They were waiting for us outside.

  We had been happy to get away from the Banshee. Aerillis had been almost offensive, but I had a feeling that was due to her inflated opinion of herself. Granted, I wasn’t sure exactly how powerful she was, but that didn’t justify basically threatening others because you considered them weaker than yourself.

  I needed to come up with a way to deal with the supernatural. I’d studied swordsmanship more out of boredom than the need to defend myself. There were very few things that I couldn’t use my Sineater powers on, and with the rest of the crew always close, there’d never been a need to branch out.

  Now that I was traveling with Starna, I needed to be able to cover my own weaknesses. While the coin in my pocket provided us protection, without it, I’d have been completely reliant on Starna’s magic to protect us from the mage. I made a note to talk to Starna about that later, but right now I needed to focus on the group in front of us.

  There were two Dwarves, one younger and the other much older that were flanked by seven brown-skinned, blonde Elves, which were indicative of them being pure-blooded Ager. Most of them had white eyes, there was only one brown and one gold. The gold-eyed one looked very familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him.

  The gray-bearded Dwarf looked like he was trying to talk to the Ager, but those gold eyes were focused on the two of us. I thought about going back into the store for a moment. Aerillis would have to help us if I invoked the coin, but it felt like overkill for a problem like this. Though if things got out of hand, it was a decent back-up plan.

  “Doesn’t hunting down the mark yourself defeat the purpose of a bounty?” I touched my sword. No one had drawn a weapon yet, and I wasn’t going to give them an excuse to claim self defense.

  “Sectum Irongut and Starna Shellock!” The mage gestured at the powerless Elves, then pointed at us. “Surrender, so that you can stand trial before the Agate Senate for the murder of Lagrev Gratten and Vetal Lestal!” He smirked as he brought his hand down to the staff grip on his belt. “Come peacefully or I’ll bring in what’s left of you.”

  “Sirs..!” The older Dwarf began, but was silenced as the earth elementalist pulled on his shoulder. The gray-bearded Dwarf tried to resist, but was forcibly pulled back.

  “What is your obsession with me?” I rubbed my palm on the butt of the hilt of my short sword. “Lagrev Gratten and Vetal Lestal were both killed by a madman.” I shook my head. “And both of them were trying to help a traitor force my cousin into a marriage so he could steal the throne.” I paused for a moment to keep from losing my composure. “If anything, WE should be demanding reparations from YOU.”

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  “As you are not surrendering peacefully, we will detain you by force.” He unhooked his staff. The engraved stick extended to its full length. The dark brown wood began to give off just a little glow as the mage began charging up a spell.

  “STOP!” A rough Dwarven voice was followed by the sound of guards in heavy armor running down the street. It was later in the afternoon, so there were plenty of people staring at over a dozen Dwarves in full metal armor running down the street.

  The additional Dwarves seemed to increase the older Dwarf’s confidence. “Master Gratten, you have already been informed by our King that you are not to pursue vengeance against these two within our borders.” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure he had more power than the Elf. He seemed sure of himself when he turned back to the Mage. “You need to go back to your embassy with these soldiers.”

  The Ager looked like they wanted to argue, but if they tried to fight now, the Dwarves would be able to handle them even without my help.

  “This isn’t over.” The mage glared at me. “I will have revenge for you killing my father.” He spun on his heel, then stomped off. The other Elves fell in behind him, then the Dwarf guards followed after them.

  Once they had made it out of sight, the older Dwarf walked up to me. He wiped some sweat off his brow with the back of his hand as he looked up at me. “Sorry about that. I tried to stop them…”

  “It’s okay.” I patted him on the shoulder. “You were able to stop it before anything bad happened.” I looked over at Starna, who had been beside me the whole time. “You good?”

  “I wasn’t worried for a second.” Her tone told me that while she was confident that we would have won, she was worried about something.

  I turned back to the older Dwarf. “So.. Um, what was your name?”

  “Zanser Stormstone.” He puffed out his chest a little. “I’m the liaison to the Ager embassy here.” He looked up the street. “Finael Gratten isn’t even the ambassador here. He just flew in as soon as he heard the two of you were here and tried to get the King to arrest you. I’ve been trying to keep an eye on him, but there’s only so much an old Dwarf can do.”

  “You did a fantastic job of stopping a fight.” I smiled at him. “Though I’m a little concerned about them trying something tonight while we’re asleep.”

  Zanser pointed at the two guards that had stayed behind. “These lads are going to stay with you. They’ll post up outside your house tonight. We’ll have some fresh ones go with you when you leave in the morning.”

  “Okay…” I glanced at Starna. I wanted this to feel like a relaxing date for her, but it was hard to relax or focus on a date when you had a pair of Dwarves in full metal armor following you around. “I was planning on showing you the pier and how they ship everything over the waterfall in barrels, but given what just happened…” I took a deep breath. “Do you want to keep going?”

  I could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t enjoy the idea of having babysitters.

  She played with her hair and bit her lip while she weighed the options. “We should probably just head back to the house.”

  I nodded. It was the answer that I’d been expecting. While it cut the evening short, there were still a few things that we could do once we were alone inside the house.

  “I guess we’re going back.” I took Starna’s hand and started walking.

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