Calliope shook her head in mock amazement. It was a wonder he managed to get around so nimbly with balls that large. It was clear he was still nervous though now he had explained the situation to her he needn’t have been. If Neil had faked his own death, as she had originally assumed, she would have felt the need to kill him out of a sense of professional work ethic. Given that he had actually died however, she felt that her agreement with the Syndicate had been honored. Neil had died as a result of her action, even if that action hadn’t been anything as crude as a blade or a spell. If they wanted him to stay dead, they should have been more specific in the wording of the contract.
 
“You are off my target list as far as the Syndicate goes,” she told him, picking a piece of beef out of her sandwich and dipping it into a spiced gravy that seemed to be all the rage these days. She popped the morsel into her mouth and chewed daintily. 

“I am a little put out with you for disrupting my morning though,” she admitted, her crimson lips making a moo of annoyance.

“It took me weeks to prepare that spell and now I won’t even get to use it,” she bemoaned, taking a sip of the peppery wine that was apparently the special of the house. In the morning she would need to start reapplying the many sigils she had painted to make the attempt again… unless…
 
“You must be something of a thief for the Syndicate to hire you. What would you say to working a job for me? If you succeed it will make you a legend. If you fail… well if you fail you die.”