"I'm glad you're not still in jail," said Dougal, realizing that this was the first time he'd thought about Killeen since they had been arrested.
"I spent the night there, and then a pleasant human with a mustache asked me questions, and I answered them, and they let me go." She sipped the ale again.
Dougal thought about what Lieutenant Groban had said about one of their group confessing. "You?" he managed. "You told him?"
"Of course. I told him about Clagg and Breaker and you and Gyda and where Blimm's tomb was and where you hid the gem by the entrance," she said. "They had forgotten about Blimm's tomb and were happy I told them where to find it. That's something that is strange to me: I hadn't thought about it before, that knowledge can die. It makes sense, when you think about it: someone who knows something dies without telling anyone else, then the knowledge is lost. But, to a sylvari, it is odd."
Killeen did not notice that Dougal was now cradling his face in his hands and that Riona was chuckling. "So," began Dougal, "you told them where I hid the gem…"
"Yes," said Killeen, smiling. "Honesty works out best, I find." At this, Riona actually laughed. "And that reminds me," the sylvari said, reaching for her pouch. "I wanted to give you this."
She produced a small object wrapped in a lace handkerchief, about the size of an asura's fist. It thunked heavily on the table. Dougal picked it up, and a flash of red crystal flared in the late-afternoon sun.
"Nice," said Riona, catching a glimpse as well. "Looks just like the type of thing you would risk your life for. Not magical, is it?"
Dougal pushed the entire gem in his pocket, handkerchief and all. "I'm confused," he said, shaking his head. "You just told me-"
"That I told our jailers where you hid the gem," said Killeen. "I didn't say anything about where I hid it afterwards…"
"Where you…" The pieces of the puzzle fit together in his mind. "I see. When you climbed up my back…"
"I pulled the gem from where you put it and moved it further up, and quickly sealed it up inside a skull for good measure. When I saw you leaving the jail, I went and retrieved it."
Now it was Dougal's turn to laugh. Killeen leaned across the table and, in a conspiratorial tone, said, "So, what is the new job? Is it dragons?"
Riona shook her head. "I'm sorry, Killeen of the Night, but this is a private matter between me and-"
"Ascalon City," interrupted Dougal, ignoring Riona's glare. "She wants me to go to Ascalon City for the Vigil. She won't tell me why yet."
Killeen leaned back and put her palms together. "Ascalon City is in the center of charr territory, and filled with ghosts."
"I know," said Dougal, "I've been there."
Killeen blinked in surprise. "I didn't know," she said, and was silent for a moment.
Dougal felt compelled to add, "It did not work out well," and looked at Riona. For the first time Riona nodded in agreement, her mouth a tight line.
Killeen looked up and said, "All right. Count me in."
Riona looked up in shock and stammered, "I'm sorry, that's impossible."
"Why?" said Killeen. "You're taking him." She motioned at Dougal with the glass and Dougal felt vaguely insulted.
"Ascalon City is filled with ghosts…" Riona began, repeating Killeen's words as if explaining something to a child.
"She's a necromancer," said Dougal. "That argument doesn't have a lot of traction."
"Indeed, Riona Grady of the Vigil," said Killeen. "My people are less than twenty-five years old. None of us have died, save by violence, poison, and disease. We don't know much about what it is like to die. I find the dead, and the undead-and ghosts and everything similar-to be fascinating. If you are going to Ascalon City, I am in."
Riona looked at Dougal, who smiled. "You should have heard her in the crypts," said Dougal. "She was practically poetic."
"I'm sorry," said Riona, spreading her fingers out toward Killeen, "that's just impossible."
"She's in," said Dougal.
Riona goggled at him, an angry color returning to her cheeks. "You don't get to decide."
"Of course I get to decide," said Dougal. "If she doesn't go, I don't come to Lion's Arch. You march me back to Captain Logan Thackeray and his Lieutenant Groban and I spend the next few years repairing docks on Lake Doric. Which, you might think, is poetic justice. And you get to go back to the Vigil and explain how you let the one man who's been to Ascalon City and lived to tell the tale get away, and your entire plan, whatever it is, falls apart." Dougal leaned back on his bench. "Your choice."
Riona was flush with rage now, and for a moment Dougal feared that he had pushed her too far. The new sins were quickly overwhelming the old. She choked out a few words and, glaring at Dougal, finished her ale in a single pull.
"Fine," she said. "Killeen, born of the Cycle of Night, would you care to join us, at least as far as Lion's Arch?"
"I'd be honored," said Killeen.
"Good," said Dougal. "And, in return, the answer is yes."
"Yes?" said Riona.
"I promise not to run when I find out what you really want," said Dougal. "At least until we get to Lion's Arch."
The next morning Dougal surveyed the contents of his life, spread out across his bed. The moleskin pouch containing his tools: picks, wrenches, flats, hooks, and skeleton keys. His knife. The few crumpled and tattered notes he had made about Blimm's tomb. A change of clothes, including a warm cloak, suitable for sleeping in. A new sword, human-made and rough, inside a fine old scabbard, looted from some ruined temple in the Caledon Forest. And the Golem's Eye, still bound in Killeen's handkerchief.
Dougal packed light, as always. Everything he owned fit into the worn leather backpack that he'd had with him since his youth in Ebonhawke. After his mother had died here in Divinity's Reach, he'd gone to live with his father in the last human outpost in Ascalon, and his aunt Brinna had given him the pack to carry his belongings in. The backpack had long outlived everyone else in his family and proved trustier than any friend.
The night before had been restless and his dreams were plagued with the faces of the dead. Even while he packed, Dougal still considered the merits of bolting. All he would have to do was not meet Riona in front of Uzolan's Mechanical Orchestra, as they had agreed. All he had to do was slip out the front gates, or even hide elsewhere in the city, perhaps go to ground in the Canthan district, where she didn't know anyone. If he ran, he knew that Riona would never find him-at least, not in time. Turn left instead of right when he left his quarters, and he would be gone.
He had buried Ascalon City deep, intent on never returning. Indeed, who would want to go there? The city was wrecked, first by the Searing, then by the Foefire, its inhabitants reduced to ghosts, its walls surrounded by extremely possessive charr.
And yet, he could feel the tug. Of failure. Of the price paid. Of things left undone.
Dougal reached into his shirt, fished out the locket, and looked at it for a long time. He carefully undid the clasp that opened it to reveal a cameo, ivory set against jet, of Vala in profile. Its twin, the one with his portrait, jet on ivory, was lost in Ascalon, along with everything else.
Dougal replaced the locket and carefully packed his gear in the battered backpack, and when he left the building, he turned right, toward the meeting with Riona. A low, thin mist still clung to the streets where the sun had not yet arrived to burn it off.
Both Riona and Killeen were waiting for him at the feet of Uzolan's Mechanical Orchestra, a frozen explosion of giant hornbells at one end of the festival grounds. It was early, and the orchestra had yet to be activated; its silence left the permanent carnival with an empty, lonely feeling. Bits of excelsior and other debris littered the pavement, and a few workers, fitted with the heavy leather collars of criminals, swept the remains of the previous celebration into larger piles.