“Tell the young lady what you told me,” she said without glancing at the moth who shook like a leaf caught between a child’s fingers and held against a storm.

His fear was a swirling sea. A putrid mix that spoke of collapse. She was surprised she hadn’t smelled him coming. He began haltingly, in an attempt at calm that fooled no one. “My lady called the girl an empath. One gifted with senses and acuity for the spiritual beyond their station. A talent as rare as it is precious. One that only grows with the realms and cycles of cultivation.”

Two did not stiffen through the impulse struck her. Instead, she met Lancet’s smiling scrutiny with a vapid smile of her own. It should not have been a surprise the governor found out yet it was. She had not expected one so high to take anything more than a passing interest in her.

“As such she was one of Daisy’s most valuable treasures. Only kept from pride of place by the taint that mars her spirit and seeps into her flesh.” His voice was tight and though he never once stuttered. When he said taint, vitriol grew to war with despair.

He looked at her and there was nothing in his eyes but hate. Then the governor waved and was once more a broken thing and he retreated into the resigned silence of a man who’d lost everything.

All the while their keeper’s eyes twinkled with glee. “Don’t you find that interesting?”

A part of her wanted to hate the dead-eyed and shaking moth as he had always hated her. Another was saddened to see a man she’d know as the epitome of poised and composure reduced to husk. Much of what she knew she’d grifted from him. Long hours spent peeking around corners learning how to hold herself just so. A final voice said both impulses were useless distractions. She followed the voice of reason. “It is very interesting Governor. I have always known but I did not think I would ever merit such high esteem. Alas,t I’m not certain what it has to do with our present discussion.”

The manours lady chuckled and fell back in her high-backed embroidered leather chair. Dragons serpentine and stout danced across its surface. Their manes were bright and metallic, based on their sheen quite literally. Two almost lost her train of thought as she tried to estimate its cost and why someone would want metal thread poking their back.

“Oh dear, fishing for information are we?” her tone sharpened, flattened, a margin closer to that blatant falsity.

A thought illuminated why. The governor liked the blunt and obvious. Coy had slipped too close to blithe. She amended with a slight bow of her head and spoke in a wan tone. “I am trying to fish governor. You have the better of me and my fate is securely in your hand. Is there fault in trying to understand one’s position?”

“I suppose not.” The reclining lady tapped her armrest. Her nail’s clacking on polished wood dominated the concertation’s lull. Then she threw something at Two.

Two had all of half a second to see glinting metal before the item struck her in the forehead. She hissed and lurched back, snatching the object with one hand as the other went to rub her forehead. She’d woken and found herself devoid of pain or discomfort. As if all the little hurts of life had been peeled off along with the night’s wounds.

She had not appreciated it enough.

She glared at the cause of her misfortune. The governor smiled broadly. “It takes a lot to get an honest look out of you.”

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Two blinked as the statement sank in. “Oh, don’t let me bother you. Go back to smiling if you like. It’s a very good one, well practised if I do say.”

Two considered her option for a long moment. “Would it help me if I did” she tried a hopeful tone.

“No,” the Nobel shook her head in faux commiseration while laughter ran through their essence.” No, I don’t think it will.”

Two allowed herself a single sigh. “Then, what do you want.” Her voice was flat and cold and Two felt just a bit naked as she used it. It was an effort to lay herself bare even when circumstance had forced honesty from her the night before she’d massaged and exaggerated. Picking which pieces of herself made the best story before she put them on display. That wouldn’t work here, the governor wanted something raw. Anything else would be an insult. She just hoped she hadn’t forgotten what her ‘honest’ self was.

Lancet smiled all the wider. “First look at your gift.” There was a rumble in her voice. Low and indulgent like far too deep to come from any mortal throat.

With suspicion in her gaze and fear masked behind that Two glanced at the ‘gift’. A necklace with slim interlocking grey chains marked with spiralling silver runes stared up at her. A clear almost invisible crystal the length of a finger was bound at its center.

Two looked up at stared at the governor. The governor grinned back.

“Aren’t you going to ask what it is?” they prodded.

“What is it?” asked impassively

The woman tsked and shook her head. “It is your reason for being involved in the night’s scuffle. So in a way, it’s the reason for half the paperwork on my desk. Other than that it’s a rather remarkable artifact. You made quite the impression on the ravens. I can’t imagine why they let me take it from that serpent’s hoard so easily otherwise. ”

Half the governor’s words flew past uncaring ears as she honed in on the only thing that mattered. The necklace was plain if a bit intricate with all those swirling lines along the chains. But it was nothing that couldn’t be found in the market for the right price. It was nothing she hadn’t stolen before. The only unique thing about it was the crystal, and that was because no jeweller would waste good chain on such a boring pendant.

Was the lady lying? They had no reason to deceive someone so far below them. But then again what reason was there to give a gutter child a treasure? stubborn warred with educated paranoia and spun into a storm that raged across her thoughts. The bleak clouds crashed into her impassive visage.

She let not a scrap of turmoil through.

Still, the governor detected something, “Go ahead. Try it on. You won’t feel anything but it should be obvious next time you speak to a servant.”

Doubt pushed her to try and confirm the disappointment. Hope bid her to dare believe. They pulled in the same direction and two became a puppet. Wary hands brought the necklace above her head and laid the cold metal about her neck. Two held the clear crystal between her fingers and didn’t know how to feel.

“How is it?” Their smile was almost gentle. Hints of something sad entered their scent.

Two couldn’t be bothered to ponder why and had even less desire to answer. “What are the other papers about.”

Lancet hummed and her sadness grew., but she hid it well. “Mainly about the angels. What the emissaries are here for, what their guardian is doing. Thinly veiled inquires trying to figure out how we contacted them. A few marriage attempts. Etcetera.” One of those enquiries was not like the other but Two was not in the mood to take the governor’s bait.

“I see.”

The room fell quiet. Terry’s unsteady breaths as he fell in and out of panic attacks told time with a clock’s tick.

“You know” the governor hesitated and Two watched as doubt crept into a woman who wore dismissal and amusement. “you can cry.” The woman smiled and spoke in the ar off tone of someone who wasn’t quite there. Yet her words were no less genuine for it. ”You may be a thieving duplicitous soul but I won’t fall you for that and you are far too young to be so cynical.” Two didn’t look at the woman. She couldn’t bear to. The taste of their melancholy sickened and their compassion hurt. And yet tears still pressed, but, he refused to let them fall for a maybe. To break down in front of a stranger. To be weak without cause.

She bundled the nameless mass of roiling feeling and pushed it behind her. She stepped free of herself as if she were rangling her way out of an uncooperative coat. And she was left with the peace of nothing.

“I’m fine.” She said and let the crystal fall to bounce against her chest.

Lancet sighed her smile became false. Though the loss that touched it was true. Two didn’t know why. Nor did she question. “On to business then.” She said, all relaxed authority. She sat up and clasped her hands on the table. “First order you are never to lie to me. Second, you will be assigned to guide Emmissary Ignis through the city at his convenience. Do as she asks and answer any and all questions he might have. Finally, you are to inform me of all you learn and observe of him through a written report unless asked otherwise. Do you understand?” every word was said with the expectation her whim would become Twos law. Yet looking at he blatantly fake smile and the open calculation in their eyes, Two believed it.

For she stood in front of a woman who could wear lies on her sleeve and never think of reprisal. A woman who had defined her world long before she lived and squeezed it with law after law until the place she grew up in died.

“Yes, Ma’am.” She said in a tone as hollow as their smile.

“Then you are dismissed.”

Without a word Two spun and walked past a vacant Terry on her way out. A few words followed her out. “Do try to enjoy your day Two.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”