“—reminding all citizens that it is currently quarter past nine, and a city-wide curfew is now under effect. All curfew violators will be arrested and escorted to the nearest police station until morning. It is currently quarter past nine, and no movement has been witnessed by either the metropolitan police or the invading military units. In violation of Sidosian law regarding the deployment of troops on home soil, the government has declared a state of emergency, and the high command of the military belligerents have been charged with treason—”

“Finally up? Fixing a sleep schedule is a long journey,” Evalyn said, turning down the radio by her lap.

“The sirens woke me up. What are they for?”

“You missed a lot while you were passed out. Where do I start... Well, the government’s made moves the military doesn’t like. There’s a standoff in the streets now, H.O.A. to H.O.A.”

“…how’s the arm?” Crestana asked, keeping her body close to the corner where her feet had hesitated, startled by Mrs. Hardridge’s figure taking refuge in the moonlight. The detective turned her attention to her shoulder.

“Bandaged. Got the doctor to roll it back into place so…just waiting on the muscles to heal.”

Crestana gripped the wallpaper, the words infecting her with a sympathetic pain in joints she'd never had.

“Did it hurt?”

“Sure, but not as much as your wound…God how am I going to tell your aunt.”

“Mrs. Hardridge,” Crestana asserted in pure reaction, stepping out from behind her corner.

Silence fell as the moonlit-clad silhouette looked her way, soon realising Crestana had stepped forward with nothing meaningful to say. “Mrs. Hardridge,” Crestana repeated as she rolled from the heel to the balls of her feet. “It was my choice as well. I can tell my parents myself.”

“You’re barely a teenager, Ms. Mallorine, one who’s inheriting an entire empire. People ask questions, and Iris and I have to take the blame.”

“Why? It was my choice, I should be allowed to take—”

“Responsibility?” The detective scoffed and shook her head. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

She shuffled, moving left and out of the moonlight’s path. Crestana saw a hand pat down in the space beside her, and wordlessly, she followed the invitation. Crossing the red carpet robbed of its colour in the absence of even candlelight, she came to a cushioned nook. Books lined the windowsill, likely lying there as decoration, never opened. Crestana knew how such places worked.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Mrs Hardridge asked, her eyes gazing out at the garden below, flickering shadows the outlines of a second distorted world. “Has school given you an interest in anything?”

Crestana shook her head. “Besides fencing, no. Not hard to see why.”

“Better things to be worried about?”

Crestana nodded.

“And all it feels like is a gauntlet of obstacles sapping your time while you know there’s more important things you need to do.”

Crestana nodded again, sitting upright as she felt herself melding into the shadow.

“Something you think is already set in stone.”

“But it’s not like I’m helpless anymore,” Crestana suggested, meeting the orange hair halfway. “I chose to do this.”

“And it’ll be the last thing you ever choose, Ms. Mallorine.”

The glint of silver in her eyes made them shimmer, a sombre intensity that tried to warn Crestana as though they were of the same body and soul. The curt smile disintegrated, leaving the distance between them a thin veil, two points on one line, one further ahead of the other, instead of two entirely different tracks.

“What you did yesterday, that…magic I guess, that forced the Aether out of everything around you. You do know how valuable of a skill that is, right?”

“I understand the gist, yes,” Crestana replied. “I’d be used like a Witch, right? Get hired to kill Spirits.”

“No, not Spirits. You’d be a mage hunter. You’d be contracted to kill Wizards and Witches that go rogue.”

“Kill…do they not stand trial?”

Mrs Hardridge shook her head. “Kill on sight. Can’t risk a trial when you can’t take away their weapon. So...you’d live out that life, one job from another, or else they’d consider putting your head on the chopping block too.”

A palm came down on Crestana’s head, and slowly, the calloused skin began a back-and-forth motion that swayed her vision left to right, left to right.

“That’s why Iris and I need to apologise, say we accidentally dragged you into this. Iris might not get it yet, but she’d want to protect you from all this even more than I do.”

Crestana curled her arms around her knees, resting her head against the windowsill yet feeling no fatigue. She felt nocturnal, alive in an otherworldly, ancient sense.

“It feels right, sometimes,” she began, watching the ends of her fingers blend into the shadows. “Reason or not, I met Iris, she saved me, and now I get a chance to do something with myself.” Her shutters creaked. “It feels like I can be there with her now, every step of the way.”

The hand on her head travelled down to her shoulders; Evalyn’s grip around them felt brotherlier than a mother’s touch. Nonetheless, she felt the immense warmth come across in the gesture.

“You can do all that without putting yourself in danger, all right? She talks about you nonstop, and I don’t know what she’d be doing half the time without you.”

Evalyn’s mouth curled into a smile, a gesture as genuine as any other Crestana had seen from her. For a warrior, a detective, an adult, even a human, she wore her emotions proudly on her sleeve. It was an honour; such a person could never afford to do something so careless all the time.

“I trust you’ll take care of her as a friend, no need to follow her into battle and sacrifice what you’ve already got.”

“Money? I don’t need that—”

“No, no. Couldn’t care less about money. I mean…weekends. Friends. A life where your biggest worry is how the bills are getting paid and where your next meal is coming from.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The radio slowly chattered in the silence.

“A wedding dress. Children. That sort of thing.”

“You got a lot of those things, I understand?”

“I was lucky,” the detective admitted. “And never wearing a wedding dress is something you’ll sulk about when you get older…if you’re anything like me. But….”

The detective sighed, and Crestana felt herself sinking closer and closer into her arms.

“It’s up to you, I guess, although I’d never recommend it. So, Iris and I will cover for you as long as we can, okay?”

Radio chatter, each second another metre peeled back, revealing just how dire the situation was. Yet in a small nook in a big house full of strange paintings and terrified people, calling their loved ones while old walls stood bulwark against ambition clashing against ambition, truth against truth, there was a cold peace between acquaintances.

Two points on the same line, one a decade ahead of the other.

“Forgive me if I’m…you know, stepping out of line…”

“None taken, Ms. Mallorine.”

“Okay, well…sometimes you make it sound like you regret becoming a Witch.”

“Regret it?” the detective repeated, ingesting the question. “Yeah…on bad days. On good days too.”

She closed her eyes, surrendering herself to the moonlight.

“But when I think about how else things could’ve gone thirteen years ago, I think to myself, without fail, that I don’t mind paying the price.”

“The occupying military forces, amongst which are the storied 42nd division and yet untested 1st Higher Order battalion, have just today released a set of demands to the Sidosian government and the press. Amongst the many claims made against the government, the military has outlined three principal demands. One, to end all appeasement programs with the many Spirits of Sidos. Two, to roll back the alliance with the Geverdian government to an ‘acceptable’ level, and three, for the current Prime Minister, Dalena Fault, to secede from office and for her party to elect new leadership ahead of the coming election. The demands have been met with—”

Radio chatter. Elvera let it fade into the background as she sat alone, to her neck in outdated reports and paperwork. Half past ten, an uncomfortable mid-morning silence set in along with the buzz of the rising sun and its temper. What felt natural at mid-morning had felt alien only a few hours prior, a stagnant stillness as no cars, feet, trams, or trains moved to disturb the air. Curfew weighed heavy, and all in the city held their breath, as the whispers around the parlay room leaked, morsel by morsel into the wider city.

Rumours reached the walls of the office Elvera took refuge in, eventually bringing a knock to the door.

“You’ve been asked to make an appearance at the parlay,” a staffer informed her, bursting through the doorway in a meek but confused flurry. The rumours leaked through the crack in the barrier, and Elvera got up, beckoning the staffer to lead the way without another word.

“Perfect. Didn’t feel right without all the stakeholders in one place.”

Elvera stepped through the narrow doorway to yet another nondescript chamber she would’ve never found herself. Six people sat, three beside three, Fault facing a man whose medalled chest might’ve passed for a breastplate a few hundred years ago. He had been the only person to speak on her arrival, the many creases in his battered and tarnished skin moving like the folds of a bulldog.

“You called, ma’am,” Elvera announced, but Fault met her with apathy.

“No, he did.”

Six stars adorned his epaulette. Another name and face she’d committed to her long repertoire, the only difference being that she’d committed his to memory years before.

“Elvera,” the General of the Armed Forces grunted in acknowledgement, nary throwing a nod her way.

“Treeman,” Elvera replied to Hardridge’s successor, a man which she only remembered for being forever covetous of her once-friend’s promotion, something he’d set his eyes on long before Hardridge had even become a candidate.

She turned her attention back to Fault, gauging the Prime Minister for a read on the situation. Her eyes were turned to Treeman, gaze locked in a primal contest of will, but her jaw was grinding, molars shaving off layer after layer. Things weren’t going well.

“Treeman has questions for you,” Fault declared after painful moments of silence. The archivist’s typewriter began to tick loudly from the corner of the room, shadowing Fault’s words.

“The demands of the Armed Forces, I’m sure you’re aware of them?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re aware of the clauses that concern your nation?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And you hold no objections?”

Elvera held her tongue. A moment of hesitation those across the table would interpret as weakness, a wish to deceive. Elvera was willing to take it if it were only for that extra second of thought.

It was a trap, whatever she said would work against Fault. If she held objection, Geverde would be the aggressor, if she didn’t that would only put more pressure on Fault. No statement had come from Geverde, at least nothing of an official capacity. How could it? The demands were fresh, and General Treeman knew it.

Her authority as Lieutenant-General of Special Operations; unless she were to go silent, answering from it would have to do.

“It would be a great loss for us, General. Our friendship has made enemies with many envious neighbours, some we can only combat together. However, I do understand preserving that friendship itself is also important.”

“So is that a yes or no, Lieutenant-General?” Treeman scowled, talking like he had any standing above her beyond his rank.

Choking silence. Bated breath. Fault’s bureaucratic guns had fallen silent in the face of metal barrels and the smell of real gunpowder.

“Nothing I say represents Geverde’s official stance,” Elvera asserted. “You must know this, Treeman. Just because you've gained stars since last I saw you won’t make me fold. That is my stance.”

Click, click, click, ping. Elvera’s petty words were recorded in the annals of history. Whether they’d see the light of day was another story. Treeman clicked his tongue as though to dismiss her, turning back to Fault, whose small hint of a smile gave thanks for the solidarity.

“I will reiterate, Prime Minister, military power and operations lie with us so long as it concerns us and rests in our borders. The Sidosian Military will not tolerate the defence of their homeland being pawned off to outsiders regardless of their qualifications.”

“Geverde has taken an advisory role—”

“And yet they formulate plans and participate directly in operations. I wouldn’t call that an advisory role.”

Fault inhaled, calming herself. “I find it harder to trust your inner circles by the day, General. It is no secret to anyone that your military ruled the country under Hardridge; an illegal, undemocratic consolidation of power that you know yourselves you can only regain through force.”

“Power is not something you can lecture us about, Fault. You stick to the topic at hand, and we can get on with business.”

Fault leaned back into her chair, flicking her eyes left and right, gauging each person one after another.

“If the Sidosian Government comply, you vow to leave the city.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And you agree to fulfil the suspension term currently imposed on you?”

“Yes,” Treeman stated, Elvera knowing full well whoever took office next would have it in their best interest to pardon every soldier. Fault glanced at the typewriter, faithfully shadowing the conversation word for word.

“Then the reason for your suspension,” Fault started as the typewriter began to fire away. “The unsanctioned weapons research done in the Northern Chain Ridge.”

Treeman shrugged. “Unsanctioned? We followed orders that came down from the Minister of Defence. Party disunion is not our concern.”

Except it was, but the typewriter was still travelling one keystroke after another across the page. Treeman was not going to admit to anything unless it was strictly advantageous.

“And yet, against your better judgement, they were deployed.”

Treeman feigned irresponsibility with another shrug.

“Your party has been bloated for years, Prime Minister. It’s no surprise some wouldn’t be too keen with your leadership. We protest Geverde’s invasive involvement, Sidos’s appeasement to Spirits and our punishment for simply following orders. That, is, all.”

Treeman sized up the Prime Minister one final time.

“Sidos must stand on its own two feet once more if it can hope to be its own nation. Until you understand that, Prime Minister, none of our units will back down. Not here, not in the Northern Chain.”

Each failed parlay was days lost in the race against time; the bombs were ready to begin their countdowns. Treeman threatened war, plain and simple to those who could fully grasp the situation. Fail to take action, Civil war against the Spirits, and brute force would see the Armed Forces turn their guns towards a coup d’état.

Both, the new regime would fall within a week, and with no subtlety to the military’s power, it would lay naked and illegitimate in the eyes of the public.

Slowly worming back into power and influence would be in their best interest, yet it also gave Fault’s dream a chance, a sliver of hope at burying the old Sidos once and for all.

So the final decision came with little surprise, yet Elvera’s foresight did little to dampen the pain.

“In exchange for the withdrawal of all troops from the city and the Northern Chain Ridge facility, as well as the suspension of these troops, I…Prime Minister Dalena Fault…accept these terms.”