Chapter 100: Investigate

"Name’s Greta. I run the bathhouse." She stepped into the room without being invited, her eyes sweeping the space with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d learned to assess threats quickly. "Your friends are using my facilities. The dark-haired one looks like she’s been through seven hells and came out the other side."

"Something like that."

"Mmhm." Greta pulled a chair from the corner and sat down without asking permission. "Word travels fast in a village this size. Three strangers show up before dawn, looking like they’ve been dragged through a warzone, and suddenly everyone wants to know why."

Nacho kept his expression neutral. "We had a rough journey."

"I’ll bet." She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. "See, the thing is, I’ve been running that bathhouse for twenty years. Seen all kinds come through. Merchants. Soldiers. Refugees from the border conflicts. I’ve learned to tell the difference between people running from something and people running toward something."

"Which are we?"

"Both, I think. And that’s what makes you interesting."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, setting it on the table between them. Nacho recognized the seal stamped into the wax before she even opened it. The Consortium’s mark, stylized and subtle enough that most people wouldn’t recognize it.

"This came through yesterday," Greta said. "Courier dropped it off at the tavern. Description matches you pretty well. Silver hair. Red eyes. Traveling with a Siren woman of high rank."

His hand moved toward his inventory, ready to summon a dagger.

"Relax." She held up both palms. "I’m not going to turn you in. The Consortium killed my husband three years ago when he refused to let them use my bathhouse as a waystation for their cargo. Human cargo, if you catch my meaning."

The tension in Nacho’s shoulders didn’t ease entirely, but he lowered his hand.

"I’m sorry about your husband."

"Don’t be. He was a stubborn old bastard who couldn’t keep his mouth shut around dangerous people." A ghost of a smile crossed her weathered face. "But he was my stubborn old bastard, and I loved him. So when I see that seal, I get curious about who they’re looking for. And why."

Nacho studied her for a long moment, letting his Mind Fortress probe deeper into her thoughts. He found grief, old and weathered but still sharp around the edges. Anger that had long since cooled into something more useful. And beneath it all, a desperate hope that she was trying very hard not to acknowledge.

"What do you want, Greta?"

"I want to know if you’re the kind of people who might do something about them." She leaned forward, her eyes suddenly fierce. "Because I’ve been waiting three years for someone to come along who could hurt those bastards the way they hurt me. And if that’s you, then I might have some information worth sharing."

The door opened again before Nacho could respond. Sera stepped through, her hair still damp from the bath, her hand already moving toward her sword when she saw the stranger.

"Who’s this?"

"Greta. She runs the bathhouse." Nacho nodded toward the paper on the table. "Apparently the Consortium’s put out a notice about us. She’s not a fan of theirs."

Sera’s eyes went to the seal, then back to Greta’s face. Whatever she saw there made her hand drop away from her weapon.

"What kind of information?"

Greta smiled, and there was nothing pleasant about it.

"The kind that gets people killed if they’re not careful."

Vael was asleep again by the time they finished talking with Greta.

She’d come back from the bathhouse looking slightly less like a corpse and slightly more like a person who might survive the next few days. Sera had helped her into bed, murmuring something that Nacho couldn’t hear, and within minutes she’d been unconscious.

Now Sera sat at the small table near the window, the Consortium notice spread out before her, her face unreadable in the late morning light.

"She’s telling the truth," Nacho said. "I read her thoughts the whole time. No deception. She really does hate them, and she really does know things."

"Things about supply routes. About courier schedules. About which local officials are on the Consortium’s payroll." Sera’s voice was flat, analytical. "Useful intelligence, if we had an army to act on it."

"We don’t have an army."

"No. We have a tentacle monster, a traumatized officer, and a Grand General who might not have a rank to return to if Korith’s faction has been busy while I was gone."

She looked up at him, and for just a moment, he saw the exhaustion beneath the composure. The woman who’d been running on nothing but willpower and desperation for months, who’d finally found what she was looking for and now had to figure out what came next.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"I’m thinking that we can’t stay here much longer. The notice means the Consortium knows we escaped. They’ll be sending people to track us down, and a village this small won’t be able to hide us forever."

"So we move. Head back to Lumen before they can catch up."

"That’s the obvious play. Which means it’s probably the one they’re expecting." She tapped the paper with one finger. "They know I’m Grand General. They know where I’ll try to go. All they have to do is watch the approaches and wait."

Nacho considered this. His Combat Precognition was already running scenarios, mapping out possible routes and contingencies. Most of them ended badly.

"What if we didn’t go straight back?"

Sera raised an eyebrow.

"The Convergence. Lady Vex. Whatever they’re planning, it’s bigger than just trafficking Sirens." He moved to the window, staring out at the village street below. "If we can find out more about what’s coming, figure out their actual endgame, that information might be worth more to the Elders than just showing up with our hands empty."

"You want to investigate instead of retreat."