Instead of Lockup, they were taken to the Silver headquarters in Kingsway, where Jeremiah and Gliridae were placed into a separate holding cell to Bill. Jeremiah fought to quell his nerves: it was unpleasant being back, especially being on the wrong side of the holding cell door. He’d never wanted to set foot inside this building again.

Gliridae was perched atop one of the benches with his legs crossed, leaning back against the cold stone wall with his eyes shut. He'd slipped the cuff off one of his wrists, so that it dangled from the other like some strange fashion statement. Besides the small cut across his cheek, his appearance was pristine: suit smoothed down and dusted off, all traces of broken glass vanished. If it wasn’t for his nose twitching furiously, and the downward tug at the corners of his mouth, the tiny musician would look perfectly serene.

Serene was the last thing Jeremiah felt. Everything- the smell of the building, the chill of the rooms, the noises coming from beyond the door- was digging up old memories he’d figured were long since buried. He’d thought they were only able to bother him in his dreams, but in the silence of the holding cell they came rushing forward, threatening to engulf him.

*

‘Bill Bad’ Bill Bauble looked exhausted. The small pool of light spilling in from the corridor of Lockup was brighter than the entirety of his cell, and he flinched back against it. Thick iron manacles wrapped around his wrists and ankles, chaining his feet both to each other and to the floor and stringing his arms from either side of the ceiling so that he couldn’t even touch his hands together. Another manacle wrapped around his neck, like a dog collar: this one attached him to the back wall.

Jeremiah swallowed, suddenly a bit nervous. He’d known the man was huge, and strong to boot, but he’d never seen precautions like this before.

“Good morning, Mr Bauble,” said Doc Claude, seemingly unphased. He stepped forward to inspect the convict and Jeremiah fought down the urge to tug him back. Despite the Prop’s chains, the proximity of the slim framed medic made him uncomfortable. But Doc Claude needed to do his job, and besides- no one could escape from that.

“Is it?” asked Bill, but when the doctor motioned for him to hold out his arm he complied as far as the chains would allow.

“Morning or good?”

“Either,” said Bill, but he huffed a small laugh at the question. “Got no timepieces in here, no windows, nothing; they told me I’m staring down the barrel of eight years, how am I meant to know if they’re making good on that if I can’t even tell one day from the next?”

The doctor frowned, motioning for Bill’s other arm.

“There are other ways of telling the time. You’ll get meals here, you’ll hear the guards changing; this cell isn’t in a vacuum, nor is the building. You’ll soon learn to take its pulse.” Doc Claude began unpacking items from his satchel, and Bill’s eyes fell to Jeremiah. They narrowed with suspicion.

“Aren’t the chains enough? You have to have security in with you too? I can’t say much, doctor, but I’ll have you know I never touched an innocent man.”

“Is anyone truly innocent?” asked the medic lightly. He turned and motioned Jeremiah closer. “But no, Jeremiah is here as part of his medical training.” Bill snorted and turned his head away as Jeremiah took a look at the arm and what the doctor was applying to it. “Okay, now that I’ve cleaned it, I want you to try and wrap the bandages.”

Jeremiah hesitated and looked up at the enormous figure, who glared back down at him from the corner of his eye. Honestly, even fully armed and with Bill in chains he felt vulnerable. His attention would be distracted, his hands full- who knew what Bill could do, if he had a mind to. The man’s range of motion was limited but it was there; and what was rock bottom but a safety net against further consequences?

Perhaps this was why doctors were such pleasant people: to pre-emptively combat violence from patients.

But with the eyes of both Bill and Doc Claude on him, Jeremiah had no choice but to step forward and pick up the bandages.

“This will probably sting a little,” he warned Bill Bauble. “Not as much as the disinfectant, but it won’t be pleasant either.”

“Your men shot me twenty-four times,” the inmate snapped. “I think I can handle some stinging.”

“No one said you couldn’t,” Jeremiah shot back, before taking a deep breath- it was no good letting inmates rile him up. “I just wanted you to know.”

This said, he began wrapping the bandages, being careful to only apply as much pressure as needed. He’d been shot in a similar spot before- he knew how much it hurt. At one point he paused and glanced up, and found Bill giving him a funny look that he couldn’t quite place. On meeting his gaze, however, the enormous man immediately looked away. When Jeremiah was finished, Doc Claude checked the bandages and gave him a thumbs up.

“Unfortunately, Mr Bauble, that was the easy part. It’s time to start digging the birdshot out of you. We’ll apply anaesthetic ointment to each site before we go in with the scalpels, but do you by any chance have a rough idea of where the wounds are?”

“Mostly in my shoulders and upper back,” said Bill. Jeremiah was surprised he’d answer so easily, though he wasn’t sure why: what reason would someone have to lie to a doctor? But he’d still expected it, expected the same stubborn obstinacy he encountered every day in the interrogation room. Even the innocent had an extreme reluctance to talk to the Silvers.

This was usually taken as evidence that they weren’t innocent.

But perhaps it was different for medics: people trusted them to help. What that said about the rest of the organisation, well, Jeremiah could ponder over a nightcap.

“Something hurts like the blazes in my left side, though I don’t know if that’s from a shot or from a knife,” Bill continued, oblivious to Jeremiah's musings.

“We’ll take a look at it either way,” said Doc Claude, pulling scalpels and more bandages out of his seemingly bottomless bag.

“And don’t… don’t call me Mr Bauble. I don’t like that, no one calls me that.”

“What would you prefer I call you?” asked the doctor. Big Bad Bill Bauble hesitated; once again, he met Jeremiah’s gaze, then quickly looked away.

“William,” he said, voice as quiet as Jeremiah had heard it. “You can call me William.”

*

“You change your accent,” Jeremiah told Gliridae, breaking the silence so abruptly that the tiny musician nearly startled right off the bench. He couldn’t stand it anymore- wasn’t sober enough to continue down the memory lane that his mind’s eye was showing him- and had said the first thing that he could think of.

The smaller man righted himself and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“You change your accent when you’re talking to people," Jeremiah repeated. "With the receptionist earlier, you were full Midtown; but on the train, telling the Prop to get out, you were speaking the sort of Lowtown you only hear… around the docks.” Or in Lockup. Jeremiah didn’t voice this half of the thought, but from the look Gliridae gave him the wilding had guessed. The musician pondered it for a moment, then shrugged and gave a wry smile.

“Code switching,” he replied simply. “People trust yeh more if they think you’re like them, or that yeh belong. The receptionist would never have let us in if I was speaking Lowtown- y’know it, I know it, why pretend it’s not true? And the Prop wouldn’t trust some Midtowner working for the Silvers.”

“So then what was it last night?” asked Jeremiah. Gliridae frowned.

“At Cantankerous?”

“No, at the Boiler Room. When you first met me- what persona were you trying to pull?”

Gliridae’s frown deepened.

“Nothing. I was having a great night, just me, my saxophone and the piano man. Yeh’re the one that approached me, yeh’re the one who asked for my services…” He paused for several drawn out seconds. His eyes raked over Jeremiah, up and down, considering him so intensely that Jeremiah had to fight the urge to shrink back. “Would yeh’ve been more comfortable if I’d demanded the key from the receptionist at gunpoint?”

“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that. It wasn’t an accusation, I was just trying… You have your weird skills, and I’ve never seen someone do that before, and I…” Jeremiah trailed off and shifted uncomfortably. He dropped his gaze, unable to meet Gliridae’s eyes.

For a long moment there was silence; Jeremiah was suddenly embarrassed, and acutely aware of the smaller man’s stare boring into him. He considered the question.

“Honestly… I think I would have been more comfortable if you’d pulled a gun on her; I wouldn’t like it, but I would know what to do. Or at least how to handle it. It’s familiar to me, and what you do, with the accent changes and the lies that just seem to come from nowhere but are so damn convincing… that freaks me out.”

“It’s because yeh’re not used to not having the upper hand.”

Jeremiah looked back up, confused, and Gliridae shrugged.

“Yeh were a Silver: the response to near everything with them is brute force, escalating to outright violence. Even now that yeh’ve left, yeh’ve got your pistols, and yehr fancy wings. I haven’t seen it yet but I bet yeh’re a dab hand at close combat too. Plus yeh’re friends with Bill, who’s the walking, talking definition of ‘don’t fuck with me.’ Even last night, walking me home- yeh did so because yeh were confident that any trouble we ran into, yeh could fight it off.”

Gliridae hopped off the bench and began to pace the room.

“I wonder how comfortable yeh’d be if you were on the receiving end of Bill’s cursing and violence. I think the answer would be ‘not at all’. Fighting isn’t more direct, more straightforward, or more honourable: yeh’re only comfortable with violence because yeh’re used to winning in violent situations. My lies, they make yeh nervous because you don’t have defences against them; yeh feel that yeh wouldn’t win if I turned them against yeh. Well, that’s how it feels when someone points a gun at me. Difference is that lies tend to have far less deadly outcomes.”

“You could carry a gun, you know,” countered Jeremiah, suddenly defensive. Over what, he wasn’t sure, but it had felt like there was an accusation in there. “Yeah, you’re small, but that isn’t the be-all, end-all. You could still be a damn decent fighter: your reflexes are insane, and I’ve seen how agile you are.”

Gliridae stopped pacing and looked at Jeremiah for a long moment, before shaking his head.

“Yeh just don’t get it, do yeh?”

Before Jeremiah could answer, the door to their holding cell opened, and a Silver stuck his head in.

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“Follow me,” he ordered, and without waiting for a response turned on his heel and headed back down the corridor, leaving the door open for them to follow. Gliridae and Jeremiah looked at each other, rolled their eyes, and fell into step behind him, the smaller man sliding the cuff back onto his wrist. Bill joined them as they walked, led by another Silver, with two more following closely: clearly, they weren’t taking any chances with the enormous man.

First, they were taken to a small medical room, where Jeremiah’s leg and Bill’s various wounds were patched up; Gliridae grimaced as he watched the treatment, and again when they were handed sanationis tablets.

“Yeh know they’re made from wildings?” the musician hissed. Jeremiah didn’t have the energy to ask what that meant, but clearly Gliridae couldn’t feel too strongly, as Jeremiah watched him slip the tablet bottle into his pocket.

Once the medics were done, they were led through too-familiar corridors to an office. The door was simple, with fogged glass labelled ‘Avery Ward' in square, no-nonsense lettering. The Silver leading them knocked sharply three times and a Midtown voice called for them to enter.

The office was small, crammed to the ceiling with shelves and filing cabinets, and had only two chairs on their side of Avery Ward’s desk. Bill motioned for Jeremiah and Gliridae to sit, which Jeremiah felt was probably for the best: the chairs didn’t look strong enough to handle him anyway. Sliding into his seat, Jeremiah took a good look at Avery Ward.

She was broad shouldered, emphasized by her Silver uniform, with a short cropped bob and dark, slanted eyes. He’d definitely seen her before, when he was a Silver himself: there weren’t a huge number of women in the job, and when she’d been promoted to deputy a few years back it had been a moderately big deal. As her eyes fell on his wings, recognition dawned on her face too. She nodded to herself as she looked at Bill, whose reputation often preceded him, but then she looked to Gliridae- all four foot of him, in all his violet grandeur- and recognition was replaced with confusion. She turned back to Jeremiah.

“After all the brouhaha you made over leaving, I never thought I’d see you back here. Him, on the other hand,” she nodded to Bill. “Well, I’m surprised it took so long. I’ve heard all I care to hear from the Mattheses involved, so let’s have your side of the events.”

Jeremiah bit down his anger, and he prayed that Bill could do the same. It would be no help if they lost their tempers, even if the comments about Bill were nothing short of enraging. Instead, he took a deep breath, and looked to Gliridae, who stared back expectantly. He gave the musician a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, and Gliridae flashed back a quicksilver smile before turning to the police chief.

“Miss Ward,” he said, taking off his hat and rising to his feet- which added maybe three more inches to his height from seated. Avery Ward looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Last night we were approached by Braum Wellington, Douglas Scapper’s employer, to look into his disappearance- not intending to tread on any toes, mind you, but because Mr Wellington felt that more eyes may be helpful, and because the man was understandably distressed about the disappearance of not one, but two of his employees.

“The natural starting point for our investigation was, obviously, the man’s home. However, when we arrived there was a frightful commotion inside the apartment. Bill helped your agent enter the room, but your man- I believe he was called Officer Jones- was taken out by some Props, who escaped out the window. They tried to create a distraction for their getaway by causing a fire on a nearby roof. However, Jeremiah and I followed them out through said window while Bill ran to fetch help.

“Normally we wouldn’t stoop so low as to fight atop public transport, but we didn’t want them to escape with such an egregious crime as assaulting a Silver- not to mention the arson. Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do about the fire, or we would have focused on that and allowed the Silvers to do what they do best. We only wanted to help you bring them in, but I can understand the confusion- there was no way to explain that while we were on the train.”

Jeremiah bit his lip, and resisted the urge to look at Bill and see his expression. Avery glanced between the three of them, and he tried to school his face into a neutral, but agreeing, expression.

“That’s a very different story to the one I heard just ten minutes ago,” the Silver said finally. Gliridae nodded.

“That makes sense,” he said. “Criminals like those are known for their dishonesty.”

Jeremiah couldn’t believe his fucking ears.

“And how did these Props escape out the window?” asked Avery. “Unlike my former colleague, none of them have wings.”

Gliridae looked at her so innocently, Jeremiah would have laughed under other circumstances. The musician’s eyes were wide, his ears unclipped and sticking out in large, fuzzy circles. He almost looked like a lost child, asking a kind adult for help.

“I don’t know if you’ve met Mr Morrow face to face, Ms Ward,” he said, “but the man is wilding, and has some kind of ape in him. He’s very agile- made it down the side of the building like you or I would a flight of stairs.”

There was a long pause. Jeremiah barely dared to breathe- that was a bold one, even for Gliridae. Then Avery Ward leaned back in her seat and nodded.

“I see. So, you’re helping Braum Wellington? I told him we had it under control, but I suppose you’re right: he’s very worried about his employees. What else did he tell you?

“Not much: that Viola Crest and Douglas Scapper were both engineers at the Foundry, that both had disappeared, and that Viola was carrying a file,” said Jeremiah, hoping that the relief didn’t show in his voice. Avery’s eyebrows shot up.

“And did he tell you the contents of that file?”

“No, ma’am,” said Jeremiah. Avery Ward nodded again and ran her eyes over the three of them, expression thoughtful.

“Well, you can tell Braum Wellington that the case is solved and to give you your payment. Douglas Scapper is, unfortunately, dead: we found his body this morning. As for Viola Crest, well, we’ve located her and she’s safe. We weren’t going to say, because sometimes it’s more straightforward if a missing person remains missing, but since he’s determined to know…” She trailed off and looked at them again, clearly considering something. For a long moment there was silence. Then she tilted her head to the other side. “Unless you’d like to earn a bit more?”

“You have a job for us?” asked Jeremiah. “To do with this?”

“Yes. When did you tell Wellington you’d get back to him?”

“Not until the day after tomorrow.”

“In that case, hold off on telling him until then.” She scribbled something down onto a notebook, paused, then scribbled something else. “Our problem is that we have recovered Viola Crest but not the file: it was no longer on her person and she’s turned out to be a tight-lipped individual. If you can speak to her, figure out where the file is, and return it to the Silvers I can pay you. Five times whatever Wellington offered. Only, of course, you’re interested.”

“I’m not sure if I can do that,” said Jeremiah, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “There’s a reason I stopped working here, you know… I don’t think I can just, well, ignore that.”

“The day I work for the Silvers is the day I’m no longer me,” rumbled Bill. Avery Ward frowned and looked to Gliridae.

“And you?”

“I’d need a bit more information on what it is, exactly, that’s going on,” replied the tiny musician. “I don’t just walk into things blind.”

Avery sighed, and shook her head.

“More information is, unfortunately, something we cannot do. I-“ she was cut off by a knock at the door, and irritation flashed across her face. “What is it?”

A young trainee darted in, passed her a note with a muttered ‘I’m sorry, they said it was urgent’, and vanished out again. She glared after him, then unfolded the paper and scanned the writing. The glare deepened. She crumpled the note up and threw it over her shoulder before leaning her head against one finger, frustration clear.

“Braum Wellington is missing,” she told them, voice tight. “Didn’t come into work today, and signs of a struggle at his home. It seems that if you want to receive any compensation at all, you’re going to have to help us. Solve this, and I’ll pay you each a thousand clips- half upfront if you arrive for work tomorrow.”

Jeremiah’s jaw dropped, and from the soft plops coming from his left, so did his friends’. A thousand clips was enough to live off for a year- more than. He could finally pay for the final few months of his medical training.

Bill could finally marry Mirabeth. Maybe they could even leave Boravica completely.

Gliridae… Jeremiah wasn’t sure what Gliridae would do. Perhaps he would become a full-time musician, and leave behind the life of crime he clearly wasn’t comfortable with. Move someplace in Midtown, get a job at a high-end restaurant; buy himself a real suit, rather than his violent violet velvet monstrosity.

But Avery Ward wasn’t done. She leant forward, expression dark.

“It also seems that you three were the last ones to see him before he disappeared. Anyone else might find it suspicious that you’ve been involved in both these disappearances. A good citizen would probably aid in the investigation to help dispel any notions.” Her meaning was clear. She pushed herself to her feet and opened the office door. “Sleep on it,” she said, voice light. “If you want to do it, meet me at 2631 Southwest, in Kingsway, tomorrow at 11.” Jeremiah frowned.

“2631? That’s-“

“Lockup,” Bill growled. She nodded and waited for them to file out.

“Like I said, sleep on it. Decide how much your principles are worth. I hope to see you in the morning.”

The door shut with a resolute click, and the three of them were left to make their way out the Silver headquarters. The sun was just kissing the horizon, so by Jeremiah’s reckoning it was a little past eight. There was a long pause, as the three of them eyed each other.

“There’s something bigger going on here,” said Jeremiah finally, shaking his head and shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “Shoot, I don’t want to work for the Silvers any more than you do, Bill, but three engineers missing? Something’s up, and I get this feeling deep in my gut that it’s important. I felt it when we first met Wellington last night, and I get it every time I think about this case.” Bill glared and spat onto the ground, then sighed.

“Hell, I hoped that was just me. You’re right. I’d rather work on this and figure out what’s going on early than not and maybe be blindsided further down the road. Tomorrow at eleven?” Jeremiah nodded, and they both turned to Gliridae, who grinned.

“I couldn’t give two shits about the train- a thousand clips is enough money to change a man’s life, especially a man with such low living costs as myself. I’ll see yeh there tomorrow too.”

“That cross-continental whatever that they’ve been spamming us with for the past few months?” asked Bill. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Way I see it, it’s got to be related somehow. Think about it: it’s what all of them were working on, right? And after a whole load of delays it’s meant to be unveiled next week. Now, I’m not saying I know for sure, but if I was trying to stop a project from happening, kidnapping and murdering the people involved sounds like a good way to go about it. Extreme, sure, but also effective. Wellington and Scapper were even arguing about the delay a few days before Scapper disappeared.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Jeremiah had agreed with all his points until then, but that last one seemed like a reach. Gliridae grinned, wide and mirthful.

“Because I landed face first on the memo after we crashed through the window. Yeh took yehr sweet time getting off me.”

Jeremiah paused, then shook his head with a laugh.

“You’re something else, you know that? But I guess we’re in agreement- tomorrow at 11. Gliridae, do you want me to walk you home?” The tiny musician thanked him, but declined the offer. “Then I guess I’ll be seeing you gentlemen in the morning.” Bidding each other goodnight, they turned and went their separate ways.

Jeremiah decided to take the long way home; the sun was barely halfway past the horizon and the sky glowed red. His shoulders ached dully from the recoil of his pistols, and the wound on his leg still throbbed with each step, but he valued the time to think more than he disliked the discomfort.

There was something going on, larger than he’d realised when Wellington had approached him less than 24 hours earlier. Three engineers missing in the space of two weeks? With both the Props and the Mattheses involved? As much as he loathed working with the Silvers, he couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. Douglas Scapper had been murdered for pity’s sake- maybe in the very chair they’d seen earlier. He had to help.

Or was that just justification?

If Avery Ward had found him last night instead of Wellington, and presented this exact case with this exact payment, would he take it? Probably not. If it had been laid out on the table at Cantankerous, he would have walked away.

If Wellington had paid the commission before going missing, would he take this case? Jeremiah wasn’t sure. Viola was a mole for the Mattheses, maybe she got Wellington caught up. With that in mind, Jeremiah probably would turn the information he had over to the Silvers and leave it.

So why did he take it now? Because he was sure he would have taken it even without the thinly veiled threats.

His conscious tumbled, freewheeling, uncertain how to reconcile the events of the past 24 hours and the decisions he’d made going forward. Avery Ward’s words rang in his ears: ‘decide how much your principles are worth.’

He didn’t want to think he was doing it for the money, but it was hard to argue otherwise. And was that justified? It had been nearly a year since he’d had to pause his medical training, unable to afford the classes, the supplies, and the cost of living concurrently. Even if it involved working for the Silvers, in the long term he could surely negate any harm caused? Surely. Right?

If Bill had come to him, with this exact case, and had told him ‘I need your help’, would he have taken it?

Absolutely.

Jeremiah sighed, driving his hands into his pockets. When it came to his friends, he’d always been blinded: like tunnel vision, focussed on doing what was best for them, even if it came at others’ expense. Even if it came at his own expense.

If he told Bill that he was doing something for the Props and needed the larger man’s help, would Bill do it? Probably not, honestly. Bill never wanted anything to do with them again- which was, in theory, how Jeremiah felt about the Silvers. In theory.

If push came to shove, would Gliridae hurt someone to protect him? Again, Jeremiah doubted it. He hadn’t known the man long at all, but he was reminded of the emergency oxygen instructions given on the airships: ‘take care of yourself before helping others.’ He suspected that Gliridae put himself first- and it wasn’t like that was unreasonable.

Jeremiah stopped; he’d reached the shore, and the red of sunset was giving way to deep purple, inky blue following close behind. The river glinted with the lights of the boats and orange oil lanterns hung from various docks. It was cooler by the water, a breeze blowing creating small ripples which distorted the reflection. He took out a small coin and whispered a quiet wish to it before tossing it in.

It looked like his principles were worth a thousand clips.

He shook his head as though that would clear it, then spread his wings; the walk had done nothing to ease his mind and right now all he wanted was to be home and to get some damn sleep. Taking to the air, he pictured the coin sinking to the river’s silty depths. It was silly, and Jeremiah normally wasn’t a superstitious man; now, however, he repeated the wish to himself, his voice drowned out by the whistling air.

“I wish I was better.”