Workings.

[Yva]

"Reed, darling." Maggie put her newspaper down and eyed the man across the room from her. His dark head was bent over an alchemy station, swirls of clouds erupting near his face, the smoke's dark tendrils reaching for the ceiling. She tried to ignore the animalistic chuffs he made when something went awry, but it was difficult. He sounded more like a coyote tracking its prey than a human being.

"Reed . . . "

Two vials clicked together in his wrack, and he snorted, his shoulders beginning to tremble.

"REED!"

His head jerked around and he whined, raising a shaking hand to his mouth so he could bite down on his thumb. His eyes flicked from her to the shadows, and he shook his head frantically.

"He's talking to me, Mother. Talking in a thousand voices. I hear them and I . . . I need to listen." Cocking his head to the side, he began to twitch, his fingers raking through his hair.

"I know, pet. Come here, would you? Mother has a favor to ask of you."

"Yes, yes anything to please my mother." He lumbered over, sliding to his bottom so his spindly arms could wrap around his skirts. She patted his head, suppressing her disgust at his unwashed state, at the way the oily dark strands clung to her skin when she touched him.

"Do you see this man?" She pointed to a picture of a man on page four of an old issue of the Dailies. He was short and sly, with dark beady eyes and a bald head. His scalp was tattooed with an odd twisting symbol, his left cheek scarred from ear to jaw. Over his black and white portrait the headline read "Mistrial Declared in Death of Stormwind Noble, Jones Free."

Reed peered at the picture, licking his lips. "Yes, I see him. Is he an offering? He'd make a good offering. The shadows are so hungry, Mother. So hungry and I . . . I need to sate them or they'll come for me. GODS NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN."

There was a loud crack as Maggie's hand met his cheek, almost hard enough to spin his head around. She hissed at him, grabbing his shirt collar, her face moving in so close to his that the ends of their noses touched. "I need you to listen to your mother, Reed, and do as she says or Mother will be very, very displeased. Do you want to displease me?"

"NO! No anything . . . oh it hurts and I love it so. I love you so." He prostrated himself before her, his tongue snaking out to lick at the toe of her shoe, fingers circling her ankle in a death grip, like she could anchor him in this and all things.

"Good, now his name is Jones. Harold Jones and he owns . . . are you listening, darling?"

His 'yes' was muffled in the wad of skirt he had crammed against his mouth. He was sniffing the fabric like a dog.

"Good. He owns the shops in the back alley near the Pig and Whistle, him and his little . . . band. He's a very proper offering. Ripe for the plucking, but one must be careful. He keeps his friends close."

"Nnnnngh. I'll kill the bleeders. Kill them all, and take him . . . gift him. A proper gift."

"Good, just like Stokes, then, hmmm?"

She tugged the skirt from his mouth, cringing at his spittle now glistening on the folds. Her foot nudged under his chin to force his face up so he had to look at her. "You remember Stokes don't you, dear boy?"

"Y-yes. Oh yes. I cut him because I loved him." He moaned in rapture, writhing upon the floor, his dirty fingernails scraping in the crevices between the stones. "The shadow will swallow him whole, suck his essence, it . . . it will live in blood and grant me His power."

"I know, my love, and won't it be nice."

"Yes. Nice. So very nice." He scuttled to the corner almost like a crab, moving left and right in a zig zag pattern, looking like he had bones in places he ought not have had bones. The shadows welcomed him, cloaked him, oozing over him like a second skin as he began to murmur. The communing began shortly thereafter, Reed's prayers for unearthly glory spoken in a tongue she could not understand, nor did she want to. There were some things even she would not do - embracing Reed's god was one such thing.

She pulled a watch from her pocket, checking the time, her mouth settling into a thin grimace at the realization that half of the night had already passed by. To stay on schedule, to keep chipping away at Old Town's crumbling infrastructure, she needed Jones gone before sunrise. The other four - Stokes, Barlenby, Fitzsimmons and Charnos - had already been done, offerings to Reed's lurking shadows, which allowed the Phillips boys, Attindra's crew, and the Wallace gang to rise. Replacing temperate, reasonable scum with savage scum who'd commit any atrocity in the name of a full purse forced Mathias Shaw's hand. Sevens had to keep squeezing Old Town, trying to wrestle control away from the rising underbelly. Every new law, every edict, every extra night time patrol searching the dark corners for unlawfulness made it more and more difficult for THEM to function, which was exactly what she needed.

Distractions, she needed so many distractions right now, so the pieces could fall into place.

"Darling, can we pray later? Harold Jones NEEDS you now. He needs killing, love. Please."

The request was met with a snort and a moan. "An offering now, yes. Of course. For Mother. Always for Mother. We love Mother."

"I know, Sweet boy. I know."

She never saw him leave the shadows. There was the quiet thud of the door as he slipped into the night, off to do her bidding, and she settled back into her chair. She pulled a notebook from the table beside her and skimmed the names, crossing Jones out. The next name caught her eye and she had to bite her lip to suppress her own rapturous moan.

"Oh yes. I'd forgotten about him."

[Yva]

Lester Tingdinger was a bad ass gnome. At least, he comported himself thusly, and in his humble (if not short estimation), there was a modicum of respect he was owed for maintaining his tough as nails personae with so many tall ones around who had nothing better to do than to try and take the piss out of him. His black hair was slicked back with Brylcream, the ends of his handlebar mustache waxed up into a perpetual curve. His arms were thick with muscle and tattoos. The heart he'd had put on his bicep over ten years ago had the name Ella written in it, and then crossed out. Beneath that was the name Sara. It too was crossed out. So were Sally, Minxle, and Flower. The list of former loves was a running gag with his fellow dockworkers.

"Lester gets more pussy 'an a cathouse," Roger was fond of saying, and Les didn't bother correcting him. It was true after all. All the gnome honies got their panties in a twist over a whiskey swilling, bike riding son of a bitch like himself. It was tough being that fuckin' slick, but a gnome had to do what a gnome had to do, and Lester was all gnome, baby. All gnome.

It was half past five in the morning, and colder than a witch's tit thanks to a bitchly eastern wind. He'd been working for over three hours already, and was taking a well deserved smoke break before returning to the grind. There were six hours left in his shift, but all he could think about was going home to his lovely Dora's arms.

No wait, Dilla.

Dixie?

. . . shit.

He leaned against a stack of pallets, eyeballing a dwarven lass rolling a barrel by. Her ass was tight - the supple flesh beneath her pants like two lovely round hams. Hams he wanted to lick, bite, and massage until his fingers cramped. Hams he'd like to see bouncing up and down on his . . .

"Hey there, Lovely."

"Go fek yerself, Les."

"Feh. Don't know what you're missing, Doll. They don't call me a tripod for nothing. Three and a half feet tall and another three and a half in the drawers."

She rolled her eyes, flipped him the finger, and continued on her way. Les smirked, blowing a stream of smoke out of his nose like a dragon. He watched her walk down the galley plank, whistling a shrill cat call. She ignored it, but they both knew this was a game - she'd be back for more. She couldn't help herself. The bints always wanted a little Les injection before they were through.

Big. Injection. Big.

"Fuck yeah," he said to no one in particular.

The early morning fog clung to the Stormwind docks like a jealous lover, unwilling to give way even with the sun beating down on its head. Visibility was shit, but that didn't mean hundreds of people weren't hard at work getting the ships ready for sailing. Tessa's Vanity was supposed to bring Ironforge ale to Darnassus, and Les's crew was responsible for moving the liquid gold from pallet to cargo bay. They had to be finished with the job no later than nine, as Tessa was due to sail at ten, and contractors weren't allowed below deck when the captain ran his final checks. The crew was right on schedule - ahead of it really; if they kept on pace, everything would be locked and loaded by eight, which meant Les's boys looked good, which meant more business going forward.

Les liked more business. It kept Daisy in pretty dresses and prettier underwear.

Les flicked the remains of his cigarette into the water and made his way towards the back end. He had six men moving the 32 gallon barrels from dock to ship. At least, he had six men who were were supposed to be moving barrels from dock to ship, except the two humans, two draenei, and two dwarves who worked under him seemed to be standing around with their thumbs up their asses instead of doing any work. Les's eyes flicked to the closest pallet, estimating that the lazy sons of bitches had only moved a single barrel since his smoke break began. His face flushed with irritation, the ends of his mustache twitching right along with his cheek.

"Jaina's Titties! We don't get paid to stand around looking stupid, you useless twats."

One of the humans, a ratty faced youngster with goatee and glasses - Steve or Mike or . . . who the fuck cared - pointed at a barrel with a shaking hand. "Somethin' in there, Les. Was leakin' and it smells real rank and . . . " His words fell off as he fumbled with the cigarettes in his shirt pocket, pulling one out and lighting it.

"Not sure I vanna know vat it vas," one of the draenei said.

"You fucking pansies. Do I have to do everything around here?" Les hefted himself onto a stack of boxes so he was at eye level with the other men. As soon as he was up top the smell hit him, too. It was overripe fruit - sour and sweet - along with something else altogether disgusting that he didn't want to identify. This barrel wasn't going to make Tessa's deck, that much was evident, but Les' main concern was that they'd deduct the cost of the damaged goods from HIS pay out. He wouldn't take the hit for bad cargo if the screw up was on the brewery and not his boys.

"Get me a crowbar," he barked, holding his hand out expectantly. The smoking human pulled one from their toolbox and slapped it into his palm. Les began prying the barrel top off, the smell growing worse by the second. The other men put their arms over their faces to ward off the stench. Les himself felt nauseous, but he forced himself to keep prying, popping the nails off one by one. He breathed through his mouth to avoid getting sick off of the sugary sweet and all too sour fumes.

With a sharp jerk of the crowbar, the lid popped off and skittered to the side. He looked down and grunted.

It took a minute for Les's mind to register what it was seeing. And when it did, the toughest, baddest gnome in all of Azeroth passed out in a dead faint, falling on his face on the dock planks.

*****

"M-mother. Mother it's done, it's DONE. He's been offered, given over to Him."

Maggie'd gone home just before dawn, had found her bed and pulled her covers up to her chin. The candles had been snuffed, the lanterns turned down. She'd fallen asleep quickly. Blissful, happy dreams of simpler days capered through her mind, granting her the briefest glimpse of how things ought to be - her boy alive and beautiful and laughing, gazing at her with adoring eyes. All was well in her dreamscape, until the pressure began on her chest. She tried to ignore it, but then fingers streaked down her cheek, and that voice - that nasally awful voice - tore her from her idyllic sleep and into the present, where an oily man who smelled of old blood and sweat sat upon her chest, staring at her like she was the only light in his darkness.

"Get OFF of me!" She shrieked, placing both of her hands on his chest and shoving as hard as she could. He toppled to the floor with a wail, whimpering and chittering as he began to bash his face off the frame of her bed.

"Stupid! I'm s-so stupid, mother. I'm sorry, please forgive me. STUPID STUPID STUPID BOY!" Each smack of his face off of the hard wood resulted in a sickening squishing noise, his nose crunching and spilling blood over his mouth and chin. She curled her lip into a sneer, sitting up in bed to tug the blankets over her bosom.

"Stop the histrionics. Now. Wash your face in the basin."

He snorted and chuffed his way to the wash basin, thrusting his head below the water's surface and pulling back up again. She watched him repeat the process over and over, until there was more water on her floor than on him and his face. The blood stopped coming after a time, though there was a series of scrapes and cuts over his nose and cheeks that would likely need attending. She'd see about doctoring in the morning.

"Enough, Reed."

He whimpered and fell onto his side on the floor, curling into a tight little ball, his knees drawn to his chest. "So s-sorry, Mother. So sorry to disappoint Mother."

"It's . . . " She sighed, slumping back into her pillows. "It's fine, darling boy. It's done then?"

"Yes, yes it's done. Fed to the dark ones as you wanted, left by the docks in a pickle jar."

She mouthed 'pickle jar' but knew better than to ask. Her hand extended to the side of the bed and she turned her lamp on, eying his small, huddled frame with a frown.

"You need sleep and a bath, or the offerings will smell you coming. Take care of yourself today, Reed. I have a very special job for you tonight, one you must do cleanly and quickly."

"Special?" He scampered onto his knees and crawled towards her, slipping through the water puddles and not seeming to care. "Why is it special?"

"Because he's one of them, and they must suffer."

"Who's they?"

"Mother's monsters, Child."

He perched his chin on her mattress and licked his lips, nodding slowly. His groan was ecstatic, and he started to stroke his thigh, fingers streaking dangerously close to the crotch of his pants. "I'll kill them for you. No one will hurt you while I'm here. I'm . . . I . . . an offering . . . a proper offering, torn to pieces and . . . "

She cupped his face in her palm, shaking her head slowly. The smile on her mouth was brittle. "No. Not torn. Simple and left in the canals. Can you do that for me? Can you make it clean and simple this one time?"

His bottom lip jutted out in a pout, but he nodded all the same. "I can, Mother. I can. I will for you. Anything for you."

"Good lad. Good. Now go bathe yourself and then rest. Tomorrow is a long day."

Reed kissed her fingers and palm, licking over her skin before crawling towards the hall and the nest of blankets he called a bed. She watched him go, suppressing a shudder that was part disgust, and part primal delight.

Tomorrow, the first and second strikes. After that . . . after that . . . oh Tommy. I miss you so. Soon my darling. Soon.

[Yva]

He labored above her, grunting and groaning and declaring his love in maddened whispers, his hands locked with hers, his cheek pressed to her ear. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall, trying not to look at him. Even in the pitch of night she could see the oily shadows snaking around his body in serpentine coils, darker than the darkness itself. He'd begged to give her his god's benediction, this time as the time's before when she'd granted him sanctuary within the deep recesses of her body, but always she refused. She would not put zealotry above her boy's rebirth - she would not have some old godling's will in her brain. No amount of power was worth clouding her objective.

Tommy had to come home. It was the first priority, the only priority, and everything was to this end. Everything.

"Love . . . l-love my mother," he gasped.

"I know," she said simply, biting her lower lip to stifle a yawn. The mockery of love was nearly done, she could tell by the quickening of his breath and the erratic movements of his body. She flexed a few muscles, forced a soft groan to speed things along. It was enough. He shuddered and collapsed on top of her, kissing over her neck and shoulder as he gasped for air. She crooned, her fingers streaking through his hair. The bath had taken away the grease and blood and left him as close to clean as a man like Reed would ever get, but it was still hard not to find him repulsive. Wrongness flowed from him like water from a tap.

"Tonight, my boy, you finish the last. Clean and simple, yes?"

"Y-yes, clean and simple, but . . . "

"But what?"

"Can he b-be offered in the end?"

"Of course he can." She grazed his temple with a kiss. "But there's one other thing Mother needs, and this is very important. Are you listening?"

"Y-yes, oh yes. Anything for Mother." He punctuated the statement with another thrust of his hips, and she frowned, suddenly wanting him out of her, off of her . . . away from her, as far away as he could get.

Anywhere but here.

" . . . there's a shop on the outskirts of Old Town called al'Cair Fabrics. Offer him there, in the canals. Leave him to float. And you're crushing me, so move."

He rolled away with a groan, shivering and giggling at her side, a series of strange chuffs and sucking noises ensuing as he crammed his fingers into his mouth, slurping on them like candy. She kept her gaze fixed on the dark ceiling so she didn't have to face him, so she didn't have to face what she'd been willing to do to keep the madman in her thrall.

Our time is coming, Tom. Patience my love. Patience. It will all be worth it, I promise.

[Yva]

(PLACEHOLDER)

[Threnn]

Threnody and Annalea were upstairs, tending to their father. Naiara, once the grownups around her had finally calmed, had gone down for a nap in Threnody's old bedroom. That left Thenia a spare moment to go downstairs, brew a fresh pot of coffee, and be alone. She stood in the middle of the shop, staring at the ruined heap of linen that she'd used to clean her husband's battered face. In the soft glow of the fading sun, she could see the rust-colored streaks of drying blood marring the floor.

It wasn't like there was anything else to do, and she needed something to keep her occupied. Thenia got the scrub brush from the closet and filled a basin with soap and water. That was how Maggie found her ten minutes later: on her hands and knees, washing the evidence of violence out of the floorboards.

"Oh! M-Ma'am! You shouldn't b-be... L-let me at least h-help." The shopgirl got down beside her and wrested the brush away. She was surprisingly strong for a timid little thing, but Thenia didn't have much energy to resist her, anyway.

The older woman sat back on her haunches and watched Maggie work. After a few moments, the girl's rhythmic scrubbing slowed, and she looked up at her employer. Her face screwed up, as though a particularly bold thought was trying to escape. "What is it, Maggie?"

The girl ducked her head, took a couple of deep breaths, and spoke. Her words came out in a rush. "Wh-what if they c-come back, m-ma'am? The m-men who did this t-to Mr. Padraig?"

Thenia pursed her lips. The worry had crossed her mind, too. Much as it galled her, they'd have to rely on the criminals her daughters associated with to keep the wolves from the door in the days to come. But the poor frightened girl didn't need to hear yet another tirade on the Riders, she needed reassurance. Thenia put as much calm in her tone as she could. "They won't come back, not tonight. Threnody is here. She'll watch over us."

"Y-yes, ma'am. I j-just mean... M-maybe the city is too d-dangerous right now." She squealed and clutched the brush to her chest at a bang from upstairs, drops of brownish-pink dripping onto her apron.

"It's just the bedroom window closing. Annalea always uses too much force with it."

"Y-yes, ma'am. I'm s-sorry. I worry f-for all of you. It's a b-bad place for you two, a-..." She hung her head again and whispered the rest. "And the baby."

"Mmph." Thenia stood and began collecting the lengths of linen. She'd had the same thought, but Padraig was in no condition to be moved, not yet. Maybe he'd be able to travel in a few days. She could work on Threnody in the meantime. Only, her stubborn eldest daughter would never leave Stormwind. And if she tried circumventing Threnody, going to Bricu... No, he'd dig in and refuse the moment he realized what she was trying to do.

"I sh-shouldn't have said a-anything. I d-don't mean to make y-you worry even more, ma'am." Maggie bent once more, intent on her scrubbing.

"It's all right. You're not saying anything I haven't been thinking myself." She sighed. "I've some thinking to do."

Upstairs, Naiara awoke and began to cry.

---

There was a body in the canal. Since the riots, plenty of them had been found, and not just in the canals -- every corner of Stormwind had seen violence, but Old Town held the record. Not a one had been found outside of the al'Cairs' shop, though. It was disturbing enough on its own, seeing a dead man bobbing on some bit of flotsam, but in this place, on this day, she knew there couldn't be any coincidence to it.

"M-ma'am?" Maggie stood on the porch beside her, pale and trembling. "I th-think..." For the second time today, the girl surprised her. She darted to the edge of the canal, peering at the corpse, then raced back to Thenia's side. "M-ma'am, he's wearing a t-tabard. Or what's l-left of one."

Thenia turned to her slowly, dread topping dread. "Can you see the colors?"

"I-it's dark, ma'am, but y-yes."

Thenia waited.

"Black and r-red, ma'am." The girl cringed as she said it, then a moment later her shoulders straightened and a bit of spine crept into her voice. "Th-they're being targetted. It's not safe here."

"No, it isn't." The dead man was a message for her daughters and their ilk. But Thenia had no part in their wars, and neither should her granddaughter. She thought of her husband, lying like a stone in the bed they'd shared all these years, and her heart wrenched. I'm sorry, Padraig. We should have run sooner. We should have done so many things differently. She allowed the despair a moment to tear through her, and then locked it away.

The time for should-have and might-have was long past. If Threnody wouldn't take Naiara out of here, tonight, then Thenia would make the choices her daughter could not. "Get Naiara's day bag, Maggie, and bring it to the door." She took a silver key from her pocket and handed it to the shopgirl. "Take whatever money is in the strongbox in the backroom. Put some of it in your pockets, some in the bag, and give me the rest when I come back down. Can you be quick and quiet?"

The girl's eyes glinted in the evening starlight. "Y-yes ma'am."

"Good. I'm not sure which way we'll go, or where, but you're right. Anywhere is safer than here."

---

They slipped out of the shop, two women and a little girl with whiskey on her breath. It was an old trick, one Thenia had used to keep the baby quiet during their flight across Old Town during the riots.

But that night, they'd been fleeing from strangers. Tonight, they were fleeing from family.

The younger woman led the elder through the darkened, twisting streets, through Old Town and into the Dwarven District. The smoke never quite cleared there, even at night. Around every corner, forges burned hot as smiths hammered out swords. In others, sparks flew as engineers welded pieces of metal together into new contraptions.

Maggie hurried them from shadow to shadow, holding up a hand to halt their progress any time she heard footsteps. They'd stand, huddled, until the footsteps faded, then rush to the next corner, and the next, until they finally reached the spinning entrance to the Deeprun Tram.

Thenia stood a moment, cradling her sleeping granddaughter close. Ironforge, then Menethil, and from there, north. The girl's plan was solid. Maggie had proven far more resourceful in the last few hours than Thenia'd given her credit for. It was a good plan, but still, the leaving was hard. Her daughters were back there, her husband. Shouldn't she be with them all, no matter what?

Naiara shifted on her shoulder, nestling in closer and snuffling as she settled back into whiskey-laden sleep.

I'm doing what's best for her. They'll understand that, someday.

"M-ma'am?" Maggie peered up at her and shifted the travelling bag on her shoulder. "The n-next tram is coming. I can h-hear it."

Thenia nodded. "Let's go, then." She stepped into the tunnel ahead of Maggie, her stride sure and confident.

She didn't see the look of hungry triumph on Maggie's face as the girl followed close behind. Nor did she see the three shadows that split off from the girl's own at a flick of her fingers. They slid away over the cobblestones, swift and sure, carrying orders for her agents in the city.

[Tarq]

The Jester kept court in the Underbelly's own underbelly, a warren excavated into the inverted mountain of Dalaran's foundation. Beneath the winesinks and gambling dens, the brothels and fighting pits, there were men and women who traded in things that would see them chained and bonded by the Tor just for considering. And even these slavers and pillagers and rogue arcanists tipped their hats to the Jester, and stood well aside when he emerged.

He can get you anything, the word went, any service, any object, any dream you conjure up. But you don't negotiate, and you set no condition - it comes to you, at the cost he gives you, and you do not fucking ask how he got it. Not Craed Bloodcrow and his killers, nor Galkara who'd slain for the Shattered Hand, nor half-mad Rin Ducotane would draw steel against him; Cinesra the poisoner with his soft and final smiles, Asric and Jaedaar who wore the name "policeman" proudly in the most lawless place in the world, and all the other brutal denizens of Dalaran's coiled guts - they all stood aside for the slight human with the patchwork quilt of a face and the chary lipless smile.

Nobody, therefore, bothered to take Tarquin ap Danwyrith's weapons when he came calling. It was understood that anyone important enough to speak directly to the Jester would know how pox-brained stupid violence would be, and everyone in the 'Belly went armed as a matter of course. So the two orcish toughs at the door showed in the Oathbreaker with a cursory inspection to make sure he wasn't strapped with explosives or writ with deadly runes, and a reminder to "watch that fucking mouth of yours." He'd acquired a reputation in the North, much like his old one in fact, but among folk who were much less impressed by that sort of thing.

Tarquin wasn't certain what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this - a vaulted chamber, the walls and floor tiled with black and white marble, and hung with rich tapestries. There were a handful of hard-faced sellswords and depraved magicians, scattered among the plush couches or holding up the walls with their backs, chatting in desultory tones more suited for a Stormwind salon. In the center of the room, the Jester sat at a magnificent wood-and-ivory desk, moving black and white counters around a board. As near as Tarquin could tell, the man's face was a study in rapt fascination. He walked up and rapped on the ivory desktop, shadowed by a brawny figure he dimly recognized as Randolph Black.

"In six days," observed the Jester, without looking up, "the price of wheat will rise drastically. It began last Thursday, with adventurers like you buying out the Icethorn market. Word will arrive tomorrow of a ship sinking off the coast of the Howling Fjord." His voice was so soft you had to strain to hear it, every syllable precisely enunciated but not clipped. "Filled with unminted silver, not wheat. After that..." He spread his hands over the board and looked up. "I will spare you further explanation. Not because I do not think you could understand it, given time, but that I am certain you do not care about my methods."

"Too fuckin' right," Tarquin said brusquely, placing both hands on the desk, knuckle-down, leaning forward slightly. "I'm here fir business, no' free tips."

"I know nothing about your wife that you could not learn elsewhere, for a lower price." The Jester sounded bored, insofar as there was any emotion in his voice. "And I am not willing to hire out men for anything that will put me in conflict with Stormwind Intelligence. I hope you are aware that she -"

"I'm no' here about Ceil." Some men might have reacted to the obvious testiness in Tarquin's voice, or the hunched tension of his shoulders; the Jester just looked at him. "I'm lookin' fir a woman named Thenia Al'Cair. Arrived here last night, travellin' wi' yin ither woman an' a bairn."

"Ah." The Jester looked back down at his board and moved a token, indistinguishable from all the others at first glance. Now that Tarquin looked closely, he realized they all had writing carved into their surfaces, some arcane shorthand as much numeral as lettered. "You mean you are looking for Naiara Bittertongue."

"I'll thank yeh," Tarquin said evenly, "Ta speak na further oan thit. Al'Cair's the contact point. What's yir price?"

"For you?" The small man shook his head regretfully. "I do not know the woman's current whereabouts, but I know where she was, and who she was with. Interfering would put me in conflict with a prior arrangement. Further, you should know that I do my research. You are a dangerous man to have in one's debt. I wish you luck, and urge you to confine your search Topside. She will not be found in the Underbelly."

"Thit's it, then. Fuck oaf, wir closed." And here it was clear that however good the Jester's research, it was no substitute for a face-to-face meeting - anyone who knew Tarquin well would have heard that undertone of anticipation and immediately reached for their weapons. The Jester simply nodded.

"I've heard a great deal about you, and I'm sorry I cannot help you." He sounded honestly regretful, though not in any meaningful way. "If you would like to speak another time, I would be pleased. For now, I expect you are frustrated, and in no condition for an economics lesson. Randolph, you may-" And that was as far as he got.

Randolph Black was quick, and alert, and brutal as only an Underbelly name could be; in ninety-nine situations of a hundred, he would have arrested the blurring motion of Tarquin's limbs halfway through. But after more than a year of dominance, it took him a moment to comprehend that anyone could possibly be mad enough to attack the Jester in his own receiving room - a moment during which the man in front of him, up to this point a lanky-limbed amalgam of sly smiles and exile bluster, launched himself up and over the desk and collided with the Jester's slight form. Counting-pieces scattered across the floor, the heavy chair crashed, and in the sum of events, Tarquin was crouched on the floor with his knee in the Jester's gut and a firm grip on his lank hair. Black had already vaulted over the desk, and was two twitches of a well-honed shoulder muscle away from solving the problems of a great many people before he noticed the glinting plane stretched across the Jester's throat, blood beaded at its tip. He halted himself and held up a hand.

The room was filled with low sound - crossbows clicking, leather creaking, the arcane susurrus of cants being prepared. But despite that, there seemed to be a great silence. Sixty-odd eyes fixed on Tarquin ap Danwyrith, and he licked his lips and kept his attention focused on the knife that was, in the cadence of the Jester's science, the only essential element that differentiated him from a hacked and mauled corpse.

"Are you fucking daft?" As the de facto captain of the Jester's nameless private army, Randolph felt it was his place to speak up here. "I mean, have you any idea what a colossal fuck-up you just performed? Light above, you're meant to be clever!" He mastered his shock and indicated, with a couple minute twitches of his chin, that several of the armed bravos poised around the room should take up more advantageous positions. "Right. Let's...what are you doing?"

"Makin' yeh look a right arsehole, fir yin," Tarquin offered, still without looking up. "I dinna mind yeh'll be gettin' any Winter's Veil fra' the boss, huh, Black?"

"Being witty isn't going to get you out of here alive, you little shit." Randolph spoke with a calm bred by years of experience, and not any actual reason to be calm in this situation.

Tarquin wasn't very calm either; sweat dripped down his forehead, and his fixed stare had a gleam of the manic to it. But he still had a knife to the Jester's barely moving throat, so by anyone's reckoning, he was ahead on points. "I'm no' gettin' outay here alive at any rate, mate. Either I kill yir boss an' yeh do me slow, or I stand up an' yeh do me fast afore I kin cause any mair trouble." Black's silence more or less confirmed that estimation. "Only, here's the thing, mates - I done my fuckin' research too. The Jester wis here afore any ay yeh punters, aye? Even afore Black, he wis a player in the Belly, back when the ships wir still loadin'."

"You getting to the point anytime soon?" Nobody was really fooled by Randolph's air of calm, but there was a form to this kind of thing.

"S'right here, Black." He tapped the hilt of the blade that was keeping the conversation, and his life, going. "Now hauld yir tongue. An' yirself, my merry fuckin' clown, yeh stop me any time I say summat thit's oaf the story. Aye?" With no assent, he continued. "This lad's a canny bastard, aye, but only a man - an' na the sort t'inspire sich a terror. He had a backer afore yeh big swingin' pricks all set up shop kowtowin' down t'him. I dinna mind this backer's name or nature, but I've go' it oan virra fine authority thit the Jester's word is I'm ta be kept alive an' unsoiled down here in the guts." Tarquin smiled down at the Jester. "Up 'til now, anyro'. Now, the question is - why's this famously heartless bloke go' any int'rest in keepin' my ain heart beatin'? Sure as sunset I'm na use t'him with or without it."

There was a long pause, during which all manner of unwelcome considerations surely occurred to the variety of killers in the room. "Nobody? Well, aright, yir no' paid fir yir mast'ry ay logic. The Jester's backer wants me in fine shape, an' I'm ay the mind it'll continue thit wey even ifter this unpleasantness. An' while I'm fair certain I dinna make any friends t'day, yeh lot keep in mind how fuckin' scared ay his shadow this bloke's go' the entire Belly. Then imagine the punter as hands him his orders. Go oan. Think oan thit." He waited for a moment, then slackened his grip on the Jester's hair a little. "Now, either fill me full ay holes, or answer my bloody question."

It seemed unfitting that the structure of Dalaran Below did not totter, or crumble, or otherwise acknowledge that the balance of power in this blood-stained half-world had taken an abrupt shift into a dark and heretofore unexplored corner, as the Jester licked his lips and opened his mouth, his voice softer than ever. "You should know, first, that I will be sending a messenger in advance of your arrival. If the hypothesis you shared is not confirmed in full, then you are a dead man and an example to this entire city."

"Fair eno'." Tarquin didn't move the knife.

"You will find the man you seek at Northshire Abbey." Tarquin blinked, and the Jester permitted himself a smile. "I wish you the best of luck in getting there. I would recommend you hurry."

"Bollocks." The taller man finally pulled his knife away and stood up, the effect of his swagger somewhat spoiled by an indrawn breath and the sweat dripping down his forehead. "I could walk oan my fuckin' hands an' yeh'd sit tight an' wait fir word."

"It would be the most cautious course." The Jester pulled himself to his feet, gathering the remnants of his dignity around him, still smiling that calm smile. "But I am, after all, only a man. And in any case, you should hurry before, in the course of your southern wanderings and presumably you return to this room to learn what I know, something untoward happens to Naiara Bittertongue." Tarquin moved toward the man and checked himself at the sight of that smile, the smile of a fellow who had suffered reverses before. "I would suggest you leave, before either of us loses what little control we currently possess."

And that was that. Tarquin pondered an exit line, but the reminder of the day's hard business had stolen the savor from his victory. He simply turned and went for the door, and at a signal behind his back the Jester's bloody carnival shifted to make space for him. As he walked between a Kaldorei fairly bristling with weaponry and a tall Forsaken with a jeweled ring on each of her seven fingers, he felt something of what they did - a shaking of the fundament, a teetering look over the edge of the gap into something beyond their comprehension. He wondered how long he'd been standing at this edge before he noticed it today.

"Fuck it," he said, out loud, and turned to stare at the baffled dead woman. "It's Bric an' Threnny's lass, innit?" And he walked out the door.

[Threnn]

((STUFF WILL GO HERE))

[Tarq]

Inge Highhold's far-away homeland was a place of steel and stone, bolted through with the veins of fire that were a gift of her people's capricious, wrathful god. The Thaurissan Emperors had commanded the construction of a mighty network of sluices, gates and dams, as worthy a feat of engineering as anything built by their surface kin. Through ingenuity, perseverance, and the wars of conquest that kept them supplied with an endless pool of labor, the Dark Iron Dwarves had harnessed the fire and made it the lifeblood of their empire.

In the bitter aftermath of Inge's exile, she had been surprised to find that any sympathy remained to her - but like a few sparks skittering across a cold and sullen anvil, she still found herself subject to moments of warmth both impractical and irritating. Like her proud forebears, she had dominated and channeled it, built sluice-gates in her mind and heart to turn that emotion, so damaging to her interests, into something of use. Women In Need, read the stark advertisement in each of Dalaran's news organs, seek Madam Inge Highhold at the sign of the Last Ember. "If I can't help them," she was fond of saying, "I can at least give them honest work." Fewer than half went that route, and at any rate, her girls were among the best-treated in Dalaran.

If the fires of Blackrock Mountain could not be stamped out, they could at least be directed where they would not ruin anything of value; so, too, with the flickering coal of her conscience.

The woman before her could never have gone that route, even in her youth. Thenia Al'Cair had surely once been handsome, beautiful even by a certain marker, but the fifty-odd years that had greyed her hair, thickened her middle, and lined her face had also guided her into the thin avenues left by the strictures of her birth and history. Clever, aye, Inge judged, but Stormwind's cooked and prepared her. Northrend will eat her whole. She had an expression on her face that spoke of someone eating a very unpleasant dish, and rather stronger and more specifically of a civilized person asking an outcast of the monstrous Dark Iron Dwarves for succor. In Inge's youth, it would have angered her, but now it was amusing.

The fitfully slumbering babe in Thena's arms was too young to see any resemblance, but Inge's six strong sons had bred forty-odd grandchildren between them, and she would have had to be blind to mistake the look in the human's eyes when she looked at her granddaughter. It was a rarity, and rarer still that she'd heard the warning first. "If you're in danger, you're at the right place," she said without preamble. "Be clear on that, and hold it in your mind when I tell you there's been word here, in advance of your coming. There's a man looking for you, and the babe."

Thenia lifted her chin. "I expected as much," she said, with frayed dignity. "This girl's father can be admired for nothing except his tenacity. They breed them like that in Lordaeron." She was clever enough to speak volumes with a short sentence, and Inge raised her estimation accordingly.

"Lordaerii he might be, dear," she replied without warmth, "But I don't expect this one's your girl's pa'. He's a local to Dalaran Below, and a fair-haired gentleman. Some here call him the Oath-breaker, but his folk named -"

"Please." A spasm of revulsion crossed Thenia's face. "Don't say his name. I am familiar with who you mean, and that beast's association with this child's parents is only one of the dangers she is in." She paused, and very real fear flickered onto her face as she looked down at the warmly swaddled form in her arms. "We are both in danger, Madam Highhold. Mine is more immediate, but hers might be greater."

"All you had to tell me, dear." Inge gave her a shrewd smile that likely wasn't very comforting, but so be it - pleasantries wouldn't help either of them. "Is it only the pair of you, then? I thought you'd a younger lass with you."

Thenia's face closed up again, pinched with anger. "I no longer trust her. I don't know what game that little harlot is playing, or what favors she hopes to wring at my granddaughter's expense, but she works to neither of our advantage. She has reasons of her own for being here, and she is welcome to them." She mastered her anger. "She might as well be considered another danger."

"Right, then. Where do you aim to go?" And simple as that, Thenia Al'Cair ran headlong into her breaking point, stared at Inge for a painful moment, and then started to cry. Inge rose wordlessly, with the ease of long practice, and began the ancient and mysterious ritual that would soothe the human's fears, erase all her doubts, and fortify her resolve for what was to come. When the child awoke and also began to cry, Inge added a generous splash of brandy to both cups of tea. She waited while Thenia got control of herself and hushed the child, and then sat back down, pushing one of the cups across the desk. "Get your crying done with," she said, in the dry, hard-edged tone she used on her girls when they were bucking against the reins. "The north will freeze those tears first, before it starts on the rest of you, and you'll be of no use to that babe then."

The human took a shuddering breath. "I..." It was on her lips to apologize, but the iron came back into her eyes, and she spoke plainly. Inge made a note to meet this woman's famous daughters when all this was done. "I'm not proud of what I've done, or how I planned it. I've put myself, and her, at your mercy, in a strange place. I only know two things. The first is that whatever...this place is like, she'll be safer than she would being raised by those people." Thenia stared down at her tea, making no move for it; her voice, when she spoke, could have galvanized a dozen of Inge's girls had they been there to hear it. "The second is that, if her father is good for one thing, it is settling scores. If harm comes to her, he will know. And I think the sort of people I am now dealing with will know that."

Inge found herself a bit taken aback. Impressed, aye, but she didn't often encounter this sort of cold desperation, particularly not from Stormwind-bred human grandmothers. Then again, there's two grandmothers in this room. "We can do business, dear." She took a long gulp of her own tea, and watched the human sip at hers more gingerly. "I keep a safe house in the Grizzly Hills, not far from your folk's Westfall Brigade." She kept eight, actually, but there was no reason to mention that. "It'll be enough for a couple weeks, while we see how events shake out for the little one's parents and you come up with the next step. You'll want to travel overland - that means guards. I know a couple reliable gentlemen. I hope you don't object to traveling with the dead."

That brought the human up short; her nostrils flared, but she thought better of her words before they came through. "It wouldn't make much matter if I did, Madam Highhold."

"Right you are. I'll have one of my boys fetch their captain, and we'll get you on your way by nightfall. No point in wasting time." Or of keeping you here until you encounter something you can't choke down. There was some choking down happening right then, as Thenia Al'Cair attempted to muster herself for the simple and inexpressibly difficult task of thanks. In the end, she wrapped it in scornful formality.

"Do not mistake my caution for ingratitude. You've been...I could not have hoped for more." Thenia steeled herself and took the plunge. "But I cannot help but wonder why you're doing this. I offer little in terms of -" Inge held up her hand. She'd heard this speech before a hundred times, in a dozen languages, and the answer was always the same.

"You saw the advert, dear." Thenia nodded. "Brothels do poorly when they make a habit of false advertising. So count it your fortune that you're a woman in need."

It was a bitter mouthful to swallow, and the woman needed a larger gulp of the suspect-smelling tea to do so. "I suppose I am," she said, wearily. "Both of us."

[Tarq]

The big one had painstakingly curled hair, a breastplate embossed with martial scenery, and a gorgeously plumed hat that had seen better days. The small one's main distinguishing features were his great many visible knives, and the lascivious grin that never seemed to leave his face. Both were also quite dead. With the part of herself that she was allowing to consider the situation, Thenia decided she preferred the second one. Leering monstrosity that he was, at least he wasn't pretending to be human. The big one's comically genteel manners and cavalier pride made him even worse.

Inge was still bickering, in a tongue that resembled someone eating a live bull, with the pair's terse captain. "'Tis no discourtesy, madam," offered the big one. "All business of a martial nature is conducted thus, in the Orcish tongue, while within the bounds of the City Below. For who might know better of soldiery?" Thenia swallowed, skin crawling, and jogged Naiara in her arms and looked down at the babe with all the smile she could muster. It was enough, for both of them; Naiara cooed, and her grandmother did not shriek.

The small Forsaken laughed nastily. "No' fond o' yir charms, is she?" he rasped. "I'd no' credit it, we wis standin' elsewhar - but Fitzroy, mate, I dinna think the lady likes us."

"Never's that been a barrier to gentility, Darek." The one named Fitzroy tipped his hat to her, for at least the sixth time. She couldn't stop herself from shuddering, which made him look resigned and his comrade laugh again.

"Bet yeh'd shew respect t'any ither king's bastard, y'auld beldame." Darek leaned sideways at an impossible angle, insinuating his cocked head and rail-thin torso into Thenia's vision. "But'n account o' auld Emmett's bein' deid, yeh turn up yir nose. Well, yir missin' aut, woman. Thim's royal breeches he wears, an' inside thim -"

Fitzroy bristled as Thenia's gorge rose, but a barked syllable from their commander cut the air. Darek stiffened and offered a torrent of what seemed, in the half-understood sandpaper of their cant, to be excuses. Somewhere in there, his superior cut him off with an impatient gesture that made both of the lesser dead men stand up straight and salute. The captain - tall, grim-faced, wearing dark red leather gauntlets - cast his marshlight eyes over to Thenia. "Why are you here?"

Thenia spoke carefully, her voice barely trembling. "I have commissioned Madam Highhold to act as my agent in this matter. She can answer all your questions."

"And she's doing it." The dead man seemed to grudge his words like coin, his voice carefully expunged of accent . "But you're the one my men will be traveling with, and killing for. So why are you here?"

"I am fleeing a certain situation in Stormwind City." She'd spent some time composing this speech to herself on the ship north. "This girl was fathered on my eldest daughter by an infamous criminal, who has now endangered his family and mine. My husband -" She stopped, teeth clenched, and squeezed Naiara's chubby hand before continuing. "My husband was badly beaten. I do not wish to see what is next."

"The Wildfire Riders are the Right People of Stormwind. Do you know what I mean by Right People?" She nodded, preferring his curtness to any pretenses of human civilization. "Trouble or not, you're safer with them than without. The Bittertongue's child is as good as a magician's geas or a king's ransom."

Another moment, while rage at the sellsword's suggestion churned on Thenia's face. She let it build, let it hold her spine straight and her face composed, and did not glance at the uneasily stirring child in her arms. "The fact that my granddaughter's life can be measured as some arcane underworld currency is precisely why she is not safer among them, and never will be."

The Forsaken - Craed Bloodcrow, she recalled for no reason - considered her and brusquely nodded. "They send a couple, Darek and Emmett will run them off. Kill if they have to. They send a party, you're on your own." He raised a crimson hand after her open-mouthed glare. "I hire my men out to fight battles, not wars. If this doesn't suit you, try elsewhere, but Inge's money will buy you no more in loyalty, and less in skill." In her periphery, Thenia saw the dwarven woman nod.

"You are saying, Master Bloodcrow, that yours are the best hired blades in the Underbelly of Dalaran."

"Yes." Plain fact, not a flicker on his wasted face.

"And that while your loyalty does not extend to giving up your...to mortal risk, it is as great as anyone in your profession."

"Inge and I have an arrangement. Her money is good, and so's our reputation." A faint smile. "No sense in damaging either of those things."

"Your men will get me where I need to go, protect me from those that attempt to stop me - within reason - and not speak of this matter. They will not interfere with myself or my granddaughter in any way."

Bloodcrow's gaze went immediately to small Darek, who showed the room a grotesque set of grave-rotted teeth and spread his hands. They were empty. "They will not," said his captain, still staring at him. "You have them under contract for a period of two weeks, while other arrangements are made." He pulled off one of his gloves, and Thenia noticed for the first time as he turned to her that he was missing a large chunk of his right hand. Bloodcrow spat into what remained and held it out expressionlessly. How does he spit? she wondered, numbly, staring at the offered hand, and then up at the Forsaken's face - the ravaged cheeks, the black gums, the empty sockets with their guttering yellow coals. There was something of amusement in his gaze, and she supposed it had to be funny. Just a merchantwoman from Stormwind, on a fool's errand, so far out of her depth as to never see the sun above the waters again.

She shifted Naiara, spat into her hand, and slapped it into his cold grasp with as little thought as possible. "Done," she snarled at his rotting smile. "I suggest we start soon. My daughter's companions are likely already searching."

"Not a doubt in the world on that," offered Emmett Fitzroy, stepping forward and doffing his cap yet again. "But never you fear the likes of these southron criminals, madam - as my lord captain tells, we're the best there is in the north, and that makes us the best there is at all."

"Emmett, Darek, with me," said Bloodcrow, seeming to lose interest in her the moment the deal was done. "We'll meet you at the sixteenth duct at half past ten. Final preparations." The two dead men she was entrusting her life - Naiara's life - to followed their maimed leader into the black. She looked over at Inge, who was watching her with, for what seemed like no reason, a sorrowful gaze. Bloodcrow's cold spittle was still on her hand, but she did not wipe it away.

[Tarq]

They came in the small hours. Inge didn't sleep as she once had, and this night, she likely wouldn't sleep at all. She was thinking about the woman from Stormwind - the proud, stiff-backed, high-toned human who'd come to her with aid, and been sent away a few hours before with a pair of colorful killers and enough money to last her until she could be established in Grizzly Hills. It had long ago become routine to Inge Highhold, but there was something about this one that bothered her. So when Withgar said there were three men here to see her, she was wide awake, alert enough, and unsurprised. The only rattle was the look on the face of Withgar, her second-eldest surviving son and strong right hand. Dutiful, reliable, and utterly merciless, he was all a mother could ask for her in her old age running a brothel in a floating city.

"Who are they, Withgar?" she asked, though she suspected she already knew.

"One of them's the Oathbreaker, Mam." It was strange, she reflected, how the pejorative had simply become the man's title. Withgar knew nothing of what oaths he had broken, and did not care; for that matter, neither did she. It was just what ap Danwyrith was called. "Then there's a stranger."

"A stranger? That's all you have?" She buckled a knife onto her wrist, and began arranging the voluminous sleeves of her dress to conceal it.

"Shorter. Wearing a hooded robe. Bit of a chill, suspect he's Forsaken. He hasn't -"

"Why don't you want to tell me who the third one is?" Inge turned and frowned at Withgar's stolid face. "Don't put on a fucking masque for me, my boy. Who are ap Danwyrith and his mysterious hooded stranger here with?"

A pause. "The Jester, mam."

She waited. Rolled it over in her mind until she decided there was no way she'd heard wrong. And then the dams broke. "That faithless shortsighted little fuck!" She whirled, pulling the dagger out of her sleeve and brandishing it openly as she strode towards the door, Withgar following adroitly behind her. "How many people do you have on them?"

"Ten, with eight showing, mam. Berry and Wintershank, the rest blades."

"Good enough." There would be consequences, she knew, but there were always consequences. Like murdering your treacherous business partner for selling out your operation to a two-penny pickpocket. It wasn't about Thenia Al'Cair or her sprat, as much as they might soothe Inge's conscience. This was business now - business, and broken bonds. "Good enough to kill that havagun bre'thoksh hanamok! Stupid enough, the gamaykul fesghua without blades, we will uldji-duk arkay a fucking stak-oganai..." Withgar winced as he trailed his mother down the hall. She spoke six languages, all at least fair and some nearly perfect, even insisted on speaking to her own family in southron Common to keep in practice. When Inge Highhold retreated to the tongue of the land that had exiled her, things were about to get very bad.

Still cursing in the slag-and-salt dwarven of her youth, Inge kicked open the doors of her receiving room, knife in hand. They were all there - Tarquin ap Danwyrith looking bored, the hooded man perfectly still, and a patch-faced soon-to-be-corpse with an apologetic little smile on his marred lips. "JESTER!" she snarled. "You miserable cunt, what you have done will make you a peshrug to frighten children!" She raised an ashen hand. "Take him! Daza-faran!" But before any of the eleven armed men and women in the room (nearly a third of her private soldiery) could raise hand or weapon, the hooded man reached up and dropped his cowl. The human face beneath was dark with sun and breeding rather than age - not handsome, certainly not, but young and smooth-skinned, nearly unmarked by life. Beneath tightly bound rust-red braids and shaggy brows, the man's eyes were a blue so dark as to be purple, and shined. Not like the knights of Acherus or the pocked citizens of Lordaeron, but lit from within, two candles lit beneath a winter sea.

Berry, Wintershank, and the others paused. There was something arresting in the gesture, and something more in the man's calm and distant gaze. And something even more in the way their madam's tirade, a fury they were rarely privileged to see, had been cut short. She knew him at a glance, it was clear; more, in knowing him, she harnessed the rage that had never before been seen to dwindle without blood. The fact alone that seconds had passed since she gave the order to take the Jester and they hadn't yet moved should have provoked something. Instead, she just stared.

ap Danwyrith broke the silence. "Seein' as how wir na full ay holes, thit mean wir doin' business?"

Inge's eyes flickered to him, then over to the Jester. "You're his, aren't you?" Her voice was dry, tightly wrapped about...whatever emotion the dark, stocky man had provoked in her. It surely couldn't be fear.

The Jester shrugged. "For years, Inge. My deepest apologies." He glanced around at the bravos in the room, filing away faces and whatever names he could attach to them, with the twitch of the lips that meant that whatever they thought they knew, he knew them. "I hold you in the highest regard. But I could not refuse the man who made me what I am."

"No," she said musingly. "I suppose not." Her gaze returned to the placid, still-faced man in the robe. "Are you here for the woman, or the girl?"

"For the girl's father," the man said, in a soft, bellows-deep voice. "They are in no danger from us."

Inge looked at him squarely. "No?" Weapons were being lowered around the room. Whatever was happening here, Withgar and his brutes were of no use in it, that much they understood. "I wonder, is there anyone who isn't?"

The dark man simply looked back at her. Again, it was Tarquin, with his congenital objection to silence, who spoke. "How kin yeh fail ta trust thit face?" he said, with a scathing grin that seemed to include the wearer in a circle of broad contempt. "Yir a hard-hearted lassie, Madam High'old, but aready yeh helped thit bairn oncet this day. All yeh need is fir ta do it agin."

"You have my word," the dark man said again. "Thenia and Naiara will not be harmed."

"S'if we needed ta make oaths regardin' m'ain fuckin' godsdaughter," groused Tarquin to nobody in particular.

Inge regarded them for another moment, then turned to Withgar. "Send everyone away, and close all but the front rooms," she said. "Then show them into my office."

"All three, mam?" Withgar didn't have any better an idea what was going on than the rest, but he knew his mother.

"All three!" she snapped. "And whatever you do -" she looked around, then lowered her voice and spoke in the language of her own long-gone mother. "Tell nobody the Wordweaver is here. Go!" The blood drained from Withgar's face, but he went, bellowing at the bemused soldiers to follow him, deploying a petrified pair to escort the Jester and his two associates in his mother's wake, aware like none of the men and women following him of exactly how much was at stake in the Underbelly.

They were ushered into Inge's office without delay, to find the matron sitting behind her desk, staring out a window bored into the wall of the city itself. She was thinking about Thenia al'Cair, the way she'd made a threat of her granddaughter's heritage. She was thinking of her own lone daughter, long dead. She was thinking of her arrangement with Bloodcrow, and what might become of his two men.

But mostly, because she was a woman of business, she was thinking about Uthas Wordweaver, and the story of three thousand dispossessed, and the rumors dating from when Dalaran had first risen aloft in the north and the Underbelly had grown up like moss and mushrooms in its hollow gut. So when the door closed behind the three, she turned to them, face closed. "Ask," she said bluntly.

The Wordweaver smiled, and lowered his head to her. "Thank you," he said simply. "That cannot have been easy." Staring at him with a confusion she hadn't been familiar with for years, Inge could almost have believed he meant it.