Getting into the prison was surprisingly easy. Pinned beneath Instructor Valeris's vicious diatribe, the guard paid no mind whatsoever to the two young women as they slid along the side of the building.

"What are we looking for?" Agnes's whisper was for her ears alone. Ramona had to admit, her companion usually took her cues with little to no questioning, but both of them were on a razor's edge. Between the pile of bodies and the hurried execution of the man they'd come to see, the air of Allomar possessed the intensity of a gallows' walk.

"The girl, on the second floor, she watched us talk to the guard," said Ramona.

"Yes, she's likely bored from being in a prison all day," countered Agnes. "Why are we sneaking around the back of the building?"

Ramona hesitated. This part was trickier for her to explain since she didn't quite understand why herself. She paused, rubbing her itching palms against the coarse wool habit over her thigh. "I---it felt necessary," she finished, feeling stupid.

Agnes gently pinched her elbow, forcing Ramona to look at her. She tilted her head as she looked at the redhead. "You eyes are glowing."

"What?" Ramona sputtered, the word louder than she intended. She looked around wondering if Valeris or the guard noticed their absence yet. No, she knew Valeris noticed their absence, but their instructor was ensuring the guard didn't. Her eyes were glowing? "Are you sure it's not a trick of the light?"

Agnes gave her a look, a small curl of smoke drifting from one nostril. "Am I one to exaggerate on such matters." She shrugged. "Besides, not like it's the first time."

Ramona inhaled for patience. "It's the first time I am hearing about it."

"Oh," said Agnes, nibbling her lip. "They did when we met. First met, in your village. Didn't seem so odd after that."

Ramona fought the urge to scrub at her eye sockets. "Well, we need to get up there and talk to her, prisoner or not. Do you see a back door?"

"No, we shall have to do this the old fashioned way," said Agnes.

She looked up in time to see Agnes backup two steps and take a running leap at the brick and mortar wall. Metal flashed as she launched herself upward, latching onto the side of the building with two daggers that slid smoothly through the worn mortar. Ramona gaped as Agnes scaled the wall with ease, flawlessly finding the weak points in the mortar to aid her vertical progress. The blonde paused after several moments, more than halfway up the wall.

"Coming or not?"

"You're joking right? I can't do that," Ramona hissed, her hands fidgeting at her sides. She couldn't, right? She hadn't quite sussed out her abilities as the Divine Blade but scaling buildings seemed an acquired skill. Even from the ground she could see Agnes roll her eyes.

"Fine, I'll throw down a rope," she grumbled, clinking up the final feet to peer in the second story window. "This cell's empty."

Ramona heard a yelp, loud and clear, from within. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "You have to be the least subtle person I know," she said, moments before a screech a twisting metal startled her to attention. She side stepped as the remains of the window bars crashed to the ground. Whatever Instructor Valeris was doing to keep that guard occupied was a miracle.

She glared up at Agnes as the girl shimmied through the open window, catching the rope she flung down a moment later. Ramona grumbled as she ascended. If she'd known she'd be climbing she would have worn breeches under her habit. The updraft was a chilling and unpleasant reminder how inappropriately she was dressed for a very illegal activity. Since she was already in the thick of it, she kicked off her shoes, uses her bare feet to gain better purchase on the wall. She didn't have the speed or skill of Agnes, climbing made her a sweaty mess. She cursed the seamstresses who designed their bulky habits to the lower circles of Hell.

An extended hand was waiting for her when Ramona reached her destination. She was too grateful to chew Agnes out for being a show off, allowing the smaller girl to pull her into the empty cell where she bent over double, trying to catch her breath and wrench the wimple off her sweat soaked forehead at the same time.

"Where were you keeping the rope?" Ramona peered up at Agnes, peeved not so much as a hair was out of place. Bloody dragonborn.

Agnes frowned. "Where I usually keep it. She doesn't look too happy to see us."

Ramona cringed, realizing they had an audience. She looked over at the opposite cell to the dark skinned girl watching them, her eyes calculating in her too thin face. The sharp angles of her cheekbones and bony wrists made Ramona wonder when they'd fed her last.

She patted down the infernal habit, retrieving an apple she'd absently tucked in her pocket before leaving the train. It proved a somewhat effective icebreaker as Ramona offered it to the girl, who raised a suspicious brow.

"The fruit of sin from a nun? How quaint," she said. Her accent was a cultured musical lilt, and didn't belong anywhere near Allomar. Still, she caught the apple when Ramona tossed it to her, taking rapid polite bites as she quickly ate, her gaze scrutinizing them as she devoured the offering.

"What do you want?" She managed the question between bites.

Ramona opened her mouth and paused. She was ashamed to realize her mind hadn't thought past getting an audience with the stranger. Luckily, Agnes wasn't so tongue tied.

"Were you acquainted with the gentleman Alec Genot?"

The girl snorted, pausing to lick juice from her fingers. "Gentleman? He was no gentleman. As for acquaintance, there is not much else to do in the cells but talk." She leaned forward into the bars, blatantly perusing them with a passive expression. "Talk, spill secrets, beg favors, words are our entertainment and currency. So, what do you have to barter with?"

Simply asking what she knew would get them nowhere. Ramona wondered at the wisdom of possible Divine Intervention sending her here.

"What are you in for?" Agnes drawled from behind her.

Those sharp dark eyes swung to her, calculating and cool. "Killing the lord's son," she said, a small smile playing on her lips. "Did you think to barter my freedom dragonborn?"

Dragonborn were all that common. In fact, there were rare enough that few people in Allomar would recognize Agnes for what she was at all. But everyone knew, dragonborn were supposed to be male and this girl had no problem accepting the impossibility of a female one. And she was a girl, Ramona realized, for all her aloofness the prisoner was younger than both of them by a couple years.

"You killed the lord's son?" Ramona took a step forward, holding that unflinching gaze. "Why? Was he cruel to you? Did he try advantage of you?"

She lifted one shoulder in a half hearted shrug. "I don't know, I never met the boy." Her fingers wrapped around the bars of her cell. "But I did kill him."

Confusing as her declaration was, Ramona felt the truth in her words. This girl waited to be hanged, likely sooner rather than later if the rushed death of Alec Genot was an indication. It was strange Alec met his end first.

"What can we barter for what you know about Alec Genot?"

There was a crack in the girl's cool facade, a shudder of relief. "A promise for tip." She swallowed hard, pressing her thin face against the bars, keeping her voice to a low murmur. Her dark eyes flickered up, boring into them. "Do we have an accord?"

Agnes scoffed. "Why should we believe-"

"We have an accord," said Ramona.

Her gaze flickered between them and settled on Ramona. "The last abode on Carroway avenue, the very last, that is your promise and your tip. Seek it out, enter, and aid the inhabitants within."

"You are so certain they will share their secrets with us?"

"Tell them Kinsey sent you," said the girl, moving away from the bars as she sank deeper into the shadows.

"Wait," said Agnes, "how does this help with Alec Genot? He died on the gallows."

"He spoke no secrets within these walls," said the girl, Kinsey, a disembodied voice in the dark cell. "He cut out his own tongue when they came for him."

Ramona and Agnes shared a look. If that piece of information was true, it wouldn't matter if they arrived before the hangman's due. Ramona searched for Kinsey in the shadows, frowning when she couldn't find her, as if she folded herself in shadows. "If you are sending us on a wild chase--"

"No, I promise you will find information of use to whatever you seek." For a moment the whites of her eyes glimmered in the dark. "He didn't work alone."

Agnes tensed beside her. "Our time is up," she murmured, tugging Ramona back to the window.

"You tossed the bars onto the ground, our break in will be obvious," said Ramona.

"No, it won't," said Kinsey. "Go now, and keep your promise, sisters."

More questions danced in her head but Agnes grabbed her arm and nearly threw her through the window. Training with the dragonborn gave Ramona enough reflex to grab the rope before she hurtled to the ground. The effort was still painful, hissing as she caught her full weight with her arms. Agnes clutched the wall beside her, conspicuously unarmed as her fingers dug into the crumbled mortar. The blonde held herself there with one hand, lifting a finger to her lips as they both froze. Ramona looked up.

The bars were back in place on the window. Her lips pursed. She glanced down at the ground, where the bars lay half hidden in the grass. Neither she nor Agnes possessed any sort of gift for illusions. Which meant their new acquaintance performed this interesting trick. They listened as the guard moved along the floor. Ramona's arms shook with strain before Agnes finally nodded and they descended to the ground. They touched down on the grass, straightening their habits.

"Did you learn something of use?" Instructor Valeris's smooth voice made both girls hunch. Of course she was waiting for them, the woman missed nothing.

Ramona squared her shoulders. "In fact, we did," she said, ignoring Agnes's raised eyebrow. "Genot removed his tongue before his arrest."

The older sister nodded. "The guard conferred as much in the course of our conversation."

Which meant the prisoner Kinsey spoke the truth on the matter. It was enough incentive for her to pursue the 'tip' but she would have followed through on their promise even if the information proved false. There was something in the girl's expression that stayed with Ramona. "I have a lead for us to follow."