Brimstone Angels by Erin M. Evans

dragonborn were here—the dragonborn was still asking around about Brin’s cousin in the courtyard. He shouldn’t have expected to dissuade them—this was their livelihood after all, and he was nobody. Even if he used every trick he knew, he might—
might
—be able to convince the twins not to go after Constancia. They
might
in turn be able to talk Mehen out of it. There was a chance slimmer than a silk strand that Constancia could be protected.
    And then she would still be free to chase Brin to Returned Abeir and back again. He took another careful sip of the whiskey.
    What was he trying to protect her from anyway? Being locked in a room and questioned for hours? That was likely to happen anyway, and it wasn’t much worse than he’d had things before. Her superiors weren’t monstrous. They knew he was troublesome. They couldn’t ultimately blame her, he decided, taking another sip of whiskey. They wouldn’t do anything worse than Constancia would if she caught Brin.
    What he needed, Brin thought, was a sort of buffer. Like a layer of armor between him and Constancia. When she found him—as he had to admit she inevitably would—if there were someone to slow her down … something to trip her up …
    Someone like a bounty hunter, who would give Brin a head start by conveying her to the nearest Temple of Torm.
    Brin looked down at the stolen whiskey bottle. “Loyal Fury, forgive me,” he muttered, even though he knew his contrition probably didn’t much sway the god of duty. Especially when he wasn’t giving the whiskey back.
    The tiefling girl with the glaive and the golden eyes—Havilar, he thought—had seen him in the bar. She’d seen him stealing thewhiskey and smiled at him, like it was funny. Like she knew something about him now. He wondered if she’d tell the tavernkeeper. He wondered if the tavernkeeper would listen.
    He wondered if the smile was a good thing. If it meant she might be the one to help him with Constancia. After all, he thought, a quarry you had to handle gently was better than no quarry at all.
    But then he thought of Mehen, who was clearly in charge. No—it would have to be Mehen he convinced. Somehow. He swirled the whiskey around in the bottle again, lost for answers. He couldn’t imagine how to even begin guessing what a dragonborn was thinking.
    Someone moved in the shadows outside Brin’s hiding place. He shifted just enough to see Tam, the Selûnite priest, stepping very deliberately out of the torchlight that washed the courtyard and behind a wagon. He searched around the wagons and the crates in a cursory, distracted sort of way—thankfully missing Brin—then dropped down to kneel upon the cobbles.
    Tam withdrew a trio of vials from his pack and flicked the corks out of each. He muttered a chain of words under his breath and poured the powders in tidy, practiced lines. Brin leaned a little farther out—it was a ritual, no doubt. Those were salts of copper. That, some powdered metal … the last was dark and rusty, and made Brin think of dried blood. Tam’s eyes glazed slightly and before he spoke, Brin was sure: Tam was performing a sending.
    “Fisher: the caravan too slow,” Tam said to someone who might be on the other side of Toril for all Brin knew. “Hiring swords for the remainder of the journey—two days, if I can avoid more orcs. Advise Cymril. Expecting reimbursement.”
    Silence hung in the shadowy corner for only a moment before another voice spoke.
    “Shepherd: Message received. Will see about reimbursement. But Harpers not so rich as Viridi. Don’t bother Cymril. Report in at the first sign of lycanthropes or—”
    The voice cut off, and Tam cursed. He stood and kicked the pattern of powders into the dust, muttering to himself. “Twenty-five stlarning words, Fisher. It’s always been twenty-five stlarning words.”
    Harpers. Brin wet his lips on the whiskey again, despite wanting a full gulp of the stuff. He wasn’t just a priest. He was a