Catala reaches the final few words of her song, explaining the tragedy of the composer and how her execution was only delayed long enough to add this final message. Once it’s finished, Tammy gives one last dramatic strum to his violin, and the two fall to their knees as if defeated, unable to carry the sorrow of the world.

The audience loves it.

Pure adoration.

The men, women, and children, the peak of human society on this planet. They clap their hands, whistle, stomp their feet, they shower the two with praise. The duet keeps their kneeling positions for a bit, then slowly rises to their feet. Pivoting around the center of the stage, the two turn and bow to all sides of the large dining hall. The tables, the bar in the back, Tammy makes sure to face Avi and bow to her specifically. The boy is smiling so brightly, soaking in the attention, while Catala’s response is more subdued. She’s elated that her performance was received well, of course, but such overt displays of emotion are gauche.

The cheers go on for nearly three minutes, and the only one who doesn’t clap is Avi.

As the cheers continue, the waitresses are brought out of their stupor and visit each table, taking donations. Everyone is eager to throw money their way.

Finally, the pair gives one final bow and steps off stage. Tammy makes a b-line for Avi, Catala follows at his side, and the audience quickly goes back to their meals and conversations. The two pass by a few tables to reach Avi, and the patrons make sure to pat their backs and heap even more praise onto them.

“Excellent job, boy!”

“What a beautiful singing voice.”

“Sir Kracken sure has an eye for talent!”

The two bow their heads for each compliment and finally reach Avi and her friends.

“Avi!” He says. “So, wha’did ya think?” He wiggles his eyebrows.

Avi speaks through clenched teeth, “it was amaaaazing, Tammy.”

The tall boy locking elbows with Avi recoils and whips his head down to look at her, “ah!? You can talk?”

“Shut up,” she dismisses him. “I loooooved it.”

Catala gives a soft smile, “did you enjoy my singing?”

Avi doesn’t spare her a glance, “don’t push your luck.”

She covers her mouth to hide her giggle.

Tammy frowns, “you seem mad.”

“Why would I be mad?”

“I don’t know, but you are. So… tell me.”

“I’m not mad.”

Tammy narrows his brow, then turns his attention to the tall boy next to her. “Hello, sir. My name is Samuel Barabba.”

“Parabba,” Avi corrects.

“Samuel Parabba.”

The boy is hesitant but shakes Tammy’s hand. “Jozou. These are my bandmates Pandin, Helger, and Ghzan.”

“Oh!” Tammy’s eyes open wide, “I recognize you, your band played last night. You had flutes and… it was called tapdancing. It was great! I had never heard something like that before. Wasn’t there a second dancer, though? Where’s she?”

Avi presses her lips into two thin lines.

Jozou nods his head to Avi, barely keeping his voice composed, “this little psychopath broke her knee and forced her way into our band. She’ll be playing with us later instead of Kizhan.”

Tammy and Catala look to Avi, who turns her head away and rubs the back of her head. Since the next band hasn’t set up yet, the patrons at a few nearby tables turn to listen.

“Avi… Why?” Tammy’s voice is exasperated, almost like he’s scolding a dog that pissed on the carpet.

“I… Okay, listen.”

“Yeah?”

“…Listen.”

“I’m listening.”

Avi hesitantly turns her head back to Tammy, but then grits her teeth and hugs Jozou’s arm tighter, “I found a new partner! My good buddy-… this guy! We’ll be dancing later. You have redhead, I have him. So, sorry, Tammy, but I don’t need you anymore.” She raises her chin haughtily.

Jozou frowns, “you don’t even know my name.”

“Ha! Classic buddy with his humor and his face. Never fails to make me laugh.”

“Avi,” Tammy says with a frown, “you can’t go around snapping legs. Why did you think that was okay?” Alice the waitress comes around to hand Tammy the donation bin, but he passes it to Catala. It’s a lot of money. Both Catala and Jozou’s band stare at it for a moment.

“Because you’re a jerk!” Avi releases Jozou’s arm and stomps her foot. “You picked her over me!? Are you serious?!”

Tammy’s brow tightens, “wh-what do you mean? I had to practice with her because we were performing tonight, and we did a great job! Didn’t we talk about this already?”

“You should have been practicing with ME!” She jabs her thumb against her sternum.

“I did! You weren’t interested in practicing!”

“I was, you were just a bad teacher!”

“You didn’t tell me I was a bad teacher!”

“Well, then, when I finally did, you should have focused on ME, and not the redhead!”

Tammy flares his nostrils, “but I had to focus on her! We were playing on stage, and the only reason we got such a good reaction was because we practiced so much! That was the whole point of us being here!”

“No! Shut up! Idiot! We’re here to kill a guy, you just got distracted by something irrelevant!”

Her words spread across the room, and everyone falls silent. Tammy’s upper lip twitches slightly.

Catala looks down at him, “excuse me? Samuel?”

Jozou gulps, “you’re here to… kill someone?” Just what sort of mess was forced upon him and his friends?

Tammy cheeks feel hot. “N-no-“

“Yes! We’re assassins!” Avi screeches. “And Tammy’s a psychic, that’s how we can even talk with you all, he’s translating our words.”

“W-well, listen, my sister-“

“WIFE!” She yells, stomping her foot repeatedly, “I’m his wife, I’m his wife, I’m his wife! We’re married! Fated partners!” She rips the strap on her skirt and yanks it off, throwing her skirt to the ground, and freeing her long boney tail. “We come from the Barabba tribe, and we’re on a mission to kill someone, not play some stupid song!” Avi stares at Tammy, exhaling hard out her nostrils. She sees Tammy’s wide, terrified eyes and only now realizes just how badly she’s messed up. One of the ironclad rules is to not reveal that she’s a bone-tail.

Sir Kracken rises from his seat near the bow of the ship. He’s perfectly backlit by the orange sunset reflecting off the water. “You’re assassins?”

Catala can’t maintain her stoic face as she looks down at Tammy. Eyes wide, her lips are barely parted as her bottom lip trembles.

Jozou silently exhales. After seeing her snap a man’s leg in half, Avi being an assassin just makes sense.

Tammy and Avi don’t need to coordinate; they’re on the same page on how to get out of this mess.

Tammy sighs, lowers his head, and puts his hands on his hips. “Yeah… I mean, yes sir. It was supposed to be a secret,” he snarls at his wife, “but I guess that’s not possible anymore, now is it?”

Avi mumbles, “wouldn’t have been an issue if you just stuck with the plan and didn’t get distracted.”

“I’m the one who makes the plans though! You just do what I tell you too!” He shakes his head, “whatever.” Tammy turns and walks up to the stage, with Avi sheepishly following behind.

Every noble in the dining room is on edge and watches them closely. Assassins, and the risk of assassination, are a common threat. A single unified thought spreads to each man present: “Am I their target?” Many of the nobles brought bodyguards, or like with Sir Kracken, his wife was his former bodyguard that he married.

Tammy hops onto the stage and clears his throats, “sorry, everyone, but let’s settle this quickly.” Tammy reaches into his pocket to pull a folded piece of paper. “Is there a, umm…” He narrows his brow, perfectly acting like he’s struggling to sound out the name. “A Sir Egriton Ucarias?” He looks up from the note and casts his gaze around the room. “Sir Ucarias?” Egriton Ucarias isn’t in the room because he doesn’t exist, it’s a fake name. Tammy knows this, but his smile is very convincing, “oh! He isn’t here? Excellent! So, everyone, you can calm down. Just forget that we’re assassins, and when you find someone dead tomorrow, just pretend that I had him killed because he skipped out on my performance, haha.”

The line is delivered with genuine charisma, dripping with charm and a cute face. Nobles in the Gurant Empire know the score, assassinations are a part of daily life, and there’s no need to freak out if someone else is going to be killed. Every adult in the room has hired assassins before, and dodged assassinations before. In fact, dozens of nobles laugh at Tammy’s little joke. Plus, compared to the usual professionals they deal with, Tammy and Avi seem far too incompetent to be lying.

Avi clears her throat, presenting herself as someone trying to win back Tammy’s affection. “D-does anyone know where Uc-… where U-man is?” Nobody raises a hand or acknowledges her. “Nobody? Alright. I mean, it is a boat, so he has to be on the Cockapee somewhere.” In a room full of nobles who pride their ability to read others, nobody can tell she’s lying.

A few murmurs ring out in the dining hall, and Sir Kracken raises his chin. “The what?”

“The something-something Cockapee.” She giggles, “I remember ‘cause the name made me laugh, but Tammy didn’t get it, and that made me laugh more.”

Catala tries to keep her voice calm and polite, but warbles, “this ship… isn’t called Cockapee.”

Tammy rolls his eyes and checks his notes again, “yes, I know. It’s actually pronounced co-cah-pii. The GCV Cocahpi.”

Avi giggles, “but it looks like cock-ah-pee, which is funnier.”

Tammy frowns, “you’re a psycho leg-snapper, stop talking.”

Avi purses her lips.

A small laugh spreads across the dining hall, and even Sir Kracken brings a hand to his mouth, coughing to suppress the laugh.

Ghzan looks up to Jozou, “isn’t that… not the name of this ship?”

Jozou grips the bridge if his nose. “It’s not.”

Tammy cocks his head, “huh?”

Sir Kracken composes himself and walks forward, “Samuel… you boarded the Gurant Civilian Vessel Orechitiney.”

Tammy stares at him. “Th-… the Orechitiney? Not the Co-… what?”

Avi’s tail flails wildly as she spins Tammy around and grips his collar, “you little idiot! You got us on the wrong ship?! I kept telling you to stop thinking about that stupid violin, and to focus on ME—…and the mission—but you couldn’t stop for like five seconds to make sure we were on the right ship?!”

“Wha- no! I didn’t!” His head frantically whips around the dining hall as patrons begin to laugh, a few of them start to think these two young assassins are a clever comedy routine. “I-I would never, I HAVE NEVER made a mistake like that before!” His cheeks are red, he’s sweating, he’s trying to save his pride as an assassin and let everyone know that this was a one-time mistake.

“And yet what ship are we on right now?” Avi cocks her head, her hands held behind her back as she smiles.

Tammy looks at her, his right eye twitching. He speaks quietly, but everyone is listening so intently “It’s fine! We’ll just go to port, look around for Ucarias, and kill him then! Nobody has to know.”

Sir Kracken can’t help but crack a smile, “are you going to the correct port?”

An infectious laughter spreads through the dining hall, and Tammy’s face turns bright red. The boy looks ready to cry, which isn’t a fully manufactured feeling. He places a lot of pride in his abilities as an assassin, so while the scenario is fake, it’s still embarrassing to have everyone think he’s so incompetent.

Avi stomps her foot and wraps an arm around Tammy’s shoulder, “hey! Calm down! My husband isn’t that stupid and wouldn’t have messed up every aspect of this trip.” She looks down at him, “right?”

But Tammy’s shaking. His eyes are wide, and he’s gripping the paper tight.

“Tammy? Right?”

Tammy gulps, perfectly faking an intense fear that they’re not going to the right port.

To further sell the deception that they’re just stupid kids who aren’t a threat to anyone, they can’t even be heading to the correct port.

Their target, who is in this room, is a retired admiral who’s about to be brought back into service. That admiral should have an encyclopedic knowledge of ports and shipping lanes.

While Tammy and Avi made fake names for their target and the ship they should have boarded, they can’t fake a port. A single ship would be lost in the vast armada of ocean-going vessels, but seaports are hard, static objects, of which there are only a few hundred across the world.

So, how should Tammy fake it? He can’t make up a false name.

Tammy gulps hard and raises his eyes off the page, “u-uh… excuse me, Sir Kracken, um… what port are we heading too?”

“Ento-Iribalda.”

Tammy looks down at the note, then swiftly crumples the note, “yep! Um, that’s right! We’re heading to the right port, haha!” With panicked, trembling hands, he opens Avi’s mouth and shoves the paper inside, which she promptly swallows. “See? I didn’t mess up! We are going to the right port, just using the wrong ship to get there.”

Avi puffs out her chest and raises her chin, “see? Just as I said. My husband would never make a mistake like that!”

“…y-yeah.”

From the perspective of the patrons, his act isn’t fooling anyone. As Tammy grabs Avi and pushes her off the stage, they laugh and holler. It’s clear to them all that Tammy was just saving face, too embarrassed to admit such repeated failures.

But in reality, the two successfully got out of Avi’s sudden and embarrassing outburst. Nobody suspects that they’re anything other than two little idiots who are probably going to get in trouble with their boss for failing every step of their mission. As they head across the room and down the stairs, Avi walks with a proud gait while Tammy sheepishly keeps his eyes down.

Catala, disillusioned with her image of Tammy as an eager, innocent young musician, decides to follow.

Jozou, still needing Avi’s money, brings his friends and heads off after them.