As they stepped into the unusually warm night, Osmund found he didn’t feel his usual jittery excitement.

The stranger had been very receptive to his suggestion, barely stopping by the door long enough to dress. Osmund could chalk that up to eagerness easily, and ignored the sudden feeling of…

What was it currently curling around in his gut?

They left the grounds of the governor’s mansion behind, and went weaving through the streets of Şebyan. Stray dogs and cats wandered freely, and beside them went people in all manner of dress, stumbling home from long hours at work and evenings spent swapping gossip in the empire’s coffeehouses. The smells of the city transformed with every turned corner, the wafting aromas of meat and dough mingling with other, less pleasant urban odors.

Something, Osmund recognized with sharper and sharper clarity, was amiss. That sense of wrongness only intensified the deeper they crawled into the bowels of the city, until he realized he wasn’t sure he’d be able to navigate his own way home.

At first, he tried to calm himself by saying he’d never been intimate with a Meskato before—so what if the man wanted to bring him back to his house? Perhaps that was the culture—but eventually, he had to concede that the possibility of being dismembered in an alley somewhere was becoming too great a risk just for a bit of fun. He raised his voice, “Um,” and attempted to dig his feet into the road, but the stranger kept pulling his arm as if he hadn’t said anything.

This was bad. What were the odds that the first man he’d try to sleep with here would turn out to be some sort of...maniac? In spite of the orc Nienos’ warning, the danger hadn’t come from Cemil after all. Osmund could have laughed at the never-ending irony that was his life, if he only weren’t so terrified.

Wait a moment, he realized, as an almost equally terrifying thought occurred. He was actually larger than this man. Not to mention he’d been pitching bales of hay all week. He could overpower him!

“Stop!” he commanded in enunciated Meskato, trying his best to channel Father’s authority, and pulled away with all his might. This time his efforts bore fruit. The man stumbled, straightened himself, then hushed him urgently.

“Don’t yell, you fool! You aren’t in any danger,” he hissed, and Osmund froze in surprise. The man spoke near perfect Tolmish, his accent better even than Cemil’s, although he was clearly a native of the Empire.

For the first time, Osmund strained his eyes through the gloom for a real look at him. The fellow’s dark robes were almost conspicuously plain, and so large they hid the contours of his frame. He’d apparently donned a pair of spectacles when they’d left the bathhouse, which gave him a boyish countenance, though he must’ve been the older of the two. “Who are you?” the Tolmishman asked suspiciously, as his mysterious companion cast wary glances up and down the street. “This…isn’t what I thought it was, is it?”

“I wanted to wait until we were somewhere more private to explain,” the stranger sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in a way that pushed his glasses up to his forehead. “Call me Emre. Please, hear me out. We could be allies if you gave us a chance.”

Allies? Osmund panicked. “You…know who I am?”

Emre gave the open windows all around them another mistrustful look. Despite the late hour, the occasional glow of an oil lamp marked the existence of prying eyes and, perhaps more importantly, wakeful ears. He growled out what was plainly a curse under his breath, though it was no Tolmish or Meskato word that Osmund knew. (And after weeks under the same roof as the servants, by now he might’ve penned an entire “vulgar slang” addendum to his borrowed dictionary.)

Shuffling beneath the cover of a darkened shop’s wide awning, Emre beckoned him over with the urgent wave of his hand. Against his better judgment, Osmund followed.

“Naturally, I know who you are, why do you think I’ve brought you here?” Emre whispered once they were hidden. “You’re a stablehand at the şehzade’s house.” Oh, thank heavens! Osmund thought, and hoped the relief wasn’t written all over his face, though this raised even more questions. “I hope you’ll forgive the bit of misdirection, but I’ve been hoping to get you alone for a while. And tonight, I spied the opportunity.”

The former prince of Valcrest colored with embarrassment, and a bit of indignation too. He hated the idea that he’d been so…easy. “What could you possibly want w-with a stablehand like me?” he cried. “If this is some scheme involving the horses, I won’t be an accomplice.”

“I don’t care about your horses.”

They’re not my horses! Osmund thought snippily. And you should care about them, because they’re very lovely horses! “T-then what do you want?!” he demanded, fear rising up again. “I-if it’s Cemil you’re after—”

“First name terms already?” snorted Emre, and Osmund burned hotter still. He really had to stop forgetting the title, uncouth Tolmishman with no manners that he was! “No. This isn’t that kind of job.”

“That” kind of job. Osmund gathered his wits and spun on his heel. “Whatever this is, I-I don’t like it and I want no part! Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“You’ll be rewarded, and money is no object.”

The incredible claim stopped him dead in his tracks. Mistaking this for interest, Emre kept talking.

“Cemil has something we want, and you’re in a prime position to help us get it. It’s as simple as that.” He, too, was forgoing use of the prince’s title. “No violence, no one harmed. You don’t have to get your hands dirty. Just a little bit of…”

Osmund finished the sentence for him. “Thievery?”

“We don’t have to use that word.”

What could be so important that this stranger—and whoever he represents—would go to such lengths? It had to be immensely valuable, or offer tremendous power. If Osmund were a more cunning man, maybe he’d stay to find out. But his curiosity could get stuffed—he could tell this was nothing but trouble, and the less he knew of it, the better. “No thank you,” he managed stiffly. “I don’t think I’m the one you want for this job after all.”

He’d made it a few paces when he heard in a new, more solemn tone:

“If you’re loyal to Cemil, then there’s no better reason to help us.”

That…got Osmund’s attention.

He’s just a lunatic, his racing mind supplied. Ignore him! Go back to your bed! “What do you mean?” he asked slowly.

“This item,” Emre confided. “We want it out of his hands for his own sake.”

“Is he in danger? Please just come out with it!”

They were facing each other now, back in the dim light of the quiet street. “Yes,” came the reply. “And if he lets that thing destroy him, the empire’s future falls into the worst hands imaginable. You’ve already fled one home, I gather.”

Fled. Yes. That was the right word for it. While his home had burned, Osmund had turned tail and ran. “So I ask you again—” (and here there was a pause for dramatic effect) “shall we make common cause?”

“I,” Osmund floundered. How would he have finished that sentence?

I can’t help you, I don’t trust you, or:

I can’t help you, I’m too afraid, or:

I can’t help you until you tell me everything.

He never had to find out which words were coalescing on his tongue.

There was a rhythmic sound—hoofbeats on cobblestones, fast approaching. Emre cursed again, the sharp word carving into the air between them. “Pay attention. Surely you know what we’re after.” Osmund very much didn’t! “Get close to him and take it, and run until I find you. If you feel any gratitude towards your prince, you’ll do it.”

“I-I can’t!” Osmund protested weakly. “Even if I wanted to help you, there’s no way I’d have the chance!”

Emre’s mouth curled into a humorless grin. “I’m sure you soon will,” came the enigmatic response, and then—he vanished without a trace!

Illusion magic! So he was a mage after all.

Osmund wheeled around to face the horse cantering in his direction. Maybe it was even Cemil himself. Maybe he’d returned from his latest hunt, found his new stablehand missing, and launched a daring rescue. But, as he saw when the figure came into the light, it was only a mounted watchman.

“Some sort of commotion?” the man asked in Meskato, though in Osmund’s frazzled state it took him a moment to realize he even understood the words. He gave a nod.

“I-I got lost in the city,” he stuttered. Feebly, he scanned the darkness; it seemed to loom large all around them, a gaping void between every house. A million different places for Emre to hide, even if he hadn’t become one with the shadow. The thought brought him a fresh wave of dizziness, and his heart pounded frightfully in his chest. “Would you h-help me find my way back to the governor’s mansion?”

The officer eyed him with clear dubiousness, but provided him the escort anyway. Osmund’s feet felt heavy all the way back to the house.