“There’s six safe houses across the city,” Elvera said, walking into the Prime Minister’s office during one of Fault’s rare moments of downtime. Guilt was there, but so was a renewed fire under her feet.

“If the Minister of Defence is still somewhere in the city, it'll be somewhere in these six places.” Elvera spread a map across the table, one she’d already asked the captured Witch to annotate. Six places, spread evenly across the city, all apartments nestled in densely populated areas.

Fault stood, foothold wobbling as she rounded her desk and walked over. Elvera watched the Prime Minister’s half-closed eyes and pulled out a chair. “Take a seat, ma’am. I’d delegate this task to someone else.”

Fault nodded, unresponsive as she craned her neck over the map. “So he’s bought out these six places? There’ll be financial records we can use as evidence, then.”

Elvera shook her head. “That convenient theory I mentioned a few days ago, ma’am. It’s starting to hold water. Whoever they are, the Minister of Defence isn’t useful to us outside of getting to them.”

Fault scrunched her nose at Elvera. “You’re saying he isn’t important.”

“Seems that way. The Witch we captured, she’s saying the political staffer was their liaison to the M.O.D., who in turn got the cogs moving.”

“Does she know who?”

“No, says she’s forgotten. Her contact was a Wizard though; I wouldn’t be surprised if it has something to do with their magic.”

“Okay…then why?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, ma’am. But the way she was putting it, I’d imagine different people are holding stakes in the situation for different reasons.”

The Prime Minister rubbed her temples, watching the six marks, eyes moving as though the pen strokes were fluttering across the paper. “Raider teams, simultaneous. Checkpoint the city exits, make sure this bastard doesn’t get out.”

“I’ll get the phone for you ma’am—”

“No just…tell someone to phone the feds.”

Elvera kept the sigh internal, promising to keep her military infidelity to the grave. “Yes ma’am,” she said, hoping her Majesty would never find out.

“And…Lieutenant-General?” Fault said, halfway between two states of consciousness. “The M.O.D.’s staffer is being moved to a prison tomorrow. Be awake for that.”

Elvera sighed through her salute, wishing she could say the same without repercussions.

Bare feet kicked up on her work desk, Elvera wound the knob on her radio, flicking between six channels at five-second intervals. Silence would be interrupted by a faint call each time, some callout or command as the clock count down second by second. Clock hands met, and Elvera caught the brief sound of a door being kicked off its hinges before the signal cut out.

She switched to another channel, waiting for something to flutter onto the airwaves. Nothing, next channel. An all-clear from the bedroom. Next channel, another clear on the laundry. The third channel, a request to switch the lights back on.

Fourth channel, if Elvera remembered correctly coming out of northeast Sidos from a flat in a six-storey complex. She waited the customary five seconds, fingers ready to twist the knob and cycle again.

“Entry team Yellow to TOC, bagged the suspect. Requesting evac and backup teams. I repeat—”

As the orders continued over the frequency, Elvera let out a long, exaggerated sigh. Throwing her head back, she closed her eyes.

“Well, I hardly needed any convincing. Every person in this country has known someone who’s died to a Spirit, myself being no exception.”

Elvera watched the Minister of Defence lean into his interrogator from the opposite side of a one-way window. “I joined this party in its early days believing things would change. We’d go from senseless violence to peace however strenuous. Strength meets strength in the middle. And what we got instead was appeasement.”

The Federal Police investigator scribbled down comments in her notepad, looking utterly unperturbed as the MOD gave his statements away for free. With no escape, she couldn’t blame the man for taking a final chance to preach.

“Our oldest, most experienced leaders and most prestigious regiments are turning against us because we can’t part our lips from the Spirits’ shoes.”

Elvera had to admit, it was a more nuanced take than what she was used to hearing. If only his solution wasn’t so short-sighted. The investigator finished etching down an abridged version of his speech and turned her attention to another topic.

“The device in production at the Maraband Northern outpost, how far along is it? Keep in mind that any attempt at obstructing this investigation will have you counting up years in the slammer like a ticking clock.”

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The Minister grimaced, rubbing his hands together as he looked around the room, a pair of tired eyes passed over the screen Elvera stood behind.

“They’re not far from ready.”

“…sorry, ‘they’re’?”

The Minister nodded. “The engineers hired to remodel the designs into weapons figured out that a lot of the complexity came from fine-tuning the effect, keeping it non-lethal and down to a certain area. Take it all away, you halve the time, halve the cost, and get an out-of-control reaction.”

“Right…and how many of these are there?”

“Twenty, last I checked. Made to drop on anything we can’t kill conventionally.”

Even the investigator struggled to hold in her surprise, the shock leaking out in the form of a raised eyebrow and a furious scribble of notes.

“And uh…your relationship with your staffer, we’ve gotten a tip-off that he was your liaison to a third party, correct?”

The M.O.D. nodded. “They gave me the scientist. That was all.”

Likely untrue. Even subtly, those around the Minister of Defence would’ve had ample influence on his decisions. Either way, it gave them a shield for any investigation to terminate at. Even if the desire to pursue further existed, as it did in Elvera, the pursuer now had to deal with the fact that they had captured the Minister of Defence and were holding him prisoner, something an already aggravated military wouldn’t take sitting down.

A rustle behind her as someone burst into the cramped and dim observation room—a suited figure, one she had come to recognise by their neatly combed blond hair. “Ma’am,” he said, zeroing in on her the moment he stepped foot in the room.

Elvera turned to greet him with a nod before uncrossing her arms.

“Jakub Rilmat’s convoy was attacked. The Minister of Defence’s staffer is unaccounted for.”

“Right…well we’ll deal with situations as they arise and nope it just sank in.”

“Where are they now?” Evalyn asked as she pulled on her coat and kept her handgun unholstered.

“Police are radioing in sightings in uh…Tennerif? Is that how you pronounce it?”

“Right. Not too far from the manor. I’ll let you know.”

“Keep a radio on you. Eighty-eight point six. If that’s too hard then…I don’t know follow the sirens and look over the rooftops.”

“Rodger,” she replied, slamming the receiver down and heading for her childhood bedroom’s door, finishing with her coat. “Three of you stay behind, don’t give Oswald any trouble.”

Crestana was passed out on Evalyn’s bed sound asleep with Iris by her side. Neither mother nor daughter had shared a word since their argument, and Alis had stood in the middle, flicking his head back and forth between orange and purple.

Discipline took up time she couldn’t afford to lose.

The manor wasn’t the best starting point if she wanted to travel by rooftop, but it was better than nothing, even if she wasn't sure exactly what nothing was. Broad daylight, and rush hour too. Not exactly her first choice, and she doubted it was her enemy’s either, now that they were down their invisibility trick.

Evalyn stormed down the hall, taking care to do up the latches on every room on the floor with finger-sized barricades. Her armour spread across her skin and each footstep became heavier on the deep red carpet as she approached a window by the end of the hallway. She undid the latch, opening the two halves outwards.

Evalyn stepped back, bouncing on the balls of her feet before kicking off the ground and diving through. Twisting her body, she threw the weighted end of a golden grappling hook up and over the roof’s edge, catching onto a ledge before she pulled the string taut and hoisted herself up.

Building momentum, she sacrificed a few tiles off her inheritance to launch herself over the wide road between Kestrel Manor and the closest neighbourhood. She softened her landing with a bed of gold, keeping up the pace as soon as her feet touched the ground.

Tennerif wasn’t far, and a decent choice to outrun the police. Upscaled housing development, with roads that existed only to get people home. No through traffic and chock-full of dead ends, and road-bound officers would struggle to tail a Witch or a Wizard taking the rooftops.

Follow the sirens. That was the best she could do for the moment.

Each bend of the knee from one roof to the other left a small crater in a stranger’s rooftop as Evalyn scanned the horizon. A sprawl of single houses stretched out before her. No landmarks to speak of broke the monotony, not to mention the area’s newest additions being practically alien to Evalyn.

She closed her eyes. Follow the sirens. Any noise besides birdsong, wind, and engine rumble would’ve done at that moment.

A faint wailing, practically begging for assistance.

She altered course making a beeline for the sirens until she was in the midst of them, flying over the top of cop cars. She tensed her muscles, landing on the next rooftop and skidding to a halt. Crouching, she halted, escaping the hurried wind in her ear and trading it for heightened sensitivity to the still, perturbed air.

Sirens, and the buzz of heat cooking her inside her clothes and armour like a salt bake. Evalyn tuned out her own Aether and turned her attention outwards. To her sixth sense, nowhere could be as pristine, as desolate as Sidos city. Even a pinprick of an Aether pull in the distance stood out like a lighthouse.

She began her chase again, altering her course another few degrees westward. Faster this time, keeping a loose track of the signal as she moved. Soon, that signal translated into sound. An alien, low boom that echoed faintly through the burnt, dry air. Another, and another.

And then, sight.

A black speck for the moment, like a flea jumping from one hair to the other.

Testing the waters, she sent out a tendril, spanning the distance as she kept a close visual lock. Another boom and her tendril involuntarily diverted course.

She tried again, the same issue.

A sudden change in direction; safe to say she’d blown her cover.

More booms, but she was gaining on her target enough to see one figure carrying another over their shoulder. Their airtime was significant and inefficient, with tall, sharp arcs from one building to the next. Each boom they’d rise and fall.

Another probing tendril, but Evalyn was still no closer to discerning what was happening each time her advances were denied.

The buildings were getting denser. Any further and the chase would devolve into a cat and mouse through streets and back alleys. More noise, more eyes, more opportunities to lose her prey.

She moved in for the kill, latching onto a far rooftop between her and the suspect with two arms that morphed into bowstrings. She tightened them, notch by notch until the tension split the air into cracks and splinters.

She let herself go, launching her body like an arrow, too fast to process the speeding world outside the small speck directly before her.

Another boom and her body was sent in the opposite direction, the whiplash rocking her body in her armour like a brain during a concussion. With no control over her flight, she barely managed to turn herself and face the ground. Picking a wide enough roof from the hundreds escaping her every second, she grappled to it, jerking her around in her armour again.

A hard landing, barely cushioned by the layer of gold she was able to manage. A dislocated shoulder at least, and she was reminded how low her pain tolerance had fallen since donning her armour. Gritting through her teeth, she undid it and gave herself a mouthpiece to clamp down on.

The sirens got quieter as she got up, vision doubling as the blood in her body panicked, rushing to even itself out. Her ears rang, and the sirens became fainter the louder it got.