After twenty minutes of waiting where we were probably expected to socialize with others, the main event finally started. That day, we were about to sell thirty percent of our stolen goods. And who could sell our stuff better than the D’Antonio crime family? After all, despite being of the rank of barons, they were wildly known for their auctions where they sold … dubious stuff.

They always manage to avoid the ‘Criminal Investigation Unit’ tasked with dealing with the three worst criminal groups of the kingdom. The king wanted their heads … he just couldn’t find any reason to hang them. This family always managed to frame someone else for their crimes, or they simply claimed they had nothing to do with it. Selling our items for example was relatively easy.

Nobody judged us as criminal yet and as we gave them the necessary paperwork to show our ownership over these valuables, they had no reason to reject us and with that, they could easily point fingers at us if things went south.

“Their son.” Tom whispered as a slightly bulky twenty-year-old stepped onto the stage from backstage. The man’s gaze directly wandered up to us but went to his other guests shortly afterwards, probably out of respect.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this beautiful night …” He continued his speech while I only listened half-heartedly. He apparently also made a few jokes because most of the humans down below laughed, but neither Tom nor I found him that funny, especially not as he gave an elven slave poison ivy on the stage. I mean, come one. At least behead your slave if you want to get high on power.

Anyway, the idiot soon left the stage to make place for the first item to be brought on the stage.

It was a picture. Probably one of a kind as it was still covered by a red cloth.

The auctioneer had to clear his throat several times before he manage to speak up.

“The first item we are selling today is unique in every regard. The seller asked us to present it first to give you a broad overview of what will come. This picture is a masterpiece by John Juan Jacob Jayden Jacobsson, who is apparently a famous elvish artist who died around three hundred years ago. His pieces are still famous to this very day and certainly haven´t diminished in value. This particular painting though seems to have been lost over time and only resurfaced recently.”

This couldn’t be true. I could not remember any elvish artist with such a stupid name, especially not amongst the things we stole. In the first place, I didn´t think we stole any paintings in the first place, making it very difficult where he got that from.

“Presenting you …” The auctioneer hesitated a lot while his hand rested on the cloth, but he nonetheless did what he had to. “Presenting you: Boobs.”

He pulled the cloth downwards, presenting a very abstract piece of art. Two nearly vertical lines, two circles in the upper portion with a black dot in the exact centre of these circles. Slowly but surely, my gaze wandered to Tom who wheezed right next to me. He could barely contain his laughter as he slapped his kneecaps with all he got.

This guy.

“Ten gold coins.” What? Who would buy such a thing? My gaze wandered away from Tom again, stopped a few seconds at the painting and then went towards the hundred humans or so down below.

“Twenty!” For fucks sake. Tom slapped the table three times and ducked low as he didn´t want anyone to see him squirming. Even I had to smile somewhat as none of these ignorant swine’s down below realized the scam. The thing was … nobody could disprove Tom. The connection to the elves were all severed, making it incredibly hard to find out anything about their culture. Additionally, humans didn´t value elves too highly and often saw them as savages living in a forest. Therefore, such a picture played into their prejudices perfectly … even though I couldn’t believe that Tom would make so much money with four sloppy lines and two dots.

“Fifty!” Seriously? Fifty gold coins? I could buy at least three houses with that! I exhaled loudly, reached into one of the pockets of the coat and fished a gold coin out of it. I slid it over the table towards him as the picture was sold for 65 gold coins. He won. He certainly wasn’t an artist, but he made money with his pictures nonetheless.

“Boobs …” he muttered while I could only shake my head in resignation. Well, the person who bought it, a rather well-equipped man, was quite happy though and his friends congratulated him … for buying a very abstract painting.

After Tom had his fun though, the auction started for real though. He didn´t mix any more pictures into the items we sold off, which was probably a very wise decision. Shortly afterwards, the auctioning continued normally. Tom calmed down considerably after another three items were sold and continued to concentrate on the auction, naturally after putting the gold coin on the table away.

I felt completely bored halfway through and focused solely on our defence rather than the auction itself. The hallway behind us stayed mostly empty though and nobody stayed put in front of the door. So far, nobody was willing to risk attacking us. Only after Tom froze completely in place did I return my attention to the ground floor.

“Sirius … what is he doing here?” Tom asked, nodding towards a tall man with silver hair, standing proudly in the middle of the room. Despite not carrying any weapon at the moment, he still radiated an aura of invincibility to anyone around him, leaving him standing alone.

And I could guess why. For a normal person, this huge bear-like human must have felt oppressive to be around, mostly because he looked at each and every one as if he wanted to squash them. And he could very well pull that off, judging by his muscles and large hands.

“One hundred gold for that ring.” He said, picked up a small leather sack hanging at his belt and threw it towards the auctioneer. It landed right in front of the man and emptied the contents in front of his feet.

The ring in question looked like a completely normal ring, which made the whole scenario even more bizarre. Except for the light blue stone on it, there was certainly nothing that warranted even a few gold coins. The man strode through the room towards the stage and just as he wanted to grab the ring, I poked Toms side.

“Two hundred.” He was quick to react but had to bear the gaze of Sirius shortly afterwards. Tom didn´t shrink back though, but rather kept his eyes glued onto him. Tom was good at acting, I had to give him that.

“Three hundred.” Sirius said and simply grabbed the ring from the pedestal it was placed on.

“Four hundred.” Tom bid higher, but I could already see where this was going. The man simply ignored the rules of the auction and strode back out of the room, dragging his right leg slightly behind. None of the guards, and especially not the visitors dared to stand in the way of the man who towered above everyone else. I still sat there in silence as the man left the room once and for all and the doors closed behind him loudly.

I closed my eyes, ignored all the whispering in the room, focused solely on the corridor leading to this room and heard absolutely nothing. Satisfied, I concentrated on the fading steps outside the room and listened for any similar presences. None.

After making sure for one and a half seconds, I stood up from my chair and jumped over the stone railing in front of me. In mid-air, I already drew my daggers and landed with both of them in my hands on the table below us.

The nobles around it yelped in surprise as the table top crashed onto their knees due to the collapse of the lower portion, but as I was neither a doctor nor belonged to their responsible insurance company, I quickly jumped onto the next table. I was entirely conscious about the fact that my girlish shoes, despite being black, probably revealed my gender, but this man … there was more to him than everyone else could see.

I jumped off the next table, landed on the ground easily and rushed out of the room, ran through the hallway following his very distinctive scent. I ignored all the clamour I caused as a waitress tripped over because of me and even as I jumped over someone who was cursing very loudly into the direction of the open entrance door.

I ran out of the door, on high alert and completely concentrated. My daggers were thirsting for flesh as I slowly turned around my own axis, listening to any sound I could hear and every movement I could spot.

“He is … gone?” I asked myself quietly as I couldn’t spot any trace of him. The gravel on the ground made it quite impossible to search for his traces as well, leaving me with … nothing.

He was gone.

One last time, I turned around, but as I couldn’t spot him anymore, I made my way back into the mansion. I breathed in unhappily and remembered his scent to the very best of my abilities. Satisfied about the result, I went back upstairs and entered our lodge again.

Tom was still there as I expected looking at the ruckus down below with great interest. I stepped towards him and leaned forwards. My mask was directly beside his ear as I snipped the back of his head.

“Satisfy your fetishes somewhere else. We need to go.” I said and waited for him to stand up.

“Why?” He asked, but nonetheless stood up swiftly.

“It smells like dogshit.”