I slammed the book shut and leaned back in my hammock to stare through the branches above. A cinereous bird looked down at me quizzically with the remains of a fish still on their curved black beak.

He’d been tearing into it on the beach beyond the wall, and I just had to ask why he was enjoying the days-old meat so much. He took the opportunity to move his enormous feathered body over to my tree and extol the virtues of rotting carcasses in morbid detail.

It wasn’t what I had expected, and I was worried about him bringing down the branch on top of me.

It was no wonder he tilted his white and brown feathered face at me when I tried to explain I didn’t want to read more about dismembered human corpses. I almost threw the book at him when he got excited at the description.

“Wouldn’t it be better to get fresh food?”

He wiggled a foot off the branch and showed off his blunted talons, complaining about being unable to hunt like ‘the ones that swoop down.’

“Well, I guess it’s neat that you eat what’s already there.”

He was hiding from one of those birds, its talons like curved daggers and wings larger than his own. I looked at his folded wings, each bigger than my hammock, and peered about for the creature that could blot out the sun hanging above us.

“Please warn me if they come over here.”

He ruffled his feathers as if to shiver in fear, and I agreed with the sentiment.

“Who are you talking to?” Haily asked.

I used my poor, mistreated muscles to sit up and pointed to my friend; she jumped back, hiding the plate with a sandwich and fruit behind her back.

“Ah, Ma’am, those things are dangerous. Can we please go back inside?”

“But, he’s harmless? Is that for me?”

I had showered and changed after being dismissed by Instructor Daniels with a request to come in earlier tomorrow. I didn’t want to go to the dining room for lunch and find out if Haily had passed along my message to the chef.

That was why I was out here, except I’d now only created more work for Haily.

“Vultures will peck out your eyes for a scrap of food,” Haily said without moving any closer.

I looked up at the vulture, preening his feathers without a care in the world for my lunch or Haily’s eyeballs. I placed my book down and swung out of the hammock to collect the plate myself.

“Sorry for making things harder for you,” I said as she handed me the plate. It didn’t look like there was any meat, and I felt relieved since I regretted saying it didn’t matter.

She took a few steps back from the bird. “Ma’am…respectfully, you need to get over that. Not telling me what you want doesn’t make things easier. If you actually made our jobs too difficult, we’d all stop working until the duke kicked you out.”

I could see how that was beginning to be a problem: not letting her know about the clothes delivery, the salt lick that annoyed the chef, or her having to find me out here with lunch I might not have liked.

“Oh…okay. Could I please get a fish then?”

“What do you mean by a fish?” she asked, looking concerned.

“Like a whole one, that’s dead.” I motioned to the vulture behind me.

Haily opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She sucked in a breath and slowly blew it out.

“My mouth really does get me into trouble,” she mumbled, returning to the palace.

I settled back into the hammock while balancing the plate in my lap, a sandwich in one hand and a book in the other. The vulture snapped up a berry I threw to him, but it wasn’t as good as flesh.

I skipped ahead a few pages, so I didn’t have to read through the rest of the dismemberment. This mystery was stingy with the clues, and so far, it could have been any of those locked in the house during the storm.

It didn’t take long until Haily cautiously brought over a fish hidden behind her back. I had to get it since she didn’t want to be within a hundred yards of the vulture.

“Caypa is actually very sweet. He wouldn’t hurt you unless you were already dead.”

“You named it?” Haily said with dismay. “Are you sure we should be feeding it? Won’t it come back for more?”

I shrugged as the smell of fish brought back memories of preparing it for Mother. They were one of the easier creatures to find and catch. I also preferred them for being quick to die without filling my mind with too much pain.

Haily handed it to me by the tail, and I leaned my nose as far away as I could manage. I threw it back behind the trees; Caypa opened his wings and darted to it the moment it was in the air.

His talons pinned it into the ground as he tore chunks from the white-fleshed fish. I turned away so as not to upset my lunch.

“Oh. I just remembered I need to let the inner gate know to let Sam in later.”

“Yes, ma’am. That sounds more in line with my job,” Haily said, already backing away. “If you need help with that…thing, please get a stable hand instead.”

I would have gone back to reading if it wasn’t for the magic Caypa was using. It came from his stomach and killed off a very particular set of tiny creatures while sparing others. I would need to start reading the wildlife book to make sure, but it was likely what allowed him to eat rotting meat without getting violently sick.

I wouldn’t say I liked that I now knew how to do that and hoped never to have to use mana to eat decayed meat. Starving was preferable.

Caypa flew off after his meal since there were no predators in sight. I was beyond being offended by the lack of manners birds had, yet he was more sociable and intelligent than the crows back home.

A shiver went down my spine, not from any swooping bird with outstretched talons, but from still considering the forest my home for a moment. I stared blankly at the pages, trying to settle my conflicting emotions by reading them away.

It didn’t help much since the author had decided to write an ending for each character where they all commit the same crime. There was some profound sounding note on the back covers about anyone being able to commit murder.

I rolled my eyes at it.

Something on one of the back pages made me pause. It was an extract of a written note to a watch officer asking for a meeting at their earliest convenience.

I unfolded the note from Jeremy that had been collecting creases in my different pockets. One of the sections matched up to that line perfectly, just with other letters in their place. I thought back to Sam’s advice.

“Oh…”

It was actually quite simple, but I kept having to run through the rhyme to remember all forty letters in the alphabet. I slowly shifted all the letters based on how many were between the ones written and what I knew they were meant to be.

I didn’t have paper or a pencil, so I scrunched up my face in concentration to keep on top of everything I was doing.

In the end, I had a normal-sounding message:

Hello Valeria,

May we please have a meeting at your earliest convenience? I will be in my office, the third door to the left of the transmission room in the eastern tower.

Regards,

Jeremy.

I pouted at how slow I had been to figure it out. Now that I could see it was addressed to me and that I wouldn’t need to find a matching word, I felt pretty silly.

I went to get the collection of thread-bound pages from my room, the copy on the four states of matter, instead of another murder mystery that would further disappoint me.

…

“What does this word mean?” I asked Sam as a way of greeting.

“Conflagration? I think it’s a forest fire,” he said and sat at the edge of my hammock. It tilted to the side with his weight.

“I’ve been in a conflagration once.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Oh?”

“I threw around a lot of dirt and dug trenches to stop it spreading near me.”

I let the pages flip closed and sighed. The book went into much detail about fire and how it was made. There was a single paragraph on its interaction with mana as a fuel source, but not much else. I didn’t want or need to use fire; I just thought it would be nice to complete the collection since I already had solid, liquid, and gas.

“It sounds like you could get a job as a firefighter if the knight training doesn't go well. They don’t get many volunteers and always need mages who can just casually create stepping stools for themselves.”

“You also want me to jump from now on, Instructor Samuel?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t get to see it during my push-ups, so I think you should try again tomorrow so I can watch.”

“I’d rather not. Are there any animals that use fire magic around Drasda?”

“Eh, we killed off a lot of them ages ago. But there are drakes in the mountains to the north. Fireflies use light, not fire, and dragonflies rapidly heat up the air, if that counts. Some species of lion do and the Oclaran griffons that were bred with them, salamanders in the Andrakan volcanos, and firebirds and fireserpents in the Ghardi peninsula.

“There’s more, but I mostly just remember the ones with fire in the name and the griffons since their army uses them.”

I decided I didn’t need to learn fire magic anymore and would settle for finding a firefly so I could light up stairwells and stop tripping down them.

I asked him what he thought about vultures, and he didn’t seem overly fond of the ‘creepy’ birds. That was a shame. I bent my knees so he could lie back at my feet as we discussed carrion birds and their symbolism. He did know that the types of magic they used for their digestion were turned into spells learnt by healers.

We moved on to talking about Clair, which consisted of him complaining about her attitude to us and how he would be dealing with her for the next five years at Equitier since she would get a spot after her performance so far. I shrugged off a question on whether I was considering going to the school and said I might if I could study animals or plants.

That got me a raised eyebrow and a long list of all the mana and non-mana courses with anything to do with that vague description.

“I also have to get to the training grounds early tomorrow so he can teach me how to use a bow.”

“Wow, make sure Clair doesn’t hear you’re getting personal instruction from him.”

I groaned. “You’re the one who likes weapons. Do you think I should go with using a bow? Why can’t I use spells instead?”

“No spell can fling a projectile as hard and fast as an enchanted longbow. No spell to fling iron, and a lot of army doctrine calls for mages to save mana for shield walls so infantry can get closer.”

That was mostly what the instructor had said. “And what about someone who will not be joining the military?”

Sam shrugged. “If Instructor Daniels thinks you should use a bow, I’d listen.”

“Really? Like you listened to him with your, what’s it called, elven heartwood spear?”

Some colour crept into his cheeks. “He wanted me to use the sword and shield, and I’m not coordinated enough for that.”

“You seemed fine while dancing last night.”

“Thanks, but that’s different. You did well for it, being your first time dancing. Very light on your feet,” he said.

“Yeah, I had to be to get away from the watch as well…on my way back to the castle, I saw some people jumping along the rooftops. I stood outside of a building they went into, and they started shouting near an open window about robbing the gambling house. Do you think I should tell the duke?”

“I mean, yeah, of course. Were any of them mages?”

“A few.”

“And they didn’t sense you? Or closed the window?”

“It was…a heated argument. One of them said the name Fergie, and the other was, I think, Jay.”

He rolled over to look at me instead of the sky. “You’re sure? Did you see what he looked like?”

“No, I moved on when they started to leave.”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s a different Fergie. I could check with Remee, but it sounds like they’re the ones who would be breaking into stores. If they go for the gambling house, it’ll be the quickest and easiest arrest the watch has ever done.”

“They also said something about the watch not being what people thought it was?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “All this from standing outside a window, ay? It used to be what the people’s militia formed into as a concession with the hereditary nobles after we lost our king. It was supposed to keep their power in check and ensure fair voting. Now it’s just an internal military.”

“So, you don’t think it’s possible? I shouldn’t bother Jeremy or the duke?”

“Can you let me check with Remee first? We don't have much crime in the Castle District, so if it is Fergie, I can guess who else it would be. There's no need to ruin their lives over something they’ll figure out is impossible.”

I nodded and dropped the conversation. I had my own reasons for not telling anyone, but they were too stupid to say out loud. I also wanted to ask the duke what he thought of the place.

Duke Riker

I read over a report to the side of my dinner plate as Janette went in for another attempt.

“How were classes today?” she asked Alonso.

“Fine,” he said, quickly putting his fork in his mouth to avoid talking anymore.

“Anything new with Beca? How is her family doing?”

“Good, her mother kept talking about the robberies.”

She glanced at me with triumph in her eyes at getting a complete sentence out of the boy. Anna would still be away for some time, and no one else was joining us for dinner tonight since the only meetings from the day were with the military and Jeremy. Who preferred eating on base and in their office.

Jeremy had handed over a worrying report on the crime in other districts. At least most people weren’t up in arms about it because it wasn’t affecting them. Crime against individuals actually seemed to be down, with attacks on the watch increasing.

Steal blades and crossbows had made their way into the hands of a few established criminal elements. And a book on combat magic had even been recovered in a raid. Healers were being run ragged, preventing deaths on both sides, but there were already two officer casualties they wanted revenge for.

I couldn’t blame them or order them to stop without deploying the knights who were not at full strength.

Many were in Riker’s Bay, gathering information and rooting out spies with Jeremy’s people.

I finished the report and sighed. An Andrakan cannon was rolling around on this continent for the first time in history. The Narrow Sea still separated us from it, yet it was worrying nonetheless. Someone was providing them with steel that could finally resist the explosion from their propellant. Their clunky cast iron cannons, usually shipbound or pulled by their non-existent horses, could now be lifted and shrunk by mages.

The slow-moving cannons could now be moved across the battlefield, and the Island nation had finally established a beachhead on the mainland.

Jeremy assured me they would be pushed out soon, so I flipped the report over and turned to my family. Janette had given up on trying to get Alonso to be talkative. She and I were worried about him, and most of our conversations before bed revolved around how best to help.

It must have been upsetting for the boy not to have any mana like most of his friends, but that was how things went sometimes.

Parentage wasn’t a guarantee of anything when it came to mana.

A walking example of that peeked in through the open double doors.

“Thank goodness, can I go eat in my room?” Alonso asked.

“Yes,” I said before Janette could give him a spiel about eating together.

He picked up his plate and a dinner roll and whispered to Valeira to thank her for coming to ‘occupy us.’ She played with the sleeves of her yellow sweater as she came to sit in the vacated place.

The conversation points I had for this one were much more interesting than board games and history lessons.

“So, I got a report this morning that the watch interrupted a gathering of teenagers last night. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?”

She nodded, not an ounce of guilt on her face. “They came and bashed on the doors, and people started scattering.”

“You didn’t get caught?” Janette asked, ecstatic that someone at the table would speak.

“Nope, I ran. Though, they didn’t bother chasing me.”

I looked over to Janette, who looked equally disappointed by the lack of reaction. “You do not seem fazed by the experience. I remember being chased by authorities. I was worried about what my parents think if I got caught.”

Valeria chewed the inside of her lip, and I was worried the comment on parents would get to her. “They were only there cause someone lied to them, so I think I would have been let go even if they caught me.”

That was also in the report, but I had been planning to console her with that information if she felt guilty about the whole mess. “Have you figured out Jeremy’s little cypher?”

She nodded around a mouthful and handed over a piece of paper written with ink from my pen. It was the message, and I was glad someone was going to try to find out where and how this girl got all of her information.

Valeria looked at me between bits and opened her mouth to speak a few times but did not say anything.

“Yes? You can say whatever it is you want to.”

She still took a deep breath before asking, and my heart tightened at the possibilities.

“Why do you let animals and people get brutalised at the gambling house?”

That was not what I had expected. Janette covered her mouth with a napkin to hide her choking. The only one to question me so brazenly was usually her or, on rare occasions, Yanla.

I leaned back and folded my arms, trying to decide what angle she wanted me to tackle this from. Morally, politically, or financially. Considering the lack of meat in her diet, I chose morality.

“You know no animals die in the matches?”

Valeria nodded. “They get healed.”

“They do. Not only that but healed by some of the best in the city, even when compared to the palace. They have better healthcare than most of Drasda’s inhabitants. And, they offer their services on off days at heavily discounted prices, so have a lot of goodwill despite their product.”

“Dying isn’t the issue. They’re in a lot of pain, and the people are in a lot of pain. What’s the point?”

Janette leaned over and placed a hand on her shoulder. “It's not for everyone, but it’s only sport. It’s very popular with the people and much better regulated than the illegal fighting pits we’d have without it.”

My last point was one I didn’t think she would like. “They also pay hundreds of thousands of roe in taxes.”

The eye roll I got from Janette was expected.

“What if the animals don’t want to be there? They’re kept in cages they want nothing but to be out of.”

She realised her argument was falling apart and was resorting to an emotional stance, though that is what this whole conversation seemed to be. So, I switched from being a duke to a father.

“I’ve been to a few of the fights, and we have laws on shelter upkeep. They're beasts, it's in their nature to want to fight. Most would have a much tougher time in the wild, competing for resources and escaping predators without healing to get them back on their feet. They don’t know it, but they have a better life in captivity.”

She looked back down to poke at her potatoes. “Yeah…maybe”

I was at least right about the conversation being more interesting, but I didn’t feel great about winning the argument. It was a violent sport, but even those had their place in civil society.

Janette went to do what she usually did, which was to lighten the mood after I’d ruined it.

“How was your time with Samuel and your training? What did you two talk about while swinging about for hours?”