Brigitte | Past Midnight | 25th of Leaffall, 248 A.T.C.

Rhazeth sat behind his desk with his palms flat on the table and said nothing for a long moment after Coldrock stormed in, just letting her go at him, letting the yelling happen, letting her hands slam down in front of him. When she finally ran out of words, he got up, went to the cupboard, and put an old bottle of dwarven whiskey between them.

Rhazeth:
"I thought she was dead too. Until recently."

Coldrock:
"Who told you that she's alive?!"

In the very short time Brigitte had known her, she had learned a lot. What followed wasn't so much a conversation as Coldrock running through everything she'd held onto for two years: the last time she'd seen Hilde, the moment Rhazeth told her she was dead, yelling at her to stop, to listen, to get it together.

Hilde's TGS addiction. She stole gold, she stole supplies, Gurak trying everything to help her, to the point that even he had to give up. And Coldrock was unable to give up, because Hilde was her twin, and you don't give up on your twin. All of it culminated in Hilde killing the main contact of the Nighttail family, a powerful, influential family of pantherfolk from Leonaport Bay.

The family had set their sights on revenge, and the only way to avoid their wrath was to banish, or rather excommunicate, her from the family. Rhazeth explained that, before then, Gurak had been helping Hilde find her own way, but the last they had heard was that she was dead. But Coldrock wasn't done yelling yet, as her question still hadn't been answered.

Only to be interrupted...

"Urgh... Can't a harefolk get some sleep here?"

Vesper appeared in the doorway and was entirely unwilling to let this play out on its own terms.
Brigitte tried to speak up, but Vesper immediately shut that down.

Vesper:
"I will address, Rhazeth first. Be quiet, pet."

When Vesper addressed him, Rhazeth quickly tried to cover up the unfolding situation. Brigitte caught Rhazeth's eyes shifting toward Vesper and understood immediately that whatever he still hadn't said, he wasn't going to, or couldn't, say with her present. Yet Brigitte couldn't understand why Rhazeth would bend over backwards for this "damned bunny."

She put a hand gently on Coldrock's shoulder and suggested that they leave for now. Coldrock shoved her arm away, looked at her with something that was almost gratitude, and walked out of the room at speed, clipping Vesper on the way through without breaking stride.

...

Outside, Brigitte guided her to the Bright Lye's small fighting pit and told her, "Let's blow off some steam, no biting. Promise."

Coldrock didn't laugh. She came forward with the specific force of someone who had been holding something at bay for a long time and had finally stopped trying, and Brigitte took it, not fighting back, just blocking, giving her something to push against.

The first two hits landed clean. The third, a kick aimed straight into Brigitte's gut with everything Coldrock had left, put Brigitte on the ground. Then Coldrock's feet slipped out from under her on the next swing, and she hit the dirt face-first, dust rising around her in a small cloud. She didn't get up right away.

Brigitte helped her up. Coldrock broke down in a way that had nothing performative about it, just honest, unceremonious, completely unlike anything Brigitte had seen from her before. When it quieted enough for words, Brigitte asked the only thing she could think to ask.

Brigitte:
"When was the last time you saw her?"

Coldrock:
"The last time that I saw her, I was yelling at her. I was yelling that she needed to calm down, that she needed to stop, that she needed to listen to Gurak. She was addicted to that stuff. "

Coldrock continued that if Hilde didn't get a dose of TGS almost twice a day, she would start seeing things, things that weren't there in the first place, some kind of floating eye creatures. She would steal gold, supplies, and everything went to hell when Hilde killed a contact of the Nighttail family of Leonaport Bay.

Rhazeth had made a deal with them to become a supplier of specialized goods, but Rhazeth had been clear: none of the family members were allowed to even touch TGS. Hilde, however, had already been addicted before she and Coldrock joined Rhazeth's family. Rhazeth gave her small doses to help her manage her addiction, but it was never enough. Gurak tried everything, but even he was forced to give up on her. The last thing Coldrock heard was that she had been killed by the Nighttail family.

But now what? Was Hilde coming to the city? What was she going to do? Was Coldrock going with her?

Coldrock:
"And Rhazeth doesn't even give me the dignity of an actual answer!"

Brigitte wasn't sure what to say, only responding that it seemed entirely out of Rhazeth's control, and that Vesper was pulling the strings. Coldrock responded that "back then" Vesper had been here too, two years ago when all of this went down. Vesper had been present during the negotiations with the Nighttail family. To Coldrock, it seemed like the same thing was happening again.

Coldrock:
"It's almost as if the same thing is happening again! The harefolk arrived with boxes, there was a trade with the Nighttail family, but now you come and tell me that my sister is still alive! What am I going to do?!"

Brigitte told her they weren't giving up. That if Hilde was coming toward the city, now was the time. That they were family, and family showed up.

Coldrock:
"I... didn't tell you that yet..."

Brigitte:
...

Coldrock:
"But everyone voted Hilde out of the family... Except for Sonya, who didn't have a vote back then yet."

Brigitte:
"I can imagine it was hard to hear not everyone agree with you and with... my vote..."

Coldrock:
"What makes you different?"
"What makes you special?"
"What gives you the luxury of it?"
"And she didn't?"

Brigitte didn't have an answer for that.

Coldrock:
"Want a drink...?"

They went to the bar.

Brigitte:
"If your sister is coming back— if there's even a possibility — Vesper needs to be far, far away from here. She will make everything worse."

What Brigitte didn't say, what she turned over quietly while Coldrock drank and the bar went silent around them, was that Hilde's last words hadn't been the words of someone coming home.

"Then I'll know who to spare."

That wasn't reunion language. The Beast Within agreed, with a particular relish Brigitte didn't appreciate. Whatever Hilde was coming back for, it wasn't the family. Coldrock didn't respond. An hour later, she was asleep where she sat.

Brigitte cleaned up, carried her back to the hideout, put her to bed. On the way out she passed Sonya's door, cracked open just enough for one eye to catch the light. She gave her a silent goodnight and kept walking, leaving the family hideout for now.

Back at the Drunken Phoenix, lying on the bed, Brigitte's mind turned over Vesper and Rhazeth and the things Rhazeth still hadn't said. The bracelet on Hilde's wrist. The expression on Gurak's face, that same defeated look he'd been wearing for weeks, as if he'd put something down he didn't know how to pick back up. He'd been there two years ago. He had to know more.

She'd have to press him.

Reinald | Past Midnight | 25th of Leaffall, 248 A.T.C.

Sleep didn't come easily for Reinald. The discoveries beneath the Alluran Dam lingered in his thoughts for a long time. The image of the strangelings worshipping Röka troubled him more than anything else. He had always understood Röka as a spirit, yet what they had witnessed suggested something altogether different. A deity? An ancient being? Something trapped within the stone now embedded in his arm? The unsettling truth was that Röka himself seemed no closer to the answer.

His thoughts drifted to the depths beneath the city. What had begun as a simple investigation had revealed an entire hidden society, complete with its own people, history, and even a queen. If such a civilization truly existed beneath Allura's Haven, how many on the surface knew about it? More importantly, how many were deliberately keeping it secret?

The possibility of conflict weighed heavily on him. The hostile strangelings they had encountered were dangerous enough, but they were not the only faction below. The more peaceful group they had spoken with offered hope that diplomacy might still be possible, though Reinald knew almost nothing about their origins or motivations.

His mind eventually wandered to Aveline. Only now did the guilt truly settle in. They had known that a dangerous creature was stalking the roads, yet in the urgency of investigating the dam, he had allowed her to travel alone. She was capable, certainly, but capable people could still be caught off guard. The image of her escaping the Peryton, injured and alone, refused to leave his thoughts. Exhaustion eventually overtook him...

??? | Summertide ??? B.T.C.

Reinald's sleep dissolved into something stranger. He saw an endless field of flowers. A figure standing before him, blurred and impossible to focus on, yet unmistakably familiar. Though he couldn't make out her face, he knew it was Brigitte. Not the woman he knew now, but more refined, dressed in unfamiliar clothing from... another age.

She spoke, but every word was muffled beyond recognition. Then, all of a sudden, an explosion bloomed across the horizon, and beyond it an entire town burned. Smoke swallowed the sky as terrified civilians fled through the streets. Hooded soldiers with glowing crimson eyes marched through the chaos, carrying strange mechanical weapons that spread destruction wherever they advanced.

Without exchanging a word, he and the mysterious Brigitte ran toward the flames, yet it felt less as though he were running himself and more as though he were experiencing the events alongside whoever he was watching. The battle that followed felt less like a dream and more like a memory, but not one of his own. He looked at his arms, which were not his own...

The two fought side by side against the invaders, desperately trying to protect the people trapped inside the burning settlement. Reinald found himself wielding familiar magic through unfamiliar hands, while Brigitte fought with a confidence and ferocity unlike anything he had seen from her before.

Even as they pushed back the attackers, something felt wrong. As the fighting continued, an enormous armoured figure emerged through the smoke, carrying massive mechanical gauntlets unlike anything Reinald had ever seen.

Reinald and the woman who looked like Brigitte stood together against it. Though the battle seemed unwinnable, it looked as though whoever Reinald was experiencing this memory through was about to be crushed by the armoured figure.

At their moment of greatest need, a spectral fox appeared beside Reinald, answering his call without hesitation. It was Röka!

Roka:
"Now now! I can't let this happen to my new partner!"

Together they managed to bring the construct down, and as it collapsed into smoke, the battlefield dissolved around them.

Reinald awoke with a violent start.

Unlike an ordinary dream, every wound, every exertion, and every moment of the battle lingered. He felt drained, as though he had truly lived through the fight rather than merely witnessed it. Röka confirmed he had experienced the same vision, though he admitted he had no memory of the events themselves beyond what they had both just seen.

The experience left them with far more questions than answers. The woman in the vision had looked exactly like Brigitte. More unsettling still, the vision felt strikingly similar to the one Reinald had shared with Aveline in the warehouse, only this time it had felt less like a premonition and more like a memory...

The questions continued to mount. Whose memories had he just experienced? Why had Reinald experienced these memories? And what role had Röka once played?

Reinald | Morning | 25th of Leaffall, 248 A.T.C.

Victoria knocked at nine. Reinald told her he'd had bad dreams. She asked if she could come in and told him that he needed to get ready for the assembly in Crow's Pier. Mayor Lewys Hershkowitz was going to address the public regarding the earlier poisoning incident. Reinald asked how Aveline was doing. Victoria said that Aveline was awake, but something was... off.

Victoria:
"What eye color are hers?"

Reinald:
"Pale pink, Why?"

Victoria:
"You'll see downstairs."

Victoria left the mansion early to be on time for the assembly, but she was far from pleased about it in the first place. Aveline was at the breakfast table with Ervin, who was helping her eat with a spoon because both her arms were bandaged. He turned the full weight of a long, cold stare on Reinald the moment he sat down. Reinald realized what Victoria had meant. Her eyes were bright blue now. Not pale pink. Bright, startling blue, a color that hadn't been there before the Peryton had grabbed her and the Free Roadsman had found her crawling out of the forest...

Ervin seemed displeased with Reinald. Reinald apologized, but Ervin only clapped back that, with Aveline "unavailable" for now, Reinald would need to help with the partnership negotiations later that evening, since the Nighttail family would be visiting. Reinald said that he would be there.

Aveline dropped her spoon onto the table, and she seemed... unresponsive, to say the least.

Ervin:
"It'll pass in a few days."

Ervin's comment almost sounded as if this had happened before. Reinald filed it away and didn't push. He took a plate, didn't finish it, then collected himself just outside the mansion.

Reinald:
"What happened to her?"

Rokä:
"Hmm..."

Brigitte | Morning | 25th of Leaffall, 248 A.T.C.

The cleaning staff woke her early. Brigitte packed her things, went downstairs, and found Marisse and Bertus at the bar, the elderly couple who kept the Scaffold District running on sheer familiarity and stubbornness. Marisse had wine. It was eight in the morning. She wasn't apologizing for it either, not today.

The conversation quickly settled into the weight that had been hanging over the district since the Seahorse's Catch incident. Frederique, the woman who had died, had taught children, tended to the young deerfolk, and had been exactly the kind of person who didn't deserve what had happened to her.

Her family wanted a sea burial in a few days. Most of the people caught up in the incident were still in guard custody, which Marisse found outrageous and said so. Bertus added that Butch had been arrested too, the rumor being that he'd sold contaminated fish to the Seahorse's Catch, possibly without knowing it. Brigitte said she'd keep her ears open, accepted a plate of breakfast, left a gold piece on the bar without comment on the price, and headed to the family hideout.

...
...
...

Sonya was already up and wanted to come to the assembly. Brigitte told her no. If Rhazeth said to stay, she should stay for once. Sonya asked what had happened the night before. Brigitte told her enough, but not more, and promised the rest later.

Branded came out of his room and asked Brigitte how she was doing. He was going to check on Wilt, as Wilt still had not recovered from the dark magic he had unleashed at the Seahorse's Catch. They exchanged a few words that didn't say much, then he left, and Brigitte stood in the hallway afterward, feeling the particular weight of having recently done things that had hurt the people she lived with.

She decided to follow him to check on Gurak, who had been tending to Wilt. She found Gurak in Wilt's room, his hands covered in water, doing what he always did: helping others. Branded said he'd take over so Gurak could go to the assembly. Brigitte asked Gurak if they could talk.

She told him about Hilde.

His eyes went wide. Then he froze, not the freeze of someone surprised, but the freeze of someone who had just had something confirmed that they'd been quietly dreading.

Brigitte added that Hilde would return here to kill everyone.

Gurak
"Then... she'll come for me first..."

When Brigitte pushed him to explain, he said he couldn't talk about it here. Before anything else could happen, Vesper appeared in the hallway with the two other harefolk and told Gurak that the boxes needed moving before the Nighttail family arrived. Brigitte tried to get Vesper to back off so they could talk, but Vesper wouldn't have any of it. When Brigitte offered to "assist," Vesper bit back once more.

Vesper:
"A pet doesn't really help with people business."

Vesper forced Gurak, his head bowed, to follow the two other harefolk, leaving Brigitte alone with Vesper in the hallway. Brigitte demanded to know why Vesper was even there and why she treated everyone like crap.

Brigitte:
"So what exactly is your problem? Why are you here? What is all this Tau shit?"

Vesper:
"It's a job. It's what they always have to do."

Brigitte:
...

Vesper:
"I know that you are new around here, but this family has existed for longer than you were even relevant. So they'll do what they have to do."

Brigitte:
"And you have to do it like this? Make us obey?"

Vesper:
"They know who is in control."

Brigitte:
"Well... I don't see you being in control."

Vesper:
"Hah. It's not as if you have control, now do you?"

Brigitte:
"I'm perfectly capable."

Vesper:
"Anyway, I don't need you sticking your nose into business that doesn't involve you."

Brigitte:
"Well, I'm part of this family, so it does involve me."

Vesper:
"For now..."

Brigitte:
"Heh, sure..."

Vesper:
"You don't have to be snippy with me, pet."
"I only have to ask, and they'll dump you out on the street."
"And where will you go then...?"

Brigitte:
...

Vesper:
"After all, where you came from... doesn't exist anymore... does it...?"

Brigitte:
...

Vesper:
"So... a full moon, in a few days... I'm curious how long the façade will last."

Brigitte:
...

Vesper:
"Why don't you scurry along now?"

Vasper's eyes stayed on Brigitte a moment longer than necessary, and then she turned and headed straight to Rhazeth's office, bursting through Rhazeth's office door and put her fist on his desk.

Brigitte
What is going on?
Who is that Vesper?
Why does she know things about me she shouldn't know?
What the hell is going on?

Rhazeth let it happen. When she finished, he told her what he could, which wasn't much. Vesper had been coming here for years before Brigitte arrived. Brigitte noticed different bottles of TGS sitting in front of Rhazeth. The family was a supplier and worked for Vesper.

The family did dirty work sometimes. That was how it worked. That was how it had always worked, and the alternative was having nowhere to go. They'd done dirtier work before, and this was just part of the cycle.

Brigitte demanded to know why Rhazeth wouldn't stand up to her, but he simply answered that he couldn't. He reminded her who had taken her in. He reminded her what she'd looked like when Gurak had brought her back that first day.

Brigitte pointed out that it didn't seem as though Rhazeth had any control over the situation, but he disagreed. He told her that if she hadn't lost control in the Cage a few days ago, then all of this could have gone very differently. But Rhazeth immediately added that he hadn't voted her out of the family, as he feared having another Hilde on his claws.

Rhazeth:
"I care for you, Brigitte. But I can't have you messing with Vesper."
"As long as you do that, I can protect you from her."

Brigitte:
"I can't do that, while she knows everything about me."

Rhazeth
"What do you mean?"

Brigitte
"She knows where I come from, she knows... everything!"

Rhazeth
Well, I didn't tell her. I don't even know.

Brigitte
So she can go around antagonizing everyone?
Talk about things... that no one is supposed to know!

Rhazeth
You have only spoken about your past in bits to Gurak, and he would never tell anyone.
You know that when you step in here, that there are no questions asked about your past.
But then I also need that in return from you.

Brigitte
...

Rhazeth
Let it... pass.... If you want...
I can send you out on tasks out of town, until Vesper's gone.
And then we can discuss this situation with Hilde afterwards.

Brigitte
...

Rhazeth
But I can't fight with my family, that includes you too...
And deal with Vesper.

Brigitte
She's planning to kill everyone in this family.
Coldrock doesn't want that to happen.
We need to come up with something.
But I'm staying here.

Rhazeth
I can respect that decision.

She unbuckles the choker and slams the choker on the table.
The same choker that Gurak was forced to wear, and she took in his stead.

Brigitte
This is for you.
Apparently you are more a slave than any of us.
So you can wear it.

Rhazeth
...

Brigitte
I don't need it.
Gurak doesn't need it...
So....

Rhazeth reveals under his clothing a bracelet with a red gem...

Rhazeth
I already am.
You don't need to point it out to me.

Brigitte
...

Rhazeth
But if I also disappear...
I care more for the safety of the others than my own.
And if you feel any connection to this family, that would include me too.

Brigitte
...

Rhazeth
I'm asking it, Brigitte.
Let it go. Let it slide.

Brigitte
...

Rhazeth
And if we must kill Hilde to protect the others, then it must be so.
I already believed her to be dead once, if I can protect the others that way.
Well then I'll just have to sleep with another nightmare.
But I'll gladly do that, to protect Sonya, Gurak, Kaelis, Wilt, Sloane, Beastie, Coldrock and you.

Brigitte
Are you the only one with one those things? (referring to the bracelet)

Rhazeth
I haven't told anyone else.

Brigitte
...

Rhazeth
The fact that you ask me that, tells me that you know about these things.
Then you know there are things, we'll just have to do.

...

The bracelet. The same kind that had been on Hilde's wrist in the cave. The same binding. The same fire waiting inside it.

He'd been wearing it the whole time.

Somewhere during the conversation, Brigitte realized that Rhazeth assumed Hilde was still wearing that bracelet. He wasn't telling her to accept it. He was telling her that the choice he'd made, he'd made for the family, and that if everything fell apart, he needed one thing from her.

Rhazeth
"Take Sonya and run."
"Can you do that for me?"

Brigitte
(she nods)

The choker sat on the table between them.

Brigitte left it there.

She wasn't putting it on again.

She waited in the common room until Gurak came back. He was quiet, dust covering his chest, except it wasn't dust. It was spores, faint and drifting, the kind that came from moving boxes in a room that shouldn't have had mushrooms in it.

They walked to the assembly together without saying much.

Reinald & Brigitte | Late Morning | 25th of Leaffall, 248 A.T.C.

Crow's Pier had been dressed for the occasion: a stage, banners still furled, guards at every corner, and the particular energy of a crowd that had been told something important was about to happen and hadn't yet decided whether to be frightened or reassured.

People filled the square from every direction. Victoria and Reinald were near the front with Corrin and a Weinberg-Hershkowitz representative who looked like she'd rather be anywhere else. Aveline's employees, Humble and Reggie, stood at the edge of the docks. Reinald spotted Gurak and Brigitte arriving and kept his distance.

Lewys came forward in ceremonial robes with ornaments on his horns, lantern-shaped, old, the kind of thing that referenced Scalebearer Allura and Allura's Haven's founding history, which most people in the crowd recognized. He cast a spell to carry his voice across the square and began.

The speech was long, precise, and completely planned out. It opened with the Seahorse's Catch, the blood, the neighbors turned into something else, the itch in the throat that everyone had felt but none of them had named.

It moved through loss, to threat, to identity, to taking action, each section closing the gap between what had happened and what he was proposing to do about it. Along the way, he announced what nobody had been told yet: Mayor Theo Harthorne had been kidnapped. Taken in the night, dragged into the dark by something that had known exactly where to find him.

He didn't call them strangelings. He called them the Fossorials, the masked ones, the hidden ones, and dropped the banners to reveal their images. Reinald and Brigitte looked upon the faces they'd seen in the sewers, the alleys, and the darkness beneath the dam.

He announced the start of the Alluran Defense Initiative to protect the city from the "vermin" known as the Fossorials.

Victoria was cornered before she even realized what was happening. Lewys named her history, the cult she'd hunted down, and called her forward in front of a crowd that was already inclined to believe in her. The only move available to her was to step up and take his hand.

She did.

And in that moment, Victoria was thrust forward as the leader of this new initiative. "I got played like a fiddle," she muttered to Reinald before walking onto the stage.

Then the curtain dropped on the gallows. Four people, Celica, Sir Everard, Grasha, and the Lower Saltbreak's butcher, were brought onto the stage in chains as Lewys continued his speech.

Lewys
This hordeling knew! He knew his fish were poisoned, and he sold them to the Seahorse's Catch anyway! Sold your people a sickness! There is only one language filth like this understands. So today, we return to the old ways..."

Guard Commander Osian led Butch to the gallows and placed the rope around his neck while Butch screamed that he hadn't known, hadn't known, hadn't known.

Lewys raised his hand. Osian pulled the lever.

Yelling and screaming erupted from the crowd as it became apparent that Celica, Grasha, and Sir Everard were to be hanged as well.

Brigitte, standing among the crowd, found the older deerfolk woman from the Seahorse's Catch, the one she had shielded and helped escape, and guided her forward until she was shouting, "They helped! They helped!", prompting others in the crowd to join in.

Reinald had remained silent throughout the speech.

He didn't remain silent any longer.

He pushed forward, sent a burst of light into the sky to draw attention, and declared that whatever the butcher had done, he deserved an honest trial. That this wasn't how the Sevenfold worked. That you didn't hang someone in a public square before a judge had seen the evidence.

Lewys looked at him across the crowd with the expression of someone who had expected exactly this and had planned for it. He cast Silence on Reinald and publicly discredited him, reminding the crowd that Reinald himself had escaped punishment for a forest fire on a technicality. As the guards seized Reinald, he went quietly. There wasn't much point in resisting. Lewys had caught him in the exact trap he'd built, and Reinald had walked into it at full speed.

Lewys continued his speech.

Lewys:
"Despite what that fox would say, I don't punish courage. I reward it."

Commander Osian cut the ropes binding the other three.

Lewys:
Heroes of the city, people who had fought when it mattered! even if they keep secrets from you, Allura's Haven!

As Lewys's speech came to an end, he announced that the Free Roadsmen and the Voidbreakers supported his new initiative and encouraged every brave heart in Allura's Haven to sign up to defend the city.

Brigitte watched Reinald being dragged away by the guards.

Gurak immediately understood what had happened. The new mayor had played an almost perfect hand. He had planted either fear or courage into the hearts of the citizens of Allura's Haven. By invoking Scalebearer Allura, he had won over the deerfolk. By invoking Fenrir Wyrmslayer, he had stirred the wolves.

Brigitte and Gurak watched several wolffolk, including Kaelis, still pretending to be Fen'ryck, approach the recruitment table. Brigitte laughed with the two wolves, then quietly said to Gurak,

"You need to talk to him. He's getting too comfortable."

As the square began to clear and the hordeling still hung from the gallows, Coldrock appeared in a nearby alleyway. She asked whether the foxfolk knew about her sister, and when Brigitte said that he did, Coldrock said she'd come along.

They followed the guards from a distance and tracked Reinald to the Assessor's Office.

Realizing there was nothing they could do from there, Coldrock returned to the hideout while Brigitte went to find Victoria. She had seen Victoria standing beside Reinald during the assembly and knew they shared the same last name.

Brigitte found Victoria at the docks, catching the tail end of an argument with another foxfolk in patched-up yet elegant clothing she didn't recognize. When Brigitte mentioned the great forest fire, Victoria became visibly enraged.

Victoria was skeptical at first, but Brigitte seemed sincere. She gave Brigitte an address in the Trader District, instructing her to flip the house number upside down when she arrived.

Victoria:
"Tomorrow morning. Hopefully Reinald will be there too... if I can get him out of jail."

Suddenly, Lewys arrived. He didn't even acknowledge Brigitte, instead asking to speak with Victoria regarding the new Alluran Defense Initiative. Brigitte excused herself and caught the tail end of their conversation from the pier.

Victoria
"You overplayed your hand, Lewys. Your father may have sanctioned this, but you've called on laws that haven't been used in fifty years!"

Lewys
"They are still just as valid."

Victoria
"I know you're wearing ceremonial garb—"

And then they moved too far to hear.

Reinald | Midday | 25th of Leaffall, 248 A.T.C.

The cell had a mushroom growing in the corner. The bed was uncomfortable. The chains were doing something to his spellcasting, something Röka interrupted before it could fully take hold.

They talked through what Lewys had said and what he hadn't. What Lewys knew and what he didn't. The Fossorials. The Queendom. The enslaved strangelings. The harefolk nobody had a name for. Lewys understood the shape of the threat, but not its architecture.

He didn't know everything.

He didn't know that the Fossorials in the sewers weren't the same as the ones beneath the dam. He didn't know about the Remorhaz. He knew enough to frighten people, but not enough to solve anything, which, Röka pointed out, was possibly the point.

Victoria had mentioned disguised Luminaries in the city. Zinri had been surprised that Brigitte could speak the language. The strangelings had treated it as their own tongue.

Somewhere, those pieces connected. Reinald just couldn't see how. He still had the broken Fossorial mask in his pack. He should figure out what it did.

It wasn't entirely unexpected when Lewys arrived, offering Reinald a cup of tea and a proposition. Lewys reminded Reinald that everything that had happened during the assembly had been entirely within his legal authority, and by extension reminded Reinald that Victoria possessed those same powers.

He offered Reinald two tasks to prove himself before discussing a future as Commander of the new Alluran Defense Initiative.

Task A: Deal with whatever criminal family was operating within the city.

Lead: Someone's wolf friend had reported that their companion smelled wrong and was wearing a strange necklace...

Task B: Deal with the Peryton, as it caused trouble for the region.

If Reinald completed both tasks, the incident at the assembly would disappear from the record.

Reinald accepted. He received a small Alluran lantern as a badge and was nearly out the door when Zinri walked in carrying a report. Lewys thanked her by name. Reinald said nothing. Zinri said nothing either, except for a small wink. Lewys accepted the report and left. Reinald finished his tea and walked out of the Assessor's Office. Things had just become a lot more complicated.