The seats in the constable car are stiff and cold. The leather squeaks with every little movement she or Paul make, and the gathering smell of cigarette smoke from the driver makes her wrinkle her nose after every breath, until simply deciding to just breathe through her mouth.

“How is your hand doing?” Paul whispers to her.

“My wrists hurt,” answers Red, and she wiggles her hands against the manacles that were starting to weigh heavy around her thin forearms.

“I’m talking about your palm, idiot. My wrists hurt, too.”

“It’s doing alright, I think it’s stopped bleeding. Do you know where we are?”

“How would I know? We passed through a white gatehouse, I think. Now, there’s a lot of buildings, taller than in Torain. Grey bricks, grey windows, black roofs, dreary lookin’ place, the capital… We’re stuck in traffic for now. Loads of cars n’ carriages, here.”

“Can you see where we’re going?” Red tilts her head to the side, trying to squint through the blindfold to little avail. She hears the lady constable cough.

“I don’t know? There’s… a really, really big building, out in the distance. Looks like a castle, or a- a-... what do you call those damn things, the fancy castles…”

“A chateau?”

“Yeah, I think. Big chateau on a hill, white with a black roof and a huge garden surrounding it. Fancy as hell.”

“That’s the Royal Palace, you egit. They’re not taking us to see the Raven Crown.”

“Aren’t they? You’re a noble, aren’t you? Don’t they… I don’t know, take things up with you directly?”

“The king seldom convenes with the high houses nowadays, let alone the shadows left of the Hildegards.” Red sighs. “What else do you see? Look ahead of us.”

“Fine, fine. I can see a cathedral, but I don’t think that’s where they’re taking us. There’s a… lot of other tall buildings.”

“How descriptive!”

“I’m trying my best! There’s this really tall tower. Looks like a clocktower, but the clock’s all shattered. Square, with a black roof that’s cracked open at the top and lots of random holes and windows, like a tall brick of Artlandian cheese. Lots of birds are circling around it, perching and making nests.”

“Ah, that’s Corvus Tower, probably. Where you’re from,” she says, and her head turns to look to the passenger seat, where she assumes the special constable to be sitting. They feel her gaze, look over their shoulder at her, but don’t say anything.

“And what goes on over there?”

“It’s a huge prison. From the tippy-top floor aaaall the way to the catacombs under it, there’s cells for all the worst criminals of Ravenheart. Imagine that: every day in a dark, damp cell. Hungry and cold. Constantly pecked at. By the birds.”

“That’s not where they’re taking us, is it?”

“Oh no, that’s definitely where we’re going.” Red can feel Paul jolt in his seat, and she smirks. “Not in the tower, though. The police headquarters is right by it.”

By the time the car pulls over onto the curb, Red doesn’t have time to ask Paul how the headquarters looks, but she can vaguely remember it from old memories. A big, rectangular building made of dark basalt, with looming windows and brass fixtures, connected to several other wings and annexes in the iron-fenced courtyard that has Corvus Tower in the centre. Over the reek of exhaust and smoke, there is the awful smell of birds and all of the refuse they leave behind. They’re trained not to do it on the fancy shingling of the police buildings, of course, but that doesn’t stop them from fiercely lowering the property price of every other building within several blocks. At least it provides Ravenheart’s industrial quantities of petty lawbreakers many opportunities for degrading community service in lieu of more draconian punishments.

The skinny constable grabs hold of her and drags her out, while the other yanks out Paul. There’s a lot more swearing involved as the two get dragged through the front gate and then the doors. Warmth passes over them as they enter the main building, and they become surrounded by the noises of the busy lobby for a moment, before they get led down a different hallway. There’s the sound of a jingling ring of keys, a heavy door opening, and then Red feels a shove that throws her to the ground.

“Hey! You be careful!” Paul snarls.

The door slams shut, and as Red sits on her knees, she groans and puts her hands over her face, starting to push up the blindfold.

“Get this bleeding thing off…” she grumbles under her breath.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“You keep that on in there!” the lady constable barks out the order.

“We’re already behind bars, what’s the damn difference?” Paul snaps at her, and Red tosses off the blindfold.

They’re in a room of grey bricks, windowless, where one wall is made of metal bars, and opposite to it in their cell sits an unremarkable bench. For a moment, Red wonders if she could perhaps ditch the heavy - by now dirty - coat and shed with it most of her width, to slip her thin frame between the bars. But they’re frustratingly close together, and even if she could perhaps worm her way through… the two constables are on the other side, staring at the two of them.

“I don’t want to look at… don’t look at me!” the skinny constable hisses, quickly looking away from her when her glance happens to pass over her.

“Sorry.” Shrugs Red.

“Don’t worry,” the special constable says - not to Red, but to his partner. “Go and let Mrs. Blanche that the suspects are in custody.”

Red straightens up. Blanche. A familiar name.

“What? Why would the superintendent care? It’s just two good-for-nothing ruffians, surely I’ll just report it to the sergeant constable.” The lady constable asks. “Mrs. Blanche has enough on her plate already.”

I’m sure she does. Red narrows her eyes.

“An alleged spy and an unlicensed thaumaturgist have both been arrested,” he replies, voice stern and low through the heavy mask. “It wouldn’t be as concerning if one of them wasn’t a noble. But now, it’s something the lady will have to handle. The department can’t fall in the Gathering’s sights, now.” He seems to notice his partner opening her mouth to retort, but speaks over her before she can. “You’re not meant to understand, you’re meant to follow orders. Go. The others already called her by now to let her know, you just need to tell her they’re here. Call when she’s ready for us. Understood?”

The lady constable sighs, salutes, and leaves. Red sighs soon after, then looks at Paul, who’s thus far been spending most of the time in the cell simply staring at his chains quietly.

“Don’t worry,” says Red. “I’ll handle this. Sort something out that lets us both get back home in one piece.”

“Red…” Paul sighs.

“Don’t be like that, Paul. Don’t be like that.”

“Red!” he raises his tone, and then there’s a short pause. He looks at the ground. “I… appreciate it, I promise I do. But I’m not going back. If we manage to get out of this, as soon as we do… I’m trying again in Ravenheart. I’ve made up my mind about this, I’m sorry.”

“Why?” She stands. “Why, why, why? I’ve chased you across half the kingdom, now, to convince you. Why are you so desperate to throw your life away?”

“Throw my life away?” Paul retorts, at last looking at her. He tries to make a motion with his hands, but can’t move them through his cuffs. “What life, Red? What life? Answer me!”

“What’s that supposed to mean? The life of Paul Sawyer, you dolt! Of the lumberjack that I know, who’s got a family back home that’s waiting for him! Of Paul, my friend, who visits me daily, who talks and cares for me, for his mother, for his sisters! Damn it, Paul!”

“Some existence I have back home!” Paul groans. “Some bloody existence, in some village lost to time, huddled so deep in the mountains all civilisation’s forgotten about it and moved on! Some life I’m ‘throwing away’! If I go home, what more do I have to look forward to? Chopping trees all day for the rest of my life in that damn village, where half the houses are empty, and where half the people won’t live to see the ‘30s? What’s there to look forward to when everything is going to fade away anyway? When I die, nobody'll be there to bury me but the ghosts?”

“And what do you have to look forward to in the army?” asks Red. “You, Paul - who struggles to so much as fell a tree - do you think you’re invincible? That swords will ricochet from your skin, that bullets will plink from your clothes, that optimism is going to protect you from shrapnel? Are you so tired of your arms that you want them replaced with some cheap government prosthetic? Are you so tired of sleeping soundly at night?”

Paul narrows his eyes, and to that, he doesn’t reply for a good long while. And when he finally does, his voice is low and almost growling, hard to hear over Red’s heavy breathing.

“Some faith you have in me.”

“It’s not about faith, Paul. It’s about risk.” Red’s tone softens, her towering silhouette lowers its shoulders, looks down at him with less piercing eyes. “I’m worried. Worried you won’t return. Worried that if you do return, you’d wish you’d never have gone.”

“And I’m sorry,” Paul says, again. The elf looks to the side, to dodge Red’s gaze. “But I’ve made up my mind, Red. I appreciate it a lot, but… There’s more for me in the army than back home. Even if that’s just death, at least it’ll be dying for something, anything. Not dying because that’s just life, and because it must happen to everyone eventually. Dying knowing I did something.”

He looks up at her, again, as she listens and mulls over his words. Her eyes are narrow like yellow slits, her lips pressed tightly together and curled into a bitter frown that works to draw attention away from tears little as shiny pearls on her eyebrows.

“I’m ready for that,” he says, in a tone both soft and stern. “Please trust me, Red.”

A piercing ringing echoes suddenly through the cell, and Red can’t answer in time. The special constable grabs a telephone from the wall, next to the door, and listens to the other side. Moments later, he hangs up, turns around, looks straight at Red.

“Lady Hildegard, correct?”

She steels herself, sucks in a deep breath. The cold air in the cell, stuffier somehow than that in the car, prickles inside her lungs. Tears fade from her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Come with me. Superintendent Blanche would like to speak with you.”

He twists the key in the lock and opens the door to the cell, keeping his eyes trained on both and a hand on his baton. Red gives Paul a long, silent look, before turning and following. The door shuts and locks behind her.

The halls of the constabulary smell like cigarette smoke.