Scarcely an hour later, and after briefly checking in with Cyrus and Theo downstairs to fill them in on the details, I was finishing a quick roundup of my available house knights, fetching them from various areas of my keep. I hadn't so much as taken the time needed to remove my fancy black three-quarter cloak, the one I'd worn to see the Prince that afternoon. It added a sense of urgency to my movements, fluttering behind me as I hurried from room to room.

Once I'd instructed all available knights to wait in the dining hall (four, I noted with dismay), I returned to the basement, where Cyrus and Theo were just as frantically working away on the checklist of things we needed to arrange as part of the hasty plan I'd come up with on the carriage ride back to Tucat Keep.

“Did you get everything?” my Captain asked once I'd re-entered the exercise hall.

“A total of twelve tracking gems mounted on silver burrs, ten of them attuned to the same lenses, and the other two are very difficult to remove from clothing. Sticks and beacons for the knights, in case they spot him after we've split up. Got my burglary pack,” I said, patting the sling-sack at the small of my back, “wrist-sling, ammo, and break rope. Saber, two dirks, collapsible baton, and a couple concussion flechette.” I gave Cyrus a tilt of my head. “Was that everything?”

“Yes, Milord,” he said, making a series of checks on a paper pad with his small quill.

It certainly seemed like enough. Even if this young fellow could turn himself completely invisible and fly like a bird, he'd find it quite difficult to lose me this time.

“Theo, you're ready to go?” I asked.

“Yup,” said Theo, hooking a thumb over his shoulder, towards the secret passage. “Just came back from my place, told most of my available knights about the possibility of a field trip – I can round them up in a couple of minutes. Didn't tell them where, or who we were after. Told 'em who we weren't after, though, since a couple of them asked if we were doing something nasty to you as revenge for nicking my sword - I told them you had nothing to do with it. Figured it couldn't hurt at this point, and it would cut down on the number of unfortunate misunderstandings if your knights and mine were to encounter each other. I'd appreciate you giving your knights a similar message, if you haven't already.”

“I'll be doing that in a few minutes, they're gathering upstairs. Four, it looks like, but I told those four to round up any others that were off duty.” I let out my breath explosively. “Gods, all this for one skinny kid!”

“ . . . who can move like nothing we've ever seen before,” Theo reminded me.

“True.”

“Sound's like we've got a shot though, Vince. I'm just impressed that you actually made it all the way back here to let us know about this meeting. It wouldn't exactly be out of character for you to hang around trying to do this all by yourself, waiting for this guy Garrett to close his shop and then following him solo when he went to meet up with this kid. I'm surprised you're not pacing like a caged rock lion right now. In theory, he could be running to this kid as we speak.”

“Not a chance. I tagged him with the tracking gem and have been checking it periodically, just in case, but I don't think he was lying. Garrett is about as easy to read as-” I paused briefly, trying to think of something extra witty. “-a book . . . that is really easy to read.”

Hey, give me a break. I can't be amazingly witty all of the time . . .

“It definitely seems like we've caught a break with that fence, Milord. Connor, you said his name was?” Cyrus peered over at me speculatively, another sheaf of papers now in front of him.

“You found something?”

“Not precisely, no. There's no 'Connor' listed among active Lords, nor their sons, nor any of the tenant records I've browsed through so far, so that angle may be a dead end. That egg-shaped item you said he left as collateral was unmarked, as you supposed, but I thought it looked familiar. I didn't recognize how at first, but then I started combing over the collection of items we'd retrieved once more, and I found something,” he said, walking over to a few items located on the floor nearby. They sat apart from the majority of the items – those that had already been positively identified by marks of ownership.

He knelt near a small, battered oak case and pulled on something that appeared to be part of the carved wooden trim, but actually turned out to be a cunningly disguised leather strap that covered a small lever. He pulled the lever, and the case creaked itself open.

Cyrus reached in, pulling out a familiar egg-shaped object that was the same dull green color of the strange thing I'd taken off of Garrett's hands earlier. He held it aloft for me to see. It had a single circular dot of metal on one side, and no other markings whatsoever.

“Similar?” I asked.

“Very, Milord. The only real problem is that we don't know who this case belongs to, and the mark of ownership on this thing here has . . . uh, well I'm not really sure how to describe it.”

“They've been removed?”

“Not really, Milord. Here, let me show you. One moment.”

He handed me the object and quickly went to the desk to retrieve a small greyberry candle, lighting it from one of the other candles burning nearby and shielding the small blue flame protectively as he walked towards me. I held the mysterious item out for him at about chest height, and he responded by holding the candle up to one side of it, the blue light from the candle now brightly illuminating the surface of the strange, smooth object.

We both looked at it for a few seconds in silence.

“Well,” I said, still peering at it intently, “that's odd. If that was a Lord's mark, it's become quite unreadable. It certainly is green, but other than that . . .”

“Aye Milord, those ripples are . . . well, I don't know. That's just weird. I thought that when a seal was used to mark an item, the mark it left couldn't be altered or removed by anything but the seal that put it there, or the 'master' seal of the Lord whose family crest is represented.”

“I thought so as well, Cyrus,” I said, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. “Though I've heard it said that lightning or very strong magic can warp a mark, or cause it to fade. Very odd. You said you held a candle to the one I brought with me as well?”

“Yes, and there was nothing, Milord. Not even a faint afterimage to suggest there ever had been a Lord's mark there.”

“Very, very odd,” I said, staring a few seconds longer before walking over to the drinks cabinet where the other slightly larger stone egg lay. “Hey, Theo. Have I mentioned how much I hate it when things are odd?”

“Once or twice,” he chuckled.

“The green does give us a bit of a leg up though, Milord,” said Cyrus, walking over to yet another pile of papers that lay on a nearby end-table. “If the one that we found earlier was marked with a Lord's seal, and if that seal contains lots of dark green, then we could quite possibly have a clue. All of the different metals present different colors, magically, and while silver produces a very light and pale green, if I'm not mistaken it's platinum that produces deep green. That's hardly a typical metal to use on something as common as a seal, and to have nothing but platinum on it would be unusual in the extreme. I was thinking I could turn up a few names based on that information alone, given enough research time.”

“Do it. Tailing Garrett is by no means a sure thing. If you do happen to come across the name 'Connor' sometime this evening, you'll make a note of it, I'm sure.”

“Most certainly, Milord,” he nodded.

“Well, it feels like we're getting closer to understanding this. True, we may not actually be getting any closer, but at least it feels like we are.” I held an egg in each hand and turned them back and forth, idly inspecting the features of each. “What the deuce is so special about these? And if it was a Lord's mark on this one here, what could have caused . . . uh, that to happen to it?” I sighed softly, turning the object in my left hand so that I might inspect a blemish. “Why-”

“Whoa!” I heard Theo say, almost precisely the same time I heard Cyrus say “What in . . . ?!”

I gave both of them a questioning look, both stones held at shoulder height on either side of me. Both men were simply sitting there, staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

“What the hell just happened there, Vince?” Theo asked.

“Huh?”

“Milord, you just . . . uhm-” Cyrus began, looking slightly baffled. “You 'flipped', I suppose. Or, your cloak did.”

I stared at them both.

“Huh?” I repeated, much more authoritatively.

“Your scar too, Vince!” said Theo. “It moved! One second it was . . . hang on, do that thing again, what you were doing before. With those things you're holding . . .”

“Uhm, you mean turning them? I wanted to get a better look at this blemish, and-” I began, turning the object in my left hand slightly.

“Geeze!” Cyrus cried, flinching slightly, his eyes going wide as he stared at me. Theo's face lit up, and he grinned hugely.

“That . . . is really, really neat,” he said, finally.

“Can one of you perhaps stop snorting candle ash long enough to make some small amount of sense? Please? What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Somehow, Vince, you looked like a reversed image of yourself just now. Your cloak was hanging over your left shoulder, you did that thing, and suddenly it was on your right shoulder, and then back again. Like a mirror, sort of,” he said, shaking his head. “Best damn mirror I've ever seen, if it was. Here, let me try.”

I handed the two objects over to my friend, giving him a puzzled look.

Theo held them, giving both eggs a cursory inspection before turning one. Then, he turned the other one fractionally . . . and leapt with inhuman speed into the space three inches to his left.

At least, that's what it looked like from my perspective.

A moment later he was back, at which point I saw the swords he wore on his belt swap locations, something similar happening with his own cloak. Truly, it was as if you were looking at a mirror image of him, and then just as suddenly, you weren't.

“Wow,” I said. “I might just have to hang on to these things or something. That's a pretty amazing trick . . .”

“How do they even work?” Theo asked, turning one sphere back and forth, causing mirror-Theo to flicker in and out of existence.

“No idea, I assure you. It . . . hang on a sec! Cyrus, that trick the kid pulled in the alleyway when I was chasing him – appearing to go right while going left! If these things 'flip' how others see you, like a mirror, then . . .”

“He runs one way while using these things, and it looks like he's gone the opposite direction?”

“Right! Holy crap, maybe we are getting closer.”

“Do you think this 'Connor' kid was using these ones, Vince?” asked Theo, looking interested. “Like, these exact ones? Or are there others?”

“Not sure about the one Cyrus pulled from the case, but the one I got from Garrett,” I gestured towards the stone egg with the symbols on it, “was collateral for a loan he says he gave a few weeks ago. So, I guess that means that this kid has another pair of these maybe? Maybe several of them, and he only needs to use two at a time?”

“And knows how to use them effectively, I would say,” Theo said, nodding. “Doing something like that on the fly might take practice. I'd say he was very familiar with these things. You're thinking they might actually belong to him?”

“Cyrus, I want you to do as much digging as you can on the green smudgy seal . . . thing. Every angle you can think of, not just current Lords. Try to find the name 'Connor', or people who might have a lot of green in their family crest, or even people who have a particular interest in platinum. Miners, jewelers, anything you can think of.”

“Right away, Milord,” Cyrus said, giving me a terse nod of his head.

“Okay then. Theo, I'll be back down shortly. I'm going upstairs to talk to my knights, make sure they know to leave your guys alone, brief them on what's going on. When I'm back down here we can figure out where you and your knights will do the most amount of good, and how we'll communicate back and forth when we're tracking Garrett.”

“Gotcha,” he nodded.

I left the room and hopped awkwardly over the various booby-traps guarding the hallway leading away from the exercise hall, cloak urgently flapping behind me once again.

There's something odd about that particular level of excitement, I've found. It doesn't matter what the reason for it is, but whenever I find myself working under time constraints and moving around quickly, I become more . . . I don't know. I guess “dynamic” might be the best word. Wound up and excited, engaged in quick decision making, giving people direction, limbs full of unexpected energy and blood thrumming in my temples with my heart beating madly in my chest. I can't seem to help but enjoy myself when it happens. It's kind of fun, in a desperate and frantic sort of way.

Bursting into the room now containing five of my knights (still woefully less than what I'd hoped for, but better than four), I began excitedly giving them orders before I'd even come to a halt in front of them.

“Right! Okay, here's the situation. For those of you who don't know, or who have had nothing but speculation to go on, I have been robbed from. Something very important has gone missing, and I want it back. We have our chance to get it back tonight. We'll be following a certain shopkeeper who will be meeting with a street urchin, our target. He's a boy named 'Connor', perhaps sixteen years old, and let me tell you . . . he's bloody elusive, and moves fast. He's escaped me three times on foot, once in broad daylight. He's crafty, and he's managed to do things I would have sworn were impossible. So far, he hasn't been violent,” I said, absently rubbing my neck as I recalled the trough incident in the alleyway, “but I want you all to consider him very dangerous and unpredictable. I've almost fallen victim to some of his traps while trying to nab him, and I consider myself a reasonably cautious fellow. Additionally – and I've saved the best for last here – we must capture him without harm, as per Prince Tenarreau's explicit instructions. This is my neck on the line, people, so no swords, no blackjacks, no anything that might damage him.”

I patiently allowed the groans to subside before continuing.

“I have collected some tracking gems, as well as some lenses that orient on them,” I said, walking up to a table and emptying my pockets of various contents. “Grab one of the round lenses, two gems, a stick and a beacon. I'm assuming you all know how they work already. If you manage to tag this boy with one of your gems and it catches, break your stick and crush your other gem if you still have it. If you feel your own stick break, it means someone's spotted the kid and marked him with a tracker, so keep your gems on you and start looking through your lenses. Your fellow knights will be twice as bright as your target, still having two gems on their person, and you can attempt to surround him. If you spy him but cannot plant a gem, simply activate a beacon and give chase instead, and the rest of us with beacons will come to you.”

“Now, for the good news. If we capture him tonight, you're all a hundred gold richer. If you happen to be the knight responsible for apprehending him, you get an additional five-hundred gold as well as two weeks off-duty to properly enjoy it. Don't take unnecessary risks, mind you. If you take a chance and blow it when you could have done something safe and guaranteed this kid's capture, I don't think I need to tell you how I'll feel about it. Understood?”

They all nodded, looking more excited than they had when I'd first entered the room. I noticed that the hallway door at the far end of the room was creaking itself open.

“Alright,” I said, “come up and collect your things. Does anyone have any questions?”

I received several head-shakes as I stepped forward toward the main hallway door, which now framed a very lovely-looking Talia. She was wearing a light blue dress and black sandals, and bore an expression that indicated she wished to talk. Rather good timing - this was the first time I'd seen her since last night, and I wished to quickly speak with her as well. I hurried forward, cursing the fact that I didn't have more time to explain things.

After a few steps towards her, I hit my forehead with the heel of my palm and spun back towards my knights.

“Sorry, almost forgot – If you're wearing uniforms, pin your cloak front back so that the Tucat crest isn't visible. He knows I'm after him, so seeing my family crest might spook him. Also, I've heard that Lord Haundsing's knights are going to be roaming some of the same streets we may find ourselves on. I want you to ignore them, or treat them with polite civility. We have bigger pigs to roast at the moment, so no scuffles or anything else of that nature.”

I turned back towards Talia, leaving my knights to pin their cloaks back and distribute the items I'd left on the desk. A half-dozen more steps and I was standing next to her, making a note of the look of nervous concern on her face.

I briefly wondered how I looked right then. Probably concerned, anxious, out of breath and nervous. I'd spent my idle moments throughout the day wondering what I'd say to her, given everything I now knew. For some reason I couldn't remember a single opening line, now that she was standing here before me.

“Hi,” I managed to say after a few seconds.

“Hi. Uhm . . . Milord,” she added awkwardly, after a moment's thought, her expression not relaxing. “I'm glad I caught you, there's-”

“Talia, I know I should have come to you earlier, and I'm glad that I've run into you here. Things have just been crazy since last night, and they're getting crazier as we speak, but that's no excuse and I do apologize. I've got to run, but I swear to you Talia . . . we'll talk as soon as I'm back. Just promise me, please, that you won't leave my service or make any other rash decision prior to us being able to sit down and talk.”

“That's not important right now, Milord. I've talked to-”

“But it is, Talia! It's very important to me, and I'd give anything to have a moment to discuss things with you right now, but time is very short.”

“I understand, Milord, but there's a gentleman-”

“I can't right now, Talia . . . I probably shouldn't have delayed even this long! Later, I promise-”

“Milord, he-”

“Talia, everything will be clearer later this evening, I hope,” I apologized, already turning back towards my knights. “Is everyone ready? We've got very little time to get to where we need to be, and I've got a carriage ready to take us once I've gone downstairs and-”

“Ahem!” a loud and exasperated voice declared authoritatively from behind me.

I stopped and turned around to the sight of Talia, staring at me with a greatly irritated expression.

“Milord, if I might humbly request that you come with me to the greeting hall, as there is someone here I really, really think you'll want to see,” she said, impatiently gesturing behind her with a toss of her head.

I suppressed a surge of annoyance, having already made a note of what time it was. I needed to get down to Theo and Cyrus, go over the final details of what we'd be doing, quickly let Theo know where to send his knights, return upstairs and head to the waiting carriage, and . . .

. . . and I suspected I was being an idiot again.

Talia was nothing like the person I had assumed she was, and had shown herself to be more clear-headed than I'd been lately. Smart as she was, and knowing what she did about my situation, if she believed something was serious enough to interrupt my frantic running about then it was likely important. Possibly relevant.

I pushed aside any misgivings over the delay, turning to fully face my keepmistress.

“Yes, of course. If you would escort me to this person please, Talia?”

“Of course, Milord,” she said, giving me a small curtsey. Then, turning, she practically flew back out the doors she'd first entered through, though still somehow managing to maintain her grace and poise as she did. I found myself having to quicken my pace just to keep up with her. Briefly, I wondered who it was that had arrived at my doorstep and merited such insistence from Talia. It-

The boy?

Heart in my throat, I began walking the tiniest bit faster.

We both burst into the greeting hall, shoulder to shoulder, through the double-doors that framed the entrance to the greeting room. I half expected to see the lad named Connor standing there, arms wrapping themselves protectively around my father's book.

Yes, I know. Optimism, despite how my luck had been these past few days. Sometimes I think I might actually be delusional.

I did not, in fact, see a young lad waiting in my greeting hall, nor did I spy my book. Instead, I saw a gaunt fellow who looked to be in desperate need of a healer. His face was puffy and swollen, and where there wasn't dried blood there were ugly yellow-brown and purple bruises . . . the sort that lasted for weeks, and quite often left some sort of permanent reminder that they'd been there.

A mugging, quite obviously. Poor bastard. The culprits had done a thorough job on him - there were multiple cuts to his head, his knuckles, forearms, some of his injuries still bleeding onto the tiled marble floor, as well as upon the frightfully expensive and tasteful chair he'd been seated in. Every visible part of him seemed to spark some skin-crawlingly vivid sympathy pains from me, and yet I couldn't stop inspecting the damage, standing there with wide eyes, taking in the sight before me.

“M-milord!” the figure sobbed, rising from the now blood-spattered chair with his head bowed. “I'm so sorry, Milord!”

I blinked, and felt my eyes widen.

It was Garrett.