The Watch's Holiday Guests

The cell block at Watch Headquarters was built to demoralize as much as to detain. The first room, where they took your name and your history and whatever dignity you’d managed to keep, was lit by three harsh mage lamps. The benches, deliberately too narrow, had a slow way of sapping your will. And always, there was the sound, a constant scrape and clang of keys, boots on stone, voices pitched to carry in the echo chamber of guilt and expectation.

Jarren Saurivier was the first APS runner through the gate that night, though he wouldn’t have called it a race. He came in with his head held level, not high, not low, his left sleeve torn and crusted with blood, some his, most not. The guards pushed him ahead, past a line of shivering drunks and a pair of Watch rookies who eyed him like a snake that might still have some bite left. Jarren did not struggle, did not dignify their shoves with even a token wince.

Orleabella Hillborn followed close behind, or would have if she had the use of her feet. They’d shackled her at the ankles and wrists and added a leather muzzle after she tried to take a chunk out of the Watch corporal who’d overseen her capture. The result was less prisoner and more wild animal on parade, but Orlea seemed to relish the effect: she rolled her eyes at the onlookers, made a show of drooling through the muzzle, and thumped her manacled hands against the wall, causing several Watchmen to flinch from the sound.

The third arrival was Adan Holfstead, though calling him an arrival overstated things. He was slumped between two Watchmen, one on either side, head lolled against his chest, a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His clothes, once the immaculate whites and golds of Pelor, were soiled, torn, and barely holding together. He didn’t stir when they dumped him next to Jarren in the holding cell. Jarren immediately leaned over and checked his pulse, the motion careful, almost reverent.

The last of the first wave was Valpip, who emerged from the hallway with a look of such cosmic irritation that it bordered on dignity. The guard simply carried him under his armpit, as if he were a particularly ill-tempered toddler. Valpip’s bushy blue-grey eyebrows shot up as he surveyed his fallen colleagues, then settled into a scowl.

They were herded into the largest cell in the block, an eight-by-fifteen space caged on all sides with bars as thick as a child’s wrist. On the wall, some prior occupant had scratched “THIS IS WHERE HOPE GOES TO SHIT” in three languages; underneath, someone else had added, “AND IT NEVER WIPES ITS ASS.” 

Jarren immediately set to arranging Adan on a bench, pillowing his head on his lap. “Can we get a doctor or a cleric in here?” he called through the bars, voice calm but carrying. “Or at least some bandages?” The Watchmen on duty, a duo that looked like they’d been hired for their willingness to stare, ignored him completely.

Orlea flopped herself down beside Valpip, who refused to scoot over, resulting in a slow-motion wrestling match of shoulder and thigh. It might have been comical if not for the muzzle and the bruises that ringed Orlea’s neck like a necromancer’s choker.

They sat in silence, the four of them, as the cell filled with the slow, stale breath of an institution that prided itself on predictability.

That predictability lasted about twelve minutes.

The next two arrived in a flurry of shouts, the distinctive sound of chain-on-chain, and, above all, Radiance’s voice, still warm, even through the haze of pain that suffused it.

“Get your hands off him, you slug!” she spat, twisting in the grip of a Watch enforcer whose uniform strained at the seams. Uvak was with her, hands bound but still managing to look as if he could tear the bars off the cell if given half a minute and a plausible excuse. Radiance’s left eye was swelling, an ugly bruise rising in stark contrast to her red skin, but she stood upright, chin up.

Uvak let out a growl that reverberated in the stone, but he let it go, slumping onto the bench beside Orlea, who grinned at him through the muzzle.

Radiance gave Jarren a quick once-over, her gaze softening when she saw Adan. “He okay?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“He will be,” Jarren replied, though the truth in it was a coin toss.

The cell began to fill in earnest then, a parade of APS runners, each more battered and bemused than the last. Niya came in flanked by Nyx, Isylte, and Faleth. Niya made straight for her father, almost bowling over Valpip in her haste, and pressed her hands to his face, checking for signs of trauma. He smiled at her and patted her cheek before gently settling her on the bench beside him.

Faleth, tall enough that she had to duck through the cell door, surveyed the room with a growing anxiety. She hovered over Adan, muttering quiet assurances, then fumbled with her manacled hands to try and stem the bleeding at his mouth. The guards watched closely, but let her.

Nyx slid into the cell with a dancer’s grace, pausing only to offer Orlea a thumbs-up and then a wink at Radiance. They took a seat in the far corner, knees drawn up, eyes darting around the cell as if cataloguing all the possible escape vectors.

Isylte, more subdued, simply followed Niya, placing herself between her and the guards with an air of quiet vigilance.

Elise and Gilene arrived next, each supporting the other with a kind of grim mutuality. Elise’s hair was matted with what looked like dried ink, her eyes sharp and cutting; Gilene’s clerical robes were shredded but she still had the air of someone who considered herself above the present company, even as she slumped into the available space and immediately began inspecting the injuries of those around her. They were followed by Skif, the redheaded halfling, and Gerard, the dwarf, both limping and both silent, eyes fixed on the floor.

Dalliance did not so much enter the cell as get launched into it. The guards, tired of his endless commentary and attempts to seduce them into better accommodations, simply opened the door and tossed him inside. He hit the floor, bounced once, and lay there for a moment, breathing heavily. When he stood, it was clear something was wrong. His tail, usually the first thing to rise, drooped at an unnatural angle, the tip bent so sharply that it looked more like a question mark than an exclamation point.

Finally, Selaney, walking with her head held high and not a scratch on her, was ushered into the cell.

The cell, now at capacity and then some, fell into an uneasy quiet. The runners eyed each other, counting noses, tallying wounds, and, in more than one case, noting the absent. Iliyria was nowhere to be seen, nor was any trace of Team 7, Brynne or the rest of Dalliance’s team. They didn’t know whether they should mourn or celebrate.

They waited.

***

The cell stank of mold and cheap limewash, the kind of smell that clung to you long after you left. Nyx muttered, “Five stars, would recommend,” as he slid down against the wall.

Elise groaned, testing the chain on her wrists. “Council-approved accommodations,” she said. “Complete with a draft and no room service.”

Dalliance sighed theatrically, “And no Hearthswarming feast.”

Selaney tugged at the flour-streaked apron still tied around her waist. A smear of dried frosting clung stubbornly to the hem. “If you’re desperate, I can scrape you off a taste. No promises on flavor.”

Dalliance recoiled with mock horror. “Prison rations? Darling, I may be in chains, but I still have standards.”

The laugh that went around the cell was thin, but it was something. In the dark of the Watch’s holiday jail, even gallows humor sounded like defiance.

Time moved in jumps and skips. There were moments when the cell seemed to shrink, the air thickening with the collective realization that, for all their cleverness and power, they had ended up exactly where half the city wanted them: behind bars, shorn of resources, and waiting for someone else to decide their fate.

It was in this lull that the two strangers were delivered to the neighboring cell.

The first was a tiefling woman, skin a pinkish yellow, like the rind of an overripe peach, hair an impossible tangle of red spirals that bounced as she moved. She wore the remnants of a cloak, black, high-collared, lined with something that looked expensive even in its current state. Her hands were cuffed, and she walked with the stilted, deliberate pace of someone trained to make every step count, even in defeat.

The second was a half-orc man, easily seven feet if he’d been standing straight, with a beard and mustache so thick it could have supported a family of birds. His clothes were simple, civilian, but there was a professionalism to the way he sized up the cell and the runners within. He nodded at the tiefling, then sat on the bench and closed his eyes as if preparing for a long journey by simply skipping the intervening hours.

Neither spoke. They didn’t need to; their presence was statement enough.

As the guards locked them in, Orlea, muffled by her muzzle but still understandable, shouted, “Hey! What’s a nice tiefling like you doing in a hole like this?”

The yellow tiefling glanced over, then smiled, sharp, predatory. “Same as you, I imagine. Wrong place, wrong time, too much to say.”

Orlea cackled, and for a moment the gloom lifted, if only by a hair.

The cell block went quiet again. Faleth, working through her own anxiety, placed a palm against Adan’s forehead and closed her eyes, lips moving in silent invocation. A faint, earthy green glow suffused her hand, and some of the tension in Adan’s face relaxed. His breathing steadied; the blood at his mouth stopped. Faleth exhaled, sweat beading her brow.

Jarren smiled at her. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it.

Valpip, who had been fiddling with the bolt on the bench for the better part of an hour, finally slumped back, feet swinging in the air. “This is a shambles,” he said, to no one in particular. “They couldn’t even spring for decent gnome-sized facilities.”

Nyx snorted. “Did you really expect them to?”

Valpip sighed. “No. But it’s the principle.”

Time slipped past, measured only by the changing of the Watch. The runners talked in low voices, recounting how they’d been caught, and what they had heard. The stories converged on a single, ugly truth: the city had never wanted them, not really, and the minute it was convenient to do so, it had turned on them with the full weight of history behind the blow.

Orlea leaned her head back against the bars, closing her eyes as the footsteps of the Watch receded down the hall.

“Gods,” she muttered, “I’d give anything for this to be another Battle of the Hat.”

Skif snorted, wincing as the chains bit into his wrists. “Three hours of Iliyria explaining to Lowshade why his prized headgear ended up wrapped in ribbon? I’d take that over this any day.”

Nyx, slouched in the corner, gave a dry laugh. “At least then the worst we got was Iliyria’s death glare. This—” he rattled his chains, grimacing, “—this feels less festive.”

****

Somewhere in the depths of the night, the Watch made their move.

The new shift was led by a man who practically sweated authority. He was lanky, hair shorn close to his scalp, with a face in a shape reminiscent of a weasel and eyes like a ledger that had already written your name in the red. He approached the cell, flanked by four guards, and tapped the bars with his baton.

“Listen up,” he said, his voice filling the space without raising above conversational volume. “I am Corporal Lucas Kravits, and I will be handling your transition to the next phase of detainment.”

He paused, letting the silence spool out.

“You are all being held under suspicion of treason, conspiracy, and collusion with hostile entities, namely, the demons that have been plaguing this city. Your records, colorful as they are, don’t give you much in the way of plausible deniability. And thanks to the events of last night, your leverage is thin as a prayer in a thunderstorm.”

He let that settle, watching their faces.

“In case you haven’t heard, the Capitol Council is dead. Every member, every functionary, every last one of the miserable bastards that ran this place. Assassinated at the Hearthswarming Ball. The city is under martial law, which means that, for all practical purposes, you belong to us now. And if you want to avoid the rope, you’ll be very, very helpful in the next few hours.”

He scanned the cell, picking out the leaders.

“The word is that Iliyria Sylren, together with her precious Team 7, orchestrated the whole thing. They’re gone, off the grid, vanished, not a trace. If any of you have information, now’s the time. There’s reward in it, and mercy, if you care about such things.”

No one answered. The cell sat in a silence so dense it could have been woven into a rug and sold on the Black Market.

Kravits smiled, thin and sharp. “You may think you’re tough, or special, or irreplaceable. But here’s the truth: the city has replaced better than you before. It’ll do it again. The only choice you have left is what kind of footnote you want to be in the history of your own extinction.”

There was a long moment when no one spoke. Then Nyx started to giggle.

It was a small thing, at first, a nervous titter, the sort of sound you make when the world has finally broken you in a way that is, if not funny, at least familiar. But the sound caught, rolling through the cell like a slow-building thunderstorm. Soon Orlea joined in, then Valpip, then Uvak, then Radiance, each trying and failing to stifle it. The laughter doubled in on itself, contagious and wild, until even Jarren felt it curl up in his chest and break free as a raw, barking guffaw.

Within seconds, the entire cell was howling with laughter. It went on for minutes, unbroken, a hysterical, defiant refusal to let the Watch have the last word.

At last, when the noise receded and all that remained was the uneven breathing of exhausted prisoners, Dalliance, who had spent the entire exchange reclining on the splintered bench as if it were a chaise lounge at the opera, propped himself on one elbow and aimed a lazy grin at Kravits.

“Not for nothing, but that’s the best opening act I’ve ever seen in a lock-up,” he said, his voice honeyed, lazy, designed to provoke. “The bit about the ‘rope,’ priceless. Didn’t think you Watch types had a sense of irony.”

Gilene rolled her eyes, lips curling into a half-smile. “And honestly, Kravits, that’s your story? Iliyria and Team Seven are rash, but not stupid. Even they wouldn’t blunder into half the nonsense you’re peddling. It’s so obviously a fabrication it’s almost insulting.”

Kravits bristled, color rising in his cheeks. “Careful. Your insolence is only making this easier to justify.”

Dalliance let out a low whistle. “Justify? Darling, you couldn’t justify a tavern tab. If that’s the best you’ve got, you’re going to have to start charging admission . Comedy this bad deserves an audience.”

A ripple of laughter moved through the cell again, louder this time, leaving Kravit red-faced and sputtering.

Kravits’ baton whipped out and slammed against the bars sending a metallic shockwave through the room. A few of the runners twitched at the sound, but most merely looked up, bored or bemused.

“We’ll see if you’re still laughing come morning, demon-spawn.” He lingered on the last syllable like a curse, before turning on his heel and retreating.

On the far side of the cell, Dalliance wiped his eyes and turned to the yellow tiefling in the next cell over. “If they’re going to execute us, I hope they do it before breakfast. The coffee here is unforgivable.”

The tiefling grinned, sharp as a sickle.

Eventually, the laughter died, but the mood in the cell had shifted. The hopelessness was still there, but it had taken on a new shape; a stubborn, reckless solidarity that would not be broken by mere inevitability.

Selaney’s voice broke the silence, softer than usual. “Do you think… do you think it’s true? That the whole Council is dead?” Her eyes flicked down to her lap, then back up, guilt heavy in the glance. “Isemay was there.”

No one answered right away. Even Orlea, normally quick with a barb, pressed her lips tight.

Valpip exhaled through his nose, shifting against the wall. “When Iliyria called me, before the headquarters fell , she said she had the Council with her. All of them. Sounded like they were still breathing then, at least.” He shrugged, but there was a glint of something steadier in his eyes. “Which means Kravits’ story smells like the rest of his nonsense.”

Selaney swallowed hard, a flicker of relief breaking across her face. “So maybe they’re alive.”

When the cell finally fell quiet, Valpip spoke again, his voice raw but steady. “It’s going to be a long night.”

****

Morning came in the cell block not as a sunrise but as a shift change: the slap of boots in the corridor, the metallic groan of locks being tested, the upwind drift of cheap coffee and the sharper sting of anticipation. No one had really slept. They’d dozed, sometimes, head nodding into bruised arms only to jerk awake at the first sound of a key, a cough, a stifled laugh from the night shift. The air was heavier than it had been the night before, less with despair than with the calculation that comes after a verdict is read.

The Watch opened the cell at six bells. They didn’t bother with subtlety. A squad of six, two with clubs already out and one with a sheaf of parchment, filed in and started rapping their batons on the bars, a tattoo of morning impatience. Orlea was the first on her feet, muzzle and all; she greeted them with a low, mocking bow. Nyx rolled upright, blinking away the last clinging ghosts of a dream, while Isylte and Gilene closed ranks with the younger runners.

“Up! Line up against the far wall,” barked the Watch lieutenant. “Let’s not make a mess of it.”

There was a shuffling, resentful compliance. Uvak helped Valpip to his feet, while Jarren took charge of the still-recovering Adan, who moved stiffly but upright. Even Faleth looked smaller, as if she had been partially folded in on herself during the night.

Gilene moved too slow, favoring a sprained ankle. She had barely taken two steps before the guard’s hand clamped on her arm and shoved hard, sending her stumbling into the wall.

“Move, prisoner!” he snapped.

Isylte was on him before anyone could stop her. She pivoted on her heel and drove a sharp high kick straight into his stomach. The impact knocked the wind from him, doubling him over with a grunt.

The cell went still.

Another guard surged forward, snapping the butt of his spear against the bars to break the moment. “Enough! Restrain her.”

Isylte’s chest heaved, defiant eyes locked on the gasping man she’d floored. Her satisfaction lasted only a second before iron clamped around her ankles, biting cold into her skin to match the shackles already on her wrists.

The first guard straightened slowly, his glare venomous. “Try that again, girl, and you won’t be walking out of here at all.”

Gilene, who had spent a lifetime negotiating the difference between courage and insanity with her younger sister, could see the calculation in Isylte’s jaw. She willed her to back down, to let it pass, to, just once, choose survival over pride. Isylte did not oblige. She straightened, chin high, and met the guard’s eyes with a ferocity that even Valpip looked away.

The guard Isylte had doubled over moved, face gone blotchy with rage, and lunged at her.

Gilene tried to intercept, placing herself between her sister and the officer. Her own wrists were bound, but she offered them up meekly, as if to distract from Isylte with her compliance. “Please,” she said, voice hoarse, “she didn’t mean—”

“Enough out of you.” He shoved Gilene aside, sending her skidding into Nyx, who caught her and steadied her with a tight, silent grip. The guard turned back to Isylte and seized her by the braid and yanked her down, sharp and ugly.

The second guard, beefier, moved to block anyone who might intervene. Uvak’s nostrils flared, and for a split instant it looked as if he might go for the man’s throat, but Isylte shook her head sidewise, a silent command that stilled him.

The first guard slammed Isylte’s head into the bars once, twice, not enough to kill, but enough to make her eyes roll unmoored in their sockets. Gilene went pale with panic, and started toward her sister again, only for Nyx to hold her back.

Dalliance half-rose, ready to play at gallantry, but the butt of a club squared him in the gut before he could even get a line out. Radiance, similarly, caught a forearm across her collarbone that sent her reeling back into the crook of the wall. Uvak, seeing Radiance stagger, surged forward with a guttural roar. It caught in the back of his throat, part word, part animal, all panic. His hands, still shackled, rose reflexively, but he barely got a step before two guards caught him by the arms and slammed his face into the nearest bar. There was a sound like a melon dropped on stone, and Uvak sagged, blood already streaming from his broken nose.

Radiance, dazed, rocked back onto her heels and spat something in infernal that made the closest Watchman blanch. She tried to get to Uvak, but one of the guards, taller, meaner, caught her by the horn and twisted cruelly. Radiance went still, lips peeled back from her teeth, but she did not scream.

There was nothing personal in it: just the practiced brutality of men and women who had spent too many years enforcing order on a world that refused to comply. The runners were not being sorted, they were being winnowed.

The Watch worked with speed and a perverse courtesy, grabbing arms and shoulders, forming the line before the prisoners could coordinate any resistance. Dalliance and Radiance were the only ones not removed. The door to the cell adjacent to theirs was opened, and the half-orc was dragged out, leaving the yellow-skinned tiefling, eyes narrowed and calculating, behind. It was not lost on the three left in the cells, Radiance, Dalliance and tiefling woman, that they had one overlapping characteristic: their infernal heritage.

The guards were efficient, hands practiced in the ritual of checking for loose manacles, and confirming each runner’s name against the list. For each, a cloth gag; for each, a blindfold. The world went black, the smell of the cell replaced by the oily linen of the gag. There was grumbling as the shackles were checked and rechecked; only Orlea managed to get in a bite, and only because the guard was careless enough to let her jaw near his knuckle as he replaced her muzzle with the gag.

“Lowshade says not to take any chances,” a Watch lieutenant muttered to his partner as they subdued Orlea, this time with a little extra elbow. “If even one of these freaks gets out, it’s my stripes.”

As the guards finished, they began the march down the corridor. Uvak tried to speak, remembered he was gagged, and let out a muffled roar. Radiance’s name was on the tip of his tongue, but all he managed was a sound, primal and desperate. He struggled, tried to twist back, but was rewarded with a hard shot to the gut from a club, and doubled over as they dragged him forward.

Radiance gripped the bars so hard her knuckles went pink, voice tearing down the corridor. “Cowards! You lay one more hand on him and I’ll make sure the first thing you feel when I’m free is fire in your lungs!”

The guards slowed, just for a heartbeat. One of them barked a laugh, brittle at the edges. “Hear that? Little torch thinks she’s scary from behind bars.”

But the other shifted uneasily, glancing at Radiance’s eyes blazing through the bars. For all her chains, there was nothing hollow in the promise.

From the bench in the corner, Dalliance drawled, “Trust me, boys, if Radiance says you’ll be coughing fire, start practicing your last words now. I hear ‘pathetic’ is easy to spell with smoke.”

The guards ignored the barb, and focused on the line of runners they were herding up the stairs. 

Dalliance leaned closer to the bars, his voice pitched low for Radiance alone. “He’s strong. They can’t break him that easily. And you’re not alone in here, love. I’ve got you.”

Radiance’s grip on the bars trembled, then slowly loosened. She turned her head just enough to catch his eye, giving the faintest nod. Her jaw stayed set, fury burning bright, but the edge of her breathing eased enough for Dalliance to know she’d heard him.

“Keep moving,” came the flat voice from a guard, the familiar cadence of bureaucracy now with a meaner edge. Each runner was propelled along, their world reduced to footsteps and the press of flesh against iron.

Then the Watch loaded them into the wagon, an overbuilt thing with six benches running lengthwise, each lined with spikes to prevent too much shifting or collusion. The runners were locked in, each to their own ring on the floor, and the door slammed with a finality that said they would not be seeing the inside of the Watch Headquarters again.

The trip to Black Tower Prison was silent. No one spoke, or if they did, the gags ate the words. The wagon’s motion was lurching and jarring; Valpip’s head bounced against the wall with each pothole, but he endured it with a grimace. Niya and Jarren sat pressed together, blind hands clutching. Nyx, robbed of vision, hummed under their breath, a low, defiant tune. Isylte counted the seconds between each turn, the way a soldier might. Faleth tried, once, to heal Adan again, but the manacles pulled her hands away before she could finish the motion.

The only other sound was the occasional grunt or exhale from the half-orc, who remained absolutely silent otherwise, except for a moment halfway through the journey when he shifted and the entire wagon seemed to tilt a fraction in response. Whoever he was, he had the weight of his own past to carry.

Back at the cell block, after the parade was gone and the new quiet had a chance to settle in, Radiance and Dalliance found themselves alone, save for the two Watchmen assigned to the block and the tiefling woman in the next cell over. The air was different, emptier, as if the echo of all that laughter had finally burned itself out.

Radiance rubbed at the place on her arm where the shackles had left a line, then looked at Dalliance. For the first time since she’d met him, he had no quip, no clever line, no song. He just sat there, cradling his tail and staring at the floor.

The tiefling woman spoke first. Her voice was flat, without much rise or fall, and it drifted through the bars with the lazy confidence of someone who had long ago given up on the idea of rescue.

“My name is Nethspira. You probably haven’t heard of me.” She adjusted the collar of her ruined cloak. “If they’ve left you here, it means you’re either leverage or an example. Either way, it’s probably not good.”

Dalliance looked up, one hand still wrapped around his tail. “Nice to meet you, Nethspira. I’m Dalliance. This is Radiance. I would say I’ve been in worse situations, but honestly, this is top five.”

Nethspira nodded, eyes flicking over the damage, the bruises, the fear. “It’s a long list for people like us.”

Radiance swallowed, her hands trembling as she folded them in her lap. “What do you think happens next?”

Nethspira shrugged. “I’m not a prophet. I just know they don’t hold people here if they plan on keeping them long. If we’re lucky, it’s the gallows. If we’re not, it’s torture.” She shifted on the bench, the movement deliberate. “I saw the roster for the Black Tower transfer. They don’t have our names on it.”

Dalliance processed this, then let out a slow exhale. “So we’re special guests. Lucky us.”

Radiance’s eyes widened, the color almost leaching from them. “I just want to see Uvak again,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “Just once more.”

Dalliance, in a rare moment of earnestness, wrapped his tail around her shoulders, then winced as the pain reminded him of its state. “We’ll see him again. They can’t keep us here forever.”

Nethspira grunted. “That’s exactly what we should be afraid of.”

The cell block fell into silence, not the kind that invites reflection, but the kind that arrives when even hope has exhausted itself. Above, somewhere in the Watch Headquarters, bells rang the hour, and the footsteps of authority echoed down the stairwell.

The world outside marched on, the city preparing for the next chapter of its endless, ugly history.