“Yeah, only way you can upgrade to the Silver-Tailed Were-Fox,” Bonnie said, explaining her choice.

“You do realize I’m with the Imperium, and this quest is going to be for the Imperium, right?”

“Yeah, the generic, cookie-cutter Spell-Staff explained it as he was running his mouth, but he said you paid and didn’t mind that I just started, so what of it? You need me to wear a collar and leash, act all meek, and call you master around your superiors so that you don’t lose the quest? ‘Cause I’ll do it if you’re paying. I’ll even throw in a meow.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary exactly,” Lucas said, though the image of her with a collar and leash on did flash through his head as she mentioned it. “But, if you don’t mind making yourself seen and not heard around the nobles, we should be good.”

Bonnie grinned. “Har har. Whatever you say, but personally, I think it’s more fun to just use old faithful”—she pulled out a knife that was strapped to her thigh—“to make sure the nobles don’t show up or talk again.” She looked down at the blade for a second before resheathing it as quickly as she had drawn it. “But killing a noble is extra, even if I like it.”

“Have you killed a noble before? I mean, just to get a feel for the price,” Lucas asked, somewhat drawn by her bravado.

“Ah, well, you see, that is . . .” Her confidence immediately seemed to crack. “That is . . . Well, no one has been able to afford me yet,” she finally admitted. “But if you got a noble you don’t like in mind, we can always make a deal.”

“I just might,” Lucas said. He did, after all, need to have someone killed. The problem was that he couldn’t kill the noble yet. “But, rather than focusing on the person I have for you to kill”—Lucas paused to fetch a blank, rolled-up piece of paper—“let’s focus on what I need to fill.”

Nick looked down at the piece of paper. “You want her to write you poetry?”

“You’re gonna have to pay out a lot more than the price to kill a noble if you’re asking me to model for you,” Bonnie said. “I wouldn’t even let my future Clyde do that for cheap.”

Lucas wanted to smack the two for their weird ideas. “Not you. I need to draw Kegan’s mansion. We need intel, and we need to find his documents too. We’re going to have to go in twice, so I want as much information as possible to make it smooth.”

“So, you’re not paying us just to do a map, are you?” Nick asked. “You’re wanting us to kill a bunch of people and mark where they’ll spawn?”