Lee returned to the table a minute or two after she left. She sat down across from Noah and licked her lips, her eyes darting to the half-eaten hot dog in it. Noah laughed and held it out, letting Lee snag her prize.

“Everything okay?” Noah asked. A thought struck him and he frowned. “Wait. Were you eating the wildlife again?”

“No,” Lee replied, drawing the word out and immediately looking completely and utterly guilty.

“Liar,” Noah laughed. “Aren’t these enough? How much food can you possibly eat?”

“I got hungry. But how did you know?”

“Your breath smelled a bit like blood.”

Lee paused, then sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. “Oh. Yeah, I ate a bit. It wasn’t that much.”

“Not someone’s cat, I hope.”

“Just another squirrel.” Lee shrugged. “You said I could have them all.”

I suppose I did say something like that. Eh. It’s not hurting anybody. I can’t think of a single instance where anyone actually wanted the squirrel population to be uncontrolled. They breed like rabbits.

“Fair enough.” Noah finished off the rest of his hot dog and leaned back, enjoying the cold, fresh air against his skin. There wasn’t anyone too close to them, so he was pretty sure they could talk freely so long as he didn’t say anything too dangerous. “I guess we should probably go shopping for Runes soon, huh?”

“That would be nice.” Lee chewed her lower lip for a second. “I’m a bit worried, though.”

“Worried? Why? You know I can just… well. You know.”

“Yeah. I’m more worried about the actual Rune,” Lee admitted. She looked down at the table and scratched the back of her hand. “What if it changes me?”

That’s right. Demons and monsters get directly affected by their Runes since their body and souls are so closely intertwined.

“You’re you,” Noah said, putting his hand on top of Lee’s. “No matter what your body changes to. Besides, it’s just your body, right? Not your mind?”

Lee nodded, but it took her a moment to do so. “Yeah. I think so.”

“You aren’t sure?”

“All I know is from what I heard back in the Da – uh, back home. And I really didn’t put that much thought into it at the time. It was just getting stronger, and that was never a bad thing.”

“No matter what happens, it’ll be fine,” Noah promised. “Moxie and I will be there for you, and if the worst comes to worst, I’ll - well, you know. I'll handle it.”

“What if I get changed so much that I don’t want to let you do it?”

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve got an infinite number of attempts to make sure I can. One of ‘em will work.”

Lee grinned, her mood instantly shooting back to its normal state. “Okay! I’ll hold you to that, though. I don’t want to end up like the others I’ve met. They’re all assholes.”

Somehow, I feel like that might be a dig at you, Azel.

Azel didn’t respond – not that Noah was complaining. They sat in the park for a few more minutes, just enjoying the atmosphere. Noah had fully planned to be eating for more than a minute, but the hot dogs hadn’t lasted quite as long as he’d expected.

“Should we go find Moxie and bring her some food?” Noah asked. “Maybe we can go shopping afterward.”

“Okay!” Lee bounced to her feet and Noah had to hurry to keep up with her as she shot out of the park and got back in line to get more hot dogs.

At least she doesn’t stay worried long. Either that, or she’s hiding it. From what I know of Lee… she’s probably hiding it.

She was doing a good job of it, but not quite enough to completely trick Noah. He knew her well enough to notice the slight droop in her hair. For anyone else, that would have just been the wind or a bad hair day.

But for Lee, whose entire body was completely under her control, it was pretty much the same as hunching her shoulders and kicking a rock down the street as she walked. But, fortunately, there was always a pretty surefire way to make Lee feel at least a little better pretty quickly.

Noah bought another ten hot dogs when they reached the front of the line, feeding all but four of them to Lee. And, sure enough, at least for the time being, it looked like the extra food had distracted her.

Hopefully we can buy those Runes and get Lee fixed up before she has to worry about this too much longer. From what I’ve learned by talking with Azel, Runes still affect humans like they do monsters, just to a much lesser degree since our minds are more separate from our bodies.

If that’s true, something as powerful as Sunder or the Fragment of Renewal should have changed the way I approach things significantly, and I don’t think they have. That should mean that Lee’s safe – but I don’t want to give her false promises. It’s better that she just knows we’ll be there to help her out should anything go wrong. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Noah remained largely lost in thoughts for the rest of the trip back to the T building. He headed up the stairs alongside Lee, stopping automatically as he reached his room. He shifted the hot dogs to one hand, awkwardly cradling them as he dug through his pocket for his room key and unlocked the door.

“Aren’t we going to Moxie’s room?” Lee asked – but Noah had already opened the door.

Contessa and Karina stood above a dead woman in dark clothes. There was a dagger protruding from the back of her head. They both froze, staring at Noah like deer in the headlights of an approaching truck.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Contessa said.

“It was an assassin,” Karina added hurriedly. “I told you they’d come! Jalen is sending them. You have to believe–”

Noah grunted. “Want a hot dog?”

They both blinked.

“What?” Contessa asked warily.

“Hot dog,” Noah said, holding the hot dogs cradled in his arm out.

Contessa and Karina exchanged a glance.

“You’re… not mad about the corpse in your room?”

“Wouldn’t be the first one.”

A second passed. Contessa looked like she was trying to tell if Noah was joking or not, but she quickly gave the idea up and shrugged. She took a hot dog from Noah.

“Thanks. Why is it called a hot dog? Is there dog in it?”

“No. It’s just a name. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you really going to gloss over the line about this not being the first corpse here?” Karina demanded.

Contessa sent her a flat stare. “Yes.”

Karina looked back to the body, then over to the hot dogs in Noah’s arms. She took a hot dog.

“Sorry about the intrusion,” Noah said. “I kind of forgot I wasn’t in this room anymore. Was the assassin difficult to fight?”

“Rank three,” Contessa said. “She wasn’t very competent, though. She wasn’t expecting me to be here, so we had the upper hand. Are you expecting more assassins? I don’t know how many we can repel before one gets lucky. Are you sure it’s wise to ignore this?”

Noah let out a sigh and pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t know. I’m not really worried myself, but if it keeps happening, it might get annoying. Karina, did Jalen say if he’d give up at any point?”

“When you met with him.”

“Ah. Well, I’m not going to the Linwick Estate. Can you contact him or something?”

Karina shook her head again.

“Then sucks for him. He can keep sending assassins. Can’t we report this to Arbitage or something? Attacks should be illegal on neutral ground, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You could,” Contessa said slowly. “But that would almost certainly piss Jalen off. If you think assassins are bad, I don’t want to imagine what the head of a family would do to getting snubbed.”

“What am I supposed to do then?”

“Offer a different meeting location?” Contessa offered. “If he doesn’t want to come to Arbitage, maybe you could offer another neutral ground. That would be seen as compromise.”

“I don’t think the head of a family ever needs to compromise,” Karina muttered.

“He does if he wants to meet with me,” Noah said. He sent another look at the assassin, then sighed. Having a bunch of people constantly coming for his head was just mildly annoying, but if they ever went after someone he cared about… Noah’s lips pressed together as a spark of anger lit in his chest.

I’m going to need to have a talk with Jalen. If his assassins are so sloppy that they’re running into people other than me, then either he just doesn’t respect Arbitage’s neutral ground or is an idiot. Regardless of the reason, I can’t let anyone get caught up in this.

“Could you let me know the next time you run into an assassin?” Noah asked. “If possible, I’d like to try to catch them alive so I can have a talk with them.”

“We can try,” Contessa said. “I’m not going to kill myself trying to take them alive, if that’s fine with you.”

“By all means. Don’t die for it, but just see what you can do,” Noah said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then sighed. “Ask Mascot for help if he’s still hanging around you. I suspect he’ll be more useful than you think.”

“The cat?” Karina asked, staring at Noah. “How is a cat–”

“Don’t question it.” Contessa put a hand on Karina’s shoulder and shook her head. “You’ll see.”

Karina frowned, then shrugged. “Okay, if you’re sure. We really need to get rid of this body, though. I don’t want to get caught lugging it around.”

“Can I have it?” Lee asked.

“What do you want with–”

Lee didn’t wait for them to respond. She pulled the dagger out of the dead assassin and leaned over, grabbing the woman and devouring her in a single bite. Karina and Contessa both paled and averted their gazes as the sound of crunching bone filled the room.

“Don’t ask,” Noah said, reading the question in Contessa’s eyes. “In fact, I highly suggest you forget it. You’re seeing this because Lee thinks you’re on our side. I don’t recommend doing anything that would ever change her mind.”

Lee burped. “Can I have another hotdog?”

“No, these are for Moxie. You’ve eaten enough. If you have your way, you’ll make me spend all my money before we can go shopping,” Noah shook his head, only half joking. “Sorry for the interruption, ladies. Let’s go find Moxie, Lee.”

As Noah turned to leave the room, he remembered something that Karina had mentioned some time ago, when they’d first met. He looked back at his former fiancée and she swallowed nervously.

“What?” Karina asked.

“I just recalled you once spoke about an auction available only to you,” Noah said. “Would that happen to have a better selection of Runes than what we could find for sale normally?”

“Yes, but the one I was talking about passed,” Karina said. “It was a few weeks ago.”

“When’s the next one?”

“It should be another two weeks.”

Noah scrunched his nose in annoyance. It wasn’t like two weeks was all that long, but he would have preferred something closer. He supposed they could always go shopping now and then hit the auction later, but it would have been nicer to do it in the other order.

“Actually, there might be something.” Contessa cleared her throat as they all looked to her. “It’s a noble auction, not a Linwick Estate specific one. They’re long-running auctions, so new things show up and get sold every day for a week or two.”

“Color me interested. When does it happen?”

“It’s already going on,” Contessa replied. “At least, it should be. I couldn’t go this year because I don’t have Evergreen’s backing anymore, but she used to always have me visit to see if there was anything of interest.”

“You need backing to get in?”

“It’s a noble auction, so yes. They won’t just let anyone in.”

Noah’s eyes drifted to Karina. “What about you?”

“I… could probably get in,” Karina allowed. “I didn’t know there was an auction in Arbitage, though.”

“Evidently you weren’t very high up in your family,” Contessa said, a flicker of her former self emerging in a small smirk. It faded away as quickly as it had come and she looked to the side. “Not like I was either.”

“Can you find out where the auction is being held? If Karina can get us in, that would be pretty useful.”

Karina hesitated for a moment. Noah got the feeling she was probably thinking something along the lines of what do I get for it, but she ended up settling for giving him a curt nod.

“Thanks. Much appreciated,” Noah said. With that, he and Lee headed out to find Moxie before their hotdogs got cold.