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Lillia gawked at him. “I knew I was running out of ingredients faster than I should have been!”

“It was for a good cause.” Rodrick raised his hands defensively. “Do you know how hard it is to keep a bunch of beggars and urchins happy? If your network is pissed at you, then they’re going to do the bare minimum. But if they’re eating well, they go out of their way. They never pass up on information and every single thing comes back to you. It’s not even a fancy trick. It’s just being nice.”

“Easy to be nice when it’s not your food,” Lillia grumbled. “But the extra money definitely doesn’t hurt. I did think it was a little weird when you were so insistent to look over inventory for me. I thought you were just bored.”

“Hold on. Your whole network is just a bunch of street kids?” Reya asked, squinting at Rodrick. “That’s it?”

Rodrick smiled and stepped away from the counter. He crossed his hands behind his back as he walked over to Reya. “That’s the exact response everyone has, Reya. Nobody cares about them. You know that better than anyone. They’re practically invisible, and they all talk. A group of raggedy kids and crotchety old folks can manage far more than any professional spy can.”

“You said that Melissa had gotten involved with the Falling Blades. How’d you manage to find out in time to do anything?” Arwin asked, massaging the bridge of his nose as he struggled to gather his thoughts. “They work fast. I’d have thought by the time you heard anything it would be too late.”

“Everyone in the network knows someone else,” Rodrick explained. “And they aren’t meant to report directly back to me. They pass the information along. It’s much faster that way. And I wasn’t waiting on them to attack Melissa. I was waiting on the prick who hired them to start moving. Easier to watch for the cause than the effect.”

Arwin blinked. Then he let out a thoughtful grunt. “Huh. That makes a fair amount of sense. Melissa is fine, then?”

“She’s fine,” Rodrick confirmed. “Your armor worked great. Anna and I saw a lot of it go down. Killed the extra ones to make sure she didn’t get overwhelmed. She didn’t manage her magical energy too well, but you can’t expect too much from an inexperienced kid.”

Anna winced slightly at his words. She clearly didn’t care to be reminded of what she’d done — but there was no regret in her eyes either. Arwin blew out a slow breath and ran a hand through his hair.

“How much else have you been able to find out? How long have you had a network like this?”

“Quite some time. I got it properly running around the time when the Ardent Guild showed up,” Rodrick replied. His features darkened for a moment. “I think they’re up to something, by the way. Not sure what, but they’ve shifted their activities. I haven’t managed to glean exactly what it is they’re searching for, and I’ve been screwing with their information gathering until I can.”

“How?” Reya asked.

“Eh, the usual ways. A pan to the back of the head, some well-placed old man nudity, taking the place of an Ardent Guildsmember’s wife and getting their guard rotation information from him before leaving him locked in the dungeon beneath their house for her to find when she gets back from finding what happened to their missing dog.”

They all stared at Rodrick in abject horror.

“What?” Rodrick asked. “The dog was fine! I just had someone take it to the butcher and feed it a bunch of steaks that he was going to toss out. That was the best meal the poor mutt has had all year. I’m not a monster!”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I… am suddenly starting to want less answers to my questions,” Arwin muttered.

“I’m not,” Lillia said. “What in the world are the Ardent members up to? Why do they have dungeons beneath their houses? And how have you not been discovered? Surely that would have been reported.”

Forget that! How does a massive man like Rodrick pretend to be someone’s wife? And how is Anna okay with this?

Rodrick tilted his head to the side. “I’ll give you one guess as to why a couple might have a dungeon below their house. And they didn’t report it because I’m rather convincing. I’m sure that explains it.”

That did not explain it. Everyone exchanged a glance, but Rodrick looked so confident about his answer that nobody could quite manage to actually word another question for several long seconds.

“I… I’m not really sure what I’m meant to say here,” Arwin said. “The information you’ve been able to get us has been instrumental. I’m not sure I fully understand any part of you, and the more I learn, the less I get. But it works, and that’s what matters. Keep up the good work, I guess?”

“With pleasure,” Rodrick said.

“Maybe with a little less pleasure,” Olive muttered. “There’s something deeply wrong with you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about your job.” Rodrick crossed his arms and leaned against a wall. “But I trust you can see why I don’t go around advertising this.”

“I really need to know one more thing,” Lillia said. “Is this really how the Secret Eye gathers information? Somehow, I can’t see them dressing up in other people’s clothes and feeding children. They seem… I don’t know. More sinister?”

“No,” Rodrick said, his tone dropping an octave as his eyes darkened. “They have other strategies. But don’t mistake the Secret Eye and the Inquisiton. They are not the same. The Secret Eye are largely what they claim to be. Impartial observers. The Inquisition is their shadow arm. I know what both of them do — some of it firsthand. I just choose the tactics that I find most appropriate to every situation.”

“Can you teach me?” Reya asked.

“No,” Rodrick, Olive, and Lillia all said at once.

“Aw,” Reya muttered. “I thought it could be useful.”

“You’re already more than useful as you are,” Rodrick said as he pushed away from the wall and ruffled Reya’s hair. “You have your own path that you’re finding. Don’t follow mine.”

“Please,” Olive added.

A laugh rolled through the room and the remaining tension in the air finally lifted the rest of the way. Reya pushed herself up from her seat and that triggered a chain reaction in the others as everyone rose to their feet and brushed imaginary dirt off themselves.

“Thanks for hearing us out,” Rodrick said, wrapping an arm around Anna’s shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze. “It takes a lot of weight off our shoulders. I’m sure Anna will want to talk more about this later, once she’s gathered herself a bit more.”

“I can do it now,” Anna said, wiping her sleeve off on the back of her shirt and straightening her back out. Her eyes were still bloodshot, but she’d managed to suppress the majority of her emotions.

“I know you could, but you’d prefer not to. I’ve seen you spend an hour mulling over where we want to eat, and this is a bit more important than that,” Rodrick said.

“Nobody’s going to push for more than you can give, Anna,” Arwin said. “Lillia and I especially. We know how hard it can be to probe into the past.”

Anna gave him a small nod. “Then I will wait. Thank you.”

“Should we be worried at all about the Falling Blades?” Reya asked. “Did you kill all of them? Are more going to come?”

“Oh, no. That’s handled.” Rodrick shook his head. “I pretended to be from the Ardent guild when we interfered, and nobody even saw that Anna was the one throwing the daggers. Nobody will be able to tie it to us.”

“Wait. I thought Anna was just a poison maker,” Olive said. “When did she learn how to throw daggers?”

“I was an Inquisitor,” Anna said quietly. “Even though I never left, I still got their training.”

“She’s damn good with thrown weapons,” Rodrick provided. “Really, she could have—”

Anna shot Rodrick a look and his mouth snapped shut. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “I highly doubt the Blades will take action. It’s funny, actually. You know that drunk homeless bloke that hovers around sometimes? The guy that brought Melissa to us.”

“Yeah,” Arwin said, blinking at the abrupt change in topic. “What about him?”

“Well, half my information on the Falling Blades came from him,” Rodrick said. “He told me just about everything I wanted to know about them and more. I had to promise that we wouldn’t dig to find out how he knew about them, so I don’t know where he got the info.”

“Interesting,” Arwin said with a frown. “Well, if that’s the deal, we’ll have to honor it. Perhaps he’ll decide to come clean one day. In the spirit of honesty.”

That got him several dry looks.

“Right,” Reya said. “Definitely.”

Lillia laughed. “The optimism is good, Arwin. We need it. Especially now. Does anyone else have any major revelations to drop on us? Because, if not, I’m starving. I think some breakfast is in order.”

The Menagerie exchanged looks. Then every eye in the room went back to Lillia.

“I think breakfast sounds good,” Anna said, a faint smile crossing over her features. “Thanks, Lillia.”