If Feyla was stuck panicking then the least Daydrel could do was panic with her.

"I don't like doing this while it's still light out," Daydrel whispered. The three of them were tucked in between two buildings a short walk away from the area where Sedgewick had suspected Desden to be hiding. The cool breeze from the river ruined any relief it might have brought with the pungent smell of fish it carried.

Feyla tapped her heel in growing impatience. "We don't have a choice. Sedgewick's going to be down here tonight at the latest," Feyla replied. They'd been checking every promising building in the area with no sign of Desden or Dormaeus. Feyla's eyes shifted to the sinking sun like it was a ticking clock. "At the very latest."

Feyla bit her lip and pulled back out the map of the city again. The browned paper stood out against the crisp white of her new healer's garb. A hair slipped out of her bun. She tucked it back in firmly. "What about here?" Feyla suggested, pointing to a building on the map. The place had multiple good exit points, wasn't too close to a guard's post, and as she'd learned from Sedgewick, sat close enough to the docks to make smuggling in spell casting materials that much easier.

The muscles on Daydrel's arms tightened as she drew closer, but his voice remained steady, thankfully. She didn't want a repeat of that moment in the training arena. He nodded and held up the map to Delia, pointing to the spot Feyla had suggested. "Does it look as promising at it does on paper?"

Delia's eyes took in the map. "I'll go walk by it. Wait here." She disappeared around the corner, her white cloak flapping behind her.

Daydrel folded up the map as Feyla leaned against the faded white wood of an old warehouse. Unlike further up the river where merchants and travelers ended their journey and the air smelled of spices and fruits, this part of the docks was populated with shipbuilders, fishermen, and warehouses.

Feyla busied herself with listening to the sound of people milling about the larger streets nearby and not on the silence hanging between her and Daydrel.

"I wrote to you," he spoke finally. "After you left. You never answered."

Oh. That letter. She'd almost forgotten. It had arrived after she'd left the guild and started working for Sedgewick. Daydrel had asked her to reconsider their broken betrothal. He'd even sent the engagement token he'd given her with it; a bronze broach with a pink stone. She'd sent it back with no other response. "I did answer." Just not the way you wanted me to, she added silently.

"Was I already too late?" he asked, striding closer with firm, smooth steps. "Were you already with that mage of yours?"

Feyla turned away. Daydrel leaned closer. For a moment, she thought he might try to touch her cheek, but he stopped and settled for her shoulder. "Did you already forget me?"

Feyla's ear twitched at that word. "You're the one who was forgotten? I was the one who you left on the sidelines so you could keep chasing a—a promotion or whatever other goal was always more important than our relationship." She grasped the hand on her shoulder. Daydrel tried to wrap his fingers around her own but she just pushed him away. "I'm not the same person that I was back then, Daydrel."

Daydrel curled his discarded hand into a ball. His throat bobbed with restrained emotion. "When you came back, I thought that maybe it was because... Why are you here then?"

Feyla stopped herself. Should she tell him? It really wasn't his business. She shouldn't care what Daydrel thought about her rejoining, but did she want him thinking she'd come back because of him? "Sedgewick. It's always Sedgewick," Feyla said finally while ignoring Daydrel's pained grimace. "Mother's threatening to take my name over our engagement."

The words left her mouth and the weight on her chest briefly lifted as she finally voiced the fears that had been trapping her. "She thinks he's manipulating me," Feyla practically growled as the memory of Jaerick prowling around her head returned. "Lots of people think that, you probably even think that but he's not. I'm not some empty-headed office decoration he plays with and I'm not a vapid seductress either. If I catch Desden for the guild then Mother will see that I'm not Sedgewick's pawn. She'll see that I chose him because I wanted to."

"And what? The rest of the world will follow behind her?" Daydrel asked mockingly.

Feyla raised her head, jutting her chin out in defiance. "People can change. I just need to convince them that their view of me is wrong. If my mother disowns me, she'll confirm everything they already think."

Daydrel shook his head. "You're more like Madam Arilla than you think."

"Bite your tongue," Feyla snapped before she could stop herself. The comparison should have been flattering. Delia's words from their meeting at the now-burnt healing house came back to her.

"Not my beautiful, successful mother! Not the woman who's always supported me!"

Beautiful, successful, and supportive. Those were the words people described her mother with. It hadn't always been that way. When Feyla was a little girl, people had whispered something very different. "Poor Arilla," they'd said before adding. "So alone," and "If only she'd heeded her elders." Feyla had watched as her mother transformed their broken little family from an object to be judged and pitied to one worthy of praise and respect.

She should be proud to be compared to her mother.

"I don't think you're a dumb seductress, Feyla," Daydrel sidestepped her sensitive outburst. "But I'd forgotten how naive you could be. There's no way your mother will approve of a mage."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see then." She stared down the street instead of at Daydrel and clasped her necklace through the fabric of her healer's garb. "I'm doing this for Sedgewick and me."

Daydrel snorted. "You saw an opportunity to fix people's opinions of of you and you took it. There's no reason to try and make it look nobler than it is."

Feyla shot him one last venom-filled glare before they both dropped into silence. She brushed her foot across a piece of loose cobblestone. Wiggling it around, she let the bits of shiny rock in it catch the light before pushing it back into its place.

Delia rounded the corner, eyes gleaming with eagerness. "I think I found them. There's a spot on the second floor with the windows boarded up."

Daydrel jumped into action, all personal concerns forgotten in the face of the work at hand. "Feyla, take the high way. Delia and I will go low."

"Why do you think I still like the high way?" she asked stubbornly as they crept closer to the building. The creeping and climbing used to always be her job.

Daydrel refused to be baited. "I thought you'd like the chance to use your only decent move." He smirked while Delia stifled a laugh as the three split apart simultaneously.

Feyla rolled her eyes. Daydrel wasn't completely wrong. The high way is the most fun, she admitted reluctantly.

Feyla kept the boarded up window in the corner of her eye. She pulled her white hood over her head and breathed in deeply. This was an old trick of theirs. Daydrel and Delia would sneak in from the bottom and try to draw the wizards out of hiding while Feyla would hopefully be able to catch them off guard by going in through one of the upper windows.

She found a good spot out of sight of the boarded-up windows. The whole building looked half abandoned. An old house of rented rooms, maybe? Dark shadows from the setting sun splashed a dull silhouette across the faded white wood. Feyla grabbed her rope and hook from her belt and started swinging.

Her first throw missed, clanging against the stone next to her. Feyla hissed through her teeth, ears taut. Please don't have heard that.

Silence still reigned. Letting out the breath she'd hissed in, Feyla pulled the rope back and swung it again, more cautiously this time. It caught the brim of a window on the second floor. Giving the rope a few sharp tugs to make sure it was secure, she started climbing.

By the time she reached the top, the arm Desden had burned felt like it was on fire again. Thankfully, whoever had boarded up the windows on one room hadn't thought to do so on all the others. She opened the window with one hand and pulled herself inside. A table with only one good chair rested in the room. Dust motes drifted into beams of sunlight and around the rotting furniture.

Feyla perked her ears up again. No sounds of blasting. Daydrel and Delia must not have found anyone yet. She crept to the door and pressed her ear up against it. No voices, no footsteps. Good. The room with the boarded windows should be just around the corner from this one.

She could feel it in the air the moment she stepped into the hallway. An energy hovered around her skin like oil over water. Some dark wound had festered here, now slowly spreading outward. Sedgewick had told her that experienced black magic users could make their usage indiscernible but he'd cautioned her about new casters as well. He'd said they could be dangerous, erratic, and that she shouldn't underestimate them.

Feyla bit her lip and resisted the urge to clutch her necklace, choosing to keep her hand hovering above her kit instead. What she wouldn't give to have Sedgewick on her side now...

What's taking Daydrel and Delia so long? Feyla thought, irritation poking past her growing worry. She crept down the hallway toward the sound of a faint thrum. Every nerve in her hummed worse than the thrumming as she reached the door. The knob hung from it loosely, too broken the even lock. No sound of life came from the other side. Was this it? An unlocked door?

But there was the thrumming. It vibrated louder now and dug into her head unpleasantly. There had to be something here. Feyla steeled herself to kick open the door and face the other side. She jerked forward, and at that moment, a biting pain hit her head.

Feyla's eyes snapped open. She looked up at the ceiling of the closed room. The room that she didn't remember entering.

The blade tip of a staff pressed against the softest part of her throat. "My little healer. Was hoping it'd be you."

A ghost of pain flashed across her injured arm as the man who had given it to her appeared above her like a phantom from the mist.

Desden Carrow smiled.

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Author's Note: And with that, Feyla and Desden finally meet face-to-face again! Any thoughts on her chat with Daydrel? What do you think Desden plans to do?