Xiodan had seen much in his time. He’d witnessed the rise and fall of hundreds of minor guilds and dozens of major ones. He’d been summoned to witness challenges and officiate more duels to the death than he could count.

Some of the warriors he’d seen bore such might that an entire guild of Adepts wouldn’t have lasted more than a millisecond before their might. He’d born witness to mages with power to twist the earth and shatter the skies to rain hellfire down on entire armies.

He’d seen guilds vanish in the blink of an eye, and he’d seen them rise just as quickly. And, in his time, Xiodan had learned that few things generally went according to plan. He was personally partial to avoiding plans entirely.

It was impossible for things to go wrong if he’d never had a semblance of how they would go right. As long as he survived, he considered any night a success.

But this — what he had witnessed tonight — this was a failure of colossal proportions. A grin pulled across his lips. It was something he’d seen before, of course. He doubted anything this far to the reaches of the Kingdom could properly surprise him.

Not everything interesting had to be surprising. Jessen, for example, had been interesting. The man was a miserable creature. He’d been so caught up in the games he played that he’d completely lost any semblance of the value of human life.

But, in spite of that, he was competent. Jessen had pulled together an entire guild, all for the sole purpose of feeding every single last one of them to his Wyrms. It had been a rather genius strategy.

Push weaklings to higher tiers to get them to recruit more weaklings. Keep the cycle until he had a huge number of bodies waiting to be fed, then bring them to the Wyrms and kill them off in swathes before anyone noticed.

The ones that survived would think themselves special. They would have met the same end as the others, just after the Wyrmlings had fed. Then feed the Wyrmlings to the Wyrms as well. In the end, the only ones remaining would have been Jessen and his Wyrms.

The amount of energy he would have gathered from the whole debacle would have been significant. Not nearly as significant as setting out and seeking challenges against powerful opponents, but it was evident that true challenge had never been Jessen’s style.

He hadn’t just wanted power. He’d wanted suffering. But, insane or not, he’d still had a fair claim to start a guild. There were rules, after all. Xiodan’s place wasn’t to judge good or evil. It was merely to judge.

Jessen had requested that the Secret Eye send an agent to witness the birth of his new guild, a guild that contained only himself. Who knew what his plans had been after that. Perhaps he’d planned to find other adventurers closer to his level of strength. Perhaps he’d planned to continue repeating the same cycle. It didn’t matter. Jessen was dead.

And yet Xiodan had still judged. Not Jessen, who he had been called for, but the group that had killed him and his budding guild. He’d listened in on their strategy and watched it play out. He’d observed their curious fighting style and… odd abilities.

Menagerie.

That was an apt name for them. A small smile pulled at the corner of Xiodan’s mouth. His trip hadn’t been wasted. They weren’t worthy of a rank — not yet. The Secret Eye didn’t acknowledge guilds before they were truly worthy of attention, and they were not at that point yet.

They were, however, worthy of just a little bit more attention.

I think I may have seen the birth of something quite interesting tonight. I wonder what fate will make of you, Menagerie. Will you be a shooting star through the night sky, burning bright one moment and gone the next?

Will you become worthy enough to truly hold our attention?

Or will you sputter and blink out before you ever have the chance to properly shine at all?

I suppose we shall find out.

Xiodan turned and strode through the forest in the opposite direction of Milten, not making a single sound as he vanished into the shadows.

***

Arwin didn’t remember much of the walk back to Milten. He vaguely recalled the odd looks they got from the guards, but they didn’t look all that different from any other travelers heading back in the middle of the night. Being covered in blood and bearing bulging sacks of loot was practically a signature for adventurers.

They all stumbled their way back to Lillia’s tavern. By some miracle, all of them managed to make it without falling asleep halfway down the street. Nobody could be so much as bothered to take a bath when they got back. Grime or not, sleep was calling their names like a siren. Rodrick, Anna, and Olive all headed upstairs without a word, carrying Reya along with them.

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Arwin sent a glance up the stairs toward his room. The idea of trying to scale them now sounded like torture — but even if he’d planned to, Lillia was his arm support, and she was already guiding him to her room.

He was so exhausted he barely even noticed when they entered it. His eyes might have closed at some point while they were walking. All Arwin knew was that one moment they were walking, and the next he felt straw at his feet.

He and Lillia flopped into bed. Neither of them even bothered to try and sit and talk. The moment the straw so much as tickled Arwin’s skin, he slipped into a deep sleep.

Arwin had no clue how long he slept. But, however long it went on, it was the best rest he could ever recall getting. He woke to a comforting warmth and a sense of peace that couldn’t have been replicated by any other feeling in the world.

They were free of Jessen. The Iron Hounds were dead. Zeke could rest, and the rest of them could work on recuperating and repairing the street. The world stretched out before them. Its arms were outstretched and full of potential.

And, speaking of arms, there were some of those wrapped around Arwin.

He blinked. That was odd. He was pretty sure that shouldn’t have been possible, as one of his arms felt remarkably numb and the other was draped over something. He did not have four arms last he recalled.

The drowsiness pulled back as Arwin’s mind started to run again. It quickly became apparent that the feeling of warmth wasn’t purely figurative. Something warm was quite literally pressed against his body — and wrapped around the length of his leg.

His head finally snapped back into function as he drew in a breath, registering honey and freshly baked bread. It wasn’t just anything that was pressed against him. It was Lillia.

Even if he’d wanted to unentangle himself, the task was quite impossible. His right arm was pinned beneath her and the something that had been holding his leg was what he suspected to be her tail.

Something about him waking up must have caused a chain reaction, because Lillia let out a murmur. Her hair brushed against him as she moved her head and froze in place.

“Arwin?” Lillia whispered, her breath tickling his nose.

“We’re alive,” Arwin said in a startling display of observance.

“Astute. And we’re… ah, entangled.” She made no move to extract herself.

“So it appears.”

They were both silent for a moment. Arwin wished he could have dragged that moment on forever, but he snuffed the desire. He’d made a promise, both to himself and to Lillia. Jessen was dead. The Wyrms were too — and he had no excuse to give himself any longer.

No excuse other than Lillia wanted to say something too. I should hear it out first, just in case she wants to tell me something that runs opposite to my own feelings. It would save us a lot of hassle.

“I suppose now is as good a time as any, isn’t it?” Arwin asked. “You said there was something you wanted to tell me.”

“You said the same thing,” Lillia said hurriedly. “You can go first. I don’t mind going after.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to intrude. You can speak first.”

“You don’t have to be polite,” Lillia said. “You go.”

“I have my reasons. You should go first.”

“As do I,” Lillia replied.

“Just go,” they said at once, then promptly both broke down in suppressed laughter.

“Has anyone ever told you how damn stubborn you are?” Lillia asked.

“I was about to tell you the same thing,” Arwin replied. He drew in a small breath, trying to convince himself that it was to steady his nerves and not to smell Lillia’s hair, then let it out with a huff. “Fine. I can go first.”

“If you’re really that adamant about it, I won’t make you,” Lillia said. “I can go first if you really want me to.”

Arwin glared. He couldn’t see Lillia, but she could see him just fine. He was rewarded with a sheepish cough.

“We’re never going to get through this at this rate, are we?”

“No, we aren’t,” Arwin agreed. “What if we just say it at the same time?”

“Not the best way to make sure your point is heard clearly,” Lillia pointed out. She paused for a second, then cleared her throat. “That’s perfect, actually.”

“Okay. Ready?” Arwin asked. “We can do a countdown.”

He felt Lillia nod. Arwin steeled his nerves. His heart was pumping in his chest like a runaway horse. He was pretty sure he was more stressed about this than he had been for a fair number of fights he’d been in.

“Ready?” Arwin asked.

“Yeah. Just do the damn countdown already,” Lillia grumbled. “I’m going to die of old age before we get this over with.”

Arwin did the countdown. He practically spat the last numbers out in his haste to get to the point.

“I think I’ve fallen for you,” Arwin said, his cheeks burning so bright that they could have lit anything but Lillia’s impenetrable darkness.

“I have romantic feelings for you,” Lillia said at the exact same time.

A second ticked by as they both processed what the other one had said. Another one followed it. Arwin became even more vividly aware of Lillia’s body completely pressed against his than he had been moments before, and that was saying a lot.

“Wait. That was what you were waiting to say?” Arwin asked in disbelief. His mind bounced around in his skull, jumping from elation to bafflement.

“Yeah. I didn’t want to put anything at risk by causing a distraction or making things awkward between us,” Lillia muttered. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Same reason.” Arwin started to laugh. “I think we might both be a bit stupid.”

Lillia buried her face in his shoulder. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. We can’t ever let anyone know about this. If Reya finds out, she’ll never let us live it down.”

“I was giving her love advice,” Arwin said with a shudder. “Agreed. This dies with us.”

“This means we don’t have to move, right?” Lillia’s tail tightened around Arwin’s leg.

“It would take a literal force of nature to get me to do anything for the next few hours,” Arwin replied.

There was so much he wanted to say — so much he wanted to do. And that was fine. He didn’t have to do it all now. For once, they actually had time, and the thing both of them wanted to do most was to lie in each other’s company and do nothing at all.