Gary’s eyes opened slowly, bracing themselves against the harsh midday light. The first thing they glimpsed was a bare shoulder, curved so perfectly as to follow the earth spirit himself. “You’re perfect,” he muttered, a poet even when first rising from the murky depths of slumber.
“I’m so not though,” Mary muttered back, still facing away from him. “Then I wouldn’t be so appealing and relatable. I’m a Lady, just like anyone else. I’ve got human flaws like caring too much about everyone, even those filthy peasants, or being so beautiful that people start wars over me. It’s happened before.”
“I can see it.” Gary smiled. “What wars?”
“Oh, you know… Wars…” She rolled over, showing her impossibly gorgeous face. Although, something about it was off compared to last night, like she was sick or tired or something… The color was off, too, less pale than it was supposed to be. “Too many to keep count of, really.”
“I know what you mean,” he said with a yawn. “I mean, when I try to think back on all the duels I’ve won, all the glory I’ve brought to Avalon… It’s such a flood that pointing to any specific example is an impossible task.”
“I thought nothing was impossible for Sir Gerald Stewart of Forta.” She flicked a finger at his nose, an assault so painful it nearly drew blood. “Champion of the Prince, son of the kingdom’s best pirate-catcher. Weren’t you close to catching that harbor bomber too? Clock… chain… I think?”
Oh fuck, I knew I was supposed to be doing something.
“Indeed, fair lady!” Gary ripped the covers from himself, honestly a relief anyway in the oppressive heat, and leapt out of bed with the energy of Pantera. “The vile Jacques Clochaîne will soon have his criminal ways exposed to all the world. Governor Perimont himself noted that the problem would be taken care of today.”
“He said we have to take care of it today!” a distant voice sounded through the door, shrill and nasty.
“Are you expecting visitors?” Gary asked his courtly paramour as he began to dress himself.
Mary shook her head. “People just take any excuse to see me. It’s a real problem just getting around the city through my swaths of adoring fanatics.”
“I know what you mean. Every time I accompanied Prince Harold through the streets of Cambria, we couldn’t go ten feet without someone trying to talk to me.” Luckily, Prince Harold was such a gentleman that he would always talk to them first, before Gary had any need to intervene.
“Gary, I know you’re in there. I can hear you!”
“I think she’s talking to you,” he whispered to Mary, hoping she would take care of the interruption so he could go back to sleep.
The door slammed open with a resounding crash, leaving a dent from the knob in the opposite wall. Familiar light hair and muscle loomed in the doorway menacingly.
“Oh, hello Charlotte!” Mary called out. “Staying fit, I see.”
“I… Thank you?” Charlotte blinked. “Look, Gary, the Governor gave us one day to find enough evidence to move against Clochaîne. Because of you, he thought we still had Claude in custody, but he’s in the wind. Temple Acolytes said he disappeared last night.”
“Probably dead,” Gary noted dispassionately. “Clochaîne tying up a loose end.”
“Actually, that does seem like the most likely possibility. Are you alright, Gary? You seem different today.”
He grinned as he put on his shirt, completing his elegant gentleman’s ensemble. “Love can inspire all sorts of change in a man, all for the better. Even such a pinnacle of masculinity as myself.”
“Love?” Mary muttered, blown away that the depth of her feelings had been laid bare. “Take it easy there, Gerald.”
“It’s always easy when I take things, and I would know, since I do it a lot. It’s because I’m so strong and powerful.” He patted her head lightly. “But thank you for the concern.”
“We don’t have time for this!” Charlotte slammed her fist against the wall, creating a dent next to the one made by the doorknob. Perimont was really miserly with that wall plaster.
“Speak for yourself,” Mary said from under the covers. “And turn around. I want to see you walk away.”
Charlotte sighed, not moving out of solidarity for him. It was nice to see her so offended on his behalf at the insinuation that he could not easily take things. “Lady Mary, it’s a pleasure, but your father expects Sir Gerald and myself in his office in less than an hour. I need to brief him on the situation.”
“Oh sure, go ahead.”
“In private.”
“I understand.” Mary nodded. “My room is as private as it gets. Proceed as you will.”
In response, Charlotte grabbed Gary by the wrist and dragged him out of the room.
“Hey! Stop!” Gary tried to pull his hand free, but stopped once he encountered resistance, since the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her with his awesome strength. “I know there’s this burning tension between us, but I have a lady love now, and I must remain faithful to her. I suppose if you really wanted to join us, I could discuss the matter with—Ow!” She let go, causing him to collapse to the floor, obviously because her freakish strength had flung him into it. “Don’t take your amorous frustration out on me!”
“Just get up.” She held out her hand to him, and Gary grabbed it and pulled himself to a standing position. “I need to get you ready for our conversation with Lord Perimont. We have less than an hour.”
Gary rolled his eyes. “We’re in his mansion right now! What’s the rush? Honestly, why did you have to get me up so early?”
Charlotte blinked. “It’s three hours after noon.”
“The night after a party! I don’t know if you forgot, but it was kind of a big deal. And it lasted a while. What time did you get up, if you’re so perfect?”
“Uh… yesterday, I guess? I haven’t really been able to sleep. That’s not what’s important right now.” She did look tired, now that he looked more closely.
“Insomnia.” Gary nodded. “Prince Harold has been known to suffer from the same thing. Fear not, for if he can live with it, certainly so can you.”
“It doesn’t matter!” She smacked her forehead, mystified that such a royal personage could suffer from the same affliction as a lowly peasant like her. “Claude is gone! He’s the only reason Perimont thought we could turn up this evidence in the first place. Lady Carrine completely abandoned her promise to help me find him, or even talk to the Temple leadership for us—”
“She was probably drunk enough to forget about it. Did you see how wild she went?”
“Are you thinking of her servant Celine? The one playing the knife tricks? Because Carrine seemed pretty lucid, no slurring or anything.”
“I said what I meant! She called me a gormless imbecile!” Only copious alcohol could drive a woman to spew such hurtful lies.
Charlotte snorted, imagining Simon’s imperious friend in such a state.
“I think she was trying to flirt with me or something.”
“...Sure. Anyway, without her, I couldn’t get anything from the Acolytes. They wouldn’t even tell me if Claude was a member or not, so I had no way to follow up on Lady Carrine’s impersonator theory.”
“The impersonator theory? Is Claude a shadow doppelganger? Of who though?” Gary scratched his chin.
“There’s no shadow doppelganger! That’s not what I’m talking about at all!”
Gary ignored her jealous ramblings. “Prince Luce disappeared when those pirates kidnapped him. Perhaps he was simply biding his time to usurp noble Harold and make a play for the throne, aided by the fell magic of Cambrian kings past. He was always looking at that old lore before he became so obsessed with science, and he’d know the value of being in two places at once. Plus, the Grimoire arcane library of artifacts is so extensive that—”
“Khali’s curse, no! Stop!” She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Then why did you spend so much time talking about it?” The shadow doppelganger theory was a pretty crazy one, especially since it had been decades since anyone had seen any, or the dagger that could create them, but Gary had at least been generous enough to entertain the idea. The least she could do was be grateful for that.
Her eye twitched with self-awareness at her irritating behavior. “The point is, we don’t have enough on Clochaîne for the Governor to be satisfied. Which means that if I want to walk out of there with my head still on my shoulders, we have to give him something else.”
“Maybe a hand?” Gary offered. “A foot, perhaps? I know it’s not ideal, but surely it’s better than losing your head. You can try for a finger or an ear or something, but I think that’s offering too little. Lord Perimont might be insulted.”
Charlotte grit her teeth, contemplating what she might have to sacrifice for the safety of Avalon. “Something else in the way of information. A way to point the authority Prince Harold has given you at the right target. Win ourselves some favor.”
“Well, I do have plenty of favor, but I guess it never hurts to have more. What do we have for him?”
“We? You slept through the day while I was out—”
“Fine, fine. What do you have for me?”
By way of response, Charlotte pulled out a single gleaming blue earring.
“Oh, nicely done! Mary’ll love it!” He scratched his chin. “Although perhaps it would look better on me. Ever since the Princes began doing it, single earrings have been super fashionable. I don’t know… What do you think, Charlotte?”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She exhaled sharply. “It figures that this would be the first time you ask me that.”
“Well I know fashion isn’t your usual area, given”—he waved his hand up and down her body, and the simple shirt and trousers upon it—“you know, all of that. But it’s still nice to get an outside voice sometimes, and I can’t exactly ask Simon. Prince Harold took that blue earring from him after the harbor bombing. He’d get way too jealous if I brought this up to him.”
Charlotte waved the earring in her hands in his face. “It’s the same earring!”
Gary scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, not literally the same earring, but it’s part of the matched set. Celine found it on the beach in Guerron.”
“That’s just up the coast, right? I can’t keep track of all these fox names.” His eyes darted back and forth across the hallway. “This isn’t Guerron, is it? No one told me what the locals called this place, and it’s been so long I don’t think I can ask.”
“It’s Malin, as I’m sure many people have told you many times.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I’m going piece-by-piece as if you’re following along to figure it out. The point is, I took this to a jeweler to examine it this morning, to see if anything stood out.”
“Ah, the old trade-in-the-evidence-for-store-credit routine. Very clever!” Of course, it was polite to cut your superior officer in, in such a situation, but Charlotte definitely had a tendency for thoughtlessness.
“Actually, it cost me most of what I had, especially since I had to have them rush it.” She twisted her mouth. “I don’t suppose Prince Harold left you any funds for the investigation?”
“Oh, tons! Like way more than I know what to do with, and I just keep getting more every month!” He was earning every penny though, putting in such hard work to seek out Prince Harold’s enemies and destroy them.
“Would you mind reimbursing me, then? It wiped me out for the month.”
Reimburse… What a strange word. “Are you flirting again?”
Charlotte closed her eyes and took a deep breath, caught off guard by the deft observation. “Hey, I just remembered,” she said through grit teeth. “Can I borrow a thousand mandala?”
“Oh, sure.” Gary pulled out one of his smaller coin purses and tossed it to her. “Make sure you keep close track of everything, because I don’t really know how much is in there.”
“Thank you!” She tucked it into one of her pockets. “Anyway, that jeweler asked around, and apparently some master craftsman named Georges Volcain created a pair of sapphire earrings imbued with Levian’s energy about thirty years ago for Lady Sarille Leclaire, as a wedding gift. The fact that no one from Avalon found the pair after the Foxtrap means they probably followed Camille Leclaire into Guerron when she fled.”
“So you’re saying that we found something no one in Avalon ever has before? I discovered a lost artifact?” Prince Harold loved lost artifacts, and apparently blue earrings as well. This was a golden opportunity. “I must write the Prince at once.”
“No, I’m saying that if one of these earrings turned up on our beach right after the bombing, and the other washed ashore in Guerron, it implies that someone messed up and left one on the ship. It implicates Guerron in the harbor bombing, and Camille Leclaire in particular. It’s not like she doesn’t have a motive, trying to sabotage Avalon’s hold on the city, no matter the cost in human life.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Gary said strategically, despite not totally following what she meant. That way he could keep her on her toes, test her to make sure she was capable enough to assist him. “So we can bring Prince Harold the head of this Camille character and inform him that the city's been saved.”
“If only. I could retire on that goodwill.”
“Well, why not? What’s this Camille Leclaire so busy doing that we can’t just grab her?”
“Being dead.”
Gary shook his head sadly. “A damn shame, that. How recently? If we can find the head and dip it in tar, then maybe—”
“Sir Gerald?” a mannered voice called out. A servant, by the looks, though servants worked by definition, and this person didn’t seem to be doing any labor. “Lord Perimont is ready to see you now.”
“Just back me up, alright?” Charlotte stepped forward hesitantly, though her pace grew more measured as they continued down the halls, probably because she realized what exalted company she was working for.
≋
“...and this jeweler can testify to that fact?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Voclain took up residence in Condillac after the Foxtrap. But his apprentice remains in the city, and confirmed the earring’s origin for me. He would do so again at a trial, I’m sure.”
“Or could be made to, if necessary.” Perimont stepped towards the window, a smooth motion since his office still didn’t have a chair. “But what good to us is motive for war on Guerron? As soon as that girl is found guilty at her trial, the sun sage will open the gates to us anyway. Prince Luce’s unfortunate demise would be grounds enough, anyway, should the Crown desire to do so.”
“But it lets the truth get out! Camille Leclaire destroyed the harbor, she killed dozens!”
“And the sun sage killed her before any of it came to light anyway.” He shook his head. “A day late and a ‘dala short, as His Majesty would say.”
“Short? I’m not short! I’m just still growing! Just you wait and see, my father’s almost seven feet tall, and all my brothers are—”
“Cease your prattling,” he said, though Charlotte hadn’t said anything to him. Wait, is he talking to me? “I gave you a very simple task: find evidence of Jacques Clochaîne’s many brazen illegal dealings before the impending war makes it difficult to rid ourselves of him. You failed.”
“Well, she tried her best,” Gary offered.
“You, Sir Gerald. You failed, you incompetant buffoon. Clochaîne negotiated the contracts today, and at the Crown’s insistence I had no choice but to accommodate him. It’s done.”
“But we caught the harbor bomber!”
Cold brown eyes stared down at him. “You found weak evidence against a dead woman and a city already in our grip, whom we already have good cause to invade should it prove necessary. All this time, all these resources, and you’ve accomplished nothing!”
Gary puffed up his chest. “I don’t serve at your pleasure. I was happy to offer a favor, but my charge here was to find the harbor bomber for Prince Harold, and I’ve done that singlehandedly. If that doesn’t satisfy you, then it’s not my problem.”
“Is that so?” He shrugged. “So be it. It was folly to waste my time with you, no matter the authority Prince Harold vested you with. You say your mission is complete? Fine. Then you have no further cause to remain here.”
“If this is about Mary—”
“Mary?” His eyes narrowed. “If you have done the slightest harm to my daughter, then I assure you I shall weather the Prince’s displeasure as necessary.”
“He didn’t,” Charlotte hurriedly said, eager to defend his honor. “He was just so drunk he could barely stand. Mary was nice enough to let him stay here, but nothing happened.”
What is she doing? Was this what Mary was talking about, downplaying one’s accomplishments to seem more relatable?
The Governor exhaled sharply. “Easy enough to believe, but rest assured that the matter will be investigated closely. Sir Gerald will remain in my care until I can be certain.” He turned around from the window to face Charlotte. “As for you, I would normally leave the disciplining to Captain Whitbey. But as he is indisposed at the moment—”
“Wait, wait, hold on. Disciplining? She did nothing wrong.”
Perimont’s cold stare returned to him. “Her task was a simple one, and she failed. Not because the task was impossible, for it obviously was not, but the delays rendered your findings completely pointless. With a deadline of one day, you proceeded to drink yourselves into a stupor for half of your time and sleep away the remainder. Captain Whitbey even mentioned contraband being circulated there, which neither of you made any attempt to confiscate.”
“We were gathering intelligence,” Charlotte said. “We couldn’t disrupt the festivities without giving away the reason we were there.”
“A likely excuse. Guards!” The instant he shouted it, a dozen of his forresters flooded into the office, surrounding them. “Sir Gerald is to be escorted to guest chambers as befit his station. He shall remain there until such time as I inform you otherwise. As for the girl, I believe we have an opening in today’s execution schedule. If I’m mistaken, place her in whatever opening is next.”
Gary whistled. “I’ve heard about getting the seats with the best view, but I didn’t realize there was a wait list.”
Charlotte pounded a fist against her knee. “No, idiot, he’s going to kill me. All because—mmfpht.” One of the guard’s hands covered her mouth the moment Perimont gestured.
“See that she remains silenced for the duration, as a precautionary measure.”
Something about seeing her like that… For all her insensitivity, she had done a lot for him. I probably never could have made it so far with Mary without her, either. And they were so close to catching the villains, giving them the punishment they so deserved.
Charlotte should be able to see them hang too. She deserves nothing less.
“This isn’t right!” Gary shouted. “Charlotte was a huge help! She basically… I couldn’t have done it without her. And I’ll tell Prince Harold!”
“Prince Harold has far bigger things to worry about right now than the likes of you.”
“Are you calling me short again? Because…” He saw Charlotte shaking her head. Right, even Lord Perimont wouldn’t be rude enough to do it twice in one conversation. “I’m his personal emissary in this city. Any mistreatment I suffer reflects on you. How do you think he’ll feel when he hears that you had me jailed? That a crucial person to uncovering who blew up the harbor was killed because she didn’t do it fast enough?”
“There are greater issues at play. The pre-emptive strike—” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. “This isn’t worth belaboring. Prince Harold has never even heard of this girl, and you shall suffer no harm from me, have no cause to speak ill of your time here.”
“But I will! I’ll tell him everything! Shit, I already have! I’ve been writing to him for months, telling him all about Charlotte and our progress… He was looking forward to meeting her, if I recall correctly.” Not that I can really remember. It sounded right, though. Gary wasn’t one to spare any details in his letters other than the ones that made him look bad, which were incredibly rare.
Perimont’s eyes narrowed. He took a deep breath and began to pace the room, hands behind his back. “If you insist on being difficult about it, there are other options.”
“Great! I’ll pick one of those! Maybe I could help guard Mary the way I guard Prince Harold, or help catch any remaining spirits, ooh or—”
”You, sir, are done. You are no longer welcome in Malin. If Prince Harold wishes otherwise, he can grant you an official writ to return with and I shall honor it. In the meantime, begone.”
“That’s still so harsh! I’m an investigator, a great detective, here to help you bring order to this lawless city. You’re not giving me anything I want!”
He turned to Charlotte without comment. “As for you, given the circumstances, I can understand your shortcomings. I am not without mercy, and I grant you this rare chance to make up for your mistake.”
The hand over her mouth drew back, but she still didn’t say anything.
“A large number of pigs went missing today. Use those Guardian investigative skills you were trained with and find the poacher.”
Charlotte’s eyes went wide. “What? I need to help cement the case against Leclaire for the bombing, and I’m so close to catching Clochaîne! I just need the in through the Temple, and I have a plan to—”
“This is an order, not a request. Your reassignment begins tomorrow.”
The guards dragged her off after that, presumably to escort her to whatever hovel she called home. Gary, befitting his status, was instead marched to the door and lightly shoved into the road, which was incredibly rude.
Despite the heat, he pulled up the collar of his jacket as wandered the streets, lost in contemplative and internal but still totally dispassionate and rational thoughts.
The noble hero, burned for doing the right thing…
Even after uncovering a vast conspiracy, catching corrupt merchants and bombers, murderers, Perimont still refuses to see the light. But then, perhaps it was all about Mary, in the end. According to her, it would hardly be the first time something like this had happened.
It wasn’t until he made it back to his room that he realized the guards had pilfered his coins, vile thieves that they were.
When Prince Harold heard about this, Perimont would be sorry.