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“I need to call in a favor,” Rion said. She was bracketed by the Ladies’ Court, disarmed except for her glower.
“Good evening,” Nine-Fingers Keene replied, not glancing up from the papers spread across her desk. “Did we have an appointment?”
Rion only didn’t roll her eyes by sheer force of will. The Guild was just as bad as Harpers with the bloody posturing.
“No,” she managed, through gritted teeth. “This is new business.” Keene finally glanced up, arching an eyebrow.
“Now, ‘business’ is a word I like to hear,” she said. “Much preferable to ‘favor’. I assure you, the Guild owes very few favors and we are painfully aware of each one.”
“Well,” Rion said, jerking her chin at the door. “There’s no Zhents out there, and you’re not dead.” Keene’s eyes sharpened as she folded up and put away whatever political intrigue she was drafting.
“That is not your favor to call in, cub,” Keene said. “And I’m nearly certain the former High Harper wouldn’t send her beloved ward to do her dirty work.” Rion had known the Guildmaster would know who she was, but the depth of her knowledge was still unsettling. She shifted her weight uncomfortably. Keene glanced at Lady Croup, whose hands danced in Thieves’ Cant sign, too quick to follow.
“Fuck,” Keene said after a second, and for a moment something genuine cracked through the sardonic mask. “Jaheira’s missing, isn’t she?”
“Help me find her,” Rion said, giving her a smile with too many teeth, “And we can kill her ourselves.”
Jaheira was cold. She was cold, and tired, and her joints ached. The uneven stone floor beneath her dug into her ribs as she moved, trying to curl in on herself for warmth.
Something was wrong. Her thinking was slow, muddled. She forced her eyes open, saw the world sideways for a moment before her brain caught up to the angle of her head.
A cage, metal bars set into stone. Her laugh was jagged and unexpected, forcing its way out of her raw throat.
“How original,” she rasped.
“Don’t you like it?” A voice said, smooth and smug. It was distantly familiar, but she could not place it. She tried to raise her head, squinting at the blur of fabric and skin beyond the bars.
She was supposed to be home by now.
She tried to push the thought down quickly, tuck it out of reach of any truth serum or detection spell. But it hurt, the deep and familiar guilt of another failure. She had promised Rion that they’d figure something out. She had been doing better. But something had gone wrong. When had she called last?
“I need your attention, Harper,” the voice snapped, and Jaheira’s body strained against the pain and exhaustion to bring her to her feet. She felt her hand curl into the familiar salute before her brain finally noticed the Command spell to explain it.
“Perhaps you have not heard,” she said. “I am retired.” The compulsion to stand faded and she stumbled, catching herself against the bars. A sharp chill radiated from them, and she snatched her hand back.
“Oh, yes, giving up the good fight to take care of your street rats,” the voice sneered. “I’m sure that’s what you tell people. But I know you too well for that, Harper.” She forced a deep breath, which brought a sharp pain in her right shoulder into focus. She glanced down at a blood-stained rag, already coming unwrapped.
“I could focus better on this fascinating conversation,” she started, and had to stop to take a breath. “If you stopped drugging me.”
“Ha!” the voice scoffed. A man in a cowled robe loomed out of the unsteady darkness and glared at her through the bars of the cage. “Those drugs are keeping your magic out of reach, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m not liable to stop them now.”
She frowned. Had she forgotten? There was something else, something important to remember.
She was supposed to call. She was supposed to be home by now.
The world tilted dizzily, and blood dripped from her wrist onto the floor.
Jaheira stumbled to the corner of the cell and threw up.
“At this point, half the city must be built on tunnels,” Rion scoffed as their footsteps echoed off the gritty stone around them.
“Why me?” Keene asked. She’d sent Lady Lockjaw skulking ahead to look for tracks, and Lady Ague trailed behind them with affected disinterest. “Jaheira has plenty of friends in this city.”
“She has plenty of allies,” Rion corrected. “Only a handful of friends. And with Minsc and the others out chasing down rumors of Bhaalists…”
“A trap,” Keene said thoughtfully. “I assume you’ve warned them?” Rion didn't dignify that with an answer.
“There were no traces of cultists when they arrived,” she said. “They’re heading back now, but they won’t get here quick enough.”
“So, having ruled out her friends, you picked her ally with an extensive criminal network and unsavoury reputation?” Keene pressed. Her eyes showed only curiosity, but Rion felt like there was something hungry behind the question.
“She told us that you were the only powerful player in the city that would keep your word,” she replied, watching closely. No flash of satisfaction across the Guildmaster’s face - but she’d had a lifetime of keeping her true thoughts under wraps. She gave Rion a polished smirk.
“Ha! Finally, a strategic edge. She’s grown sentimental in her advanced age. Perhaps an old panther can change its spots.”
“Leopard,” Rion said idly. Keene’s smirk broadened.
“You, on the other hand, are very much the same,” she said. Rion smelled blood in the water, tried to keep herself from stiffening.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.
“I lost three good informants to your little crusade against corruption in the Flaming Fist. But I heard all it got you was expelled from the force. You clearly still haven’t learned to leave things be.”
Rion kept her focus on her feet, walking to a steady rhythm. The Guildmaster changed tack.
“How do you even know she’s in trouble, and not just undercover again?”
“She agreed to meet with a source who had old Harper codes - they said they knew something about Orin’s sibling. She’d been sending messages every day,” Rion explained, working hard to sound neutral about it and fairly certain she was failing. “Check-ins, updates.” Little jokes, mostly at her own expense. An update on the weather, once. “Morning, noon, and night, like somewhat erratic clockwork.”
“She’s never had a great sense of time,” Keene agreed, and Rion gave her a sidelong look.
“Anyway,” she said. “All of a sudden, the messages just… stopped. At first I figured she’d just forgotten, or gotten distracted, but…” she shrugged. “It felt different. She’s been different.”
“So, no real evidence whatsoever,” Keene said cheerfully. “Excellent. If she’s just undercover, I’ll get to crash her operation and she’ll owe me a favor for doing it.”
“Honestly?” Rion said. “I hope you’re right.”
“It is my turn on watch,” Jaheira mumbled. She jerked her arms experimentally, but the thick leather straps around them held. “She wasn’t supposed to have them for more than a tenday without warning.”
“You are truly committed to this little cover story,” her captor said, wiping at the blood splattered across his pale skin. The air smelled like iron and sweat. “Sing, little Harper, and I’ll let you fly back to your nest.”
“I have no nest,” she said. She should stop talking. She needed to stop talking. “I gave it away.” She managed to force her jaw shut against the pressure of the spell before she could add: They needed me there, and I left to save the world. They still need me there, and now I have no such excuse.
“Gave away your children, sent your remaining party to a Bhaalist ambush,” he said thoughtfully, tracing a line of searing pain across her collarbone. “Left your husband unburied and your best friend to die. Who haven’t you abandoned, Harper?”
His tone sparked an idea, even as she flinched beneath his knife. There was a bitter sting of betrayal to it.
“What harm have I- ah!” She jerked again as he twisted the knife, restraints digging into her wrists. “-done to you? What crime am I answering for?”
“The Harpers love to collect their little singing birds,” he said, voice cool and lilting. “A source on every branch. But, uh oh! Someone found out I was a Harper-friend.”
“I am sorry,” she gritted out. True. “We tried our best.” Also true. The spell allowed it.
“Not good enough, spymaster,” he snapped. “Orin the Red started my training, whetted my blade for revenge. Then she sent me away to hone my skills.”
It was his kills that Minsc had led the others to investigate, she realized belatedly. Thinking was getting harder. She had to resolve this soon. But he was still talking.
“Then I come back, and what’s happened to my brave mentor? Jaheira and her merry band of heroes killed her dead.”
Her heartbeat was fast, too fast, in her throat. She had lost too much blood. The drugs were mingling strangely with her blurring thoughts.
“No one is coming to save you, Harper,” a smooth voice purred in her ear. “Everyone you love is dead.”
Lady Ague was holding their entry point single-handedly against the archers outside, and Lady Lockjaw was disabling the trap on the cage.
Jaheira was-
Keene was standing over a body in Bhaalist robes, blood dripping from her daggers onto the cut stone floor. Her face was as impassive as ever. Rion made herself follow the Guildmaster’s gaze.
Jaheira was curled in a corner of the cage, blood pooled around her. She hadn’t stirred.
“Got it,” Lady Lockjaw said, and Keene went from standing still three meters away to picking the lock so fast Rion flinched.
“She’s not dead,” Keene said bluntly, the lock turning under her clever fingers with a sharp click. “Rion, get her up and moving. Lockjaw, help Ague at the door. Jaheira can’t take a stray hit, we’ll have to lock it down before we bring her out.” Lockjaw nodded, and Rion moved her feet with the same numb certainty she always had. The next step had to be taken.
(Bhaalists had killed her first family. Bhaalists had killed Jaheira’s second family.)
Rion kneeled on the cold stone floor. She brushed a blood-matted braid out of Jaheira’s face, and she stirred, eyes opening to slits.
“Well, don’t you look terrible?” Rion said, but it sounded flat even to her own ears. Jaheira didn’t seem to hear her, anyway.
“Cannot,” she said, faintly.
“What?” Rion asked distractedly. She was moving her mother, gently as possible, pulling her upright by bracing her against Rion’s own torso. She was pale and clammy, gashes showing through her shirt. Her armor and blades were nowhere to be seen.
“I cannot ask that of Rion,” her mother hissed, sounding furious, and Rion’s stomach dropped.
“Dream Mist,” Keene said, suddenly behind her. Rion flinched again, and Jaheira whimpered at the motion. Keene looked vaguely apologetic as she continued. “Or something like it. Look at her pupils.”
The brown of her eyes was nearly swallowed by black.
“She’s had worse,” Rion said, and didn’t even know if she was lying. She held the high-level healing potion Keene had given her ‘on credit’ gingerly, but Jaheira let her pour it down her throat without protesting. Rion watched with a critical eye as the gashes knitted together.
“See?” she said sternly. “You’ll be fine. Stop being so dramatic.”
“Rion?” Jaheira said muzzily, grabbing for her with clumsy hands. She got ahold of Rion’s shoulders and pulled herself closer, cold and shivering as she curled into Rion’s chest. “Stay, please. Please don’t leave.”
Rion was stunned into silence. Jaheira winced, rushing the words out.
“I should not ask. I am a selfish, foolish old woman. I let myself get sloppy trying to learn how to be anywhere but the battlefield. I am sorry. I am sorry for all of it.”
Rion checked, but Jaheira’s eyes were still unfocused. Tears were slipping down her cheeks.
“Mother,” she said, brokenly. Where in the hells had Jaheira learned to be soft? And why couldn’t Rion match it?
“I just-“ Jaheira broke off, swallowing a sob. “I did not want to lose you.”
“I chose you first, Mother, remember?” Rion said, tightening her grip. “And if you recall any of this tomorrow, I’ll deny it straight out.” Her voice twisted into a chuckle, which threatened to become a sob. “But I will keep choosing you. I am glad you are trying to be with us, though I wish it hadn’t hurt you.”
“No need to worry,” Jaheira said, with surprising surety. “As long as you are alive, I will be fine.”
“That’s not how things work, fool,” Keene said with no edge to her voice, crouching next to them. “Time to move,” she added to Rion. She slipped her arm under one of Jaheira’s, ignoring the way the older woman had wrapped herself around Rion.
“Astele is here?” Jaheira mumbled, and Keene shot Rion a look of intermingled threat and panic.
“Shut up, Harper,” Keene said, and Jaheira flinched so violently the two of them nearly lost their hold on her.
“The title,” Keene hissed to Rion, helpless fury thick in her voice. She took more than half the weight as they dragged Jaheira back up. “Her captor must have been an old enemy of… theirs.”
“Her pin is missing,” Rion added, not bothering to lower her voice. If anything, Jaheira listened more to what people around her whispered.
“A story for later,” Keene replied. “For now, we have to get you two to safety.”
The first time Jaheira woke up in her bed, Rion and Jord were arguing pleasantly at her bedside.
“Welcome back, Mother,” Rion said, switching targets easily. “You look like a particularly nasty alleycat used you as a scratching post, but Jord says the drugs are out of your system.”
“Such lovely bedside manner,” Jaheira grumbled, squinting against the evening light. Jord got up to close the shutters. “Forget the Fist, you should be a medic.”
Her breath was still a little shallow and rapid, an aftereffect of the panic she’d been drifting in and out of.
“Maybe later,” Rion said. She reached out and grabbed Jaheira’s hand, tight enough that her nails dug in slightly. Grounding, hopefully. “For now, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Was that sentiment?” Jord said, sitting back beside her and wrapping a warm arm around her waist. “Hm. Perhaps what Mother has is contagious. Are you feeling all right?”
“It is only the effect of your Timmask spores wafting through the house again.”
“Wishful thinking,” he said, moving his steady hand to the back of Jaheira’s neck.
“You two are attempting to distract me,” Jaheira said suspiciously. But she was clutching at Rion’s hands just as tightly as Rion was holding onto her.
“Of course not,” Jord said, with perfect innocence, casting his highest level cure wounds spell. Jaheira’s eyes fluttered closed involuntarily and some of the tension fell from her shoulders.
“Hiding her pain. Like a cat.” Rion said. “Do you think so little of our minds, Mother, that we could be convinced a half-dozen slash and stab wounds weren’t hurting you?” Jord kept his hand on the back of her neck, and she didn’t pull away yet.
“I did not raise you to be soft,” she said, blearily opening her eyes once more. There was a touch of melancholy under the jab. “From where did you learn these habits?”
“Simple,” Jord said. “I watched Rion.”
Rion scoffed, even as her heart swelled dangerously with affection.
“I watched what you did, not what you said,” she said. “Go to sleep, stubborn old mule. We aren’t planning on going anywhere.”
Rion knew enough of the trail of loss that marked her mother’s long life - knew enough loss of her own - to not make promises she couldn’t keep.
”Keene?” Jaheira asked.
”Astele is fine,” Rion said. “Asking about you. We might owe her money.” Jaheira nodded slowly, shifted to a more comfortable position.
On the edge of sleep, she mumbled something in Elvish.
“In Common, please?” Rion said with an exaggerated sigh.
“I should have known from when you first marched in that you were not leaving,” she mumbled. “Forgive an old woman her cynicism.”
Rion opened and closed her mouth, then frowned at her mother’s slow and steady breathing.
“Falling asleep to get the last word in an argument is cheating,” she said. Jord chuckled.
“C’mon,” he said. “Cut her some slack. She was clearly going to lose.” Rion snorted.
“Tea,” she said, and he stood and stretched.
“I’ll go make it,” he said. “Coming?”
“I think I’ll stay,” Rion said.