"Well, wasn't that a complete shitshow!" Staffen said, anger rolling off her in waves. And, where a Guardian of the Wall was concerned, this was entirely literal. Lowe's desk exploded, wood splinters scattering across the room, and the chair the Mayor had been sitting in liquified into a dark, smoldering puddle.

  Osbourne poked his head around the door and then quickly retreated when he caught her expression. Staffen slammed it shut behind him with enough force to rattle the frame and turned back to Lowe, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

  "What the fuck have you got Cuckoo House mixed up into? The Warden of Reserves! The fucking Mayor!"

  "Me! How is this possibly my fault? You called me to the Vault. You sent me into that fucking place. How didn’t you know there was a fucking military sting taking place?"

  "Don't you take that tone with me, you wanker!"

  "Have you seen the bodies, boss?" Lowe said, unwisely stepping towards her and then stepping back. He had absolutely no interest in discovering exactly how much heat his new manacle could withstand. The stories about Pernille Staffen’s anger back in the day were legendary. "There's a whole roomful of corpses down there with Penarth Lant. All with their heads fucking blown off through finding a joke far too fucking funny. So, don’t come at me about my tone!"

  Staffen growled, a low, guttural sound, and the window behind Lowe blew out, shards of glass scattering across the floor. The air crackled with residual energy, the static pressing against his skin. For a moment, it looked like she was going to let loose again, but then she stopped, clamping her jaw shut and taking a long, measured breath through her nose.

  She exhaled, flexing her fingers like she was forcing herself to let go of the rage. "Come on," she said, turning abruptly and yanking open the office door.

  "Come where?" Lowe asked, falling into step behind her.

  "I need a fucking drink."

  As she went, she shot a glare at Osbourne, who was still hovering outside, looking like he very much wanted to be anywhere else. "Make sure Lowe’s office is back in one piece by the time we get back."

  Osbourne nodded quickly, already halfway out the door to find someone else to delegate the mess to.

  Lowe sighed. It wasn’t just Staffen’s temper that was reported to be legendary. This was going to be one hell of a night.

  ***

  “No, Jana. I am not giving you a . . . sorry, what was it you asked for?”

  “The-Mother-of-all-Hangover-Cures. Come on, Mylaf, I’m dying over here!”

  Mylaf folded her arms and gave him a look so dry it could have absorbed the entire bar spill from the night before. “Well, as my mother always told me,” the Drudge said, “people who live in glasshouses shouldn’t drink their body weight in alcohol with their boss.”

  Lowe groaned, draping himself dramatically across the kitchen table. “I told you, it was a tactical decision. Like a strategic bonding exercise. She was angry with me, the least I could do was share a few drinks with her. You wouldn’t understand. You lack the necessary male frailty.”

  “Oh, forgive me,” Mylaf said, deadpan. “I didn’t realise projectile vomiting was part of leadership development.”

  Lowe cracked an eye open. “Am I hearing this is as a ‘no’ on the cure?”

  “Not necessarily. I’m still considering it.”

  “Great, while you’re at it, could you also consider never letting me drink ever again?” Lowe said. “I think my liver’s writing its resignation letter.”

  “Forgive me, but don’t you have some sort of stupidly overpowered heal Skill, sir? Surely you shouldn’t be feeling this unwell?”

  Lowe dry heaved. Whatever Staffen and he had been drinking last night, Roll with the Punches wasn’t willing to go anywhere near it. Considering the latest version of that Skill could bring him back from the fucking dead, it suggested his boss’ favourite drinking establishment had quite the cocktail menu.

  “Please, Mylaf!”

  The Drudge sighed, rolling her eyes with the long-suffering patience of someone forced to babysit an overgrown child. Which, Lowe thought, was kind of her life now. With a resigned flick of her wrist, she produced a steaming, bubbling glass beaker from her inventory, the liquid inside shifting colours like it couldn’t quite decide whether to be alarming or outright fatal.

  Lowe’s kitchen lights flickered ominously. Somewhere in the distance, a thunderclap rumbled.

  “This really isn’t something I want to make a habit of, sir,” Mylaf said, lifting the beaker high as if presenting it to the gods themselves. “The Mistress had the occasional habit of drinking too much on Gravalk’s Day of Flame and I always found making this for her the following day to be . . . distasteful.”

  “It looks like something that should come with an emergency contact form.”

  “Oh, it does, sir,” Mylaf said produced a scroll and slapping it onto the table. “Sign here, here, and here to waive liability, and here to promise you won’t come haunting me if this accidentally bestows eldritch enlightenment.”

  “I’m sensing this is a ‘bit’, Mylaf and I’m really not in the mood. If you wouldn’t mind, could I have it, please?”

  Mylaf smiled and swirled the liquid as a faint, high-pitched giggle emanated from the beaker itself. The drink was laughing at him. “Bottoms up,” she said, handing it over with all the gravity of a mad scientist bestowing forbidden knowledge upon an unworthy apprentice.

  Lowe downed it in one and almost immediately felt one hundred percent better. And then he very much didn’t.

  At all.

  “Oh yes,” Mylaf said, as he pushed past her in the rush for the bathroom, “I should have mentioned. It might be best if you thought of this as less of a hangover cure and more a very, very powerful emetic.”

  ***

  Half a - very unpleasant - bell later, Lowe was showered, shaved and feeling a little bit more like himself. Whilst he’d been . . . emptying out all sorts of undesirable compounds from his body, Mylaf had been working through the list of names he’d left her to contact, and there was quite a collection of beings awaiting him in his living room when he was finally ready.

  “I’m just going to come right out and say it,” Hel said, “I don’t think the whole ‘inviting people around to hear me vomit’ thing is likely to catch on as a social experiment.”

  “No,” Karolen agreed. “And while we’re on things that it would be great for you not to do again, can we add having all our Sending Stones buzzed with a ‘Help, I’m really in the shit!’ message. Some of us have bosses that aren’t great fans of us taking personal days. Or, specifically, of you.”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “I can very much recommend self-employment, Auditor Mehan. Definitely beats toiling for the man,” Rook said. “Although, full disclosure, I probably wouldn’t recommend having your heart ripped out to achieve it. There’s probably a happy medium to be found.”

  “Good point, well made, creepy new person. Thanks for that,” Latham said. “But I’m going to agree with the Auditor, little man. This better be good. Some of us are actually, you know, crucial to the smooth running of Soar.”

  “On that note,” Ortel said, “I feel I should say again that I am not really sure what I’m doing here amongst such illustrious company.” The one-armed Druid blushed as he spoke and then refreshed the three Totems of Silence Lowe had insisted were in place before any of them spoke.

  “You’re here, Counsel Maybourne because you’re the only person who works in the Tower of Law who I think I can trust right now -” Arebella significantly cleared her throat - “at least, the only person I’m not sleeping with,” Lowe finished lamely.

  “Well, if everyone has their refreshments, I think I’ll retire to my room,” Mylaf said, standing.

  “Actually, if you don’t mind, Mylaf, I think I would rather you stayed. We might need some words of advice.” The Drudge smiled at Lowe’s words and sat back down again.

  “Okay,” Lowe said. “If we’re all settled, I’ll make a start. As I think my message made clear, I think I might be somewhat in the shit . . .”

  It took less time than he had anticipated to outline the current situation. For something that had taken on a somewhat colossal size in his own mind, talking it through in this setting actually helped him start to get things into order.

  “So, to summarise,” Latham said after Lowe had finished. “The Black Knight is apparently back. He’s taken something lots of people want, and you’ve been given rather uncomplicated orders by the Mayor to get it back.”

  “On the other hand, the Warden of the Reserves is openly willing to bribe you to ensure he gets first dibs on whatever was nicked. And he’s got some sort of scary bitch at his back, urging him on.” Karolen said.

  “And not forgetting that there’s military involvement,” Hel said. “Probably an Out of Bounds squad which, for those at the back, are absolutely not allowed to operate on Soar soil.”

  “Oh, and there are a whole bunch of people who apparently have gone missing, which no one seems to care about,” Mylaf completed with a frown. “Don’t forget them.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about the size of it,” Lowe said. “So, I guess my question to you all is, ‘how screwed am I?’”

  “Well, very, obviously,” Ortel said, then realised everyone was looking at him. “I mean… well, yes. I think that’s what I mean. Very screwed.” Ortel shifted in his chair like a man who had accidentally wandered into a den of starving lions and just noticed he was carrying a slab of raw meat. Then he adjusted his spectacles, refreshed the Totem of Silence and licked his lips. But didn’t say anything.

  “Please, mate,” Lowe said, “this is why I asked for you to join us here. I need to understand my legal jeopardy.”

  Ortel closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath, when he opened them again, his nervous energy hadn’t vanished, exactly, but it tightened, became something purposeful. Lowe remembered this guy standing up like a baller in the Celestial Temple when all that shit with Cenorth went down. He wasn’t as silly as his appearance suggested.

  “Okay. Let me break this down for you.” He tapped his fingers against the table. “First and foremost, as a sworn officer of the Soar Security Services, you—Inspector Lowe—are legally and contractually obligated to ensure the return of any stolen property from the Vaults of Soar. It does not matter whether or not it’s a job you want. The law is clear on this matter: anything stolen from the Vault is a matter of state security, and as a member of the Security Services, you are bound by law to ensure its recovery.”

  “Yeah, Staffen was pretty heavy on that one last night.”

  “Oh, I am afraid it gets worse than that,” Ortel said. “Because, as you are no doubt aware, bribery - both offering and accepting - is a felony. That means you cannot accept any offer from the Warden of the Reserves in exchange for preferential treatment in this investigation. If you were to do so—if, say, you were to quietly pass along any information to Soar Bank in return for a financial or professional favor—you would be in violation of statutes regarding corrupt practices in law enforcement. And that, Lowe, would earn you an execution, faster than you can say ‘gross misconduct.’ That it appears he is willing to back up the bribery offer with manifest threat to your wellbeing should you not comply is neither here nor there. You cannot treat with the Warden of the Reserves, regardless of any threatened consequences.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Unfortunately, though, I’m still not finished. Because while you also cannot enter into any sort of private arrangement with the Mayor, of the two men, the Mayor or the Warden, that have offered you some sort of quid pro quo, it is actually the Mayor’s interference which is worse for you. Legally speaking.”

  “How?” Lowe said. “Surely doing what the Mayor asks isn’t illegal?”

  “I am afraid it is not as simple as that,” Ortel said. “The Mayor recently had a law forced through by the Council - Section 14 of the Executive Oversight Act, if anyone is interested -which states that any municipal official found to be complicit in a criminal conspiracy is subject to immediate legal recourse, regardless of their position.”

  Lowe blinked. “Come again?”

  “It was meant as a power move against certain—shall we say—troublesome trade guilds. But the wording is dangerously broad. In this situation, what it means is that if you enter into a personal arrangement with the Mayor - beyond the scope of your position as a member of the Security Services - and that arrangement is found to interfere with a state-mandated investigation, then you - not the Mayor - would be in violation of Section 14, which means you would be legally stripped of your rank, your authority, and detained for obstruction of justice.”

  Rook let out a low whistle. “So, in short: he can’t pick up what the Warden is putting down, he definitely can’t make any sort of personal deal with the Mayor, and he’s legally responsible for returning whatever was stolen in any event.”

  “Yes,” Ortel said simply.

  “You need to tell him that it’s actually worse,” Hel said. “About the military?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. It is very much. Much, much worse,” Ortel said. “Because that brings us to the possible involvement of Out of Bounds squads” Ortel steepled his fingers. “Out of Bounds units cannot be sanctioned to operate in Soar. Not by anyone. Not even the Mayor. Of course, we all know that they do. But the legal framework that allows them to function is… let’s call it ‘deliberately vague.’ The one thing that is clear, however, is that they do not answer to local law enforcement. They answer to higher authorities.”

  “And if I need to work with them to catch the Black Knight?” Lowe asked.

  “Then you will be committing treason. And that is even if the Mayor tells you to.”

  “Treason?” Latham said. “Bit harsh, isn’t it?”

  “Not in the eyes of the law,” Ortel said, shaking his head. “The moment Lowe knowingly assists an Out of Bounds unit in Soar, he is operating outside of his jurisdiction as a member of the Security Services and directly undermining civil authority. That makes him—by any definition—a rogue operative. And rogue operatives, under current law, are to be treated as enemy assets.”

  “By doing what the Mayor is ordering me to do, I’ll become an enemy asset?” Lowe repeated. “That sounds pretty much par for the course at this stage.”

  “Yes,” Ortel confirmed. “If you knowingly assist an Out of Bounds unit on Soar soil, you’ll not just be fired. You’’ll be . . well, they can’t Classtrate you again. But I’m sure they’ll find something suitably unpleasant.”

  Karolen let out a slow breath. “Well. Isn’t all this very cheerful? It’s making me positively homesick for Soar Museam.”

  “So, just so I’m clear. I have to recover whatever was stolen from the Vault, but I can’t work with the Warden of Reserves because of bribery laws. I can’t cut a deal with the Mayor because of his own legislation. And I can’t cooperate with an Out of Bounds operation that’s had a bunch of its members slaughtered because that would make me a fucking traitor.”

  Ortel nodded. “That about covers it.”

  “Brilliant,” Lowe said. “So what, pray tell, do you suggest I do?”

  Ortel hesitated. “Officially?”

  “Yes, Ortel, officially.”

  “Well, officially, I would suggest you solve this case without breaking any laws.”

  “Fantastic.”

  Rook coughed. “Well, I, for one, have full faith in you there, buddy.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks for that, Ortel. Cheery stuff. So, I’m throwing it open to the floor. Everyone here’s a certifiable monster in their own right. Looking for ideas.”

  Latham was the first to speak. “Look, this is all cart before the horse, isn’t it? You don’t even know what it is you’re supposed to be looking for. As far as I can see, you’re borrowing trouble. It doesn’t matter what the Warden, or the Mayor or a fucking Out of Bounds squad wants from you. It’s going to be the same thing, isn’t it? You need to take the fucking Black Knight down. Everything else is fucking noise until we do that.”

  “We?” Lowe said.

  “Well, I presume you didn’t gather us all here to hold hands and sing kumbaya. We’re your guys, right? Ride or die.”

  “Can I just check,” Ortel said. “How committed do we all have to be to the second option?”