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“I am not in the habit of divulging anybody’s personal business to anybody else,” Professor Tellwyrn began as soon as she settled herself behind her desk, “a fact for which several of you have abundant cause to be personally grateful. I am, in this one case, going to make an exception because the cat is pretty well out of the bag, and it’s better that those who saw it understand exactly what type of cat it was before the rumor starts flying that there’s a lion on campus.”

“Nice turn of phrase!”

“Shut up, Arquin. Since a classmate’s personal privacy is being abrogated here, I will have to insist that what I am about to tell you travels no further. If it does, the repercussions will be severe and indiscriminately applied to everyone present. And,” she added with rising asperity, “I would have thought all of this went without saying, but I can’t help noticing that this group is already larger than I expected.”

She paused to glare around her office, which in addition to the students who had been present in Last Rock for the Sleeper’s attack, now contained the entire population of the Wells and the sophomore class who remained un-cursed, as well as Scorn.

“Iris is our friend,” the Rhaazke said stidently, laying a heavy hand on Szith’s shoulder. “We care about her!”

Tellwyrn fixed a gimlet stare on her. “And in your mind, this entitles you to be involved in her personal business?”

“That, yes,” Scorn said with an emphatic nod.

Ruda cleared her throat. “So, Iris is a half-demon, right? I mean, that’d explain her being Sleeper-proof, not to mention her fixation on Gabe…”

“What?” Gabriel frowned at her. “Iris is hardly fixated on me. Where are you getting that from?”

“Arquin, you elevate cluelessness to a fucking art form.”

“Iris Domingue is not a half-demon!” Tellwyrn said loudly. “She comes from a respectable old Vernisite family from Thakar, with no traceable demon lineage on either side, and no evidence of demonic corruption that could explain her situation. She is simply, for reasons nobody understands, an infernal savant.”

There was a momentary pause while they all stared at her in varying degrees of confusion.

“So…wait,” Fross said at last. “I know what both those words mean and I can infer what they mean in connection with each other, but that can’t be right because it doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know you are all aware, by this point in your academic careers, of the basic nature of infernal magic,” Tellwyrn said, folding her hands atop her desk and regarding them over the rims of her spectacles. “Anyone can use it; the challenge for warlocks is in using it safely. Without the inherent protection granted by full-scale demonic mutation from having one’s entire lineage forged in Hell itself, the infernal is unfathomably dangerous and nearly impossible to control. A significant error can cause catastrophic, usually explosive destruction; even a minor error will cause the first stage of lifelong degenerative disease, with cancers being the most common, though they are not the totality or even the worst of it. Half-demons tend to have both a greater aptitude and a measure of protection, but neither is absolute even for them. And yes, I’m aware you have all heard this lecture before, but you’re hearing it again now, and will every time I find a reason to discuss infernal magic with my students. It is that dangerous.” She paused, and heaved a little sigh before continuing. “Iris Domingue, for whatever reason, can wield the infernal with perfect, intuitive control. Without understanding or even thinking about it, she uses it in such a way that she avoids corruption, either in the form of combustion or illness. And she can do things with it, despite knowing zero technique, that no warlock has even thought to try.”

Another silence descended, marked this time by expressions mostly of consternation.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Toby said at last.

“Nobody has, Mr. Caine,” Tellwyrn replied. “That is why I brought her here. It’s not widely known, because very few organizations are both positioned and invested in identifying and recruiting unusual young people—I haven’t been arrogant enough to assume this, but it’s possible I’m the only one who’s noticed. But within the last decade, roughly since the time the gods retreated and stopped calling paladins, individuals have begun popping up who can use magic in ways that aren’t exactly…normal. November Stark’s case is unusual, but not without precedent; there have occasionally been humans who can touch the divine unaided, just as there are occasionally drow who can wield the arcane. The prevailing theory is that it’s the natural state for all sapients to have access to all magic, and occasionally whatever force bars certain races from certain schools…misses a spot. More seriously, though… No, if there’s ever been a case like Iris before, I’ve never heard of it. And nobody who has studied her has the faintest clue what the cause is. Similarly, I have never heard of any fairy, much less a pixie, who can use arcane magic without simply exploding. Fross is, after all, the effective grandchild of an Elder God, but still. It’s never happened before. Something is up in the world.”

Teal let out a soft breath. “A great doom—”

“Don’t fucking say it!” Ruda groaned.

“So, um…” Gabriel frowned pensively. “Now you mention it, Professor, I know this is supposed to be a school for exceptional and dangerous people, but on reflection it occurs to me quite a few of our classmates seem pretty…normal. How many of these secret walking magical anomalies have we got on this campus?”

“Arquin, what did I just say about other people’s personal business?”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Anyway,” the Professor went on more briskly, “that’s the context. This meeting was convened because your classmate and friend has just had a traumatic experience, and needs support, not suspicion. It may be impossible to keep a lid on this; too many people from the town know she got cornered by the Sleeper, and others will wonder how she got away. It’s up to Iris to decide what she wants to tell anybody. It’s up to you lot to be there for her and back her up.”

“This we will do,” Szith said firmly.

“Aye,” Maureen agreed in a quieter tone. “Thank th’Light it wasn’t more traumatic, though. Way I understood it, she right whipped ‘is arse, an’ more power to ‘er.”

“There’s a lot more to trauma than being physically wounded,” Tellwyrn said gravely. “Consider Iris’s life up until now. She has refused to learn any infernomancy, which shows wisdom, but also has downsides. It’s that technique which makes the infernal useful for anything besides destruction; she cannot shadow-jump, become invisible, summon anything… With training, Iris would be the greatest warlock who ever lived. Without that training, she is a walking weapon comparable in scope to the Enchanter’s Bane. Her decision to eschew all infernal magic and immerse herself in the fae to suppress it is obviously in her best interests, and the world’s best interests. But there are people who care nothing for the interests of the world, and worse, people who care deeply and automatically conflate the world’s interests with their own agendas. The Black Wreath has been after her since before she could walk, and even those who protected her did so with the presumption of repayment. Iris has only grown to adulthood without being conscripted by one power or another because her parents are both bankers, which is the next best thing to aristocrats in terms of ruthless cunning. They’ve managed to play the Universal Church and Imperial Intelligence against each other for eighteen years, but that can’t last forever. I brought Iris here to give her four years to just…be a person. And more importantly, to develop the skills and the connections that will enable her to live her life without becoming anybody’s pawn.”

“We’ll help her,” Teal said quietly.

“Fuck yes!” Ruda agreed with much less restraint. “I don’t like to bust out my tiara, but the hell with it; anybody who tries to slap a collar on her is gonna have words with the Punaji nation about it.”

Toby cleared his throat. “I think we had better let Iris make decisions about her own life and back her up, rather than declaring our intentions unilaterally. Bad enough we’re having this discussion behind her back.”

“Gods, thank you, Toby,” Tellwyrn groaned. “The rest of you chucklefucks listen to him, for heaven’s sake.”

“Yeah, she’s right,” said Juniper. “Our job’s just to be friends. Wherever Iris decides that takes us.”

“So…what happens now?” Gabriel asked. “About the Sleeper? That warlock you brought in seemed to think he might have gotten killed…”

“He wasn’t,” Tellwyrn said with a sigh. “I’ve already verified the presence of every student on campus. None of them appear to have had their asses kicked in the Golden Sea, either, and to find that out in detail I would pretty much have to throw out any pretense of anyone having any privacy or personal security on this campus. For obvious reasons, I’m not willing to do that.”

“When’d you manage this?” Ruda demanded. “Cos you just got back and I know that weird new fuzzy assistant of yours didn’t check up on everybody and report in. He doesn’t even speak the language!”

“Crystal checked in on me earlier,” Toby reported.

Scorn grunted and curled her lip, baring fangs. “That tame incubus of hers was snooping around, too.”

“He’s neither tame nor mine, and don’t you forget either of those things,” Tellwyrn said irritably. “To answer your question, Arquin… What happens now is that you lot go back to your dorms and sleep. Those of you going to the Wells anyway take the time to hug your roommate, and the rest of you leave it be until you see her again normally. Tomorrow… Well, there are going to be some changes around here. Tomorrow will be a big day. You’ll want to be rested up and ready.”

Dawn, as always, was more a shift change than an awakening in the sleepless capital of the Empire. Most people who kept typical business hours were barely awake, much less contemplating breakfast yet, and the city as a whole was still early in the process of rising toward its usual frenetic pace. This was certainly not an hour when those who had been up till nearly midnight would be expected to be already at work, and yet, here they were.

The hour was all part of the pantomime. The Imperial family received their guest in one of the harem wing’s smaller formal parlors, no bigger than the average drawing room in a modestly well-to-do home, but deliberately laid out like a throne room, with a narrow strip along the wall opposite the door raised a single step and two chairs set upon it, with their backs to the windows. Sharidan and Eleanora sat in these, Milanda and Vex respectively standing at their sides. There was no other furniture, nothing for the person called before them to do but stand amid the heavy reminder of their respective stations.

Bishop Darling seemed perfectly calm and at ease, as he usually did, and was doing as well as they at presenting himself as though fully rested and alert. Doubtless he, like the Imperials, had been at the coffee. The stuff was starting to show up on the menus of tea rooms in the city, and rumblings had begun that it should be classified as a drug and regulated as such. Sharidan was considering it, if only to keep the drink out of general circulation and maximize the advantage of those who had access to it. Not that that would have helped today; Antonio Darling would have no trouble getting his hands on whatever he felt himself entitled to.

So far, no one had remarked upon the presence of the two black-coated Hands of the Emperor standing just inside the doors to the room, as impassively watchful as always, nor the fact that Milanda Darnassy was dressed in one of their uniforms, tailored to her figure.

“You are too modest, your Grace,” the Emperor said smoothly in a continuation of a back-and-forth of pleasantries which had now gone on long enough that it was verging on tediousness. “The fact remains that you are owed a great debt by the Silver Throne—you personally, and the Thieves’ Guild as a whole. I flatter myself that I am known to honor my debts.”

“It’s nothing more than the duty of a citizen to aid the Throne, should the opportunity present itself,” Darling said blandly. There came a momentary pause, the briefest hesitation in this practiced social ritual in which the next step was silently contemplated, and finally the Bishop chose to give ground by acknowledging ignorance—a slight concession, and one he was in a position to afford, but a concession nonetheless. “Your Majesty, I have to confess that I don’t understand more than a fraction of what transpired last night.”

Eleanora drummed her fingers once on the arm of her chair, giving Sharidan an expressionless sidelong look—a reminder that Darling wasn’t the only one in the dark on some points. The Emperor allowed himself a slight smile.

“I’m afraid this isn’t like a story in which everything is neatly explained in the end, your Grace. There are details we ourselves have not entirely sorted out—and of course, there are details we are not able to share with you. The entire matter, obviously, is enormously sensitive. That said, I didn’t call you here at this ungodly hour just to express my thanks. After the help you and your enforcers rendered, I want to explain as much as I am able. Even aside from my appreciation of your rescue…we both know some explanations are owed.”

“I wouldn’t presume to make any such demands,” the Bishop said with a bland smile. “But I would of course be glad to understand as much as possible of what I stumbled into.”

“The last part was the biggest mystery,” said the Emperor. “I was not expecting those…cultists. In truth, we still don’t know who they were. Apprehending their leader did us little good, I’m afraid; he killed himself via lethal injection, using a hypodermic syringe.”

A frown creased Darling’s serene expression. “Well, that certainly is…suggestive.”

“Lord Vex?” Sharidan prompted, turning to look past Eleanora at the spymaster.

Vex was the only person present who actually looked sleepy, but then, it was unusual for him to appear alert. He blinked languidly before speaking.

“We are not seriously entertaining the idea that the attackers were Black Wreath. The tactics were all wrong, the Wreath has no motive to have done such a thing, and this is hardly the first time someone has tried to pin the blame on them by donning silly robes before engaging in shenanigans. The syringe and shadow-jumpers were nice touches, more effort than we’re used to seeing at selling this old charade, but the facts stand. We know what the Wreath want, and we know how they fight. They don’t use necromancy, they do use infernomancy, they don’t meddle in politics unless there are demons involved, and there quite simply aren’t that many of them. Or if there are, they at least do not throw bodies at their problems.”

“All of us here,” Darling said quietly, “know of the Wreath’s attempt to meddle in politics. At the highest possible level.”

An absolute freeze descended momentarily. This was as touchy a subject as could possibly be raised in this particular company. Eleanora’s hands tightened on the arms of her chair.

“That wasn’t the Wreath,” Vex said mildly after a moment, “but their goddess. They are no more in control of her than any cult, and not alone in occasionally finding themselves stumbling over her trail. Most gods are more of a hassle to tidy up after than yours, Antonio. My man in Last Rock reports the Wreath is actually cleaning up one of her messes out there, or rather trying to help Tellwyrn do so.”

“The spider and the scorpion, meeting in the dark,” the Empress said frostily. “Someone’s getting stung, and I don’t much care which.” Sharidan grinned at her in open amusement, which she ignored.

His expression sobered as he turned back to the Bishop, however. “More to the point, your Grace, I owe an apology to you and yours. The truth is, you aided the Empire in good faith, you and the Guild, and we were less than honest with you from the beginning about our intentions. It all turned out as well as I could have hoped, and I certainly would not have agreed to such manipulation had it not been absolutely necessary. Still, I did not like having to deceive you, and I regret doing so—and not only because of the aid you subsequently rendered. You have the apology of the Throne, which I hope you will convey to Boss Tricks as well. We are doubly in your debt.”

“For my part, your Majesty, it’s all water under the bridge,” Darling said smoothly, putting on a magnanimous smile. “As Lord Vex himself pointed out to me yesterday, we’re all old hands at politics, here. These things have to be done, from time to time; there’s no use in taking anything personally.” He deliberately sobered his expression before continuing. “I feel I can say with relative certainty that the Boss will bear no grudge, either. However, with the greatest possible respect, I must remind your Majesty that the Thieves’ Guild is not a thing to be antagonized, particularly from atop a throne. At the core of Eserion’s faith is the command to watch the halls of power, and thwart their overreaches. You risk worsening your problems exponentially by playing the Guild for fools, and I may not always be able to intercede.”

“Well, that’s a little backward, isn’t it?” Sharidan spoke pleasantly, but he suddenly leaned forward, propping his arms on his knees; the change in his demeanor was abrupt and striking. “We’re glad, even eager, to make whatever amends we can for any offense taken by your cult, or anyone in it. But you, specifically, were the one tricked, Bishop Darling—that is, Sweet. And you are the one taking this tone with me now. Are you certain you wanna do that?”

Eleanora, Vex, and Milanda all shifted infinitesimally to stare at him, eyes widening by fractions despite their practiced reserve. This was not what they had discussed before the meeting.

Darling, too, was thrown off enough to cause the briefest hitch in his smooth presentation. “Your Majesty—”

“Okay, let’s cut the crap, shall we?” the Emperor suggested. “We’ll be here all morning at this rate. I don’t know about you, but I have an impossible number of things to do today and it looks like I’m already going to miss breakfast. You and I both know the score well enough to speak plainly.”

“Sharidan,” Eleanora said sharply.

“In addition to expressing my apology for this mess to your Boss,” the Emperor continued, “I’d take it as a personal kindness if you’d carry it to Lakshmi and Sanjay. And not on behalf of the Throne. I hate having abused their hospitality; those two were never anything but kind to me. It rankles, having to leave things like this.”

“I’ll tell her,” Darling said slowly, watching the Emperor with open wariness, now. He wasn’t the only one in the room doing so. “I have to warn you, though, Peepers probably doesn’t want to hear anything from you. Do…you want to let her know who you actually were?”

Sharidan sighed softly, and leaned back in his chair. “…no. No, best not; I can’t see anything but more trouble coming of that. I’m just someone who did her wrong, and regrets it. That’s how things will have to stand.”

“All right, well—”

“But with that aside, we were talking about us.” He actually shifted to lounge against one side of his chair and crossed his legs in a deliberately casual posture totally unlike his normal carriage before guests. Eleanora had returned her gaze forward, but Milanda was watching him with wide eyes. “Here’s the simple truth, Sweet: you are a pain in the ass. You’re everywhere, involved in the government, in the Church, in whatever your Guild is up to on a given day, and yet, nobody knows what it is you actually want. All we know is that you’re one of the Empire’s foremost experts on playing both ends against the middle, and you should know that by this stage in your illustrious career, everybody is getting tired of it. Now, I will gladly—humbly, even—offer my apologies and make amends to the Guild, for the sake of the necessary politics. To Lakshmi as a friend, as well, if such overtures won’t be immediately spat on. But you, Antonio Darling? I won’t do anything as pointless as suggest you pick a role and stick to it, but if you’re seriously going to have the face to stand here and complain about someone playing you false in this game…” Sharidan grinned broadly, the expression showing a lot of teeth and not reaching his eyes. “Blow me.”

The silence was absolute.

Darling cleared his throat discreetly, once he had recovered. “With greatest appreciation for the kindness of your Majesty’s offer, I must respectfully decline.”

The Emperor’s grin softened, becoming marginally more sincere. “Vex thinks you’re a true Eserite at heart. I realize we didn’t exactly spend much time bonding over the last few days, but I’m inclined to lean toward that conclusion myself, after watching you in action. As such, I realize you’re not inclined to trust anyone who sits on a throne for a living—as you yourself pointed out. Just keep in mind that there are powers in this world, and then there are powers, and you’d be wise to consider which of them rule just to rule, and which are trying to help people. There’s a limit to how long you can keep playing this game of yours, Sweet.”

“There are limits to everything, your Majesty,” the Bishop said pleasantly, his poise back in place. “Men like you and I are forced to push them as far as we humanly can. And let’s be honest: we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Sharidan heaved a sigh and straightened his posture. “There are a lot of things I wish could be other than they are… In any case. We thank you for accommodating us at this early hour, your Grace, especially after such an eventful night. Your assistance to the Throne is, as always, duly appreciated, and it is our hope that you will convey our sincere gratitude to the Thieves’ Guild as well.”

Long before the end of his speech, he had fully resumed the serenely regal bearing expected of an Emperor, and finished by inclining his head in a kingly gesture of dismissal.

Darling bowed deeply. “It is my honor to aid the Empire however I may, your Majesty. I’m certain the Guild will appreciate your overture. By your leave, then?”

“Go in good health, your Grace.”

Vex was drawing in breath for a heavy sigh before Darling was fully out of the room, and began speaking in a tone of strained patience the instant the doors had shut behind him. “Your Majesty—”

“Have you lost your mind?” Eleanora exclaimed.

“If anything, I’ve recently found it,” Sharidan said lightly, again relaxing into his chair. “You know what your problem is, Quentin?”

“I very much fear I am about to,” Vex said flatly.

The Emperor grinned at him. “In fairness, it’s not really a problem. You are so fixated on facts, on knowing all the details and angles, you tend to undervalue the squishier variables. People’s personalities, their passions, their hearts.”

“I assuredly do not neglect to consider individual character in my calculations, your Majesty,” Vex said with open annoyance, “but I also understand their place in the greater equation.”

“People aren’t rational creatures,” Sharidan replied. “They can’t be rationally predicted in their actions. Sometimes, you have to follow your intuition. You have to extend a little faith, a little trust. It’s not a criticism; your way of looking at the world is what makes you so good at your job. It’s not the only way, however, nor even necessarily the best.”

“Exactly what faith and trust are you displaying by needlessly antagonizing that smirking Eserite weasel after all the effort we just put into mollifying him?” Eleanora demanded.

Sharidan winked at her, and for a moment she looked like she was about to hit him.

“After spending a few days among Eserites, I’ve gained some insight,” he said cheerfully. “I just did more to earn that guy’s respect than we’ve managed in the entire time we’ve been trying to court him. Trust me, Nora. I know what I’m doing.”

“Your Majesty,” said Vex, “with all due respect, I question that assertion. I have never agreed with any part of this plan of yours, and with it now completed I consider it lucky that you escaped serious harm. And we’ve gained nothing.”

“Not at all,” the Emperor said more seriously, reaching over to take one of Milanda’s hands. “We know who was behind the attack on our magical systems, even if we can’t prove it. We forced Justinian to react rapidly to protect his schemes, and in the process learned something we’ve previously only suspected by watching his general pattern: he is strongest when he’s allowed to set up the board before the game, and not so smooth when he’s forced to improvise.”

“You believe he sent those…whoever they were, last night?” Milanda asked quietly.

“Oh, please, who else? I realize your people are still analyzing the bodies we recovered, Lord Vex, but I think we all know there won’t be any useful evidence. Who but the Church has the resources to build an entire disposable cult to fling at us anonymously? What’s important is that we made him do it. We forced him to expend resources, cover his rear and make a show of sending those adventurers we know work for him to aid us in an effort to demonstrate that he’s not the enemy. There’s been a lot we know he’s done that we can’t prove, but he has finally overplayed that hand.”

“He did play it, though,” Vex said, frowning. “We have no solid indication of Justinian’s duplicity. He succeeded in covering his tracks, and turned the situation to his advantage.”

“No,” the Emperor disagreed, “all he managed to do was mitigate his losses, and I’ll bet he doesn’t fully appreciate the gains we’ve made. I established contact with his high-ranking killers; I want you to work on getting in touch with them, Vex. If they can be turned against him, it’ll be a decisive blow, and one we’re even more likely to be able to land now that they’ve seen him try to get them killed. They know who sent those cultists, I assure you. Just because nobody can prove it doesn’t mean everybody doesn’t know.”

Vex opened his mouth to speak, but Sharidan pressed on.

“Which is my main point: I accomplished exactly what I set out to. We’ve got the Guild on our side now, when previously they were nominally aligned with the Church. Their inclination is to be hostile to any entrenched power, and overall have been as adept as Darling at dealing with both sides while avoiding a commitment. I assure you, Darling knows as well as we that Justinian is the only one who could have been summoning a necromantic mass-murder cult in the middle of a residential district last night, and Tricks sure as hell does. Putting the Throne in debt to the Guild is a bond between us, as strong as if we’d put them in our debt, and a lot more possible to achieve. As long as we don’t screw this up, when Justinian finally makes his move, he’ll have the Guild against him, not on his side or even neutral.” Smiling smugly, he lounged in his pseudo-throne. “It was dicey for a while, but this is a success, people. You all know we haven’t been winning this game recently. This time, we did.”

“Your Majesty,” Vex said firmly, “be all that as it may, and allowing for differences of opinion on your final analysis, I will have to insist that you never again take such a risk as you did this week, and especially last night.”

The two Hands by the door had been silent for the whole conversation thus far, but now shifted to stare at Vex. People did not use words like insist when addressing their Emperor. Sharidan made a quick placating gesture at them, even as he replied.

“In that, I have to agree. That gambit only worked because it was unthinkable; if me going out in disguise becomes a pattern, it’ll be all too easy for someone to use it against me. And for purposes of this discussion, twice constitutes a pattern. I don’t think that trick will be usable again for…oh, about thirty years or so. Regardless, for now!” He stood up, still holding Milanda’s hand, and bowed to her courteously. “I have a lot of appearances to make; after this week, people need to be reassured that their Emperor and his Hands are in place and functioning as usual. But first, I think you had something to show me down below?”

“Indeed,” she replied with a smile, “it’s been a little tense, but to my own surprise, I actually got everything settled. It’s going to take some…explaining, however.”

“Splendid! Eleanora, I’ll meet you after breakfast and we shall proceed with our first meeting of the day. For now, after being out of the action all week, I’m anxious to see how this has finally turned out.”

 

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12 – 32

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Dawn was just beginning to lighten the infirmary’s tall windows, barely noticed by the exhausted students within. Several of the group had split off after everyone had been treated for infernal exposure, but most of the sophomores were still nearby, standing or sitting on the beds (in Ruda’s case, stretched out and seemingly asleep), keeping quiet but maintaining a kind of vigil.

Ravana’s roommates, having arrived only minutes before, kept a closer one.

“You idiot,” Iris whispered. Maureen, Szith, and Scorn all looked over at her, the rest of the students being clustered a few beds away. “You smug, arrogant… Why would you do something like this? Dammit, what’s wrong with you!”

“Iris, stop,” Szith said firmly, placing a hand on her shoulder. By the end of her tirade, she had raised her voice to a shout, prompting Miss Sunrunner to head in their direction, scowling. The healer paused, though, at a frantic gesture from Maureen.

“You know she did it on purpose,” Iris said, scrubbing tears from her face. “Thought she could do better than everyone, so she just…”

“Yes.” Szith sighed, and squeezed her shoulder gently. “Yes, and I should have been watching her for something like this.”

“It’s not your fault,” Iris snorted, glaring down at Ravana, who appeared to be sleeping quite peacefully. “Nobody did this to herself but her!”

“An’ the Sleeper,” Maureen said quietly. “Don’t forget him.”

“The Sleeper will pay for all of this,” Scorn growled.

“My mother served for many years as a personal bodyguard to a noble of House An’sadarr,” Szith said. “They have a certain…psychology. I don’t believe Ravana meant any harm, but this…belief…she has, that she is both smarter than everyone, and responsible and entitled to do what she thinks no one else can do properly, which is everything…” She sighed, shook her head. “Drow, human, apparently some things are the same everywhere. My mother has always told me that watching over a noble means protecting them from themselves as much as from their enemies.”

“You smug idiot,” Iris growled at Ravana. She lunged forward at the sleeping girl, prompting the others to try to grab her, but Iris simply folded her arms on the bed beside Ravana and buried her face in them.

“Well.” Maureen hopped down from the bed and went over to Scorn, who was only a few feet distant, but that still made a bit of a walk for her. Smiling, she patted the demon on the knee. “I’m sorry you’re stuck on this plane an’ all, Scorn, but truth be told, it’s at times like this I’m glad t’have you here with us.”

Scorn sighed softly, then smiled briefly at the gnome before her expression stilled again. “I can go home any time,” she said.

Szith looked over at her in surprise, and Iris lifted her head. “But I thought…”

“Me getting here, that is what was impossible in the first place. But I’ve studied this world, and thought about the situation… The hellgates, they are all under Imperial control, yes? But that means just that it is known where they all are. And the Empire, I think they will not be sad to see me leave.” She shrugged. “I bet, if they wanted to be difficult, Professor Tellwyrn could get them to let me through a gate. Then… In Hell, most things either honor the Rhaazke or do not challenge us, and I can avoid everything else. Eventually I could find other Rhaazke, or at least forces who follow the Dark Lady who can bring me to Rhaazke. They could bring me to a portal to the Grey Planes. Then… Getting back to my home would be a matter just of walking. It would be an adventure, but more a long one than a dangerous one, at least for me. I can go.”

Scorn very gently placed a hand on Ravana’s forehead, brushing back her blonde hair. The demon’s hand seemed large enough to crush the girl’s skull, its short claws and mottled skin a stark contrast with the young aristocrat’s porcelain complexion.

“But here… I am learning things. Getting education which will make me a more worthy successor when my mother needs one. And… I have friends, here. Someday I will have to leave friends behind, and that will be a sad day. But I don’t want to, yet. And right now, I can’t.” She stroked Ravana’s hair again. “Not while friends need my help. Especially since I need to wait for one to wake up so I can yell at her.”

Iris emitted a faint huff of breath, a noise that might have become a laugh if given time to grow. “It’s a date. We’ll have to form a line.”

The infirmary door swung open, prompting everyone to look in that direction. Immediately, several of the sophomores straightened up, Ruda lifting her head, and then swinging her legs over the side of her bed to sit upright with a grunt. It was Toby who stepped forward, bringing himself nearly even with Ravana’s bed, to address her.

“We failed, Professor.”

Tellwyrn nodded briefly at him, before returning her attention to the infirmary’s newest permanent resident. “I’ve heard an accounting already. Fedora and Rafe are in the latter’s lab, processing evidence.”

“Evidence?” Teal asked. “What evidence did they find?”

“Apparently that’s still somewhat up in the air,” the Professor said, sounding as weary as they felt. “Hopefully something useful. Ingvar and the dryads—all three dryads, the gods help us—are loitering outside the lab, catching up. I got more answers out of Ingvar than everyone else combined, thus far. She’s just like the others, Taowi?”

“Not quite,” Miss Sunrunner said, her lips pinched in an expression of disapproval. “You’re in good time, Arachne; I just finished applying the alchemical purgative before these girls arrived. Ravana had been dosed with Nightmare’s Dream. As she is trapped in a state of sleep, I made especially sure to expunge all alchemical agents from her bloodstream.”

“Wait, she what?” Maureen asked. “Whassat, then?”

“Madouri, you insufferable little…” Tellwyrn trailed off, closing her eyes, and drew a deep breath. “Nightmare’s Dream is a potion. An illegal one, as it is used chiefly as an instrument of torture. It causes the imbiber to experience excruciating pain if they fall asleep.”

“Holy shit,” Gabriel whispered, staring aghast at Ravana from across the room.

“We are fairly sure the Sleeper didn’t apply it,” Miss Sunrunner said sourly, “but that Miss Madouri herself did. How she acquired such a thing, I’ve no idea. Admestus denies having supplied either the potion or any of the necessary ingredients.”

“It would surprise me if she had not inherited that and worse from her father,” Szith noted. “She has supplied Rafe with hellhound breath, let us not forget. There is no telling what else lies in House Madouri’s vaults.”

“Oh, quite,” Tellwyrn agreed, glaring down at Ravana. “It wasn’t a bad idea, strategically speaking. It is very hard to knock someone out magically while they’re in pain; you need drugs for that. Clever, reckless, and utterly typical of this particular ingenious little fool.”

“And I thought the Sleeper was bad,” Ruda breathed. “What kind of goat-fucking lunatic…”

“It seems to have worked, at least at first,” said Shaeine. “We heard her screaming in obvious pain before we arrived on the scene.”

“Bloody hell,” Maureen choked.

“Uh, Professor?” Gabriel said hesitantly. “I don’t know how many bushy-tailed people there are in Sifan, but I think you brought back the wrong one…”

Everyone shifted their focus to the figure trying to hide behind Tellwyrn. This was a lost cause; despite being considerably shorter than she, he was at least twice as broad.

The elf grimaced, turned and spoke a few rapid words in Sifanese. The fluffy banded tail sticking out from behind the level of her knees quivered once, and then what appeared to be an overweight, gnome-sized raccoon wearing a monk’s robes stepped out, bowed to the room, and chattered several soft sentences in the same language.

“This is Maru,” Tellwyrn said dourly. “He is pleased to meet you all and looks forward to working with you. Since assigning Crystal to the library I’ve been feeling the lack of a secretary, anyway, so…here we are.”

“Arachne,” Miss Sunrunner said, staring at the new arrival, “would I be correct in inferring that your new secretary does not speak Tanglish?”

Tellwyrn sighed. “Yeah, well, he owes me a favor. And when I find myself satisfied with its repayment, he’s got worse coming to him back home, so Maru’s incentive here is not toward competence, anyway. That aside, tanuki tend to be puckish even by fairy standards. I have a great deal of mislaid correspondence to look forward to, I suspect.”

“About your mission…?” Teal prompted.

“Kaisa is not coming back,” Tellwyrn said shortly. “You kids…did the best you could. Even if you didn’t capture the Sleeper, the effort wasn’t wasted. It seems you’ve learned quite a bit; Fedora was eager as a kid at Wildfeast to tell me all he’s discovered, but I figured it could wait till he and Admestus have finished playing with their alchemy set. I’ll hear reports from you lot, as well, but…after you’ve had some sleep. The lot of you resemble the leftovers too mangled for Death to bother to take.”

“Vestrel would like you to know she resents that,” said Gabriel, then paused. “…and I’m supposed to repeat something in elvish which I can barely pronounce and refuse to try because I’m pretty sure it’s—”

“Shut up, Arquin.”

“Gladly, thank you.”

“Taowi,” Tellwyrn said, turning to the healer, “there is nothing you can do for these kids until we get some answers about this curse. As soon as Stew and Harland finish cleansing and fixing up the area this lot demolished last night, I’m going to set them to work on the campus chapel.”

“You’re moving the victims there?” Sunrunner asked quietly.

Tellwyrn nodded. “It doesn’t see a lot of use anyway. Stew can re-purpose the pews as comfortable beds, and nobody alive can match Harland Harklund’s skill at divine wards. At bare minimum it’ll keep them safe from more infernomancy; I’m hoping, now we know for certain this is a warlock, just keeping them there may erode the curse over time.”

“Very well,” she agreed, nodding. “Let me know when they’re ready to be—”

“I trust even you can appreciate the seriousness of this.”

Several of them jumped, Ruda cursing, and Maru actually yelped and bounded onto an unoccupied bed. The black-coated Hand of the Emperor now stood next to Iris, who skittered away from him. He lifted his stare from Ravana’s prone form to glare at Tellwyrn.

“This is the sitting governor of Tiraan Province itself, now lying cursed because you were off gallivanting in Sifan rather than protecting your students. This is more than I can overlook, Tellwyrn.”

“I bet if you tried real hard you could manage not to stick yourself into this and make it worse,” she said. Several of the students exchanged nervous glances; there was a dull weariness in Tellwyrn’s voice now, quite unlike her usual acidic demeanor, and under the circumstances it was more than a little alarming.

“I will be sending back to the capital for more assistance,” the Hand said, with just enough vindictive relish to be clear in his tone. “A thorough review of your educational practices is now necessary, Tellwyrn. I suggest you clean house quickly, if you intend to. There will not be much more time.”

“You can review whatever the hell you like, nothing around here is going to change in response to your orders,” she said flatly.

He bristled. “Must I remind you that I speak for the Emperor himself?”

“Glad we understand each other.”

The infirmary door opened again, and a student stuck her head in. “Miss Sunrunner, did you see—oh, thank flip, Professor Tellwyrn! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“It’s not even dawn,” Tellwyrn complained. “Why am I already surrounded by whining and demands? Miss Darke, I am busy.” She jerked her head at the Hand, who simply folded his arms and looked supercilious.

“Okay, I’ll let you decide if this is worth it,” Marjorie Darke said, edging carefully into the room. “You’ve got a visitor. Um, another one.”

“At this hour?” Miss Sunrunner said disapprovingly.

The door swung the rest of the way open, revealing the guest, and immediately the remaining sophomores and Scorn leaped to their feet.

“I do apologize for the hour,” Embras Mogul said, tipping his hat politely, “but it seems you’ve been gone from the campus until just now, and I am in rather a hurry to have this done with.”

“What the hell do you want?” Gabriel snarled.

“Nothing to do with you, my young friend,” Mogul said kindly. “Take a seat, son, you look half-dead.”

“He, uh, claims to be the leader of the Black Wreath,” Marjorie said helpfully.

“He is,” Tellwyrn snapped. “Iris, don’t even think about it. I can still hear you thinking about it; desist. And you.” She whipped a golden saber out of nowhere and pointed it at Mogul. “Answer the paladin’s question, and pray you answer it well enough to satisfy me.”

“My apologies for interrupting what seems a very interesting conversation,” Mogul said, pulling his left hand from behind his back; it was holding a large bag which appeared to be made from lizard skin, and was squirming faintly. “Truthfully I want nothing here at all, but I was directed to deliver this to Schkhurrankh, here. I want you to know, Professor, I thought very seriously about just chucking it into a hellgate, rather than pluck your strings any further, to say nothing of being reduced my own self to the status of delivery boy. But getting mail from across two dimensional bridges is a thing entirely without precedent. It seemed to me there’d be more trouble than any of us needs if it failed to arrive.”

He tossed the packaged in Scorn’s direction, prompting both Iris and Maureen to dive out of the way, and Szith to draw her sword. Scorn caught it, though, staring.

“What is this?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “I didn’t open it. Unless I was deceived, it’s apparently from your mother.”

“What?” several people chorused incredulously.

Scorn was already ripping open the top of the package, and in the next moment further conversation was stifled by her squeal. None of them had ever heard her squeal before; the sound was distinctly terrifying. She thrust one hand into the bag and pulled out a charred wedge of some black, sticky substance which smoked faintly. “Cookies! My favorite!” As they all stared in horror, the “cookie” sprouted three misshapen insectile legs, which waved languidly. She thrust it at Iris, who clapped a hand over her mouth, not quite stifling a retch. “Here, try!”

“We simply could not,” Szith said quickly. “Those are a gift from a mother to a daughter far from home. It would be very wrong for anyone else to partake.”

“So very, very wrong,” Gabriel agreed.

“You.” Tellwyrn pointed at Mogul, who had started to turn back toward the door. “You can get things from the Rhaazke dimension. Can you get me some hellhound breath?”

He coughed. “Uh, Professor… That is expressly forbidden by the Lady. Also, consider how many months it took for this to get through after we sent word to Scorn’s mother in the first place—and it seems she is quite highly placed down there. She’d have to be, to make this happen. Not to mention, or mention again as I said it in the first place, that nothing like this has ever happened before. No, I am genuinely sorry to have to say it, but I cannot get you hellhound breath.”

Scorn was already munching her second treat, and avidly reading from the next object she’d taken from the bag: a scroll of pale leather, covered with cramped, spidery script in blue ink.

“And on top of everything else,” the Hand whispered, “open traffic with the Black Wreath. I’m afraid you leave me no choice, Tellwyrn. As of this moment, this University and all its holdings are—”

“Boy, you picked the wrong day,” the archmage announced, pointing a finger at him.

The pop which resounded was louder than her usual teleportation, and accompanied this time by a visible blue sparkle of arcane magic. The Hand vanished.

“What did you do?” Gabriel screeched. “That was a Hand of the Emperor! Where is he?!”

“Suffering,” Tellwyrn stated, turning back to Mogul. “You made me an offer some time ago, Mogul. Is it still good?”

Slowly, the warlock nodded. “I didn’t place a time limit on it, as I’m sure you recall. Something I can do for you, Professor?”

“Maybe. It remains to be seen.” She stepped aside, gesturing at the still form of Ravana. “You’re here…have a look. Tell me whatever you can about this.”

Kapa’a set down his fishing pole at the first hum of magic over the stone dais which stood on the shore. This was why he always came here to fish, though it wasn’t the best fishing spot by far; he so loved being there to greet the new arrivals when they came.

Blue magic flashed along the grooves carved into the dais, and with a soft retort of displaced air, a man appeared. He was of average height and middle age, balding and with craggy features, dressed all in black completely with a long coat. That would have to go, or he’d never survive in this climate. Like they all did immediately upon arriving, he spun, gaping this way and that in shock.

Kapa’a stood upon his rock, threw his arms wide, and bellowed the traditional greeting.

“Welcome, hapless traveler! Welcome, to the Dread Kingdom of Suffering!”

The new arrival stared at him in silence for a long moment, taking in his bare chest, broad grin, and fishing pole, then turned more slowly, studying his new surroundings in detail.

They were on the seashore, serenaded by the sound of waves and the calling of gulls. It was mid-morning, delightfully warm but not yet hot. White sands stretched away to either side, and the ocean to all horizons to the east and south; half a mile out to sea, the towering sentinel rocks stood, carved with massive runes whose blue glow was barely visible in the cloudless sunlight. Northwest, the land steadily climbed to the green-clad mountain, growing ever steeper until its very peak. Greenery rose all the way to the top, now; it had been a good number of years since the volcano had so much as grumbled.

The very air smelled of flowers.

“Where?” the new arrival demanded finally.

“The Dread Kingdom of Suffering!” Kapa’a boomed, feeling his delighted grin widen. “Land of despair and torment, ruled over by its most terrible and malignant queen, her Despicable Majesty Arachne Tellwyrn!” He finally lowered his arms, and laughed aloud. “Didn’t know she was the monarch of a sovereign nation, didja? It’s a surprise to everybody.”

The man gaped at him.

“Yeah, it’ll take some getting used to, friend, but don’t worry! You’re in good hands.” He hopped down from his rock, wading easily through the surf back toward the shoreline. “C’mon down from there—head for the steps on that side, if you don’t wanna get your clothes wet. And you really might want to lose the coat. Take your time, friend, there’s no rush! I’ll show you ’round!”

“The sea provides fish,” Kapa’a explained some time later, leading his flummoxed new neighbor slowly up the winding path through the village. They had already been effusively greeted by the other inhabitants; the man in black now wore several necklaces of flowers draped around his shoulders and chest, placed there by smiling girls, but after the initial excitement they had withdrawn to let the newcomer adjust in peace; they were accustomed to the routine by now. He seemed to be less disconcerted than many upon their first arrival. “On the island itself, there are deer, wild pigs, and fowl, plenty of each for everybody! Lots of fruit trees, too. Plus, we have gardens for whatever doesn’t grow wild.” He stooped without pausing and scooped up a handful of dirt from the side of the path, letting it trail through his fingers. “Volcanic soil. There’s basically nothing we can’t grow. There are two seasons in Suffering: pleasantly warm and dry, and pleasantly warm and rainy. We have no wars, no native diseases and very skilled healers to deal with whatever the guests bring. Not everybody even needs a job, the land provides so well. My friend, you have arrived in paradise itself!”

“You picked an odd name for it,” said the man, who had yet to offer his own name.

Kapa’a didn’t prompt him, simply answering with a grin. “Ah, and there you come to it. For the longest time, the only problem we faced, here, was people who wanted to come take this place from us. Oh, and the mountain exploding; that happened from time to time. The Lady takes care of all that, now. The name was her idea; the Dread Kingdom of Suffering is protected behind the sentinel stones, which keep us…apart from the world. Only one ship ever comes here, with her blessing, piloted by the Ferryman of Eternal Night, Karen.”

The man in black stopped, frowning at him. “Did you say Charon?”

“Karen,” Kapa’a enunciated. “Sweet girl, you’ll like her. She’s a weird sort of critter, though; some kind of fairy. I think she used to be a dryad. Oh, we have one of those, too! Coconut lives up there on the mountain. We pretend to think she’s a goddess and send her offerings; when she gets bored, she’ll come down to one of the villages and pretend to answer prayers, and they hold a feast in her honor. It’s all in good fun.”

“You said there’s a ship?” the man in black said impatiently.

“Yes, Karen’s ferry,” Kapa’a nodded, setting off again. The new arrival followed after a moment. “The only vessel which can travel between the worlds. Or…across the shield, or however it works, I dunno from magic. And the only coin Karen takes is memory. I’m afraid that means all your memories of your time in the Dread Kingdom are lost when you return…except its name. You must go back with only the knowledge that you spent time in the Kingdom of Suffering. There ferry’s due in a few weeks! In the meantime, hunt, fish, play around with the neighbors! Tonight, we’ll hold a feast in your honor! Well, honestly, we would probably have held a feast anyway; we do most nights. But it’s so much better when there’s a reason, don’t you think?”

“Weeks?” the man said plaintively. “I am a Hand of the Emperor—I must return home immediately!”

Kapa’a raised his eyebrows. “Friend, the ferry comes twice a year. If you’re in a hurry, you’re in great luck. A few weeks is nothing. And who knows? You may decide not to go back at all! Quite a few don’t.”

The Hand snarled savagely and kicked at an inoffensive clump of grass, which Kapa’a watched without judgment. He had observed far worse tantrums from new arrivals. “This is intolerable! I’ll see that horrible witch strangled, so help me!”

“You can always leave her a strongly worded note,” Kapa’a suggested, pointing. The Hand followed his arm, which directed his gaze up the hill to a half-collapsed ruin of a house, choked by weeds and surrounded by orange trees. “That’s her place over there.”

The newcomer stared. “…you’re joking.”

“Truthfully we’d like to tidy up a bit,” Kapa’a explained, “but the Lady hates it when people mess with her things. So…there it is. I really would leave it alone if I were you, though. The last fellow who went in there ended up with a broken leg.”

“Booby-trapped her own home.” The Hand sneered disdainfully. “Typical.”

“Oh, nothing like that,” Kapa’a said lightly. “The floor’s rotten. He fell right through.”

“What does she get from all this?” the Hand demanded. “The magic you’re describing, keeping a whole island nation physically isolated from the world… It’s not unprecedented, but the scale and the complexity are staggering! Does she do all this just to have a private vacation spot?”

“Nah,” Kapa’a said cheerfully, waving away the thought. “She just likes having a handy place where she can send people and be sure she won’t have to deal with ’em again for up to six months.”

The Hand stared at him.

“Are you telling me,” he said slowly, “that woman worked one of the largest and most elaborate enchantments known to man, upended the history and culture of an entire nation—”

“Did us a huge favor, really, especially the part where she hardly ever shows up. We don’t need any kings or lords in Suffering; the chiefs take care of what needs taking care of. And not much of that. Mostly, everybody minds their own business.”

“And all this,” the Hand said shrilly, “just so she could inconvenience people who annoy her?!”

Solemnly, Kapa’a reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder. “Friend…clearly, you met the lady. Tell me, which part of that surprises you?”

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12 – 30

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They let Juniper take the lead, without comment. The students had scattered outside the magic building, spreading out to form a net that would hopefully encircle the Sleeper. Ingvar shared Aspen’s doubts about their facility as hunters, but at least they knew the campus. He ran with the two dryads, following Juniper, for the same reason. Indeed, she certainly seemed to know where she was going.

All the while, there came a faint but perceptible buzzing from the folded and inked paper talisman he now held in a belt pouch. So long as it was anywhere on his person, Fross had insisted, he would be able to hear her directives. It seemed to be working.

“Slow up, Scorn,” the pixie chimed as if directly in his ear, despite being back at the spell lab. “You’ve got longer legs than the rest, remember not to get there too early! You’ve all gotta arrive together and leave ‘im no gaps to escape through. Toby, hang a left at the next path, you’re about to collide with Ruda. I need you two to emerge from both sides of the arts pavilion to cover it. Juniper’s group, relax your pace! You don’t have as far to go and you’re pulling ahead of everybody. Uh, Gabe, conversely, can you move a little faster? I don’t wanna push but—there ya go, much better!”

“I can’t believe I’m taking orders from one of Jacaranda’s little thingumajigs,” Aspen muttered, but she did ease up her speed, as did Juniper.

“Fross is a person,” Juniper replied, quietly but firmly. “Not a thingumajig. She’s really sweet and the smartest person I know. Be nice to her, please.”

“All right, all right,” Aspen said peaceably.

Ingvar kept his mouth shut, observing. Aspen’s acerbic streak was noticeably curbed when speaking to her sister, though it didn’t seem to be a dominance thing; he knew Aspen to be the older simply from their conversations. Juniper was difficult to read, even allowing for being a fairy. She had the somewhat childlike quality about her that Aspen did—in fact, she struck Ingvar as a bit daft—but it was tempered with something he couldn’t quite place. She seemed more thoughtful, or perhaps more sad, in the moments when she wasn’t excitedly talking with the other dryad.

His musings were interrupted by a woman’s scream.

Ingvar redoubled his pace before realizing it, the dryads doing likewise and actually pulling several yards ahead. Aspen hadn’t been kidding about their sprinting ability. They hadn’t come far, all things considered, just past a couple of buildings…

“I don’t know what just happened, but everybody stay focused!” Fross chimed frantically. “You’ve gotta encircle the position before revealing yourselves or the Sleeper will get away!”

“Someone’s in trouble!” Juniper protested, to no avail. The pixie was too far away to hear; her instructions continued.

“Slow up sharply, dryads and Ingvar, you’re approaching the open space where—”

The next few words were washed out by another shriek of unmistakable pain.

“—it up, Gabe, you’re gonna be the last one there! Everybody else, move slow and don’t come around corners, you should be able to see the site if you do but the Sleeper can see you, too. I know you’ve all taken your potions but we don’t know this guy’s capabilities. Okay, Gabriel’s in place. Everybody, step forward. Quick but smooth, go!”

Juniper practically lunged around the corner of the stone building they had come up alongside, Ingvar right beside her. As they moved, another scream rang out. Plan or no plan, hunt or no hunt, a woman was clearly in pain. He might be playing into this Sleeper’s hands, but he did not have it in him to stand back while this went on.

They emerged into a small open space where one stone walkway terminated into another; as in most such places, there was a widened patio area there, with two park benches and several decorative plants surrounding it. Ingvar and the dryads spread out to block the path on their side, while the other students began to emerge from the spaces around the stone-columned pavilion opposite, itself surrounded by taller stone structures and filled with sculptures. The crossing path ended in a set of stairs descending to the next terrace down on Ingvar’s right, and off around the building beside them in the other direction.

“Scorn, stop!” Fross shrilled in his ears, fruitlessly.

In the center of the intersection, a diminutive blond girl was just in the process of collapsing to the ground. All around her was a distortion, a strange contraction in the light cast by the standing fairy lamps, like a bruise on reality itself. Her long hair fluttered as it fell, but also seemed to be trying to stick out as if affected by static.

The hulking demon Scorn charged straight into the intersection from up the path. Aspen cursed, but followed the others as they hastily lunged out to encircle their prey. The other students had to do likewise, hurrying around corners, vaulting over bushes, and in Gabriel’s case, tripping on the top stair, in order to get themselves in position so the Sleeper had nowhere to run. The plan had been to position themselves more carefully, relying on Fedora’s potions to keep them unnoticed until they were ready; that was now shot.

The distortion contracted as the blonde girl fell, condensing in both size and intensity till it seemed nothing more than a shadow standing upright. That was still plenty disorienting, but it suggested at least that whatever magic it had been doing was over.

“Ravana!” Toby called from across the path. “Are you okay?”

The shadow shifted subtly; Ingvar had the impression it was slowly turning, taking in the scene. The University students paced forward, tightening the noose and drawing weapons. Toby and Shaeine flared alight; Gabriel extended his scythe, while Ariel in his other hand blazed with arcane runes. Ingvar drew back his bow, aiming at the center of the shadow he took for the Sleeper. He had a clear shot between Toby and Ruda if he missed—or if the thing were as insubstantial as it looked—but the closer they drew, the riskier that became.

“Scorn, stop!” Ruda snapped, finally halting the demon two steps farther than the rest of their formation. Her towering form practically vibrated with rage, clawed hands flexing. Ingvar surmised that the fallen girl—Ravana?—must be a friend of hers.

He said a brief prayer inside his own head. In fact, after what he’d learned in the last months, he had often debated the ethics and efficacy of prayer with himself, but when it came down to a tense situation, he still did it.

“Conventional wisdom is you’re a student here, asshole,” Ruda commented, aiming her gleaming rapier at the shadow. “That means you know who we are, and that means you know goddamn well how this ends. Wanna make it easier on everybody, or do I get to work off some fucking anger here?”

“Tellwyrn will be back soon,” Toby said, his tone quieter, but his expression no less resolute. “If we can tell her you surrendered willingly, we can still work it out so no one is punished any more than necessary. You know what’ll happen if you make this a conflict.”

“What do you want it alive for?” Aspen asked disdainfully. “This character sounds like a complete piece of trash. Kill it, do the world a favor.”

“He can tell us how to revive the others,” Juniper murmured.

“Oh, he’s gonna tell us everything,” Ruda said grimly, taking a step forward. “Time’s up, buttercup.”

The shadow hunched in on itself momentarily, and then dark smoke began to ripple out from around it on the ground.

“Bad move!” Scorn roared, lunging.

She missed, barely, as the Sleeper shot straight upward.

An instant later it was hurled back to the ground, accompanied by an earsplitting and strangely resonant shriek, as Vadrieny swooped in from overhead and impacted it in midair.

Ingvar, deciding this had now progressed beyond negotiations, took the opportunity to put an arrow in the Sleeper. The shaft, blessed both by a shaman of the Huntsmen, actually exploded in a brief flash of flame an instant before it would have struck home.

In the next moment, a dome of silver light slammed into place around the shadow, holding it to the ground.

Ingvar glanced around, taking stock while this was apparently under control. All the students were present… Where was that demon from Intelligence? He began to have a bad feeling.

“Scorn, please desist,” Shaeine said in a strained voice, and the disgruntled Rhaazke stepped back, having been raking her claws along the surface of the bubble and snarling menacingly at the obscured figure within.

“How is she?” Ruda asked of Toby, who had knelt beside Ravana.

“Asleep,” the paladin said tersely. “Just like the others. I can’t find any other evidence of harm…it’s strange, though.”

“She was screaming,” Gabriel said. “Nobody else did that.”

Slowly, Ruda bent down to pick up an object that had fallen near the Sleeper’s latest victim. “Her lightcapper. You don’t suppose…”

“Ravana would not place herself in danger without a plan,” Scorn insisted, her expression almost anguished. “She doesn’t do anything without a plan.”

“Here…” Gabriel gently took the lightcapper from Ruda, examining it. “Yeah, this thing’s been activated since it was loaded… And this isn’t picture film. We’d best get this to Tellwyrn ASAP. Good girl, Ravana!”

“Our circle seems to have collapsed,” Ingvar commented with an edge to his voice, his attention still on the bubble. The Sleeper was an incongruous dark blot within its glow. The drow priestess looked intent, but he knew maintaining a shield of that kind took effort. If that was the only thing holding this warlock down…

“Relax, we’ve got him,” Gabriel said with a grin.

“Arquin, shut your damn face,” Ruda snapped. “He’s right, this isn’t over till we’ve got this fucker permanently subdued. And thank you, Ingvar, for exhibiting the basic damn common sense I thought I could expect from my friends. Everybody circle up on that thing. Toby, what can you do to un-shadowfy him? We get a look at his face, we can finish this even if he gets away.”

“Countering his magic through technique is probably beyond me,” Toby said, staring at the center of the bubble. “There’s always the brute force approach, though. Shaeine, how are you holding up?”

“I can do this for some time,” the priestess reported, “so long as the shield is not interfered with, but I cannot move her this way. And this being an apparently powerful infernal caster, I am surprised that she is submitting to this extent. A barrage of pure infernal magic will wear down a divine shield fairly quickly if there is a near parity of power involved. Any student here knows the Circles.”

“Huh,” Aspen grunted. “So what’s he doing in there?”

“Oh, shit,” Ruda hissed. “Toby, flare up! All of it! Now!”

Either his spells were readied at that moment or, more likely, the Sleeper took her order as the cue to unleash whatever he had.

Circles of sullen orange light ignited on the ground all around them, and four horizontally on the walls of nearby buildings. From each poured forth carnage—gouts of fire in various colors, billows of sulfur-smelling smoke, in one case a powerful blast of heated air. In one, a large figure began to slowly materialize. The character of the air itself changed, heated, and Ingvar felt something twisting in his gut. He had never been close to simple, uncontained infernal magic, but had heard the sensation described. He would need to seek a thorough cleansing after all this.

Then golden light washed across the whole scene, centered on Toby. The nova blazed across them all, suppressing the spell circles and outright annihilating several. Between the chaotic infernal radiation, Toby’s holy light and the blessing of Shaath over the whole mountain, the air was thick with magic; through the haze, Ingvar could actually see several dark figures, winged and carrying scythes. Two descended on the summoning circle trying to draw forth some kind of demon, sinking their weapons into it. Half-formed between dimensions, it was actually struck, and twisted as if pained. A third valkyrie raked her scythe across the boundaries of the circle itself, causing it to flicker.

Unsurprisingly, in the chaos, the silver dome winked out.

Immediately, blasts of purple-black light flashed out in all directions from the Sleeper, cutting dark swaths through the divine nova. None made it far with that much loose divine magic in play, and all put off trails of sparks uncharacteristic of shadowbolts as the holy energy grated on them, but they held together well enough to be a menace at short range, which was plenty.

Ingvar avoided being struck because he had instinctively begun moving when the shield collapsed; still the shadowbolt that had been aimed for him passed close enough to make his hackles rise from the sheer wrongness of it. All of the other students were hit, most to minimal effect. The bolt aimed at Toby fizzled before reaching him, unable to bore through that concentration of divine power. Juniper and Aspen surged forward at the warlock, seeming not even to notice the attacks which impacted them. Gabriel and Scorn were momentarily halted by the onslaught, Ruda knocked fully over backward with a cry of pain. Shaeine got a shield re-formed around herself in time to absorb it; the silver barrier rippled at the impact, but held.

Immediately a second spray of smaller shadowbolts flashed indiscriminately about, these much less targeted, and peppered the whole region. At the same moment, the very ground under Toby’s feet heaved upward as some kind of explosive spell ignited beneath the pavement. The paladin kept his balance, but his focus faltered and with it the divine light he was putting out.

The Sleeper took advantage of his distraction to double down; more circles appeared around them, and more shadowbolts shot at them. Then he had to break off his own attack to evade the students who were not much impressed by his onslaught.

Scorn and Gabriel he barely kept at bay with directed attacks. The Rhaazke soaked up the hits and simply kept coming, while a golden shield around Gabriel held up under the assault without interfering with his weapons. The two dryads were totally unaffected by infernal magic, though, and the Sleeper had no recourse but to flee and dodge. He had to dodge again as Gabriel leveled his scythe like a battlestaff and unleashed a blast of black light.

Ingvar had always been told that infernal magic had no direct defensive application, but somehow the Sleeper had found one. An orange spell circle formed in midair in front of him, absorbing the blast.

“He’s getting away!” Gabriel protested, shooting again. Another spell shield intercepted the shot, while more explosions under the ground threw Scorn and the dryads off their footing.

Vadrieny slammed into the shadowed figure from above, impacting on one of those midair circles with a screech. The circle flashed, putting off a pulse of kinetic force that hurled her up and back. And with that, the Sleeper had positioned himself on the path outside the encircling students, with a clear shot back into the campus.

Ingvar watched all of this from a crouch at the edge of the nearest building. It was no cowardice not to throw himself physically into a brawl between magical heavyweights; positioned here, he could await his own opportunity. And now he had it.

The shaft nocked to his bow was the only one like it he had left; Huntsmen on quests carried at least one, more if they knew they would be hunting demons. He raised, drew, sighted along the inscribed arrow, and whispered, “Shaath, guide my arm.”

His arrow ripped straight into the Sleeper’s form, bursting into flame as it drew too close, but lasted long enough to strike home.

The shadowed figure reeled sideways. Aspen, Juniper, and Scorn had now recovered their footing and came forward in a wedge formation with the demon at the center—probably unintentional. Toby and Gabriel dashed after them. Above, Vadrieny soared past to land and pivot on the path ahead, blocking the Sleeper’s escape.

Still, Ingvar couldn’t shake the feeling the shadow was glaring directly at him.

Vadrieny simply wasn’t large enough to completely block the path, and she had planted herself too far away; there were gaps between building on both sides their foe could slip into. Ingvar could see at a glance that they had effectively lost this. In the next moment, the Sleeper would vanish.

The Sleeper, though, apparently had a different plan.

The light turned briefly orange as though they stood next to a furnace, and a shockwave of heated air ripped out in all directions, bowling all but Scorn and the dryads physically down, flattening bushes and tipping over one of the park benches. Vadrieny had her wings spread, and was physically picked up and hurled a dozen yards into the air. In that moment, the Sleeper could easily have slipped away. Instead, the shadow solidified.

A circle of deep, red light appeared on the ground around him, marked with jagged runes unlike any Ingvar had seen before. For a moment, amid them stood a human-sized figure of pure black, like a silhouette cut into the face of the world itself. Then, a scream rent the air—not the kind of scream made by a throat, but a sound like metal plates being scraped together. The circle blazed and a whole column of red flashed upward from the ground.

When it receded, the Sleeper stood before them, fully eight feet tall, a figure sculpted of overlapping chitinous plates, gleaming sullenly in the light. Its eyes were two pits of orange flame.

While the students bounced back to their feet, it turned to point at Ingvar, then made a beckoning gesture.

Ingvar fired an arrow directly at its face.

The Sleeper caught the shaft, which then burst aflame, dissolving into ash.

“Now,” Scorn snarled, “you are playing my song!”

She charged forward, ignoring a shouted warning from Toby, and struck the Sleeper head-on. For a moment, the two hulking figures grappled, the slightly smaller Rhaazke pushing him backward, then the Sleeper got a grip on her forearms, physically picked her up, and whirled, hurling her into the stone face of the nearby arts building.

Its next gesture sent a blast of black lightning straight at Gabriel; the paladin got a divine shield up, which pulsed at the impact and shattered. He stumbled backward, but before the Sleeper could attack again, Vadrieny landed on him from behind and both dryads piled into his legs.

The confused tangle which ensued ended moments later with the archdemon again hurled away, but the Sleeper seemed to be having more trouble with the dryads.

“You gotta grip him,” Ruda wheezed, limping forward. “Get your claws in and hold on!”

“He’s physically slippery and my claws can’t breach that armor,” Vadrieny retorted, pumping her wings to shoot back to her feet from the heap into which she’d fallen.

A burst of pure flame sent both dryads reeling back with shrieks of pain. Ingvar, baring his teeth in fury, fired another shot. This one struck the Sleeper right on the neck, which had absolutely no effect.

The huge figure turned to look at him again, then started forward.

Toby planted himself in its path, glowing behind a divine shield; the Sleeper launched three consecutive blasts of shadow-lightning, busting the shield and then sending him hurling away.

Ingvar set aside his longbow, drew his hatchet and belt knife, and stood, watching the armored warlock come.

“Quit rushing him!” Ruda exclaimed. “Guys, we got this, just form up and—”

A silver shield barely intercepted the blast of dark lightning that came at her. The Sleeper stomped one huge foot, making a crater in the pavement, and another enormous rush of sheer force ripped out from him, knocking most of them down, even Scorn and Aspen. This time, it hit hard enough to shatter windows and nearby fairy lamps.

Suddenly the color of the light shifted again, this time to silver. They all stared upward in surprise, even the Sleeper; above, between them and the whirling clouds of Shaath’s blessing, an enormous silver snowflake had formed in the air, glowing and slowly rotating.

“I WILL END YOU RIGHT IN THE FACE!”

At the shrill bellow from above, the snowflake suddenly dissolved and rushed at them. A solid blanket of snow slammed down on the whole scene, two feet thick on the ground, burying most of them. A tiny silver light zipped down from above, laying into the Sleeper with blasts of lightning, spear-like icicles, bolts of pure arcane destruction, even sprays of water which instantly hardened into a thick coating of ice.

The Sleeper staggered under the onslaught, firing blasts of lightning, fire, and more conventional shadowbolts, but seemingly unable to hit the pixie. Then he tripped and tumbled over backward; Juniper was the first to extricate herself from the snow, and tackled his legs from behind.

Snow and blasts of destructive magic were being hurled in all directions. Ingvar took the opportunity to dart past the brawl to where it had started. It took a little bit of aimless digging, but he found the prone form of Ravana, and lifted her out of the snow, then quickly carried her up the path to where the ground was clear.

Not a moment too soon; stomping feet sounded behind him, only slightly muffled by the snow. Ingvar set Ravana down and whirled, tomahawk upraised, but the Sleeper dashed past him, heading for the stairs downward to the lower terrace. A silver wall of light appeared in front of him, then was broken by a furious barrage of black lightning bolts. No sooner had the warlock made it past the barrier, though, than a pumpkin-sized ball of pure arcane power ripped into him from behind, trailing a swirling vortex of snow.

At the impact, the Sleeper’s hulking form physically exploded.

For a moment, there was finally silence.

“I…did I kill him?” Fross asked uncertainly.

“No,” Gabriel grunted, brushing snow out of his eyes. “Just that…shell he was wearing. Vestrel says the original shadow-guy is still going, heading for the gates.”

“Come on!” Scorn bellowed, taking off down the stairs at a run. The rest followed.

“You’re not coming?” Aspen demanded of Ingvar, who had knelt next to Ravana and was rubbing warmth back into her chilled hands.

“This is more urgent,” he said tersely. “Besides, it’s over. He’s gone.”

Still unable to shadow-jump, the dark shape skimmed across the pavement, making a beeline for the campus’s gates. It slid to a stop mere yards short, though, when a figure standing in the gate itself suddenly popped into visibility.

“Good show!” Fedora said, slowly clapping his hands. “Really, top-notch example of throwing your weight around like a wild boar. You’ve given me just all kinds of evidence to work from. I’ll have your ass on a silver platter by the end of the week. And then you’ll be facing Tellwyrn’s tender mercies, which would be a shame, because you know what she’ll do. I’ve got a better idea.”

Grinning, he turned back the lapel of his coat, revealing his silver gryphon badge.

“You’ve got potential, kid. You’ve got power, and there’s some kind of rudimentary smarts in there. Undeveloped, but still; there’s a hint of real strategy under your nonsense. You waste so much time on this bullshit, though. The way you’re going, you’re just gonna eventually piss off the wrong person and get pulped. What if I offered you something better?” He grinned, folding his coat back to conceal the badge. “My…department…is interested in talented people. Talented, dangerous, destructive people. Oh, there are restrictions, not gonna lie. It’s annoying as hell, is what it is; I really hate working under other people’s rules. But on balance, take it from me, it’s a lot less annoying than trying to survive alone in a world which is wholly devoted to destroying you. I could arrange—”

A small circle of orange light formed on the nearby gate post, from which shot a chain which wrapped itself around the Inspector’s neck.

“Ah, yes,” he said with a sigh, tugging experimentally at it. “Warlock, demon, we all know how that goes. Before you go and do something too reckless, maybe you oughtta stop and think about why I was willing to confront you like this?”

The chain retracted, pulling rapidly into the tiny spell circle, and yanked him away to slam his back against the gate post.

“Right,” Fedora grunted in a strangled voice, “not really the stop-and-think type. Ashley, honey, do ya mind?”

She stepped out from behind the gate, a young woman in a dark suit, shaking her head.

“Honestly, Troy, I told you this was the wrong way to do it. He’s in full fight-or-flight mode right now; you’re just not gonna get him to settle down and listen.”

“Well, it’s not as if I can invite him over for tea,” the incubus grunted.

“Whoah, there!” Ashley said, holding up a hand at the Sleeper as his shadowed form surged forward for the open gate. “We’re not done talking to you. Now, settle down and—”

He shot her point-blank with a shadowbolt. It fizzled out harmlessly upon impact.

“Seriously?” she said wryly, then reached up to touch the spell circle behind Fedora’s neck. Instantly it flickered out, chain and all, dropping the Inspector. “Look, it’s been a trying night for you, I get that. You run along now, and think about what Inspector Fedora said. You’ve got options, if you quit being such a goober. I bet you can figure out how to get in touch with us.”

Pounding feet sounded from the campus beyond. The Sleeper’s indistinct shape wavered, then zipped sideways, following the campus wall to the east.

Moments later, Scorn burst onto the scene, skidding to a halt and glaring at Fedora, who was still rubbing at his neck.

“Oh, don’t tell me,” the demon spat. “You have lost him.”

“Excuse me, but we lost him,” Fedora replied archly. “As in, all of us, collectively, because yes, he is gone. Fortunately one of us had the foresight to hang back and observe rather than go in swingin’. Hey, kids, welcome to the party. As I was just telling your tall friend, here, our boy has slipped away. But we’ve made some real progress tonight. I wanna look over the scenes carefully; bet you anything I can hone in on him pretty quickly from here.”

Juniper pushed forward past the other students, staring in disbelief. “Ash?!”

Ashley sighed, and waved. “Hey there, li’l sister. I guess we’ve got some stuff to talk about, huh?”

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12 – 29

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“I think I’ve found a flaw in your plan,” Aspen declared.

“Oh, really.” Ruda looked at her sidelong, not shifting from her position leaning against the spell lab’s wall except to take a long drink from her bottle of beer. “If I asked reeeeeaal nicely, wouldja share it with me?”

“Sure,” Aspen said immediately, folding her arms and looking smug. “You don’t actually know when this Sleeper guy will attack, or even if he will. And you’ve got everybody locked in here to wait for it, which… You guys don’t hunt much, do you?”

At that last pointed question, she half-turned to look around the room. Toby and Shaeine were both sitting against a wall in lotus postures with their eyes closed; Teal lounged next to the drow, apparently asleep. Scorn was pacing furiously back and forth, muttering to herself, while Juniper paced in a much less energetic fashion, wandering aimlessly all over the room at a slow amble. Inspector Fedora sat on the floor against the huge window, almost swallowed by his trench coat, which was rumpled up around him by his position. He was reading, of all things, an Avenist libram, and seemed quite absorbed in it. Only Fross and Gabriel were engaged in apparently goal-directed behavior, having claimed a space a few feet distant from Fross’s model of the mountaintop to work on some enchanting project, surrounded by loose sheets of his spell parchment. Their quiet discussion was the predominant sound in the room.

Ingvar, as usual, stood near Aspen, currently watching her conversation with Ruda. The whole evening, as hours had stretched on, he had simply stood, in apparently perfect calm.

“See, like Ingvar,” Aspen said approvingly, pointing at him. “Hunting requires patience. You gotta be able to just wait for a long time without going stir-crazy. I don’t think most of this group has the knack. Specially that one.” She shifted her finger to point at Scorn.

The Rhaazke ground to a stop with a muted screech of her claws upon the stone floor, turning on her and clenching her fists, tail beginning to lash. “Listen here—”

“Scorn,” Teal said without opening her eyes. “Please don’t. Starting a fight with dryads is pointless.”

“I am not the one starting!” Scorn snapped.

“You wouldn’t be the one to finish it, either,” Fedora commented, turning a page in his libram and not lifting his eyes from it. “That’s not a reflection on your personal power, gorgeous, trust me. Our sort would be well-advised not to fuck around with high-level fairies.”

“We do not share a sort,” she said disdainfully.

“Sure,” he agreed. “You have more magic and muscle in your abs than I’ve got in my entire body, while I, contrariwise, have some basic goddamn social skills. And that dryad would puree either of us if we pissed her off, so let’s refrain, yeah?”

“And this is what I mean,” Aspen said with unmistakable satisfaction. “Everybody’s gonna go nuts cooped up in here like this. Especially if the Sleeper never shows.”

“He will,” Fedora stated, still reading. “The cat’s away. The mouse will play.”

“I don’t know what that guy’s talking about half the time,” Aspen complained to Ingvar.

“You are not missing out,” he replied.

“Have you considered,” Ruda said with deceptive mildness, “that you picking at this is, if anything, going to make it worse?”

The dryad scowled. “It’s not my fault!”

“More academically, then, have you ever considered anything in your life before you just hauled off and did it?”

Scorn laughed, far too loudly for the enclosed space.

“Now you listen,” Aspen began, but Ingvar swiftly interrupted.

“Aspen, stop. She has a point.”

The look the dryad turned on him was almost hurt. “I—but—she’s being rude about it!”

“Yes,” he said calmly, “which is her business, not yours. You’re not responsible for what anyone else does, only what you do.”

“Oh, again with the philosophy,” she huffed.

“I don’t have a lot of interest in philosophy,” he said, “unless it has an immediate practical use. Turning the other cheek for moral reasons is Omnist practice, and no concern of mine. What concerns me is that when you react to other people, you let them control you. A man—a person, in order to exercise any power, must be self-contained and controlled.”

“Huh,” she grunted with poor grace.

“Rudeness aside, she is right,” Ingvar went on. “You are also right. This is a tense environment, and pointing it out will only make it more so. Better to set an example. You’re a hunter of no small skill, Aspen; you could teach these students a great deal about patience.”

“That’s true,” Juniper agreed, coming over to loop an arm through one of Aspen’s. “I always thought so, back home in the Deep Wild. You’re a lot more collected than most of our sisters.”

“That is the more collected one?” Scorn said skeptically.

“Scorn,” Teal pleaded with a sigh.

“You.” Ruda lifted the hand holding her bottle by its neck, extending one finger to point at Ingvar. “I like you.”

“That’s good to know,” he said noncommittally. She laughed almost as loudly as Scorn, earning a frown from Aspen.

“Yeah!” Gabriel shouted suddenly, jumping upright. He grinned at everyone as they all turned to look at him. “We got it working!”

“Hey, that’s pretty great,” Ruda said. “You got what the fuck working?”

“We’ve solved our communication problem!” Fross reported, whizzing about in an excited circle above them. “Fortunately I had a book in my aura storage with the proper charms described, but we’ve had to adapt it to use the materials on hand, since the proper ones are sorta expensive and there’ll be all manner of trouble if we get into the classroom stocks, so it was real tricky to make it work with just folded spell paper and enchanting ink, and the final product won’t last for very long, but since we only need them to work for tonight it should be fine!”

“I think Ruda’s question stands,” Shaeine said, finally opening her eyes.

“Communication charms!” Gabriel enthused, holding up a square formed of paper folded over multiple times, inked with elaborate patterns which glowed in shifting blue and green. “You just hold it and you can hear the voice of whoever talks to you through it!”

“That solves a lot of problems,” Fedora said, finally looking genuinely interested. “If we can coordinate in the field it’ll overcome our main handicap here.”

“Oh, well, don’t get too excited,” Fross cautioned, suiting the advice herself by slowing to a stationary hover. “Actual two-way communication is orders of magnitude more complex and really can’t be done with these simple materials. I can project through it, cos I’m extremely magical, but you won’t be able to talk back. So I figure, since I’ve gotta run the map model and the fae-arcane field, I can stay here and give directions and you guys can surround the Sleeper!”

“Please understand that I don’t mean to disparage,” Ingvar said carefully, “but organizing a hunt is not as simple a matter as it may appear to one who has never done so. Are you sure you can do this, Fross?”

“Fross is extremely intelligent,” Toby observed quietly. “More to the point… Our group’s actual military strategist is taking a semester off—”

“Which is a goddamn shame,” Ruda interjected, grinning fiendishly, “because I’m really curious what she’d make of Ingvar, here.”

Toby ignored her. “…but Fross has never, in the time I’ve known her, misjudged her capabilities. The safe assumption is that if she says she can do a thing, she can do it.”

“Agreed,” Shaeine added.

“Yeah, that’s pretty well unanimous around here,” Juniper said, grinning. “You can count on Fross.”

“Aww!” Fross chimed bashfully. “I would blush if I had the necessary physiology! But you guys couldn’t see it anyway so I guess that’s maybe kinda pointless.”

“All right, then!” Gabriel said more briskly, sitting back down and tearing another sheet of enchanting paper out of his book, “let’s get to work, Fross ol’ pal. Hopefully we can make enough of these to equip everybody before the Sleeper arrives.”

“Yes! On it!”

“Well, that’s good then,” Aspen muttered. “I guess we’ll just…continue to stand around.”

“Antonio!” Justinian came to meet him at the door when he entered the Archpope’s office, moving as smoothly as always but more quickly than usual. “Splendid. I greatly appreciate you coming on such short notice, and especially at this late hour. Please, stand.”

“Not at all, your Holiness,” Darling said, rising from the kneel he had assumed upon the Archpope’s approach. “I’m always available for necessity—and I figured this must be urgent for you to call at midnight. How can I help?”

“I need to call upon you in your capacity as liaison between the Church and the Imperial government,” Justinian said seriously. He wore a faint frown—very faint, but still more concern by far than he usually displayed in public. “The late hour is specifically relevant—I am counting on your ability to enter the Palace in the middle of the night and find someone of high office willing to speak with you.”

“How high, if I may ask?”

“Ideally, the Emperor himself…though that might be hoping for too much.” The Archpope turned to face the window of his office, concealing his expression for the moment. “What matters most is that we reach out to the Throne as quickly as possible. Something…rather untoward has happened, I’m afraid. There is a risk of hostilities emerging if the matter is left to fester.”

“Your Holiness, what’s going on?” Darling asked tersely, beginning to absorb some of the uncharacteristic tension in Justinian’s shoulders. He had to admire the man’s ability to do that; usually he was far too in charge of himself to be manipulated even so subtly.

“This is difficult.” Justinian shifted again, placing himself in profile from Darling’s view; his frown had deepened. “I trust you will not be offended if I state that there are secrets of the Church which I cannot reveal to you—even now, when I must call upon you for help related to them.”

“Not in the least,” the Bishop said immediately, “I’ve always assumed that was a given. What can you tell me, your Holiness? My ability to access the Palace won’t extend to barging in there in the middle of the night with a vague story.”

“Among my efforts,” the Archpope said slowly, clearly choosing his words with caution, “has been a subtle campaign against an elusive foe, undertaken by specifically skilled and trusted individuals on behalf of the Church, using, among other things, artifacts left behind by the Elder Gods.”

“Dangerous business,” Darling said quietly.

“Indeed so.” Justinian turned to him and nodded. “And to be taken only with the utmost caution and restraint, with every possible safeguard in place, and besides all that, only at what seemed the most urgent need. There has been…an enemy on the move. A most elusive one. My specialists have been conducting a remote campaign to attempt to identify and monitor this being, using the aforementioned artifacts.”

“An enemy?” Darling frowned. “If you don’t know who, your Holiness, what makes you think them an enemy?”

“Understand that I do not, under ordinary circumstances, meddle with the works of the Elders,” Justinian said seriously. “The Church has many such relics in its possession, which my predecessors have collected and contained largely because they universally prove all but impossible to destroy. It is, as you yourself know very well, sound general policy to leave the toys of the Elders strictly alone. So long as they are buried in vaults beneath the Cathedral, under the eyes of the Pantheon themselves, those tools are relatively safe, and contained such that they pose no threat. At least, that had been my assumption until quite recently, when one became unexpectedly active.”

“And…your response to this was to have a specialist…poke at it?” Darling cleared his throat. “Forgive me, but…”

“No, no, you are right,” Justinian said wearily. “I do my best, Antonio, but a man who must handle as many delicate threads as I inevitably outsmarts himself once in a while. I suspect you know a thing or two about that, yourself.”

“Well.” Darling couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe one or two.”

“Yes, the safe thing to do would undoubtedly have been to bury it deeper and invoke the Pantheon’s auspices to ensure it took, this time. I have never been one to brush dangers under the rug, however. That which is out of sight and out of mind is more menacing, not less, because one grants it the element of surprise by not engaging. I sought to learn what was happening, what it meant, and who was responsible. It did become clear, at least, that the device’s sudden activity was due to some manner of…sympathetic principle. Someone, somewhere, had a counterpart to it, and was doing this deliberately. Having learned that, I could hardly afford to ignore it. That is the kind of threat which could come to endanger countless uninvolved innocents, if not the world itself.”

“Clearly, yes,” Darling agreed, nodding emphatically.

“Tonight,” Justinian continued gravely, “and quite recently, in fact, after a pattern of several days of exchanges between my agent and this mysterious figure, the device abruptly destroyed itself. The violence of it was…extreme. My people barely escaped with their lives.”

“And…you wish to warn the Throne?”

“Oh, it is more urgent than that, or it could wait till morning. In the moments before it erupted, the artifact projected an image of the silver gryphon.”

There was a moment of silence.

“In other words,” Darling said slowly, “this whole time, you were playing a very dangerous game of chess with what turned out to be agents of the Empire.”

“Even that would be blessedly simple compared to the reality,” Justinian said seriously. “Such a misunderstanding could be explained. In hindsight, this revelation makes sense of much about the exchanges which had baffled my agents. The enemy’s moves frequently made no sense, and we had ascribed them to the idea that he was as awkward and uncertain in his use of the Elders’ crafts as we. Looking back now, though, it becomes apparent that we were dealing with more than one party, themselves at cross purposes. The original aggressor, and more recently, also the Empire. I suppose it should not surprise me that the Throne has similar treasures hoarded away. It only makes sense that if someone had begun to activate them remotely, it would affect more than the one in my own possession.”

Darling’s eyes widened. “Your Holiness… Do you have any idea how many of these things still exist?”

“None,” Justinian said grimly, “and you have hit upon one of my concerns.”

As always, Darling kept his racing thoughts firmly away from his face. The Emperor, the Hands…the timing. This was a moment to tread with extreme care.

“Coordinating with the Throne would obviously be important in that case, yes,” he mused aloud. “But…with all respect, are you certain this entire thing wasn’t the Empire’s doing?”

“Quite.” Justinian nodded. “I have been wrong about people, of course; individuals are endlessly surprising. Those who possess and managed to maintain great power are often much less so. I understand Sharidan quite well. I know his ambitions, both their shape and their extent, and the reckless menace posed by this agent’s initial activities was not in his character.”

“What activities?” Darling asked, frowning again.

“Before the thing began to obstruct scrying efforts,” Justinian replied, “we found a trail leading to Puna Dara.”

“Surely the Punaji wouldn’t…”

“Agreed. It is also not in their nature to poke the bear, as it were; some past leaders of the Punaji might have been so ambitious, but Rajakhan is not the sort to meddle with dangerous powers to begin with, and definitely would not begin to rouse the kind of trouble in his own territory that our early divinations perceived.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“This is what we must discuss with the Throne,” Justinian said seriously. “To begin with, aside from the need to merge our information, there is also the matter that the Throne might consider the Church responsible for these problems if they are not informed otherwise, and I don’t have to tell you all the risks that could pose.”

“Indeed not.”

“But additionally, Puna Dara is beyond the direct control of Tiraas—and largely outside the influence of the Church. Between their association with Naphthene and a native spiritual practice which focuses on their windshaman, the Punaji generally have little use for gods. If someone intended to probe at both the Church and Empire, or even set them against one another, they could hardly pick a more perfect place from which to strike…and it becomes more ominous still in light of rumors I have begun to hear from Punaji territory. In this matter, Antonio, I hope you may have information to add that I do not.”

“I might have to disappoint you there, your Holiness,” Darling admitted. “The Guild’s presence among the Punaji is pretty slender, as well. Their culture makes Eserites sort of…redundant. Rajakhan is possibly the only world leader who discourages the Guild’s activities in a way that doesn’t provoke the Boss to double down on them. Only the Five Kingdoms do a more thorough job of keeping us out.”

“I am aware of this,” Justiniain said, nodding. “Nonetheless, you may still have information I do not—and of course, I cannot begin to guess what Imperial Intelligence may know. Tell me, Antonio, in any of the whispers you may have heard from Puna Dara, has there been anything about the Rust?”

Even under the circumstances, Ravana enjoyed the atmosphere of the campus after dark. Its peace was rather like that of her private gardens at home in Madouris, one of the few outdoor spaces where she could be free of the pestering attentions of the countless people who demanded a slice of her time. Professor Tellwyrn’s emphatic discouragement of interlopers had finally quelled the upsurge of interest which had begun with Gabriel Arquin’s calling last year, and relatively few of her classmates were knocking about at this hour. For the most part, she had the path to herself.

Especially these days, for obvious reasons. She tightened her grip on her lightcapper for a moment before forcing herself to relax it again. And, then, to relax herself overall. The wind in the trees, the sound of crickets and night birds, even the pleasant warm glow of the fairy lamps; all the details of her surroundings conspired deliberately to be comfortable, even if she generally found the faux-gothic stylings of Tellwyrn’s taste in architecture rather gauche.

The oppressive drowsiness hit suddenly, as she had expected. Immediately following came the stab of blinding agony in her temples—also expected, but she had not been able to test the potion before taking it (obviously), and Ravana was not accustomed to physical pain. She was unable to repress a shriek, barely catching herself before taking a tumble which would have damaged her personal dignity—or worse, her lightcapper.

A moment later, though, it faded, and she straightened, a predatory smile stretching across her features.

Mages were so obsessed with magic, they always tried to counter it with more magic. A noblewoman knew to play to her own strengths, to find mundane solutions to the threats posed by even the most capable wizards and warlocks. Even if, in this case, the solution had been provided through the auspices of expensive (and extremely illegal) alchemy, it was still a basically mundane one: a person simply could not fall asleep while in severe pain.

“Predictable,” Ravana said aloud, raising her lightcapper and turning to face the Sleeper.

“Contact!” Fross shouted, shooting toward the ceiling and chiming loudly. “We’ve got him! South lawn, the path outside the music building roughly equidistant between the gazebo and the Wells!”

Ingvar had already thrown open the door of the spell lab and strode out, Aspen right on his heels. There came a disorganized rush as the sophomores, Scorn, and Fedora followed, but the Huntsman moved with swift purpose and total calm. In seconds he had strode the length of the hall and out the side door, raising his longbow as soon as he had a view of the sky.

The arrow he nocked wasn’t exactly identical to the one which he had made with his own shaman in Tiraas; he had had to improvise, lacking the shaman’s expertise and rank in Shaath’s faith. Thanks to the help of the fairies, though, its blessings and charms should be correct. Ingvar angled his bow to aim straight skyward, drew, and released.

The arrow burst into light as it soared aloft. For a moment he experienced uncertainty; would it work? But it continued, shooting straight skyward, as it was meant to. The shaft climbed far higher than the power of his draw could have propelled it, till even with its glow it had vanished from visibility with sheer distance.

Only for seconds, though. When it erupted, it was with a surge of clouds that spread out over the mountaintop as rapidly as a cup of ink poured into a bucket of water. With it came the low howl of wind, swirls of snow, and the sharp cold of the upper Stalrange, unheard of on the prairie.

The very light shifted, taking on a pale bluish tinge. The blessing of Shaath lay over Last Rock, and across the very dimensions, blocking all shadow-jumping.

“That is a bit more ostentatious than I was expecting,” Gabriel remarked from behind him. “People might notice this, guys.”

“It works, though,” said Juniper, turning to him. “Right?”

He hesitated, listening, then nodded. “Yes! Vestrel confirms. We’ve got the Sleeper pinned down!”

“Magically, at least,” said Ingvar. “The easy part. Now…we hunt.”

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12 – 18

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“Sorry I’m late!”

Teal tossed something to Ruda as she entered the spell lab before crossing to join Shaeine by the wall. The two shared a reserved smile, shifting their hands to briefly touch the backs against each other, while Juniper looked on with a sappy smile.

“You’re not even the last one here, and holy hell, did you drive?” Ruda was examining the object Teal had thrown her: a set of control runes for an enchanted carriage, their engraved sigils putting off a fierce blue glow, attached to a small bronze fob.

“Nah, that’s my tardy note,” Teal said, grinning. “I was helping Maureen with our project; we got hung up applying the control enchantment, and kept at it because if you leave that half done, you pretty much have to start over. Jokes on us, cos we flubbed it somehow and have to start over anyway. Those are the runes we were trying to use.”

“Oooh, yeah, they’re not supposed to glow like that,” Fross commented, fluttering closer. “Huh, that’s really peculiar. What went wrong?”

“I actually don’t know,” Teal confessed. “Neither does Maureen. But when it comes to enchanting, I pretty much just know theory and she was following along from the book…”

“Are they gonna blow up?” Ruda asked, showing no alarm at the prospect of holding a potentially explosive spell misfire.

“Nah, there’s not enough juice in those to make a good firecracker,” said Teal. “They’ll probably just glow until they burn through their stored power. Don’t toss ’em in a spell circle or anything, though. Mis-enchanted gadgets can be unpredictable if you add them to half-finished spells.”

“Hell, I wouldn’t be going near something like that anyway,” Ruda said, carefully tucking the fob into one of the buttonholes on her coat, where the glowing runes hung to just above her belt. “Thanks, T! Cheap, tacky and potentially dangerous. Best jewelry I’ve ever gotten!”

“I figured you’d like it,” Teal said, winking. “Speaking of which, Fross, d’you think you could give us a hand alter when we try to apply control enchantments again? I think it’ll go better with an actual enchanter on hand.”

“I would be glad to help, however!” Fross darted back and forth in midair as she often did to punctuate a point. “I would suggest you ask Gabe first. He’s a specialized enchanter while I’m a more general arcanist, and also he really likes being included and having his skills acknowledged, which, y’know, everybody does, but personally I don’t feel I need the validation and Gabe’s still working through some stuff.”

“That is very perceptive, Fross,” Shaeine said with a warm little smile, “and very kind.”

“Thank you! I try to be both of those things!”

“It’s a good idea,” Teal agreed, again brushing Shaeine’s hand with hers. “Thank you, Fross, I’ll mention it to him.”

“After the meeting, if you please,” Ruda said. “We’re already running a bit behind, and I prefer to get this business out of the way as soon as possible. That is, if the rest of our—well, it’s about fucking time.”

The lab door opened again, and Gabriel himself entered, followed closely by Toby. Gabe paused in the doorway, his gaze zeroing in on the glowing control runes hanging just over Ruda’s belt buckle. After a moment, he grinned broadly.

“Yarr! It’s drivin’ me nuts!”

“Arquin, so fucking help me—”

“Whuh?” Juniper blinked. “I don’t get it.”

“Old joke,” Gabriel explained. “So a pirate walks into a bar, and there’s a ship’s wheel hanging from his belt buckle—”

He broke off and ducked, Ruda having yanked a bottle of beer from within her coat and hurled it at his head. The bottle came to a stop midair before reaching him, however.

“Hey, don’t make a mess in the spell lab,” Fross said reproachfully, levitating the bottle gently to the floor. “We’ll have to clean it up before we leave.”

“Silly as always, I see,” Scorn grumbled, stepping in after Toby and as usual having to duck to get her horns under the door frame.

“Oh…hi, Scorn,” Ruda said, frowning up at her. “Wasn’t expecting you to come.”

“I invited her,” Toby said firmly. “Considering what you wanted to discuss, I think she could contribute very well. And besides, we could stand to make more of an effort to spend time with her.”

“You know what they say,” Gabriel agreed, nudging Scorn with an elbow, which barely reached up to the base of her ribs. “You bust it out of a psycho holy sex dungeon, you buy it!”

The Rhaazke looked down her nose at him, nostrils flaring once in a silent snort of irritation. “Are you lot going to be like this the whole time, again? Always jokes and prodding each other when you should be focusing?”

“Hey, don’t knock it,” Ruda said easily. “Bickering helps us concentrate.”

“It’s a bonding exercise!” Fross proclaimed. “I was uncertain at first too but as long as everybody knows each other and trusts there’s no malice it’s actually pretty fun! You should feel free to join in!”

“Except don’t pick on Shaeine,” Gabriel said solemnly. “She’s classy. Everybody else is fair game.”

Scorn grunted. “If you say so. Fine, then. You are short and not good with women.”

“Ehhh…” Gabriel made a waffling motion with his hand. “A decent effort. Ruda, care to critique?”

“Points for being on the nose,” Ruda said seriously. “That was a good hit; Arquin’s manly ego makes a splendid target. It’s all about context, though. You’re meant to fire one off at the appropriate moment in the conversation, not just out of the blue like that.”

“Sounds unnecessarily complicated,” Scorn huffed.

“Nah, you’ll get there,” Ruda said, grinning. “Stick with us, we’ll have you bantering like a pro in no time.”

“I’m even less sure I want to stick with you now,” Scorn grunted.

“And there you go!” Gabriel crowed. “She comes back with a splendid riposte!” The Rhaazke just looked at him in confusion.

Shaeine cleared her throat loudly.

“Yes, right, we’re actually here for a reason, for once,” Ruda said in a much less jocular tone. “I’m sure you lot were wondering why I wanted to talk in one of the spell labs. The reason is this is probably the most secured and private place on campus available to us aside from our dorms, and we can’t have the whole group in either of those, unless we slip Gabe and Toby sex change potions first.”

“That’s actually a lot more complex than a simple potion! There’s a whole course of alchemical treatment involved, which takes days if not weeks, and it should really only be undertaken with the supervision of an expert alchemist and a healer, preferably a fae practitioner—”

“Fross.”

“…aaaand I’m being pedantic and going off on a tangent. Sorry.” The pixie drifted a few feet lower, her glow dimming bashfully. Ruda gave her a grin before continuing.

“Tellwyrn, in her dubious wisdom, has asked us to keep an eye on the campus while she fucks off to Sifan, and ideally nab this Sleeper asshole. We need to talk strategy.”

“Wait, Tellwyrn what?” Scorn exclaimed.

“It’s actually really unexpected,” Juniper said, nodding. “I’m still surprised. And intimidated, and kind of honored.”

“We may jabber and fool around, but we get stuff done,” Gabriel said to Scorn. “That, or we get chased by centaurs or tricked by the Black Wreath. Y’know, six of one…”

“And this raises another point,” Ruda said, fixing her gaze on the Rhaazke. “Scorn, on reflection I think Toby has a good point: you’ve earned our trust, you’re smart and powerful, and I think you’re an asset here. So, you know, welcome to the gang. With that said, this is the kind of thing which should not leave this room, hence us talking in a magically sealed space that can’t be eavesdropped on.”

“Easily,” Shaeine corrected in a quiet tone. “Most of our fellow students could not penetrate the defenses on one of Tellwyrn’s spell labs. It would be a mistake to make assumptions about what the Sleeper can or cannot do.”

“Point,” Ruda agreed, nodding at her.

“I’m glad you’re doing well at making friends,” Toby added to Scorn, “but with something like this, Ravana Madouri in particular…”

“There is good sense in that,” Scorn grunted. “Ravana is very clever. Very clever. But she is the kind of clever that tricks itself as often as others. I think she would agree, anyway. I have noticed her best trait is she does not lie about what she is, even to herself.”

“And this is no time for people to be playing politics, which is what Ravana would fucking do even if she decided to help, and we all know it,” Ruda said firmly. “So, glad we’re all on the same page, there. Now, Fross and June and I have been talking and we’ve got an idea.”

“Yes!” Fross chimed, shooting straight up to the ceiling in excitement. “Okay, so, remember when we were chasing spectral demons and I set up a hybrid arcane/divine detection grid over the town?”

“I remember that not turning out so well,” Scorn commented.

“Yes, true, but not really germane to the point; the grid worked perfectly, and in fact accidentally enabled me to dig up some more detail on something it found than I expected. So I’ve been refining that and I think I’ve improved on it in a way we can use to catch the Sleeper!”

“A detection grid over the campus?” Gabriel asked, his interest clearly raised. “No offense, Fross, but what do you think you can do that Tellwyrn hasn’t? She’s got the ley lines rigged so she can temporally scry, and there’s a very powerful fairy geas active…”

“But we have something Tellwyrn doesn’t!” Fross chimed excitedly.

“An excessively high opinion of ourselves?” Gabriel asked, grinning.

“A tendency to wreck things?” Toby added wryly.

“Really great hair!” Ruda chortled.

“Tellwyrn has all that,” Scorn pointed out.

“We have a dryad,” Juniper said smugly.

“Uh, point of order?” Teal raised a hand. “Tellwyrn also has a dryad. The same one. I mean, wouldn’t she have already asked you to help, Juno?”

“She did,” Ruda pointed out.

“I mean, specifically, if there was a way she in particular could.”

“That Tellwyrn didn’t think of a way does not mean one does not exist,” Shaeine observed. “Your idea, Juniper?”

Juniper sighed. “The thing is…the last time she let me help, I made a mess of it. I think that’s probably made her a little wand-shy. Besides, Tellwyrn is a mage; she doesn’t think in terms of mixing schools, or using different ones. Fross and I have worked something out that should let us… Well, Fross is better at explaining it.”

“Okay, so!” the pixie resumed. “First of all, we’re reasonably sure the Sleeper is a warlock.”

“Why?” Scorn demanded.

“Sure might be overstating it, but there’s evidence,” said Ruda, beginning to tick points off on her fingers. “First, some asshole inexplicably opens a hellgate—a major infernal accomplishment. Then, Tellwyrn hires a kitsune, pretty much the most dangerous and powerful kind of fairy there is, to teach at the campus. Then, nothing at all happens; not a peep from any hypothetical warlock. Then, the kitsune storms off in a huff, and immediately this Sleeper bullshit starts up. So, no, we can’t prove anything, but the sequence of events strongly suggests this is a warlock, and the same one who pried that hellgate open.”

“Hmm.” Scorn narrowed her eyes, but nodded after a moment. “Logical. Okay, go on, pixie.”

“Right, so detection networks,” Fross continued. “Do you guys know anything about dryad attunements?”

A round of blank glances was exchanged around the room.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Juniper said, frowning thoughtfully, “because the whole experience is beyond words; I think that’s a large part of the point of it. But it’s something we can do, a way of sensing our surroundings, and especially magic and other fairies. I’m connected to it at all times, but not always actively; it takes focus to consciously sense what’s happening around me. I don’t usually do it, because my range covers pretty much the whole mountain, and other fairies kind of find it disruptive.”

“It’s, uh, sort of like suddenly having an extra sense,” Fross added, “and immediately using it to detect some massive, powerful creature standing right next to you. A little disconcerting.”

“Sorry,” Juniper said, wincing. “But…massive? Really?”

“I mean, uh, your magical profile! Not physically.”

“Massive, no,” Scorn said, suddenly grinning. “They are pretty hefty, but let’s be reasonable.”

Gabriel and Ruda dissolved in laughter; Teal covered her eyes with a hand. Juniper just shook her head.

“Anyway,” Toby said loudly.

“Right, yes,” Fross went on. “Since, as you know, it turns out I myself am basically a small fragment of a dryad’s consciousness given independent agency, I can connect to this attunement with Juniper’s help. What’s more important, I am an anomaly. Fairies are simply not supposed to be able to use arcane magic. I know Jacaranda wouldn’t have deliberately made me that way, and frankly if she’d wanted to, there’s no way she would know how. Even Tellwyrn doesn’t fully understand how it works; I sure don’t.”

“Which means,” Juniper said with a satisfied smile, “it’s an effect that can’t be predicted or countered.”

“How does that help us?” asked Shaeine.

“What I’m gonna do,” Fross said eagerly, “is work on a spell with Juniper that’ll let me broadcast a very small but steady amount of arcane magic through the fairy attunement!”

“Now, I’m not in the magic studies program,” said Toby, “but I do know my Circles. That sounds like a great way to blast everything off the top of the mountain.”

“We’ve tested this on a smaller scale before bringing it up with you guys,” said Juniper. “It works. Fross intuitively blends the arcane and fae; she can extend the effect. And even if that didn’t work, it’s a very small amount of arcane power. If the came into conflict, the fae would just snuff it out. The attunement is powerful.”

“To what end, though?” Gabriel asked.

“We know the Sleeper and his curse are effectively undetectable,” said Ruda. “We also know that the Sleeper was willing to tangle aggressively with November, but fled from Tellwyrn. That’s the profile of someone who relies on stealth, but can be overpowered if caught. And we, my fellow magnificent bastards, have the juice to beat the hell out of just about anybody we can manage to pin down.”

“I’m not talking about blazing with random arcane energy,” Fross added. “Since we can’t detect the Sleeper directly, I’m gonna make a way to catch him. The spell I mean to use will be a tiny, trace amount of arcane magic spread across the whole mountain, small enough nobody should be able to perceive it except me, since I’m the source. More importantly, I will have it rigged to be immediately consumed by any infernal magic it encounters, as per the Circles of Interaction. Even that way, it’s so small the infernal caster in question shouldn’t be able to sense it; it won’t be enough power to actually do anything.”

“So,” Gabriel said, comprehension dawning on his face, “if anybody uses infernal magic anywhere on the mountaintop…”

“It will burn a hole in Fross’s field,” Scorn interrupted eagerly, “where she can know it but he cannot.”

“And so,” Juniper said with smug satisfaction, “it won’t matter how invisible the Sleeper is. We’ll know he’s there, and we’ll land on him.”

“Ingenious,” Teal marveled.

“I see only one downside,” Shaeine said quietly. “This plan hinges on someone else being a victim of the Sleeper’s attack.”

“Not necessarily,” Toby mused. “Wherever he or she is getting this power, the Sleeper’s a very potent warlock—and as a student, someone quite young. I bet you anything they’ll be experimenting; that’s probably the whole point of this sleeping curse, or at least part of it. There’s no reason they wouldn’t be, if they can hide it completely, even from Tellwyrn.”

“Exactly,” Ruda said, nodding. “The pattern of events suggests they were afraid of Ekoi; their activities were probably suspended while she was here. They’ll be branching out now, trying stuff to see what they can pull off.”

“And even if she does curse someone else,” Scorn said with an unpleasant grin, “then we will have her. And then she will tell us how to fix them. Or if not us, she will very much tell Tellwyrn when she is back.”

“Solid points, all,” Shaeine agreed, nodding. “Very well. I think this is a good plan.”

“And the rest is boilerplate,” Roda said briskly. “Fross and June will have to handle the magic; what we need to put together is a plan of attack. We’ll have to be on site from wherever we are pretty much immediately once Fross sounds the alarm.”

“Hm…that presents a logistical muddle,” Teal mused, rubbing her chin. “Also, we’ll need to be very careful it’s the actual Sleeper we’re jumping on. None of the other students are openly warlocks, but several in the magic program use small amounts of infernal energy for various experiments…”

“If I may?”

They all pushed back against the walls with a series of surprised shouts, Ruda and Gabriel both drawing weapons. Inspector Fedora grinned unrepentantly at them, seemingly not in the least perturbed by the show of force. He had just appeared there, standing against one wall, without the door having opened.

“Really, kids, settle down. And future reference? If you’re gonna be up to this kind of duggering of skulls, you need to get in the habit of thoroughly sweeping your meeting places. Before you get to the actual meeting.”

“What are you doing in here?” Scorn snarled, balling her fists.

“Easy now!” Fedora held up a hand, palm out. “I was eavesdropping, obviously. That’s a good plan, I think it’s got every chance of working. And I believe I can help you with that last bit.”

“Why the hell would we trust you?” Ruda demanded, still holding her rapier pointed at him.

“I really can’t advise strongly enough that you don’t do that,” Fedora replied, grinning. “Trust is earned, kids; I haven’t had time to earn it, and full disclosure? Not planning to. But you can work with people you don’t trust. Hell, if anything, trust is a handicap. You’re much better off dealing with people on the basis of clearheaded knowledge of what they want and how they think, rather than some emotional attachment to the idea of them being on your side.”

“How did you just appear there?” Teal snapped.

“He was invisible, obviously,” said Ariel, her runes flickering. Gabriel held her also pointed at the Inspector.

“It’s a neat trick,” Toby said.

“It’s an entirely standard part of their repertory, in fact,” the sword said; Fedora watched her with an evidently delighted grin, offering no interruption as she continued. “The Imperial government may of course employ whoever it wishes. The same goes for Professor Tellwyrn, though quite frankly I am disappointed that she would allow this foolishness to continue. The rest of you, however, should think long and carefully before agreeing to cooperate with an incubus.”

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12 – 14

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Despite the late hour, Darling was alert and energetic even without the aid of strong tea, much less coffee. The sense of a new and interesting game suddenly afoot did wonders for his personal motivation. Price claimed his addiction to intrigues was worse than anything he could eat, drink, or smoke. If it kept him upright, moving, and sharp close to midnight after a long day, though, he wasn’t going to complain. Particularly as his current adventure was a response to an urgent summons by Imperial Intelligence. Whatever this was, he didn’t want to go into it at less than his best.

The neighborhood through which he strode was quiet at this hour, and in fact quite safe, being an upscale place occupied chiefly by pricier businesses and thus heavily patrolled. He was probably the scruffiest person it had seen all day, attired presently as Sweet the thief rather than the Bishop, but luckily there were no soldiers immediately in sight to question him. Not that he couldn’t talk his way out of that, but it didn’t do to keep the Imps waiting.

His steps slowed briefly as he passed through an intersection, glancing down the side avenue, only a few blocks into which he had twice found the Elysium.

Nah.

The address he had been given was an Imperial safe house, which of course he knew despite no such explanation being included in the message summoning him. In fact, this was one of the safe houses he wasn’t supposed to know about, not that he planned to enlighten whoever he met. Darling liked Vex well enough and meant no ill toward his department or the regime it served, but just coexisting with a man like Vex necessarily meant hoarding whatever advantage he could secure.

He stepped into a back alley, which was actually clean; the space had been designed as a service entrance for the three buildings clustered around it, and rich folks had their standards. The good ones applied the same standards to spaces occupied by their servants. He strode smoothly past the first two doors, well aware that his approach had to be observed, and grasped the handle on the third without bothering to knock.

The door opened instantly and silently, and he slipped through, pulling it shut behind him. There was no one present to greet him, leaving him to choose between going down a darkened hallway and descending a narrow flight of stairs. Light and faint voices came from the bottom of the steps, so that way he went.

It occurred to him in passing that this would be a fantastic place for an ambush. His message had come from an Imperial functionary he knew, though, and Vex had no reason to pull a stunt like that. Still and all, he tucked his fingertips into his sleeves, where he had throwing knives concealed.

A moment later, he removed them, upon stepping into the room at the bottom of the stairs and seeing who awaited him. Quentin Vex himself was present, lounging against the wall; General Panissar stood near the door in full uniform. The third man was dressed casually, in a suit that had seen no wear and was of good quality but clearly not tailored for him; it had probably been procured from some department store particularly for this exercise. Sharidan Julios Adolphus Tirasian, Emperor of Tiraas, assuredly did not have any such garments in his own wardrobe.

“Please don’t,” the Emperor said quickly when Darling started to kneel. “The formalities have their place, Darling, but there’s nobody here to impress. Let’s not bog this down with ceremony, shall we?”

“As you wish, your Majesty,” he said diplomatically, straightening up and adjusting his lapels. He glanced at Vex, then Panissar, then back at the Emperor. “Well, here we are, then! I didn’t even know what to expect and I’m still alarmed. Shall I assume the Emperor isn’t nearly as unprotected here as he looks?”

“Obviously,” Panissar said with disdain. “I’d feel better if I could have brought a few Imperial Guards, but the situation being what it is…”

“My people are keeping watch,” Vex said with a yawn. “My best people. Blanketing the district with them would risk drawing eyes, which is exactly what we don’t want. A handful of my top operatives represent more effective power than a platoon, anyway.”

“Are you gonna let him talk to you like that?” Darling asked Panissar, who snorted derisively. “Sorry, I don’t know a better way to lighten the atmosphere of impending doom. What’s going on, how bad is it, and how can I help?”

“To begin with,” Sharidan said seriously, “anything and everything discussed here is Sealed to the Throne.”

He paused for acknowledgment, and Darling nodded deeply in a gesture that verged on a bow.

“The situation is this,” the Emperor continued. “Something has interfered with the Hands of the Emperor. All of them are exhibiting mental instability, coupled with the sudden possession of powers they never had before.”

“Holy shit,” Darling whispered. “Ah…excuse me.”

Sharidan actually smiled. “Not at all; I’d say that is the correct reaction.”

“We are working to contain this situation,” said Vex. “Intelligence and the Army are both shifting assets to strengthen protection of the Imperial family, and monitor any ongoing projects in which Hands are participating. As discreetly as possible, of course; as effectively as can be done without informing the assets in question of the nature of the problem. It may not prove feasible, but ideally we can resolve this before it turns into a crisis.”

“Hang on,” said Darling. “The Hand who usually sits on the council with us. Is he still at Last Rock?”

Vex gave him a sleepy, mirthless little smile. “Indeed. Verification of the problem has come from that quarter; we’re aware of the potential for escalation, there, and watching it carefully.”

“Professor Tellwyrn has been helpful and surprisingly restrained,” Sharidan agreed.

“Excuse me,” Panissar growled, “but in the version of events I was told, the woman broke into the Imperial Palace, assaulted one of the Empress’s companions and vandalized her bedroom.”

“In the course of delivering a friendly warning, yes,” Sharidan replied, smiling. “Which, for her, was helpful and surprisingly restrained. She bypassed an annoying bureaucracy in order to deliver a message, and I can’t say I don’t sympathize with the impulse, irksome as her methods are. Last Rock isn’t the worry, here; I am. The Hands surround and follow their Emperor above all else. Their current instability is a grave threat; one has already tried to arrest Eleanora. It has been decided,” he continued with clear displeasure, “that the best response in this situation is to remove me from a position where I can do anything to help.”

“Your Majesty knows why,” Vex replied calmly, “and clearly are in agreement. It’s not as if we could force you to comply, nor would.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Sharidan said with a sigh. “I do know. I don’t have to like it, though. For the time being, in any case, the Empress will maintain the government.”

“You need a place to hide,” Darling guessed.

“Exactly.” The Emperor nodded. “Which is why we asked you here, your Grace.”

He frowned. “Don’t you have safe houses?”

“Many. All of them, however, are known to the Hands,” Sharidan replied. “They will be able to find me anyway, given the need, but not as easily as if I am in a place unknown to them. Each Hand can sense my direction and approximate distance from their position, but that’s it. Getting to me will take time, and involve figuring out a route, gauging the situation…”

“And if one or more start moving in his direction, we’ll know,” Vex added. “This operation will involve me posting agents to watch both his Majesty and the Palace, and any other Hands in circulation. As soon as one makes a move at the Emperor, we’ll intervene to extract him. Unfortunately, Hands have unrestricted access to all of Imperial Intelligence’s assets, including the power to give orders to my personnel with the Emperor’s own authority. They can find any of our bolt-holes nearly as easily as they can the Throne’s own.”

“We are addressing this as best we can,” said the Emperor, “by keeping the agents in question in the field with orders not to report back until they are told otherwise. The Hands, meanwhile, have been informed that all of this is a gambit on my part to flush out a conspiracy. Which is roughly true; they simply weren’t told they were its target. The downside of needing to keep them pacified is that I cannot curtail their authority while we work. This should suffice for a while to keep them away, but if the emotional instability they’ve begun to demonstrate worsens, one or more is likely to make an irrational move.”

“This whole situation is disastrously unstable,” said Darling. “I trust something is being done to rectify the root problem?”

The Emperor sighed. “Clearly, something has interfered with the magic powering the Hands. Unfortunately, there are no specialists on that particular…arrangement. I have sent someone I trust to attempt to address it, but… It may not be possible.”

“I hope you have a longer-term plan in that case, your Majesty,” Darling said.

Sharidan nodded. “She is to attempt a repair if it can be done; if not, her instructions are to destroy the entire system.”

“Can that be done?”

“Anything can be destroyed,” the Emperor said softly. “Whether that proves feasible in this instance is another matter. She will do what she can, and we have other plans ready to be activated if she fails, which are not germane to our discussion here.”

“What you need,” Darling said slowly, “is someone who can hide you in the city, using resources and personnel not known to the Imperial government, close enough to the Palace but also far enough that you can either return to it or flee it on very short notice.”

“Exactly,” Panissar grunted. “Hence you. Despite your known tendency to play all ends against the middle.”

“I won’t waste anyone’s time denying that, but in a case like this…” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’d say this is no time for games. Far, far too much would come unraveled if something happened to the Emperor. Speaking of which, first things first: you gentlemen have probably already decided this and were maybe about to make a point of it to me, but under no circumstances can any Thieves’ Guild or other personnel be told who he is, much less why he’s hiding.”

“We are firmly in agreement,” Panissar snorted.

Darling nodded. “With that established… Yes, this shouldn’t actually be too hard. Any number of people either owe me favors or would love to do me one, and for Eserites, someone needing a no-questions place to crash where they’re encouraged to stay away from the windows isn’t an odd circumstance at all. I’ll have to winnow it down to people who can be both trusted and relied on. To do that, I’ll need to put my ear to the ground for a bit, find out who is or is not currently in a bad situation we don’t want to be near. Also not unusual for Eserites. What’s our timetable, here?”

“That will ultimately be determined by his Majesty’s agent,” said Vex. “The base situation will be resolved when she does so, one way or another. I will say, however, that having a bunch of physically overpowering, highly-ranked government officials slowly growing more and more unhinged will escalate this into either a massive crisis or a cluster of smaller ones, sooner than later. I give this no more than a week before it devolves into a disaster we will be hard-pressed to contain. Current problems aside, if the Emperor is out of sight for longer than that, political tensions will begin to form which could impair the government’s function on their own. Coupled with the Hands…”

“A week.” Darling rubbed his chin in thought. “This is gonna be a no-sleep night for me, then. Let me head back to the Guild and rule out some options; I want to be sure what we’re stepping into before we take the Emperor near it.”

“Is your Guild involved in a lot of things that physically dangerous in the city?” Panissar demanded.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Darling said with a shrug. “But a lot of what the Guild is involved in could be instantly escalated into a dangerous mess by putting the Emperor and Vex’s watchers anywhere near it. The underworld functions on a delicate balance, gentlemen; that’s what keeps it from affecting the lives of most citizens who don’t seek it out. If we’re going to do anything to affect that balance, we’ll do it carefully, especially given the stakes. This, I assume, is one of those spots the Hands know about?”

“Indeed,” Sharidan said, nodding. “And in theory should be safe; all of this is an added precaution, because we expect more than fear that some of them will act rashly, in spite of my orders. It should suffice for a while, though.”

“All right,” Darling replied. “A while is all I need. I’ll have something more permanent for you by morning.”

The entrance to the Wells was an unassuming sight, disguised as a small shed. Still, when the door opened, all three leaped to attention and saluted, Rook after twitching as if stung by a wasp.

Ravana stepped out, looking calm and composed as usual, if inquisitive, and swept a curious look across them. Behind her, two of her classmates followed, Scorn having to duck to get through the doorway and make room for Szith.

“Gentlemen,” Ravana said mildly. “Good evening. When Afritia said I had visitors, I confess I rather expected some of my classmates.”

“Your Grace!” Moriarty practically shouted. “We humbly thank you for taking the time to speak with us an apologize profusely for this imposition and the late hour!”

“At ease,” Ravana said with clear amusement. “All the way at ease, Private Moriarty. We’ve known each other only briefly, but it has been enough for me to be certain you would not trouble me were the matter not important.”

Behind her and to either side, the drow and demon mutely folded their arms in an eerily identical posture, framing the diminutive Duchess with the subtlest hint of menace.

Rook cleared his throat, dropping his salute. “Thanks, Duchess Madouri. And, uh, all due respect, but you can probably expect a little more bowing and scraping, ‘cos the plain truth is we came to ask a favor of you and you probably can’t even imagine how uncomfortable that is, oh gods I’m really sorry to bother you.”

She actually laughed softly. “Perhaps you’d better blurt it out before Moriarty suffers a cardiac event, then. Mr. Finchley, I have several times had the thought that your porridge is neither too hot nor too cold. Would you care to take over?”

Finchley froze, blinking. “P-porridge, your Grace?”

“An old Stalweiss fable,” she said ruefully. “My apologies, I do have something of a predilection for esoteric allusions.”

He cleared his throat. “Ah, yes, well, I’m sure it’s just one of your many charming—”

“What do you want?!” Scorn barked, making all three jump backward.

“Scorn, please,” Ravana said in the same tone of mild amusement. The demon just grunted. Szith raised one eyebrow.

Finchley took a deep breath, clearly steeling himself. “Your Grace, we would like to ask your help in acquiring legal counsel.”

“Interesting,” Ravana mused. “For what purpose?”

“Getting early discharge from the Army!” Rook blurted.

“Under circumstances which are, in the best possible interpretation, highly suspicious,” Moriarty added.

Ravana stood silently for a few seconds, taking the time to examine each of their faces in detail, before speaking. “I do say that is unexpected. Forgive me if I presume, gentlemen, but it has been my observation, in the course of our admittedly brief interactions, that all three of you find great pride and satisfaction in serving in his Majesty’s army, even if politics beyond your control have relegated you to an irrelevant backcountry nonsense post which negates any possibility of career advancement.”

“Oh, there were never any hard feelings about that,” Rook chuckled. “It’s not like any of us was gonna have career advancement anyhow. Moriarty’s the only one who even knows any regulations, and he literally cannot shoot the broad side of a barn. Funny story, we tested that.”

“After you got me drunk,” Moriarty snarled, “and let us not waste the Duchess’s time!”

“Here’s the thing, your Grace,” Finchley said. “There’s a Hand of the Emperor on campus, and the short version is, he’s gone crazy. Even Professor Tellwyrn is alarmed by how he’s been acting. But he’s a man with absolute authority. At the end of the week, if she hasn’t fixed this Sleeper problem to his satisfaction, he’s going to try to punish her by…disappearing us.”

“He used the actual words ‘never seen again,’” Rook added, gulping.

“Forgive me,” said Szith, “but…how would that punish Professor Tellwyrn?”

“It wouldn’t,” Moriarty replied, “in any way, shape, or form.”

“Finchley wasn’t kidding,” Rook added. “The man is completely off his nut.”

“So that’s our predicament,” said Finchley. “The ultimatum is probably impossible for Professor Tellwyrn to meet—she’s doing her best about it anyway, so what was even the point? And when it doesn’t happen, well… I mean, theoretically, he could just be reassigning us…”

“Our posting here is a political matter, though,” Moriarty said glumly. “We’re supposed to be out of the way. Us being stationed in the capital might have…um, repercussions.”

“Plus,” said Rook, “not to harp on this, but this guy is seriously unhinged. There is absolutely no telling what he’ll do with us. And legally? He can do any damn thing he wants.”

“How does a lawyer help you, then?” asked Szith.

“That is simple enough,” said Ravana. “The Empire is not an oligarchy, despite constant attempts by families such as mine to make it so. In a society of laws, the law can be used to challenge power on its own terms. In this case, by pressing suit over their treatment and securing early discharge on the grounds of abusive treatment by superiors, they create records, and attention. A threat like this would have to be carried out quietly; by making that impossible, they pull at least a few of its teeth. His only counter would be to declare this a matter of national security, which would bring the eyes of Imperial Intelligence onto his own misconduct. Seeking legal counsel of the kind I could connect you with is actually a very good idea, gentlemen, as it would take more than the common run of lawyer to pull this off. I am more concerned by your allegation that a Hand of the Emperor has become unstable. The implications are positively staggering.”

“Even I find it hard to believe,” Szith agreed. “The Hands are legendary. Their position and stability seems immutable.”

“A society is basically a collection of things we agree to believe,” Finchley said quietly. “It’s…a shape we give to what would otherwise be chaos. These things seem immutable until the moment they come crashing down, and we have to face the fact they only ever existed because everybody said so.”

Ravana cocked her head to the right, regarding him with a suddenly thoughtful expression. “Very insightful, Mr. Finchley.”

Finchley coughed awkwardly, flushing. “I, ah, well… My dad’s in the Wizard’s Guild. I grew up listening to wise old educated people chatting about life over tea.”

“I do believe my House attorneys could do what you wish,” she mused. “The first step would be to file injunctions protecting you from reprisal while you physically remove yourselves from the clutches of your superiors.”

“You can get permission to go AWOL?” Rook said in apparent delight.

Ravana gave him a vulpine smile. “With the right lawyer, Mr. Rook, one can do whatever one likes, and acquire permission retroactively. That isn’t even much of a trial, as it is within both the letter and the spirit of several laws aimed at protecting soldiers from exactly this sort of abuse. The real challenge would be contesting the orders of a Hand, which are the same as those of the Emperor, for all intents and purposes. That command cannot be gainsaid. It would have to be…interfered with, misdirected, undermined, sabotaged. Which, of course, is also within the purview of a truly good lawyer.” Her smile widened. “By which, of course, I mean a truly evil one.”

Finchley drew in a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Your Grace, I know this is a vast imposition, but we’re desperate. Could you…?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s totally out of the question,” she replied, and continued when they all visibly deflated. “Not for lack of willingness to help on my part, gentlemen, but my House is still in hot water with the Silver Throne as it is. I have made progress during the last half year, but I am far from the point where I can afford to have my House attorney’s spit in a Hand of the Emperor’s eye.”

“I see,” Finchley said morosely. “Well. Again, your Grace, we’re sorry to have bothered you.”

“Now, just a moment.” Ravana held up a hand, again smiling very faintly. “I cannot afford to have my House attorneys step into this, which is exactly why I cultivate contact with highly effective, highly disreputable legal firms in both Tiraas and Madouris. One never knows when an inconvenience such as this will arise. I can put you in touch with the perfect person by telescroll. However,” she said quickly as all three perked up and Rook opened his mouth, “no one fitting that description can be simply approached from the street, as it were. Such a firm will require an introduction from an established client, and proof that their rather significant remuneration is assured.”

Rook blew out a sigh. “Welp, there’s that. Like the man said, m’lady, we’re sorry for bothering you.”

“You three have quite the penchant for getting ahead of yourselves,” Ravana said with amusement. “I’ll take care of everything. The telescroll office is closed, but I can have orders dispatched and funds procured by noon tomorrow. By dinner, we can have you on a caravan to the capital, out of this Hand’s immediate reach, and with the support of a powerful ally.”

“Your Grace, we cannot ask you to do that,” Moriarty said firmly.

“Man, we literally just asked her to do that,” Rook retorted, jabbing him with an elbow.

Moriarty stepped away from him, setting his jaw. “Asking for help from her personal lawyers is asking for a big favor—that’s bad enough. Asking her to pay for some lawyer in Tiraas… That’s asking for money. A lot of money. It’s out of the question!”

“We are, of course, deeply grateful for the offer, your Grace,” Finchley said, making a shushing motion at them. “I have to tell you, though, the three of us combined have basically no prospect of ever being able to pay you back.”

“I’m not in the habit of loaning money,” Ravana replied, “except after negotiating a suitable interest rate and securing collateral. You may consider this a gift, gentlemen. A favor for friends, if you will.”

“I…see,” Finchley said slowly. “I’m… Forgive me, I don’t wish to be rude, but I wouldn’t have thought you’d care about us all that—”

“Finchley!” Moriarty shouted, aghast. “Do not insult the Duchess!”

Ravana actually laughed. “Oh, not at all, Private Moriarty. I’d suggest a little more circumspection when speaking to nobles in the future, Mr. Finchley, but your point is well taken indeed. It is rare that powerful aristocrats pause their own business to grant expensive favors to passing acquaintances. When you see that, you should always look for the hidden agenda.”

“I, uh…oh.” Rook looked over at the others. “Um, can you guys think of anything safe to say to that? Because I got nothin’.”

“In this case, you may be assured it is nothing that will bode ill for you,” Ravana said, smiling. “Scorn, you are developing a decent mind for politics. Can you see the advantage for me in this?”

“I really, really can’t,” Scorn admitted, scowling. “These boys, I like them well enough, but they aren’t good for much.”

“And that’s our epitaph right there,” Rook said, grinning.

“This situation with the Hand,” Szith said softly, “cuts to the very heart of the Imperial government. Something of great import must be happening in Tiraas, something which will cause ripples of change. If you ignore it, it will wash over you, and perhaps push you under. If you pick a side, you run the risk of being wrong. But if you intervene subtly, you can deny involvement if ends badly, but take credit if it ends well.”

“Bravo, Szith,” Ravana said approvingly. “You have good political instincts, yourself.”

“In Tar’naris, one needs those to survive,” the drow replied, face as impassive as always. “The mighty are often not careful where they place their feet. One must be adroit to avoid being stepped on.”

“Yes,” Ravana agreed, turning her sly little smile on the three baffled-looking soldiers, “indeed one must.”

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12 – 9

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“Afternoon!”

Scorn frowned, looking sidelong at the man who approached her with a greeting and a cheery wave. “I don’t know you. What are you doing here?”

“And it’s nice to meet you too, Scorn,” he said amiably, falling into step beside her. Considering her legs were three quarters the length of his entire body, he had to practically jog to match her pace, but for all that he kept his knowing smile in place and seemed not at all out of breath, or otherwise discomfited. “It is Scorn, I assume? I mean, I flatter myself that if there was somehow another Rhaazke demon attending this or any Imperial university, I’d know about it. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions.”

She came to an abrupt stop, turning to glare down at him.

“This is not an Imperial university,” Scorn stated, “and Professor Tellwyrn says I am allowed to throw reporters off the mountain. There is a sign posted by the gates this semester. You consent to these terms by coming in here.”

“Yes, I saw,” he said, his grin actually widening slightly. “Real classy. But no, I’m not a reporter. Inspector Fedora, Imperial Intelligence.” He turned back his lapel momentarily, flashing a silver gryphon badge at her.

“I do not need to talk to Imperials,” she said sharply. “Tellwyrn does not answer to the Empire. I am a student here.”

“Well, Scorn, there are needs, and then there are needs,” he said lightly. “You can blow me off, sure, but I think you’ll find—”

He made no effort to dodge as she bent forward and grabbed, nor did he resist, passively allowing her to hike him off the ground by the neck. The Inspector dangled in her grasp, regarding her sardonically, while she glared and bared her fangs.

“Listen closely, annoying tiny man,” Scorn growled. “You are bothering me, and I don’t have to hkraasf it. I get a little annoyed with you, maybe I just toss you off the mountain. I get very annoyed, I take you to Professor Tellwyrn and you learn all about not being a dumbass on her lawn.”

“I’m here at Tellwyrn’s invitation, if that matters to you,” he said, his voice only slightly strained by the grip around his neck.

Scorn narrowed her eyes. “That is the bull shit.”

Fedora huffed a soft laugh. “By all means, go ask her. And as for you and I and questions, this isn’t even about you, Scorn. I’m looking for answers about the sleeping curse.”

“I know nothing of that!” she barked.

“Good,” he replied, smiling disarmingly. “Then we needn’t have a problem. Mind setting me down?”

She stared at him a moment longer before complying, more abruptly than was necessary.

“Thanks,” he said without a trace of irony, straightening his coat. “Here’s the thing, Scorn: I’m not really considering you as a significant suspect. But the facts are, we’re looking at infernal magic as a very likely vector for this thing, and it’s of a craft and style which is hitherto unknown and has so far defeated the efforts of some of the best magic users alive to even examine it. And here you are, the world’s only resident Rhaazke. A hitherto almost unknown demon species, known to be extremely powerful, both physically and magically. You see why this is—”

“I know nothing about that!” she snarled, taking an aggressive step toward him.

Fedora just looked placidly up at her. “Okay, I believe you. But I answer to Imperial Intelligence, as I said, and think about how all this looks to them. If I can’t bring them something, some kind of alibi for you, you’re likely to end up as a major suspect no matter what I say. And I’ve gotta warn you, young lady, getting aggressive with the first person who comes asking you questions about this makes you look guilty as hell. So how about we help each other out, here?”

She bared her teeth and drew in a deep breath as if preparing to start shouting, but quite suddenly the tension drained from her powerful shoulders, and she squinted suspiciously.

“You believe me? Why?”

“Motive,” he said promptly. “Personality. Circumstance. There’s no benefit to you and substantial potential loss in stirring up trouble here, and if you were the type to do so just for shits and giggles, it’s hard for me to credit that it would’ve taken you this long to start. No, this is a formality. But I do need some details from you, Scorn. And who knows? Somewhere in your extra-dimensional knowledge of magic, there may even be a tidbit we can use to put a stop to whoever’s casting this curse.”

“What if they come at you next?” she demanded.

Fedora’s smile widened to a broad, distinctly malicious grin. “You really are an innocent, aren’t you, Schkhurrankh? Or at least, you’re no mastermind.”

“If you are just to insult me,” she began.

“Look at me,” he ordered. “Look closely. Use your senses. Get a good whiff.”

She was already inspecting him with more attention than before, and at that, her eyes suddenly widened and she took a step back, hands balling into fists.

“Yeah,” Fedora drawled, “let’s just say I am not particularly worried about being struck by the Sleeper. Now. Why don’t we stroll over to someplace a bit quieter—”

“I have class,” she said curtly, stepping backward again.

“Oh?” The Inspector raised an eyebrow. “It’s rather late in the afternoon for—”

“I have extra classes,” Scorn snapped, “tutoring. Because I missed the last semester of classes, and also twenty years of knowing how this world is work—how it works. I have to catch up. I am going to my teacher now. After, I will find Professor Tellwyrn and as if you are allowed here and I am to answer your questions. If she say yes, then we will talk. If she say no…” Scorn leaned down till her slitted eyes bored into his from less than a foot away. “I will pull all your limbs off like an ant, and watch you try to squirm around. Yes? Good.”

“It’s a date,” Fedora said, tipping his hat to her.

She snorted nearly hard enough to loosen it, then turned and stalked off down the path.

“Be seeing you real soon, princess,” he murmured, watching her go.

“Smile, dear,” Eleanora murmured, squeezing his arms.

Sharidan gave her a sidelong look. “About what?”

Her own lips quirked in faint amusement, prompting a responding smile from him. In truth, it was not their wont to go about beaming with beneficence. Their public facades were very carefully crafted: he maintained an aspect of serene calm, while she carried herself with sternness hinting at the possibility of incipient executions. Good guard, bad guard. The “smile” thing had been a joke, but she was right. He’d been allowing weariness and worry to creep into his expression, and that would not do.

“Are you all right?” she asked even more softly.

He squeezed her hand in return. “Yes, just a little overtired. I didn’t sleep well.”

“Then do so tonight,” she said, still softly, but firmly. “You know you can’t let yourself—”

“Yes, I know.” He patted her hand, giving her another small smile.

Their entourage as they returned to the harem wing of the Palace was as small as usual, which was still not insignificant. Simple protection mandated escort by one Hand of the Emperor and four Imperial Guards, arranged in a defensive formation surrounding the Imperial couple; this deep inside the Palace, they were purely practical, not an honor guard. Not that he had ever been attacked this deep in the palace, but his grandfather had, and that at the instigation of an Archpope less powerful and hostile to the Throne than the current one. A steward also accompanied them a few steps ahead, and two servants in the rear, just in case they should happen to need something between the throne room and their private apartments. Not all the weight and authority of the Silver Throne was able to put a stop to some customs; Sharidan had ended several of his mother’s more excessive practices, but his seneschal had flatly put his foot down on the subject of even risking the Emperor’s momentary discomfort when hundreds of individuals were actively employed to see to the running of the Palace. At Eleanora’s wry observation that they were at least helping fuel the economy, he had given in.

The steward picked up his pace, moving ahead to open the doors to the harem wing for them. The two Imperial Guards standing at attention to either side saluted, but did not otherwise stir, as was proper. Sharidan nodded to each of them in passing; they kept their eyes ahead and made no response, also as was proper. Truthfully, there was nothing obliging him to acknowledge military personnel only doing their duty, and it wasn’t as if he paused to speak with every soldier in every formation he passed. In his opinion, though, failing to show basic regard for people serving him when he was that close was what made the difference between a healthy reserve and the kind of aloofness which made rulers dangerously out of touch.

The grand entrance hall of the wing was clearly a seraglio in the old style, with a sunken middle lined with rugs and cushions, and a profusion of potted plants and hanging curtains arranged to grant privacy. The harem’s original designers had doubtless envisioned this space with concubines lounging decoratively about, and to be sure, under some previous rulers this had been the case. Sharidan and Eleanora, however, didn’t keep enough women between them to fill the room, and none of their paramours were merely decorative. The wing also housed a library, gymnasium, and even a small observatory, not to mention rooms where visiting officials could be entertained. To share a bed with the Emperor or Empress, one was expected to be sharp of mind and useful to the Imperial administration.

At the moment, only Milanda was present; the current acknowledged favorite, she took it upon herself to act in a wifely manner toward him in the privacy of this wing, where Eleanora let that facade drop. She now stepped forward with a smile and a graceful curtsy, and Sharidan had to smile back, taking her hand and laying a gentle kiss upon her knuckles.

“Welcome back, my lord,” she murmured.

Eleanora cleared her throat. “His Majesty,” she said pointedly, “has seen fit to exhaust himself in the service of his people. He requires to fully rest this evening.”

“I shall see to it that he does, your Majesty,” Milanda replied demurely, earning a nod of acknowledgment. She was only demure with Eleanora, who generally approved of but did not personally like her. Not for the first time, Sharidan counted his blessings that he enjoyed as much peace as he did in his home.

Eleanora had stepped away, giving him a final pat on the shoulder, and now glided toward the hall leading to her own rooms. Milanda slipped her arm through his, looking coquettishly up at him through her lashes in a way which made his blood begin to warm. She had a very effective way of ensuring he slept well, and to judge by the way she pressed herself to his side, she clearly planned to get an early start.

He had absolutely no intention of disobliging her. But first, last, and always, he was still Emperor.

“The matter of—”

“Will keep,” Eleanora said with clear exasperation, stopping and turning to give him a look. “The elves, the dwarves, the Sifanese, the Wizard’s Guild, the bards, that absurd business in Last Rock, and all the thousand other things going on are being attended to. Sharidan, I love the responsibility you feel toward your people, but I grow tired of explaining that you serve them poorly by wearing yourself down. You employ the best people alive to administer your Empire. They will manage all the ongoing situations while you have a well-earned respite; if something arises which demands your attention, they will come to inform you. They are all of them competent enough to know such a situation if it appears.” She tilted her head forward as if to look at him over nonexistent spectacles, and once again he regretted confiding the effect on him that gesture had had when his mother had habitually done it. “Let it be.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sharidan said wryly, turning to the servants waiting by the door toward his own chambers and slipping an arm around Milanda’s waist. “Some wine and fruit, please. Oh,” he added, shifting toward the Hand of the Emperor standing guard a few feet away, “and in the case of the ongoing operation in Rodvenheim, with all respect to my lady wife, I decline to wait for Lord Vex’s judgment to decide I should be informed. The moment word of progress appears, it is to be brought to me.”

The Hand’s face abruptly snapped toward him, scowling. “It is being tended to!” the man barked. “We know our duty. Have patience.”

Silence and total shock descended.

The Hand turned again to resume his constant, blank-faced survey of the room, as if a threat my spring out of any shadow—and as if nothing had just transpired. Everyone else, however, stared at him. Sharidan and Eleanora, as much politician as feeling human being by that point in their careers, kept impassive, though in the glance they exchanged he discerned her shock as clearly as his own. Milanda was a veteran courtier herself, and maintained her own outward equanimity, but her sudden stiffness against him told a different story. The Imperial Guards present had all shifted stance, wide-eyed and uncertain, and two had half-raised their staves. The servant about to leave to fetch the Emperor’s wine and fruit had frozen, gaping at the Hand of the Emperor in horror.

Hands did not speak to their Emperor that way.

They simply did not.

“Of course,” Sharidan said pleased by the mildness of his tone, then turned and added offhandedly to the servant. “Oh! Bring a carafe of coffee, as well.”

He squeezed Milanda, even as he met Eleanora’s resigned stare. He had no idea what this meant, but it meant something, and it was clearly not a thing he could afford to ignore.

Rest would have to wait.

Afternoon was fading into dusk as they neared the town.

“I’m telling you, it’s too late,” Aspen said petulantly. “Humans are fussy about their diurnal rhythms. You can’t just visit them during sleeping time, they get all grumpy.”

“Yes,” Ingvar said, giving her an amused smile and reaching out to pat her back. “Yes, I think you’re right. Well, I really thought we were making better time. Here we are, though.”

“How come you think faster time’s better time?” she asked. “We came here, we got here. There’s plenty of tomorrow to go say hello. The elves were right, humans are way too obsessed with being speedy. Time’s just time, is all.”

“Elves, like you, have forever in which to live,” he said. “We have to do things while we can.”

The look she shot him was filled with sudden dismay, and he found himself feeling uncomfortable under her regard. It wasn’t the first time, lately. It was simple fact that she could live more or less indefinitely, while he had only the usual span of decades, but Aspen seemed to be having trouble with the idea. Darling’s warning about the nature of her growing attachment to him sprang once more to the forefront of his mind.

“So,” he said, more to fill the silence than anything, “would you like to go into town and get a room for the night?”

“Is that a joke?” she asked, her momentary unhappiness gone in the scathing tone she so enjoyed employing with him. “Dryads aren’t allowed in human towns, as people keep reminding me, and you know very well both of us are more comfortable in the wilderness than in beds.”

“Once again, you’re right,” he said solemnly, rather enjoying the satisfaction on her face. She loved being right, and loved even more having him acknowledge it. “The tallgrass isn’t quite the wilderness either of us prefers, though. I miss trees.”

“Present company excepted?” she asked with a grin.

“Of course.”

“Yeah, well… Still beats being under a roof.”

“I have to agree,” he replied, hitching up his pack, then turned his back on Last Rock and the looming mountain beyond it. “Well. Let’s backtrack a little bit, then. If you’re going to camp close to a town, I find it’s best not to camp too close. People range about, and it can be awkward if they trip over you in the dark.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” she muttered, following him.

They were content with silence and each other’s company, by this point in their travels together. It wasn’t any particular attunement to her that enabled him to sense her mood, though; Aspen wore her every passing feeling right on her face. As they walked and the tallgrass blazed red around them with the deepening sunset, she gazed glumly at the ground in front of her feet, a pensive little frown now and again flickering across her features.

“It’ll be all right,” Ingvar said quietly. “Trust me. She’s your sister. She’ll understand. Just from what you told me, I’m certain she loves you.”

“I’m…not worried about that,” Aspen said, then heaved a deep sigh. “It isn’t her. It’s me. I… She was right, Ingvar. Juniper was right about all the stuff I called her crazy over. I just don’t know how to face her.”

He moved closer and draped an arm over her shoulders. She leaned against him, not slowing their pace.

“Then don’t think of it as facing her,” he advised. “I bet the first thing she’ll do is hug you. Everything will seem simpler after that.”

“I guess.” He felt her nod against his shoulder. “Not just that, though. We’re going to see the Arachne. Nothing about that is gonna be comfortable. Never is.”

He chuckled. “Well, I’m sure you’re right on that point.”

He wasn’t in a position to see her smile, but he knew she did, and it lightened his own mood.

She saw him coming, of course. Approaching visitors were high on the list of things she instructed the system to inform her of. Naturally, she had to order the panel to go dark in preparation for his arrival. For the first time she regretted it; there had never before been anything ongoing which was worth paying attention to. Obviously, though, letting him observe her using the system was out of the question. If they ever found out she could, her only source of diversion would dry up. They didn’t have a lot of control over the sub-OS, but they could probably influence it enough to lock her out.

The hiss of the facility’s inner door was just audible from her cell, as were his gradually approaching footsteps. Moments after entering, Sharidan Tirasian passed into her view from the approach corridor. It had been beyond her just what the practical effects of the ongoing tweaks to the jury-rigged dryad/Hand system would be, but to judge by the Emperor’s expression, they had begun. It wasn’t often that he visited without one of his pets actually with him.

“Trouble?” she asked mildly.

He stopped, turning his head just enough to study her. She never usually spoke to him. This was risky, hinting that she had access to information in here, but it was worth it for the sudden, clear discomfiture she inflicted. She didn’t even care to play mind games with people as a rule. That was what they got for locking her up with nothing to keep herself entertained.

A politician born and raised, he was impressively impassive; she could not at all follow his train of thought based on his expression, and she’d observed enough people over the millennia to have a pretty good read on human emotions.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked suddenly, and she had to admit she was impressed. The clever boy had actually managed to surprise her.

“No,” she said with a shrug. “You could give me things to make me comfortable. You’d have to open the cell, though.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Hmm.” Languidly, she blinked. “You actually are, aren’t you? Such a sweet boy. Not at all like your predecessor.”

His unreadable eyes remained on her for a bare moment longer, then he turned without a word, proceeding down the hall toward the dryads.

She began pacing as soon as he was gone. The panel, of course, she left dark, and would until he was safely out of the facility and in the elevator back to his palace. Still… This was only beginning. Something really interesting was bound to come of all this, sooner or later.

Her chance was coming, she could feel it.

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“It was simply an attack of opportunity,” Lord Vex informed the Imperial couple, who were both studying the newspapers laid out on their breakfast table. “Embarrassing Bishop Snowe won’t yield any significant dividends, and anyway she quickly regained control of the crowd. I’ve had my people in Vrin Shai keeping track of her whole group; one saw the opportunity last night and took it, which I approve. The significant aspect of this is that it demonstrates she is there on her own, not on assignment from the Archpope.”

“How so?” the Emperor inquired.

“She was unaware of the content of those newspapers,” Vex replied. “After the effort that had to have gone into placing the Archpope’s agenda into them, seeing stories run that so neatly countered it is a serious matter, and Justinian is too smooth to have failed to notice, or to be so easily tripped up. He would not permit anyone operating on his agenda to be so out of touch. Thus, Snowe is assisting Syrinx for her own purposes.”

“Hm,” Eleanora mused. “And what do you make of that?”

“It’s too early to tell anything definitive, or useful. At present, my general policy toward Syrinx is to leave her alone.”

“You considered it established that she was deep in Justinian’s camp the last time we spoke of it,” the Empress said sharply.

“Indeed, your Majesty,” Vex answered, “but we must consider why each of his inner circle are there. Snowe is personally and ideologically loyal to Justinian, Varanus speaks loyally for a cult which also backs the Archpope, and Darling is playing all factions against each other for his own purposes. He and Syrinx are the angles I will use when it is time to act against Justinian directly; that woman has no true interest in anything but herself. For that reason, I choose not to risk antagonizing her at this time. The recent trouble that caused her to be exiled to Viridill indicates she still has a vindictive streak.”

“With regard to that,” said the Emperor, finally looking up from the newspaper, “your report on the matter suggested an internal Avenist shake-up that might end with Shahai or Locke permanently fulfilling Syrinx’s role. Does that factor into your calculations?”

“Very much so, your Majesty. If Syrinx ends up retaining her position, it won’t do to irritate her; if she does not, it’s not worthwhile to invest in her. Frankly, I would prefer either of the elves you mentioned, but we will work with whatever resources are available. It is far too early to consider moving openly and aggressively against Justinian, but when that time comes, turning the cults against his Church will necessarily be a central aspect of the plan. Having the Avenists and Eserites positioned to strike at the heart of his organization will serve us well on that day.”

“It seems to me,” said Eleanora as she pushed aside the paper to reach for her teacup, “that getting these stories into the papers is a far greater victory than anything involving Snowe. This was admirably quick work, Quentin.”

“Thank you, your Majesty,” he said with a languid little smile. “And I concur with your assessment. Momentarily tripping up Bishop Snowe was merely one sign of our success, and one of the less important.”

“How did you counteract Justinian’s influence on the newspapers?” asked the Emperor, smiling thanks at Milanda when she stepped forward to refill his teacup.

“Justinian thinks in terms of power and force,” said Vex. “He has leveraged several factors to maintain a hold on the papers: their near-infiltration by the Black Wreath, the protection of the blessings the Church provided after that, and especially the financial benefit of their association with Bishop Snowe. A newspaper only looks monolithic from the outside, however, and the print media as a whole barely do at all. It is not in their nature to all point in one direction; there is significant infighting within each editorial staff, and deep rivalries between papers. A good many editors and reporters rather resent their reliance on Snowe, and virtually everyone resents having the Archpope dictate to them.” He smiled and blinked slowly, a distinctly catlike expression. “Intelligence services and newspapers have in common that we attract Veskers; as many as half my staff are affiliated with that faith. I am in a firsthand position to know that there is little bards hate more than being told what to say. Rather than trying to attack Justinian’s influence on the papers directly, I have simply had my people place the information we want disseminated in front of elements within the media whom I have identified as particularly resentful of the Church’s heavy hand.”

“Elegantly done,” the Emperor said with approval, picking up the paper again. “And these? The two lead stories are interviews with this Punaji weather-witch and the dwarven inventor. Surely that wasn’t all…”

“Indeed not, your Majesty. They were simply the two whose stories most quickly got out, which has as much to do with luck as anything I did. We targeted and nudged a selection of carefully chosen University graduates.”

“Among that crowd,” Eleanora pointed out, “there are likely several who saw immediately what you were doing.”

“I don’t doubt it, your Majesty. They can also see where their own interests lie; some may be curious enough to come to Tiraas, exploring these political currents, but I anticipate no hostile action toward us. Others will get their stories out there in the days to come, as they and various reporters follow the trails of breadcrumbs I’ve placed between them.”

“Is it your intention to replace Justinian’s hold on the newspapers with our own?” Sharidan asked.

“That would be quite difficult, your Majesty, and in my opinion also a mistake. As I said, it is not a natural state of affairs for every paper to tell the same story in the same voice. The great masses of people will think whatever they are told to think by whoever they respect most, but those who are clever enough to influence the game will have taken note of the recent spate of attacks on the University, and realized it signified an organized campaign. For now, it better serves our interests to re-assert the natural back-and-forth between differing opinions among the media. I will, of course, be taking steps to promote this theme among those who speak up on behalf of the University; I chose these candidates carefully to suggest it.”

“Yes, I noticed that,” Sharidan agreed. “Both of these seemed to go on at some length about how their noble-born and otherwise powerful classmates benefited from associating with commoners like themselves.”

“Indeed, your Majesty. A good propaganda campaign establishes a narrative; that’s why bards are so attracted to the business, I suspect. The story we are telling here is an egalitarian one about elevating common folk into heroes, and teaching the more highly-born to appreciate the lot of the common man. I am assisted in this in that it happens to be more or less true; it was probably not her intention, but Professor Tellwyrn has liberally seeded her student body with some rather humble voices, and their influence has been noted in the conduct of many of the University’s noble-born graduates. Nor did she invent the tactic. Your Majesties are aware that history’s more successful noble lineages, like the Punaji royal family and House Madouri, have always taken steps to keep themselves integrated with their subjects.”

“The Madouris are simply more careful than most aristocrats about inbreeding,” the Empress said with mild distaste. “They breed their children with the same care they do racing thoroughbreds. Still, your point is well-taken.”

“How do you intend to proceed?” the Emperor inquired, pausing to take a sip of tea.

“For the time being, as is,” said Vex, folding his hands behind his back. “Though I am observing and managing it somewhat, the rest of this campaign will be an organic process of the University alumni I contacted coming forward and adding their voices to the debate. More direct action may become appropriate depending on what the Archpope does, but for now, things proceed satisfactorily. However, there is the other matter about which I asked to speak with you. An opportunity has unexpectedly arisen to rap Justinian’s knuckles far more sharply.”

Sharidan and Eleanora exchanged a glance, then leaned froward in unison. “Do tell,” said the Emperor.

“First thing this morning, I received a communication from Professor Tellwyrn. Much to my surprise, she was, in fact, relaying a message from Gabriel Arquin.” Again, that feline smile spread across Vex’s features. “I believe your Majesties will like this.”

“What is this stuff?” Trissiny asked warily, frowning into the cup of thin black liquid Ruda had just poured for her. A large pot of the stuff sat next to the plate of sandwiches on their breakfast table, filling the air with an unfamiliar but delightful scent.

“It’s called coffee,” Ruda said cheerfully. “And it smells a hell of a lot better than it tastes. But it’s a powerful stimulant that makes black tea look like water. I figured some of us would be grateful for the boost, since some of us were up late knocking over and then fixing up the town, before Arquin requested everybody meet for an early breakfast.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Gabriel said, wincing. “We need to have a pretty important discussion, and as soon as possible… But by the time we got back to campus last night, everybody was pretty dead on their feet. And also, not everybody was present.”

“I note you did not invite any of the freshmen,” Shaeine observed.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “and we may wanna bring them up to speed, depending on what we decide here. But I thought, for now, it’d be best to keep this between us.”

“Hlk!” Everyone turned to stare at Teal, who was in the process of setting down her cup and making a face. “…sorry. It’s not the first time I’ve had coffee, but it always takes me by surprise. I mean, that smell, and then it tastes like a mud puddle under a salted turd factory.”

“I like it!” Scorn proclaimed, holding out a suddenly empty cup. “Almost like home! You are too afraid of strong flavors in this world. More, please?”

“Uh…” Ruda eyed the towering demon up and down warily. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea…”

“It’s probably fine,” said Fross. “She’s got a lot of body mass, and anyway the kinds of adaptations that make creatures resistant to infernal corruption also makes them less susceptible to mind-altering stimuli in general, so Rhaazke likely have a high tolerance.”

“By the same token,” said Ruda, “I’m not sure I want to see a Rhaazke on a coffee high.” She poured Scorn another cup, however.

“I’m really sorry I wasn’t there to help, Triss,” said Fross. “I sensed it when the wards were triggered, but something was really off about… Oh, uh, I guess Gabriel should go first, since he asked for the meeting. But this may be urgent, too, so we should talk about it before we go to class.”

“Duly noted,” said Gabe, who had touched neither his sandwich nor his coffee. He folded his arms on the table, drew in a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. “All right, well… I guess I have to start by apologizing. I did something pretty stupid. And we came scarily close to somebody getting hurt because of it.”

“Note the lack of gasps following that confession,” Ruda said dryly.

“Ruda,” said Toby, frowning at her. “Quit. Okay?”

“Fine, fine. Spit it out, Arquin, how bad did you fuck up this time.”

Gabriel tightened his mouth for a moment, then raised his eyes to look at all of them. “Okay, well… The truth is, I’ve been keeping information back from you. I know more than I’ve let on about what’s happening around here.”

“Why?” Juniper asked, frowning.

“Mostly because…I thought some of you would be mad about how I was getting it. I’ve, uh, asked the valkyries to follow people around and report on what they were doing.”

“What?” Trissiny exclaimed, her eyes darting nervously about. “Follow people? Us?”

“No, no!” Gabriel said hastily. “None of you, don’t worry. But, um… The two new priestesses in town. Lorelin Reich and Sister Takli. And…the Black Wreath warlocks who’ve been messing with us.”

A short silence descended, in which they all stared at him.

“Annnnd,” Ruda drawled at last, “the excellent reason we’re just now hearing about this would be…?”

“It’s not an excellent reason,” Gabriel said glumly, “it’s a dumb one, and I only did it because I wasn’t thinking it through. Yesterday I went to talk with Val about it, because I really didn’t like keeping things from you guys and it was weighing on me even though it had seemed like the right thing for a while, and… Well, he kind of pointed out that by controlling information I was trying to control the group. Which…was a shitty thing to do. I was just afraid somebody would do something abrupt and get hurt, and didn’t stop to consider what a jackass I was being by making assumptions like that and having the gall to manipulate you. So… I’m sorry, everyone. That was stupid as hell. I didn’t mean any insult or harm, I just messed up.”

“Okay,” said Ruda with a shrug. “Apology accepted. What’d you learn?”

Everyone turned to stare at her.

“Um, what?” Gabriel asked uncertainly.

Ruda raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I see how it is. Ruda’s the temperamental one who cusses everybody’s ear off over the slightest thing, right? So that’s what you’re expecting here.”

“Uh, that’s kind of true, though,” Fross pointed out.

“Fine, you want details?” Ruda planted an elbow on the table and pointed at Gabriel. “You, Arquin, are a dumbass. You never think this shit through and you’re always fucking up one thing or another. But here’s the deal I’ve noticed about you: it’s never malicious, and it’s always an exciting new way of fucking up.”

“That’s fantastic, thanks,” he muttered.

“It is pretty fuckin’ fantastic, and shut your grumblehole till I finish. You make new and different mistakes because you don’t repeat the old ones. You learn. Annoying as it frequently is to clean up after you… Hell, you’re doin’ constantly better and you try. Can’t fairly ask a lot more than that of anybody, now can we?”

“Not for the first time,” Shaeine observed, “Ruda’s viewpoint is surprisingly insightful. I cannot say I don’t somewhat resent your actions, Gabriel; I had thought that by this point there was more trust between us.”

“I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “I’ll make it up to you, somehow.”

The priestess gave him one of her warm little smiles. “I am sufficiently confident of that to let go of the matter and trust it will happen.”

“Agreed,” Toby said firmly. “I’m glad you’re doing better, Gabe, but seriously. Do not try something like that again. Failing to share information in dangerous situations is what gets people badly hurt, or worse.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said, nodding. “Agreed. Again, I’m sorry.”

Another lull fell; several of them shifted to look at Trissiny, who was staring fixedly at Gabriel. She finally glanced aside, meeting their glances, then shook her head and spoke in an oddly quiet tone. “Ruda’s right.”

“Well,” Gabriel said with a hesitant grin, “thank—”

“What did you learn?” she interrupted.

He broke off, staring at her, then blinked and cleared his throat. “Right, well… Okay, there are two things that I think are important. First of all, the Wreath have been a little careless because they’re used to stealth magic and shadow-jumping away. The stealth can work on my girls, but valkyries can actually follow a shadow-jump, which I don’t think the Wreath knows. They’ve been watching conversations that took place where the Wreath thought they were in private. And apparently, they don’t mean us any harm.”

“That is difficult to credit,” Shaeine observed.

“Not very so,” Scorn disagreed, gesticulating with her again-empty coffee cup. “We have here Vadrieny and Teal, yes? They are very important to the Wreath. Not to be trusted, these warlocks, but they will not do harm to us on purpose. Manipulate us, yes.”

“That’s…pretty much the long and the short of it, actually,” said Gabriel slowly, giving Scorn a thoughtful look. “What they’re trying to do is goad us into chasing them so they can lead us into learning things about the Universal Church.”

“That does fit,” Toby said pensively.

“It worked,” Trissiny muttered, staring at the table.

“Here’s the thing, though,” Gabriel went on. “I think Tellwyrn is allowing this.”

“What?” Juniper frowned heavily. “You’ve gotta be kidding. You know how Tellwyrn gets when people threaten her students!”

“However,” Shaeine countered, “if they are specifically not threatening us, and in fact trying to help us learn something…”

“Oh, I could totally see that,” Fross chimed. “I mean, c’mon, think about the things she has us do. We keep getting sent into politically volatile situations to try and fix them, not to mention dangerous stuff like the Crawl and the Golden Sea. And these are supposed to be educational excursions. Tellwyrn wouldn’t be shy about letting the Wreath play around with us, as long as she had some control.”

“And she does,” Gabriel agreed. “Specifically, she’s got Professor Ekoi riding their tails. There was a bit of a lull before last night while the warlocks tried to figure out just what Ekoi was and what to do about it. It seems they actually managed to speak with her, though, and apparently reached some kind of agreement, because…” He trailed off, wincing. “Well, then there was last night.”

“So,” Teal said, frowning deeply, “we can consider this…a University-sanctioned activity?”

“How utterly typical,” Trissiny growled.

“Tellwyrn, it sounds she is a good teacher,” Scorn observed. “The world is not easy, even a soft one like this. Best to learn hard things in hard ways, while there is someone to watch over and keep you safe, yes? Then when you go out to the world, you are not surprised by how hard it hits.”

“I believe that is Tellwyrn’s educational philosophy precisely,” said Shaeine.

“Let’s back up for a moment,” said Toby. “Gabe, you said the Wreath are trying to lead us by the nose into something about the Universal Church?”

“Well, that’s the other thing,” Gabriel said grimly. “You remember our last discussion about this, after Bishop Snowe’s little stunt? We decided the Archpope was being sneaky, but he was probably a lower priority than the Wreath. Well, Vestrel and her sisters had been keeping tabs on those two new priestesses, as I said. First off, both of them are Universal Church loyalists, sent here specifically by Justinian.”

“How certain are you of that?” Trissiny asked quietly.

“Takli has a magic mirror,” he replied. “It’s connected to another one in the Cathedral in Tiraas; Aelgrind actually watched her communicate with a handler back there. Aside from that, though, she hasn’t done anything; her assignment is to try to bring you around to the Archpope’s side, Triss.”

“Really,” Trissiny said, scowling. “And she thought yelling at me would accomplish that?”

“Under the circumstances, I could see that being a valid opening move,” said Shaeine. “You grew up in the military, Trissiny; I would assume that being spoken to sharply about your mistakes is not an unfamiliar experience for you. A campaign such as that would take considerable time. She probably expects to build a relationship with you over the course of months or years.”

“Creepy,” Juniper muttered.

“Yeah, Takli’s… Honestly, that may be creepy, but it worries me less,” said Gabriel seriously. “The real problem is Lorelin. Guys… In all honesty, I think the Wreath has a point, here, in that she’s worse than anything they’re doing.”

“Here,” Toby said firmly. “Whatever she’s done may be worse than they’re doing here. Never forget who the Black Wreath are or what they’re capable of.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said ruefully, “I think that may be part of what tripped me up. I wanted to wait and see what they and she did, and I thought you guys would insist on going after them directly…”

“Oh, for fuck’s fucking sake!” Ruda burst out. “Arquin, what did this woman do?”

“Right, sorry,” he said, grimacing. “Well… At the higher levels of Vidian formal casting are varieties of misdirection and emotional influence that are almost like fae magic. I’ve just barely started studying this stuff; I’m nowhere near being able to do it, but I know what it is. Well, Lorelin has an apparatus set up in her private chamber that lets her extend her influence over the whole town.”

“Ohhh, I don’t think I like where this is going,” Fross whispered.

Gabriel nodded grimly. “It wasn’t specifically meant to harm, just to aid in Justinian’s propaganda campaign. The effect she’s been trying to put into place is meant to make people more emotional, more susceptible to manipulation.”

“So,” Teal said slowly, “for example… If a paladin went chasing a demon through the town, people who might otherwise take that in stride…”

“That fucking asshole,” Ruda snarled. “A priest is supposed to serve people! You don’t fucking do that to a whole town full of people!”

“I say we go right to Tellwyrn with this,” said Juniper decisively. “Last Rock may not be exactly her domain, but that could affect the students, too!”

“Actually, I already went to Tellwyrn,” said Gabriel. “The scrolltower office was closed last night, and anyway, I thought it as a little sensitive for public transmission… So I asked her to get a message to the Imperial government.”

“That is an excellent idea,” Shaeine said approvingly. “Whoever else is affected by this Lorelin Reich’s actions, that was an abusive and highly illegal magical effect to place over a whole town full of Imperial civilians.”

“Sorry for not including you guys in that,” Gabriel said hastily, “but I wanted to get it done as quick as possible, and everybody was already off to bed at that point. And yeah… I want to go down there and punch her teeth in as much as everybody else, but in this case I think it’s better to do it properly. Tellwyrn agreed. She was, uh, much less condescending than usual about it.”

“I think you still should do something,” said Trissiny. “Or say something at least, before the Empire takes over. You’re the Hand of her god.”

“True,” Gabriel admitted, frowning in thought.

“Um, I think I have something to add to that,” said Fross. “Okay, Trissiny, this is about what I was going to tell you—last night when the wards went off, the signal was really strange. It was a false demon trace, like we suspected, but there were elements to it that looked peculiar.”

“Dangerous?” Trissiny asked, frowning.

“Actually, no, not that I could see. That’s why I didn’t come help; I know you can take care of yourself and I didn’t think you were in any danger. It seemed more important to figure out what was happening, because there were layers to that spell that were clearly aimed at more subtle effects.”

“What did you learn?” asked Shaeine.

“Well!” The pixie bobbed up and down twice. “First I recognized an energy signature in the spell matrix that really jumped out at me, because the only place I’ve ever seen before is in Juniper’s aura.”

“Wait, what?” the dryad exclaimed, straightening up in alarm.

“Specifically in the block in your aura. It’s a frequency that relates somehow to Avei. See, I don’t detect divine magic directly but its presence can be inferred from how fae and arcane energies are changed by it. Took me most of the night to unravel this and study it properly, but I’m pretty sure what I found is… Okay, there’s that energy signature, right? Only it’s set up with a disruptive counter-frequency.”

“Wait, you’re saying the Black Wreath has the ability to disrupt my connection to Avei?” Trissiny exclaimed.

“Oh, no, absolutely not, that’d never work. You could maybe do that to a priest, but if you did it between a deity and her paladin, Avei would notice and step right in, which is exactly what the Wreath doesn’t want. No, it doesn’t try to sever your connection to her, but… Um, for want of a better term, agitate it. It really puzzled me, because it seemed like what it would do is diffuse her influence more broadly through your own aura. I don’t really know the specifics of how you’re linked to her, but that seems like, if anything, it would make you more in tune with her, not less.”

“Of course,” said Scorn, shrugging when everyone turned to look at her. “The Wreath, they are wanting to get a reaction, yes? Well, Trissiny is a trained warrior—maybe not crafty, but also not stupid. So if they can make her more like the big angry goddess and less like the soldier, maybe she is more easy to manipulate.”

“That’s…absolutely horrifying,” Toby breathed. “Have they always been able to do this?”

“Surely not,” said Trissiny, her eyes wide. “It has to be a new spell. I mean, if the Black Wreath could do that… Someone would have noticed before now.”

“How, though?” Gabriel asked. “Think about it. Detecting this required them to be doing it in proximity to a custom made divine-arcane fusion detection ward, under the direct attention of a mage who, being fae, is naturally sensitive to emotionally manipulative magic. How many times do you think those circumstances have lined up? And quite frankly, almost nobody gives Fross credit for being as smart as she is; it probably wouldn’t even occur to them that she could isolate and figure out that element in their spell.”

“It would be an extremely sensible spell for the Wreath to employ,” Shaeine said quietly. “Virtually no warlock is anything resembling a match for a paladin, particularly one of Avei. Yet, Hands of Avei have fallen to the Wreath in years past, usually through trickery. Any measure that could make a Hand more susceptible to their ploys would be immensely valuable to them.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Trissiny whispered.

“And that is why you don’t turn your back on the Wreath,” Toby growled. “Whatever their intentions right now, they are still capable of doing things like this. They must absolutely not be trusted.”

“Yeah,” Ruda agreed, “but the fact remains… After these events, we pretty much can’t deny that the Archpope is also on our enemies list. Him and them, they’re apparently after the same thing: they want control of the paladins.”

“Bring them,” said Scorn, raising her chin. “Everybody bleeds the same!”

“It’s not as simple as that,” said Shaeine, nodding to her, “but at the core of that sentiment is truth. We must be prepared to contend with anyone and everyone who means us harm.”

“Uh, guys?” said Juniper hesitantly. “I know it’s kind of anticlimactic and I hate to break this up, but…we have class. We’d better get moving or we’ll be late for Tellwyrn. And she barely needs an excuse to be a jerk anyway.”

Gabriel sighed and slid off the bench. “Yeah… Well, needless to say, we aren’t done talking about this.”

“Agreed,” said Toby, rising as well. “We know what we’re dealing with, now; we need to decide on a course of action.”

They got to their feet with some stretching and groaning—it had indeed been a very long night for several of them.

“Gabriel,” Trissiny said quietly, catching his sleeve as they stepped into the rear of the line that straggled off toward Helion Hall. “Did you really think I would charge face-first at the Wreath if you told me this was going on?”

He winced. “I really wasn’t thinking in conscious terms, Triss. I’m sorry, nothing personal was meant—it was just a knee-jerk reaction. And it wasn’t just about you!”

“The rest of our class is two pacifists, two fairies, a diplomat and a competent combat strategist,” she said woodenly. “If you thought somebody was going to fly off the handle and do something violent, that pretty much leaves me, doesn’t it?”

“I didn’t—”

“And you didn’t even have to think about it,” she added, staring ahead at Toby’s back.

“Triss,” he said miserably, “this isn’t a reflection on you. I was an idiot. Please don’t be mad…”

“I don’t…think…I am,” she murmured. “I’m honestly not sure what I think. I’m…honestly not sure I’d have any right to be mad, after last night.”

There was a small rooftop terrace at the edge of Helion Hall’s large central dome, where a little round table and chair were attached to the stone roof. No stairs or other access led to it, which was hardly a barrier to many of those who dwelt on this campus. It was a signal, though: Professor Tellwyrn did not desire to share her private breakfast nook. Fortunately, most of the students never even learned it was there, otherwise a good many of them would have taken that for a challenge.

She sipped the remainder of her tea, watching the sophomore class trickle toward the building from the terrace below.

“I am extending a great deal of trust, Kaisa,” she said quietly.

“So you are!” Ekoi replied cheerfully, stepping out from behind her, where she had definitely not been a moment before. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed. I’m so proud of you!”

“I’ll accept certain risks as necessary,” Tellwyrn said bitingly, “but let’s keep the recklessness to a minimum, shall we? Last night was probably the first time in all of history that dragging Mabel Cratchley into a problem actually helped it.”

“That’s because of the dragging, Arachne,” said Ekoi, perching on the edge of the table. “You always drag people, or push them, or threaten them. If you do it properly, people will do what you want without once suspecting it wasn’t fully their own idea.”

Tellwyrn shook her head. “I am still not sanguine about this. Whatever assurances were given by this Mogul character, or Elilial herself, tolerating the Wreath’s presence here is an invitation to disaster.”

“Not, I maintain, if we manage them with care. Arachne,” the kitsune said more gently, “this will work. You’ve made progress with Trissiny, but, in truth, you’re the wrong person to reach her; you are just too much like her. I have been guiding young minds longer than you have existed—at least, as far as we know. Believe me, I know how to get through to her.”

Tellwyrn sighed. “All right, it’s not as if you haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt. But when Avei comes stomping down here to throw one of her divine fits about me letting the Wreath play with her paladin, you can talk to her. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a class.”

She vanished with a soft pop of displaced air, leaving behind the empty teacup.

Kaisa shifted her body to peer down at the approaching students, her tail waving eagerly.

“It’s a date.”

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A constant background noise of angry mutters filled the square, but for a moment at least, it was still. Wilson cowered under the glow of active battlestaves, the townspeople held position, and the students stood as if frozen in place.

“Teal,” Sekandar said very quietly, “this would be a good time to show your other face, I think.”

Vadrieny shifted her head, fixing Scorn with a fiery stare, and said softly, “Be still.” In the next moment, however, she withdrew, flaming wings and claws vanishing to leave Teal still holding the towering Rhaazke by one arm. Scorn looked unhappy, her jaw clenched, but she obeyed the archdemon’s last command.

A man stepped to the side from the thick of the crowd, seizing the young boy by the arm and bodily tugging him backward, scowling and mouthing an obvious reprimand that was inaudible to the students from beneath the constant babble. Rook drew in a deep breath and let it out explosively, keeping his grip on his staff but sagging physically in relief to the point that the weapon drifted down to aim at the ground.

In that moment of comparative calm, Ravana cleared her throat and stepped forward, attempting to push between Finchley and Rook. When neither man budged and she failed to exhibit the necessary physical strength to force them to, she cleared her throat again, more loudly, and spoke in a well-practiced, resonating voice that projected across the square despite the angry buzzing of the townsfolk opposite.

“Gentlemen, if you will not lower your weapons, kindly power them down, at least? It’s clear to me that we are suffering from a series of misunderstandings. I have no intention of bringing any formal charges against Mr. Wilson. We do not punish people for having opinions.”

Rook and Finchley paused, glancing at each other, but Moriarty immediately relaxed his grip on his staff’s clicker, causing the electric glow limning its business end to fade. Rook followed suit a moment later, and all three shifted their grips to aim the weapons skyward.

The square grew quieter; while the crowd kept up a low, disaffected murmur, the shouting ceased. More people continued to trickle in through side alleys, but they all slowed and peered around on arrival, the additional numbers seeming not to add to the overall tension.

“Very good,” Ravana said with an approving smile. “Now—”

At that second, Trissiny and Gabriel dashed into the square from the direction of the town’s edge, both skidding to a stop and staring at the scene.

Immediately, shouting resumed, louder and angrier than before.

“There she is!”

“What the hell’s wrong with you, girl?!”

“You know how—”

“Repent!”

“Goddammit, Carl!”

“All y’all, settle, let ‘er explain—”

“Please!” Trissiny shouted, raising her hands—which was not as calming a gesture as she seemed to mean it, since she was still holding her sword. “Everyone, please! Is anybody hurt? Did anyone notice something alarming or odd tonight?”

“Y’mean, aside from you?” a woman shouted derisively, prompting a chorus of agreement.

“Triss,” Gabriel said, “I don’t think…”

“Listen to me!” she shouted. “There was a demon in this town tonight! It’s very important that everyone make sure they and their neighbors are unharmed and unaffected.” This had a slight calming effect on the crowd, but angry mutters continued. “If you feel at all unwell or out of the ordinary, please go to the church or the Vidian temple to speak with a priest; symptoms of infernal attack can be—”

“Is that why you broke down the Saloon’s door, you hooligan?” barked an older man in a ragged hat.

Trissiny visibly gritted her teeth. “I was trying—”

“You can’t just warn people about danger, you gotta run around scarin’ folks half to death an’ breakin’ down doors?!”

“Listen to me—”

“You knocked over my front fence! Who’s gonna fix that?”

“Stop,” Szith ordered, thrusting a fist in front of Sekandar when he tried to push forward. “Defending her will only make this worse. We need to disengage, all of us.”

Indeed, Gabriel appeared to be trying to persuade Trissiny to back away, though his muttered pleas were swamped by the slowly increasing roar of the crowd.

“That. Is. ENOUGH!”

Gabriel and Trissiny both jumped apart, whirling to face the stooped figure that emerged from the alley behind them. Finally, actual quiet descended on the scene, broken only by scattered murmurs. She hobbled forward, dragging herself along on two canes, and a veritable chorus of sighs rose from the citizens of Last Rock, accompanied by many rolled eyes and shaken heads.

“Evenin’, Miz Cratchley,” someone said in a tone of ostentatious resignation, earning a few titters.

“I never saw such a sad display,” Mabel Cratchley declared, pulling herself to a stop just inside the square and glaring furiously. “What’s got into you people? Where are the good, solid folk who who’ve weathered prairie storms and elf raids since before that mountain had anything on it but flowers? A hundred years and more Last Rock has stood here, since before the Empire bothered to extend its protection over us, and we’ve stood our ground on our land just the same. We’ve relied on nothing but each other and the gods, and lived to remember it. We earned our lives out here, through work, faith, and god-given skill. And now…now, I find y’all standing around, fixing to throw a fit because of a few bruises and broken fence latches? What, you got shoved and shouted at, and now you have to whip up a mob?” She pointed one cane at the prone form of Wilson, teetering momentarily on the other. “I expect such from fools such as that. I thought better of the rest of you!

“What would make you happy?” the old woman continued, taking another shaky step into the square. The now-quiet crowd actually pressed backward, as if physically driven by the force of her outrage. “There was a demon in our town. A demon! And you’re all pitching a fit because someone rushed down here to warn you, and chase it off? Have every last one of you lost your minds? We have the incredible blessing of a paladin in our midst to protect us, a Hand of a goddess herself, and you’re all complaining? You’d like it better if she left you to see your children corrupted and strangled in their beds, is that what I’m hearing?”

She planted both canes firmly in the dirt, then laboriously straightened her spine, drawing herself up to a surprisingly considerable height to glare at the silent throng. “I’ve no shortage of complaints with that woman and her school. You’ve all heard them. I’ve argued with many of you, and I have never been shy to criticize those who needed it, be they honest Last Rock folk, the Calderaan governors, the Empire, the University, whoever! Yes, I’ve known my share of grievances. But in my eighty-six years until this night, I have never been ashamed of my neighbors.”

The silence was crushing.

Every person in Last Rock had heard Mabel Cratchley complain, and more than otherwise had felt the swat of one of her canes on their backsides while growing up, and been prodded by them many times since. But not a soul present had ever before heard her voice quavering on the edge of tears as it was tonight.

“I can’t even look at you.” The old woman drew in a deep, shaking breath, sinking back down into her customary stoop, then laboriously began turning back the way she had come. “Ms. Trissiny, if the gods have any regard for the opinion of one old woman, then by the time I’ve finished my prayers this night, Avei will know there is one soul in Last Rock who is grateful that she watches over us.”

“Here.” Trissiny sheathed her blade and stepped quickly over to Ms. Cratchley’s side. “Let me help you home, ma’am. It’s late.”

“Bless you, child, but I know my way. You’ve better to do than waste your time on the likes of me.”

“The demon’s gone.” Trissiny’s voice was low and calm, but in the silence left by Ms. Cratchley’s speech, it echoed across the square. “And a paladin is not more important than anyone else. We serve, that’s all.”

The old woman started to speak, then simply cleared her throat and nodded mutely, allowing Trissiny to take her by one arm.

Everyone watched in silence as they retreated back down the alley, till they were lost in the shadows and the soft shuffling of Ms. Cratchley’s feet faded away.

Then Ravana took advantage of her escorts’ distraction to slip between them and out into the square.

“Well, then,” she said briskly, “I understand there was some incidental damage done during Trissiny’s ride through the town? Doors, fences, the like? Why don’t we see if we can help set things straight?”

“Aw, now, you don’t need to trouble yourselves,” a man at the front of the crowd said, doffing his hat, while others shuffled and muttered awkwardly behind him.

“Nonsense,” said Sekandar, pushing his way forward with a smile. “It’s late, and everyone will be wanting to get to bed as quickly as possible; best to get these things squared away.”

“Aye!” Maureen agreed brightly, stepping forward and tugging Iris by the hand; Rook gave up on trying to hold the students back and moved aside, making a wry face. “That’s what neighbors do fer each other, after all!”

The students began shifting forward in unspoken agreement, with the exception of Shaeine, who caught Scorn’s hand and leaned up to murmur to the demon. The townsfolk continued mumbling and shuffling, but without hostility now. Their ranks opened up, letting the students move among them, where Ravana and Sekandar led the way in asking for directions to any property damaged during Trissiny’s ride.

“S-so,” Wilson said tremulously, “that’s that, then? I, uh, reckon I oughtta go apologize to the young lady. Don’t rightly know what got into me…”

“Same as always, isn’t it?” Finchley said rather archly. His expression softened when Wilson slumped his shoulders, lowering his gaze to the ground. “We on for poker as usual on Wednesday?”

“Don’t see why not!” the older man agreed quickly, nodding in eagerness. “Lemme just see if I can get the lady’s attention real quick—”

“You’ll have to do that another time, Wilson,” Moriarty said firmly. “Right now, we’re going to the Sheriff’s.”

“What?” Wilson gaped at him. “B-but she said—”

“She said she would not press charges,” Moriarty replied. “She did not direct us to rescind arrest, and there remains the matter of you interfering with a soldier of the Empire in the protection of an Imperial governor by means of physical assault.”

“Omnu’s balls, Wilson, you’re lucky we know you,” Finchley said in exasperation. “You don’t grab a soldier’s weapon. Ever.”

“Any other trooper in the Empire woulda shot your ass dead in the street,” Rook agreed, “and the inevitable inquest would’ve backed them up. Now, c’mon, let’s go explain to Sam why you’re a towering dumbass. That’s pretty much his usual Monday night, anyway.”

They led the shamefaced man off toward the town center, while the now-blended group of citizens and students dispersed through the side streets.

Behind them all, Scorn scowled heavily at nothing in particular. After a long moment of sulking, she childishly stomped one clawed foot on the ground before turning to stalk back in the direction of the University campus.

“All right,” Basra said, planting her fists on her hips. “This was not what I was expecting.”

There were two Silver Legions currently based in Viridill, the Second on constant patrol through the province and the Fourth encamped in Vrin Shai itself. Soldiers of the Fourth were now spread through the city, forming cordons around each of its multiple canals. So far, though, they were only standing there, enforcing a safe distance between what was in those canals and the citizens who had come out to gawk at it.

Water elementals were clearly visible, amorphous beings formed of the canal water itself, changing shape as they jumped about on the surface and seeming to vanish entirely when they submerged beneath it. They spent an awful lot of time up in the air, though, most splashing each other and shooting jets of water here and there, and occasionally at any people they happened to catch sight of. A few of the onlookers were still soaked from such incidents during the elementals’ first appearance, but by this point, most of those targeted were Legionnaires now standing resignedly in wet armor.

In addition to the near-constant noise of splashing, the elementals had voices which were now audible almost everywhere in the city. They were high-pitched, unearthly, and spoke in no language anyone understood, but they were also unmistakably laughing. Or, more often, giggling.

It seemed all they wanted to do was play.

Basra and her party had edged up to the perimeter enforced by the soldiers, studying the scene, with the exception of Ami, who was keeping a respectful distance and a protective grip on her guitar. A sudden squirt of water shot out of the canal, scattering against the golden shield that flashed into place around Basra and incidentally spraying Schwartz, who squealed rather girlishly and skittered backward.

“Is it possible we were mistaken about the elemental at the house?” Ildrin asked. “I mean…we started in on it almost before it could do anything. These seem harmless enough… Maybe it just wanted to talk.”

“That thing was eight feet tall and built like an ogre,” Ami said from behind them. “It clearly had the brute force to be a danger, and the subtlety to penetrate our defenses without effort. The choice of messenger was the message. Specifically, a threat.”

“Exactly,” said Basra. “Schwartz, you’re certain there are no other elementals called up in the city? Just these…things?”

“I was twenty minutes ago,” he said, wiping off his glasses on the sleeve of his robe. “My divination spread is back at the house… But no, this was what I detected arriving, this and the one specimen that, ah, visited us.”

“The situation is tentatively considered under control,” said the Legionnaire wearing a captain’s insignia who stood nearby, having been grabbed and quickly interrogated by Basra upon their arrival. “At the moment we’re awaiting the arrival of sisters from the temple; General Ralavideh has ordered something called a…frog-in-a-pot maneuver.”

“What does that mean?” Basra demanded.

“I’ve no idea, your Grace,” the captain said with long-suffering patience. This was far from the first very pointed question the Bishop had shot at her. “I’m not a cleric.”

“It’s a reference to the old metaphor,” said Schwartz, now soothingly stroking Meesie, who seemed agitated by all the wetness in the vicinity. “You know, how you can boil a living frog slowly if you increase the heat in its pot by increments, but it’ll jump out if you try to do it all at once? Same applies to using divine magic to neutralize elementals. If you just flare up at them, they’ll be able to tell you’re weakening them, and react to that. If you start very gently, though, and gradually increase the power, you can progressively weaken them until they just…fall apart.”

“Hm,” said Branwen, chewing her lower lip and frowning at the occupied canal. “Offhand I can think of several problems with that plan…”

“Yeah,” Schwartz agreed, nodding. “With all respect to the general and the Sisterhood, I don’t think that’s going to work. For one thing, these are all over the whole city. You’d need an army of priests to cover the whole space to do it all at once; if you did it sequentially, canal by canal, it’d take days. And that’s assuming the elementals stayed gone once banished—what’s happened here is there were charms evoked in the water itself, which means they’re likely to reappear once it’s not being actively channeled at.”

“You could compensate for that by blessing the canals,” Ildrin offered.

“Yes,” Schwartz agreed, “theoretically. But there’s another problem; doing this maneuver requires divine casters to call up and hold a constant stream of energy. You pretty much can’t not do that without risking serious burnout. I, uh…honestly, this sounds to me like something to do when you lack better options.”

“We have our orders,” the captain said stiffly. “I’m sure the general has everything under control.”

“The canals are full of water elementals,” Basra snapped. “Whether or not they’re presenting an active threat, this whole city is very much not under control. Schwartz, are these things as harmless as they seem?”

“You mean potentially?” He shrugged helplessly. “I mean, if they all attacked, that’d be a big problem. And I don’t see what’s stopping them… But, like, tactically speaking, if they were going to do that, wouldn’t they have done it at first, when they had the element of surprise?”

“Maybe this shaman really isn’t trying to start a fight,” Jenell mused.

“The other elemental incidents throughout the province were definitely hostile,” said Basra. “Not nearly as violent as they could have been—in fact, they did seem to specifically avoid causing unnecessary harm. But still hostile. This is a departure.”

“And, again,” Ami added, “that rock elemental was not a friendly thing to send us, whether or not it was planning to bash all our brains in.”

Before anyone could respond to that, another Legionnaire in soaking wet armor came dashing up, saluting. “Captain Veiss! New orders from the general.”

“Ah, good,” the captain said, pointedly turning her back on Basra, whose increasingly sharp questions she’d been enduring with steadily diminishing patience. “We’re ready to begin?”

“No, ma’am,” the soldier replied. “The operation is suspended; new orders will be coming shortly. You’re to hold position, keep the civilians away from the elementals. Bishop Syrinx,” she added, turning to Basra. “That’s…you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Basra replied. “Ralavideh has orders for me, as well?”

“A request, ma’am,” the messenger said diplomatically. “She would like you to join her to discuss new developments in this situation as soon as possible.”

“Excellent,” Basra said with clear satisfaction. “At the temple?”

“No, ma’am, she’s set up a field command post at a square in a more central location in the city. I’ll guide you.”

“Lead on,” the Bishop replied, glancing aside at the rest of her party with a wry lift of one eyebrow. “Well, fall in, troops. It seems we’re going visiting.”

They had gone right to the nearest canal from their house, which fortunately was, itself, not far from the center of the city. To reach General Ralavideh’s temporary headquarters, they only had to travel a few blocks and descend one tier. It was a mostly uneventful trip, though it required some navigating around rubbernecking residents. So far, no curfew had been declared, and nothing was preventing curious citizens from standing around gawking at the unusual sights; the Legionnaires seemed to mostly be keeping them away from the canals by sheer presence. Silver Legionnaires were very much respected in Vrin Shai.

There was a brief delay when they had to cross a canal and their guide warned them that anyone traversing the bridges could expect to be liberally splashed. Basra had quickly vetoed the use of divine shields, lest it agitate the elementals, but then Ami had flatly (and dramatically) refused to risk getting her guitar wet. Ultimately they had trooped across, Branwen holding a compact little shield over their bard, while the rest of them got soaked. For the remainder of the trip, Schwartz worked some of his own magic to dry them (and their grateful escort) off, while everyone rather irritably gave Ami a cold shoulder.

A market square just beyond the bridge had been overtaken by the Fourth Legion; their guide led them past an outer perimeter of soldiers into an orderly beehive of activity, making straight for a cluster of folding tables which seemed to be the center of the whole operation. As they approached, Basra lengthened her stride, passing their escort and striding right up to the General.

Ralavideh was a Tiraan woman in her fifties, short and stocky in her armor, with graying hair trimmed close to her head. She was surrounded by a dozen people, a mix of senior officers, priestesses of Avei, and off to one side a small knot of civilians in diverse attire. She turned away from a cleric upon Basra’s arrival, nodding in greeting.

“Ah, Captain Syrinx—good, I was hoping one of my messengers would find you.”

“Thank you for including me, General,” Basra replied. “I’m long since discharged, though, you needn’t address me by rank. What’s the situation?”

“At this moment,” said Ralavideh, “we have an unprecedented annoyance in Vrin Shai, but the situation appears not to be dangerous. That doesn’t mean we intend to leave it as is; the Governor agrees with me that these beings need to be removed as swiftly as possible. Right now our focus is on doing so without escalating the situation. Have you anything to contribute to our knowledge of the, for want of a better word, enemy?”

“Not of these specifically,” Basra said, nodding to Schwartz. “My elemental specialist, here, had detection wards over the city and hasn’t identified any other incursions, though we were visited by a large rock elemental at our temporary base.”

“Hm,” the General mused, frowning down at a map of Vrin Shai on the table before her. “Then I’m not the only one who knows the Abbess set you on the hunt for this elementalist. Well! In addition to wanting your perspective, we have unexpected help who also asked to see you as soon as possible.”

Indeed, as she was speaking, a man with a familiar bearded face stepped forward, trailed by the other assorted civilians who had been clustered together at one corner of Ralivedeh’s command post. “Your Grace! Good to see you again!”

“Mr. Hargrave,” Basra replied, nodding. “I confess I hadn’t expected to meet again so soon.”

“Yes, I’ve made…well, it’s a long story,” he said seriously. “These are some of the people I went to speak with. Over a dozen have come to Vrin Shai with me; Abbess Darnassy said we could find you here.”

“You brought Viridill’s witches here?” Basra asked, her eyebrows rising in surprise.

“Well, not all of them, by any means,” Hargrave clarified hastily. “You see, it’s—”

General Ralivedeh cleared her throat pointedly.

“Right,” Hargrave said quickly. “Priorities. They were going to try neutralizing the elementals with priestesses, which would have been quite risky and probably ineffective. Now that we’re here, the rest of my friends have fanned out through the city to begin laying preparations, and we’re going to deal with this matter first of all. Barring any further upsets, I believe we can have all this cleared away in a few hours. Tomorrow, though, I’d like to have a lengthy conversation about what we’ve learned.”

“Excellent,” she said emphatically. “Can you use another caster? Schwartz, make yourself useful.”

“Glad to!” the Salyrite said cheerfully, stepping forward. “Actually, I may have some fresh data to add to your findings—I had a good, solid ward network overlaying the city before all this started up, and I was able to detect…”

He melted into Hargrave’s gaggle of witches and they drifted off toward the canal in the near distance, talking among themselves.

“That’s been the theme of the evening,” Ralavedeh said with an annoyed twist of her mouth. “I’m glad they came along, but you know what it’s like working with civilians. Takes a constant effort to know what they’re doing and make sure they don’t screw up my chain of command.”

“I do know,” Basra agreed. “Well, for the time being it seems I’m a little superfluous, here…”

“Actually,” said the General, “since you brought your whole group, I wonder if I could borrow them for a bit?” She turned, nodding to the others. “I understand Bishop Snowe and a trained bard have joined you—we’ve a use for talents exactly like that.”

“Oh?” Basra raised an eyebrow. “Whatever for?”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Ami asked dryly. “Or do you intend to just leave this mob to its own devices?”

Beyond the perimeter marked by the Legionnaires, a noisy and energetic crowd were circulating, talking and gesticulating eagerly. No one seemed particularly agitated, though, and while their general noise didn’t yield any specific conversational threads at this distance, it didn’t sound angry.

“I would hardly call that a mob,” Basra began.

“Well, that doesn’t mean you just ignore them,” Branwen said in mild exasperation. “This is what you wanted us for, General?”

“If you’re able and willing,” Ralavedeh replied, nodding. “Citizens of Vrin Shai are a respectful people as a rule, and they trust the Legions, but you simply cannot drop an event like this on top of thousands of civilians and expect it to stay calm indefinitely. Fortunately this happened at dusk; provided we can get it squared away before business hours begin tomorrow, we can hopefully avoid any serious unrest. For now, I would like any help possible in keeping a lid on this.”

“Hm,” Ami mused, absently tuning her guitar and frowning at the onlookers. “That’s hardly the whole population of the city. Nor even a significant percentage…”

“It’s a start, though,” Branwen said with a smile. “Come, Bas, let’s see if we can’t put people’s minds at ease.”

She glided off toward the edge of the square opposite the bridge without waiting for anyone’s approval, apparently not seeing the scowl Basra directed at her back. Ildrin, Ami, and Jenell, who had seen it, followed at a more circumspect distance.

At the other end, the plaza terminated on a broad staircase only four steps tall. It was a short enough drop that they could plainly see the people milling around below it, built mostly for decoration and to prevent wheeled vehicles from entering the market square. Legionnaires were guarding the staircase, however, keeping the civilians isolated in the wide street below.

The crowd focused its attention on the top of the stairs as Branwen arrived, taking a position near the center between two soldiers, who looked quizzically at her and then at a nearby officer. Apparently having been told what to expect, the lieutenant gestured them away, and they shifted to the very edges of the staircase, distancing themselves from the Izarite Bishop. By that point, a few scattered cheers had broken out and people surged forward eagerly, smiling up at Branwen.

“Well, what a night this is!” she said, her light voice projecting skillfully out over the crowd, and earned a laugh from her audience. “I’m a guest here, myself, so please don’t take anything I say as an official pronouncement. General Ralavedeh has very kindly allowed me to speak to you—which works out well for everyone, as I’m sure you know how much I love to hear myself talk.”

During the laugh which followed this, Ami mused aloud, coincidentally having placed herself close enough to Basra to be audible to her, “My, she’s actually rather good at extemporizing, isn’t she? Somehow, I’d though all her speeches were the work of Church handlers.”

“What I can tell you,” Branwen continued as soon as it was quiet enough again, “is that the Sisterhood of Avei has matters well in hand. At this point, it’s not yet certain what is happening or why, but there is no indication that anyone is in any danger. And should these…peculiar visitors take a turn toward hostility… Well, in that event, I find I am still not overly concerned. This is Vrin Shai, after all!”

She beamed proudly down at them, waiting for the cheers to subside before continuing. “It’s hardly a secret that the cults of the Pantheon don’t all see eye-to-eye, and indeed, my faith has its frictions with Avei’s. If I must be surrounded by an invasion of strange elementals, though, I can honestly say there is no one among whom I would rather find myself. Yes, the Sisters of Avei are indeed fearsome in battle, and the presence of all these Legionnaires makes me feel much safer. But there’s far more to it than that! Avei is a goddess who places great trust in people. For all of the Sisterhood’s history, she has encouraged people to find their own courage, to hone their skills, and the result is what you see around you! An invincible city, filled with an unconquerable people, living under the aegis of a goddess who has led them to be the most they can be!”

More cheers, this time slower to subside. Branwen nodded and smiled encouragingly, but before she opened her mouth to speak again, there came a shout from near the front of the crowd. The speaker hadn’t waited for silence, and so most of the words were lost, but the Bishop was apparently close enough to make them out clearly. All that was clearly audible from Basra’s position behind her was “Last Rock.”

Apparently, Branwen was not the only one who’d heard the words. The crowd’s voice faltered into confusion, cheers and applause continuing from various quarters, while others who had been close enough to hear broke off their adulation, murmuring.

“It’s hardly kind to cast aspersion on the people of the frontier,” Branwen said with an artful hint of reproach. “In fact, I was in Last Rock very recently, and I found them to be a most admirable folk as well. They have had a different journey through history than you, and were shaped by different pressures, but I rather think they would cope well with a situation such as this, too. The prairie breeds hardy and adaptive folk.

“If anything, the comparison should only encourage you! For all their strengths, the folk of Last Rock lack a great gift that Avei has bestowed on you: leadership and examples which come from within, not from above. You live with and among the Sisterhood—the Legionnaires rise from within your own families, proving the potential of a whole population. No one sits high atop a mountain, grooming rogue adventurers and denying you a place among them.”

She paused for more reaction again, but this time the result was clearly not as she expected. The onlookers frowned, glancing at one another in apparent confusion—at least, some of them. Quite a few tittered, and open laughs sounded from several direction. Branwen hesitated, for the first time betraying uncertainty.

“So, your Grace,” called a male voice from near the front, the same voice which had shouted about Last Rock. “I take it you haven’t seen today’s papers?”

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The gentler slope of the mountain was challenging but not too arduous to climb on foot, but that same angle made for a rather frightening descent when one was pounding down it on horseback at a full gallop. Nonetheless, Arjen’s every step was sure and unfaltering, even when he leaped over the switchbacking stone path that crossed the slope multiple times. He was, after all, no ordinary horse. Trissiny rode low in the saddle, keeping her body angled forward in defiance of the instinctive urge to lean backward against the slope, trusting her steed to manage the way and focusing fully upon the ephemeral sensation she was tracking.

She could feel it in the same subtle way as her customary ability to sense evil, a grating, tingling sense of alarm in the back of her mind. Now, however, augmented by Fross’s wards, there was direction to it. Trissiny could have pointed to each of the arcane wards set up in the streets of Last Rock, and could feel the connections between them. It was like a giant spider web, in a way; the links between the wards, and the threads of magic connecting them to her own divine senses, hummed when touched. Now, she was the spider, able to interpret those patterns of motion to pinpoint exactly where they were stemming from. That had to be an effect of the spell, since she didn’t have such powers of discernment ordinarily; she could barely sense magic, and had never been able to interpret patterns this way before.

The transition from slope to flat ground was jarring at the speed at which they took it, but Arjen handled it smoothly by gathering himself and leaping the last few yards, landing heavily at the start of the street that ran through Last Rock. It was evening, and despite the falling dusk, people were still up and around on the sidewalks; they all stopped what they were doing and stared at the paladin’s arrival. In fact, the number of them standing around suggested that her approach had been watched at least part of the way down the mountainside.

Trissiny wasted not a second before urging Arjen forward, charging down the street at a gallop. “Clear the way!” she bellowed, trusting the horse not to trample anybody. As it was, a few people who were unwisely still in the road had to scamper aside, a couple with shouted imprecations, which she ignored.

Demonic taint was like a beacon, searing at her subtler senses rather than her eyes. She could feel the incubus—assuming it was the same kind of thing that had disturbed her before; unlike Scorn, she wasn’t able to distinguish between demon species by aura alone. This time, though, she also had the network of wards pointing her onward. It wasn’t as if she could see the creature, not enough to make out its shape, but its presence, and its location, were given away completely.

It was up ahead, and on the move, zigzagging about the street as if dodging around people.

Trissiny and Arjen charged after it, the horse’s speed and straight course rapidly closing the distance. People saw her coming, fortunately, though they weren’t all equally adroit at getting out of the way. One man in the process of pushing a wheelbarrow across the road yelped at the sight of the mounted paladin barreling right at him and fled, arms over his head, leaving Arjen to leap over his barrow rather than waste precious seconds dodging around.

They rounded a corner, thundering down a slightly narrower side street, and at that pace reached the outskirts of the town in moments. She still couldn’t see anything in the roads, but she had felt the several ward points as she passed them, and could sense the disturbance leading her own. Up ahead, though, loomed the new Vidian temple. The demon seemed to be heading right for it.

Trissiny reined Arjen back to a canter, then gradually came to a stop, staring ahead through narrowed eyes. It was still there…but not fleeing, now. It seemed, instead, to be simply drifting. Still toward the temple.

Why would a demon head for holy ground? It made no sense.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doin’, young lady?!” a man shouted, stomping up the road behind her.

“My duty,” she said curtly, not taking her eyes off the fixed point up ahead. Something was wrong here… “Keep back. There is a demon nearby.”

“Demon…” The middle-aged townsman paused, peering around uncertainly. Several other residents of Last Rock crept forward behind him, a few within earshot and most giving her distinctly unhappy looks. “I don’t see nothin’ like that.”

“That’s why they’re dangerous,” Trissiny said.

Suddenly, the target ahead moved, zipping off around the side of the Vidian grounds. She started to spur Arjen after it, but then hesitated, sensing its course, and instead guided him the opposite way. Indeed, as she swept around the temple in a wide arc, the invisible presence in front slammed to a halt, having been attempting to circle around it and head back into the town. It abruptly reversed course, arcing back the way it had come, with Trissiny in hot pursuit.

“Clear the road!” she roared as Arjen rounded the amphitheater. This time, the townsfolk were quicker to obey.

“I almost feel bad,” Embras Mogul confessed, his cheerful grin belying the claim.

“Guilty?” Kaisa asked mildly, her tail waving slowly in the wind.

“Not so much that, as embarrassed,” he replied. “This is just more fun than it ought to be. Seems a little petty, doesn’t it?”

He made another smooth motion with his hands, holding them palms down and with fingers shifting in complex patterns, as if he were manipulating the strings of a marionette. Perched as they were at the base of the church’s steeple, it left him no hands free to hold his balance, but the use of infernal magic was, itself, a balancing act at all times. Embras was surefooted enough not to worry about a fall, but still leaned back against the steeple itself for safety’s sake.

“There’s no harm in enjoying one’s work,” she said lightly. “Especially if one’s work encompasses an invigorating chase. Games are meant to be fun, after all. Now, if you unnecessarily taunted or abused your prey after finishing your hunt, that would be beneath you.”

“Quite so,” he agreed. “Not to mention, in this case, bringing me afoul of our agreement that the girl would be unharmed.”

“Yes, indeed,” Kaisa said solemnly. “There is that.”

“Well, I suppose there’s an element of satisfaction in the long history behind this moment,” Embras murmured, smiling coldly as he watched Trissiny chase the phantom demon trace he was puppeteering far below. “Eons of relations between our respective faiths end up either this way, or with swords and fire. I do believe I like this better. Dance for me, little paladin.”

The demon swerved partway down the street, abruptly diving through the doors into the Saloon. Arjen skidded to a halt at Trissiny’s direction, the paladin flinging herself from his saddle before he fully stopped and charging through the swinging doors.

It was a fairly typical night at the establishment, most of the tables occupied and with Jonas Crete currently plucking out a cheerful tune on the old pianoforte. Every conversation in the place abruptly stopped at her entrance, as did the music, and everyone turned to stare; she had burst in hard enough to make both doors slam against the walls to either side.

The presence was there. It had paused just in front of the stuffed grizzly bear, as if taunting her. Trissiny pivoted on one boot and charged at it, sword out, and her aura blazing to life.

Her blade cut a golden arc through the space where she sensed the demon, cleaving a slice from the bear’s belly in the process. A split-second too late; she felt she might have been close enough to nick it, and indeed it seemed to move unevenly as it fled, but move it did, fast enough that she had clearly not finished it off. The invisible demon skittered away toward the doors to the kitchen.

“Hey!” Jonas shouted, jumping upright hard enough to knock over the piano bench at the sudden damage to his bear. “Kid, what the sam hill are you doin’?!”

“Everyone remain calm and in your seat,” Trissiny barked, whirling to race toward the back door as fast as her boots could carry her. “There is a demon in this room.”

A babble of excited, frightened, and irate voices broke out at that.

“A demon? Where?”

“I don’t see no demon.”

“Bullshit!”

“Keep yer head down, you idjit, the paladin knows her business!”

“Repent!”

“Aw, shuddup, Carl.”

“Now, hold it!” Jonas shouted, rushing to intercept her as she reached the kitchen doors. “That’s off limits to customers—”

“I’m sorry,” Trissiny said curtly, grasping the door handle, “but I don’t have time for this.”

“Look, miss, this here’s my bar, and I got rules. You don’t have the right—”

“I’m very sorry,” she said. Finding the door locked, and not pausing to wonder how that could possibly work with the saloon obviously in business, she drew on pure divine light as Professor Harklund had taught, letting it fill and invigorate her, and slammed her armored shoulder into the door.

Trissiny felt the distinct electric shock of an enchantment breaking as the door burst off its hinges, and shrugged it off, charging through into the kitchen beyond. Jonas Crete followed on her heels, now shouting imprecations, which she also ignored.

There was a lot of arcane energy in this room, enough to slightly dampen her own aura; no wonder a demon would flee here. The usual fixtures of a kitchen were present, as was a lot of enchanting equipment at whose function she couldn’t even guess. Standing by the sink, a portly middle-aged woman whirled, gaping at her in shock.

Trissiny lunged after the invisible presence, which was making for the rear door. It turned at the last second, though, shooting sideways; she skidded to a halt and lunged around the island stove in the center of the room, seeking to flank it. The thing was faster than she, faster than anything merely biological possibly could be. It backtracked again, dodging around, her, and she pursued, her shield catching a pot full of something and sending it crashing to the floor in passing.

Jonas was still blocking the kitchen door; the demonic presence went back out the way it had come, apparently right through him, which seemed not to phase him at all.

“Move,” Trissiny barked, charging after it.

“That is it!” Jonas bellowed in pure fury, leveling an accusatory finger at her and seemingly unperturbed by the sight of an oncoming paladin. “You park your ass right there, girl, I am gettin’ the Sheriff—”

“MOVE!” Trissiny roared, golden wings flaring into being behind her. Jonas actually staggered backward in surprise, but didn’t get quite all the way out of the doorway. She had to catch him with her shield and shove him against the wall to push past.

The demon had taken full advantage of her momentary distraction to zip back out into the street. Trissiny went after it in a straight line, ignoring all obstacles in her way, which involved shouldering four men roughly aside and bounding onto and over a table, disrupting a poker game and multiple tankards of beer.

She charged out, whirling to pursue the presence on foot, and leaving behind a maelstrom of shouting and cursing.

“What on earth?” Teal asked, frowning. The sound of a galloping horse had been present only briefly, but the shouting which had followed had not died down. In fact, it had seemed to move around, to judge by the way the distant babble had waxed and waned. The students at their picnic had ignored it for a couple of minutes, but by this point, all of them had stopped eating and were frowning toward the end of the alley.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Sekandar said.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing from here,” Iris replied, her tone slightly nervous.

“Trissiny,” Shaeine said softly.

Ravana’s eyes cut to her, the Duchess’s expression growing guarded. “Pardon?”

“They are shouting about her,” Szith confirmed, “those I can make out over the hubbub. She… I’m not sure what she did, but it appears to have upset quite a few people.”

“Those were some loud hoofbeats,” Maureen agreed. “Coulda been that honkin’ great horse a’ hers, I guess. What’d she do ta mix up the locals, though? She’s one a’ the calmer sorts on campus.”

“That very much depends on the situation,” Shaeine said, shifting as if to rise from her chair.

“She is chasing demons!” Scorn exclaimed, actually standing up. “We must go help!”

“Stop!” Ravana said sharply. “Whatever she did has clearly agitated the residents; let us not add to the chaos.”

“Your Grace, permission to go investigate,” Finchley said crisply, stepping forward.

“Please do,” Ravana replied, nodding to him. Teal, meanwhile, had taken Scorn by the arm, attempting to tug her gently back into her chair.

“I have to agree with Scorn,” Sekandar said, frowning now. “If there is a demon in the town, and Trissiny is after it—”

“I’m not certain that actually is a demon,” Shaeine said softly, her eyes following Finchley until he rounded the corner. “I think… This may develop into a serious problem.”

She had hopped astride Arjen again to charge down a narrow side street, causing two women in bonnets to shriek and press themselves against a picket fence, one actually tumbling backward over it into someone’s yard, but Trissiny remained on target, ignoring all distractions. Following her quarry, she dismounted in another flying leap, landing in a garden and pursuing over another fence, around the corner of a house, and through a back gate which she accidentally knocked off its hinges in her hurry to get through. She did not stop to acknowledge the questions, demands and insults that came hurling after her.

Her aura blazed to life and she hurled a blast of pure divine energy forward, swamping the thing as it leveled out in a garden path and she got a clear shot at it. Indeed, it faltered, staggering drunkenly to one side and the size of its presence in her senses diminishing markedly. That was a horribly inefficient attack, however; the divine did not lend itself easily to such spells. She also couldn’t keep up the stream of energy for more than a second, and as soon as she was forced to let up, the demon strengthened again and zipped forward. In fact, it seemed almost to be pushed ahead by the force of her aura.

And this time, it shot right through someone’s front door into a house.

A second later she was after it, yanking the door open and charging in without hesitation.

“Stay where you are!” she barked at the astonished family sitting around the fireplace. “You’re in danger—head for the chapel as soon as I’m gone!”

She tore past them, into a cozy kitchen and out through a back door, which she left standing open behind her.

The next fence she had to vault hid an older man, who had been sitting amid a small stand of rose bushes into which she plummeted, relaxing in a rocking chair. She was forced to adjust course mid-leap, grabbing the fence with her shield hand and barely avoiding slamming her armored bulk into him. Unfortunately, this caused her to land right on a rose bush, and even more unfortunately, the demon put more distance between them, swerving around the side of the house and toward a street beyond.

“Sorry!” she shouted in passing, her aura flashing and healing away the multiple tiny scratches she had accumulated apparently over every inch of skin not covered by her armor. Roses did not make for a friendly place to land.

“My garden!” the man howled behind her, hurling his walking stick ineffectually. “You hooligan!”

Trissiny vaulted over the front garden gate, tore past the cottage and launched herself into Arjen’s saddle beyond, immediately spurring him forward and down the side street.

The demon seemed to be tiring; at least, it wasn’t keeping ahead quite as fluidly, now. Arjen kept creeping up on it, the invisible presence momentarily faltering and then regaining ground in little bursts rather than at an even speed.

Trissiny barely registered the sound of hoofbeats coming up from behind, not acknowledging the second rider until he pulled abreast of her.

“Trissiny, stop!” Gabriel shouted. “You’re going to cause a riot!”

“You can’t sense it?” she replied, eyes fixed on her invisible quarry. “Just follow me, it’s right there!”

“There is nothing there!” he insisted. “Listen to me, you’re being played!”

They rounded a corner, Whisper falling momentarily behind as they charged past the edge of the little town into open space. Up ahead, the marble columns of the small Silver Mission rose up out of the prairie, the Rail line stretching into the infinite distance behind it. Once around the corner, though, Whisper proved faster than Arjen, and Gabriel urged her forward.

A moment later, he actually guided his steed directly in front of her, turning sideways and forcing Arjen to skid to a halt to avoid plowing into them.

“Get out of the way!” Trissiny shouted in fury.

“Will you listen to me!” he bellowed back. “Trissiny, you have to stop, this is not what it seems to be.”

Her eyes widened, and she turned her gaze from him, peering around in dismay. “What—no! It’s gone!”

“Triss, I’m trying to tell you—”

She heeled Arjen forward around him, trotting in a circle in front of the Mission grounds and looking about frantically. “It was right here, but it’s gone! Just…gone. You made me lose it!”

“That is not all you’ve lost!”

Both paladins turned to face the speaker, a dark-skinned woman with her hair in a multitude of bead-decorated braids, wearing the white robes of a Sister of Avei and a thunderous scowl.

“Young woman, get in here this second!” the priestess snapped. “And you, too, boy. Now.”

“There’s a demon—”

“Enough!” Sister Takli shouted. “I don’t care what rank you have, you silly girl, you are causing a disaster! Get yourself off the street and into the Mission. Immediately, before you make this even worse!”

“Aaaand there we are,” Embras said in satisfaction, flourishing both his hands in an unnecessarily showy gesture as he snuffed out the spell mimicking a demon for Trissiny’s senses. “Brought to a halt at the Silver Mission, as directed. And now, I’m very eager to learn how you plan to extricate her from this fracas.”

He turned expectantly, then blinked his eyes in surprise. Where the kitsune had stood moments before, there was only the faint wind, leaving him alone upon the steeple.

“Huh,” he mused. “So that’s what that feels like. Vanessa’s right, that’s just irritating.”

“It’s not good,” Finchley said seriously. “The whole town’s in an uproar. It looks like she dashed through basically…well, everything. There’s people everywhere, all of ’em mad as hell… Your Grace, none of us have done civil disturbance duty, but it was covered in basic. This is exactly the kind of thing that can get really ugly.”

“I see,” Ravana mused. “How unfortunate… I believe it’s best that we keep our heads down for the time being. This will all be quieted soon enough; the Sheriff in this town is most admirably efficient.”

“What are you talking about?” Scorn exclaimed. “There is demon, Trissiny is chasing, people are in danger! We go to help!”

“There is a better than even chance that there is not actually a demon,” said Shaeine. “We discussed the theory that a false trace was being used to taunt Trissiny, remember?”

“She is not stupid,” the Rhaazke retorted. “If she does this, there is a real problem!”

“Maybe,” said Teal, frowning. “Remember what Malivette said? Hands of Avei apparently get…like coursing hounds, almost, around demonic energy. If she’s being manipulated anyway…”

The conversation broke off at a sudden swell of shouting from the town only a few dozen yards distant, the upraised voices obviously furious. They had stepped away from their table, toward one end of the alley, and now turned in unison to frown in the direction of the bellowing.

“This is too risky,” Moriarty said curtly. “Your Grace, I must respectfully insist that we retreat to the campus. We can’t protect you from an angry mob.”

“I am deeply gratified by your concern, Private Moriarty,” Ravana said, giving him a kind smile and placing one delicate hand on his arm. “And for future reference, that will be the last time you use the word ‘insist’ when addressing me. I cannot imagine we are in danger from—”

She broke off abruptly as Szith drew her sword and held the sinuously curved blade in front of her face, its edge pointed at the ground.

“Ravana,” the drow said in a tone just short of outright anger, “I will speak to you as a warrior and the daughter of a line of warriors going back millennia. Whatever titles you hold, you do not outrank your bodyguard unless you wish to die. He is entirely right; this is a ceremonial guard. They are not equipped or prepared to contain a riot. And if we are forced to defend ourselves against angry townspeople, the political repercussions will be an absolute disaster. We retreat—now. Do I need to carry you?”

Ravana stared up at her in uncharacteristically open surprise, blinking her eyes twice, before visibly gathering herself. “Yes. Well… Upon consideration, I believe I see your point. Forgive me, Private Moriarty. Ah…this way?”

“That leads to the prairie outside the town,” said Sekandar, frowning back at the opposite end of the alley. “We’ll be less likely to run into angry townsfolk there…but it’ll take a lot longer to circle around than the other way.”

“We are to run?” Scorn said plaintively. Teal reached up to pat her on the shoulder.

“Other way’s faster, but riskier,” Rook said tersely. “If we turn right here instead of heading out to the main square, then left, we’ll come out at the little square around the well. It’s a straight shot to the mountain stairs from there. Deeper into the town, though.”

“Most of the noise I hear is coming from the other direction,” said Sekandar, turning to Ravana. “I think it’d be better to take the faster path.”

“I concur,” she said, nodding. “Very well, let’s be off. Gentlemen, if you would?”

Rook and Finchley both saluted her, stepping to the head of the group as they set out, Moriarty waiting to fall behind and bring up the rear.

They moved in tense silence around the first corner, speeding up at another surge of angry shouting from behind them. Coming to a stop at the mouth of the alley leading out into the little plaza surrounding Last Rock’s central well, Finchley held up a hand to stop them while Rook carefully peered out.

“It’s clear,” he said quietly, then hesitated. “Ah…wait. Voices… Man, they’re passing by awfully close.”

Indeed the sound of furious shouting was clearly running adjacent to their route now, close enough that the orange flicker of torchlight was visible against the walls of the other side street opening onto the well yard.

“Go,” Ravana said quietly, having finally picked up the soldiers’ urgency. “We can’t hide here; make for the other side.”

The group moved in unison at her order, stepping out into the yard and making their way rapidly to the right, where the mountain loomed up beyond only a few more buildings.

They made it halfway before a dozen people burst into the square from the opposite side, two carrying torches, and all shouting.

Both groups came to a stop, staring at each other.

“Aww, shite,” Maureen muttered.

“Hey, you!” the man in the lead shouted, stalking toward them.

The interior of the Silver Mission was laid out somewhat like an Avenist temple in miniature, but with more informality. The white marble was softened by rugs and wall hangings, the windows were plain glass instead of stained, and there was no statue of Avei nor weapons displayed. Padded benches were set along the walls, and rather than a dais at the back of the main room, there were doors into the other rooms at the rear of the structure.

Trissiny looked quizzically around, still tense and on edge from her chase. “Where’s Sister—”

“Out trying to clean up the mess you were just busy making,” Sister Takli snapped, “along with, no doubt, Father Laws and the Sheriff. What were you thinking?”

“I was pursuing a demon!” Trissiny shot back. “That’s my calling!”

“You tore up half the town, damaged who knows how much property and accidentally assaulted at least two people that I know of, and that’s just what I know from listening to the shouts and talking to the young woman who fled here in a panic after you apparently demolished the Saloon!”

“Nothing’s demolished,” Trissiny said, affronted. “It was barely—”

“Well, you scared the waitress there badly enough that she fled to the Silver Mission,” Takli retorted. “She’s now hiding in the back, thanks to you. Trissiny, running through a town shouting about demons is bad enough even if you manage to do it without smashing through people’s property and kicking them out of your way!”

“What would you have done?” Trissiny shouted at her. “Just leave everyone in danger from a demon attack because it’s not convenient—”

“It’s called grand strategy!” Takli roared back. “You know this! You’ve had the finest strategic education the Sisterhood can provide—or so I thought! There is more to your calling than just destroying unclean things. You are part of something much greater than yourself, and your actions have consequences that reach far beyond yourself. Do you have any idea how much damage you just did? To the Sisterhood, to the University? To the Church, even? The Hand of Avei stampeding through a town like a madwoman is not acceptable!”

“How dare you lecture me!” Trissiny snarled. “Who are you, anyway? I wasn’t called by the goddess herself to have to explain myself to some—”

“If you are going to act like an undisciplined child, General Avelea, I will treat you as one! Either go for that sword or sit yourself down and take your medicine!”

“HEY!” Gabriel shouted.

“WHAT?” both women snarled in unison, rounding on him.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “and I’m also sorry to drag us back out there, considering as mad as everyone is bound to be at you right now, Triss, but according to Vestrel there’s something happening on the other end of town that we had better go deal with.” Seemingly unfazed by their glares, he drew Ariel and turned to stride to the door. “Now.”

“What the hell is wrong with you kids!” Wilson shouted, stomping right up to the group and pointing an accusing finger at Ravana, who stood between and somewhat behind Rook and Finchley. “You think you can just do whatever the hell you want in this town?”

“Pardon me, sir,” she said calmly, “but perhaps you have us mistaken for someone else? We were having a quiet dinner until just minutes ago.”

“Oh, sure,” he sneered. “Walk around with your nose in the air all you want, but as soon as folk start tellin’ you off for it, suddenly you don’t know nothin’ about any trouble!”

“Wilson, calm your ass down,” a man in the group behind him said in exasperation. “Them kids weren’t anywhere near the ruckus; you know which one done it. It’s not like she ain’t distinctive.”

“They’re all alike!” Wilson raged, pressing forward and glaring at Ravana, who merely regarded him with a curious expression. “Well, I don’t aim to—”

He broke off, finding himself staring at the tip of Finchley’s staff, the soldier having stepped directly in front of him.

“Sir,” said Finchley coldly, “if you want to pick fights with paladins, that’s on your head, but I’ll have to insist that you step away from the Duchess.”

“Duchess, bah,” Wilson snarled, curling his lip. “I’m just about done takin’ shit from snotty brats I wouldn’t hire to wipe my boots.”

“You are addressing the sitting governor of Tiraan Province,” Moriarty said sharply, pressing through the students to join the others. “Back away.”

“I don’t see you makin’ me!”

“Wilson, you idjit!” a woman exclaimed. “Boys, don’t pay him no mind, you know how he is.”

“Ma’am, this is a different matter,” said Finchley, not taking his eyes off Wilson. “We are on duty, protecting Lady Madouri. You all need to disperse. Now.”

“Now, you just hold your horses,” another man said, stepping forward with a scowl. “Ain’t nobody here doin’ any harm. You got no call to order us around in our own town.”

“Gentlemen, please,” said Ravana, attempting to crane her neck to be seen around the soldiers. “Let us all step back and calm ourselves; there is no need for any—”

“Boy, you get that damn thing outta my face!” Wilson snapped, grabbing the end of Finchley’s staff and jerking it sideways.

Instantly, two more staves were thrust directly into his face, both suddenly bursting alight with charged energy ready to fire; at that range, the static made his hair stand up.

“ON THE GROUND!” Rook roared with uncharacteristic ferocity. “HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!”

“You are under arrest!” Moriarty bellowed. “For interfering with a functionary of the Tiraan Empire and assaulting an Imperial soldier! These are military charges—any resistance can and will be met with deadly force!”

“Wait!” Sekandar shouted fruitlessly. “Men, stop!”

Wilson, meanwhile, had had the bluster apparently spooked right out of him. Wide-eyed and suddenly ashen-faced, he dropped to his knees, whimpering incoherently and placing his hands atop his head.

Behind him, though, the other townspeople were pressing forward, most of them glaring and muttering angrily.

“This is turning very bad,” Scorn growled, trying to push forward.

“Stop,” Teal ordered, catching her arm.

“I will not stand here and be pushed and yelled by these!” the demon grated, shrugging her roughly off.

With a burst of orange flame, Vadrieny emerged, seizing the Rhaazke by the shoulders. “Stop at once before you make this worse!”

“Oh, love,” Shaeine whispered mournfully.

“We’re under attack!” Wilson wailed, throwing himself face-down in the dirt.

A furious outcry rippled through the crowd at Vadrieny’s sudden appearance, complaints and threats jumbling together too rapidly to be discerned from one another.

“This is your final warning!” Moriarty shouted, leveling his staff at the crowd. “Citizens, you will disperse immediately!”

And then, at one edge of the group, a boy of about twelve stooped and picked up a rock.

Rook took aim at him with his own weapon, even as his face went sickly pale.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered.

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