The Lady Lace
Northgate
74 – 75 Winter, Year 217
The Boy Who Was Bax makes it back to Northgate, and after a little mix-up with Swans runs into Roux, who takes him to a safe spot. He desperately tries not to fall asleep.
Ethan gathers everyone to meet at the mausoleum they’d first met at and tells them there’s a way to get enough money to gain a ship that will allow them to move south fast enough to catch Kelwin: a high-stakes card game happening tomorrow night at the house of magistrate Sebastian Chance. He, in the guise of Luke Bastion, can get in on the card game and get the others into the party, but he needs the others to help him spy on the other players’ cards and communicate them to him.
While investigating the possibility of doing so with magic, Sav realizes Ethan is invisible to her when she’s looking at him with her Arcane Eye and none of his things show to Detect Magic; she accuses him of being an impostor and grills him. Only when he removes the blueberry tart pouch and it reappears to her magical sight does she relax; it appears something about the defeat of the Suffering and the vanishing of Talith triggered some new ability in him.
Costumes for the gambling night. (by Kate Quimby)The next day, they dress up and get disguised for the event. While the game goes reasonably well until the end, the others prove unable to pass any messages at all, stymied by the risk of discovery or distance. In the end, it appears as though the Lady Lace had cheated to win the game, but they are unable to prove this to the guards, as well.
It turns out this is of no concern to Ethan, as he and the Lady Lace conspired together to let her win to throw suspicion off of him, and she would then give him the ship he was after. It is unclear what she got out of it.
When he reveals the true plan and outcome at a meeting later that evening, Vanja and Sav blow their tops at being deceived. Sav leaves the city that night to head south after Astarael.
Meanwhile, Astarael wades through a freezing river.
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