It’s hard to walk into the rectory as if nothing has changed. To walk past the space where a passage might sit, to put my boots on solid ground but still feel a strangely unsteady eagerness.

  Secrets live here, and they always did; now a light has been cast to show their shapes in the dark. A Mage might lie in wait, and we will reveal them. Our thief might have an advantage I cannot predict, some backup pn for if we corner them. Even if that box is long gone, there's a thrill to knowing we might just get the full story soon.

  Or maybe, as Gelson observed, the box is still here? All depends on questions I don’t know, and on answers I can help find. It won’t sit right with me if the thief goes uncaught, and if there’s any chance to keep that Gods-damned box out of idiotic hands I will take it!

  Hah. My parents always did make a mess of things, including their own lives.

  No point in stewing further, though. The detectives are off sniffing out their answers without tipping their hands. I’m going to look at the vault from the inside, dive into the wards and see if Winston’s theory proves correct. I spoke to the guards, who told me the key is in Ain Hendrick’s hands, and now I’m standing at his door. My tail shes through the air, held above the carpet, and I grit my teeth.

  This man is such a pain in my tail, and with everything going on, I’ll need to restrain myself from any particurly creative threats. Even if he absolutely deserves them. What does he do here, exactly, other than making enemies of the nobility? My frustration escapes in a low growl, long and slow.

  But why bother knocking? I turn the knob and swing the door open, letting myself in.

  “Good— Oh, it’s you,” Ain says, his voice scratching at my spine. For all that venom drips from his words, he can’t quite meet my eyes. Nor can he hide in that silly purple robe of his... I almost wish he’d try.

  My parents would’ve wanted this, right? What an ass.

  “How civil!” I say, matching his tone and striding into the room. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  It’s a sparsely appointed office, parchment stacked on every sensible surface with all sorts of notes and marks. The desk at the center practically devours the space, covering much of the floor and making Ain look rather small. The temptation to blow everything off the desk is strong, but I’d rather not be that childish.

  The trickle of a breeze I call forth to sate my urge fails to do anything at all, disappointingly.

  “Yes, let’s.” I’m shocked he isn’t choking on the honey and poison oozing from his tongue.

  Something deep inside demands I growl and snarl, reminding him of his pce. Remind him of his trespass, his slimy insistence on what my parents would have wanted. But I won’t, because he’s been wise enough to not to try again after his first mistake. Instead, I take a deep breath, nostrils fring, tail curling around the doorframe.

  “I’m investigating the wards again. You’ve got the key.” I incline my head to him, a bare minimum acknowledgement.

  His jaw twitches. I watch as his brow furrows, deepening and wrinkling. “It’d be far too audacious, even for you, to commit a theft this brazen. There’s no need to get into the vault to see the wards, I’m told.”

  He might even have a point, even if he managed to stick a thousand prickling needles into his question. “I need to see inside, Ain.”

  I pause, spping my tail-tip on the doorframe. What would bother him the most? “I need to see the wards again, see how they connect. Might even figure out how the Mage turned them off without breaking them.”

  “We don’t have any Mages. Not yet.” An instant reply, all fshing eyes. “I know what you’re implying, Dame.”

  That earns an eyebrow raise, one to match the tension as it draws tighter. “And I think you’re overthinking, Ain. I know Helena didn’t do it, she's a foolish liar, not a thief. Now, the key?”

  Finally, finally, Ain’s eyes lock with my own. I can see the thoughts roiling in his head, can watch how they move from the twitches of his clenched jaw.

  One of his hands slides across his desk, fingers grazing across the polished surface until it settles on... something. I can barely tell it apart, a tiny section where the light and texture aren’t quite the same.

  His fingers press in, and a section of the desk swings smoothly upward, hinged and supported. Gods, what nonsense is this? A secret compartment? I can’t help but lean forward, peering into the space.

  He withdraws the key— a tiny, brass thing with countless little divots along the top and bottom.

  “I’ll pretend I don’t see those books on magecraft. For Helena, I assume?” I say drily, taking the key from him.

  “I owe you no answers, Crawford.”

  I shrug. That’s reasonable, though I can’t see why Ain would be helping Helena the way Helena herself implied before.

  “But I know there’s something going on, right under our noses.” He jerks his chin upward, closing the compartment with one hand. “Go do your work. Return the key when you’re done.”

  “I’m no thief, Ain,” I grin, sweeping my tail around and turning to leave. “You’ll get your key back.”

  The door sms shut behind me. That, at least, is satisfying.

  "...think it’s true? That he insulted her honor?"

  “They say the scaled Magebloods are all about that, ‘specially the scary ones. Could be some truth to it.”

  It's enough to make my mind hitch, a still moment of bafflement I can only express with a blink. That’s quite something to walk in on, and the door hasn’t even closed behind me yet. The other guard looks utterly appalled, given he can actually see me.

  Appalled enough to hiss “Regs!” to his companion. Ah! Yes, Regin.

  Regin spins around, and I bear witness to three transformations: shock, open mouthed and wide eyed; comprehension, a faint flush of the cheeks; arm, a full neck-to-cheek blush and I have no doubt I’d be able to hear his heart if I tried.

  “Who insulted my what?” I ask, tilting my head for effect.

  "That's, er. Ain, my dy. That's what they say, you know, uh. Ain insulted your honor, s-so you tossed him from the manor?" The guard is looking at me the way I might look at a precarious pile of ptes.

  "I..." I snort, letting a genuine ugh slip through my teeth. "N-no, I didn't throw him out. I just scared him after he said something extremely rude."

  And yet, the image of Ain soaring through the air sticks in the back of my head. A good hundred, two hundred meters? He doesn’t look very heavy. Only issue would be the nding, regur humans tend to break under that kind of force... maybe into the canal, if I can get the speeds right? Part of me is tempted to sit down and do the math, figuring out what combination of Wind and positioning could send someone into the canal properly. Might need to be a structured spell, if I need to get that precise.

  “Scared him?” Oh, it’s the other guard now. John! Gods, can’t believe I remembered that. I just shrug rather than responding, letting my tail flex and curl behind me.

  “I got your key. Who’s opening it?” I say, steering things back to a course I prefer. Gncing between them, waiting for a verbal answer, I instead get a different sort— Regin’s hand twitches, and that’s enough of a movement for me. My lips quirk. “You, then.”

  “Yes, my dy!” The way he walks forward and accepts the key is so formal; I suppose me ordering him around finally rattled the nerves out of his skull. His cheeks are still redder than beets, though.

  The unlocking of the vault door is a more involved process than just inserting a key into a lock, but Regin seems utterly at ease with it. He turns a combination lock once, flips up a metal pte, slides the key in, and then sets three more numbers on the combination dial. With a grunt, he twists the key, then turns a massive metal handle in the opposite direction. With a loud cng and a clicking of gears, the thick metal door swings open, revealing inset metal bars only a little bit smaller than my forearms.

  It actually takes more time to open than Regin took to unlock it in the first pce. I'm left waiting for a few minutes, watching silently as he locks the hinges in pce. I’m tempted to peer at the contents, but I’ll have plenty of time for that shortly. While I watch, though, I get the distinct displeasure of inhaling a bizarrely musty scent, halfway between parchment and bitter herbs. Fortunately, it fades by the time the door is fully open.

  “He’s got a lot of practice, I gather,” I say, watching John's expression carefully. “How often do you open and close this thing each day?”

  Their reactions— a twitch of John's brow, the first sign of hesitation in Regin's movements— prod at me oddly. It doesn't quite fit anywhere.

  “Once or twice at most, my dy,” John answers after a moment, looking back at his colleague. “Usually don't need to at all, though. The evening guards do it before they leave and lock up the room, too.”

  “Huh.” I nod along, filing that away on the pile of information about this theft. So many questions... well, at least one or two decent ones, and a lot of half-formed ones. “Right. Anyways, carry on, I’m going to inspect the wards from the inside.”

  “Yes, my dy.” Nearly synchronized responses, impressive. Tail flicking, I walk past them, step over the threshold, and enter a vault I thought I was done with years ago.

  It is not a vault in the way I’d expect most to imagine it. There are no piles of gold, no sacks of gems, and very few ancient treasures. It holds wealth, certainly; there is a trove of knowledge bound in leather on those shelves in the corner, a few paintings of people I didn’t care for, and some Church of Restoration relics I’ll never learn the history of. A goblet, a few swords, a book on a pedestal... a surprising number of alchemical potions, actually. More than I remember, but I suppose they needed to do something with the shelf space I cleared out.

  Even if some of this was mine, it is no longer. I won, I kept the Manor, and in many ways made peace with the losses. And yet, anger still stirs as I see a familiar series of volumes on enchanting, even if the first three are absent. Perhaps I’d find Olivia’s notes scribbled in the margins, if I just walked over there and opened one...

  I shake my head. Not what I’m here for, not what I’ll ever be here for. I just hope someone gets good use out of the things. I breathe in, filling my chest, swirling air and muddled emotion, and exhale it all in a low growl.

  Now that does feel good. It's a good mental state to plunge deep into the wards, and with a second, sharper breath, I do— but I keep my eyes open, this time.

  Down, down, down. The abstract presses against me, curling in my wake when my scales refuse to yield. I am moving down, yet standing still, abstract id adjacent to the World as I peer at my surroundings. My head aches, twisting in knots as I try to pull too many senses together.

  The impossible and incomprehensible begin to gather, cogs emerging from magic, bursting from the walls of the vault as the images start to align. There's the spring bound to the door, there's the shafts and screws that twitch when the walls are touched...

  I let out a hiss, flexing my cws when a shot of pain buries itself in my skull. I'm gd I'm doing this, I'm sure I can learn something from it, from seeing where everything fits into reality.

  “How clean are you, I wonder?” I murmur, running cws along the stone work. They cck at each seam, clicking in rhythm with my footsteps. "Not polished to a shine, but you look well-fed. Enchantments feed, wards are fuelled, sure, but it's close enough."

  I pause, watching the guards out of the corner of my eye. I wonder how brightly my eyes are glowing? My vision has certainly sharpened under the pressure, same as they do in Delves.

  “So who is feeding you, I wonder...” I’m almost certain that Winston is right. Every moment I look at these, what I previously saw as well-made now looks maintained. I'd even called them well-maintained before, utterly uncritically, perhaps thinking of the robust enchantments and wards of the Manor, and my ck of critical thought at the time bothers me.

  The fact that the priest doesn't know, or is hiding this? That bothers me, and both options infuriate me equally.

  Still, my examination continues. The pain in my head reaches its peak as I thread my way through the wards, following shafts, screws, and belts to their ends...

  And finally, my hand slides down to rest on a long, low cabinet, scales scraping against the polished wood. Beneath it, beside it, is an abstracted tether, frayed and bound to nothing. A trigger torn when something was taken... the box, I'll hazard.

  “This is,” I say, pausing just long enough to ensure I have the guards’ attention. “The box was here, correct?”

  When they don’t immediately respond, I drum my cws on the cabinet. An idea comes to mind, half instinct and half educated guess. “Something was here, I can tell. There was an arm attached to something.”

  “Really?” Regin replies quickly, though I can’t see his expression while facing this way. “That's... hm.”

  “Priest Dongbaek never mentioned anything about that. Or anyone else,” John adds after, and I can hear someone’s boot tapping against the stone. “Ah, yes, my dy, that's where the puzzle box was.”

  “I see,” I say idly, turning and dipping my other hand down to pick up the tether. Touching the abstract is surprisingly easy, when you're as saturated with magic as I am.

  It's still a bizarre feeling, though— a bizarre ck. There is no texture or heft, only a suggestion of existence that brushes against my scales. So, how long is this tether? How long was it?

  And was it broken recently? Tugging on my reserves, I drip magic into the tether and watch. Sure enough, the tether stretches, frayed ends twisting together and winding impossibly outward, growing from magic

  I cut off the flow, dropping the tether.Maybe a march and a half long, nowhere near enough to leave the vault. And it seems like the vault hasn't been maintained since the box was stolen... and that the tether was torn, not cut. Or it was cut badly, I can't be certain. Would that have set off the arm? Maybe. Possibly.

  The facts turn themselves over in my head as I dredge myself from the abstract, letting the machinery of security fade away into a mild headache.

  Ugh. I'm not a detective. There's facts here, and a hunch forming in the middle of my headache, but nothing quite connects to a solidified theory. “Mh. I hate puzzles.”

  “Really? Ah, sorry, my dy,” Regin says, and I turn to watch him. He shifts slightly in both tone and posture, more even and squared. “Nevermind. Never liked them myself. Er—”

  John elbows him in the side, cutting Regin off. That's a bit mean, let people talk about...

  Puzzles.

  Oh come on. I doubt this is even reted, but the implicit lie still ties a knot in my gut.

  My tail twitches, held in pce but begging to be dragged against the stone floor. I stride through the door, past the guards, and turn around to face them both. If I'm right, I'll be upset. If I'm wrong, I'll be embarrassed, but that's acceptable.

  "So, if you say you’re not fans of puzzles, maybe a different question," I say finally, my voice low. My arms cross, tail curling to present itself as I pin them in pce with my gaze. “What else were you doing in that vault? You're quite good at opening it after all.”

  After a long, terse pause, Regin slumps bodily, losing significant height and looking firmly at the ground. John isn't much better. I can hear their hearts pumping loudly, ringing against my enhanced senses. It'll take some time for my senses to soften after immersing myself like that, and right now I'd rather keep them sharp.

  Gods damn it all. For once, I hate being right.

  “Care to make a confession? Did you work with the thief, or was one of you just exploring a puzzle box without permission?” I tap my boot against the ground, watching both of them with a patience I don't feel.

  As the detectives had said, there was no evidence the guards had taken anything. But it seems like they were going in all the same, or at least Regin was.

  “N-no! My dy, we were not involved in any theft. I s-swear on Elluvial and the Hero both.” John is the first to speak, and he does so without truly holding my gaze. Impressively, though, he holds his ground even as his cheeks flush and his heart pounds. “I am just as guilty, but not of stealing. I'll swear it on Adamantine herself, my dy.”

  I turn to look squarely at Regin, not bothering to answer. Instead, I peel back my lips and begin to speak. “And you'd swear you were just, what, pying with the puzzle box?”

  A pause. He tries to look, but can't meet my eyes. My heart twinges, and my voice softens. Just a bit. “I won't get you in trouble, Regin. I will tell detectives, you'll face justice, but you'll face civil service, not imprisonment or restitution.

  “Now look me in the eyes and tell me, so we can be done with this.”

  Regin raises his head, slowly but surely. His shoulders roll back, he tilts his chin up, and I can't help but smirk when he stares right back at me. Not bad at all.

  “I lied, m-my dy. I've been trying to solve the puzzle box, when I can. I haven't taken it out of the vault, I haven't gone anywhere, and I never did finish it.” His eyes dim. “No matter how solved it got, I could never figure out what was supposed to go in the st keyhole.”

  That'd be the key Ulrich mentioned, then. Maybe this little confession could give the detectives a narrower time frame. “And were you doing it the day of the theft?”

  “Yes. It was still there at—”

  I raise a hand, shaking my head. “Nah. I'll forget. Let's get you to the detectives after you close the vault again.”

  Clunk.

  Stone groans, hinges hiss, and my eyes are drawn back into the vault just in time to see a Gods-damned secret door open. A hinged bookcase no less, revealing Tracer and Gelson on the other end.

  I grin, all teeth and fang. “Never mind that about the vault. Detectives, I've got some interesting information for you.”

  Origami_Narwhal

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