Joy was a morning person. He was bubbly and fun, ready for the day. He reveled in the spite others directed at him for being such a happy person after waking up. However, Joy was not a ‘wake up after being knocked out in a cold cell with a splitting headache, person.’

Taking account of his surroundings, Joy saw that he was in a small single cell. There was a blanket in one corner, a bucket in another, and a hole just big enough for him to fit his hand through so that he didn’t choke on the fumes coming from the never-washed bucket.

This was not good. Joy was used to some sticky situations, but being caught by the king’s knights was not a great place to be. The knights were not known for their critical thinking skills, they were known for their zeal and violence.

Well, if it went to a real trial Joy had a chance. The money was all legally obtained from The Gambling Lamb, and the two men had attacked him first, so he should be able to get out of this with a funny story.

Probably.

Hoping to alleviate his pounding headache, Joy moved closer to the hole in the wall and saw a surprisingly beautiful view of Vena Cava. The whole city existed in concentric circles. The center was obviously the palace, and the next layer was for rich socialites that the king was fond of. The ones he wasn’t fond of lost their heads quickly.

The next layer was for the lucky and rich farmers, and a cultural memory of the city’s roots in agriculture. But since there was no major water source readily available for those farmers, they had to pay people with water and plant gifts to keep their farms running. That layer also kept the riffraff out of the rich circles since you either had to go through highly regulated areas or fly to get through the vast fields.

The next layer was the real city, where real people lived. This had the largest radius by far, even dwarfing the farms. Many families lived their entire lives without going to the other half of the circle.

Then there were the slums and the poor farmers. These were not actually part of the city, but nobody was going to tell them to move away, so they became the hushed up fifth circle.

From Joy’s cell he could see the third through fifth circles well, and hints of the second circle. So, he was somewhere in the middle of the second circle, and high up.

Unfortunately, this new view on his situation did not enlighten Joy to some fantastical escape plan, so he just pulled a deck of cards out of nowhere and started playing solitaire, waiting.

Theo had enjoyed the look on the tall man’s face when Lillian had hit him. Lillian’s gift always led to interesting things, but invisibly sneaking up on that pompous ass and knocking him out before he started monologuing. The look on his face was priceless.

Who strikes a pose in the middle of a fight, honestly?

Theo was less than amused when he came to the man’s cell and found he had been playing solitaire though. They had done a serious search of the man before putting him in the cell there was no way he could’ve hidden those cards. So, Theo froze the man’s hands again and unlocked the cell to confiscate the cards from him.

“Hey man, you didn’t have to do that. I was just getting bored waiting for you all.” The man said as he tried to grab the cards with his feet, which he was doing surprisingly well at.

“Do not make me freeze your toes to get those cards.” Theo was starting to get annoyed with the man, he obviously didn’t understand how much trouble he was in here.

“What cards?” The cards were gone, and Theo sighed in annoyance, of course the cards were part of his gift. The only thing he couldn’t confiscate.

Theo stood up and relocked the cell, making sure to give the man’s waggling toes a good glare, causing a light layer of frost to form over them. Not enough to hurt him, just to let him know.

“Don’t use your gift, blah blah blah, go sit in your stupid little cell and be a stupid little guy.” Joy mumbled to himself once he was sure the knight was far enough away. It was hard to pick a knight out of a crowd, but their holier-than-thou attitude and general disdain for all people who were not knights gave them away in an instant.

Joy was finding himself quite parched. He could stave off his hunger with pure self-control but sleeping always left him with quite a dry mouth.

The knight though, had very kindly provided him with a source of water. He could lick his hands and feet like a lollipop, but he couldn’t leave them too long or else he might freeze his toes off. But he really didn’t want to put anything that had touched the floor of this cell into his mouth, so he had to get as much of this water as possible while it was attached to him. He set about licking his prize.

When Theo and Lillian arrived to deliver Joy’s meal, they were dumbstruck staring at a man who was licking his feet, trying to suck the remaining moisture off them.

“What? Oh food, that’ll go well with the refreshing drink I just had.” Joy brushed away the ice scraps that had fallen on the floor and made gimme-gimme gestures at the two knights staring at him. Lillian seemed to be carrying a blue cat, while Theo more importantly was carrying his food.

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“Is he crazy Theo?”

“Lillian… maybe he was really thirsty?”

Joy was still doing his gimme-gimme gestures waiting patiently for his food. “So, I guess the one with the striking blue eyes and wavy blond hair, is Theo. And the black-haired invisible girl carrying a cat is Lillian.” The two looked at him in surprise, then looked a little sheepish as Theo handed him his food.

Joy’s mouth was already filled with food as he started speaking, “you two are very lax compared to most of the knights I met. I don’t think any of them have ever fibbed their names before during the interrogation. That’s got to be a real low for the knights, what are they even doing with their hiring pool these days?”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Theo asked, getting ready to freeze him just to shut him up.

“No, but my mom always said that made me a Joy to be around.” Dead silence. The two knights stared at Joy and Joy stared at the two knights. “Really, nothing? I thought that one was pretty funny.”

Lillian looked a little confused and asked, “There was a joke in there?”

Joy started and exclaimed, “Aha! You didn’t know my name. My name is Joy so the joke, Ack!”

Theo cut him off with a hunk of ice forming in Joy’s mouth. And Joy did not have very thick enamel making his teeth very sensitive to temperature changes.

“Thank you for giving us your name, Joy. Would you like to tell us what happened last night?” Theo said.

By then Joy had spit out the ice and had gone back to shoveling food into his mouth. “Well, you see Theo, can I call you Theo? Anyways I had just made a lot of money at The Gambling Lamb and those two men followed me out and were trying to rob me of my measly wealth when I defended myself. I was just so scared that when the knights came, I don’t know what came over me. Will you take an apology and then we all go our separate ways?” Joy gave his best charming smile after that line.

Neither knight was impressed. It was easy to see, so Joy dropped the smile and went back to eating.

“And where did you get the counterfeit coins?”

Now that was news to Joy and he scowled as he kept eating, this was not going to be good. “Well, I won all that money from The Gambling Lamb so it must have been from one of those guys. You know what, there was some kid I got to bet all that money on a coin flip. So, he’s the person you’re looking for.”

“Can you give us a name or description of this kid.” Lillian even did air-quotes as she said kid. They didn’t believe Joy, they obviously thought he was some mastermind schemer hoping to destroy the continent by destroying its economy.

“No, I cannot. It was very dark, and I was very focused on his very large pile of money.” Joy was digging himself a grave, but he really couldn’t remember the kid at all. This was very, very, very bad.

“If you cannot tell us who gave you the money, then we are going to have to charge you for treason.”

Joy’s leg started to vibrate up and down, his only tell. He worked for years to remove it since a good gambler needed to have no tells, but it still came back in these high stress situations. He needed to stall while he came up with a plan, so he decided to banter while thinking. Banter had never let him down.

“Can we get that moved to light treason. I mean I didn’t make those coins or plan on distributing them. But if I did, wouldn’t that be light treason?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

Plan banter was not working, and the two knights were starting to stand up to leave. This was bad for Joy, really bad.

“Hey guys, what can I do to make this right? I really couldn’t tell you who gave me those coins, can I give you money, will that make things go away?” Joy was getting desperate; he could go collect on some long-standing debts he had with some nobles’ kids and squeeze enough money out of them to bribe these knights. But that really was his last card.

That was when he heard a chuckle come from just around the corner, out of his view.

“That’s where I come in.” A soft but powerful voice said. And out from around the corner Prince David Hearth came around. His most striking features were his mix-mashing bright blue hair, and freakishly yellow eyes. This prince was the eldest but was king’s greatest disappointment, he had been gifted with the utterly useless power of being able to change his eye and hair color.

During this moment Lillian and Theo had gotten a chair for the prince to regally sit in and look as imposing as possible to the captive Joy. Joy looked in awe at the prince and asked, “so have you been standing around that corner waiting this entire time?”

The prince frowned and replied, “well yes, I have been, but…”

Joy interrupted him, “that’s so lame.”

“Normally they’re in awe of being in my presence so they don’t bother to think about the details.”

“Well, you’re not dealing with an average man.” This statement got a snort, a grunt, and a chuckle from the three outside the cell.

“Would you like to hear my offer, Joy?” the prince said with a slight grin.

“I guess I have some free time to listen.”

The prince took a deep breath and started, “I will make this all go away if you work for me. You are notorious for getting noble heirs to gamble away entire fortunes and I could use a man with your skillset working in my employ. You will be taken care of and work very closely with Lillian and Theo who will make sure you do not cause any trouble. If you do this for me, we can just make the treason go away.”

“Why me? I admit I am the best and most handsome gambler you’ll ever find, but I am not really knightly material.” Joy was a bit skeptical of this whole thing, it seemed just a little too convenient. Joy was not a criminal mastermind who had a skillset the prince could use; he was just a lucky gambler with a fun gift.

To that the prince gave a full laugh, “don’t worry Joy you won’t be doing very knightly things. And for the other question, because my personal seer, Sam, said you would be perfect for the job.”

That was when, for the second time, someone chuckled and walked out from behind the corner that Joy couldn’t see behind. They were just a plain person, brown eyes, brown curly hair, and a brown complexion. Even their clothes were brown and drab. The only thing they carried that caught the eye was a wooden flute.

However, Joy was too busy shouting, “we’ve already been over this. It’s so lame!” to notice what exactly this seer looked like.

After Joy calmed down, he gave the proposal a full minute of consideration. Joy was metaphorically drowning, and someone was saving him, but also providing him with an itemized bill for being saved. Well, worst comes to worst he could run away, Joy was really good at running away.

“Why not Mr. Prince, this’ll be an exciting venture.”

The prince’s eyes twinkled as he replied, “I think it will be.”