Ken was jogging toward me through the rain, soaked and breathing hard, but very much alive.

"Hey," he said once he reached me. His voice was calm, which somehow made this even stranger. "This shit is fake, man."

"What? Where have you been?"

"When I pressed it, I got teleported near that tavern," he explained. "There were trap markings on the ground too. Somebody set up a teleport point and a spell trap together."

"A trap spell?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Whoever gave Jelda this necklace knew exactly what they were doing. They set the destination, and then they cast a trap spell at the landing spot."

I stared at him.

"Shit," I muttered. "But then how did the body end up back in the dormitory room? The crystal wards should have blocked that."

Ken exhaled slowly. "If pressed four times in quick succession, the necklace sends the user back to the original location. Since the spell was cast here, outside the crystal’s range... the barrier couldn’t interfere with the teleportation."

I looked at Ken, then back at the rain sweeping across the forest floor.

"Then the guy at the market wasn’t just selling trinkets," I said quietly. "He was part of the setup."

"I don’t know anything about a market vendor," Ken replied with a slight frown. "But whoever gave that necklace knew exactly what they were doing."

"How do you even know about these?"

"That’s how Prince Maoler killed his own father and claimed the crown. Saved the whole kingdom, too." He shrugged. "You should read some history sometime."

"So this necklace is... rare?"

"Very," he said. "I doubt even the Queen has one of these."

"Well, rare or not, we should move before that prick leaves the city."

Ken nodded and fell in beside me.

The necklace had been bait.

And now, we had to find that old prick who sold it to Jelda.

ꨄ︎ꨄ︎ꨄ︎

The rain was coming down so hard that we were both soaked by the time we reached Bildirweight District. The streets were still crowded despite the weather, but when we got to the small road where the old man had set up his market stall earlier, the place was empty. Not only was his stall gone, but the other market stalls around it had already been packed away too. No customers stayed out in weather like this, so that part made sense.

"Shit," I muttered. "Where is he?"

Ken and I ducked under a tree to get out of the worst of the rain for a moment.

"They usually put the stall in front of their house," Ken said. "My father used to do that too."

I looked toward the house. "So we just knock?"

Ken shrugged. "What else are we supposed to do? Although, maybe we should tell the District Captain first."

"It would take too long," I lied. "It is better if we handle this ourselves."

Ken gave me a suspicious look. "And by handle it, you mean..."

I did not let him finish. I left the tree and walked straight up to the house, then knocked hard on the door. The wind was cold enough to cut through my clothes, and the rain kept whipping at my face. If I did not get inside soon, I was probably going to end up sick.

Ken came up beside me with one hand hovering near his dagger, though it looked like we were not going to need it.

Nobody answered.

I knocked again, harder this time.

Still nothing.

Either nobody was inside or they were waiting for us to leave. If it was the second one, they were in for a surprise.

"We need to get in somehow," I muttered.

"Let’s try back?" Ken suggested.

"Yeah."

We moved around the right side of the house, squeezing through the narrow space between it and the building next to it. Behind the house, there was a small railing, and beyond that the street dropped away below. I could see guards moving in the rain down there, while a few men hurried past with spells shielding them from the worst of it.

The back of the house looked ordinary at first, but it was not what I was hoping for. There was no second door. There were only two windows, and unlike the front, they were not barred.

That might work.

I stepped up to the first one and tried to open it.

Locked.

I moved to the second and pushed harder, but it refused to budge as well.

"Shit," I muttered. "It is locked."

"What now?" Ken asked.

I answered by driving my shoulder into the window.

The glass shattered immediately, sending broken pieces across the floor inside. Ken let out a quiet curse behind me while I broke away the jagged edges with another shove so I would not cut myself climbing through. Then I leaned in and listened.

No voices. No footsteps. Nothing. The room inside was silent enough to make the whole place feel wrong.

"What if someone heard that?" Ken hissed from behind me.

"They will not over the rain."

"But..."

"Ssh."

I looked inside again. The room beyond the window was a kitchen. There were two counters along the wall, and instead of a sink, they used the same rope-and-container system I had seen in the academy dormitories. Pull the rope, and water came down into the wooden basin beneath it. To the left was a simple couch, and farther back stood a fireplace with a low stack of firewood beside it.

What caught my attention immediately was the door on the far side of the room.

It had been boarded up. Seven wooden planks ran across it. That made no sense. If the door was boarded shut, then how the hell did anyone leave through it?

"The fuck?" I whispered.

Ken leaned in behind me. "What is it?"

"The back door is boarded shut."

"We should just go in then," he said.

"Yeah."

I stepped through the broken window first, moving carefully so I would not step on any remaining glass. Once I was inside, I willed my dagger into my hand from the inventory and listened again. Still no sound. Not even a movement upstairs.

Ken climbed in after me and brushed water off his light leather armor. Then he looked around the kitchen with one hand on his hip.

"It is clean," he said. "Someone must have been living here recently."

"Yeah," I muttered.

The house was bigger than it looked from the outside. Not wider, but taller. There had to be another floor.

"There should be another level," I said.

"There."

Ken crossed to the fireplace and looked up. A square panel was hidden in the ceiling above it, and a rope hung down from the center. He jumped, grabbed it, and pulled. A second later, the compartment above us opened and a narrow ladder dropped down from the opening.

"Huh," I muttered. "Nice catch."

"Ranger eyes, baby," he said. "I can see the color of your underwear from here."

I glanced at him. "What color am I wearing?"

"Black."

"White."

"Close enough."

I started climbing the ladder first. Once I reached the top, I paused and looked around carefully, dagger in hand. The room above was quiet, dark, and completely still. After listening for a moment, I pulled myself up fully and stepped inside.

The upper room was small, but it had clearly been used.

A desk sat in the middle of the floor between two narrow windows. Bookshelves lined one wall, though most of the shelves were half-empty, and the books that remained looked old and worn. A simple chair sat behind the desk, and there was just enough space to move between the furniture without brushing against anything. The whole room smelled like paper, dust, and rain that had leaked in through the old wood.

"Alright," I said quietly. "What do we have here?"

"An empty house," Ken answered. "That is what we have."

"Let’s search it anyway."

I pointed toward the desk. "You take the right side. I’ll take the left."

"Fine," he said. "What exactly am I looking for?"

"Anything suspicious."

Ken gave me a dry look. "That narrows it down so much."

I walked toward the desk and started searching the room while he headed toward the shelves on the opposite side.

I searched the table first, running my hands over the wood and checking underneath it in case something had been hidden there. When that turned up nothing, I moved on to the drawers and pulled each one open in turn, hoping the next one might hold something useful. The desk was no better. It gave me a few sheets of paper, an old quill, a dried ink bottle, and nothing that explained why this place had been locked up so carefully.

Across the room, Ken was doing his own search. He went through the shelves one by one, pulling books out and checking behind them before setting them back in place. He even pressed on the wood at the back of the shelves as if he expected to find a hidden compartment, but the wall stayed solid and ordinary.

By the time we were finished, the room had given us nothing but disappointment.

With a frustrated exhale, I walked to the middle of the room and rested both hands on my waist while I looked around again. The door had been blocked from the inside, and the windows were locked as well. That left us with no obvious way out and no explanation for how anyone had disappeared from this room. A teleportation spell was the only idea that came to mind, but according to Ken, that kind of magic was high-level. It was not something just anyone could use.

"Nothing?" Ken asked as he set the book he had been holding back onto the shelf.

"Yeah. Nothing."