Denue was a short man with a grey beard. He wore a deep purple robe and held an ancient scepter encrusted with emeralds. The scepter was worth more than anything I had ever imagined owning. With a wave of his hand, the demon faded from view.

  He shook his head. “You lost the only heir to the throne?”

  Bree shrugged. “Well…”

  He gave another shake of his head and then motioned to us. “Okay, let’s go inside and talk about it.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Denue turned around and stepped through the wall. Gravis gave me a smirk and followed Logan and Bree into the wall. The sewers went dark without Logan’s wand. The water in my boots felt colder and I shuffled my feet cautiously forward through the blackness.

  I emerged in a well-lit room. The walls were covered with oak shelves laden with books. The marble floor was shiny and slick under my wet boots. Windows in the vaulted ceiling showed a blue sky. I couldn’t help but wonder, where in the world that blue sky might be. It wasn’t in Alcoa. Curiously, there were no visible exits to the room, not even from the direction I had stepped in from.

  “Let’s at least sit down while we figure out what you are going to do,” Denue said.

  Gravis sat on his left and Logan at his right. As I walked to the seat opposite of Denue, my boots made squishing sounds. Bree sat at my right side. Denue snapped his fingers and an imp popped into existence in front of us, bearing a teapot.

  “Tea anybody?”

  I shook my head no.

  “In all of Cantele, there probably is nobody with greater motive to kidnap Jacob Harzekle than the dubious Belizarre Khar. The feud between the Khar family and the Harzekle is ancient.” Denue barely took a breath between sentences. “Without other suspects, I think it would pay to start with him and see what you find.”

  Denue unrolled a large scroll onto the table. It was one of the city wards, as best I could tell. The map was old and had stains on it. Some of the ink was illegible.

  While the others were talking, I wondered what sort of reward one would get for rescuing an heir to the throne. I started having visions of retiring in a villa on the outskirts of Treffaren. Maybe I’d open an inn of my own. I could name something witty, like “The Good Knight Inn.”

  “Pearce?”

  Gravis was staring at me like he had said my name twice. Maybe he had.

  “Um… Yeah?”

  “Are you in?” Gravis asked.

  “I’m in.”

  Denue stood up. “Good, it’s settled.”

  When I stood up, Denue pointed at the rapier at my side. “How are you going to kill a blood sucker with that?”

  “A what?” I asked.

  He pulled a hand cannon from the folds of his robe. “Here, take this…” The barrel was about two feet long of polished iron and was heavy and awkward. The stock was wood with inlaid silver. Denue gave me a small pouch and hollowed out bull’s horn with a silver tip and a plug in it. “…and here are some shots and black powder.”

  “Just put a little powder in there and a shot, pull back the hammer, make sure aren’t pointing it at anybody you’d like to see again, and pull the trigger.”

  “Sounds easy.”

  Denue’s smile didn’t make me feel better. “Aim for the head and hope you take it clean off.”

  I nodded. “Got it. Aim for the head,” I repeated. “So, where are we going?”

  Gravis shook his head at me and turned to Denue. “Thanks for the advice. We’ll pay a visit to Belizarre.”

  Denue smiled at his daughter. “Little one, I want you to be careful. Belizarre and I have gone around and around for most of my life and neither of us have gotten the better of the other. You may not be his greatest enemy, but he very well could be yours.”