“You know ‘oo ’e is!” he shot out, feeling himself flush with anger. “The boss! You know!” He held himself as still as a statue, although he would cheerfully have leaped on the man at that moment, and tried to beat the knowledge out of him.

But Alberich shook his head, and it was with a regret and a disappointment that went so deeply into the tragic that it froze Skif where he stood. “I do not,” he admitted. “Hope, I had, you did.”

At that moment, instead of simply glaring at him, Alberich actually looked at him, caught his eyes, and stared deeply into them, and Skif felt a sensation like he had never before experienced. It was as if he literally stood on the edge of an abyss, staring down into it, and it wasn’t that if he made a wrong move he’d fall, it was the sudden understanding that this was what Alberich had meant when he’d said that these were waters too deep for Skif to swim in. There were deep matters swirling all around him that Skif was only a very tiny part of, and yet—he had the chance to be a pivotal part of it.

If he dared. If he cared enough to see past his own loss and sorrows, and see greater tragedy and need and be willing to lay himself on the line to fix it.

:Chosen—please. This is real. This is what I meant when I said that we needed you.:

He gazed into that abyss, and thought back at Cymry as hard as he could—:Is that the only reason you Chose me?:

Because if it was——if it was, and all of the love and belonging that had filled his heart and soul when he first looked into her eyes was a lie, a ruse to catch someone with his particular “set of skills”—

:Are you out of your mind?: she snapped indignantly, shaken right out of her solemnity by the question. :Can’t you feel why I Chose you?:

That answer, unrehearsed, unfeigned, reassured him as no speech could have. And something in him shifted, straining against a barrier he hadn’t realized was there until that moment.

But he still had questions that needed answering. “An’ if ye find this ‘master,’ no matter how highborn ’e is,” he asked slowly, “ye’ll do what?”

“Bring him to justice,” Alberich replied instantly, and held up a hand, to forgo any interruptions. “For murder. Of your friends, if no other can be proved, although—”

“There are others?” Skif asked—not in amazement, no, for if the bastard, whoever he was, had been cold-hearted enough to burn down a building full of people, he surely had other deaths on his conscience.