"You're really going to do it, huh?"

  "A deal is a deal, even if it sucks."

  "You don't have to accept it. You can let me..."

  "What suck up all my blood and then I try to replace it all with with yours? We're not compatible."

  I knew it. Even if our blood wasn't compatible, we were. I was going to have to figure this out. "Give me your hand."

  He relented. His blood was delicious but also... not what I wanted. I wasn't going to spill any of it but I could sense it below the surface. "This wasn't what I expected. What did they do?"

  "It's dark magic."

  I shrugged. "Dark how? Classic dark? A dark roast? Just edgy?"

  "Pardon, I forgot that you were born with magic. Usually I have to explain that different branches of magic and everything. This is a memetic spell and I thought I was rid of it."

  It was another human concept I was unfamiliar with. I might be able to use my magic on him but he had to agree to it. He for his part had to let me do what I was going to do. Otherwise he was going to die pretty soon. Even still I could see that it wasn't something I could deal with.

  He really would have to lose all of his blood in order for me to get anything out of this. Not that I was Keen to do that. I liked him with his blood inside of them. This didn't hold true for all men or all males but this one was special.

  I gave him back his arm. He took it back slowly. It was almost reluctant the way that he took back.

  He noticed me noticing. I had to hide my smile.

  "All right. So what are we going to do about this? What did they ask you to do?"

  "I'm guessing that there's somebody they want to not make it through the parapet or something. This is always a weird time because I want to save them all. They all volunteered for this but we lose so many on that first day. It's just nonsensical."

  "That's the normal course of action?"

  "It's..." He gritted his teeth. "It's tradition."

  Tradition was one of the worst things you could say about the FAE. There's so many traditions that everyone had to adhere to or so many opinions about those traditions that they followed through with. Entire civilizations were just ways to propagate traditions for us, or at least that's what it felt like sometimes.

  But to me? Traditions were a thing that you let go.

  Traditions were pressure from old dead males, the old Kings trying to keep their legacies going. Going. Didn't add me value to my life. No idea to help but anything else except to make our lives more complex.

  A good blood rate was an experience, but in the end it was just an extended tradition with extra steps. Cleaning one up was the least I could do.

  "Look you seem like you are in over your head. I understand you're a decorated military veteran, something or other. But blood magic? I practice it out of necessity not for fun."

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He knew it. I knew he knew it. It was one of those things you needed me to talk about. I knew what I could do. I knew what he could do. He was weak with magic but at least he had muscles. I could deal with that. I could not deal with him having to submit to somebody else.

  I had my priorities. Now, I just needed to establish his. It was going to take some answers.

  "When."

  "I'm going to have to find a calendar. I wasn't counting on this. I thought I had more time."

  "Everyone thinks that they have more time but you're alive now. Let's talk with Vivian and Stuart and maybe we can make it through this."

  They had access to other magic.

  "No this is my job. I don't want to drag them into this."

  "It's not even about that. I need you to think. What are you going to do by yourself." I drew in really close. "Take the damn help. You were like this when we were out in the open sea."

  "I was fine."

  "You were going to sink. There were several cracks. Don't think I didn't check your so called boat."

  "I never said I was a sailor."

  "You never had to. And not to be overly pedantic but a man of your age should not be sailing away on a solo voyage."

  I could see that we were at a bit of an impasse. I cleared my throat. The boat took that opportunity to rock, pushing us together. I flew forward and was instantly stopped by his gentle hands.

  I was supposed to be mad, damn it. Contract assassins were not supposed to be so soft and cuddly!

  I released my hold on his arms.

  It was curious how much I didn't want to invest myself into this but I was intrigued. If I could learn how humans worked with aether and combine that with my skills? That would be a lovely addition to my skills. Now I just needed a way to get it all together.

  Stuart took that time to announce that the dinner he had prepared for us was finally back. I could smell the deliciously prepared salmon through the paper holding it. I tore the packet open. The perfectly cooked chunks were delightful and gone too soon. Stuart held out a lemon and I sucked up some of that as well.

  "I've never seen anyone inhale a fish," Stuart said. "Until I met you. I'm so proud."

  Martin was still working through his unwrapping. If there's one thing I could understand it was being inefficient with your time around food. I wanted to already do that for him but he did not think that he would be able to handle it.

  This really wasn't my problem. It was adorable how slowly he moved. No, I wasn't irritated at all.

  Humans were adorable little flames. I could use some heat.

  ---

  "So we need to figure out how to find this professor and warn them?" Vivian said.

  In the deep recesses of the ship we were discussing this like fae folk. The order of the day was a long drawn-out discussion about the finer points of whether we should even intervene in human society. To the extent that Martin was our guest, he wasn't a member of the blood maidens company.

  "Is this going to conflict with our duties?" I turned to Stuart.

  "Not in the slightest. In fact out duties will make this easier since we can cover it up."

  "In a sense," Vivian said.

  Stuart nodded. "In a sense of course. If their goal to have a specific Noble die during this event by virtue of a specific professor not paying attention, then maybe we should figure out exactly who this noble is and do an end run around."

  Martin held up his wine glass. "It's not so easy. The young man in question is a counts son. If he disappears then there will be questions. That is unless he disappears during the parapet. A count is too powerful of a noble to have on the other side, especially the count that is nominally in charge of this region."

  I racked my brain. "Isn't some duke in charge here?"

  "The Duke Royke is in charge, yes but that's because his holdings are here. The count is his agent in the city and surrounding farmland and towns. This is a far cry from all of the duchy."

  I had to think about this line for succession.

  "And the Duke he reports to some monarch?" Stuart said. "King? Queen? It's a King right?"

  Martin nodded. "Last I checked. The king lives in the capital, which is another layer to this but he is often absent as of late."

  I did need to think about how dated this information was. He'd been out in the open ocean for weeks. Our journey back had taken almost a month. Unless he had some sort of information at work that was feeding him information, I doubted that he was going to have anything current.

  "Well do you know somebody that can give us a read on the current political situation," Stuart said. "If we don't know that then we should probably consider this a human matter."

  Martin chuckled. "I know a man."