The Day the City Looked Up

A Gallows Built for Three and One More

The chamber was thick with smoke from guttering torches, the air sharp with the scent of fear and old stone. Iliyria stood at the center, outlining the Watch’s latest move: the public execution in Fountain Square.

“The gallows are built,” she said flatly. “The Watch has announced the hanging of three prisoners. They call them ‘demonic traitors.’ I think we all know what that means.”

A low growl rose from Orlea before she could stop herself. Valpip muttered something bitter under his breath, scribbling imaginary notes in the air. Jarren sat stiff-backed, his bandaged hands lay uselessly on his lap, Niya pressed close at his side.

Then Bolt spoke, her voice quiet but deliberate. “The Temples are stirring. They won’t allow this spectacle to go unanswered.” Alavara nodded and continued, “Especially not with Radiance.” She hesitated. “She’s… she’s pregnant.”

The words cut through the chamber like a blade.

Uvak froze where he stood, every muscle gone taut. His scaled fists clenched against the table. “Pregnant?” His voice was low, dangerous. He turned to Alavara, then Iliyria, searching their faces for denial.

The silence was answer enough.

The room shifted. Orlea slammed her fist into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. 

Adan made the Sign of the Sun and whispered a prayer that shook with anger more than piety. “A mother, and they would still spill her blood…”

Valpip pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling sharply. “The Watch never misses a chance to turn cruelty into theater. A child just makes their spectacle louder.” His voice was dry, but his eyes betrayed him: hard, furious.

Felara swore softly, shaking her head. “Radiance, carrying that weight in silence… Gods damn them for singling her out.”

Kethry’s grip tightened on her staff. “This won’t stand. We won’t let them die.”

But all eyes turned back to Uvak. His jaw worked, words failing, until the silence threatened to swallow him. Finally, his voice cracked out, raw with grief and rage:

“They’ll not touch her. I’ll tear down the Square myself if I must.”

No one laughed, not even Valpip. They all knew he meant it.

The Runners shifted closer to him, a subtle, instinctive movement. Even in their fury, even in despair, the APS closed ranks. Radiance and Dalliance weren’t there, but their family was. And for them, and the child she carried, they would fight.

***

The mage-lights in the Watch headquarters guttered low, casting their cells in sickly yellow. Radiance sat with her back against the wall, hands folded protectively over her stomach. Dalliance leaned against the bars, pretending at ease, his tail flicking like an impatient metronome, pain still spiking with each movement. Nethspira sat cross-legged in the next cell, eyes closed, whispering prayers to gods she had never prayed to before, and she was certain they weren’t listening.

The scrape of boots echoed down the hall. Two guards approached, one with a rolled parchment in hand. They stopped before the cells, faces smug with the cruel satisfaction of messengers bringing doom.

“Orders are in,” the taller guard announced, unrolling the parchment with theatrical care. “At dawn tomorrow, all three of you will be hanged in Fountain Square. Public spectacle. The Watch will finally be rid of its tiefling problem.”

The words hung in the air like smoke.

Dalliance jolted forward, slamming against the bars. “Not her. Not Radiance.” His voice cracked, fury and fear spilling through the cracks of his usual bravado. “She’s carrying a child. Spare her, if you’ve any shred of decency left.”

The guards laughed. Cruel, humorless.

“A child?” the shorter one sneered. “Then we’ll be getting rid of another monster before it’s born. Saves us the trouble later.”

Radiance flinched, her arms tightening around her stomach. Dalliance’s claws scraped against the bars, teeth bared, but the guards only laughed again and strode away, their boots ringing against the stone.

Silence lingered, broken only by Nethspira’s steady voice. “They want us broken before the rope. Don’t give them that.”

Dalliance slid down the bars, pressing his forehead against them. “They’ll make a spectacle of us, love. Call us monsters until the crowd believes it.” His voice trembled, but then steadied, sharp again. “Then we’ll show them what monsters sing like.”

Radiance closed her eyes. Her breathing was shallow, but her voice, when it came, was steady. “If this is the end, we face it together. With dignity.”

Nethspira opened her eyes, gold flashing in the dim light. “And with defiance. The Square will hear us, one way or another.”

Dalliance laughed, though the sound was ragged. “Then let’s give them a show they’ll never forget. Tomorrow, we go out loud.”

The three sat in silence after that, the mage-lights humming overhead. Beneath the despair lay a thread of steel, dignity, defiance, and the faintest glimmer of hope.

If Iliyria was still out there.
If Team 7 was still running.
Then dawn might yet bring rescue instead of the rope.

***

Dawn peeled back the darkness of the cells with the cruelty of a rebuke. Radiance had not slept; she had spent the black hours counting the cracks in the ceiling and wishing for sleep, or for the gnawing ache in her chest to resolve itself into proper terror. Dalliance fared no better. He had hoped, vainly, as it turned out, that exhaustion might claim him, that some corner of his mind still believed in the balm of unconsciousness. Instead, every minute squirmed beneath the weight of his failure, the indignity of his gag, and the knowledge that dawn had come for him in the same way the noose would: sudden, raw, and completely indifferent.

Nethspira had elected not to lie down at all, and instead paced the periphery of the cell like a trapped animal. The circles beneath her eyes were dark, her mouth a thin line. At least she had the dignity of fury; Dalliance felt only sick and exhausted, a stomach lined with ice and a mind churning with self-recrimination.

There was no preamble to the guards' arrival. The rattle of keys in the heavy lock gave warning, but nothing could prepare for the theatricality of their entrance. The same men from the night before, the ones who had arrived in their cell after midnight sporting recreations of the Imperial Guard Uniforms from the Old Arethian days and spent several hours entertaining themselves with their pain. They filed into the corridor, each newly adorned in the Watch’s ceremonial red and gold. The uniforms were so crisp, so obviously recent, that the dye seemed not quite dry on the tunics.

Nethspira spat at the floor in front of their captain. "Are you done playing dress up now?" Her voice carried a whip of contempt.

The captain, a broad-chested man with white stubble, simply motioned to his underlings. "Bring them out."

Radiance caught Dalliance's eye. He attempted a sardonic wink, hard to pull off with his lips mashed tight by the gag, and even harder with a face as drawn and bloodless as his had become.

A guard reached for Radiance and, finding her too mouthy, pressed a balled scrap of linen between her teeth before buckling a crude muzzle over it. Nethspira received the same treatment with the added flourish of a curse muttered under the guard's breath. "No one wants to hear your poisonous words," the guard sneered as he cinched the strap.

Dalliance watched all of this with mounting, unmitigated outrage. The gag from the night before had been left on, caked in spit and the faint taste of blood, as if to remind him of all the things he would never get to say. Not a last, extravagant aria, not a clever retort, not even a groan of pain. If they wanted to kill him, the least they could do was let him go out with some flair.

They were hauled bodily from the cells, three prisoners flanked by a wall of Watch. The way up through the station was a parade of humiliation: jeers from the desk sergeants, deliberate shoves at each landing. Dalliance was certain that Nethspira would snap one of the soldiers’ necks if her hands weren’t shackled. As it was, she had to content herself with glowering and, when she could, digging the heel of her boot into her escort’s instep.

At street level, the winter morning was cold, and they no longer had the benefit of cloaks or jackets. A cart awaited them, its iron-barred cage large enough for livestock, and by the stains on the floor, it seemed it had previously served that purpose. They were locked inside, shackled to the bars, and the door slammed with a finality that reverberated through Dalliance's bones.

The ride across Fountain Square was slow and deliberate, the Watch not hurrying. If anything, they seemed to savor the pageantry of the moment. News of the execution had spread, and people lined the flagstone walks and crowded onto stoops. Some hurled curses, others simply stared in silence, eyes wide and uncertain. Children peered around the legs of their elders. Dalliance tried to find humor in the fact that his greatest audience was also his final one, but the gag smothered even that comfort.

Radiance, whose infernal ancestry had never seemed more pronounced than in these last hours, met every gaze with baleful fury. There was nothing in the city’s charter about executing the obviously innocent, but there was also nothing in it about mercy for tieflings. The crowd looked at her and saw either a monster, a victim or a scapegoat, and the difference seemed to matter less than the spectacle.

The cart jolted to a halt at the foot of the gallows. Three nooses hung ready from the timber frame, their ropes coiled like the tails of snakes. The platform had been hastily raised outside the Council Seat, so the spectacle would be in full view of every window and every major artery. A small podium stood to the side, manned by a council clerk holding a scroll that looked longer than most novels.

They were dragged from the cart and up the steps, boots thumping hollowly on the wooden planks. Dalliance’s legs trembled but he kept his head high. It would not do to go to death like a coward, even if they would not let him speak.

The captain oversaw their placement: Nethspira at left, Dalliance in the center, Radiance at right. The crowd, now numbering in the hundreds, was a living, shifting mass of faces. Some were eager. Many were frightened. A few held hands or pressed kerchiefs to their mouths.

A priest of Pelor, pink-faced and sweating, approached each in turn with the preamble for the condemned. “May your soul find rest,” he recited, sounding less convinced with each repetition. Dalliance could see something else in the man’s expression, something that seemed like anticipation. After he finished, the priest fled from the gallows, threading his way through the crowd and into an alley. Radiance and Dalliance exchanged a quick glance. Something was up.

The clerk unscrolled his parchment and began to read:

"For crimes most heinous, including but not limited to murder, conspiracy against the city, treasonous collusion with abyssal agents, and sundry acts of violence, it is decreed by Commander Lowshade, the acting head of state—”

Dalliance tuned out the rest. He had heard it all before, in the mutters of his jailers and the half-murmured threats of the guards. What they really meant was: for the crime of being the wrong kind of person, for the crime of surviving.

Nethspira bucked against her bonds, nearly pulling the executioner off the platform. The crowd gasped and then fell silent. Radiance stood perfectly still, horns back, tail frozen like a wire. She stared into the middle distance, as if seeing something none of the others could.

The captain, after the charges were finished, turned to the executioner. The man wore no mask, here, shame was not expected, and adjusted the nooses over each head with the careful precision of a man who found satisfaction in doing his job well.

Dalliance managed a look of withering contempt, which was all the showmanship he could muster.

The executioner stepped back, one hand on the lever.

Then something strange happened. A murmur at the edge of the square, then a ripple, then a rising tide of noise. From between the rows of Watchmen, figures in the blue and silver of the Temple of Kord surged forward with warhammers slung across their backs.

The temple warriors bellowed as one, their voices a thunderclap: “THIS IS AN INJUSTICE!” They drove forward in a wedge, scattering the first row of Watchmen. The crowd gasped and recoiled, but the Watch were quick to close ranks, forming a red and gold wall.

Above the tumult, a figure appeared, arcing up from the far end of the square: Iliyria Sylren, unmistakable even from a distance. She moved with impossible grace, propelled by magic and sheer force of will. Her silver hair snapped behind her like a pennant, and her eyes were cold and bright.

Radiance saw her first, and for an instant, her entire face changed; the hard lines softening into something desperate and radiant. Dalliance felt a surge of hope so raw that it stung.

But the executioner, seeing the chaos brewing, chose his moment. He jerked the lever.

Three floors dropped open. Three bodies fell.

The noose was not a clean end. It burned, it crushed, it made the world shrink to a needlepoint of pain. His last thought was of Fel, the way she bit her lip just the tiniest bit as she lined up an arcane shot, how she sparred with him, matching his wit with her scathing humor. He regretted not telling her what she meant to him, and regretted his own cowardice. With the last of his strength, he used his index finger to execute their code on the inside of his wrist. tap-tap Dalliance’s vision went white, then black, then nothing at all.

He came back to the world with the taste of blood in his mouth and the sound of voices, urgent, panicked. Surprisingly, he was very much alive.

He was lying on the platform, the rope no longer around his neck. Alavara was picking the lock on his manacles with surprising dexterity. Radiance and Nethspira sprawled beside him, gasping, their faces purpled but living.

Below them, the Watch was at war, clubs and swords and spells flashing in a riot of bodies. Iliyria was overhead, raining arcane missiles into the formation of the Watch with an expression that promised retribution beyond mere death.

Radiance rolled over and coughed, her voice ragged but clear. “We’re alive?”

“Barely,” Nethspira growled, already pushing herself upright, accepting a hand up from Dingus, who pushed a dagger into her hands. She grinned at him, looked out on the fray, and jumped into the crush of bodies, laughing like a madwoman.

The world was chaos: the crowd surging away from the fight, the crackle of magic, the wet thunk of warhammers. Dalliance had never imagined surviving his own execution, but now that it was reality, he found himself grinning like an idiot.

He staggered to his feet, swayed, and looked for Iliyria. She saw him and nodded once, sharp and satisfied, before dropping her focus to the next cluster of Watchmen.

He was not dead. He was not finished.

And, to his infinite relief, the gag was gone at last. He opened his mouth, took in a deep breath of air, and began to sing.

Fire and Song on the Gallows

The Square was packed, a sea of armor and faces. Watch banners snapped in the wind above the gallows, their crimson threads stark against the gray sky. Three ropes swung loose, waiting.

Dalliance, Radiance, and Nethspira were dragged into place, gagged so their protests were muffled into silence. Dalliance still managed to wink at the crowd, though his eyes burned with fury. Radiance’s hands shook, her bound fingers twitching against the slight swell of her stomach. Nethspira’s golden gaze was sharp, cold, unblinking, as though daring the Watch to tighten the rope.

The executioner stepped forward. The crowd hushed.

Then a roar split the air. Warrior-clerics in steel and blue surged into the Square, the banner of Kord high above them. Their voices thundered like a war drum: “Stop this execution! This is not justice!”

Chaos rippled through the crowd. Watch captains shouted orders. Civilians scrambled back.

And then, from the edges of the Square, came the storm: Team 7, Iliyria, the APS, and the criminals of the Gentleman’s Circle. Blades gleamed, spells flared, voices rose in open defiance. 

Nearby, a cacophony sounded as a flock ravens circled, diving to the ground and forcing bystanders back. The ravens swirled before dispersing, revealing the Raven Queen’s Reaper, scythe drawn, and a team of masked priestesses behind her. Ioun’s Archivists leapt down from rooftops with incredible grace, landing silently with bo staffs, darts and spears ready. Dusk and Dawn, from behind the rag-tag army’s lines, began to play, flute and shamisen blending in a song that fortified their advance with Llira’s hope, while clerics from the other temples; Adastreia, Torm, and Pelor waited in the wings, ready for triage.

From the center of the Watch’s ranks, dozens of corporals and privates removed purple strips of fabric that were hidden in their pockets, tying them around their arms like a badge. Corporal Aisha Dale nodded towards Buggy and then exchanged a determined glance with Corporal Severn Handred. Private Elaine Thomas’s face lit up with hope as she pointed towards the trespassers. Sergeant Marcus Kassan and Corporal Samantha Murphy emerged, sword raised and short bow leveled against their own institution. The Major Crimes Investigations Unit raised their own weapons in response.

The next few minutes were pure chaos.

Arrows flew toward the interlopers. Iliyria raised her hand, wings of invisible force unfurling around her as she lifted into the air. Shields of arcane light shattered under the storm of shafts; one arrow punched through and buried itself in her shoulder. She hissed but did not falter, eyes locked on her people. The executioner had pulled the lever at the first sign of resistance. She would not be too late.

She landed on the gallows in a blaze of light, her wards scattering the executioner backward. Team 7 surged in her wake, working quickly to free the tieflings whose vision had already begun to go black.

Dalliance, Radiance, and Nethspira stumbled free, gasping air as the ropes fell from their throats. Dingus pressed a dagger into Nethspira’s hand, their eyes locking for a heartbeat of recognition, old memories of the Foundling Hall flickering in the chaos. Nethspira grinned, feral, before leaping from the dais into the melee, blade flashing.

Dalliance and Radiance remained on the raised platform, back to back. Dalliance’s gag hit the boards, and his voice rose at once, laughter turned spell, a song that bent the air around him and wove courage into the APS below. Radiance’s palms ignited with flame; bolts of fire streaked into the Watch ranks, bursting shields, scattering lines.

Below, Uvak rampaged through the press of bodies like a storm given flesh. His blade, wreathed in green flame, carved arcs of steel and blood, his roar shaking the Square. The APS clustered behind him, their defiance turned into fury, cutting a path toward the gallows.

When Uvak reached the dais, his sword was slick with blood, his chest heaving. His eyes found Radiance, and softened. He vaulted onto the platform, cleaving down a guard who dared climb after him.

Radiance turned, her fire still burning at her fingertips. He seized her hand, pulling her close for only a heartbeat. “We’ll fight through this together,” he growled. Then, quieter, his gaze flicking to her stomach: “But after this… we talk. About the baby.”

Radiance’s lips parted, her eyes wide. For a breath, time slowed, the chaos of the Square falling away. Then Dalliance’s voice cut back in, his song swelling, his grin wicked despite the blood on his lips.

Felara was next onto the platform. She took the ladder in a blur, boots skidding on blood-slick rungs. She came up on Dalliance’s right shoulder, close enough to feel the vibration of his song through the planks. Without looking at him, she set two knuckles to the grip of her bow, tap-tap, and drew. He answered between phrases with two soft heel beats on the boards, tap-tap, the rhythm folding neatly into his melody.

She breathed the syllables and the arrowhead went blue-white, sigils crawling up the shaft like frost. “On the second,” she muttered; he shifted the tune, holding the note that let her time the shot. A Watch captain crested the opposite stair, iron bolt leveled at Dalliance’s throat. Felara’s arcane arrow screamed across the gap and burst against the captain’s bracer, detonating in a spray of force that sent him and his crossbow clattering back into the mob.

Another shape surged up the ladder, she nocked, tap-tap on the fletching, and loosed again, this one hitting the man in the eye, he fell back with barely a sound; Dalliance’s voice climbed over the din, wicked and bright. He leaned into her back for a heartbeat and she pressed her shoulder to his, answering the beat with one last tap-tap before pivoting to cover the left rail.

The gallows, meant to be a stage of humiliation, had become a fortress. A beacon. From its planks, tiefling fire and song blazed into the Square, Iliyria’s wards flared in arcs of violet light, and the APS surged upward, unbroken.

And as the Watch faltered under the combined fury of gods, mages, criminals, and Runners, Iliyria let out a sharp, ragged breath of relief. She had made it in time. Her people lived.

But it wasn’t over yet. Team 7 did not stop. With Radiance and Dalliance freed, with Nethspira’s blade dripping red as she cut her way through the Watch ranks, Iliyria turned her gaze upward, to the Council Seat.

Io pointed, noting his divine sense identified an infernal aura coming from the building. Without even looking to her for confirmation, Team 7 surged toward the Council chamber, cutting their way through stragglers as the APS and the Circle held the Square. Iliyria forced herself to turn back to the battle. She was needed here, and she would have to trust that Team 7 could pull off a second revolution in as many months.

Projected in Blood and Light

Across from the Seat, on a balcony of the Ballroom overlooking the Square, the site of the coup’s inception, Ophelia and Isemay knelt together, flanked by runners and criminals bristling with blades. The room smelled of incense and steel, of blood and candle smoke.

Isemay held the pendant aloft, its twin on Buggy’s chest burning with blue light. The scar across her shoulder seared, the curse flaring like a brand, but she clenched her teeth and did not cry out.

Ophelia set a miniature harp on the floor. With a breath and a whispered command, it swelled into full size, strings glimmering like spun silver. She sat before it, fingers trembling, and began to play. The first notes filled the room, and then, with a shimmer of magic, the Square came alive with light.

The Council Chamber, projected larger than life, filled the sky. Every eye turned.

***

Team 7 stood before Commander Lowshade. His face sneered with familiar disdain, until the image rippled. Stripes began to crawl across his skin. His eyes glowed with inhuman light. And then the truth stood revealed: a rakshasa, tiger-headed and terrible, its voice hissing over the city.

Gasps and cries erupted from the Square. Watch soldiers faltered mid-swing. Some dropped their blades in horror.

But others, men with black-feather pins, Sons of the Arethian Empire, shouted back. “Lies! Trickery!” And they charged, cutting toward the balcony.

The waiting Runners and Circle thugs met them with steel and spell. Blood spattered the floorboards, but the line held.

Ophelia’s fingers bled as she plucked the strings, the harp answering her agony with a thunderous resonance. Beside her, Isemay’s scar blazed like molten iron, sweat streaking her face, but she did not falter. Their magic intertwined: music and memory, projection and proof.

Ophelia glanced sideways, just a heartbeat, when a blade nearly reached Isemay. A runner cut the attacker down, steel biting bone. Relief broke through her grim focus, tears prickling her eyes. She’s safe. She’s safe. Then she forced her fingers back to the strings, though every pluck tore skin raw.

***

On the projection, the city watched Team 7 fight the rakshasa.

Dingus’s rapier flashed,  then the creature’s claws tore him open, blood soaking his shirt, eyes wide at the sight of his own intestines. His body crumpled. Screams echoed from the crowd below.

Buggy roared, sword splitting air, the rakshasa responded in kind. Buggy fell with a bellow of rage cut short, and the projection flickered before resuming, this time at a new angle.

Nimueh’s staff sang, moving with incredible speed, until the rakshasa ripped her from the air and slammed her head into the tile floor, not once but twice, each with a sickening crack. Her body sprawled lifeless, blood pooling beneath her.

Cries of despair tore through the Square.

Then, a flare of light. Io’s voice, cracked with grief, rose in prayer. Bolt’s hands moved like lightning, channeling raw life. And one by one, Dingus, Buggy, Nimueh gasped back into breath, blood reversed, wounds closing. The crowd erupted in awe.

Still the fight raged.

***

Below the projection, Iliyria staggered to the steps of the Council Seat. The violence in the Square had been stymied. Blood ran freely from the arrow in her shoulder, her wards flickering, as she stared at the sky, eyes tracking the battle.

Through the projection, she saw Buggy nearly fall again, saw Alavara standing too close to the rakshasa’s claws. Panic lanced her heart. “Alavara—” Her voice cracked. They had saved Radiance and Dalliance. But now, she could only watch.

Her eyes locked on the projection, unblinking, as if sheer will could shield them.

The Square was one heartbeat, one shared gaze, watching the truth unfold. Runners and criminals cutting down zealots, Ophelia’s harp dripping with blood, Isemay’s scar blazing like a brand.

The city watched its heroes die, and live again, against a monster in the guise of law.

The projection flickered, smoke and blood still smeared across its phantom walls. Team 7 stood bloodied but unbowed, the rakshasa’s striped form looming in the chamber. His voice rolled like velvet thunder, too low for the Square to hear, but the shape of his words was clear: an offer.

A deal.

Buggy’s sword stilled, his expression unreadable. Nimueh’s muscles were taut, though her shoulders shook with exhaustion. Hurricane sparked in Bolt’s hands and Io narrowed his eyes. Dingus, who had polymorphed into the form of a giant ape after his revival, looked prepared to charge. Alavara’s face was tight with fury, but she did not strike.

Then, sudden and sharp, the projection cut to black. The music of the harp strangled into silence as Isemay gasped and snapped the link, her scar blazing white-hot. She collapsed against the wall, clutching her shoulder.

On the balcony, Ophelia’s fingers slipped from the harp, blood smeared across the strings. She caught Isemay before she fell, holding her close. Both women trembled, drained near to breaking.

The bloodied runners and Circle fighters looked to Ophelia and Isemay, waiting. Neither spoke. The harp still hummed faintly with resonance, as though it too waited for resolution.

In the crowd, civilians clutched one another, whispering. They had seen their leaders deceived, their heroes fight monsters, but the final act was stolen from them.

Were their champions victorious? Had they bargained their souls for survival?

No one knew.

The Square erupted; voices shouting, questions rising, panic and hope colliding.

On the steps of the Council Seat, Iliyria staggered forward and slammed her palms against the sealed doors again. Her magic surged, violet light crackling, splintering the stone frame, but the wards flared hotter, infernal script glowing like brands. The force backlashed, nearly driving her to her knees.

“No!” she cried, pounding her fists against the unyielding doors. “Let me in!”

Her voice broke, ragged with fear. Alavara was in there. Her daughter in all but name. She could only imagine what bargain they were making with a devil in her stead.

Behind her, the APS and Circle pressed against the lingering echoes of chaos in the Square, holding lines against Watch stragglers. Uvak roared as he cleaved through a Son, but even his fury faltered when he saw Iliyria hammering against the sealed entrance like a woman possessed.

Iliyria pressed her forehead to the doors, her breath ragged. If the projection had ended by choice, perhaps Team 7 had survived. Perhaps they had struck the killing blow.

But her mind whispered darker possibilities. She had fought devils before. Deals with them were not victories, only postponements of doom.

Her fists trembled against the stone. She whispered Alavara’s name, as though the woman might hear her through stone and magic and hellfire.

“I should be in there,” Iliyria murmured, broken. “I should be the one paying the price.”

The Square waited in silence, a city suspended on the edge of revelation.

And Iliyria, Master Arcanist, Commander of the Arcane Protection Service, stood powerless before the doors of her own Council.

***

The wards shuddered with a sound like tearing steel. Iliyria paced back and forth in front of the great doors of the Council Seat, heart hammering in her chest. Suddenly, the door opened a crack, and she looked up to see Buggy standing at the threshold. Seeing her, he opened the door wider, revealing his son, Anders, behind him. Iliyria stood on her toes, but could not see any of the others. 

She faltered, “Corporal, is it just you? Where is everyone else?” She struggled to sound composed. Buggy considered for a moment, then replied, “they went to grab Evanton.”

“Is everyone alright?” She asked. He stared for a moment at the shaft of the arrow that still pierced through her shoulder. She had broken it off close to the skin so it wouldn’t be caught on anything. “Everyone is alive,” he answered.

The entire Square was silent as they spoke. Collectively holding their breath. Iliyria looked out at the crowd and then back at Buggy, “We should wait for the rest to come out, then we can take the next steps…”

“Sounds good,” Buggy replied flatly, already taking rolling papers out from his pocket, settling into his tobacco ritual. Anders hung a few feet back from his father, eyes pointed at the ground.

Buggy finished rolling his cigarette, lit it, and took a long drag before turning back to his son. Iliyria, resumed her pacing a bit further away, giving them space.

“So I don’t know if you…” Buggy searched for the words. “So…you and a lot of the other people here were affected by that thing. That wasn’t Lowshade. I watched Lowshade die about a week ago.”

Anders didn’t look up. “I know he wasn’t. He told me.”

Buggy continued, gaining momentum, “Things like that can get in your head. Very intentionally.”

Anders bit his lip, then shook his head, “He told me that he didn’t, that he wouldn’t do that to me. He said it was ‘cuz I was a kid.”

“Well, if you believe him, then I’m glad I didn’t.” Buggy spoke to Anders with very little inflection, his emotions sheltered behind a wall he may not have been entirely conscious of. 

There was a short pause, and Anders moved to fill the silence. “He just made it so I couldn’t move.”

Another pause, before Buggy added, “I just want it to be said that nothing that happened with all of this,” he gestured broadly to the Square, to the city itself, “is your fault. You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

Anders stood, hands clasped, still not able to meet his father’s eyes. This time Buggy didn’t attempt to fill the silence for a full two minutes, before asking if he needed water or anything. Anders voice replied in a whisper, “no, I’m OK.” Buggy accepted the answer, “We’ll get your mom as soon as we can.”

At that moment, the doors opened again and out came Dingus and Nimueh, battered but upright, flanking Io and Bolt. Alavara came close behind. Their armor was cracked, their robes torn, but their steps were steady. The group stepped into the morning light, joining Buggy, and the Square watched with something approaching awe. Team 7 emerged victorious, at least that was the image they projected.

The crowd was uneasy, quiet. They had seen the rakshasa’s true form, seen their protectors bleed and die and rise again. 

The Watch stood frozen, their ranks shaken. Some stood utterly still, in shock and processing the events. Others openly cried out in outrage at the fact they had been deceived, guilt clear on their faces. Others, Sons, sneered, muttering, their rage not spent.

But for now, the Square was united in shock. The spectacle the Watch had planned, the hangings at dawn, had been replaced by another: the revelation of their corruption, their complicity in horror.

The silence was broken abruptly with a single whoop, Nyx throwing their fist into the air. The APS began to cheer, joined in quick succession by the Gentlemen’s Circle, the clerics and the members of the Watch bearing the purple armband.

The Raven Queen’s priestesses began to fan out into the crowd, beginning the grim work of tallying the dead, efficiently shrouding the fallen. High Priest Pavel of the Temple of Adastreia directed the rest of the clerics to triage the most severe injuries. Kord’s warriors began clearing out the mob, sending uninjured civilians back to their homes.

For a heartbeat Iliyria allowed herself to exhale, shoulders sagging. Her gaze shifted to Alavara, and her fear returned like a flood. Alavara stood behind the others, her face shadowed, exhaustion heavy in every line of her body. Iliyria wanted to seize her, to demand to know what deal they had struck, what price they had paid. But she swallowed it, lips pressed to silence. The city was watching.

Off to the side, Sergeant Trevon Argell, raised a hand to his head, and looked around. Confusion and pain clear on his face. Buggy, uncharacteristically calculating, approached Argell with purpose, mindful of his audience. “Sergeant, are you alright?” Argell blinked at him, eyes glazed, blood oozing from his nose. “I don’t remember, I don’t know.” Clearly he was disoriented. The effects of the rakshasa’s manipulation were more severe for him than the others.

Buggy continued forward, placing a hand on the large man’s shoulder, and used the healing spell stored in his ring to stop the nosebleed. Argell took a deep breath, and his eyes cleared just a fraction. “Someone is going to have to explain to me what all just happened.” 

Alavara chimed in, “You got mind-fucked by a rakshasa,” she explained, deadpan. “Which is a type of devil,” Buggy clarified. 

Argell nodded, less to demonstrate understanding but more to indicate he had heard them. Sergeant Kassan, by this point, had made his way through the crowd. He placed a firm hand on Argell’s shoulder, and gently began leading him away, speaking softly.

Meanwhile, two others emerged from the Council Seat, strangers to many in the Square, but not to the APS. Deliah, Head Archivist, Oracle of Ioun, her once-fearless gaze now hollowed: her eyes clawed to ruin, her face streaked with dried blood. She stumbled, weak from fever, leaning heavily on Master Arcanist Evanton’s arm.

A cry tore through the crowd. Isylte and Gilene surged forward, their weapons forgotten, their hard-won battle poise collapsing into panic.

“Mother!”

Deliah faltered at the sound, her hands grasping blindly. Her daughters caught her, clutching her close, their voices a rapid stream of questions and reassurances. “We thought you were gone, we didn’t know…saints, your eyes—”

Deliah managed a wan smile, her fingers brushing their faces, memorizing them by touch. “I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m still here.”

The girls wept openly, holding her as though they could anchor her to the world. The sight cut the APS to the bone: Deliah, who had always been implacable, now frail, covered in blood, stripped of the certainty that had once defined her.

The Runners pressed forward, murmuring in shock at Deliah and Evanton’s wounds. “Angrist’s office,” Evanton muttered, voice tight, as Adan, Kethry and Faleth moved forward, healing magic already at their fingertips. “They kept us in a councilor’s office bathroom like dogs.”

The runners swore and spat, their rage as sharp as steel. Iliyria walked to join her Runners, her gaze lingering over each face, mentally confirming the presence of each of her people, and cataloguing their injuries. Adan looked up from Evanton, and moved to meet her, gaze landing on the shaft of an arrow still in her shoulder. Iliyria waved him off. He hovered for a moment, considering pushing the issue, but there were others who had greater need for healing. 

After confirming all her runners were accounted for, with the exception of those tasked with guarding Isemay and Ophelia, Iliyria moved back to Team 7, who had huddled and were discussing whether they should attempt a speech. They all agreed, almost immediately, that it wasn’t their job, and were making plans to get the Council out of the sewers. 

“We should check on Isemay and Ophelia,” Iliyria said as she approached, and they nodded, following her in the direction of the ballroom. As they passed, Team 7 stopped to thank their allies. 

Nimueh shared a meaningful look with Pavel, who was bent over a member of the Circle who had been stabbed in the abdomen. He nodded at the monk, a slight smile gracing his face, before he turned back to his patient. Bolt accepted deferential salutes and bows from the war priests, wearing an awkward smile that did little to hide her unease with her newly won title as “Head Priestess” of the Temple of Kord. 

Dingus, for his part, began asking around about the afterparty, seeking to relive the thrill of the celebrations at Volfast. For the most part, he was purposefully ignored, as people went about doing what was necessary to clean up the aftermath.

The group entered the Ballroom, Anders still trailing behind his father. They went up to the second floor, noting the presence of several bodies of Watchmen. Elise, Gerrard and Orlea stood with a group of Circle members nearby. Io quickly retreated to inform the Raven Queen’s priestesses of the bodies, and returned after a moment.

Isemay leaned heavily on Ophelia as they emerged from the balcony, their magic spent. Ophelia’s hands still bloodied, a cold sweat on her brow. Isemay’s scar still ached, pulsing in time with her heartbeat, but she held her head high, gaze steady. They moved to meet Team 7 and Iliyria, Isemay informing them that she had not only stretched the projection over the Square, but also a large swath of the Capitol itself. Ophelia added that the Council would be aware of their victory, as they had been watching from a mirror back at the Circle’s headquarters.

They walked together, heading back to sewers, back to the Gentleman’s Circle. Nimueh left a trail of purple gentian and pink carnation petals in her wake, weaving a story of victory, justice, and remembrance in the language of flowers.