Although it was almost midday, the streets of Loyburg were still dark. With a seaborne mist which only went away on nights preceding a storm, and tall, grey, decaying, buildings filtering out most of the light, it wasn't hard for a cloaked figure to hide behind street corners and within nooks formed through poor city planning.

The figure was slowly making its way towards the port. Several frigates were currently resting in the deep, cold, waters of Loyburg, and it wouldn't have taken the cloaked figure much effort to find out their schedules or destinations. But the cloaked figure didn't care for either of those things. All that mattered to him now was to leave the United Continent undetected.

The number of people who knew of his existence could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and now that that rotten Duke had kicked the bucket, the number of people able to control him was a nice, round zero.

The figure turned into another alleyway. If anyone were to use magic to try and retrace his path, they would have one hell of a time. It had been over two weeks since he last used any spells, so the only thing that could potentially be traced was the mana naturally emitted by his body. And even then, it would still take a highly trained mage to detect it. Thankfully none of those were present in the EC at the moment.

"Excuse me-" some poorly dressed sailor stumbled towards the figure.

The figure folded itself out of the way; his body movies as if none of his bones were solid, moving at angles such as the total distance he'd have to traverse would be minimal.

The sailor stopped in his tracks. He wasn't sure if what he'd just seen was real or just a by-product of his poor drinking habits.

The figure bowed, to indicate that he held no resentment towards the sailor and carried on with his journey.

"No worries mate ..." The sailor said, out a misplaced obligation to be polite.

Had the sailor bothered to check his pockets at that time, he would have noticed that he was short most of his coins. But the whole encounter had unsettled him too much to care about anything but his next drink.

The figure turned into another alleyway and vanished into the shadows. He quickly counted his freshly acquired coin; thieving had been part of his job description for a very long time after all. He had gained six shillings and five farthings. Not much, but enough to successfully pass as a lone wanderer, if anyone were to ask.

He hoped no one would ask. He hated talking to people and tried to get around with using single-word answers whenever he could. He took pride in the fact that he hadn't spoken a single word to any human in over a month. Because if there was one thing he hates more than pointless banter, it was pointless banter with humans.

He had to stop in his tracks and take a deep breath. Without meaning it, he had gotten himself all worked up again. He had always had a short temper, and the wonderful ability to provoke himself with his own thoughts. He had tried his best to get rid of those traits, but they did still resurface every so often, especially when he didn't have anywhere else to redirect his anger. On second thought -

He reached under his cape and took out a large medallion. He lifted it up, so as to let the dim light shine through the blue-green gem at its centre. He really ought to get rid of that thing, he thought. But part of him also wanted to keep the cursed thing as a souvenir of his past mistakes and the several hundreds of years he spent paying for them.

He clenched the medallion. It will end up at the bottom of the harbour within the hour. He'd get on a ship, throw the thing over board, and start a new life somewhere that wasn't here. Or maybe the ship would sink at sea, and he'd die. He wasn't sure he could die, but the possibility didn't sound unappealing.

The medallion started to hum, as it had done so many times before. At first, the cloaked figure had thought it was a fragment of his imagination, but the gentle hum persisted, and soon it became too overbearing to ignore. But it shouldn’t be possible, the figure tried to reason with himself. He was so close to the sea, so close to a way out, fate wasn’t so cruel so as to trap him in that endless cycle of servitude. No, it simply couldn’t be!

Maybe the gem was humming one last time before it’d explode into a million pieces. After all, he had no means of knowing what happened once a soul contract was terminated. Yes, that was definitely it, the figure decided. Soon the humming would stop, the other half of the gem will stop calling for him, and ten years from now he’d think of this experience not without amusement –

Suddenly the scenery around the figure began to blur. Another image overlaid itself over the dirty streets. It was that godforsaken room of the good for nothing duke. Nothing had changed in the two weeks after his death. There was still that sad bed, and the lonely desk and the dusty library –

“Curse you.” The figure whispered. He still held hope that whatever stranger had picked up the gem would simply put it away or better yet, destroy it.

But alas it was already too late. The humming stopped, the other half of the gem was no longer calling out, but the medallion that he still held in his hand turned a deep blue colour.

“Curse you!” The figure yelled in a language none but himself could understand.

With all the strength of his incorporeal body, he threw the accursed gem against a nearby wall. It bounced off, unscathed. He didn’t bother picking it up. It would reappear on his person soon enough. He kicked the same wall for good measure. Then he kicked it again, and again, and again until he could no longer feel his foot. He then punched the wall, but his arms did not hold as much strength. He slumped against that same wall and slid all the way to the floor. If he could cry, he would have.

The breeze coming from the window was nice and fresh. The pillows were soft, and the duvet was warm. Everything seemed perfect and I wasn’t sure why I had woken up. I could hear the birds singing outside, but no footsteps or the sound of carriages passing by. I pulled the duvet further over my head. I wasn’t sure why I had woken up, but I didn’t plan on staying that way for much longer.

Yet, sleep simply wouldn’t come. And to make things worse, I was starting to get an eerie feeling that someone was watching me. It was probably nothing, simple paranoia from watching too many documentaries on hidden cameras in hotels, but that feeling simply wouldn’t go away, despite my full knowledge that I wasn’t in a hotel and that surveillance cameras were very unlikely to exist in this world.

Maybe Margaux had snuck into my room and was watching me sleep? That seemed even more unlikely than the security camera theory, but to put my mind at ease, I tossed the duvet aside and sat up in the bed.

The room was dark, to the point where I could hardly make out the outline of the furniture. The fact that I wasn’t fully used to its layout also contributed to my disorientation.

“Good morning sunshine.” A rough male voice spoke from the direction of my desk.

I screamed.

Then I turned on all the lights in the hopes of blinding my intruder and reached for the sword that Margaux had placed by my bed. Half a second later, I was up on my feet, blade in hand. My vision went black from the sudden movement, and I had to regain my balance by leaning against the edge of my bed. I could also feel energy flow through me, and into the blade. In that moment, I was very thankful for Leticia’s survival instincts.

“Oh no, … light.” My unwelcomed visitor spoke again. He didn’t move from his spot though and only raised his gloved hands up in a gesture that could have been interpreted as surrender. His intonation might have been sarcastic, but came off as annoyed.

I lowered my blade, but not my guard. The figure, whoever he was, was leaning against the edge of my desk. Had he not been as short, maybe he could have sat on it instead. He was wearing two dark cloaks of different lengths, which also covered his face. After a few seconds of tense silence, he lowered his hands.

“Who the hell are you?” I finally asked.

He tilted his head in what I could only interpret to be an annoyed manner and with a flick of the wrist produced a large circular gem from somewhere within his sleeve. The gem was dark, like everything that person wore, and not dissimilar to the one I had found under my matrass a few hours ago.

“Oh.”

It took me longer than it should have to connect the dots. But in my defence, I had just woken up. I put down the sword and went to grab the letter and my gem.

“You’re that genie the previous guy mentioned?”

I sat at the corner of my bed, waiting for a response.

The visitor scoffed. I took it as a yes.

“Well, he left this letter, do you wanna read it?” I asked.

The visitor took the paper from my hands and spent a minute or so reading it. Then he folded it in half and handed it back to me.

“So, where to?” He asked.

Despite still being partially asleep, I was aware enough to understand his subtext.

“I’ve only been here for two days, I don’t know anything worth killing or have anything I wasn’t ‘misplaced’.”

I wanted to ask him about the background checks on the staff, but I also fully realized that starting a business relationship with such obvious mistrust of others was not a good idea. At my old job, I sometimes stalked my co-workers on social media. I was of the mindset that I should know who they were if I were to spend days alone with them in remote places.

“Do you know what happened to the previous dude?” I asked, and suddenly remembered that I should not be speaking so casually. I was a duchess now and such people spoke with a certain finesse.

“Duke? Yes.” He replied dryly.

“His death was unnatural, was it not?”

He took a second too long to reply, indicating that he had noticed the change in speech patterns and accent.

“Yes.”

“So do you know who killed him?”

“Yes.”

I rubbed my hand over my temple. I wasn’t going to get along with this person if all he gave me were one-syllable answers.

“You have a name – What’s your name?” I asked.

Although I couldn’t see his face under the hood of his cape, I could have sworn he frowned.

“Safwan.”

“Pleasure. I’m Leticia. Now, Safwan, pretend I’m a six-year old.”

He nodded.

I frowned incredulously. Then I gestured with my hand to indicate that it didn’t matter.

“Pretend for a second that I’m a child who doesn’t know anything about the world. Now you, Safwan, you know plenty of things about the world, do you not?” I paused, not really expecting an answer. “You know what the days of the week are called, and what time the sun sets and gets up, right? You know what continent we live on and what languages people speak, even if you’ve never been certain places or can’t speak those languages yourself. And I assume, correct me if I’m wrong,” I paused once again, but didn’t get a reaction, “you know about this church that I’m a part of?”

“Indeed.” He answered, rather promptly, probably not wanting to hear any more of my rambling.

“Well, then would you kindly gather that information up for me, in an easily accessible manner?”

“Alright.” He said, as dryly as ever.

He headed to the still open window and disappeared the same way he’d come in. For a few minutes, I sat on my bed, staring at the balcony window. I wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion, or a trick of the light, but there had been something deeply unsettling and unnatural about the way he moved. But then again, if the previous duke were to be believed, Safwan was a genie, and thus did not have to obey human logic.

I put my sword back in its spot by the bed, put the letter and gem away, and turned off the lights. Sleep didn’t come easily, as I kept thinking about all the other small things I could have asked Safwan to research. There was so much I did not know about this world and having the human equivalent of a, albeit moody, google search engine was always a plus. Although I was starting to have doubts about the quality of the information he’d find. If he was one of those genies that took things too literally or tried to sabotage their summoners on purpose, well I’d be in trouble. But then again, if he were, the Emmanuel would have warned me…

Before I realised I was fast asleep once again.