After his nightly visit to the Minister of the Warm Sea Association, Teveli returned to the Sea Pearl Palace in the heart of the city, to his own room. He still had a long night ahead of him. He couldn't just talk to the person he needed to meet at any moment. So he had no choice but to wait for the right time to call him.
While he waited, he settled himself in his room a little, and even meditated a little. Then, when the time came, precisely in the middle of the night, when the moon was at its highest, he spoke in a calm voice in the completely silent room.
"Etele!" He said the name, without the slightest trace of any emotion on his face. Then he waited, but when nothing happened for another minute, he took a deep breath. "Etele!" Then he waited again, but when nothing happened again, he repeated the call, and then again and again about four more times.
"Okay, okay, I'm here now. No need to talk so much!" Finally, Athira's useless táltos appeared, rolling his eyes. "Hello, little hegin. Shouldn't you be sleeping at this time? Isn't it a little late to be talking to me?" The ghost táltos asked, smiling.
"Let's stop this here and now." Teveli looked angrily at the ghost. "We both know what this is about." He said seriously, but Etele just tilted his head to the side.
"I don't understand what you mean, little hegin." Svihák grinned, whereupon Teveli just sighed heavily and lifted the scroll he had obtained earlier, to then hand it to the ghost standing in front of him. "What is this?" Etele asked with an innocent blink as he took the scroll in his hand.
"The information you asked for. Everything we could gather is there." Teveli shrugged.
"I don't think that..." The ghost started again, but the young Tele boy raised his hand, not letting him continue.
"I would be glad if you wouldn't make a joke of my abilities." He folded his arms in front of him and looked at the ghost with such an icy gaze that he could have killed him. "You may be able to trick your son, but not us. We know everything about everything." He said in a measured voice, trying to let Etele know that he meant everything he said.
"I didn't think someone like you belonged to them." Etele's mouth twitched into a faint half-smile. "If I knew, I might thought about using your services twice." The ghost chuckled. "Who knows who you'll tell." The ghost narrowed his eyes reproachfully.
"Our silence is guaranteed. No one will learn anything from me. Neither the contents of the scroll, nor who requested it." Teveli shrugged, as if it were no big deal.
"You don't even tell your companions?" The older hegin asked, his hands pressing down on the scroll a little.
"If you're thinking of them, they don't need to know everything. That would be it for the game." The young man smiled wickedly, then shook his head and continued seriously. "If you're thinking of the Athamanas, they don't even know what I do in my free time. I have no reason to pass on the information." The young man waved a hand. "And anyway, we're just collecting the information, it's none of our business what our clients do with it." The young man spread his hands, indicating that he considered himself innocent.
"You say you won't do anything with the information, but if I heard correctly, you're planning to use your information." Etele put his hands behind his back and leaned into the boy's face. "Don't you think this is a bit wrong?" He asked with a piercing look, but to the ghost's greatest surprise, the young hegin just laughed.
"It's none of your business that I lead your son by the nose. If I don't use the information, then Kamu will make Suk use it." Teveli explained. "And Suk doesn't exactly want to deal with what Kamu wants him to deal with." The young man continued to chuckle. "He really wants to make Vietryk out of him, but Suk is much more like Ajtony than Kamu." The boy thought for a moment. "And anyway, Suk has enough to do. I'm just taking a burden off his shoulders." The youngest Teike shrugged.
"You can't keep your identity a secret forever, you know?" Etele asked, to which the other hegin just raised his eyebrows.
"I don't take that seriously from you." He finally answered with his eyes closed. "I know what I'm doing." He added seriously, then looked straight into Etele's ghost eyes. "I don't interfere in how you do your business. So I'd be happy if you didn't interfere in mine either." The boy's hands clenched into fists, and Etele laughed.
"Okay, okay. I give up. You're right. This is your business. But be careful. I like your team, it would be a shame if it broke up." Etele pretended to be sad, but after a moment he grinned again and continued as if nothing had happened. "Now it's really time for you to sleep, little hegin. You won't have the strength for tomorrow." He shook his finger at Teveli reproachfully before turning away from the boy. "Good night, may the spirits watch over your dreams." He waved before his form faded.
"I kind of understand why the boss is grumbling at him." Teveli sighed heavily as he rubbed the back of his head. "It's hard to talk to him." He sat down on his bed, then raised his hand to his mouth before a yawn could escape his lips. "But maybe he's right. I really could use some sleep. I have to decieve the Immortal Mist tomorrow. I have to concentrate, one wrong move and my plan will fail." The young boy closed his eyes in surrender before, after another deep breath and a sigh, he lay down in his bed, finally being the last of the team to fall asleep.
Silence fell on the hegins who had arrived at the Deadworld Trench. The night covered the travelers with calm, even as the events that had been started elsewhere in the city had already begun. Messages and conversations flowed through the night, hoping that tomorrow would be perfect. Whatever perfect meant in the situation Teveli had now created.
That night, sleeping the sleep of the righteous, no one knew what the next day would hold for both the hegins and undersea-walkers. As Mittar knew too, it was rare for a member of the leadership to decide to get close to events and take the control of their subordinates into their own hands. This branch of their organization had never experienced anything like it. Usually the other two leaders did that, not Teveli. But he too seemed to have reached the point where he wanted something too much and got it, no matter what method he had to resort to.