Telowe Lawfer was not a drinking man, even socially, but the groggy, bleary eyed feeling he got from waking up on his couch was what he imagined it felt like to be a drunk waking in a ditch. Looking up into the eyes of a blurry Wade Bruin and a dwarf he vaguely remembered meeting before blacking out filled him with the same disgust he imagined those same drunks felt when they rolled over to find people who had looked much better when drunk.

“Wade, I'm assuming this is a robbery if you're here and I'm going to let you know that now that you're an adult I'm going to do much worse things to you than bury you alive in a makeshift mausoleum.”

He turned a bit ashen at the threat and quickly called to the kitchen for help.

“Alouella, your dad's awake! Say something so he knows you're here.”

She rushed from the kitchen, quick steps and hands cupped around some Goldmoon tea. He accepted ir quickly, his mood wavering between happy and irritated at the vast difference in company in his home.

“Oh, my little girl! I don't...I don't know why I fainted. I'm not that old yet that seeing you would be too much for me.”

He took a sip of the warmth and then looked at Wade and to the dwarf whose name had now returned.

“This looks like one of your wretched adventuring parties and I have the strangest feeling you want something. You have that same look your mother gets.”

Alouella looked her father in the eyes, conflict of what she should say slinging from one side of her mind to the other.

“We don't want anything, we came to warn you. You heard about the trip we took? To that abandoned city?”

His face tightened.

“Yes.”

“Well...”

Alouella hesitated. How much should she say? Clarke needed to be stopped and who knew who else?

“We know. About the script users. About how you have one and what they can do. The former spymaster of the city, Ratleby Shadowstalker, left behind a lot of notes detailing everything going on in the city, especially about Aggatha Script. We've put it all together with a little help from-”

Gwen stomped her foot and Alouella almost screamed out. Gwen rapidly shook her head.

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“-from someone who was there.”

Telowe puckered his lips so much one might have expected he'd gotten a lemon wedged in his throat.

“I don't know what-”

Alouella cut him off.

“And Whilaway Weatherworn had a spy in our group who learned all this too. He's trying to break in and take this woman from your group, The Roots. We came to warn and help you.”

She'd used all the right words, so many secret nouns and hidden meanings and people from before she was born she could have never learned about anywhere else that none of it could have been guesswork at this point in her father's mind. He sighed heavily and stood, conflict on his face as he decided what to do.

“Alouella, I'd always hoped you'd be capable of joining me one day. You have the ability and talent but you have a very strict sense of what right and wrong are, like your mother. Come, there's some work to be done if what you say is true. Explain things to me on the way. Your friends will have to stay here. I'll decide what to do about them knowing national secrets later.”

Gwen stuck her tongue out at his back as he went to the hallway but pulled Alouella in closer.

“We'll follow you and try to meet up with Clarke. Maybe we can get in and out and put all of this behind us.”

Alouella looked down at her friend and dreaded what she was going to say. There were too many rifts in her personal life right now and adding another one to the burning trash heap didn't sound like a good time. She came out with it anyway.

“No, I think you should stay here.”

Gwen looked as though she'd been punched in the gut and Alouella hurried to explain.

“Clarke isn't going to make it in. It's a top secret facility with years and years of covert operation under its belt. Plus he's traumatized and addled, he's not in his best thinking condition. He'll be stopped, I'll bring him back, we'll get him some real help.”

“Are you kidding?”

Gwen hissed.

“He's always been sharp but he's desperate now too! Nothing is going to stop him at this point and we need to get in there and help him!”

“IF, if he can get into a place like this he needs help and prison. He can't just go around breaking the law because he doesn't like an outcome. My father will tell us why Aggatha Script was incarcerated and we'll see that there was no choice. Why do you always go so far for Clarke, anyway?”

“Because he did the same for me once! I can't do any less than he did or I'll feel like I failed him somehow.”

Gwen looked to Wade to back her up and Alouella followed her gaze. His brain froze, trying to come up with words that might keep him out of trouble with both of them and he spoke slowly as he picked them.

“I can appreciate everything Clarke has been through. I'd do the same but at some point you have to wonder when it becomes too much. Say, when you have to fight an entire nation?”

“I have a hard time believing someone like you wouldn't raze a castle if they kidnapped your mother. Are you sure that's your own opinion? Not just one you picked for certain reasons?”

She pointedly glanced at Alouella and he sighed. They were both right but...

“It is. I think Clarke is in a lot of danger. Hell, I think anyone in his way is in a lot of danger but it's a lot easier to stop him than the secret society.”

Gwen took Alouella by the arm and bit her lip. Clarke had no allies on his side and that called for desperate actions.

“Please don't hate me for what I'm about to do. You're a good friend of mine Alouella, let's not ruin it over words.”

And Gwen flipped her lid.