Chapter 32 - Smooth Operator

“Uh…hello?”

Euryale entered the dark room cautiously. Witt had left a message for her to meet him somewhere more private this time. She still wasn’t sure how the message was left on her desk without going through anyone at the castle.

Mr. Witt is clearly much more than I ever imagined, isn’t he? Euryale had thought as she looked at the message. What have I gotten myself involved in?

The room she stood in was just off a small alleyway on the outskirts of town. She wasn’t familiar with the area and had left early in case she got lost. She wasn’t sure now if she was early or late. The tall buildings nearby blotted out the sun and a perpetual haze from nearby workshops hung low in the sky.

She stepped a little further in.

“H-hello?” She called again.

She waited nervously. Then suddenly the door to the outside, her only source of light, closed and plunged her into darkness.

“Ah!” She yelled in surprise.

Just then a light flared behind her as an illuminated lantern sat on a table in the corner. There was no way the lantern could have lit itself, so when Euryale spun around to look at the source of the light she was confused by the absence of anyone there lighting the device.

She couldn’t have known Ariadne had been carrying it. When it was placed on the table her phasing ability stopped cloaking the light as soon as she let go. Ariadne herself stayed hidden and watched but smiled at Euryale’s reaction to the parlour trick.

“Who…who’s there?!” Euryale eyes were wide in fear as she looked around the room.

“Hello Euryale!”

She spun again and saw Orpheus as his Witt persona standing across the room. Nowhere near where the lantern was.

“Mr. Witt! How? Where?…” Words failed her.

“You’re a little early Euryale. Were you that anxious to see me?” Ignoring her questions, he casually strode across the room and pulled out a chair for her at the illuminated table.

Her mind was struggling to understand but her feet shuffled towards the seat being offered. After sitting her down Witt in turn sat across from her in the seat that had a leather satchel of some sort slung across the back of it.

“Now then. This place is a safe place to talk. Much better than the guild hall.” He raised an eyebrow as he spoke, clearly still chastising her a little for her last attempt at communication.

“Oh…ok Mr. Witt. You, um, said you wanted to see me?”

“I do.” He had a wide smile on his face. “I do.” He repeated. “Because I need you to help me, help you.”

His words did little to alleviate the confusion on her face.

“Help you? Help me?”

“Exactly! See, I’m sure by now that the big, tough Xorn has had his fun with the prisoner they captured.”

“I did hear they caught someone. But…how? No one else was there?!?”

“How that was arranged isn’t important. What matters for you is that no one seems to know you were involved in murdering a member of the Demon King’s family. Isn’t that lovely?”

The bluntness of his characterization froze her a moment.

He leaned in conspiratorially. “Now, now, I don’t need to know why you did it. That’s not important to me.”

“I…I didn’t…” She went to deny that she meant to do it but realized there was no point. Witt didn’t seem to care. And it wasn’t like she should confess her theft to him, even if she had blurted out before that she thought the envoy was a financial asset.

“It’s fine Euryale. Doesn’t matter to me. Now, what does matter is what happens next. See, soon they will figure out from that prisoner that Warlock’s group wasn’t involved. And that will make them curious as to who is.”

Her hands balled into fists as he spoke, the anxiety getting to her.

“Worse, at some point soon the castle will find out who was really in that carriage when they don’t report back.”

Her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood.

“In fact, the capital is already wondering why they haven’t heard about their envoy’s arrival.”

Witt tossed several envelopes onto the table from a bag that was slung on his chair.

Euryale carefully grabbed one and slowly opened the message, almost too afraid to see the contents.

The message was addressed to Verna and was asking for confirmation of the safe arrival of the Demon King’s sister and a report on her progress. Euryale tossed the message back on the table like it burned her but couldn’t help herself from grabbing another.

This message was more urgent, demanding answers as to why no reply had been given to several messages before.

The next message was the same. And another.

“How…how do you have all these? These all came from the King’s castle. They would have been with official messengers. Demons. Why didn’t any arrive at the Lord Viscount’s castle?”

Witt smiled. “You sure you really want to know? Let’s just say communications between your castle and the capital have been experiencing…difficulties.”

Who is this man? What is he doing?! Is he killing these people?! Why?! To protect me?!

“Why?…why are you doing all this?” Her eyes pleaded for answers.

“I told you before. I’m doing this to help you. And you,” he pointed at her, “are now going to help me. Like I said before, you’ll help me, help you.” He flicked his finger back and forth between them to illustrate his point.

“What is it you want me to do?”

His smile widened. “Now that’s the right question! I only ask that you help yourself. See, the prisoner will eventually crack and tell good ol’ Xorn that his people didn’t kill anyone in that carriage. Maybe he already did. But someday soon, Xorn will believe him. And when that time comes Xorn will turn his attention elsewhere. Maybe to you.”

He paused to build tension and she gulped.

“But! If that prisoner were to escape. Well now. Then we have some fun. See, if he escapes before they finish interrogating him then Xorn will still have so many questions unanswered. Maybe he never gets to suspecting you. Plus, everyone in the castle is distracted trying to track down a fugitive.”

“You want me to help free a prisoner! What if they find out?!”

“Euryale, I’ll be honest with you.” His tone had shifted to a blunt deadpan. “Getting caught helping a prisoner is still nothing compared to what will happen if they find out what you really did.”

She paled visibly.

He switched back to his usual jovial tone. “Besides. You don’t have to free him. We’ll let someone else do that.”

“Someone else?”

“Exactly! All you have to do is authorize a prisoner transfer to the capital. For further questioning or something. Even if they figure out you were the reason for the transfer, you have a perfectly plausible reason for doing it since you want these terrible rebels brought to justice. That kind of thing.”

For the first time in a while Euryale seemed to catch on.

“So I just need to approve a single prisoner transfer?”

“No, not a single one. You should approve the transfer of all prisoners. That way it’s even less tied to this one incident. And harder to track your reasoning. All you have to say is that the fire bomb attacks, the carriage attack…all these things made you think the castle needed to focus on rooting out the rebels and let someone else take care of the prisoners. And you were afraid the rebels would secretly try to save their friend. You’re a seneschal maximizing resources, nothing more. Make sense?”

“It does…somewhat. But there’s only one other prisoner. Is that ok?”

“It will have to do.”

“But what I don’t understand is how this helps. How does getting the prisoner to the capital help me?”

“Oh, he won’t make it to the capital. We’ll find a way to tell Warlock about the transfer. Feed the information to the broker, Orpheus. You know the guy. He’ll then sell the info to Warlock’s people and we…well, we just sit back and watch.”

“But won’t they…the guards…”

“Ever make an omelet Euryale? You gotta break some eggs.” He mimed cracking an egg and then shrugged.

She took long, slow breaths. But didn’t reject the idea, so Witt continued.

He knew he had her.

He leaned in with a predatory smile. “Now, let’s talk logistics.”