First Impressions

Scene of the Attack

In the predawn hours, the city’s air hung damp and soured with the promise of rain, every slick cobblestone catching the orange lamplight and hurling it upward like a dare. Iliyria Sylren’s boots left sharp, solitary prints in the mud as she cut across the empty square toward the Cirque De Leonicce. She did not move quickly, certain that nothing inside the cordon required her immediate presence; by the time the APS Commander was summoned to a crime scene, all the surprises had bled out onto the floor.

She slowed as she reached the edge of the crowd—a few of her runners, several members of the Watch, even a gaggle of reporters forming a loose ring around the ruined entry. The Cirque’s grand facade was marred with black soot and a crooked X where the outer doors had been battered open by the audience’s panicked stampede to escape the venue. Beyond that, everything was shadows and silence. Iliyria brushed her hair back from her eyes, took a breath, and stepped under the arch.

Inside, the violence had been thorough. Banisters were splintered, seats overturned in random patterns, the main stage dark except for a single, hissing ward that still sputtered against the back curtain. The smell of burnt flesh competed with the sickly-sweet haze of greasepaint and old sawdust. Iliyria picked her way around the spatter, her eye for detail triangulating the blast points and the vector of blood on the walls. The work was efficient, almost mathematical—she could see the logic in the attackers’ movements, the way they had corralled the audience to maximize civilian casualties. The dead lay where they fell, faces covered with tarps or coats, their features scrubbed clean by the city’s well-practiced protocol.

At the far end of the auditorium, she found the runner who had summoned her— Jarren, her trusty deputy, whose posture in the presence of violence was still upright.

“Commander,” he said, voice brittle, “the estimate is over one hundred civilians dead, and many more wounded. None of the attackers survived.” He pronounced it like he’d practiced the cadence in a mirror.

“Thank you, Jarren,” Iliyria said, pausing just long enough to let her presence settle over the scene. “Brynne was on the scene, wasn’t she?”

Jarren nodded. “Lucky coincidence. She won tickets to the show in a raffle. Without her, a lot more people would have died, but apparently she had help.” He pointed in the direction of Brynne, and Iliyria made her way to the young woman.

She found Brynne seated on the edge of a scarred-up chaise, healing a young child who looked to have been trampled in the chaos. A nervous woman, presumably the child’s mother, hovered nearby. Brynne’s face was blank, her eyes set at a fixed point above the child’s head, but Iliyria could read the exhaustion in her slumped shoulders.

After a moment, the golden glow faded from Brynne’s hand, and she took a step back, recognizing Iliyria and heading toward her.

Iliyria met her in the middle, “What happened?” she asked simply, having learned a long time ago that open-ended questions made hearing the whole story much easier than a precise interrogation.

Brynne let out a breath and then launched into a report of the night’s events. Although she kept her recital to the facts of the case, Iliyria could see that she was disturbed by the violence.

Brynne’s eyes flicked off to the side. “We got lucky. Some civilians intervened; they were incredible. I was able to do crowd control and limit casualties while they dealt with the warlocks.”

“Good work,” Iliyria said. “Was it coordinated?”

Brynne hesitated, then shook her head. “No. One of them didn’t even know the other two. It just… happened.”

Iliyria suppressed a smile. “I’ll need names for the report.”

Brynne nodded. “Io, full name Ioharzar Dradorim. He is a Dragonborn. I’ve never seen one in real life. He was incredibly strong, looked like a fellow paladin to me. Nimueh, she didn’t give a last name, but she’s a wood elf, skilled monk by the looks of it. The two of them just arrived in the city today. The third, well, you aren’t going to believe this, but it was some older nobleman, Grand Poobah Shrek, from Ceren Heights. He was using some pretty potent magic; it seemed arcane, but I’m not sure if he is a sorcerer, wizard, or something else.”

Iliyria considered this. “Are they interested in staying on?”

“I think so,” Brynne said. “They were asking about the APS. They liked the work.”

“They’ll be at headquarters tomorrow,” Iliyria said, matter-of-fact. “If you see them before then, tell them to bring ID and a list of references. No criminal convictions.”

The runner managed a shaky smile. “That rules out half the city.”

“Only the incompetent half,” Iliyria replied.

They walked together, the tension receding with every step away from the scene. Iliyria felt the weight of Brynne’s silence pressing against her as they walked, the space between them charged with the kind of expectation that never turned out well for the junior party.

“You did well,” Iliyria said, finally.

Brynne shrugged. “I just did what needed doing.”

“That’s all I ever ask.” They passed through the ruined lobby, then out into the wet, echoing air. The city was waking, but the world felt no safer than it had during the night.

As they walked, Iliyria’s mind caught on a phrase: “demon-pacted warlocks.” The word was out of fashion in recent years—there hadn’t been a confirmed case in two decades, but tonight’s attackers had used fire and shadow, and the dead civvies bore wounds that were more than physical.

Brynne picked up on it, too. “You think they’re working for the demons in the East?”

“They’re working for someone,” Iliyria said. “And I don’t like that they were able to get through our screening. There was a time when we caught these cells before they ever lit a match.” She glanced at Brynne. “You’re old enough to remember, aren’t you?”

“Barely,” Brynne said. “I read about it in the paper once, but nobody talks about it now.”

“People stop talking about the things that scare them most,” Iliyria said. “It doesn’t mean they go away.”

They reached the end of the square. Brynne hesitated, as if reluctant to break the connection, then asked, “What happens next? What should we do?”

“You’re off shift. Go home and get some sleep.”

Brynne looked like she was about to argue, thought better of it, and nodded, then slipped away into the growing crowd. Iliyria watched her go, the girl’s golden hair a beacon even as the morning thickened.

She lingered at the scene for another hour, overseeing the cleanup, talking to the surviving witnesses, replaying the timeline in her head. The work was rote, but there was comfort in routine. She took statements from the APS on scene, watched as the Watch arrived to claim jurisdiction, and gave a careful, diplomatic interview to a local scribe who would twist her every word into a headline by noon.

When she could delay no longer, she made her way to APS headquarters, her mind already running ahead to the next crisis.

The office was as she’d left it: the main floor dark, a stack of unopened correspondence on the corner of her desk, the faint, mineral smell of the leyline wards pulsing just beneath the threshold of human scent. She hung her coat, set her satchel on the chair, and took a long, deliberate sip from the mug she kept hidden behind the files. Lukewarm tea and paperwork, oh, the joys of public service.

The walls were papered with maps—crime clusters, leyline overlays, the most recent projections from the Inquisition about border incursions. At the heart of every map, the same nexus: the city, the seat of the Council, the place where every threat converged sooner or later. Iliyria traced her finger along the major arteries, noting the patterns of violence, the way the points of chaos always seemed to spiral outward from the same four or five neighborhoods.

She sat, rolled up her sleeves, and began to work through the night’s backlog. The reports told a clear story: the APS was dangerously short-handed, the Watch was blocking every request for joint operations, and the Council’s patience was wearing thin. There were at least a dozen outstanding warrants in the system, half of them for magic-users operating without city sanction.

She flagged the most urgent cases, then worked her way through the unopened correspondence that mocked her from the corner of her desk. It was unlikely she would be able to rest tonight; better to just get on with it.

It was nearly dawn by the time she finished. She stepped outside the APS Headquarters and onto the street. She heard the city’s Clocktower tolling the start of a new day. Iliyria looked out at the skyline—chimneys coughing black smoke, the clock tower shrouded in mist—and felt the fatigue set in, a cold ache at the base of her skull.

She thought, for a moment, about the demon she’d encountered on the east wall a few days ago—how the thing had spoken her name, how it had recognized her from some forgotten war.

She remembered how the demon had vanished, how it had left behind only a smear of corrupted magic and a sickly black ooze.

She remembered, too, the disappointment she felt when the city failed to notice. When the Council debated trivialities while monsters crept closer every day.

Iliyria closed her eyes, trying to let the anger burn off, but it stuck, a heavy residue coating every thought.

Tomorrow, the Watch would send over their “liaison”—some empty suit picked to spy on the APS and report back to Commander Lowshade. The man’s file was already on her desk: Corporal Harrison Becker, former beat cop, current member of their major crimes investigation unit, human, a face that looked like it had never seen a day’s joy in its life. He’d been assigned at the Council’s request, their petty attempt at fostering a “cooperative relationship” between the two agencies.

She dreaded the conversation already. Becker would ask for every detail of their investigations, then relay it to Lowshade, who would then leak it to the city’s gossips to make her, and the APS by extension, look incompetent. It was a game they’d played a hundred times, and Iliyria never won.

She finished her notes, made a fresh pot of black tea, and sat by the window as the city woke around her.

In the distance, thunder rolled across the horizon, the sky darkening in warning. Iliyria watched it come, watched the world narrow to the present, and waited for the storm.

The city never let her rest for long.

New Recruits

The next morning, the rain that had threatened the city all night finally gave in, streaming from the eaves in silvery lines that blurred the world into watery strata. Iliyria welcomed the weather; it kept the streets quiet and the moods of her staff docile. She walked the short block from her townhouse to APS headquarters, the hood of her cloak pulled low over her brow, and entered the building just ahead of the oncoming shift.

Inside, the lobby buzzed with an energy that had little to do with caffeine and everything to do with gossip. The new intake of runners—five in all—waited in the reception area, arrayed across mismatched chairs like suspects in a particularly awkward lineup. Iliyria scanned them with the practiced detachment of a customs inspector. A human in Watch uniform, Becker, a wood elf, and a dragonborn standing together, Nimueh and Io. Brynne had mentioned never seeing a dragonborn before, and Iliyria herself couldn’t remember the last time she had. They were all but extinct on this side of the continent, no way of knowing if any survived on the other. Then there was an elderly human man in ostentatious dress. That must be the Grand Poobah. Iliyra was unsure how having him join would go; past experiences taught her that nobility and her rag-tag cohort of Runners rarely got along. That was how she liked it. But they were desperate. Once she commanded over one hundred specialists skilled in all manner and forms of magic. Now, they were reduced to twenty-four runners and their quartermaster, Valpip.

A lack of movement at the Iron Peaks had made the city complacent, despite her warnings. And now that they were having trouble reaching members of the Iron Peaks Resistance Forces, and with the number of demon-related incidents on the rise, it was clear she had been right. Not that being right gave her any pleasure. She shook the thoughts from her head and turned to examine the last of the new recruits, Kerrowyn’s apprentice.

And there she was, the elven woman. At first, Iliyria didn’t quite register what she was seeing, something in the set of the her jaw, the lift of her chin, made time double back on itself.

Nalea.

Not possible. The resemblance was uncanny: the same profile, the same cascade of dark hair, even the same habit of tucking a stray lock behind the ear when lost in thought. Iliyria felt a pressure in her chest, a vertigo that threatened to fold the world down to a single point. But the girl was not Nalea—could not be. She was too young, and though her face was a perfect copy, her eyes were different. Falanthriel’s eyes. Then she remembered Kerrowyn speaking the woman’s name. Alavara. She had thought it a cruel coincidence; she had no idea how right she had been.

“Good morning,” Iliyria managed, steadying herself on the edge of the counter. “I’m Iliyria Sylren, Commander of APS. Welcome to your first day.”

The runners rose as one, the choreography awkward but sincere. Io offered a curt nod. Nimueh executed a bow that was at once too shallow and too long. Corporal Becker snapped off a salute, and Grand Poobah Shrek smiled widely. Alavara simply stood, hands at her sides, eyes fixed on Iliyria as if daring her to notice the resemblance.

“We’ll do introductions in the conference room,” Iliyria said. “Follow me.”

They filed in behind her, boots squeaking on the polished floor. Iliyria took the seat at the head of the table, leaving the runners to self-sort along the sides. She waited until the door was closed before beginning.

“We have a few formalities to get through before you’re issued badges,” she said, praying her voice was steady. “First, I’d like each of you to tell me your name, your specialty, and what you hope to get out of your service with the APS.”

She somehow managed to keep her composure as they introduced themselves, avoiding staring for too long at Alavara. When she spoke, Iliyria swallowed. The girl’s voice was precise, clipped at the ends, but the resonance—the way the vowels hit the air—was pure Nalea.

“Thank you,” Iliyria said, moving on before she could betray the tremor in her hands.

There was a silence, the kind that waits for something to break it.

Iliyria let it ride for a moment, then stood. “You’ll all receive your assignments tomorrow. Today, you’ll meet with Berdreak Flatsunder—he’s our longest serving Runner and the best tour guide in the city. He’ll walk you through Elani Street and the adjacent districts, then bring you back for orientation.”

She eyed the five, then the clock, then the five again. “Questions?”

Io shook his head. Nimueh opened her mouth, then closed it. Shrek mumbled something inaudible. Alavara just stared, the intensity of it more unsettling than any outburst could have been.

“Good,” Iliyria said. “Dismissed. Berdreak is waiting outside.”

The runners filed out, leaving Iliyria alone with the echo of the girl’s voice still vibrating in her skull.

She walked back to her office, locked the door, and sat down heavily at her desk. For a long time, she did not move. She looked outside and saw that the rain had ceased, and the sun was shining through the clouds. The rain would have suited her mood better. She forced herself to remember every reason why this was not possible, every argument against what her senses told her was true.

Years ago—decades, now—she had visited the Wizard’s Tower for dinner with Kerrowyn. Kerrowyn had greeted her in the lower hall, all smiles and mischief, as always, but Iliyria’s attention had been drawn, inexplicably, to a young woman in the upper gallery. It was Nalea, or maybe the ghost of her. Iliyria had dismissed it as a trick of the leyline, a vision conjured by her traumatized psyche or, more likely, a cruel joke engineered by Hallione. She had fled the Tower that day and had gone back only when absolutely necessary.

Now, she realized, it had not been a vision at all. Alavara had been alive, and living, right under her nose.

Iliyria pressed her palms to her eyes, counting heartbeats until the pressure forced her thoughts to collapse inward. She was not a coward, and yet she could not—would not—face the implications. Nalea was gone, that much was true. But Nalea’s daughter was here, living and breathing and looking at her as if she already knew what Iliyria could not say aloud.

What right did she have to interfere? The girl seemed happy. Well-adjusted, even. Better that she never knew the truth, never had to carry the burden of Nalea’s legacy or Iliyria’s own failure.

Yet the thought gnawed at her, a tick burrowed too deep to be ignored. Memories flooded her mind, unbidden, of a helpless infant that she had sworn to protect, that she had loved with all her heart, and that she had given up on.

She wanted to run. Instead, she sat at her desk, opened the orientation file, and pretended to review the onboarding forms. Every so often, her mind snapped back to the conference room, replaying the sound of Alavara’s voice, the tilt of her head, the deliberate stillness of her posture.

After an hour, a knock at the door pulled her back to the present. Iliyria opened it to find Jarren, looking grim

“There was an incident,” he said flatly. “On Elani Street. Demons attacked, Berdreak and the newbies were on the scene, and,” he paused, clearly struggling with what words should come next.

Iliyria’s heart was in her throat. What if Alavara had been hurt. She had only just found her.

“Berdreak is dead,” Jarren said finally. “The new recruits were able to kill the demons.”

She took a breath, instantly relieved that Alavara was alright. But they had lost Berdreak. Gods, he was almost out the door. He had been bragging for the last several months about the fishing trip he had organized for his grandchildren. They were supposed to leave this weekend.

Jarren placed a hand on her shoulder, gave her a look that said he understood, and mentioned going to get statements from the new recruits.

He left her to her solitude, the door closing with a soft click.

Iliyria stared at the empty office, the silence so complete it rang in her ears. She closed her eyes, and for the first time in years, she was not sure she would be able to open them again.

Finally, she got up, adjusted her jacket, and returned to her duties. She had to notify the family, organize a line-of-duty funeral, and deal with the lurking threats in her city.

If the world was going to drag the past into the present, she would at least be prepared when it arrived. She owed Alavara that much, even if the girl never learned why.

And maybe, Iliyria thought as she resumed her paperwork, that would be enough.

Restlessness

The day concluded, as most did, with a wall of work Iliyria could not see over, but when the offices had emptied and the city’s rush slowed to a crawl, she found herself walking home through the wet dark with a sense of fugitive relief. Every lamp flickered behind a curtain of rain, but the streets themselves were empty, save for the scavenging cats and the occasional tradesman hustling home before curfew.

Her townhouse stood at the end of a narrow alley, shrouded by an overgrown yew that caught the street’s damp and shook it down in cold little bombs. Inside, she lit a single lamp, then another, and watched the amber pools of light retreat from the corners. The place was spartan: a small desk for correspondence, a rack for her two best cloaks, and shelves lined with thick, unmarked books. There was comfort in the silence here, but tonight it felt like a trick—the city holding its breath before a punchline.

She changed out of her day clothes and into a loose shirt and woolen trousers, then made a cup of black tea and stared at the steam until it clouded her vision. Every time she closed her eyes, Alavara’s face appeared—sometimes as a child, sometimes as a stranger, but always with that same impossible gaze. Iliyria had fought wars, toppled monsters, and rebuilt a city from rubble, but the sight of that woman in her office had hollowed her out in ways she was not prepared to admit.

She tried to read, then tried to write, then stood and paced the length of her tiny sitting room until she caught herself muttering aloud.

At some point in the late hours, between the second and third cup of tea, Iliyria’s mind wandered to her will. It was not a subject she had revisited since the last demon incursion, when she’d half-jokingly left all her assets to the APS “on the condition it survives me by at least five years.” She retrieved the thick, wax-sealed envelope from her desk drawer and set it, unopened, beside her mug. The thought was not so much morbid as it was practical. She had outlasted three generations of allies and rivals, and the only thing more reliable than her own stubborn survival was the city’s appetite for spectacle.

Yet the old document was now inaccurate; it spoke of her as a commander, a leader, a public servant whose only legacy was the work itself. Now there was something more. Now, there was Alavara—Nalea’s daughter, Falanthriel’s silent rebuke, the living proof of everything Iliyria had ever failed to protect.

It took her less than fifteen minutes to draft the codicil. She made Alavara the sole contingent beneficiary, with instructions to the executor to locate her “by any means necessary” and to convey the entirety of Iliyria’s modest estate. It wasn’t much—her pension, savings, the townhouse, a handful of rare books—but Iliyria felt a stubborn vindication as she wrote it down, as if a lifetime of loss could be offset by a few strokes of legal prose. She signed it, sealed it, and set it on top of the original, fingers drumming a slow, arrhythmic tattoo on the desktop.

She told herself it was enough. That it was the right thing to do. That she would never have to explain, never have to see the look on Alavara’s face if the truth came out. Maybe, before it ever came to that, she would find the courage to say the words aloud, but tonight this could be enough.

Iliyira continued to stare at the sealed envelope in front of her for what could have been minutes or hours. At some point, she decided the only reasonable course was to go to bed and hope for a clean slate in the morning. She doused the lights, slipped under the covers, and let the day’s exhaustion flatten her into the mattress.

She could not trance.

The knock at the door came just before midnight. Two raps, polite but final.

Iliyria rolled out of bed, threw on her robe, and answered the door without hesitation. On the threshold stood two Watch officers: both in full dress, faces shadowed by the brims of their caps, rainwater streaming from their coats.

“Commander Sylren?” asked the taller one. His voice was practiced, the kind that could read off a death notice and make you thank him for the privilege.

“Yes?” Iliyria replied, bracing herself in the frame. “What is it?”

The shorter officer produced a folded sheet of parchment, stamped with the Watch’s insignia. “You are bound by law, by order of Commander Lowshade, for violations of City Statute 48c and breach of public safety. The warrant is issued in your name and carries the authority of the Council.”

Iliyria stared at the page, then at the officers. “That’s a mistake, surely. I haven’t left the APS headquarters all day.”

“Not you, ma’am,” the tall one said. “Your runners.”

“They got in a fistfight with a member of the Watch this evening,” the short one added. “There was use of magic and a lethal weapon.”

“That’s a lie,” Iliyria said, deadpan. “And you know it.”

“Not our place to judge,” the tall officer replied, not unkindly. “We’re just here to bring you in for questioning. You’ll have the opportunity to contest the charges.”

Iliyria considered, then shrugged. “I have the right to counsel.”

The short officer nodded. “You’ll be allowed a runner to deliver messages after intake. Council oversight. Standard procedure.”

Iliyria almost smiled. “And if I refuse?”

The tall officer’s face did not change. “Then we are authorized to use force. We would prefer not to.”

Iliyria raised her hands in mock surrender. “No need. I’ll come quietly. But for the record, tell Commander Lowshade that this is the laziest frame job I’ve ever seen.”

The officers traded a glance, then motioned her into the street. She locked the door behind her and fell into step with them, the hoods of their cloaks thrown up against the fresh onslaught of rain.

As they made their way toward the Watch station, Iliyria’s mind ran the angles. There was nothing spontaneous about this arrest; Lowshade had wanted a confrontation, had orchestrated the charges to land at her door, and had likely arranged for Council oversight just to add another layer of humiliation. There was no way the charges were legitimate. Her people knew better than to go around starting fights, didn’t they? Then again, maybe something had happened; everyone might be on edge after the death of a colleague and the news of several demon attacks throughout the city. Regardless, the Watch would keep her overnight, drag out the interrogation until the next day, and in the meantime the city would be left without her at the helm.

If this was a chess match, Lowshade was opening with a pawn sacrifice, trying to disrupt her lines before the real battle began.

Iliyria let herself be marched through the empty streets, her feet splashing through the run-off, and tried to remember the last time she’d felt this tired. Maybe never. Maybe there was no precedent for the kind of fatigue that came from watching your city slip out of your hands one piece at a time.

At the Watch station, they booked her with clinical efficiency—fingerprints, inventory of personal effects. She was not afraid. She was not even angry, not really. What she felt was a kind of flat inevitability, the sense that every move she made had already been predicted by someone smarter or meaner or simply more patient.

She wondered, briefly, if Alavara would hear about the arrest. She hoped not.

Commander Lowshade waited in the battered, windowless interview room, a slab of stone table between him and the single metal chair set up for her. He wore the crisp black-and-red Watch uniform, the epaulettes glimmering even in the sickly yellow of the overhead lamp. His hands were folded and resting on a legal pad, but he had not written anything on it. When Iliyria entered, escorted by a pair of junior officers, he barely acknowledged her with a nod, as though her presence were an expected, even ordinary, inconvenience.

He waited until the door closed behind her before speaking: "Sit, please."

Iliyria did not sit. She braced her arms against the back of the chair and measured the distance between them, as if calculating whether she could flip the table before the guards intervened.

"Commander Sylren," he said, and the pleasure in his tone was a knife so sharp it pretended to be an apology. "This is not a good look for you."

She opened her mouth to fire back a retort, but thought better of it, taking a breath and sliding into the seat.

“Thank you for your prompt compliance.”

“I’ve always had a deep respect for due process,” Iliyria replied, sitting but not relaxing. Her hands folded on the table, mirroring his.

Lowshade shrugged as if to concede the point, then flipped open the blank pad as though it were a prop in a stage play. He tapped a pen against its edge with metronomic precision.

"Cut to the chase, Lowshade. What's the actual charge?"

Lowshade's lips twitched—restrained glee. "Assault on a Watch officer, use of lethal force against a city employee, unlawful use of magic in a public space, and, of course, resisting arrest.”

Iliyria’s jaw set, “who?" Her voice was ice. "Which of your officers was attacked, and which of mine are you accusing?"

Lowshade took his time, as if savoring the taste of her coming humiliation. "The preliminary incident report lists several assailants: a dragonborn, six and a half feet, distinctive scales—blue, I think— a wood elf, female, hair in dreadlocks, a portly human man, a high-elf woman… and Corporal Becker.” He finished, trailing off at the end. “Apparently all new recruits of yours. They assaulted Corporal Lukas Kravits at Murphy’s Law. He wants to press charges.”

Lowshade allowed himself a thin smile. "I told the Council you were scraping the bottom of the barrel, but even I didn't expect them to be this… disappointing." He slid the file across the table so it landed exactly within her reach. "Not that it helps your case. The witnesses say your people started it."

Iliyria scanned the document in front of her, rapidly taking in details before she lifted her chin and stared defiantly at Lowshade. “Looks to me like two of your Corporals got into a bar brawl and dragged my people into it. Not a good look for you, Commander,” she drawled, echoing his earlier insult.

Lowshade’s nostrils flared, a flicker of color rushing to his ears as he realized he’d lost the upper hand. He flicked the pen down on the desk with an audible crack and leaned forward, losing the affectless calm that had so impressed the Council’s auditors.

Then he made a sound, half chuckle, half cough, his face returning to its habitual shade of self-satisfaction. “Technically,” he said, flipping a page in the file he’d never intended her to see, “Corporal Becker is now assigned to your department, effective as of today. You’re responsible for the conduct of all your personnel, Commander. Even—” he paused, savoring it, “those on loan from the Watch.”

The point landed. Iliyria did not flinch, but she caught the edges of the gambit. In truth, Becker’s onboarding forms had not even been properly filed yet; the Watch liaison was meant to be a formality, a body in the room to keep the Council happy. But Lowshade was already laying the groundwork for a transfer of blame. This was less about the incident and more about setting up a longer game—strip Iliyria’s autonomy, one petty jurisdictional skirmish at a time.

“And let’s not forget your wood elf—Nimueh. She ran from the scene. You know what that looks like to the city?”

“It looks like your men can’t hold a perimeter on a groghouse, and you’re trying to dump it on me,” Iliyria replied.

Lowshade held her gaze for a long moment, jaw working, then affected a look of bemused disappointment. “I suppose we’ll just have to see what sticks,” he said, drawing out the words. He nodded at the door, and the two junior officers reentered. The first positioned herself just behind Iliyria’s chair, the second opening the door and waiting. The sequence was executed with a ceremonial, almost theatrical solemnity.

Lowshade’s performance was not for Iliyria; it was for the walls, the witnesses, the record. He gestured to the officers, and Iliyria rose without prompting, her face composed, as if she were the one conducting the farce. Neither officer touched her as they ushered her out; there was no need. Iliyria had always known the rules of this city, had written some of them herself. She walked the corridor with purpose, her footsteps echoing, and she did not look back.

Holding Pattern

The two Watch officers flanked her down the main hall and into the brightly lit central intake. At the counter, the desk sergeant entered her name with a flourish, then directed them through a series of locked doors. The station was noisier than Iliyria remembered—maybe because of the recent violence, maybe because the Watch was on citywide alert. She was moved with brisk efficiency: through one anteroom to another, down a flight of stairs with badly patched stone, and through a checkpoint where a bored half-orc searched her pockets and handed back her APS badge with exaggerated care.

Iliyria expected a cell to herself, a brief purgatory—maybe even a courtesy chair and a cup of water, as befitted her rank. Instead, they led her to the largest communal cell at the end of the row, a bar-lined cubicle meant to humiliate as much as detain. In it, sat four figures: Becker, the liaison, crumpled and red-faced; the dragonborn, who looked almost comically too large for the steel bench on which he perched; Grand Poobah Shrek, resplendent even in captivity; Alavara, hands folded in her lap, gaze fixed on the opposite wall.

Four pairs of eyes rose to meet hers. Becker’s were bloodshot, avoiding; Shrek’s round and openly appraising, as if ready to deliver a speech on the barbarity of city justice; Io’s were reptilian, unreadable but for the slow, defensive tightening of his jaw; and Alavara’s, clear and cold, tracking her every move with a precision that bordered on accusation. For a moment, they all seemed to reach the same conclusion—she was there to bail them out, to issue a tongue-lashing and drag them back to headquarters where the real scolding would commence. But when the officer at her back unlocked the cell and nudged her inside with unnecessary decorum, the recalibration of expectations was almost audible.

Iliyria stepped through, nodded once to the room, and sat on the remaining wedge of cold, riveted bench. The door clanged shut.

Becker looked away first, studying the floor as if his boots had whispered an embarrassing secret. Io attempted to straighten but only succeeded in looking even more displaced, his tail coiling tight around the leg of the bench. Alavara did not move, taking in the development with a cool, analytical gaze. Grand Poobah Shrek, who had been mid-soliloquy before Iliyria’s arrival, grew silent and drew himself up as if auditioning for a role in his own disgrace.

“What an OUTRAGE,” he thundered, rising with the full melodrama of a man whose daily bread was grievance. “I have been abducted! I demand to see a magistrate. Do you know who I am?” He swept a hand through his thinning hair, scattering flecks of powder even as he attempted to summon up the dignity of a minor deity. “Not only am I being detained without lawful cause, I am denied my breakfast and basic courtesy!”

Iliyria suppressed the urge to laugh at his audacity. Instead, she leaned back and observed as the two men guarding them narrowed their focus on the man.

"All complaints to be filed in writing, sir," with the rote authority of a city clerk who has seen every variety of drunk, thief, and minor noble.

Shrek doubled down, now pressing his face to the bars as if his proximity alone would cow the guards into repentance. He began listing, in ascending order of absurdity, the names of his acquaintances among the city’s aristocracy, the legendary exploits of his distant ancestors, and the unfathomable sums his household contributed to the Watch’s annual charity gala. He concluded by demanding not only breakfast, but a hot towel, a goblet of "properly spiced cherry cordial," and the immediate demotion of everyone on duty tonight.

The guards exchanged a glance, the sort that passed for humor at this hour, and then one of them—a pale, square-jawed corporal with a Watch sigil stitched ragged on his sleeve—stepped forward.

“Stand and face the wall,” he said, voice flat. “Standard contraband inspection.”

Shrek looked momentarily offended, then swung dramatically to his feet, adopting the posture of a martyr about to receive his beatification. “You will answer for this, young man. When the Council hears—”

His protest was cut off as the guard gripped his shoulder and spun him toward the bars, arms extended, palms flat to the wall. Shrek resisted just enough to remind everyone of the injustice, then submitted, trembling with outrage.

The corporal began patting him down, starting at the collar and working methodically toward the boots with cold professional detachment. The hands that reached Shrek’s lapel were thick and blunt, built for the careful application of violence. The first dab came away red and waxy, then blue. The guard paused, frowned, and scrubbed harder at the man’s neck. As the pigment smeared and bled into the folds of skin, a line of stubble cropped up beneath the powder, and a faint blue undertone emerged from the flesh.

Iliyria, still operating on the frayed edge of sleep, was the first to process what she was seeing. She stared as the guard, his jaw working, peeled away a strip of false skin from Shrek’s jawline, revealing not the ruddy undertones of a human, but the unmistakable cobalt of a tiefling. Underneath the thick layer of greasepaint and cosmetic putty, a pair of sharp, faintly horned ridges curled back from the brow, and the ears ended in a point.

The color drained so rapidly from Iliyria’s face that for a moment she seemed a statue, frozen in horror or awe. To anyone watching—the guards, the dragonborn, even Alavara—her composure held, but inside, her mind tumbled through a dozen scenarios, each more damning than the last. If Lowshade had wanted evidence that she was harboring criminals, this was it. If the Council was looking for evidence of subterfuge, a disguised tiefling in her new cohort would be more than enough.

She stumbled, reaching out to steady herself on the slick steel bar, and in that second, the storylines that had defined her life—her city, her command, her carefully maintained neutrality—collapsed into a single, towering certainty: she had been set up. Not just with a bad intake of rookies or a petty jurisdictional spat, but with a show trial, a public disgrace, a slow-rolling coup that would end not just her but everything she had built over the past century.

The guard’s hand hovered, uncertain, over the blue-tinged jaw. For a heartbeat, no one in the cell breathed. Then, as if on cue, the tiefling’s face split into a nervous, apologetic grin. “Ah. Forgive me. I—I didn’t mean to deceive anyone,” he stammered, voice pitched to a register somewhere between servile and terrified. “I’m not, ah, dangerous. I was just—” the tiefling managed, hands still pressed to the wall. “I come in peace. Or, rather, I came for a job. I’m—well, was—Grand Poobah Shrek. But you may call me Dingus.”

The guard said nothing. He finished his search with exaggerated thoroughness, then stepped back and signaled to his partner. They conferred in low, urgent voices, glancing at Dingus and then at Iliyria. At last, one of them strode off down the hall, boots echoing, presumably to fetch Lowshade.

For several long minutes, no one spoke. The communal cell seemed to shrink with every heartbeat, the air dense with humiliation, exhaustion, and the peculiar steel-and-wax scent of exposed secrets. Io sat very still, his chin tucked low, as if hoping to be overlooked. Becker watched the corridor, jaw clenched, eyes flicking in sharp, rapid movements. Iliyria wished she could disappear, realized that she, in fact, could, but then decided against it.

Jarren

Jarren awoke to the panicked trill of the APS quartermaster’s emergency line. In the years since he had become Iliyria’s right hand, he had learned to distinguish the various species of disaster that could infest a runner’s shift: the bored, the annoyed, and the genuinely terrified. This was the third kind—a note of pleading in Valpip’s usually imperturbable voice as he confessed, between weeping apologies for the early hour, that Iliyria and four APS runners had been picked up by the Watch and were now “rotting in the central holding tank like so much substandard produce.”

He dressed in silence, watching the rain cut crooked runes on the window. Every part of him was lined with the certainty that this was not a coincidence but a prelude—a move orchestrated from the Council or, more likely, from Lowshade himself. The city’s police had been itching for an excuse to gut the APS for months.

He gave his sleeping wife a quick kiss, whispering that duty called, and left his flat. He made his way through the grey drag of morning, cutting across Market Row as it filled with the city’s earliest risers.

At the Watch headquarters, the air was thick with the mixed effluvia of boiled coffee and wet uniforms. The front desk was manned by a human who regarded Jarren’s APS badge with the kind of perfunctory disdain reserved for visiting dignitaries and condemned prisoners.

“Jarren Saurivier, Arcane Protection,” Jarren said, dropping his name and department with the practiced speed of someone who was there as a matter of statutory inevitability. The clerk’s eyes scrolled over the nameplate, then up to Jarren’s face, as if searching for some flaw in the paperwork.

“Business?” the desk sergeant asked, not looking up from the shift roster.

“I’m here for the Sylren matter,” Jarren said. “Detained personnel. I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of the intake.”

The man grunted, made a note, and gestured for Jarren to take a seat in the lobby’s battered wooden chair. “Commander’s in a meeting. You’ll wait,” he said, then pivoted back to his endless stream of Watch drama.

Jarren didn’t sit. He paced the length of the narrow lobby, rehearsing every possible permutation of the coming conversation: how to demand release without triggering an escalation, how to weaponize the bureaucracy against itself, how to spin the inevitable leak.

Eventually, he was led back into a small meeting room and given the rundown of the night's events by Sergeant Marcus Kasssan, head of the major crimes investigations unit, who had enough sense to look ashamed on behalf of his organization. The biggest problem right now was the tiefling. This was bad, and they needed time to spin it. A thought occurred to him, and he realized he still had cards to play. The tiefling was a magic user, and clearly would be labeled a dangerous criminal. Only the APS had the specialized holding cells that could prevent the use of magic. Jarren tapped his fingers on the desk, before addressing the Sergeant. “I think it will be safer for all involved if we get that tiefling into a cell that can properly restrain him.” The Sergeant sat up, realizing Jarren’s intentions, and then smiled. “That, Runner Saurivier, is an excellent suggestion. Let’s get the paperwork handled quickly.”

When Jarren appeared at the cell’s far end, it was not with the harried shuffle of a subordinate chasing trouble. He walked with the patient gravity of a man who had already solved the puzzle and was now only waiting for the rest of the pieces to realize it. Iliyria met his eye through the bars—a single, fractional nod passed between them, so small that Lowshade’s goons would not have registered it even if their attention had been less divided by the show in the cell.

“In accordance with city statute and the recommendations of Sergeant Kassan,” Jarren began, voice pitched low so the words resonated down the corridor, “I am here to affect the immediate transfer of the tiefling prisoner to APS specialized custody. The paperwork is in order, and I’ve brought the documentation to expedite the process.” He held out a sheaf of stamped forms, which the officer accepted with a grunt.

“Sergeant Kassan said to clear it,” the officer muttered, scanning the papers while the other hovered nearby.

Jarren folded his hands behind his back, the official posture of a city functionary about to exercise his only true power: paperwork. He turned to the cell, not bothering with the pretense of sympathy.

“Dingus,” he announced, “you’re being remanded to APS custody under City Statute 12.19.2. Stand and step forward for restraint.”

The tiefling, whose brief moment of notoriety had already begun to sour into dread, obeyed without protest, hands held out as if presenting a bouquet. Jarren motioned for the desk sergeant, who unlocked the cell with a ceremonial click. The runner drew a pair of suppression cuffs from his belt—iron inlaid with a filigree of runes designed to sever any connection to the arcane. As soon as the cuffs closed around Dingus’s wrists, his posture collapsed inward, shoulders hunching as if he’d been deflated.

Jarren nodded to the guards, and then Iliyria before marching Dingus up the stairs and out of sight.

Parade

A wave of relief hit Iliyria so unexpectedly that she nearly laughed. It was not the prospect of Dingus's escape from the Watch’s custody that amused her, but the knowledge that Jarren had read the situation and played it perfectly. He had anticipated the exact point of attack, the direction of the blow, and now she had a piece of the problem under her direct control. If Dingus was the pretext for a coup, she could at least dictate the script for the trial. Lowshade, in his infinite mediocrity, would not have seen that coming.

She let Jarren extract Dingus from the cell, watching with sidelong satisfaction as the blue-tinged tiefling all but wilted beneath the suppression cuffs. The look in Jarren’s eyes—calm, dry, never quite amused—that gave her the telegraphed message: You’re not out of the game yet.

She leaned back against the cell’s cold wall, the press of four unfamiliar bodies shifting into a kind of loose solidarity. Io, the dragonborn, relaxed by a degree; Alavara, who had not moved since the arrest, seemed to scan the narrow cell for vulnerabilities, recalculating her odds with the new development.

Less than half an hour later, Kerrowyn Lightfoot materialized in the corridor with a clatter of wooden clogs, the signature of her presence not magical so much as the sonic equivalent of a drumroll. She wore a sleeveless indigo robe over a white blouse and black slacks; her hair, short and buttery, was slicked back behind her pointed gnomish ears in a way that made her look both youthful and ancient at once. She paused at the gate, peered through the bars, and raised her brows at the tableau within.

“Bloody hell,” she said, in a tone that managed to be both delighted and appalled. “Iliyria Sylren, you look like you’ve lost a bet.”

Iliyria considered whether the city would parade every acquaintance she’d ever known past her tonight, one by one, to audit the full measure of her disgrace. Kerrowyn’s presence was almost a relief—if nothing else, she would bring with her a logic so pure it rendered even the most elaborate Watch machinations slightly ridiculous.

Kerrowyn’s gaze scuttled over the cell’s contents and landed, with a visible stutter, on Alavara. For a long moment, she simply stared, the quicksilver intelligence behind her eyes interrupted by the overt, gobsmacked recognition.

“Alavara?” Kerrowyn said, her voice softer, almost maternal, before snapping back to a professional register. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she chided. Then, to Iliyria: “This was not what I had in mind when I sent my best student to you.”

Iliyria’s sigh was nearly a groan. “Kerrowyn,” she said, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Kerrowyn gave a brisk, businesslike nod to the guards on duty, then slipped a folded packet from her inner vest pocket. “I’m here as a technical consultant for the Watch,” she said, waving the letter so its gold-ink seal flashed in the torchlight. “They want an external analysis of the magical residue left at the Murphy’s Law incident. Something about ‘anomalous ley signatures’ and ‘unusual discharge patterns.’” She made air quotes with her free hand, then shot a sidelong glance at Iliyria. “You know how it is. No one trusts city mages, but everyone wants their paperwork signed off by the Tower.

Kerrowyn paused for a beat before continuing, “However, I can’t help but notice that one of my students is a suspect in this crime. I’m afraid I won’t be able to provide my services.”

For a moment, the corridor’s din collapsed inward around Kerrowyn’s refusal. The guards—shifted, caught between the inertia of hierarchy and the sudden, sharp inconvenience of her declaration.

The junior officer closest to the bars tried a bureaucratic smile. “Master Lightfoot, we appreciate your neutrality, but this isn’t a criminal matter. Just a technical review. Nothing you sign will prejudice your student’s case, I assure you.”

Kerrowyn’s eyes narrowed, unimpressed. “Neutrality is precisely the problem, Officer. I’m not a councilwoman, I’m a Master Arcanist, and it would be unprofessional to certify evidence against a protege who is, as you can see, currently on the wrong side of your hospitality.” She folded her arms, looking every inch the headmistress at roll call.”You’ll need to call in someone else, I think maybe only Councilwoman Misendris herself might fit the bill, although that might take some time.”

Kerrowyn smiled, slow and deliberate, the way a person smiles after knocking over the first domino in a chain. The guards, uncertain whether to treat her as a threat or a solution, backed down a step.

Across the cell, Iliyria tipped her head in a gesture of amused, exhausted gratitude. Kerrowyn’s tactic was old as time: introduce more red tape, and even the proudest bureaucracy would grind to a halt, or at least slow down long enough for someone clever to slip the leash.

Kerrowyn turned her attention fully to Alavara, who stood with rigid self-control. The gnome’s expression softened, and she pressed her palm to the bars—an absurd, theatrical gesture, but one that held. Alavara’s composure faltered half a breath, and in that instant, a hundred lessons passed between them: discipline, dignity, the unspoken promise that Kerrowyn would not abandon her to the meat grinder of city politics.

Then Kerrowyn’s gaze snapped to Iliyria, and the brief warmth evaporated. The look that passed between them was not anger, nor accusation, but something more dangerous: expectation. Fix this, it said. Whatever mess you’ve walked my student into, you will walk her out, or I will burn the city’s red tape to the ground and salt the ashes.

With one last nod, Kerrowyn left.

The next interruption came not from the parade of the familiar, but a Watch lieutenant. He entered, flanked by a junior officer and unlocked the cell door.

He scanned the group, lips curling as he matched faces to the clipboard in his hand. “Alavara. Io Dradorim.” His pronunciation of the names was deliberate, as if reading them for the first time. “You’re released, pending further investigation. According to witness statements, you were not involved in the altercation.”

Alavara didn’t move at once. She watched the sergeant’s posture for subtext, but found only the impersonal efficiency of someone eager to empty a cell before shift change. Io roused himself and stood, careful not to crack his horns against the low arch. The sergeant gestured them forward, and they obliged, stepping through the open gate as if it were a test of character more than a gift. The lieutenant eyed them both, then added, “You’ll be escorted out.”

Io waited until Alavara was a pace ahead, then turned. “Sir—why is our commander still here? She didn’t do anything.”

The lieutenant, a Watch veteran with a face carved from old brick, didn’t flinch. “Commander Sylren is being remanded as a proxy. The wood elf, Nimueh has not been located yet. Standard protocol, until she is produced or accounted for.”

“She’s a flight risk?” Io asked, incredulous.

“More like a liability,” the lieutenant shot back, then softened a notch. “City rules, not mine. If you want to vouch for the Commander, you can wait upstairs. She’ll be processed out at first bell, assuming the wood-elf makes herself available.”

Io looked at the lieutenant, then at Iliyria, and said, “I’ll wait for her.” There was a finality to it, a sense of pledge, as if the promise itself could anchor the world for a few hours while the city’s bureaucracy ground through the inevitable. In truth, he had nowhere else to go—the city was vast and the rules for outsiders even more so—but it mattered more to stay than to wander.

The moment they rounded the corner, the Watch staff closed the cell and set the bolts with a clang meant to remind Iliyria and the remaining prisoners—Becker, the liaison, and Dingus still in memory if not in body—that the game was still in progress and the city, for now, still belonged to Lowshade. But, Iliyria noted, the tide was changing; Jarren and Lightfoot had both provided invaluable support, and now that Alavara and Io were freed, she allowed herself to feel some relief.

As the night deepened, Iliyria let her thoughts flicker between the present and the past, skipping across the years in random order—Kerrowyn at the tower, the first time she’d met Lowshade, the moment when she’d realized she was alone in the world and had decided, at last, to make peace with it.

A few hours later, a new presence announced itself with the scrape and pulse of authority, echoing up from the corridor like a warning.

Approaching was Lawmaster Orintha Runecoat, the city’s highest legal arbiter, and a woman whose reputation for uncompromising procedure was as old as the stone in the Capitol’s foundations. She was short and blocky, even for a dwarf, and her face bore the pocks and furrows of one who had survived both sabotage and siege.

She wore a dark blue coat, the kind cut for function and intimidation, and her hair was braided tight against her skull in a pattern so intricate it seemed a challenge to anyone who dared to look. She paused at the intake desk, conferred in a hush with the sergeant—who immediately grew meek and deferential—then took possession of the transfer log and strode directly for Iliyria’s cell. She stopped before the bars, gave a perfunctory nod to the on-duty guards, and fixed her gaze on the commander with the full authority of her station.

“Sylren,” she said, “with me.” Her voice was undiminished by the granite echo of the holding corridor.

Iliyria stood, smoothing her shirt and glancing briefly at the still-bleary Becker. He met her look with a flicker of sympathy, but said nothing. The guard at the door made a show of unlocking the cell, as if the presence of two high-ranking women—one a Lawmaster, the other a commander—required a ceremonial overture.

The walk through the Watch’s labyrinthine corridors was not long, but it was silent, every step punctuated by the clack of Orintha’s boots on polished stone. They passed offices where tired faces glanced up, then briskly looked away.

Orintha paused outside an interrogation suite, held the door, and gestured her in with the minimal civility of one who considered manners and efficiency mutually exclusive.

Inside, the air was cold. The bare metal table bisected the small room, and on the far side sat Lowshade, already present, his earlier bravado gone. He clenched his jaw, worry evident in his expression. He wasn’t sure who would come out on top anymore.

The Lawmaster closed the door behind them with a precise motion, then took her own chair.

She leveled her gaze at Lowshade, and the temperature of the room seemed to drop another five degrees.

“Explain,” she said, voice flat as the business end of a warhammer.

Lowshade, not accustomed to being so directly addressed, tried to reclaim control of the proceedings. “Lawmaster, thank you for arriving on such short notice. Commander Sylren stands accused—”

“No,” Orintha interrupted, the word a spike hammered into the tabletop. “What you’ll do, Albreicht, is explain why you’ve spent the night orchestrating a public spectacle—arresting the APS commander, detaining Runners on fabricated charges, and in the process leaving the city without magical oversight during a period of confirmed demonic incursion. The Council is not amused. I am less so.”

Lowshade’s knuckles whitened against the table, but he recalibrated instantly, weighing the Lawmaster’s priorities against his own. “With respect, ma’am, it was my understanding that the proper response to violence involving city officers—”

“Was to escalate it into a farce?” Orintha cut in, her tone dry as salt. “You’ve filled out more paperwork than you’ve solved cases in the last two years, Albreicht. And now you detain the APS commander and a half-batch of new Runners, during a demon spike?” She slid the transfer log aside, its pages whispering accusation.

Lowshade redirected his focus to Iliyria, but Orintha was not done. “Here is what will happen. The two Watch corporals—” she pronounced it as though tasting something sour— “will drop their respective charges. You will amend your incident report to indicate mutual provocation, and APS will handle any internal discipline as it sees fit. You will explain yourself to the Council, and we will decide if that will be the end of the matter.”

Iliyria’s relief was visible only in the slackening of her jaw, the way the tension drained from her fingers where they gripped the edge of the metal table. For a heartbeat, she felt the ancient, childlike urge to laugh at Lowshade's expense, to see him dressed down by a dwarven Lawmaster in front of witnesses and gods alike. But Orintha was shifting her attention now, and Iliyria recognized the warning in the Lawmaster’s eyes. She allowed herself half a breath before Orintha’s gaze, cold and precise, cut to her across the table.

“And you,” said the Lawmaster, fixing Iliyria with the stare that had crushed more than one parliamentary campaign. “Are not off the hook. You will find this missing wood elf, the one called Nimueh. You will bring her in, alive and unbloodied, and you will investigate why she felt the need to abscond after a routine bar brawl.” Orintha leaned forward, a continent’s worth of authority compressed in the motion. “While you’re at it, dig into the business with that tiefling, you’ll give the council a full account of how you allowed someone into the APS under false pretences, disguised as a noble no less.”

The Lawmaster let the silence congeal, watching both commanders for the color to rise in their faces. Then, with an exasperation that felt older than the city, she slapped the edge of the file and rose to her feet.

“I have no interest in refereeing the personal hostilities of children,” she said, lip curling. “We are not in a nursery, despite the evidence.” She jabbed a finger at Lowshade without looking at him. “The next time you attempt to settle a turf dispute by emptying a precinct, I’ll have you inventorying evidence until your beard turns white.” She turned the finger on Iliyria, who met it without flinching. “And you—if you are in the habit of recruiting criminals and ghosts, perhaps you should be less surprised when your agency is treated like a halfway house. I am not your mother, your nursemaid, or your personal confessor. Do not mistake my tolerance for benevolence.” She swept from the room, the echo of her boots a drumbeat of finality.

Lowshade wilted. When the door was safely shut, he splayed his hands on the table and let out a long, shallow groan, as if his lungs could evacuate his ego along with the air. For a protracted moment, neither he nor Iliyria spoke. In the corridor, the lawmaster’s voice could be heard berating a hapless corporal for filing the wrong edition of a transfer log. Lowshade winced with every syllable.

Lowshade tried to recompose his dignity, but there was nothing left to salvage; he folded the incident report, tucked it into his jacket as a shield, and exited without meeting Iliyria’s eye.

Only when the door clicked shut did Iliyria let the muscles in her neck relax. She found no satisfaction in his defeat, only the dull acknowledgment that she had survived another round. If she had hoped for some grand exoneration, the Lawmaster’s efficiency had left no room for it. She was relieved, yes, but it came laced with a weariness that left her weighted, as if the cost of command was simply to outlast the next humiliation.

She stood, exiting the room and following Runecoat towards the exit. Io waited in the bull pen, arms crossed so tight they threatened to splinter the scales at his shoulders. When Iliyria stepped into the light, he straightened, then offered a nod that was almost military in its precision.

She gave him the smallest of smiles, signaling that his loyalty had not gone unnoticed. It struck her—drily, with a flicker of real gratitude—that she had never done a thing to earn this from him. That, perhaps, was what made it extraordinary. Most commanders inspired something—fear, awe, discipline—but what Iliyria tried to draw from her people was a species of hope. The city was a hard place, and its rules cruel, but if you played your cards with enough stubbornness, sometimes you could outwait the hand that fate had dealt.

She walked out into the street, the city’s early light prizing apart the clouds as the Watch headquarters gates clattered shut behind her. For a brief moment, Iliyria let herself savor the rarest of Capitol flavors: the taste of a morning she had not completely lost. Then she remembered, with the slow-drop dread of a stone through water, that she now had a tiefling in her holding cells and a wood elf somewhere on the loose. The future pressed its thumb into her sternum.

She exhaled, tried to roll her shoulders, and braced for the long day ahead.