It had been a board game the first year, one she’d get fired up over every weekend when Elliot came home to rest his wings. She’d told Iris to let him relax, but it had to be with Elliot or no one at all. Through his whinging and pleading, he’d always agreed in the end, unable to stop himself from pampering her.

The second year, it had been a set of three dresses, something else to wear besides singlets, shirts, cargo pants and her bomber jacket. The few outings they managed to fit into their schedule, she’d worn them every time—thin white that tied around her waist, lilac that hugged her neck with thicker fabric, ending at her knees, and sky that held some life and adorned her with frills.

Evalyn wasn’t sure if she wore them because she liked them or because she refused any other decent clothing. No matter how hard Evalyn tried to convince Iris it wasn’t a life or death matter, the bomber jacket never left arms reach.

Those had been the two birthday presents Evalyn and Elliot had decided on for Iris’s two birthdays past, and after two years, she had already begun to tie the height of summer sun as a signal to begin pondering.

But annual events were a strange concept. Evalyn was almost thirty-one, Elliot thirty-three. A year’s difference was no longer enough time for their lives to change, and if it did, it was almost certainly nothing welcome.

But one year for someone who only knew two, half their waking life by in a flash. Things changed, and by the time that annual event returned, it landed in an entirely different world.

A world where Evalyn sat in her office, listening to the wind-chime pinned to her window frame lazily rock back and forth while reading a proposal to the Prime Minister for her daughter’s execution.

Marie had blacked out the names of all members recorded, trusting Evalyn but not enough to disclose the names of those responsible. A security meeting of the Prime Minister’s inner circle and top military brass. Evalyn could sniff out the names underneath the black ink if she were to act on her vendetta; Marie wanting to keep her career until retirement was just about the only thing holding her back from giving in to her urges.

The Hansard had recorded an uncomfortable back and forth between members, the solemn discussion lasting a mere seven minutes and thirty-three seconds from start to finish.

Not once did they admit Iris’s age.

Not once did they say on record that they were considering putting a twelve-year-old to death.

The Queen had shut the discussion down resolutely six minutes and fifty-five seconds in, condemning the proposal and silently urging others to do the same.

Evalyn’s new routine was one she hoped would be temporary; she hoped it would not ruin another birthday once another twelve months passed.

All Evalyn wanted to think about was what would make her daughter’s face light up the most once she tore the wrapping paper open. All Evalyn could do was sit in her office chair, paralysed as the words rang louder than the wind chimes in her ears.

But despite their deafening presence, some things always seemed to cut through the haze around her head and snap her back into urgent reality—the shrill shriek of her telephone.

“Hello, Excala Internation Private Detectives,” she breathed into the receiver, exacerbated and letting slip a scowl through the wire.

“Evalyn?” Marie’s voice said. “I would’ve hung up if I was a customer.”

“Uh…yeah. Sorry,” Evalyn said, shaking her eyesight free of the document and closing it before it could ensnare her again.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes….”

“Evalyn?”

“…no. Sorry, I was passing an eye through the document you gave me yesterday.”

“Read it once, then burn it. That’s what I told you.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help myself—”

“Reading it a thousand times won’t kill whoever was responsible. Besides, the worst has passed for now. It’s a pit in their stomach, but they’re no longer choking on it. That goes for the council, too.”

“What about the international summit?”

“No. It’s unnecessary to disclose which magic is infused into whom. Being the sly bastards they are, they wanted their cards close to their chest.”

“I see…so Iris is?”

“Iris is in the clear for now, at least in Geverde. In Sidos, it’s a matter of renouncing her citizenship, which I doubt they’d consider. She’s—”

“Too valuable an asset,” Evalyn interrupted, glancing at the document still needling her from the corner of her eye. She would have to burn it before it won.

Marie sighed through the phone, and Evalyn could hear the words whirring through her head. She regretted what she said, but her pride wouldn’t let her take it back either.

“Yes, Evalyn. She is an asset no matter how much we love her.”

“I know…I’m sorry.”

A stretch of anxious silence lazily trailed their words until Marie was brave enough to break it.

“Iris. How is she doing now?”

“Better,” Evalyn sighed, the markings along her arm lighting up as two spindly vines protruded from her fingertips. “She’s decided that resting won’t do her any good.”

“What did you say to that?” Marie asked as Evalyn tore the Hansard in two, then in fourths. She sounded like a therapist.

“That it was up to her whether she went to school or not,” Evalyn explained. “That we could begin homeschooling again if that made her more comfortable.”

Evalyn paused, but Marie didn’t speak. Whether she knew Evalyn had more to say, or whether she didn’t feel a need to speak, they’d known each other long enough for it to be either. Talking felt easier with her; over her life, she’d grown too accustomed to conversations with adults.

“But now I’m getting phone calls from the Academy, lecturing me about how I ought to discipline her for showing up late to class every day. You know, just before you called, they said they had no clue where she was! She just…up and left! During break!”

Evalyn’s backside left the seat without her even realising. She’d picked up the phone box and began pacing across her office.

“Every day, she comes home six o’clock or later, scowling at me whenever I tell her off!”

“Evalyn, darling—”

“And you know the worst part? I know she’s going to the East Library! I know because every single time I call, Al or Tony picks up, and they pretend they have 'no clue whatsoever' or they 'haven’t seen her all day'. I can hear them lying through their teeth…beak…whatever!”

“Evalyn—”

“No! Let me speak! I am fighting a war on two fronts here!” She kicked the cabinet behind her desk, and the decorative glasses shook nervously. “I have to sit still and pretend I’m okay with my daughter being put down like a dog by the people I get hired to protect, while said daughter is giving me the coldest shoulder I’ve ever gotten, and that’s including my father!”

Evalyn slammed the telephone into her desk, the knuckles gripping the receiver growing white as tears welled in her eyes. Her markings glowed, trying to conceal them even while no one was there to notice. She exhaled, although her breath was shaking, almost on the brink of falling to raspy pieces.

“Does Elliot know about this?” Marie asked.

“Yes,” Evalyn muttered, finally noticing herself and sitting down. “Yes, he does.”

“Then you’ll be okay,” Marie said.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because both he and I once had to deal with a girl whose rebellious phase was so bad she betrayed her country, tried shooting herself, and then became the most powerful thing on the planet.”

Evalyn sighed, making her displeasure known. “This isn’t a rebellious phase—”

“As far as you’re concerned, Evalyn, as a mother…as her mother, you worry about your daughter first. The Queen and I will do something about the Spirit of Destruction.”

Evalyn pursed her lips, in no way satisfied with what Marie was proposing, but her sense of frustration was stronger.

She had blown her top off like a child for the first time in years, and all she had gotten was a lukewarm and level-headed reaction.

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Being a mother. Almost three years in was nowhere near enough time to prepare for shouting matches and punishments, and without the first ten years for reference too.

Never having a mother or a decent father gave her a different perspective. The validity of Elliot’s words grew thinner by the day.

“But that isn’t why I called you,” Marie clarified, bringing Evalyn back into the conversation. “Could you do me a favour?”

“I guess. I’m not particularly busy right now.”

“It won’t take long. That ring you had forged a year and a half ago, do you still have it?”

“The one that follows Alis Harbourman’s knuckle dusters? Yes, they’re in my cabinet,” Evalyn said, standing from her chair and passing an eye over her office’s backdrop, now recovered from her earlier assault.

Her eyes fell onto the ring, nestled as one of several along a finger-width velvet cylinder.

“What about it? Marie?”

She stared at the shimmering crystal, playing with the sunlight from her window. Having to compete with sunlight, the line protruding from it was faint, almost like dust suspended in the air.

She wished it was just that—just dust swirling in the air, then she could explain why the ring’s beam moved ever so slightly.

“Marie?”

“Yes, Evalyn?”

“Could you care to keep me out of the loop next time?”

“Just so you know where Iris is going to be this evening,” Marie said. “Don’t tell her I snitched.”

She’d kept a brave face. Listening to Evalyn so distraught was something she thought she’d seen the last of over a decade ago. Marie kept a brave face those days she’d visited Evalyn, sitting at the kitchen table, passing sparse words over cooling tea. Iris had only begun to greet her four days in, once she managed to fall asleep without Evalyn. They had seen it as an improvement, but neither was thrilled at the thought of leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Too much for her age. Too many missing years. Witches and Wizards were a hardline bunch. They had to be, else they were useless, and being useless was not a benefit enticing enough to offset the risk.

So, when no one knew the risk, no one could gauge the worth. Least of all Iris herself.

Who could fight for a country like that? Given a kennel but tied down by the leg, their promise of safety simply being that their trigger finger wasn’t as impulsive as their neighbours, but holding the gun to one’s head all the same.

A blood raw deal, but well done compared to the rest of them. That’s what Geverde offered, no more than it was obligated to, but enough to run an enticing deal. That’s all it could risk until the public one day turned on them.

The Lieutenant-General watched from her office’s glass wall as a small convoy of three cars—a black convertible sandwiched between two military escorts—approached the Steel Whale’s final checkpoint.

She sat down at her desk, straightening her back and listening to the weariness crackle and pop out of it. Being so close to the Witch in question, she’d received inquest after inquest, some more abrasive in their suggestions than the files she had allowed Evalyn to read.

She regretted that decision. Being honest did not always pay. Besides, Evalyn and Elliot knew what was going on amongst the council: there was no point worrying them further.

She’d watched the cheeky grin fade from the pilot’s face little by little. His annoying quips had wilted into sheepish smiles and awkward laughs, aimed at those who did not know him well enough to understand something was wrong. Those who asked did not get much of an answer, or so she had heard.

The razor-sharp eyes of dulled emotions had returned in a way Elvera hadn’t seen since the last leg of the Aether and Diesel war. No venom, a snake who had run out of it and was now resigned to his fate.

His wife was the type to gnash her teeth and put on a brave face until her feet were aimlessly walking a dead body. Elliot would see that same distance and never begin in the first place, his pride determining where his limits were for him.

Both failed spectacularly, but both could recover. Both needed to recover.

The Lieutenant-General’s phone began to chime, and she answered it, already knowing what it was about.

“An escort has arrived with an informant for you, ma’am.”

“Direct them to my office,” she ordered, placing the phone down and standing to her full height. The window wall behind her—as pleasant as it was—gave an outsider the perfect opportunity to gauge the Steel Whale’s whereabouts. Moving the Whale was costly: having to do it twice in a single month would eat away at their contingency, all for a simple mistake.

She cranked the lever built into the window’s frame, and watched as steel shutters crawled over the glass, replacing her favourite view with soulless grey.

The hollow knock of knuckles against metal ran circles around the room.

“Enter,” she announced, and shortly after, the door opened with a painstaking creak. Maintenance crews were not scheduled to oil hinges for another three weeks. She resolved she would have to take matters into her own hands sooner rather than later.

The boy she’d recruited two years prior stumbled into the room, head cluelessly facing forward while his eyes tried to follow the brightest light seeping through the blindfold like a moth. He was taller than she remembered, half a head at least. Elvera still gauged him on the shorter side of the spectrum, but he looked halfway to being a man. Perhaps he would’ve been taken a little more seriously had he showed up on Geverde’s doorstep now.

“Take the blindfold off, Alis,” she permitted. “How was your journey?”

“Bumpy, ma’am” Alis complained, peeling off the black cloth and stuffing it into his pocket. “And the blindfolds aren’t the best show of hospitality I’ve ever seen.”

His movements had relaxed a fair way from what she remembered, but just as she wondered where the old Alis had gone, he clicked his worn heels and straightened his back, saluting her all the same.

“At ease,” Elvera smiled. “As far as secret services go, I’d say we get a good four stars out of five.”

“Cannot argue with that, ma’am,” Alis sighed. “At least there isn’t a dent in the back of my head.”

“Speaking from experience?” Elvera asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No ma’am, second-hand,” he said, holding in a quiet scoff. “Empire spooks don’t go after couriers.”

“Even though I heard you were a very good one,” Elvera said, resting her chin on her interlaced fingers. “Your handlers all had very good things to say about you.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I doubt the one that brought me here had anything positive to report,” Alis guessed, placing his briefcase on the ground and taking off his coat. Underneath hung a common worker’s livery from top to bottom. She had heard he mostly worked in services, but there were still patches of soot on his once-white shirt.

“They were complaining all the way,” Elvera admitted. “Said you picked a hell of a time to back out.”

“Had to take my leave when I could, ma’am.”

He remained stiff, clasping his hands behind his back until Elvera offered him to take a seat across from her. He gave a smile and took it, shuffling closer once he sat.

The way he held himself, the way his eyes moved, and his fingers fidgeted. The streets had eroded away the mannerisms training had stamped into him. His mannerisms were rusty and unmaintained, coming across as the ticks of a strange boy rather than the habits of an ex-military.

“So, why did you choose now?”

Alis bent over, reached for his briefcase, and began to rummage through several layers of neatly stacked clothes. Either he had found the patience to fold his laundry, or he hadn’t found the time to change since leaving Vesmos.

“Here,” he said, handing a manila folder to Elvera, who opened it and caught the photographs before they fell onto her desk.

“What am I looking at?” she asked, spreading the photographs before herself.

“A letter from a mole in the Vesmos intelligence circuit. Those photographs are proof of the claims written in it.”

The Lieutenant-General passed her eye through the letter. Half of it was patriotic fluff and expressions of loyalty that she doubted ULEF even cared for. The few words that did stand out did so spectacularly. It was inconsequential to ULEF or the person penning the letter, judging by its status as a simple proof of willingness to parlay.

“A spy plane?” Elvera muttered. “How does an entire plane go unnoticed?”

“I don’t know ma’am,” Alis said, still the type to answer rhetorical questions. “My guess was that it either flies very, very high, or it’s invisible. Your fighters do that, do they not?”

“Some of them, yes, but not even Sidos knows about their designs.”

“Convergent evolution, ma’am,” Alis said, scratching the back of his neck.

“What?” Elvera asked, peering over the top of the manila folder.

“I read about it in a book, ma’am. How two unrelated animals can evolve in the same way. Sidos and Geverde’s alliance is causing trouble for ULEF, ma’am. It’s spurring weapons development in Vesmos like nothing else since they first expanded the borders.”

“So it’s different technology, but the same outcome.”

“There’s a chance,” Alis said. “But besides that, exactly what it's taking photographs of concerns me more.”

Elvera passed her eyes over the photographs again. Where she’d typically expect clear views of weapons depots and military bases, it was nothing but forest. Forest, and a deep mist.

“The letter states they were taken over the Northern Chain Ridge,” Alis reminded her. “Is there anything that goes on there?”

“The Colossus, the first Higher Order Armour is there, yes. But entry is possible, and its capabilities aren’t exactly a secret. Not enough reason to send a spy plane over it.”

“Something else then,” Elvera muttered. “It has to be Higher Order Armour development. Sidos doesn’t put much strength into weapons development outside that sector.”

“Vesmos is much the opposite,” Alis said. “There’s been little out of their intelligence leaks concerning a homegrown H.O.A. program.”

“Doesn’t mean they could be starting now. Either way, it isn’t something you have to worry about, nor I have to bother following up on. We pay people for that sort of thing, and that’s if we have reason to doubt Sidos.”

She bundled the photos neatly into the folder and fastened it shut with a paperclip. Putting it to the side, she returned to her original line of questioning.

“So, why did you choose now?”

“…ma’am?” Alis asked, his eyes pointing at the folder.

Elvera pursed her lips, raising an eyebrow. The intelligence was indeed sensitive, but so was anything else that wasn’t a copy of the daily newspaper. He’d passed it through to his handler all the same.

Alis bit his lower lip, keeping his eyes on his lap. “Personal reasons,” he finally admitted.

“Broke up with your girlfriend?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Falling out with the group?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then why?”

Alis still seemed reluctant, scratching his cheek as though he were in hot water with the school principal. He was feeling too casual around Elvera.

“Spill it. That’s an order.”

“I hit a ceiling, ma’am,” he sighed. “Being a courier. It’s a…cog in a machine, I guess. But I don’t know if the machine still moves half the time.”

“ULEF activities are consistently disrupting, or are our reports wrong?”

“The inner cities, yes. ULEF can’t fight a war of attrition, so severing the head is their strategy. But some outer branches don’t feel like they’re making a difference.”

“Not all branches measure their worth with the blood on their hands, Alis. Being a courier—”

“But you know what I can do, ma’am,” Alis insisted. “You know the only thing I can really do is get my hands dirty.”

Ah. He’d gone down a totally different path to Iris.

“Then what are you going to do when you get back?” Elvera asked.

“Find a job closer to the capital,” he said. “Do what I do best.”

“That’ll cost you your deal with us,” Elvera warned. “You’d be on your own, then.”

The boy’s fists tightened. It was her way to tell him not to make that decision. Vigilante work was admirable but hardly advisable, and Special Operations had little reason to fund such a character.

“You don’t want to burn two bridges, Alis. We can find you another branch, but you’ll have to continue your work regardless. Whatever you do outside of that is up to you.”

He couldn’t answer, and Elvera couldn’t expect him to.

“Until then,” Elvera said, pushing her chair away from the desk. “You’re free to do what you like. We’ll take your passport, so don’t think of leaving the country.”

She stood, and Alis took it as a cue to do the same.

“If you decide on taking our deal, knock on our door. Or Excala International P.I. if you forget where to find us.”

“How’s Iris?”

It seemed her off-hand remark had permitted Alis to ask about her. Elvera figured it was awkward in one way or another. She decided to be honest.

“The worst she’s ever been.”

“I read her letter,” Alis mumbled, and Elvera nodded.

“She still wears that ring every day. She’ll want to find you the moment she notices it’s moving.”

Elvera faced Alis as Iris’s family rather than as his superior. Even with the intelligence, the formal speak, and the superior-subordinate dynamic, the conversation they had fallen into felt more pressing than anything else they had discussed to that point.

“We’d better give you your knuckle dusters back then.”

“I’d like that ma’am.”

To Elvera, that was the greatest thing Iris had ever given to Alis, another reason to keep his brass knuckles close to him at all times.