He marched over to the management tent, only to find that it was missing. He extended his senses, the low-level anger in his aura bringing out goosebumps in people all over the camp. He wasn't sufficiently familiar with Vincent Trenslow to pick his aura and didn't sense Jason anywhere in the camp.

He made his way to the closest bronze rank aura, terrifying its owner as he demanded the location of the management tent. It had been moved from its central location to an isolated rise outside the camp that had nice views and didn't smell of people. Emir stormed inside, where he found some bronze-ranker with his feet up as he reclined, eating grapes. The man shivered as he felt a gold-rank aura pressing down on him, almost falling to the floor as he scrambled to his feet.

“Who are you?” Emir asked.

“Cassius Phael, Lord Bahadir.”

“I’m not an aristocrat, Phael. Where is Vincent Trenslow?”

“Who?”

“The person in charge of this camp!”

“I’m in charge of this camp.”

“Why? Where is the person that used to be in charge?”

“No idea. We saw him off.”

“Saw him off?”

“We couldn’t let him tell nobles what to do. He was just some common filth.”

“Like me?”

Phael went white as milk.

“How did you end up in charge?” Emir asked.

“My mother told me to do it,” Phael said.

“Oh, dear gods. What about Asano?”

“Who?”

“Trenslow’s assistant.”

“The mouthy one? We got rid of him too.”

“Did Asano say anything about the five people whose tracking was lost?”

“Right, yes,” Phael said. “I found out he had people watching them. Can you believe it? The families they come from and he had people spying! Obviously, I got rid of them and warned the families.”

Emir looked at the idiot incredulously, taking a slow, calming breath.

“Do you know why Asano didn’t tell me about any of this?”

“He did try to go see you, but we stopped him. He was obviously just going to complain and toady, so we made sure he didn’t bother you. A little gratitude would be appreciated.”

Emir ran a hand over his face.

“Suddenly I see the flaw in putting all the competent people on one side of the aperture and the rest on the other.”

“Sir?”

“Phael, where is Trenslow now?”

“I had to have him confined to one of the dormitory tents,” Phael said. “He kept coming in to make stupid suggestions. I'm the one in charge, now.”