But that was a few days ago. Now, we were entering the city of Luke; taking a boat had become dangerous, as the Elise probably would have had the docks secured for tonight, so we were going by land.
I poked my head out of the wagon, glancing around to see how far we were from the walls. It was still a distance away— about a few miles out. I slowly turned around to take in the view of the sea for just a moment, before inhaling a sharp breath.
"That’s… The Lightbringer’s Vessel!"
"It is," Kai said, still facing forward in the driver’s seat.
The single masted ship, which barely needed the aid of wind power, was sailing along the coast of Luke. It did not approach the docks, but it hovered dangerously around the vicinity of it— like a fly zipping around a rotten fruit before going in for a bite.
My mind instantly went to the worst case scenario as I looked over at Kai. "Did someone betray us?" I asked hurriedly. "Who—"
"Calm down, Melas." He craned his neck slightly, and gave me a sidelong glance. "If that were the case, they’d have attacked us straight out of the cove. But they didn’t. So the presence of The Lightbringer’s Vessel is likely a precaution. It’s not an unexpected move from the Elise considering that we’ve been hitting them hard for the past few weeks."
"R-right." I felt the panic subside a bit, even going as far as to feel a little stupid for the way I reacted. After having calmed myself, I asked the next important question in my mind. "What about Ginah?"
"What about her?"
"This might ruin her part of the plan. If The Lightbringer’s Vessel is there, they might intervene before Ginah even reaches the enuim shipment. What then?"
Kai turned back to the front, no longer meeting my gaze, before answering my question.
"We’ll just have to trust that she can handle it."
When we arrived in Luke, we headed straight for the northwestern section of the city where the safehouse was. There were no patrols of guards around anywhere in the area. The guard Captain in charge of the area had apparently been bribed by the Elise to halt patrols for the night. And perhaps some rumors and word of mouth kept people in their homes. So the streets were eerily empty, even at this time of day.
And it was day. I had no pocket watch, but Kai had one, and it was only an hour past noon. We were to get settled and wait until midnight, when the shipment was supposed to arrive.
It seemed like a long time of sitting about and doing nothing, however I saw it as an opportunity to perhaps mend any distrust I had with Lisa. She and I hadn’t spoken much over the weeks, and I genuinely wanted to trust her. I was not going to go into the conversation picking out anything to attack her with, and nor was I going to freely accept anything she said; I was trying to keep an open mind— not let my paranoia get the best of me.
"Melas?" Lisa cocked her head as I approached her in the dimly lit room. She was sitting on a wooden crate, freely swaying her legs with her hands to her sides, waiting for time to pass. She looked at me inquisitively as I stopped right in front of her.
"I—" I hesitated, realizing I wasn’t really sure what to say. Awkwardly standing there, I glanced about uncomfortably as my mind wandered between various topics to bring up. Finally, I sighed and decided to be as direct as possible rather than beating around the bush. "Why did you lie to me?"
"Lie to you?" She jumped out of her seat in surprise. "What do—"
"Last time," I said, quickly cutting her off. "Why did you lie to me back then?"
Her face relaxed. "Oh. You’re talking about that."
"Yes I am. What did you think I was talking about?"
"I don’t know." She shrugged. "But I’ve seen your magic. I just don’t want to get on your bad side."
Folding my arms, I tapped a finger impatiently as I stared at her. "So, why did you lie to me? It’s such an odd thing to lie about too. Why did you do it?"
Lisa glanced about nervously, her eyes darting around the room as if she was afraid someone was going to enter the room any moment and eavesdrop on the conversation. "I lied about… that," she started, keeping her voice hushed, "because I was curious about you. I wanted to get you to lower your guard— find out whatever secret you were hiding."
"What?"
"You heard me right," she said with less subtlety, now that we weren’t referencing her willingness to work with the Elise for the right price. "I handle all the technical aspects of my partnership with Jack. Well, me and Bruce— he was the one in charge of the ship. But he’s gone now.
"Logistics, information, and all those things that leads to a successful completion of a job were taken care of by the both of us. And when you came, showing off hundreds of gold while hiding underneath that mask? Of course all of us wanted to know more about you."
I narrowed my eyes. "And that made you decide to speak all about yourself?"
"Yes. Lowering your own guard— admitting partial truths— is the best way to learn something from someone. It’s a give and take."
"So you weren’t lying when you told me that you’d do any job for the right price?"
"As long as it isn’t detrimental to Jack and I, the answer is yes."
I crossed my arms. "Why should I believe you haven’t gone behind our backs and
