I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

"What?" André looked sharper. "Exactly what did you hear?"

"Yes, I understand." Arturo spoke blankly, impersonally, almost as if the words themselves were not quite his.

André looked around in confusion, frowning at the detached reply.

"I’m sorry." Arturo looked up, looking around, catching himself. "But just right before I passed out, I heard those words. It was a girl’s voice. Very clear, but completely flat, no inflection."

"And anything else? Her face? Who she was talking to?" André pressed again, more sharply.

"No. Not anything after that. I just woke up outside, laying flat on my back." Arturo held out his palm, where a shallow cut ran across his hand. "And this. Don’t even remember where it came from."

André remained silent, digesting all of this. The panic that had ruled him throughout the night had already begun turning sour now that the immediate threat appeared over, but he remained calm enough. "Fine. Let me know if you remember anything else."

Pedro had already broken into a sprint toward the gate, tripping briefly over the loose gravel and scrambling to recover without breaking stride. Alfredo followed closely behind, holding his sword tightly against him as if he still could not bring himself to believe that the threat was over. Fidel and Arturo followed at the rear, walking more slowly, Arturo still favoring his injury in his back.

André turned to look back at the house one final time, his eyes skimming over the cards that lay scattered about in the garden, catching the first light of dawn.

"Well this is all someone’s work, then. One of us, likely. Pathetic."

He spit on the ground and focused his concentration through his shoes and up into the ground, wind gathering itself up in a spiraling vortex around his ankles and legs and lifting him up onto the roof.

Looking down from there, he watched the town waking up below him, windows beginning to open, first carriages rumbling out into the street, city guards rotating shifts along the corner next to the market square, a baker shouting from somewhere for their morning customers. Ordinary and unruffled, as if the whole night had never happened at all.

He returned to the street and continued to walk aimlessly, with thoughts running through his mind. He didn’t care now what exactly it was that appeared – be it a person or something else; the issue was closed and Bron had already given up the house, and being his servant, André couldn’t influence his decisions. However, there was something inside him that wouldn’t let him go despite all the attempts to explain himself.

It was then that his eyes caught a man on the street, holding a bag in one hand.

"Xavier, that man," André thought right away, remembering the tracker that Bron employed to find the person who sent those cards. There was some instinct inside him that urged him to approach this man and get the answer.

Xavier entered a side street just ahead of André who slowed to a stop, noticing two individuals who were already waiting for him in that location. One of them was immediately recognizable to him.

"Felix, my friend." His smile spread widely across his face upon approaching the two. "You won’t believe how much I ended up with."

"How much?" Felix inquired, crossing his arms.

"Thirty silvers." He fished out his coin bag and gave it a little shake. "Thirty silvers just for being a legit adventurer for a day."

"Told you. That guy spends more in an afternoon than most people make in a month." He held out an open hand. "Time for my cut. Half."

"Yeah, yeah, I remember our agreement." He counted out the money and gave it to Felix. "Can’t believe you traumatized an entire household with just a pack of cards. All I had to do was spout some rubbish you told me before." He stopped suddenly. "Actually, I have a question."

"Go on." Felix put the coins into his pocket.

"How did you manage it? There was definitely no Numen left on any of those cards. And I know for sure you didn’t personally place them all the time."

"There was. It’s just that the moment anyone touched them, the Numen burned right off of it."

"Still a bit confused about how that worked."

"Don’t have to be." He turned to walk away. "Will contact you next time if I need your help with something."

"I’m always available." Xavier shouted after him, waving his hand lazily.

Felix moved with a light step, with his hands folded behind his head. "No bullshit, I think that might be the best job I pulled this season. It is without any blood, no broken bones, some acting and lots of cards."

He glanced at Dune. "You see how well it turned out? Nobody got hurt, nobody knows who did it and we are going home with our purses full. This is how you should do the job."

"You are very happy," Dune commented.

"I am very happy." Felix smiled, stretching his shoulder muscles. "It is how a job should be done. In and out, no mess to clean after it."

They came up to the front gate and Felix opened it. There was no sign of any guard on duty there and no sound coming from inside, except for the early morning wind, moving slowly over the garden, full of long grass. Somewhere in the distance a bird whistled twice and became silent.

"Ok. Let’s do one last walk through the house to make sure that nobody has left there anything that could tell on us and no squatter has stayed there because of spitefulness."

"Okay," Dune agreed, following him.

Felix moved forward into the garden, continuing to talk, mostly to himself now, once again calculating all that silver he earned with this job. "Honestly, I should raise my prices for such jobs. People pay me for their peace of mind and I gave that man peace of mind for two weeks in just three days. That is too cheap – I have ever—"

A gust of wind knocked him down, throwing him to the ground with his shoulder first, making him cough as all the air went out of his lungs. He tried to push himself up and rubbed his gritty eyes.

André stood a few yards away, with his arms hanging by his sides and the same unreadable expression, wind curling around his boots.

"So it was you. All along."

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