A knife flew in Jade's general direction. Jade let it fly by, barely sparing it a glance. She noticed that the thin blonde thief had managed to lodge at least one or two knives into the cloaked man's flesh. Jade made a move to join the fight, but before she could do so the man noticed her, cursed loudly, and fled. Elia was lying motionless on the ground, most likely dead. Jade slowly edged closer to the blonde thief as he eyed her warily. Jade suddenly regretted the crimson cloak on her back; it was an obvious sign that she was an assassin. Finally, when Jade and the thief were within talking distance of each other, she spoke up.

"What was she doing with him?" Jade questioned in a neutral tone of voice, gesturing vaguely at Elia's body. Jade made an effort to keep her face relatively expressionless, trying not to appear threatening in any way. Jade kept her daggers out, but she let her hands drop to her sides and relaxed her posture. She had nothing against this particular thief. Really, Jade had nothing against any of the thieves. Contracts were never to be taken personally, and the League was just doing its job. The thieves understandably did not want the assassins to be doing their jobs, considering that their recent contracts all targeted members of the Thieves' Guild. [i]If they would just stop stealing, I'm sure we wouldn't be asked to go hunt them down all the time, [/i] Jade mused silently. But she knew there was literally no chance of that happening. 

Jade cast a furtive glance around the street. People were openly staring at them, and all activity had ceased. Jade felt a slight twinge of concern. The League certainly did not need hundreds of witnesses spreading rumors about the whole incident. Syra had wanted the whole thing with the foreign man to stay quiet, but that obviously wasn't an option anymore. Jade knew what would happen after this; the Council would get a wind of the whole thing from the wealthy merchants, who would hear it on the streets or something. Then the Council would confront the League, Syra would tell the Council that the League had everything in control and to stop meddling, and the Council would get upset. However, the League had considerable power over the Council, so they wouldn't be able to do anything but sit there, grow more agitated, and continue to nag the League. Syra would ignore them, but if Dale got irritated enough he would give them a polite equivalent of "fuck off". After that, there was no way to tell what would happen. Jade was so familiar with this routine of mutual complaining that it hardly came as a surprise when something like this arose anymore. 

"Listen, I know this is going to sound...strange, but do you think we could, ah, discuss this somewhere else?" Jade asked in a low voice, trying to sound as genuine as possible. The thin thief in front of her seemed suspicious, stand-offish, and not very likely to want to even be within a ten-foot radius of an assassin, and in normal circumstances Jade stayed as far away from the thieves as possible for security reasons, but these weren't normal circumstances. Jade needed all the information that she could possibly get, and since the man appeared to kill people indiscriminately, Jade figured that maybe the thieves could offer some assistance in determining what the hell he was doing on Valencia and why he was going around killing both assassins and thieves. 

A nervous murmuring had started up in the crowd assembled, with people openly glaring at Jade. She was anxious to get out of this potentially hostile setting as soon as she could. It would do her no good to have all the Guild's friends decide that Jade was a threat. She sighed softly, shifting her weight slightly. [i]Oh, the things I get myself into, [/i] she thought wryly to herself, turning her head to the side a little to survey the whispering crowd before facing the blonde thief once again. [i]If I get out of this alive, I'll consider myself lucky, [/i] Jade thought, although she felt strangely calm. Jade patiently for the thief to make a decision.