A hand placed itself on my shoulder, rendering me a paroxysm of yelps. “Snier, what the devil?”

“Nothing, sir—”

“Enough with the sir shit. I’m no royalty nor do I want to be a part. Again, all this is just kind of comin’ out now. Don’t mean to put you in an odd way.”

My simpering face turned from him and locked back on the nearest graves. “Werlyle, how about we call it a night? Let us continue this sometime soon. I feel there is more.”

“There is.” He paused, sliding his arm off my shoulder then giving it a squeeze. “There is and we will.”

“Please call if you need anything, s—Werlyle.” Then he slump-ed away.

Almost complete silence, save the night noises. Maybe the creature had died? I decided to go down to my room and grab my dagger and a hearty candle.

At my dressers, I realized what was bothering me so. It had been a bit of cosmic irony that I’d given up robbing graveyards just to be assigned quarters next to another one. Outside my windows, the outlines of white headstones and obelisks loomed, distorted by the texture of the glass.

For the longest I’d tried to track down a noise only heard when in my chambers. The sound itself shifted; sometimes a premonition of rats in the walls, the moaning of a crawlspace door yet to be discovered, drunken arm-wrestling goons, fucking slaves, or other times it unsettled my nerves due to its indescribability. But it was one of those things that happened with such regular irregularity that given long enough you tend to just go on without another strained thought tossed its way.

Tonight, however. A sound directly below the balcony meant that it was coming from right outside my window. I didn’t wish to will my mind to actually speak it, but there was a chance the noise I’d heard many times was coming from the same place. No logical explanation appeared, the longer I sat on the edge of my bed. With a sturdy fire in the hearth and the dagger tucked under my pillow, I stared at the windows until dreariness took me. Sometime in the night I was awoken by what sounded like a labored grunt, but so faint that I could have imagined it.

—

The next few days were a blur. Things were getting too strange to stay much longer. Not least of my concerns, Morlia was not forgiving, and, as much as it pained me to admit, she had an iron memory. A few more insubordinations and I could easily see myself pleading I was no slave as her goons dragged me to the stakes. More than that, I’d located enough loot to rid myself of the servant cover.