Ethan, I want to create a world without you.

  As he was smmed into the floor by a perfect shoulder throw, Ethan could almost hear that roar in his ears.

  Ivy stood over him and gred down at his body sprawled ft on the deck in the shape of a giant X.

  Her noble upbringing stopped her from following it up by pnting one of those high boots on his chest. She had always cared about decorum. Still, when his sudden sneeze had startled her into jabbing her finger straight into the sea during the teleportation spell, she had snapped.

  The first curse word of her life had gone to Ethan.

  After a long moment of eye contact, Ivy said, "From now on, do not sneeze while someone is casting a teleportation spell."

  "So the Bureau really did recruit a knight."

  Old Mug finally came back to himself.

  He also quietly let out a breath of relief. At least the girl had not come here to beat him up.

  "I'm not a knight."

  "What? I assumed only a knight would have the strength to pull off such a fwless shoulder throw."

  Old Mug had personally witnessed Ethan's body spin through the air in a beautiful full rotation before nding ft on the floor.

  All he could say was that the fall had been strangely artistic. It reminded him of a stage production at the Grand Theater in the Capital.

  Meanwhile, Ethan silently listened to the two of them talk about him from the floor.

  In truth, Ivy's throw had been even more skillful than Old Mug realized. She had pulled the strength at the st second, so it looked spectacur without actually hurting that much. Ethan was pretty sure that if Ivy ever joined professional wrestling, she would end up an all-star.

  It was obvious she had just been venting.

  She had not truly wanted him erased from the world.

  So now Ethan knew one more thing.

  Sneezing during someone else's teleportation spell could send them straight into the sea.

  A very educational day, overall.

  The throw had not hurt much, but Ethan had no intention of getting up right away.

  Come on.

  If your boss had just pnted you on the floor with a shoulder throw, and you immediately hopped back up and dusted yourself off, wouldn't that just be spping your boss in the face?

  This time Ivy had used martial skill.

  If he annoyed her again, next time she might use something far worse.

  So Ethan stayed still and observed the exchange between Ivy and Old Mug while waiting for the treant to finish packing the outpost equipment into a crate. Ivy, meanwhile, pulled out a savings card trimmed in gold and handed it over with grand ease. One hand took the money, the other passed over the goods. Ethan knew that was his signal to finally get off the floor.

  Being soaked through made Ivy deeply uncomfortable.

  She had still been annoyed, but for some reason, the moment she saw Ethan drifting toward the counter with suspiciously careful steps and silently taking the crate into his arms, her anger eased. The way his face and tiny movements gave away his thoughts almost made her ugh.

  Fortunately, she had been professionally trained.

  And fortunately, she was wearing a mask.

  Both helped.

  After being dropped into the sea, the first thing she had done upon arriving in Hearthbay was swim to shore in a freestyle sprint. Any pns she had originally made to show Ethan around had gone straight out the window. No proper dy wandered around in public with soaking wet clothes.

  The deck was even more crowded than expected.

  Some sudden commotion had drawn a ring of onlookers together. Arms folded, they stood around making comments, most of them openly enjoying the spectacle. Only a fool would attack a merchant on Lofik Consortium territory, after all. It was rare entertainment.

  Ethan spotted a familiar face in the crowd.

  The young man who had gotten tricked out of one gold lion by the beer scam looked even worse now. A pair of guards had him pinned by the shoulders, his face mashed ft against the deck. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was grimacing in pain, but against that kind of strength gap, there was nothing he could do.

  Ivy noticed where Ethan was looking.

  "You know him?"

  "Yeah. He's my teacher."

  "Your teacher?"

  Ivy blinked and took a closer look.

  The young man was masked too, so there was no clear view of his actual face.

  "Is he from Willowbrook?"

  "No idea. I don't know him."

  Ethan shook his head.

  "But he taught me, through personal example, just how dangerous Hearthbay really is."

  As the saying went, when three walk together, one of them is bound to be your teacher.

  They had never exchanged a single word, but Ethan had already accepted the young man as a teacher in spirit. If he had not witnessed what happened to him, Ethan might very well have wandered into a bookstore and ended up saddled with crushing debt over some occult texts.

  Ivy's eyelid twitched.

  Ethan's train of thought was not one normal people could be expected to follow.

  She privately concluded that he had probably spent so much time buried in occult research and dark-creature studies that his reasoning ability had been slightly warped by the influence of the Old Gods.

  "Good. Then stay here for a while and don't wander off. I need to go somewhere first."

  "Got it."

  Ethan set the heavy crate down and noticed Ivy carrying a bck cloth bag that gave off a cheerful clinking sound.

  There was a good chance it was full of gold lions.

  She headed straight for the captain's cabin, a pce guarded by sailors and security, and very clearly not accessible to free-to-py nobodies.

  Ethan wisely joined the crowd and watched the fun instead.

  Best not to pry into your superior's affairs.

  This sort of thing probably touched on the dark underbelly of the Empire, and it was healthier not to know.

  "You're still chasing her after all this time? You should probably let it go by now."

  That was the first thing Ivy heard when she pushed open the door.

  The captain had a deep voice, roughened by age and smoke.

  He was a man in his fifties with quite a bit of gray in his hair, wearing a white cloak. At the moment he had both hands braced against the table, looking down at a sea chart spread across it.

  Without even lifting his head, he said, "This is for your own good."

  Ivy kept her face hard and tossed a bag of gold lions onto the chart.

  That finally made the captain pause.

  He undid the cord at the mouth of the bag, and golden light spilled out from within. He weighed it in his hand for a moment, then said, "Looks like you haven't gone home in a while."

  "Do you want it or not?"

  The captain answered with action instead of words.

  He pulled open a drawer and dropped the full bag inside.

  "I only heard about it by chance from a friend. Sometime a little over a year ago, he had a customer. Distinct silver-white hair. Red eyes. She came in to buy some things. Parchment, pens, tools for recording magic. It looked like she intended to make a spellbook."

  "A spellbook?"

  Ivy fell into thought.

  "Why would she want to make a spellbook?"

  "That's beyond me."

  The captain finally looked up.

  "My friend doesn't like attention, and he likes testifying in court even less. Once you walk out that door, he expects this conversation to die in your stomach. Just mentioning it has already exposed him to considerable risk."

  "I understand."

  Ivy's voice was calm.

  "I was never here today."

  "Good."

  The whole conversation sted only a few minutes.

  When Ivy stepped back out of the captain's cabin, she tipped her head up and stared at the sky above Hearthbay, which was forever night, and let out a long breath.

  Midwinter had been here before.

  Once again, she had found traces left behind by the woman, and once again it felt like trying to chase a ghost.

  Still, after all this time, her investigation had finally made real progress.

  The motive remained unclear, but now she knew that during her time on the run, Midwinter had come to Hearthbay, bought the basic tools needed to create a spellbook, and had very likely left behind a major magical work.

  She had to find that book.

  It would be the strongest proof that the Midwinter Witch was still alive.

  And it would be evidence the Church could no longer ignore.