K?spar leans over the snow-covered railing of the bridge, looking out over the frozen Lun?r River. A beautiful scene: the white rolling hills with the occasional pillar of smoke billowing from the chimney of a cottage buried within them, all to frame what is visible of the Crown behind it.

  Yawning, he rubs his gloved hands together and checks his watch, 12:15—Estynn is late. He should have brought his book with him, though the snow would have made reading difficult.

  “Sn?wynn.” Estynn says from the approach closest to the town.

  Turning, K?spar sees Estynn, who is joined by three men, all of whom are smaller than their leader. The group looks relatively relaxed. K?spar walks over to them.

  “I’m surprised you came.” Estynn still has a feeling that Sn?wynn is working for Mar?l; now seeing that Sn?wynn has shown up to meet him, it has diminished slightly.

  “Why would I wait outside of a temple for four days and not show up to meet you on a bridge?” K?spar looks directly into the eyes of each of Estynn’s friends as he sizes them up, each of them fidgeting slightly as if his glare is making them uncomfortable. “So why did you want me to meet you here?” If Estynn had only set up this meeting so he could attempt to kill K?spar, he should have brought better men—these will flee at the sight of blood; you can tell a recruit by how they carry themselves.

  “Because I want you to do something for me.” Estynn says.

  “And what would that be?” K?spar says with a chuckle, stopping just shy of arm's reach from Estynn.

  “I want you to kidnap Mar?l Humel’s daughter.”

  This request was significantly more extreme than what K?spar was expecting. He was aware Estynn had enough of a presence in Styd?n to keep Mar?l away from his sister with threats alone and to have some sort of influence over prostitutes; either K?spar had underestimated how much play Estynn has in the city, or he was delusional. “Why?”

  “If you want to work with me, that is what I want you to do.” Estynn crosses his arms.

  “No.” K?spar’s voice is stern. “Why do you want his daughter?” If Gekaryna did not specifically ask K?spar to befriend Estynn in hopes of placing him in charge of Styd?n—K?spar would kill him if his reason was not to his liking.

  “Ransom... more so a trade; we want the guards' patrol times.” Estynn says confidently.

  K?spar gives Estynn a confused look. “You want me to kidnap his daughter so he can give you the guards' patrol times?”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Yes?” Estynn’s voice lacks the confidence it just had; he’s not used to getting pushback on his ideas.

  “You can get patrol times with a watch and a pen and paper. Someone’s daughter is worth far more than that.” K?spar runs a hand down his face. “Why do you want the patrol times?”

  “So we can smuggle food in with less effort.” Judging by Sn?wynn’s reaction, Estynn gets the feeling that Sn?wynn is more experienced in this field than he initially assumed.

  K?spar nods; a noble cause. The woman he had spoken to on his last visit had mentioned something about the price of food being affected since the death of W?rner Koeh-Styer. “How are you going about doing this?”

  “We are...” Estynn stops himself, still skeptical.

  “Just tell me.” K?spar insists. “If I were with Mar?l, I would have told you how brilliant an idea it was to trade his daughter for patrol times.”

  Estynn, with a sigh, continues. “We extorted farmers and harvest assessors, getting them to lie about yields for grain. Once the tithes have been taken, we are going to take the excess from the farmers and smuggle it into Styd?n and sell it for a slight profit among the poor.”

  K?spar sucks his teeth. “Have the tithes been collected here yet?”

  “No, it's on the 1st of the next maiden.” Estynn responds with a shake of his head.

  “I’m assuming you didn’t do this the previous year?” K?spar knows Estynn had not tried this grain scheme last year; he would have already been on the block.

  “No.”

  “Alright. You don’t want to trade the daughter for anything; you want to use her as a way to force Mar?l to sign off personally on the faked yield numbers. If the tithes aren’t deemed accurate at the top, and they send someone to check with the farmers, the farmers will just come clean knowing that those extorting them will be prosecuted.” K?spar pauses, looking at Estynn. “Do you understand?”

  Estynn and his group nod.

  “Good. Now, tell me about this daughter, everything you know: routines, friends, interests, age, everything.”

  Estynn looks away from Sn?wynn and swallows. “Well.”

  With a groan, K?spar rubs the bridge of his nose. Estynn and his group are starting to seem less like a gang of criminals and more like a gang of fools.

  “We haven’t started scouting yet. I figured it would be best to move quickly closer to the day the tithes are to be collected, when people are distracted.” Estynn had—on many occasions when he was younger—greatly disappointed his father; he recognizes Sn?wynn’s expression.

  “How long have you been doing this? this criminal thing?” K?spar asks, hoping Estynn is just inexperienced and not as dumb as he seems.

  “Maybe two years; we started shortly after ?lehra crossed the veil.”

  “Do you work out of the temple?” Estynn's answer comes as a relief to K?spar.

  “Sort of. Until now we have been lending money and extorting people over it, with the interest going to the temple.”

  K?spar nods; Estynn’s na?ve and inexperienced, but his heart is in the right place. “Do you at least know where the Humels live? I hope you're not asking me to kidnap someone who lives in the castle.”

  “The daughter, Myr, and her mother, whose name I do not know, live in Conyhyl, about an hour’s ride west of here. Mar?l visits once every two weeks, staying for three days.” Estynn feels stupid about not having any information about Myr other than this, though he hopes what he knows about Mar?l from when they firebombed his house helps.

  “Where do I bring Myr? Do you have a place you work out of?”

  “Follow me, we’ll show you.” Estynn turns, gesturing for Snawynn to follow.