that were manned by automatons never really had much to say, but one did sell me a loaf of fresh bread, which I ripped in half and offered a piece to Alana, who took it eagerly. Astrid, though, already had some sort of skewered meat and seemed satisfied.

The snow started to come down a little heavier than it usually did, and many people on the street quickly found reasons to enter the abundance of bars or had a sudden desire to visit one of the nearby shops. We, though, didn't slow our pace, even if the wind bit through my clothes. We followed the shard, followed the location as best we could until, eventually, it was telling us to go through a solid wall.

On that wall was a giant mural. It kind of looked like graffiti at first, but when viewed from a certain angle, I could see why the locator would have found it. Alana paused with it, and Astrid squatted down to examine a particular spot. She reached out and brushed two fingers along the paint.

"It's been recently drawn, still a little wet. Someone must be keeping these fresh."

Alana dug the tip of her knife in across the paint, higher up, and shook her head.

"No, this is freshly painted on, but there's nothing under it."

"Why do you think the symbol's painted out in the open like this?" I asked.

Astrid shrugged. "I don't think they're exactly very organized, at least not from what I could tell. There was a hierarchy, but it was not really more than just the one guy who was the leader."

While Astrid and I discussed it, Alana found something and pressed in a brick. I half expected the wall to peel back with a rumble and for us to find some sort of underground tunnel, but instead, the one brick moved aside, and she found a few vials of liquid. She quickly hissed, bringing Astrid's attention to the drop, and as she looked at it and nodded—

"Yes. That's it."

"Should we just watch? See when they're picked up?" Alana asked.

But I shook my head. "No. That'll only tell us who's buying. Not really what we're looking for."

"Well then what?" Astrid asked.

I took my finger and drew a line through the wet paint, altering the symbol.

"Enough. Move on to the next one, I suppose."

We followed it—the locator—into a series of alleyways that led down a slight hill. I stopped at the entrance to one of the darkest alleys I had seen all throughout Valhalla and looked down into the dark. The locator was very insistent that it was there. Astrid reached out, and I offered her the locator. She closed her eyes, and her apparent familiarity with the magic must have allowed her slightly better fidelity because as she closed her eyes for a moment, she opened them and said,

"I think we found a person marked or at least one who has the mark on them. It seems like the target is moving."

"Good," I said with a grim smile. "I'd like our first run-in with someone. Someone who wants to talk."

"And if they don't?" Astrid asked.

"Then... well, I suppose we'll burn that bridge when we get to it."

This pulled a slight giggle from Alana, as she always did seem to enjoy my metaphors.

The rusty gate at the back of the alleyway wasn't exactly obvious, just a hatch sunken into a dead-end stairway behind a rickety bakery. There were no guards, no sign, no glyphs, or any sort of marking that this was used. Only a slight bit where the rust was worn off from the hinges being in use told me that it was even able to be opened.

Alana opened the hatch without any ceremony, and we stepped inside. The place wasn't a single tunnel but rather a sprawl—old infrastructure and forgotten refuse. The air, though, was surprisingly fresh. Not the ever-present snow, making it feel a little bit drier as well.

Astrid led with a light spell, but I stepped in front, being the first to go down any new corridors. We followed the locator through a maze until we finally saw some lights.

I raised my hand, and we stopped as one. Astrid snuffed out the light she had conjured, and the faint glow ahead became clearer. There were three lanterns held by presumably three different people, but they were not moving with any sort of urgency, so I assumed they were not.

"Are they marked?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

Astrid closed her eyes and shook her head. "Only one of them has a symbol. They're close, though. But it's definitely them."

Alana looked at one of the side panels. "We could try to flank around them, cut across the left tunnel, and meet them at the next intersection. One of us, maybe?"

I shook my head. "No. It's too early for that. I don't know if they're bait."

And focusing, I frowned. "They're a higher level than you. So we should stick together."

I activated my skills, flashing ahead. I knew that I could handle them, but I didn't want to put my companions at risk. With brutal efficiency, I smashed one into the wall, his head cracking against the stone and falling limp. Another one—

The other two didn't even have a chance to turn around before I kicked the back knee of one and grabbed the other in a chokehold, slowly putting him to sleep.

By the time Astrid and Alana reached me, there were two unconscious and one man rolling on the floor, clutching his knee.

"Get him up," I said, indicating the only conscious man.

Alana and Astrid hauled him up and held him against the wall while Astrid bound his hands and healed his knee.

"What's your name?" I asked.

There was no response. I looked down at his knee and then back up to his face.

"Garrett?" he croaked. "Just... Garrett."

I examined him before reaching up and ripping off his sleeve, where Astrid had covertly noted where the symbol was located. It was on the meaty part of his forearm. I tapped it with a finger and asked, "What is that?"

He glanced at the symbol and opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"Whose blessing?" Alana whispered in his ear.

And somehow, this seemed to freak him out.

"It's not a who. It's a group."

We waited for him to explain further, giving him a chance, as he clearly seemed a bit startled. I wouldn't be surprised if he had been on some of the drugs that they were selling.

"We call it the Pale Eye."

Alana stepped back slightly as if the name meant something to her.

"Tell me about them," I said.

"Truth or vengeance. That's... that's their words," he said.

"That doesn't tell me much."

"I'm not lying. That's all I know. That's what they say they stand for," Garrett said. "I just run messages, I swear."

Astrid leaned forward, studying the symbol more closely.

"This looks fresh."

Garrett nodded. "Yes, I am new. I... I don't—"

"Who's in charge?" I asked.

"Um... well. The Prophet. Some people call him Khaliq, but I've never seen him. I just get my orders via dead drop."

Astrid glanced at me. "I believe him," she said.

Unfortunately, I did too.

"Who are these?" I said, indicating the unconscious bodies at my feet.

"Clients?" he said.

And with that, my fist snapped out, leaving him unconscious.

I debated killing them, but in this low light, I doubted they had really seen our faces. Maybe they could recognize our voices, but I didn't want that on my soul.

"The Pale Eye," I said aloud, letting the words settle.

Alana exhaled slowly. "And someone named Khaliq."