Yells rang out from Dalvany Square as the cart pulled into the main part of town. Asher eased out of the back a lot slower than he would have liked, and even hobbling as fast as he could around the rickety wooden thing, Clyde and two of his men had already disappeared into a throng of people before he reached the horses. The crowd were gathered around the steps to the town hall, most craning to see what was happening rather than joining in on the shouting. Asher noted a handful of town guard in the mix, and a few in the middle of the commotion. He shoved his way through, though no-one moved to make any path, even as he mumbled to be excused as politely as he could manage.

The group in the middle of the crowd were yelling over each other, eight of them in total with six of them being held back by uniformed officers. Asher recognised the couriers patch on the main woman’s vest, made more evident by the discarded satchels of letters at her feet. The man being held off her was familiar, but in a way that made Asher’s stomach curl. The volunteer that had pinned Penn that night in the square. He had a knife on his belt, and his hair had been shaved to nothing since.

‘What’s going on here?’ Asher demanded.

The crowd fell into muted mutterings as the two parties relaxed into the grip of still straining guards. The courier woman blew a stray hair from her face. ‘You must be the Lieutenant everyone’s fussing over,’ she said.

‘I am,’ Asher said. ‘Answer the question.’

‘Ask him,’ the woman spat. ‘We’re just doing our job.’

‘Bullshit you are,’ the bald volunteer said. ‘What kind of courier service refuses to deliver mail?’

‘We ain’t your messengers,’ the woman snapped. ‘You take it through our office or bite me!’

‘You stopped at a Sovereignty outpost,’ the man bit back. ‘What about that ain’t official?’

‘Hold up,’ Asher said. The woman whipped around to glare at him, but Asher held his hand up, causing her to deflate, before turning to the volunteer. ‘I’m missing details here. What exactly is a Sovereignty outpost?’

‘Thugs and bandits,’ the woman spat. ‘Holding up the road until they ransack everything and force a tax on travellers.’

Asher raised an eyebrow.

‘We’re not guardsmen, we’re volunteers,’ the man said. ‘We got a name to hold some kind of title. We’re patrolling the roads, we set up an outpost. You’re the one taking it personal!’

‘Under who’s authority?’ Asher demanded.

‘That would be mine.’ The crowd parted as a woman stepped through, and though Asher didn’t recognise her, he knew immediately who she was. Captain Olive Delana looked a lot like the paintings he had seen of her sister, though the soon-to-be-duchess of Fanmaryh was often depicted with ruffles and flowers and lace, where Olive was quite the opposite. Like her sister, she had long blonde hair that fell in ringlets down her shoulders, an oval face and large, dark eyes. She wore a travellers coat pinned in an echo of the royal guard uniform, the asymmetrical collar hooked under a clasp that hung a cloak over one shoulder. Her hat had an uneven design also, the wide brim pinned at one side by a feather. At her hips were a pair of revolvers.

‘Captain Delana,’ Asher said. He pounded his fist into his chest in quick salute. ‘I’d heard you had come up from Fanmaryh.’

‘Lieutenant.’ Olive returned the salute. ‘It was last minute, I’ll admit, but with my sister claiming the Province I was told to stay out of the way. It seemed you needed help up here. Looks like I was right.’

She marched over to the volunteer, and after glancing at the couriers, she reached over and unhooked the sheath from the man’s belt, thrusting it at Asher, who caught it awkwardly. ‘We seem to be having the same conversation over and over,’ she said. ‘You don’t seem to be listening.’

‘Ma’am, I—’

‘Still talking,’ Olive said. ‘I let you lot have some level of authority to keep the peace. You were supposed to watch out for wild animals and make sure people aren’t acting up. I couldn’t trust you with that much for five minutes it seems.’

‘What about these outposts on the road?’ Asher asked.

‘I admit, I allowed it,’ Olive said. ‘Only because it saved the shift changes hauling all the way back into town. It’s a campsite. Nothing more. Explain yourself.’

‘Ma’am, they were talking about magic,’ the man said. ‘Signs been propping up all over about the Sleepless Three waking up, and we were concerned about witchcraft.’

Asher flinched, and before he could stop himself, he stepped up next to the Captain. ‘Right now, I’m going to say it; no. We’re not looking for witches. We’re not making citizens arrests, and we’re not taking authority into our own hands for any reason.’

‘I agree,’ Olive said. ‘You do not decide these things. In fact, you’re relieved. Permanently. Go home. If I get one more report of you acting out, I’ll throw you in a cell myself.’

‘That goes for anyone,’ Asher rose his voice so it carried. ‘The minute anyone starts pointing fingers or blaming magic on any of this, I’ll lock them away, since their so quick to decide they know what’s going on.’

‘What is going on?’ someone in the crowd asked. ‘It’s been over a month!’

‘We know the King is dead!’ someone else cried.

‘Enough!’ Asher snapped. ‘If you know that much, you know there’s a protocol involved to recreate the chain of command. It takes time. As for all the rest, I can’t exactly do my job if I’m breaking up every squabble that turns you against each other!’

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The crowd shifted, mutters breaking out. Asher glanced at Olive, who was watching him expectantly, and the moment of anger left as quickly as it had come. He sighed. ‘I want to know what happened here as much as anyone, believe me.’ He gestured to the crutch hooked under his arm, and his leg balancing against it. ‘But all you have to do is look to see that it’s not some kind of trick a group of people played. More than anything, we need to be working together.’

‘To what end?’ a voice shouted out. Murmurs of agreement broke out with it.

‘Where’s our captain?’ another voice shouted. ‘When did we put a tekksie in charge?’

‘None of that,’ Olive growled.

‘No, none of that,’ Asher said. It surprised him that it had taken this long for race to become a part of it. ‘It’s pretty clear now that whatever happened here, it’s staying for the long term. Nothing is going to happen to turn it back to how it was.’

‘That’s how it happened in the first place!’

‘Did the same thing happen in Valenda?’

‘If it’s not witchcraft than what is it?’

‘My cousin disappeared and said it was the Underlands!’

‘Underlands means witches were targeting us!’

‘Enough!’ Olive shouted.

‘You lot are pathetic, you know that?’ Clyde broke through the crowd, and Asher thought for a terrible second that he too had turned to suspicion, but the man turned on his heel and addressed the crowd. ‘This ain’t Valenda. This ain’t Ralkauda. We’re the size of a coin compared to them, and we were short on people when we started. If you want answers, put your boots on the ground and help instead of shouting about it!’

‘We always need more volunteers,’ Olive said. ‘In the hospital – or whatever has been made into one by the single doctor you had on staff. We need people to open their homes, we need supplies, and if you’re that desperate for change, go and talk to jope!’

Asher hadn’t heard the slang term for the Justice of the Peace for a long time, but the mention of the title caused the crowd to deflate. ‘Should I know what the jope is trying to organise?’ he asked Olive.

Olive waved him away. ‘Land settlements, mostly. Few of the farmers are donating paddocks for housing.’

‘Still a lot of people stuck out on the road with nowhere to go,’ Clyde said.

‘There you go!’ Olive announced. ‘There’s plenty of things to be doing rather than standing here! Go!’

The crowd broke apart, slowly, the edges shuffling away until it thinned and disappeared into a slow crawl around the square. The courier woman shrugged herself free of the guard, then shot a dagger’d look at Asher before leading the rest of her group away.

Olive pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I was supposed to meet you in town to explain all this yesterday, Lieutenant. Where have you been?’

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Asher said. ‘I was sidetracked.’

‘My fault, ma’am,’ Clyde said. ‘We got them research types up at Valenda, needed him for a bit.’

Olive nodded and waved him away. She sighed. ‘It’s so odd, isn’t it? The end of a King Era is just a set of dates in any history book. I wonder if the end of the last one was just as messy.’

‘Sons coming together to murder their own father?’ Asher asked. ‘I’d say it was.’

Olive laughed.

‘Do you really think this is the end of Five Princes?’

‘Of course it is,’ Olive said. ‘We named it because of the five princes that usurped their King. None of those original five are left. The oldest with his three kids went wherever Valenda did, your uncle is gone, Lord Barque is fraying at the edges more than his brother, my father is one hard cough away from turning into dust, and whichever one ruled Telkesi went down with the ship. There’s none left.’

‘I know Lord Barque has been talking about succession,’ Asher said. ‘Are you included in those talks?’

Olive laughed again. ‘That would be one for the history books. Roselyn Delana, inheriting the duchesse of a whole province, then her kid sister gets the whole Kingdom.’

‘If she gets the Kingdom, do you get the Province?’ Asher asked.

‘I don’t want it,’ Olive said. ‘Though I suppose that’s part of the problem. Maybe they’ll give it to that kid that came in to takeover Dalvany. I’ve always wondered about how Euthrian politics run, even if she’d be assassinated within five minutes.’

Asher could almost imagine Norrah in full regality, probably made to go by her maiden name rather than her mother’s one to stop people panicking. She would be far more efficient than he would ever be.

‘That’s not for any of us to worry about,’ Olive said. She glanced him up and down. ‘I can see why Lord Barque recommended you. You handle a crowd well.’

‘Just trying to do my job, ma’am,’ Asher said.

‘Did I hear right, that you’re a Telkite?’

Asher flinched. ‘My mother was.’

‘So you’re from Fanmaryh too, huh?’ Olive said. ‘I’ll admit, I don’t have much to do with the community other than stopping people trying to force them out, but it’s good to have someone else from home here.’

‘I’m from Ralkauda,’ Asher pointed out.

‘Oh. Nevermind then.’ Olive shook herself. ‘I take it from everything else that you’re not big on the idea of witchcraft?’

‘No,’ Asher said.

‘No faith?’

Asher shrugged. ‘I’m impartial to the idea of the Sleepless Three, but I don’t believe in secret groups working for ghosts or monsters.’

Olive nodded. ‘You sound like that new duchess. Considering everything, I almost respect that.’

‘What do you mean?’

Olive gestured to the Town Square, nodding specifically at the sand that made the ground and the chunk of steps missing from the town hall. ‘Can’t see anything else that could explain everything that’s happened.’

‘I don’t think this stops at just “magic,”’ Asher said. ‘Even if it does, I don’t think any regular people clicked their fingers and did this. I… just don’t want a lynch mob.’

‘Fair enough,’ Olive said. ‘Let me worry about the Sovereignty and all these idiots. Let me know if you find anything out about what’s going on. If you don’t think this is magic, I’m curious about where it could go from here.’

She marched off with the same authority she’d broken the crowd with. Something stuck in Asher’s mind, but he couldn’t figure out what, even as her words echoed through his head. The last thing anyone needed was a try for power with a group of idiots at the helm, but Captain Delana’s response felt off.

Why had she assumed he was from Fanmaryh?

Asher didn’t know the name or face of every guard that moved through Ralkauda, even when he was one. It perhaps mattered a little that Ralkauda was eight times the size of Valenda, but he did know the name of every district captain and their lieutenant. Either Captain Delana didn’t know the right-hands of her fellow Captains – and know that Asher wasn’t one of them - or something else was going on.