Promise

Her gaze swept swiftly over the glittering gold and banknotes on the carpet. Angel quickly calculated their value and realized this was the payment Helene had received from the resistance in Nass.

Gold coins hardly circulate anymore, so they're worth slightly more than face value, while gold bars of the same weight are worth slightly less. That balances out to about 12,500 pounds in total. Helene must have already taken her 1,000-pound cut... The proceeds are a little lower than I expected, but still quite good. After deducting my initial costs and the 7,000 pounds I have to give Sander at the Veteran Officers Club, I should make around 4,000 pounds. The arms trade really is outrageously profitable...

As Angel considered this, she did not rush to gather the gold coins beside her. Instead, she looked at Wensa, who was sharpening her claws on the carpet, and asked with a broad smile:

"Did Helene say anything else?"

"She said the transaction went smoothly, but I found two people lying in ambush near the trading site... Beyonders of the Storm pathway. They were very cautious and didn't make a move."

Very cautious... That doesn't fit the temperament of that pathway. Did they happen to notice Wensa and worry it was a trap?

The headless messenger Reinette Tinekerr had been an angel "in life" and still possessed strength beyond Sequence 3 after becoming a spirit world creature. Based on that example, Angel suspected Wensa might have been an Unaging Demoness before becoming a black cat of the Spirit World. Whether she had always been a black cat or had transformed from a human for some reason, however, remained unknown.

Of course, she leaned toward Wensa having been human in life. After all, how could a cat be related by blood to Katarina,