Vashe Martin was, by most accounts, a well-respected man. Such men were uncommon in Othilia, and increasingly rare. His elders said his head was screwed on right—a high praise in matters of community (past or present).

  He could read and write better than most, his penmanship swift and precise, and he boasted a novice understanding of the Elvish tongue. He had a knack for numbers—a trait the baron often exploited whenever the covenant man came due.

  Yet Vashe was not without his vices. He was a frequent patron of the barhouses, where precarious towers of coin were wagered on the turn of a card or the roll of a dice. He spent much of his free time courting the free women of Othilia. Whispers of his entanglements with married women drifted through the undercurrents of conversation but never took root—such things in this town were often left unspoken.

  But he was diligent in duty, gentle in sorrow, and the least vile man in any quarrel.

  The days dragged, like a heavy chain scraping over stone.

  Giles wandered through the streets of Othilia. A restless shadow, he moved through the gloom of a town wasting away like an old man: breath haggard and feeble, flesh withering by the day, eyes distant with the certainty of death. Such was the trajectory of Othilia.

  In the market square, Giles lingered between the stalls, his eyes darting over the mundane transactions of fruit, fish, and trinkets. At the edges of the woods, his boots crunched over brittle leaves. And on Callow Street—the den of Othilia’s wretched, where the currency of exchange was future promise and perpetual servitude—Giles paced the buckled sidewalks.

  To an outsider, he might have seemed lost. But no—his movements were deliberate, his focus unyielding. He scoured Othilia on a silent crusade against the demon spice.

  At the Copper Nail, he overheard whispers of strife. A drunken miner relayed rumours from the underground, that one of his fellows knew how to procure strife; but when pressed by those eager for Fairyland could offer only scant details more slippery than the floor in front of the bar.

  Behind Callow Street, Giles caught the sickly-sweet scent of cinnamon bleeding through the rot of detritus and decay. He followed it like a bloodhound; and it led him to a crumbling wall. Behind a loose brick, he found a stash of coins and folded notes—reeked through with strife.

  Giles brought these shreds of evidence to Virgil; yet each time he was met with the same stoic dismissal. Write your report. Keep a level head. Say nothing. His refusal was immovable, like a city wall—too high to scale, too strong to shatter. And with each denial, the fire inside him burned hotter.

  Denied both Virgil’s consideration and his blessing for an investigation, Giles’s obsession narrowed. Again and again, his thoughts circled back to Vashe Martin; and so his hunt veered toward him.

  His fellow Guardian soon became the axis around which his suspicions turned. Giles waited, watched, and scrutinised with unrelenting fixation, his gaze as sharp as a carrion eater. He steadily convinced himself that Vashe was guilty—so utterly, so unquestionably—that doubt never settled in his mind. This certainty blinded him; and so he was deceived by the darkness that dwells in every man’s heart. He had found a loose thread, and in his fervour, he pulled, never ascertaining either its length or its involvement to the whole.

  His hatred for Vashe grew like weeds choking a garden—nourished by obsession, devouring every flower of trust. Every glance, every word, every gesture from Vashe appeared to Giles as if steeped in deceit.

  Then came the fires of summer, and the mountains burned. The skies were black with smoke, the ridges outlined by the red of hellfire. Flames as high as a temple’s walls surged toward Othilia.

  As chaos raged, the townsfolk rallied, bound by a unity that always and forever manifested in times of crisis. Vashe was among the first to act, spinning a bucket brigade with the urgency and steadfastness of a general at war. Under his commands, Othilians from all walks—miners, ranchers, shopkeepers—worked tirelessly, passing buckets hand over hand, and pumping water from river and reservoir, to douse the advancing flames.

  Giles joined the brigade, sweating under the sneer of the flames. He was exhausted, toiling in a daze, a somnambulist in a living nightmare; yet while he worked without yielding, his thoughts were astray. He watched Vashe, smeared with ash, voice hoarse from shouting. And Giles was convinced that snaking through the smoke, through the stench of burning wood and scorched earth, was that familiar acrid scent. The demon lived in the heart of the flames.

  Even as Othilia celebrated its survival, Giles leered at Vashe—face smeared black, weary in body and soul—and thought he reeked of guilt.

  As the heat of summer gave way to the chill of coming winter, dead leaves now tumbling down the old roads, Giles grew impatient. Day by day, week by week, suspicion gnawed at him. Like termites devouring a tree from the inside out, so Giles was under attack by his disdain for Vashe. He pulled at the loose thread, and all trust he once held for his fellow Guardian fell apart in his hands.

  And so it came to pass: Giles Durant could wait no longer.

  The wind howled, striking the flesh like ice. The windows of Guardian Force were rattling. The office heater had died, and even wrapped in a parka, Giles was blowing frosties as he pried through Vashe’s desk.

  Virgil was upstairs, his door shut against the cold, the foot heater inside clicking and hissing—a relic already old in his youth. He was poring over another report by Iman Lazuli.

  The document lay open on his desk, detailing a tantalising theory as to the mystery of the copper thieves. Lazuli believed the thieves were using Tunnel 15—condemned for decades, prone to collapse. But dusty schematics pulled from the Wordsworth Mining Co. archives revealed that Tunnel 15 led to an entrance centuries old, hidden somewhere in the overgrown thickets of Emu Forest, although its precise location was unknown. It made perfect sense. Who would suspect such a route? And so, Virgil was trying to find it.

  The map was spread before him again, its surface marked with circles and question marks. He had narrowed down the location of the forgotten entrance to one of four possibilities. Each was a far cry from the mine’s main hub. If Lazuli’s theory was correct, the thieves were using this forgotten artery to bleed the baron’s wealth.

  Progress should have brought relief. Instead, frustration gnawed at him. More than he cared to admit, the demon spice loomed in his thoughts. The names of the dead were carved on his heart, scrawled over the Litany of Order like graffiti—the dead whose final moments Virgil had buried along with their bodies. Giles, his second, was growing restless—and Virgil knew trouble would soon follow. Amid the silent spread of strife through Othilia, Lazuli’s report felt like a distraction.

  Little did Virgil know, that even as these worries churned in his mind, Giles was rifling through the disheveled contents of Vashe’s desk.

  His focus was sharp. He flicked through the scatter of papers. He clawed through drawers swimming with half-finished reports, pencils, loose bands, half a set of playing cards, a few dollars worth of coins, and curiously, a small rock.

  Then his fingers struck a dossier—a blank book with a broken spine, the pages held together by bands, staples, and hope. A meticulous record, in Vashe’s hand, cataloguing the items expected to be held by the town’s farmers and tradesmen.

  His eyes darted across names and inventories, his heart pounding as the wind thrashed against the door. Every creak of the floorboards sent a jolt of fear through him, and he raised frantic eyes, expecting to see his Chief Commander. He could not afford to be caught, for the consequences would be more than a reprimand.

  He landed on the name Josef Deas. The carpenter. Deas received regular imports of raw material from Calla Lily—timber, nails, adhesives—all the trappings of his trade.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Giles frowned, his mind racing. Deas was not the sort of man who inspired suspicion. He was a drunk—a fixture of the Bloofire Lantern, where his evenings ended, more often than not, staggering home in the care of his friends.

  But the imports raised a question. If Vashe were smuggling the demon spice into Othilia, it was no stretch of feasibility to hide it among legitimate goods, sneaking it out when he conducted his inspections. Deas’s shipments were regular and large enough to conceal such a scheme.

  But Giles didn’t suspect—he knew. Like the moon breaking through cloud, flooding the valley with light, driving back shadow; so certainty filled him. He twisted facts into conviction, and forged a truth of his own.

  This is it. Deas is a pawn, and Vashe is moving him as he needs.

  He slammed shut the dossier. He rearranged the desk, returning everything to its chaotic semblance of order. Yet as he stepped away, the fear remained. He had crossed a line—and he knew it. But the fire inside him did not burn away.

  If Virgil would not act, Giles would.

  He had to.

  Giles stood just outside the rusted school gates, hands buried in his pockets. His parka offered little warmth.

  The sun was low, throwing long shadows across the gravel walk. Parents clustered in twos and threes, laughing too loud, their breath misting in the chill. None looked his way—not directly. But he felt their side-eyes all the same. A Guardian was watching, and all present were on alert.

  The bell rang.

  And then came the rush—kids bursting through the double doors like birds set loose from a cage. Backpacks swung, voices tripping over each other in a dozen keys.

  Aurora came bounding, springs in her shoes, plaits flying like kite-tails in the breeze. Her bag bounced off one hip, half-open, hemorrhaging loose pages.

  “Papa!”

  She hit him full-force, arms wrapped around his middle—like she meant to keep him from falling apart.

  Giles laughed and knelt, squeezing her tight, burying his nose in hair that smelled of pencil shavings and apples.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said.

  “I missed you, starshine,” he said, smoothing her hair back like it was something sacred. Maybe it was. “Thought I owed you some time.”

  They set off together, following the thin path that wound past the old birches. The breeze picked up, pushing dry leaves ahead. Aurora talked fast, words tumbling out the way water finds every crack.

  “I gave my speech on Oliphants today! Did you know they can hear with their feet? Mrs. Birk gave me a gold sticker.”

  “Is that right?” Giles arched an eyebrow. “A gold sticker? That’s serious business. We ought to preserve it in glass and hang it over the mantle.”

  Aurora giggled. “It’s on my book. I can show you.”

  “I’d like that,” he said, and meant it.

  Her small hand found his, fingers wrapping tight. He felt her—really felt her: so solid, so alive. She anchored him like nothing else could.

  But his mind, slippery thing that it was, kept sliding. Kept pulling toward shadows. To the stink of strife. To Vashe and his lies. To the old service station where he was determined to find the truth.

  “Papa?” Aurora tugged his hand. “Are you listening?”

  “I am,” he said, clearing his throat. “Just tired. But I heard every word.”

  She looked up at him—too old in the eyes for a girl her age. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk. I just like walking with you.”

  That unravelled him.

  “I like it too,” he said. “More than anything.”

  So they walked, her voice a ribbon of light in the gloom of late afternoon. And Giles clung to the moment like a man grasping a rope above a crevasse, praying to every forgotten fairy to make it last a little longer.

  The wagon trundled into the old service station on a cold, damp afternoon.

  The bowsers stood corroded by age and neglect; only one still sputtered with life. In those late days of the Second Age, when the world was winding down, bloofire fuel was seldom used—its price exorbitant, its reserves dwindling, the vehicles that it powered now few and far between. For this reason, horsepower (once again), not by choice but by desperate necessity, was the main mode of transportation at the Empire’s edge.

  Guardian Force had made use of the old garage as their inspection station. Here came all the town’s imports, and from here went all its exports.

  Giles strode in, his boots thudding against the concrete floor. Vashe was standing by the service counter, clipboard in hand, scanning the inventory of the incoming load. As he looked up, his expression shifted from concentration to curiosity.

  “Giles,” Vashe said casually. “What brings you here? I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “Take the day off, Vashe,” Giles said.

  Vashe blinked. “Pardon?”

  “You heard me,” Giles said, reefing the clipboard from Vashe’s hands. “Get out of here. Go home. Rest up.”

  Vashe was frowning. “I don’t need rest. This is—”

  “That wasn’t a suggestion,” Giles said. “Consider it an order.”

  And so Vashe, yielding to the dark intensity of his Commander, gave no further argument. Without obsequiousness, Vashe Martin honoured the chain of command. He was relieved of his duties, and as he left the old service station, he paused, glancing back.

  “Whatever you’re looking for, Giles … I hope you find it.”

  Giles didn’t respond.

  With Vashe gone, Giles pulled shut the roller door. He tore into the inbound load, his intensity tipping into frenzy. Crates were pried open with the screech of nails, their contents spilled heedlessly. Buckets clattered and rolled. Screws, nails, and rivets clinked on the cracked concrete.

  The wagoner returned, coffee in hand, to find his wagon in disarray. Startled and quite perturbed, he protested, his voice thin but sharp: “Where’s Vashe? This isn’t protocol! I feel quite well violated, if I do say so. What is the meaning of this?”

  Giles ignored him. Like a prisoner clawing through dirt and stone, convinced that his excavations—planned for months—would finally win freedom; so Giles ripped through the wagon, certain strife lay hidden.

  Suddenly, the roller door screeched open. In the doorway stood Virgil, his broad frame a shadow against the grey afternoon. He was a man ignited, as if Lord Wind himself had stepped out of a thundercloud, his frown so fierce it might burn a hole through the heavens.

  “Burn God’s flesh and boil his blood!” Virgil bellowed from the threshold. “What do you think you’re doing, Giles?”

  Giles froze. Like a child caught with his hand in the lolly jar, teeth flecked with jelly, breath reeking of sugar; so it was that Giles turned to face his Chief Commander, still clutching a crowbar. His heart pounded with guilt—but stubbornness flared in his eyes.

  “Vashe said he didn’t feel so well,” Vashe said. “I told him to take the day off.”

  “Did he now?” The Chief Commander’s presence filled the room like storm clouds before the break. “Funny, because I just spoke with Vashe, and he’s fine. Truthfully, he’s confused. Says you came storming in, ordered him to sign off, and sent him home without explanation. He thinks he’s done something wrong.”

  The Chief Commander swept his gaze over the dismantled load, which was bestrewn all around, as if a feral child had torn furiously into all of his birthday goodies, searching for the best one. His frown deepened. “This isn’t your department, Giles.”

  “With all due respect, Chief—I am the Commander. I know what I’m doing. This is a routine inspection.”

  “A routine inspection? Do you take me for a fool? You’re not half as cunning as you believe, Giles. You are on your way to acting like a man unhinged. These last few months I’ve kept a close eye on you. You may think you had me convinced of your word—not by half. I know what you’re doing. And it ends. Now.”

  Giles stared at the Chief Commander, his chest tightening. “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll suspend you forthwith,” the Chief Commander snapped. “I’ll confiscate your sigil, and you can spend your days contemplating this foolishness from the comfort of your own home.”

  The tension in the old service station was suffocating. The wagoneer had retreated against the wall, blending with the shadows.

  The Chief Commander stepped forward, closing the distance between them. “We are Guardian Force, Giles. We protect this town; we do not tear it apart with baseless accusations and reckless crusades. You’re walking on the edge of a knife, and if you don’t steady yourself, you’re going to fall. Do you hear me?”

  Through gritted teeth, Giles said, “Yeah. I hear you.”

  “Then tell me—are you in, or out?” Virgil’s voice was wearied now, but no less firm. “I can’t have you undermining me, Giles. My decisions are final. You follow my orders. I need you to be where I tell you to be, to do what I say, else I have no place for you, to say nothing for my respect.”

  The world seemed to grind to a halt. The only sound was the growl of the wind slamming against the walls.

  Then Virgil lowered his voice—a whisper edged with warning, colder than the wind. “Betray me, Giles, and you betray the baron. If you want an enemy, few men could be worse. He would have you destroyed.”

  Giles blinked. There was less threat in Virgil’s voice than fear. Never before had Virgil threatened the wrath of Baron Wordsworth. What was Virgil hiding? Why was he so desperate to see this investigation buried?

  Was he wrong? Was Virgil himself verily the culprit? He dismissed the thought as soon as it surfaced, couldn’t entertain it, even if for a moment. But why the concern? Why the threat?

  Giles sighed. He knew his answers were not for today. For now he had only to get his Chief Commander off his case.

  “It won’t happen again,” Giles said quietly. “It is ended.”

  It was a lie.