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grab the wicked blade. Kehrsyn glanced up at the sorceress, who was gazing at the guard with a cold, passive stare. The woman swept her finger with an efficient gesture. Kehrsyn looked back down just in time to see the dagger plunge itself into the guard’s throat, lodging just between the collarbones. The mortally wounded guard coughed in pain and surprise. Even as he reached for his throat, the dagger flew back to the sorceress’s hands. She caught it by the pommel and held the blade down. Blood dripped into the alley, where it feathered itself apart in the cold puddles.
    Gurgling and choking, blood welling from his neck, the guard tried to unseal his healing potion with his right hand. The left he kept pressed to his leg, until his cold, desperate fingers fumbled the precious blue vial. Feeling the vial slip from his fingers, he scrabbled for it with both hands, letting more blood flow from his leg wound.
    Kehrsyn glanced once more at the sorceress, who watched the proceedings with a thin, lopsided smirk. Kehrsyn dropped her rapier with a clatter and dived for the elusive vial.
    “Got it!” she said as she broke the seal.
    Holding the back of the guard’s head with one hand, she pressed the healing potion to his lip, but as she did so, he coughed up the blood that was trickling into his lungs, spraying the precious liquid and spattering Kehrsyn’s face and hands with crimson and cobalt.
    She flinched, pulled back, and wiped her eyes. She opened them again and saw the guard slump to the side,the shield on his back grinding slowly along the stone wall. He hacked and gasped, his face twisting in agony and going pale with shock. His breathing, what there was of it, was forced and noisy.
    Trembling, Kehrsyn tried to force the remaining fluid into his throat, but he flailed his arms, desperately clawing for air. She was able to get the vial to his mouth as his movements faded, but the blue liquid pooled in his cheek and dribbled out onto the grimy alley floor. A moment more, and Kehrsyn heard his dying breath rattle its burbling way out of his lungs, giving up its last shred of warmth to the cold winter’s air.
    “Great gods!” gasped Kehrsyn, appalled at the turn of events. She glared at the sorceress on the wall. “You—you killed him!”
    The woman had pulled her kerchief back out with her free hand and was rigorously trying to clean her nose some more.
    “No, hon,” she said as she explored her nostril, still gently dangling the dagger between the fingers of her other hand, “
you
killed him. You took him down. You stopped him from drinking his healing potion. Your dagger slit his throat. Your face wears his blood. Any divination spell will show all that. If the Zhents here don’t have a wizard at their immediate disposal—” she shrugged, helpless, and returned the kerchief to its hiding place—“why, I’m sure they can locate a freelance mage somewhere around here.”
    She paused to clear her throat, then coughed a few times to get something clear of her lungs.
    “But I tell you what, hon,” the sorceress added with a conspiratorial wink, once she’d gotten control of her cough again, “we of the guild got to stick together against the cold, cruel world.” She gestured vaguely around, at once taking in the vast city that surrounded them as well as the chill, gray weather. “I can personally guarantee youthat no one will hear of this, no one will find your dagger, and no diviner will offer their services to the Zhentarim. All you have to do is provide us with what we need.”
    Kehrsyn looked at the blood and liquid on her hands, and, cringing, used the dead man’s cloak to clean them and her face. When she was done, she picked up her rapier and looked up at the sorceress again.
    “Why don’t you just get it yourself?” she asked. “You can walk on walls and stuff. I can’t do that.”
    “It don’t work quite like that, hon,” the woman replied with a grimace. “I use magic to augment my