Chương 22: Rebel Phase (Assassin Guild Secretary's POV)

I was in a dark room with a single torch burning in the corner. It wasn't that the Assassin's Guild lacked the budget for more torchlight; we had plenty. But a single source of light, positioned exactly where it was, did far more effective work during an interrogation than a well-lit room ever could. The one torch threw the man's shadow long and trembling against the far wall, which was, in my experience, more persuasive than anything I could actually say to him. The man tied to the chair in front of me was a mage.

And not just any other mage, an archmage. Young, by the look of him. His fingers kept twitching in small, useless patterns, as though some part of him hadn't fully accepted that spellcasting wasn't an option anymore. Shira had died taking a request from an archmage, but that idiot never specified which of the ten. Did he become senile, or let Ingrid handle it? Given how thorough he was, it was most likely the latter.

"Are you the archmage who killed your assassin contractor after the quest was done?" I asked again. I wasn't a patient woman. This was, I believe, the second time I'd asked him.

"I-it's not me. I just got the tenth seat last month! Please, let me go!" I studied his face for a moment. I sighed. Then the door opened. A man wearing a rabbit mask stepped in, bowing slightly.

"The Guild Master is asking for you." I sighed again, deeper this time. It couldn't be helped. Being a secretary meant listening to your employer's monologues, regardless of your own schedule. I moved past him toward the door.

"Continue the interrogation. Gently, for now."

"And if gently doesn't work?"

"Then stop being gentle. Use your judgment." I glanced at him. One of our rising stars, quietly reliable, the kind who never needed a second instruction. I didn't know why he'd chosen a rabbit mask specifically, though. Everyone had their own taste, and questioning it never once produced an answer worth the time spent asking.

"Yes." He stepped into the room.

"Wow. How did you manage to catch an archmage?" I didn't turn back and just waved my hand.

"Mages are not a big deal to assassins. Even if it's an archmage." Then the archmage laughed.

"You'll regret this. I, being new as an archmage, sure am weak, but the top three are different. Speed does not matter to them."

"Yes, yes. Is the one we are looking for one of them?" Bunny mask said, followed by a scream from the archmage. I sighed. Just when I told him to start gentle. I stepped out into the corridor. Unlike the interrogation room, there was no torch here to set any particular mood. Every assassin in the guild carried the Night Vision skill as standard, which made hallway lighting an unnecessary expense rather than a genuine necessity.

One of the Guild Master's favorite cost-cutting decisions, and one of the few I actually agreed with. At the far end was a door. I reached it, turned the knob, and stepped through into the next room. This room was livelier: full of smoke, full of noise, full of the particular kind of laughter that only happened where money was changing hands freely. Nobles came here to request our assassins directly.

We were not, as a rule, particular about our clientele, as long as the price was right; morality, in this business, was mostly a pricing tier rather than a genuine constraint. This room was mostly reserved for our newer assassins to conduct business; the more experienced ones handled transactions in abandoned warehouses instead, since they no longer needed a crowd of witnesses to feel safe doing so.

"You idiot! You let him send the evidence before killing him!" someone shouted, followed by the crash of shattering glass. I turned. A noble man, somewhere around fifty, had just thrown a wine bottle at a girl wearing a smiley-face mask with too many teeth in it. The bottle had missed her by a comfortable margin and shattered against the wall behind her. The girl bowed, repeatedly. I let out a breath and crossed the room, pulling my pen and ledger free as I approached.

"What happened here?"

"Who the hell are you?" The noble jabbed a finger toward me. Before it reached me, I snapped it sideways. It made a small, satisfying crack.

"Argh!" he howled, clutching his hand to his chest.

"I repeat. What happened?" The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Is this how you treat a paying customer?!" I slapped him with the same hand, for symmetry.

"What exactly were you expecting from an Assassin Guild? A complaints department? Now talk." He glared, but he talked. Finally.

"This girl let the target send evidence to the capital before finishing the job." I looked at the girl.

"What was actually specified in the contract?" She waved both hands frantically.

"N-no, he only told me to kill the man. That's it. Nothing about evidence, nothing about timing—""Then it's not her fault. Problem solved." I put the pen back in my pocket and tucked the ledger under my arm.

"Wh-what are you talking about?! That's obviously included! Why else would I hire an assassin in the first place?!" His hand shot toward my mask.

"Just so you know, the moment you see my face — I'll kill you." He stopped, hand hovering an inch from the fox's painted muzzle. I turned and made my way toward the door behind the counter. Passing the receptionist, I leaned in and murmured, "Send a cleaner. And bill him double for the wasted bottle."

"Yes, ma'am." She bowed, already reaching for the ledger of her own. I stepped through into another long, dark corridor, walked its full length, and finally reached the Guild Master's office. I knocked. No one answered. The Guild Master had explained that this was his code if he was inside: "If no one answers after five seconds, it means I'm inside." I had wanted to point out, at that time, that this would be equally true if the room was empty. I hadn't said anything.

He'd looked too pleased with himself, and I was still new enough then to think that mattered. It had been fifteen years now. I thought it was time to mention it. I pushed the door open and entered. The Guild Master's office hadn't changed much. A heavy oak desk buried under paperwork that never seemed to shrink no matter how many hours he spent behind it. A single high window, too small and too grimy to let in much beyond a gray suggestion of daylight.

Bookshelves along one wall, sagging under ledgers older than some of our newer recruits. Behind his desk hung the ogre mask: the one he no longer wore, kept mounted on the wall like a retired weapon that had earned the space. I'd worked beside that mask before. We were both young then, or only I. These days, on the rare occasions his job still required him to leave this office, he wore something else: a plain wooden mask, the kind sold by the dozen at any street stall in Leveron.

I'd never asked why he'd stopped wearing the ogre. Some questions answered themselves if you waited long enough. The Guild Master sat at his desk. He was a large man who had once been a larger man. I pushed my white fox mask to the side of my head. I didn't mind him seeing my face. In fifteen years, he was one of perhaps three people I could say that about. He stared at the wall. The wall offered nothing.

"My oldest, Jett… that narcissist," he said, to no one in particular, "refuses to wear a mask." I made a note. This was not because the information was new. It was because noting things was what I did, and the Guild Master found it soothing.

"Twenty years I spent managing this guild. Twenty years of contracts, of client relations, of developing a reputation for discretion that is, I think you will agree, second to none." He picked up his pen. He put it down.

"And my oldest son spends his evenings letting people look at his face."

"He does complete the contracts," I offered.

"He completes them beautifully. He completes them with elegance and efficiency and absolutely no regard for the foundational principle that nobody should know who did it. Last month he left home saying something about becoming an adventurer. That a mask will ruin his beautiful face. The very same day, a tavern above started selling a cocktail called Jett. It has a flower garnish." I made a note.

"And Norman… Norman is… Norman is a good boy. Norman has a good heart. Norman is exactly the kind of person I would want my children to be, if my children were not required to eventually run an Assassin Guild." He folded his hands.

"The members respect skill. The members respect reputation. The members respect, at minimum, a face they can remember. Norman walks into a room and people check if the door was left open. Two years ago, I had three senior assassins ask me if we had a new errand boy." The Guild Master shook his head.

"He probably heard them. He disappeared the same day."

"Should we send a search party?"

"Don't bother. Unlike Jett where you know exactly where he is, Norman is different." He looked directly at me.

"Finding him in an empty room is already difficult." I didn't respond. He sighed. The cold settled around us. A torch in the corner guttered. It reconsidered. It continued burning, but with less confidence than before.

"And Ingrid." He stopped.

"That boyish daughter of mine." I did not make a note.

"Shira was—" He stopped again. Started differently.

"She was twelve when she decided she wanted to be an assassin. Not because I asked, but because Shira told her that she had good instincts, and she decided that was a sufficient reason to dedicate her life to it." A sound that was almost a laugh.

"She trusted that man completely. She would have followed him anywhere." The torch guttered again.

"Now she's out there somewhere, doing god knows what with her rebel phase." He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. I looked at the ledger. I looked at the ogre mask hanging on the wall. I had worked beside him for fifteen years and had learned, over that time, that there was a specific variety of silence that preceded his worst decisions, and that the correct response to it was intervention.

"Sir." He looked up.

"Does that mean… that all three of them are in the rebel phase?" The Guild Master opened his mouth. He closed it. He picked up his pen. He looked at it. He put it back down.

"Get out, Ione."

"Yes, sir." I turned. I had said what needed to be said and had absolutely no regrets about it.

"And find out where Ingrid is." I paused at the door. I made a note. I put my mask back.

"Yes, sir."