Hineni looks over towards Obscura, who is sitting at an empty booth and fiddling around with some stuff, hissing and clicking excitedly with her mouth as she works, hunched over the table.

Feeling him watching from the front-counter, she turns her head to look at him for a moment, before scooting sideways and hiding her project with her body, while continuing to excitedly tinker with it.

“- Anyways,” says Sockel, getting his attention again. Hineni looks back towards the elf, who has her feet up on the counter once again. “Business is booming,” she says. “I’m beat.”

“You’re beat?!” asks Rhine, indignantly, sitting on the chair next to her, slumped over the counter. He doesn’t bother lifting his head. His long strands of blue hair, soaked with sweat, hang heavily over the edge of it. “You’ve been sitting here all day,” says Rhine. “Why don’t you try working in the forge?” he asks, smugly.

“Because then I’d have to hang around in a room that smells vaguely of burnt onions and sulfur,” replies the elf, shaking her head. “No thanks.” She leans back, pulling her arms behind her head.

“Well,” says Hineni. “With the tower-windows closed, the air is what it is,” he explains. “The room smells like work. We don’t mind, right, Rhine?”

“Yeah!” says Rhine, holding onto his staff with his other hand, wobbling it around, but not bothering to lift his head, which appears to be stuck to the counter.

“We’re calling it a day,” says a man’s voice, the dwarf, Lutz, the cook.

The orc, Leicht, walks behind him, lifting off his hat and rubbing his face. “Tomorrow’s another one.”

“Good work today, both of you,” says Hineni. “See you tomorrow,” he waves.

“Bye Leicht! Bye Lutz!” waves Rhine as they go. The two of them leave and wave back. The man by the door, Irit, nods once and then turns to leave too. Rhine waves to him too.

The door to the library opens a crack, but nobody steps out through it. The three of them look towards it.

“I’m leaving for the day!” says the librarian Seltsam’s voice, with an unusually loud volume. She clears her throat, lowering her tone. “- Goodbye.” The door closes, with nobody having ever stepped out of it.

“I like her,” says Rhine. “She helped me find some books the other day,” he says.

“Books on what?” asks Sockel. “I could’ve told you where they are.”

Rhine blinks, seemingly getting stuck in his thoughts for a moment. “You know, books on uh, rivers and stuff!” he exclaims, clearly making something up on the spot. He sits upright. “You can never learn enough about rivers!”

“I can,” says Sockel, rolling her eyes. “Anywho, I think she crawls through the windows or something,” says the elf. “I’ve never seen her use the door.”

“…What does she look like anyway?” asks Rhine.

Sockel looks his way, leaning in with a smug smile. “Huh? What? You think you have a shot?” she asks knowingly.

Rhine goes red, looking away. “No. She’s not the type of RHINE!” he sits upright, his palms hitting the front-desk. “- THE RIVER-WIZARD!”

“Boy. You’re too young to have a type,” says Hineni, pushing Rhine back down.

“Huh?!” asks Rhine.

A voice laughs from behind him. “I’ll be going now too. Good night,” says the waitress, the dark-elf, Kleidet.

They turn to look at her.

“Good night, Kleidet. Great work today,” says Hineni. He lifts a hand. “- Just one thing, before you go.”

She tilts her head, a streak of white hair, having come loose after a hard day’s work, obscuring one of her eyes. “Yes?”

“Why’d you do it?” asks Hineni.

The waitress looks at him and then at the others, all behind the counter for a moment.

- She bolts, turning towards the front door and ripping it open.

Irit, the quiet doorman, stands outside, having been told in advance that this would happen. He grabs the dark-elf and pushes her back inside, closing the door again and walking away to go home.

“Good night, Irit!” calls Rhine after him.

Hineni grabs the waitress.

“Let me go!” she protests, fighting him off. “I’ll scream! HEL-”

Hineni covers her mouth with a rag that Sockel hands him. “This is my third kidnapping, you know?” he asks, muffling her and dragging her away behind the counter and into the library, so that they can talk. “- Never thought that my life would turn out this way.”

“Now that’s a good role-model,” nods Sockel, as Hineni drags the fighting and kicking woman away, her screams muffled by the rag that he’s pressing against her mouth. “Watch him closely, Rhine,” instructs Sockel. “That’s excellent abducting form right there, see? It’s all in the legs,” explains the elf, pointing at Hineni as he passes them by.

“Don’t kidnap people, Rhine,” says Hineni, as he kidnaps the dark-elf. “It’s wrong.”

“What if they’re frogs?” asks Rhine.

Hineni pulls open the door with his elbow. “Follow your heart.”

“Okay!” beams the boy in response.

“Break’s over, I guess,” sighs Sockel, getting up and following after him into the library.

“- Then just pull this one here,” instructs Sockel.

The ropes let out a hiss as they rub together. “Like this?” asks Rhine.

“Yeah, just a little tighter here,” she instructs, pointing at a section of the knot he had made. “Otherwise it’ll get loose after a few minutes.”

“Mfph!” protests a muffled voice.

Rhine nods, pulling the section of the rope tighter. “Thanks, Sockel,” he says.

The waitress, Kleidet, fidgets. The chair she is bound to wobbles on its legs.

Sockel bends down, pointing at the legs of the chair. “Chairs are a classic staple. But in a serious situation, you’d use something that can’t wobble,” she explains. “Wobbling stuff breaks or they could tip it over and escape or hurt themselves,” she says. “Best case use an altar or a column, something really heavy and stable.”

Rhine nods, taking in all of this new information.

“Sockel,” says Hineni. “I’m not sure if I approve of you teaching Rhine how to kidnap women,” he says. “It feels a little seedy.”

“- Women?” asks Sockel, lifting an eyebrow. “Please. This works for everybody,” she says, thinking for a moment. “Actually, there’s a really fun knot that only works on women,” says the elf, looking back towards Kleidet and gesturing Rhine over. “See, look, what you do is -”

“- Thank you, Sockel,” says Hineni. “That’s enough. We run a moral, clean operation here, remember?”

She tilts her head. “I’ve seen you incinerate four people in the restaurant,” says the elf.

“Thank you, Sockel,” repeats Hineni, nodding his head sternly to the side.

The elf sighs, rolling her eyes and steps away, pulling Rhine with her. “I’ll show you later.”

“Really?!”

“No,” says Hineni. “She won’t. Can we please focus here, people?” he asks, gesturing towards their prisoner.

“Mfph!”

“Kleidet,” says Hineni, looking at the waitress. “We know it was you who put the owl upstairs,” he explains. “Why?” He grabs the rag, holding onto it for a second. “And before you answer, think about the situation that you’re in,” he warns, pulling the cloth away from her mouth.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” shouts the dark-elf. “This is crazy! You’re crazy!”

“Sockel,” says Hineni.

Sockel grabs the cuff of her shirt and smells it.

“Get away from me! Help! HE-MFPH!”

The elf, Sockel, shakes her head. “No. She smells kind of like kitchen grease and I think… birchwood? Maybe?” she guesses. “But no frogs.”

“Damn,” says Hineni, narrowing his eyes. But he supposes that he knows that already. If the waitress had smelled like frogs, they would have noticed by now. “She’s an outside woman then,” guesses Hineni. “A third party. No… a fourth party,” he says.

She actually is a third-party. But he doesn’t want to use the term ‘third’ in this context, because the situation is actually a bad one.

“Mm…” Sockel leans back, rubbing her chin to think for a moment. “Yeah. I think so too.”

“Uh,” Rhine butts in. “So, she’s not a frog, but she’s working for the frogs?” he asks, seeing if he understood right.

“I think so,” affirms Hineni.

“How does this work out with the morality of kidnapping her?” asks Rhine.

Sockel leans down, pressing a finger against his chest. “What does your heart say?” she asks jokingly.

Rhine shrugs. “Mostly ‘thud thud’, I guess?”

“You’re adorable,” says Sockel, getting up and rubbing his head.

He swipes her hands away. “Rhine! The river-wizard! - Is dashing, handsome, funny and manly, not ‘adorable’!” he argues.

“People. Focus!” says Hineni. He pulls the cloth back out of Kleidet’s mouth. “Stop playing games, Kleidet,” says the man. “We don’t want to hurt you, but I will,” he warns. “Let me ask you again. Why did you put the dead owl upstairs?”

“I told you! I didn’t do anything!” she shouts vehemently, tears in her eyes. “Please! Let me go! I just want to go ho- ho…” she chokes up, not getting her words out anymore.

“Kleidet,” says Hineni. “I’m going to ask you a third time now,” he says calmly, speaking over her desperate sobbing. “You aren’t going to like what happens if you make me get to four,” he says, sounding disgusted as he utters the number.

She shakes her head.

Hineni sighs.

“Hey. Sockel,” says the man.

“Yeah?”

Hineni crosses his arms. “Her brother goes to the academy, right?”

“Yeah,” says the elf.

“- I was paid!” yells the dark-elf. They turn to look at her. “I don’t know who it was,” she says. “But they paid me a sack of money to do it,” she explains, shaking her head. “I thought it was just a gross prank!” she says. “Please! I just want to go home,” she sobs. “I won’t tell anyone!”

“Who paid you?” asks Hineni.

“I- I don’t know!” she cries. “Some woman. But I needed the money to pay for my brother’s tuition and board. Leave him alone! Please!”

“How much?” asks Sockel. The dark-elf purses her lips, clenching her eyes shut. Tears press out of them. “Kleidet. How much?” repeats Sockel calmly.

“F- four thousand, four-hundred and some Obols,” replies Kleidet.

“- Forty-four, I bet,” says Rhine. “Frogs…”

“I swear! I thought it was just a joke!”

“A joke?” asks Sockel. “Are you stupid? Four-thousand Obols is murder-money, Kleidet,” she says. “You work with money every day. You know that,” says Sockel, pulling a strand of the dark-elf’s hair out of her face. “You think that someone paid you that as a joke?”

“It was just a dead bird!” argues the dark-elf.

Sockel tilts her head. “You’re lucky that the owl-god is busy right now, Kleidet,” she explains. “After what we saw, well…” Sockel lifts a hand, running a finger down from Kleidet’s neck to her stomach. “Talons are sharp, you know?”

Kleidet howls, snot and tears running from her face.

“Okay. I think we’re done here,” says Hineni. “Sockel.”

“You got it,” says Sockel, getting up.

“P-p-please!” chokes Kleidet. “I’ll give you the money! Just let me go! Just- just-” She breaks down.

Hineni shakes his head. “Frog money isn’t good here, Kleidet,” he says.

Sockel unties her.

“You got played,” he says. “The frogs know about your brother now,” says Hineni. “They’re going to keep using him to get you to get us,” he says.

“Please don’t fire me!” says Kleidet. “If they realize, they might hurt him!”

“Yeah, they probably will,” says Hineni. “I suggest you take that money and leave tonight,” he explains. “Goodbye, Kleidet.”

Hineni opens the door to the library.

Obscura stands on the other side of it, hissing and clicking as she looks at him. They stare at each other for a moment. “Obscura has told her Hineni not to cast away her followers, yes?”

Hineni stares at the owl-god. “She’s not a follower, she’s not like Rhine,” explains the man.

“The Kleid will stay here and bask in Obscura’s shadow,” says the owl-god. “Obscura wills it.”

Hineni shakes his head. “No. She’s going to put us all in danger.”

“Will he say no, if Obscura asks it instead?” asks Obscura, staring at him with eyes that are wider than usual, clasping her taloned hands together.

Hineni stares at her and then looks back towards the dark-elf, Rhine and Sockel. He’s been beaten already.

“Fine. But this is the last one.”

Obscura hisses excitedly.

“Wait, are we like pets or something?” asks Sockel.

“Loyal Sock-elf!” hoots Obscura. “You are Obscura’s loving children and her family grows! Her nest becomes full!”

Sockel rolls her eyes. “Can you just put a baby in her already?”

“Working on it,” replies Hineni.

“Ew!” says Rhine, getting flicked again.

Hineni shakes his head, closing the library door behind himself, leaving the others there as he goes to walk around the house and think.

He passes by a table, looking at the charm laying there, woven out of sticks and feathers. A dream-catcher.