Garran stepped between Rook and the doorway.
“Your runner tore my gate down.”
Rook inspected the fallen timber.
“It does get nervous.”
“Around throats?” Kessa asked.
“Around people carrying sharp things.”
Jin looked at the bells across Rook's chest.
“Do you charge extra for the music, or does the extortion include entertainment?”
Rook's gaze returned to him.
“It talks.”
“Expensive upgrade.”
Tamsin made a pleased noise behind them.
Rook held out one hand toward Garran.
“My collar.”
“Come and get it.”
The hand remained open for a moment. Then Rook let it fall.
“You found someone to clear the quarry. Wonderful. Perhaps he'll stay when the next thing comes down. Or the next.”
“You mean when you send it,” Kessa said.
“Careful,” Rook said.
“I was. I used small words.”
His bells clicked as he shifted toward her. Garran moved with him, and Rook stopped smiling at the wrong person.
Rook shrugged.
The gray-haired worker came through the gate carrying a sack. She stopped when she saw him.
“Evening, Siv,” he said.
Her fingers tightened around the sack's mouth.
“We paid yesterday.”
“And you're alive today. See? Works beautifully.”
She glanced at Garran, then moved toward the doorway.
Rook reached for the sack.
She jerked it against her chest so hard something inside struck her ribs. For a moment they stood facing each other.
Then Garran's hand closed around Rook's wrist.
Rook looked down at it and slowly let his fingers uncurl.
“Keep your supper,” he said. “I'm not a monster.”
Siv went inside without answering.
Jin had seen that shrug on people who charged admission to F-rank practice rooms, then charged again for using the lights.
He hated it more from this angle.
“How much did the farms pay you?”
A reader checking the source will find this chapter on the NovelPhoenix site; this copy was made without approval.
“Enough to keep their animals alive.” New chapters come out on g.com first.
“And how much to keep their children alive?”
Rook smiled.
“Depends how much they like them.”
Bram moved toward the village road. Garran caught his sleeve and shook his head. Beyond the gate, a patch of shadow shifted beneath an empty wagon.
Jin saw it too.
Something low. Pale eyes. A long foreleg bending in the wrong direction.
Tamsin murmured beside his ear.
“Over Level thirty when I last worked for him. Don't let the scarf convince you he only sells things.”
“I wasn't going to buy it.”
“Jin.”
Rook looked at the knife Kessa had just put into Jin's hand.
“That's your handling stick?”
“Budget model.”
“I've heard about your methods.” Rook glanced at Bram. “Dancing. Presents. Bowing to anything with more teeth than you.”
Bram's ears reddened.
“It worked,” he muttered.
SPECIAL QUEST — PROFESSIONAL INTRODUCTION
HAVE THE HOSTILE VISITOR INTRODUCE YOU TO THOSE PRESENT WITH A TITLE OF AT LEAST THREE WORDS.
YOU MAY NOT SUPPLY THE TITLE.
REWARD: EXP +30.
Jin looked at Rook's open sneer.
Possibilities existed.
“You should tell everyone,” he said. “Loudly. I wouldn't want somebody mistaking you for the man who killed the raker.”
The smile disappeared.
Siv paused in the doorway. The other worker lingered by the broken gate. The guard stood between them, his hand near his sword.
Rook turned just enough to include them.
“Well, here he is. Your new protector. The Barefoot Beast Bride.”
Bram made an appalling noise.
Jin bowed.
SPECIAL QUEST COMPLETE: EXP +30
LEVEL UP: 17 → 18
LEVEL 18: 22/60 | FREE AP: +5
He put three into Agility and two into Endurance.
MODIFIERS: STR +24 | AGI +32 | END +29
AP REMAINING: 0
His calves tightened inside Theo's borrowed trainers. He shifted his weight and felt the yard beneath him more sharply.
“Excellent,” he said. “Free advertising.”
Garran drew his sword.
“Leave.”
The bell rang once.
The shadow under the wagon stood up.
It was longer than the wagon bed, its low belly supported on six jointed legs. Clear plates rose along its back like broken windows. When it turned, the late light bent through them.
Another creature stepped out beside it.
Then another.
Jin stopped smiling.
“Glassmaw,” Tamsin said. “One body. Don't trust the rest.”
Three sets of pale eyes watched him.
Rook rang twice.
Garran met the first leap with his sword. The blade passed through a shoulder that scattered into colored light.
The second shape bit at his planted ankle.
Garran lifted his foot and stumbled clear. Dirt burst beneath the jaws.
The third landed on the wagon.
Wood broke under it.
That one. Jin ran toward the wreckage, knife low.
The creature sprang.
Light shifted. All three shadows moved with it.
Jin slashed at the nearest throat.
The knife met nothing.
A weight struck him from the side and drove him into the gatepost.
He hit shoulder-first. The yard flashed white.
Kessa's spear jabbed across his chest, forcing a real mouth away from his face.
The creature pulled back. Three wet smiles widened together.
Jin tasted blood where he'd bitten his cheek.
Rook stood outside the ring of moving bodies, one bell resting against his palm.
“You wanted the business,” he said. “Show me the handling.”
Jin got his feet under him.
Behind him, Bram was guiding the workers through the side door. One woman dragged the other by the sleeve. The guard stood in the opening, sword drawn.
They needed space. Time. Something more useful than a very profitable insult.
Jin pointed his knife at Rook.
“Does it know you're the cheaper meal?”
The bell rang three times.
Every copy dropped flat.
Black fans unfolded between the clear plates. Daylight bent toward them.
Then the whole yard went dark.