Chronology:

Winter in Riften

Learning the Hard Way

Taking a Sick Day

The lock opened with a most satisfying click. Never mind that the chest was empty and her teacher unimpressed. Prim was damn pleased, having figured out the dwemer device far more quickly than the chests with which she'd first started. Barely over a month since she'd joined the guild, and soon she'd have opened every single chest in the training room.

"Good," Vex intoned. "Next week we'll start on the last set of locks."

"It will need to wait," Prim informed her. "Brynjolf and I are heading to Shor's Stone tomorrow. The guards obtained a few sensitive documents and definitely know it. They've got them locked up tight until collection."

She stretched, ignoring the peering expression Vex wore. The woman looked ghostly in the shadows, a flare of white skin and hair. Prim had never seen her outside the cistern, and wondered if the woman was naturally so pale or living here made her so. Black leather made the contrast all the more striking, ethereal even, the woman having reportedly played such a trick to her advantage on a burglary once.

Prim closed and sat atop the dwemer chest, tired from a restless night and then training with Delvin. The man had insisted on running her through a series of pickpocketing challenges on other guild members. Sitting in the dimly lit training room, she could barely make out the bruise on her wrist where Vipir had grabbed her. Delvin should have tipped the man off to her training activities.

"Brynjolf hasn't run a job in awhile," Vex stated.

"His merchant scheme works well enough," Prim dismissed. "This is the first job I'm doing for him. Feels more like a training session."

"Hmm." Vex pursed her lips, disapproval in her voice. "Your first job for anyone but Mercer."

"He likes to keep the coals under my feet hot."

"Goldenglow. Honningbrew..." Vex gave nothing of her thoughts away as she neared Prim. "You know your lock skills are as good as a newborn's, don't you?"

"I just opened..."

"In a training room, with all the quiet and time you want. You don't have time when you're breaking into someone's house. You can't just waste a lockpick when guards are on patrol." The thief crossed her arms, looking tart and speaking as if Prim were a child. "You'd get yourself killed."

"I've been told that all my life," Prim calmly responded. "But I'm still here."

"Yeah, so said the skeever before it stepped on the wrong trap. You need to do more than work with these chests."

Prim opened her mouth, but was stunned into silence when Vex seized her hands. What did the woman think she was doing? She tried pulling away, but metal pressed against her wrists, closing around them quickly and silently. Her mouth formed a wordless 'o', eyes bulging as they followed the chain linking two manacles—manacles that now imprisoned her hands.

"Dagon's balls!" she cursed.

"Get them off, and I'll consider you decent at picking locks." Vex dangled the key in front of her, ripping it away when Prim snatched at it. "If you can't get them off, come find me. I'll just have to tell Mercer you're not good enough yet."

"Why do you even need to bring him into this?" she grumbled.

"Because he's the one ordering me to teach you. I'm not saying you're ready until I'm sure you are. You're not the only one who'd get a black mark."

Prim stared at the manacles in exasperation. Vex's footfalls were fading into the tunnel, and chasing after the woman would be both pointless and degrading. She wasn't about to admit defeat so easily, and surely the lock couldn't be harder than the dwemer chest she'd just opened. She inserted a lockpick and tinkered, uncomfortable with how her hands were forced to bend. The chain between the manacles was short, bringing her wrists nearly together and hindering mobility. She would have blisters later from metal rubbing flesh, the cursed thing!

What kind of manacles were these anyway? They were smoothly formed, the keyhole small and enclosed by intricate engravings. She could do this. She had to free herself without asking Brynjolf or any of the others for assistance. With another gentle twist perhaps...

The lockpick broke.

"Shit," she frowned, reaching into a pocket. Her frown deepened when she realized that said pocket was empty. How many lockpicks had she broken on chests this afternoon? Only one, but she'd only had two lockpicks left to begin with.

Prim groaned in frustration. She needed to find a lockpick, and there was no one to ask without revealing her predicament. Maybe Brynjolf was still in the cistern. Divines, she hoped so, but a quick peek proved the place practically deserted this afternoon. Only one person remained, and she cursed her luck. She would not, under any circumstances, ask him for assistance. She would rather cut off her hands, drown in Lake Honrich, jump...

I need a lockpick.

She approached Mercer Frey's desk, and hid her hands behind a stack of coin purses. He was sitting down, angled away from her with his feet propped atop a stool, his attention focused on the book he held. A glimpse of a turning page revealed sets of Dunmeri letters and symbols that were familiar to Prim in style if not meaning. She glanced over his passive expression, and then studied the bookshelves behind him while waiting to be acknowledged. They were mostly empty, but on one shelf sat the dagger they'd so recently retrieved from vampires. The other thieves had questioned its appearance without earning a word from either herself or Mercer. She'd only told Brynjolf the truth of the matter.

"I need a lockpick," she announced.

"I'm busy."

"No, you don't understand," she insisted. "I really need a lockpick."

She finally had his attention. His eyes rose from the book, considering her with reserve. The crease forming between his eyebrows clearly indicated that he did not wish to be disturbed.

"Is that so?" he questioned.

"Unfortunately, yes."

He turned another page in the book.

"Convince me or go bother someone else."

"You know what? Forget it. I must have been mad asking you for help."

Idiot, she chided herself, turning with as much nonchalance and speed as possible. Maybe he hadn't seen the manacles. It was possible given his absorption in the book. He was focused on Goldenglow again, driven to figure out the contract's symbol with a determination that almost made her pity the poor fool to whom it belonged, because he would figure it out, and divines show mercy on those responsible when he did.

A sharp tug on the back of her belt brought her to a halt. Of all the insolent ways to get someone's attention!

"Must you...?"

"How exactly did you manage this?"

He held one of her manacled wrists, gaze trailing from the metal to her eyes.

"Vex's final test," she grudgingly shared. He didn't really think she'd accidentally chain herself, did he? The thought irritated her more than his intrusive behavior. "Unlock them?" she suggested, sheepishly smiling.

"That would defeat the purpose. Figure it out yourself."

He dropped her hands and moved back toward his desk. He could have at least given her a lockpick, but of course he hadn't. Prim watched his slow steps and wondered if he expected her to say more, perhaps argue that cheating was hardly off limits for thieves. Instead, a tumult of ideas fanned across her nerves, her own thoughts having been consumed by Goldenglow lately, and divines, but she wanted to make him stop dead in his tracks.

"Are you a religious man, Master Frey?"

The man froze and then slowly turned, hot disdain in his voice.

"Religious?"

"Yes. Do you go to temples? Swear and curse on your favorite god? Pray perhaps? Or maybe that's beneath you. Have you ever even been in the Temple of Mara? It's right there."

She did not expect the topic to stir such severity in him, but stir it had. He was once more before her, close and full of controlled energy. There was even a spark of anger in his voice, or maybe outrage, as if she'd broached an offensive subject in the hallowed walls of his guild.

"And who do you pray to?" he pried. "Talos? He would play right into your rebellious streak and heroism. Or maybe Stendarr is more your type. Do you think your favorite will smite me if you beg enough?"

"Smite you? I highly doubt a divinity would take time to smite you just because I asked. Not that you don't deserve it sometimes," she smartly added. "I'm guessing you prefer a daedra yourself."

His expression took on a predatory quality as he backed her into the wall. She hadn't even noticed her feet moving, and gulped when he lifted the chain between her manacles, higher and higher until he hooked it over an old masonry nail sticking out from the wall. The manacles dug painfully into her wrists, her arms stretched to the point of being uncomfortable. Mercer was dangerously close, and she didn't dare free herself with him bearing down on her.

"I like you better this way," he gruffly stated. Prim's mouth went dry.

"You haven't answered my question."

"Oh, I think I have."

She almost made a snide comment about him helping Haelga worship Dibella, and immediately swallowed it. This position was too vulnerable, and gods help her if someone entered the cistern and saw her like this. They would definitely get the wrong idea. She lifted her chin a bit higher, bringing her face closer to Mercer's. There were lighter streaks of gray in his eyes, a swirl of shades like shadows on the forest floor.

"Stubborn woman," he muttered. "No god is going to swoop in and save you."

"I think it has been a long time since either of us expected their help, Mercer." She wiggled, and he closed a hand over the nail, keeping the chain there. Perhaps it was time to call it quits for the day. "I asked you about religion for a reason. I was thinking about the Goldenglow contract. Your book. You probably won't find what you're looking for in it."

She pulled on the chain a bit more, but he didn't budge, and her fingers wrapped tightly around his hand in protest. His silence invited her to continue.

"I've seen the symbol before, or something similar at least. It's stylized like the Dunmeri used in religious texts. I've seen it in temples before. They're complete chants represented by a single symbol. I only remembered yesterday. I don't know the meaning, but..."

"Where have you seen it?"

"Shrines to Azura, although dark elves seem to worship her and her sister Nocturnal together."

Mercer's face betrayed nothing, although the muscles of his hand tighten beneath her grasp. He released the chain, but did not back away. The depths of his eyes had darkened, seeing beyond her, even as they seared across her skin.

"You have the most unexpected knowledge," he pondered.

"I have a good memory."

He produced a lockpick and held it in front of her face, giving her a good look before trailing the tip down the front of her armor. Her skin prickled beneath the leather as the offending instrument neared her waist. What was he playing at? She stiffened defensively, silent as he tucked the lockpick into her belt. Had he really just given one to her? She warily eyed him, expecting him to take it back. He bent closer, voice soft and brisk.

"Make it count."

And then he was gone. Prim hurried to the training room where she could work in silence, more determined than ever. In the morning, when Mercer returned, a pair of manacles were sitting on his desk.