Sam

The shock had barely begun to fade among the guests when Buck drew their attention by leaping onto the table and calling: "Everyone! Good friends! What One-Eye just said is all true—uh, to my knowledge, anyway." Despite his drunken swaying, he was artfully maneuvering the cup in his hand so not a drop of wine spilled. "Well, it's hard to top a speech like that, but I will certainly endeavor to. You see, I have a bit of a… bit of… an…"

He teetered on the very edge of the tabletop, and Francine had her hands out to catch him if he fell. But just as he looked about to topple over, he instead spun a graceful pirouette and caught his footing again. "An announcement of my own!" he completed, before sweeping his wine and tossing the cup aside into the grass. "Funny enough it comes somewhat apro… uh… apropupuh…" Buck frowned at himself as he struggled to make his lips form the right shapes. "...apropos of One-Eye's talk about unity and all that.

"So without further ado, here it is. Effective a few days from now or whenever I get around to signing the papers or whatever—I assume there will be papers? I dunno—slavery will officially be outlawed in Sheerhome! Since the merchant's guild has already seen fit to reopen the mines after the Burning, those operations will be shut down, and—" Buck burped against the back of his hand, "—and all those who have been confined to that terrible place will be freed. Anyone who's cool with the new rules and agrees to release all the people under their control will be given amnesty."

Then his tone grew suddenly serious, and there was a new intensity in his gaze as he scanned the partygoers. "Anyone who isn't cool with it will have all their assets seized, and will be, uh… getting a real spanking and such. Figuratively speaking. Really it'll be a lot worse than that."

Buck settled into a wide-legged stance to steady himself, stretching the crotch of his very tight pants, and clapped his hands together in a way that suggested he was reaching the end of his speech. "That's all she wrote, pretty much. Yay, freedom!" With a contented sigh, he threw his arms out and allowed himself to fall backward into Francine's waiting arms, laughing as she struggled to wrangle his uncooperative limbs and bundle him back into his seat.

There was cheering and clapping from a lot of the guests—Sam included—at the good news. Shamefully, she had to admit that this kind of business had barely crossed her mind since all her attention had been on Will for the past few weeks, but it was great to know that Buck was actually making an effort to change things for the better.

The few merchants present looked suitably nervous, throwing glances at each other, but quickly recovered and pledged their unconditional support for the lord's decree with a good bit of scraping and bowing involved. Golden Boy, seated stiffly next to Buck, looked extremely constipated, and only offered a few lame words of a vaguely positive nature.

Surprisingly, when Sam finished clapping she looked over and saw that, although he was maintaining a decent poker face, Will seemed to be more in the sourpuss camp than the decent human being camp; his jaw set tight. She could practically see the little storm cloud over his head

Maybe he was just pissy that Buck had rained on his parade a bit by taking attention away from his own announcement. She was about to ask about it when a strange ripple went through the air around him, akin to a blanket being shaken out. It quickly settled. Sam was left blinking in confusion, wondering if she was imagining things, but the Will now sitting beside her was subtly different somehow. Just kind of… wrong-looking. He appeared almost the same, but there was something she couldn't recognize that creeped her out.

"Hey, dude, what's going on with you?" Sam asked, and reached out to touch his arm. Warm skin met her fingers, but even that was different. Will usually felt colder than this.

Will turned to her with a stone-faced expression. "I'm sorry, Will Greene is unavailable at the moment. Please try again later." Completely deadpan, he added: "Wink, wink."

What the fuck?

She was starting to worry that he was having an episode or something, but then she remembered that Will had warned her just a little bit ago that he might disappear or start acting strangely, and that he wanted her to play along. She figured this definitely qualified as 'acting strangely'.

Well, I guess I did promise.

She'd be lying if she said she wasn't curious to know what big conspiracy Will was cooking up, but she'd learned her lesson now. If he kept something from her, it was for her own good. She needed to trust that he knew best, even if it all seemed silly to her.

It had been a bad idea to push him yesterday. Just thinking about what she'd learned was enough to completely destroy her appetite. When she looked down at the food still heaped on her plate, she felt sick to her stomach.

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.

But now that it was on her mind, she couldn't stop herself. The thoughts churned inside her, on and on and on. Every time she blinked, she saw her dad's face behind her eyelids; stern, cold, disapproving. What would he say if he saw her now? He would have hated how much she was eating. He would have hated the way she was dressed. He would have hated how she was making friends with people.

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It's okay. He's not here. Just don't worry about it.

She wished she could have talked to Will to distract herself, but the Will-alike was just staring off into the middle distance and didn't seem very receptive to having a conversation. Thinking about it, Sam was becoming pretty confident that it was just one of Serene's Illusions dressed up to look like him.

Sam turned her attention back to her plate. She picked up her cutlery, staring at a piece of venison, and hovered over it for the better part of a minute before putting knife and fork back down with a small sigh.

Better not.

* * *

Ferry

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.

This assignment was supposed to be easy. Just watch and report. No interference. No espionage. Nothing outside his regular duties.

What the fuck is going on? One-Eye is supposed to be a vegetable or something. How the hell did he find out about the Strategist?

It wasn't as though the cripple could actually make good on his threats—and even if he did, it wasn't as though Ferry would be shedding tears over the Strategist. Or had he been talking about the Prophet? Both? Everything was getting so messed up so fast.

He didn't care what happened to his superiors—they could eat shit and die as far as he was concerned—but his job was to watch and report. If he didn't report something like this immediately and it got out that he'd been slow on the draw, the punishment would be severe. It was for this reason, and only this, that Ferry quickly found a natural place to excuse himself from the conversation with some of the other officers, citing the call of nature, and dragged Lieutenant Becker with him as they rounded the property.

"I need to send a Message immediately," he said once they were well out of earshot even from those who might have good Senses. "Keep listening in my place. If anyone asks why I'm gone, cover for me."

"I could say you have an upset stomach, sir," Becker suggested.

"Yes, yes, fine."

"Do you know how long you'll be?"

"Just do as you're told, Becker."

Ferry hurried into the woods north of the farm and cast Detect [Life]; partially to warn him of any monsters he might run into, but mostly to make sure there wasn't anyone spying on him. He kept going at a half-jog for several minutes, making damn sure no one would see the Message take off. He got his travel writing kit from the inside of his coat and unfurled it on a flat rock, wrote a quick report on a slip of paper warning about One-Eye, placed it in a waterproof envelope, sealed it, and aimed it at his contact point in Octant Four with instructions to hand it further up the chain. Even he didn't know where the Strategist was—how had One-Eye found out?

Watching the Message sail up through the air and past the tree crowns, Ferry allowed himself to breathe a small sigh of relief. It was done. Now he just needed to—

Wait.

He stiffened. Something felt off. He looked around, resting a hand on the shortsword at his side, and tried to figure out what he was sensing.

Then he realized.

It wasn't what he was sensing that put him on alert. It was what he wasn't sensing. His Detect had expired—way before it was due. When he tried to re-up it, nothing happened.

Ferry felt a cold fist of fear clamp down on his heart.

"Passing notes, are we?" someone whispered in his ear.

Ferry whipped around and drew his sword in one motion, but by the time he was facing the intruder the weapon inexplicably fell free of his grasp and tangled in the undergrowth. He raged against himself—how could he have been stupid enough to drop his weapon?—but when he looked at his hand, he found that the three last fingers and a chunk of his palm had been taken off. His ruined appendage pumped blood that poured freely down his forearm and trickled off his elbow in a steady scarlet stream.

"Wuh," was the only sound Ferry managed to produce; a grunt of pure panic. The pain hadn't set in yet. He stared at all that blood, wide-eyed. "Ah. No. This…"

"Outrider Captain… Ferry, was it?" the intruder asked in a neutral, slightly bored tone, like someone chatting up a new neighbor across the fence. He held up an envelope that shivered in his hand, wanting to tug free. "This is yours, isn't it?"

Ferry couldn't tear his eyes away from his butchered hand. "I… I didn't… this isn't…"

"Sorry, what was that? You're gonna need to lie a little louder."

Ferry finally looked up into the face of the intruder standing no more than two feet from him. It was One-Eye. Of course it was. He loomed tall like a dark vulture, standing way too close.

Ferry swayed on his feet. Nothing hurt, but he was starting to feel lightheaded.

"You should probably put some pressure on that," One-Eye remarked dryly. "Actually, Hacksaw, why don't you look him over for me? I don't want him passing out before we can have our little chat."

Someone else came up to him and began fussing over his hand. Ferry let it happen. Everything passed in a strange blur as the Physician patched him up and a third man bundled him off through the woods. He strained a bit, but the other guy must have been a Laborer too or something, because he overpowered Ferry with relative ease and shoved him back into motion whenever he tried to dig his heels in.

"This is a mistake," Ferry sobbed. "I didn't do anything. I was just…"

"Sending a love letter to the missus?" One-Eye asked. "Mind if I take a look?" He hobbled up beside Ferry and waved the letter under his nose. "I'm good at rhymes, you see. I'm sure I could help you out with some of the wording."

"Please…"

"No. I know what you are, Ferry, so let's not pretend. In fact, I've already gone over the contents of your Message. Detect [Ink] sure is handy when you're blind."

"I… I'll talk."

"Of course you will. I'll make sure of it."

Ferry didn't like the sound of that at all.

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