Standing on the wall before the hallway which led, eventually, to the Main Banquet Hall, the Game Killer's voice dropped an octave deeper, and he repeated a single word softly. "Spy." He grinned.

A dangerous word.

If Daniel meant it in the usual case, he would never use Esra. But he did not need Esra to actually spy.

Esra was a wild card. He was unpredictable and unfocused. He would lose interest and wander away from his assignments. He would find new projects to amuse himself. He would disregard his own destructive magic in favor of trying some element he bore no affinity for.

Esra was known to be this way. He had little patience, little skill, and little desire for things to continue as they had before.

What was the most destructive, disrupting function Esra could perform?

Being quiet and saying nothing. If Esra went there and stayed quiet, he may be more unnerving than if he came in flipping tables. While Esra was powerful, there were Lords present strong enough to silence him and cast him out. But if Esra entered and said nothing...

It may disturb the meeting more effectively than if the sky opened and the moon disappeared again.

"I think there is a meeting going on in the Main Banquet Hall at this very hour, or very soon. It should be an important meeting, but Parcel wasn't invited. If we can find out what is going on there, you could help Parcel."

The Game Killer frowned and kicked at the ground at his feet. Which was the wall, and a new shoe print smudge was left on the wall. "So he's not at that meeting? Where is Parcel now?"

Daniel's bindings tried to activate, as a Hall Attendant he was expected to help the guests.

Esra isn't a guest at the event in the Lesser Banquet Hall, Daniel told his bindings. Esra was merely welcomed into the O'Tells House. An invitee of one party was not invited to another party even if they occurred near each other.

The bindings loosened.

No, Parcel was sent to this meeting to act as at least an informant himself. But Daniel didn't say that part aloud. This could still backfire on Daniel. Esra might grow bored and just 'peek inside the Lesser Hall real quick and say hi!' or something.

"Do you want to help Parcel?"

"Yep. He's our friend after all."

Daniel sighed. If Parcel thought Elswith had been too liberal with the use of the word 'friend', he would absolutely cringe at Esra's blatantly exaggerated use of the word. He called anyone a friend for the smallest of reasons.

Yes, Parcel, Elswith, and Esra once survived out far at a campaign for three days pinned down in an old thatch hut amidst wandering hordes of 'infected', corpses that became infused with chaos energy and arose again after death. Honestly, neither Parcel nor Elswith had truly been afeared nor worried. Infected were unpleasant and smelled terrible, but so long as they kept out of sight there was little danger. Parcel had been pleased to skip lessons for several days, and Elswith had enjoyed being able to focus on his Lightning control without other interference, but Esra had been nearly catatonic and wouldn't listen to reason. He did not like the infected, even to this day.

There was little truly upsetting about the event.

Of course, there was the one time the three of them, two young Lordlings and one untested Mage had had to leave to the hut to lead the infected away a few times.

And yes, there was that time in the middle of the night were an infected crawled inside under a rotten wall of the house and they had to band together to cast it out.

And then there was the time when Parcel had to race in full view of hundreds of infected across a sizable distance to reach the copse of trees on the far side of the field to retrieve supplies for Esra's wound. All the while Elswith had to strike down about three dozen that swarmed near the hut after smelling Esra's blood.

But all in all, it was hardly worth remembering.

Beyond that, they just waited until the Dawn Court's Guard swept through like shining sunrise over the darkness, purging the land of infected.

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It had been before Esra had playing cards, so the time had passed unreasonably slow, but beyond that, it was not too notable. It certainly changed nothing for how Parcel and Elswith competed.

Daniel sighed. Had he come to enjoy card games after all that time?

But that was nearly five years ago when Esra was still short and Parcel was still excelling.

"Look, if you go and spy on this meeting, we may learn about the events in the Sky Court. The Sky Court power structure is still soft, Lord Fredar ascended, but has yet to truly grasp power."

"But why does Pockets need power?" Esra said.

"Even if he does not gain power, if he knows enough of the happenings, he can gain position."

Esra sighed, then grinned dangerously. "This is one of those fae favor things, right?"

Daniel grew still. "For Parcel?"

"No, there's some reason you can't go to this meeting, right? Which means I get something in return."

Daniel said nothing. For all the times Esra to be dragging his feet, why was it now? Esra never did things the right way.

"I need more lightning in a bottle," Esra said, and removed a crystal goblet from a small shoulder bag. The same crystal goblet Elswith had given him not two months ago with enough condensed lightning to last Esra for a year. "Easy for you!"

"How did you use it all up in two months?"

"I found something else to power. Something big. I'll show you later."

Elswith had little control over elemental magic. Lightning was the only affinity he gathered that he could use well in combat. If not for his mastery of runes, he would have been constantly outclassed and overpowered, instead of merely overpowered by other Lordlings' abilities during tournaments and contests.

But while he still had all the technical knowledge for Lightning, Daniel had nowhere enough power to generate Lightning. He had so little magic he needed to eat. How was he to work magic on a large scale?

How to get the Mage Lightning in a Bottle, when Daniel could no longer generate and manipulate Lightning?

If he refused, Esra would know something was up. Elswith had never denied Esra Lightning before, mostly because the lanky Mage was so insistent it was easier to help him and send him away.

Esra claimed that without the Bottled Lightning, his 'iPhone' would go dark forever and he would be without good music. The care of his rectangle was the only thing Daniel had ever seen the Mage truly passionate about. Esra cared nothing for wealth or fame, but anything threatened that rectangle, Esra was like another person entirely.

And Elswith had been the Game Killer's only supplier. It had been easy, and it kept the most dangerous threat to any scheme relatively pacified.

How to get Lightning in a Bottle with...

The Stable.

His next duty and last for the day: The Grant Stable, one of the original buildings of the First King of the Seelie Fae. It would be risky, and Daniel would have to...bend the rules to ensure he found himself in a good place with one of several creatures housed therein that produced lightning. With his technical knowledge, he would be able to transfer it into the crystal goblet...

It would be risky. But Esra's destructive powers may benefit him, and the longer he went without Esra discovering the Game, the most stable his condition.

"Stables. Meet me at the Stables after 9 o'clock tonight. Tell me what you learn, and I'll see if we can help Parcel in his situation."

Rattling frames sounded around them. The pull of 'down' being the wall began to feel soft. “You can’t just use your lightning right here?” Esra said, and several of the framed trinkets on the wall started to clatter. Esra was upset. Creating two gravity wells atop each other was never a good idea for any innocent bystanders. It led to unpredictable results.

The bindings tried to force Daniel to answer, but he was ready to sidestep and redirect.

Time to calm him down. "Esra, if I gave it to you now, I have no trust that you would fulfill your job. Besides, if I filled it here, you would be listening to 'music' instead of observing the meeting. You get distracted."

"I probably would." The rattling settled down, and gravity returned to as before, with the Wall still 'down'. "But the meeting won't be that long right? I don't want to spend nine hours at a meeting. Is there lunch?"

Daniel sighed. "It's four in the afternoon."

"Is it? I thought it was noon. Wow, where does the time go?"

"To the Time Court."

"It should go to me, time and gravity are related after all."

Esra said weird things sometimes.

Instead of calling the Great Gravity Mage mean names, Daniel vetoed his point in another way. "You aren't the Master of Gravity Esra, even then."

"So...how do I spy?"

"Go in, sit down, and say little. Don't reveal why you're there. Just be an observer. Find out who is there, and which group they are with."

Esra sighed. "It almost sounded cool for a minute there. Well. I guess I can do that. I'm good at being sneaky."

Daniel doubted that greatly. Whatever game the Sky Court was playing, hopefully, Esra would become entangled in it like a kitten entangled in yarn. Tear down their aims, destroy their careful planning and machinations.

If Daniel did this right, Esra may become very valuable, provided Esra did not explode around anything Daniel considered valuable.

So the great disaster that was Esra the Game Killer shrugged, and left, changing his own gravity's pull to now walk along the ceiling of the hallway.

"Watch where you are going." Daniel reminded.

Esra scurried around a chandelier and not through it, so that was already an improvement. “Hey, there’s dust up here! Tell them they need to clean better.”

Something important occurred to Daniel, too late in fact. He was still standing on the wall.

“Esra,” Daniel called, still standing at the end of the hall. As much as Esra was an overall waste of a Mage, his work was very tidy, woven so tightly and so completely solid that reality itself got a little confused. “Esra, you need to let me down. Esra.”

"You can do it. I believe in you Spikes!"

Daniel sighed, and turned around to face the servants watching him on the wall.

He was stuck on the wall. Great. This was just great. The other Hall Attendants and the myriad of Servants stared at him, looking for some explanation.