"Who the hell is the Merchant Princess of Glenhower, anyway?"

Cassandra had made two separate piles of the response cards that arrived in that morning's post. The pile regarding the Midsummer Festival was exponentially larger than the ones for the wedding, but she half-expected that, anyway. Fame and fortune did not come easily while celebrating a diplomat's marriage to a rival merchant family.

"It sounds like someone who is entirely too full of herself," Baz mused as he lounged in one of the low-backed chairs before the desk within Cass's home office, his leg draped over the arm of the chair. They had used the Cortova residence at the primary location for correspondence in all matters involving the wedding, and Baz's personal address for the Summer Solstice matters, but she insisted he bring those with him since she might as well maintain the lists for both while she was working on the other.

"Why are half of these people even coming?" she asked as she looked from one letter to the other. "I don't know any of them."

"Obligation, I assure you. And it's not you they know."

Cass flicked her gaze to her fiancé's at the implication, and he was already looking at her. Of course, they wouldn't care about her- she wasn't the merchant everyone in Lathos knew and loved. She wasn't the Second to the Leader of the Guild of Assassins, they all feared. Not yet, anyway.

"When's the last time you've gone out, Cass?"

"Who has time to go out anymore, when there's a wedding to plan and a Midsummer festival to prepare?" she murmured as she returned her attention to the piles of invitations in front of her.

His hand reached across the desk to cover hers, and the look on his face as she met his eyes this time was one of sympathy.

"When's the last time you really went out?"

She returned his gaze for a moment before it clicked. "Oh."

Because he didn't mean socially, as one affianced to another.

This was the Leader of the Guild of Assassins asking one of his own.

"Before Lilia..." she started, quietly.

Before Lilia was killed.

"So, maybe it's time you to change that," he suggested quietly. "Accept a mission, if only a simple one."

"Baz, you know I would-" she snapped

"I know, I know," he conceded, his hands rising defensively as if expecting her to strike. Maybe the subject was more sensitive than she expected. "And I haven't pressed the issue either, and anyone who has dared question it hasn't mentioned a word to me."

She peered at him suspiciously. "Who?" she asked carefully.

"Like I said, no one... other than Wil," he mused. "Which is why I think sending you out with him is just the thing you need."

"What? No- no way!" she protested, standing from her chair, her hands braced upon the desk as she stared Baz down. "Not Wil."

Ever since the altercation with Wil, he had been absent from meetings, and scarce everywhere else. As she stood there, she considered it, and realized she hadn't seen him within the Guild for a good two weeks since their last encounter.

"Wil knows his place and has done well enough to show me that there won't be anything to worry about in the future."

"Baz..."

A mission with Wil is the last thing Cassandra needed. Or wanted.

"It's a simple vetting mission," he informed her. "Some of the more local diplomats have visited our fair city, and I just want to make sure they're playing by the rules."

"By sending your assassins after them if they step out of line?"

"If the need arises. It's more so to let me know who's here, and if there's anything we need to take into consideration. And it will also give you two the opportunity to learn how to play nice."

"Says the one who nearly choked him out in his office."

Baz merely shrugged his shoulders. "If you're going to become Second to the Guild, Cass, you're going to have to carry some weight yourself. If Wil remains my Third, he'll, in essence, become your Second, and if he's to have your back with you require it, you need to be certain you can work together. It could be a matter of life and death."

"And if I just kill him for being obnoxious instead?" she grumbled, leaning back in her chair.

Baz allowed an amused grin to play upon his lips.

"At least do me the favor of waiting until after the festivities before I need to look for a new one."

It felt like forever since Cassandra donned her fighting leathers, though she knew tonight would not be about fighting but observing.

Well... not fighting with anyone other than Wil, anyway.

Baz wasn't wrong - it had been some time since she truly went on a mission, and though she trained daily to keep her skills honed and her body in its best shape possible, it was nothing compared to the adrenaline of putting on her leathers and readying her blades.

Even if it was just a vetting mission, she would never go out unprepared.

Trust Wil, Baz insinuated. Well, she could trust him about as far as she could throw him. Ever since her Trials, he made her skin crawl. He'd never have become Third if it wasn't for Lilia, and Cass never truly had the opportunity to ask her what the hell she was thinking. She had just started with the Guild at the time, training under Baz directly, so the time required to spend with her sister in a more intimate setting to ask such questions never truly surfaced.

And then she died. And all went to hell.

Cass finished strapping on her knives as she allowed the memories of her sister to drift from her head. This was a new era - a new age of the Guild. Lady Cassandra Cortova would soon become second to the Leader of the Guild of Assassins, and there was no one - not even the Guild's Third, who was going to get in her way.

Not anymore.

And with those thoughts in mind, she followed the directions Baz had given her by heart to the appropriate rooftop that overlooked the center of Lathos. Lathos was a merchant town, so its harbor and main gates were located at the center of the crescent-shaped city. Where merchants arrived on one side by road, the others could arrive on the other by sea, and meet within the middle to converse and trade and sell accordingly. The Cortova residence wasn't too far off, and she could still see her father's ship docked at the harbor. No one had ever asked them to move it after he died, and she wondered how much longer the harbormaster would allow her to keep it there.

Up and up, higher and higher she climbed until she reached the rooftop where Baz told her Wil would be waiting. Sure enough, perched on the opposite peak was the assassin in question, observing the city below as the guests and merchants for the Midsummer festival began their arrivals.

She took a moment to observe the scene herself, but her attention fell to Wil. She remembered the first night she met him, in this very city, not two blocks away. She and Baz knew he had been watching them, and playing the part of the helpless maiden, she ran away as if she was going to look for someone to help her paramour.

In reality, she was hiking up her skirts and climbing the nearest drainage pipe, looking for the best way to sneak up behind the bastard who actually thought he'd have the one-up on the Leader of the Guild of Assassins.

And there he was, working his own way up through the ranks all these years later. In a way, Cass couldn't help but feel sorry for him, maybe even borderline pity him. She wondered what he would do for the opportunity to eliminate the competition, keeping him from reaching the coveted Second to the Leader.

Or perhaps becoming Leader himself.

Her hand instinctively went to the knife strapped at her thigh, and she again was glad she armed herself to the teeth, even for a vetting mission.

Returning to that mission at hand, she began her approach towards the Guild's Third. She knew he most likely had heard her the moment she began climbing up to the roof, but she still made her presence known with a casual, "Hello, asshole."

He glanced over his shoulder to meet her gaze at that, and even though it was dark, her eyes had adjusted well enough to the dim light filtering up towards them from the bustling city's center.

And in that dim light, Wil greeted her with a grin that was nothing short of devilish.