Chapter 5: Part 7 - Good Luck With Thieves

After days of frenetic activity, the guild hall had fallen eerily quiet. Oska was gone, of course, chasing Spark’s trail into the depths of Ascalon. Erin had tasked Marissa, Roan, Jean, and Caolinn to go after him. She was certain they had enough experience to handle Spark, especially Caolinn, who’d worked with the charr years before Light’s Memory formed.

All Erin had to do now was secure the guild hall, liaise with Darr, and then she and Amber would follow them into the field.

Except Amber was on her way out of the door when Erin returned to the main hall. “I’ve received a security alert,” she said. “Probably nothing to worry about. Rata Sum’s wiring plays havoc with my sensors.”

Erin nodded as though she had the faintest idea what the asura was talking about.

Amber flashed a grin. “Flikk’s workshop, of course. The rest of Rata Sum can take care of itself. I’ll meet you in Ascalon. You’re not deciding what to do with Spark without me.”

“Fair enough,” Erin agreed. There would be a decision to be made. She was sure Oska wouldn’t actually kill Spark. Well, fairly sure.

Amber swept out of the guild hall and Erin returned to her tasks. She itched to be out in Ascalon, apprehending Spark herself, but it was the aftermath that worried her more. What were they going to do with Spark? Would the Black Citadel take her? Would anyone there even consider her actions a crime?

They had a single good cell in the rebuilt guild hall, at least. That would have to do for the time being. Erin gave it a final check, retrieved her rucksack, and said goodbye to Darr ‒ only to find Amber standing in the middle of the guild hall.

“What happened to Ascalon?” Erin asked uneasily. The asura couldn’t have been gone more than an hour. She could have reached Rata Sum in that time easily enough, but why return so soon?

“Someone broke into the workshop,” Amber said flatly, throwing a dagger and a pistol onto Ivar’s workbench and beginning to clean them with furious precision. “They even disabled the golem.”

That had to be the security golem of Amber’s own design, which she’d refined using the work she’d done with Flikk years before. “Did they do much damage?” Erin asked.

“It’s not the damage I’m worried about.” Amber’s hands fell still and she finally looked Erin in the eye. “Souleater. It’s gone.”

Some piece of Erin’s world broke free of its moorings, tipped upside-down, and reasserted itself. “That’s impossible.”

“We thought it was impossible,” Amber said, with evident frustration. “But whoever got in was damned clever. I only knew they’d gained entry because my own golem tripped one of the motion sensors.”

Erin’s world continued to spin. It wasn’t just that the workshop had been well-guarded. No one was supposed to know Souleater was in there. There was an extremely small list of people who even knew it still existed.

“Souleater was disassembled,” Amber went on. “Your average thief wouldn’t be able to put it back together without outside help.”

“But you don’t think this was an ‘average thief’.”

Amber grimaced. “Spark gave me that rifle for safekeeping, but we were allies then. Don’t you think she’s decided to take it back?”

That was, all told, the likeliest explanation. Spark’s affiliation with Light’s Memory had fallen apart quite spectacularly. Erin wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’d decided to reclaim her most savage weapon.

Which meant first Oska, and now half the guild, were walking into a trap.

“Send a messenger bird to Caolinn,” Erin ordered. “I’ll send one to Oska myself.”

“We might be too late,” Amber said, but she was already rummaging for paper in the workbench. “Oska might not read it, if the messenger bird even gets to him.”

“He might not.”

“And if he reads it, he might not pay any attention.”

Once, Erin would have feared that herself. Oska was both older and wiser than he had been when he’d joined Light’s Memory, though. He knew how to follow orders. He even knew when to retreat. “He’ll listen,” Erin said. “But if you have a better suggestion, I’m all ears.”

Amber, it seemed, didn’t have one. They both scribbled their notes with equal quickness and sent them winging away. When it was done, Erin sank back onto a stool.

Amber looked up from where she was stuffing weapons and supplies into a pack. “Don’t tell me you’re staying here.”

Erin paused long enough to take a deep breath and let it out again. “You said it yourself: we’re probably too late to do any good in person. Better if we wait here for news.”

Amber shook her head, her movements slowing. “You’ve given up. You think Oska is already dead.”

“No. That’s the opposite of what I think.” Erin took another breath. “I sent Oska after Spark because I thought he could handle her ‒ and if he can’t, he’s smart enough to grab Auri and flee. Souleater doesn’t change that.”

“Souleater changes a lot of things,” Amber said, but she put her pack down. “We should be there. It’s our mess that needs cleaning up.”

“We’ll deal with Spark when the time is right,” Erin said grimly. “But right now… We have to trust them, Amber. All these guild members we’ve assembled… We have to trust them to think and act for themselves.”

“Even Oska?”

“Especially Oska. The longer we treat him like a child, the longer he’ll act like one.”

Amber stared at her pack a moment longer, then hopped up to sit beside it on the workbench. “He was the only one who believed in you, wasn’t he? When I was gone and the guild was falling apart.”

Erin nodded. “He was. And now, I have to believe in him just as strongly. We’ve sent him back-up. The rest is up to him.”

That didn’t make the waiting any less torturous. Rather than get up, Erin began tidying the workbench’s drawers, whilst Amber fidgeted and paced, and finally disappeared into a back room to strike up an argument with Darr.

Only half an hour later ‒ though it felt like days ‒ Erin heard the frantic flapping of wings outside the main door. She hurried to open it, allowing a messenger bird to swoop inside. It delivered its message into Amber’s outstretched hand and was gone again.

Amber ripped the letter open. Her sigh of relief filled the room. “It’s Caolinn. They found Oska, Auri, and Ruby on the road back to the Black Citadel. They’re all unharmed.”

“Ruby too, eh?” Erin raised an eyebrow. “But no Spark?”

“There’s no mention of her. Fled, I suppose.”

“Then we’ll deal with her later. Let’s just get the guild back together.”

Amber rolled the letter back up and looked at Erin with a crooked smile. “You were right to trust that little thief of yours.”

Erin returned the smile. “I have good luck with thieves, you know. They’ve never done me wrong.”

“Haven’t we?” Amber shot back. “We must not have been trying hard enough.”

Erin’s laugh was cut short by a furious knocking on the door. She went to it without thinking and only realised as she was reaching for the handle that no one in Light’s Memory would have bothered to knock.

The figure on the threshold was small and bedraggled, almost hidden beneath an enormous hooded cape. The pinched face that peered out of its shadows was instantly familiar.

“Vasha.” Erin folded her arms. “If you’ve come to bargain on Artair’s behalf, I’ll call the Lionguard on you right now.”

There was no defiance in Vasha’s expression. Instead, she looked scared. “Can I come in?”

Erin hesitated a moment, then stepped back. Spirits knew what Jean saw in the girl, but he believed in her. Perhaps all she needed was a chance.

Vasha stepped past Erin and visibly flinched as the door clicked shut. For a moment, she looked like she wanted to flee. Perhaps she would have done if Erin and Amber hadn’t stood on either side of her.

“Well?” Erin prompted. “Spit it out.”

Vasha turned a full circle, surveying the nearly empty guild hall ‒ and then her huge eyes fixed on Erin. The look in them was so haunted that Erin almost shivered. “I need… I need you to help me,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”