Prologue

  (June, 2023)

  "I am terribly sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you on this matter, Lady Reid, but looking into it has caused some disturbance in the offices of Summers and Winters."

  I sighed, rested my elbows on my desk blotter, and put my head in my hands. Addressing the speakerphone to my left without looking at it, I said, "That's all right, Margrave. I wasn't expecting an immediate response or anything. But I think you'd better explain why it caused a disturbance. And please call me Caley."

  "Under the circumstances, Lady Reid," Margrave said, sounding grim, "I feel formality may be wisest."

  Ken - still as insubstantial and ghostly as the day I met him, but with quite a bit more color and definition than he'd had then - nodded from where he 'sat' in a chair across the desk from me. He scooped up a pen and scribbled on a sheet of paper, then slid it around to me. It said, 'If he's falling back on formality, they found something bad, embarrassing, or both.'

  I grimaced and nodded my understanding. "All right, Margrave, I apologize. Go ahead, then."

  "I appreciate your forbearance, Lady Reid," Margrave replied. "After our last conversation, I immediately began looking into your query about a clan of dusk foxes who were associated with your family at some time in the past."

  Penumbra, who had been lounging indolently beside the desk in her natural form - that of a Husky-sized fox with fur as black as a raven's wings - raised her head. Her ears and tails (both of them), tipped in midnight blue, were suddenly perked alertly, and in the blink of an eye she shifted to her humanoid form. Her hands came to rest on the desk as she leaned in to listen more closely.

  A couple of months ago, that would have unsettled me a bit. Penny's humanoid form was literally a negative image of me; my body, my face, my hair, even the clothes I was wearing, only black and shadowy, except for shades of midnight blue in her long, braided hair and at the tips of her fingers, and her golden eyes. Now I just found it weirdly comforting.

  It's funny how quickly 'weird' can become 'normal.'

  Sparkle, my little purple fairy sidekick, had been sitting on the top of Penny's head. Now she fluttered to a graceful landing on my blotter. She then plopped down on my desk's pen holder, propped her chin in her hands, and assumed an utterly bored mien.

  "I was quite put out when I was unable to immediately locate the relevant paperwork in your family files," Margrave continued. "We pride ourselves on being able to answer such questions within a matter of hours. This two month delay in providing you with the requested information is...unthinkable. Absolutely unprecedented." He audibly took a deep breath and let it out. "We have, at last, located the missing files. Do you wish the information first, or an explanation first?"

  I opened my mouth to say that an explanation really wasn't necessary, when I remembered something Ken had recently taught me about dealing with the Sidhe. "The High Sidhe are very proud and take their promises very seriously," he'd said. "If one fails in a promise, it's not just embarrassing, it potentially represents a loss of power and status. If one of the Sidhe ever apologizes to you, however indirectly, listen carefully. You'll probably learn something important."

  "Explanation first," I said, "then the information you found."

  Ken smiled and nodded approvingly.

  "Very good," Margrave said, sounding just as approving. "To that end, it appears that an associate of Summers and Winters pulled the relevant paperwork from the Reid Family files and relocated it to the files of another Summers and Winters customer. The relocation of said paperwork would be suspicious enough in and of itself, but the files in which it came to rest, combined with both the nature of the paperwork and your peripherally-related questions, made the situation simply untenable."

  He paused for a moment before continuing. "All of this is why, I'm sorry to say, it has taken me so long to get back to you on this matter. If it is of any consolation, the associate responsible for this incident is no longer in the employ of Summers and Winters, and we have seen to it that achieving employment in the future will be quite impossible for him."

  I opened my mouth to ask what he meant by that, but Ken shook his head firmly. I took the completely unsubtle hint. "Then it sounds like you've sorted out the problem," I said instead. "May I presume that something like this won't happen again?"

  Margrave was briefly silent before replying. "Lady Reid, I must confess that until this incident we had believed that it was quite impossible for such an incident to occur here. I will not promise you that it won't happen again, only that we are undergoing an internal review of all files and will be implementing new policies and procedures in an effort to ensure it cannot happen again."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He sounded pained, and I wondered if not being able to give a firm, straightforward answer was somehow actually physically painful for him. "It sounds like you're doing everything that needs to be done," I said, "and your assurance that steps are being taken to prevent similar incidents is all I need."

  "Thank you, Lady Reid," he said, sounding relieved.

  "Of course, Margrave. Now, what did you find?" I asked, and Penny leaned in a little again.

  "I have before me documents officiating a vassal agreement between a clan of dusk foxes and your ancestors," Margrave said, "with a representative of the Sidhe clan which eventually became the Summers and Winters law firm acting as witness. It was signed in 1613, only a few years before construction of Oakwood Hall began.

  "It was updated in 1625," he continued, "after primary construction of the Hall was completed, specifically naming the Hall as the home of that clan of dusk foxes."

  Penny breathed out and sank to her knees, folding her arms on the desktop and resting her chin on them. "So everything my grand-dam taught me was true."

  "So it would appear, Miss Penumbra," Margrave said seriously. "Welcome home, as it were."

  "What does a vassal agreement entail?" I asked.

  "Nothing terribly onerous or particularly complicated," Margrave replied. "Your ancestors agreed to protect and nurture the clan of dusk foxes, while they - in turn - agreed to protect and guard your family and property. Fairly standard terms, really."

  "All right, that makes sense," I said. "Can you tell me where the paperwork was moved and why?"

  Another long moment of silence. "I'm afraid our confidentiality clauses preclude the possibility of me telling you either, Lady Reid," Margrave said apologetically. "However, I can tell you that you have already spoken with a representative of the organization that may have set these events in motion."

  Ken and I exchanged a grim look. The ICOA.

  The International Consortium of Organized Arcana was supposedly the world's preeminent magical collective. They saw themselves as responsible for policing the world's magical communities, and ensuring that knowledge of the existence of magic and supernatural beings - like Ken, Sparkle, and Penny - didn't become public.

  At least, so they claimed. Even in the few months since my first encounter with them, I'd begun to doubt it, and had been carefully putting out feelers to find the larger magical community.

  On the Internet, of all places. You really can find anything there if you know where and how to look.

  "All right," I said slowly, "anything else we need to know?"

  "Yes," Margrave said firmly. "The violation of a vassal agreement by a third party is a serious breach of both etiquette and law."

  Sparkle and Penny both nodded. I gave Ken a blank look, which he returned with an expression that I'd come to recognize as meaning 'I'll explain later.'

  "Thank you, Margrave," I said. "I think that tells me everything I need to know for now."

  "Very good, Lady Reid. I trust there will be no hard feelings over this unfortunate incident."

  "Not at all, Margrave," I said gently. "As I said, I'm sure you've done everything in your power to correct it, and I trust that your office will take appropriate steps to make sure it can't happen again."

  "Quite," Margrave said, sounding grim. "Then I will bid you good day, and remind you - as always - to contact me at any time, day or night, should you need my assistance."

  "Thank you, Margrave," I said again. "Have a good day."

  I hung up the phone and looked around the office at my friends. "Thoughts?"

  "Well," Penny said thoughtfully, "it's nice to know everything my Grand-dam taught me about the Hall and your family is true." She smiled up at me. "I really am properly home."

  "Yes you are," I said.

  "We didn't really learn anything we didn't already know or suspect," Ken said, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his chin. "But it's good to have confirmation, in however roundabout a form."

  "What did Margrave mean," I asked, "about the violation of a vassal agreement being a breach of etiquette and law?"

  "Not just a breach, a serious breach," Ken said quietly. "Vassal agreements are sacrosanct in the supernatural world. Harming the members of one grants their protectors complete freedom to act against the aggressors." His eyes focused on me. "And when I say complete, I mean complete. If it really was the ICOA that…that kidnapped those dusk foxes, for lack of a better term, you would be within your rights - at least as far as the supernatural community is concerned - to wipe them from the face of the Earth."

  I blinked at that. "What?"

  "Of course, it's not usually done that way," Ken went on. "The usual, accepted thing, especially where multiple generations are involved, is for the party at fault to pay a weregild - for lack of a better term - in restitution for any harm done. Of course, that requires them to acknowledge they were at fault in the first place. Considering the ICOA's actions to date, and Cuthbert's denial of knowledge, you might find yourself with a surprising amount of support if you chose to act against them openly."

  He hesitated for a moment, then added, "Not that I'd recommend that as your first action in this matter."

  "It hadn't even crossed my mind!"

  "I'm very glad to hear it," Ken said firmly. "It would be a mistake at this point in time."

  "Not the best way to start making friends in the larger community, eh?" I asked dryly.

  "Not at all," Ken agreed. Then he sighed and rose. "Still, it's good to have that settled." He smiled at Penny. "Welcome home, Penny."

  She beamed up at him. "Thank you, Ken. And you, Caley, and Sparkle. You've all made me feel so welcome and safe."

  "Of course we have," Sparkle said stoutly. "Because you are home, and would have been regardless of what Margrave found."

  "What she said," I gestured at Sparkle. "However, this cements my resolve to do something to free your kin from the ICOA. I just need to figure out what, and that may take time. I don't want to make you any promises I can't keep."

  "You don't need to make me any promises at all," Penny said. "But I appreciate the sentiment anyway." She stretched and reverted to her natural, vulpine form. Her golden eyes blinked up at me and her muzzle curled into a smile. "It's lunchtime."

  I chuckled and nodded. "Yes, yes it is. Come on, let's hit the kitchen."

  "COOOKIEEE!" Sparkle cheered, and left a sparkling purple streak in her wake as she leaped off the desk and shot out the door that Ken had just opened.