The Ring

Nel had never felt fully at ease in the small shrine to Steyfano beside the Blind Beholder. Before accepting a shard of the god's soul, she had only come one to pray to him there. But these days and nights found her there several times a week.
 
It was about the size of a small house. It was neither as opulent as many of the North Ward temples, nor as homespun as the shrine to Eosphorous in the South Ward. Instead, it was an eclectic mix of things -- decorations and offerings from both the rich and poor. Emerald green curtains partitioned some of the space into private areas for prayer. Dice, cards, and other that rely on a mixture of chance and skill sat on the altar with some coins among them. Green glass beads, green stones, green thread all adorned the altar. A large green glass jar was filled with written requests, usually too oblique for anyone reading to make out exactly who was asking for what to anyone reading.
 
But every now and then someone was specific enough in their request that she could decipher it. And every now and then, when someone didn't realize she was sitting silently behind one of the curtains, they would pray out loud. And when that happened, sometimes she could answer the prayers for them.
 
So when Martin Meier, who had learned to read and write at the Warrens school when he was seventeen, prayed for freedom from the Syndicate, thinking that he was alone, she heard him from her hiding place behind her own curtain. She felt her heart sink that the Syndicate had got their hooks in him despite her best efforts -- but also determination to help him.
 
At nineteen now, Martin, a young half-orc, had a sweet wife, Agata -- another student at the Warrens school -- and a beautiful new baby at home. He must have been desperate to risk everything by even looking for an out from the Central Ward's part of the organization.
 
She cased their house, a small cottage in the Central Ward. Around 3:00 each day, Agata took the baby for a walk and picked up some food at the green grocer's for supper. She was usually back by 3:45 and Martin was usually home from work by 6.
 
It was no trouble to pick the lock to their backdoor, which faced the windowless wall separating the Central and South Wards. She slipped in and left a box on the kitchen table containing two hats of disguise, train tickets to rural eastern Patlov, where Agata's family lived, a small sack of gold for starting a new life, and an anonymous note urging them to take the gifts and go.
 
They left that night.
 
Weeks later an envelope came in the mail for Nel at the Adventurer's Guild. She opened it and found a letter and a ring. It read:
 
"Dear Nel,
 
Thank you for the kind and dangerous thing you did for us. We are safe and well. We hope you stay that way too. We know it was you who helped us because the baby was fussy the day you left gifts on our table and I came home early and saw you in our kitchen through the window.
 
When we told the story to my grandmother, she said she wanted you to have this in thanks for helping us get safely back to her and because if I could catch you, someone dangerous will someday too. It should help."
 
The handwriting was Agata's. The ring was a nondescript dark gray, like tarnished silver. It appeared too small for her, but fit perfectly when she slid it over her digit on her right paw. It tingled and she concentrated on the now-familiar feeling of magic washing over her. Once she and the ring became attuned to each other, she looked around, not sure what exactly the ring had done.
 
She got up and walked to a mirror, puzzled that the guild members she passed in her hall didn't respond to her nods of greeting. She figured that they must have had something on their minds.
 
But when she got to the mirror, she did not appear in it. It reflected everyone and everything else around it, but not her -- not even when she reached out and touched it.
 
She was invisible!
 
She drew a quick breath and rushed over to an empty room where she could take the ring off without startling anyone.
 
This would, she realized, make her efforts to answer prayers for Steyfano much safer and easier.