Infernal Investigations

Limping back to the street and site of the ambush, I kept a wary eye about. The sound of fighting had died away by now, but that didn’t mean any danger was past.

The chronomancer likely still had the devil frozen in time. That didn’t mean frozen forever, and eventually it would break free. If my relatives and Intelligence didn’t kill it first.

And the Priestkiller, who was hopefully still trying to engage the Xangs and the Intelligence Chronomancer. Better that than chasing down where Mourner Kelson was.

First , make sure everything was safe. The Maws were trying to hide; the hellfire beasts were dissipated, and the summoned devil was probably still frozen. That left the Priestkiller and any leftover Black Flame as potential threats to stumble across as I made my way to the street.

Second thing. I was a mess. There’d been an intact window I passed by. It reflected enough of my visage that I knew small children would be fleeing from me for reasons besides being an Infernal. I shouldn’t be able to walk, or even talk.

My earlier words to the Queen of Masks had probably been inside my head, since speaking was probably beyond me at this point. Also, is the current pain making me stumble?

It was only going to get worse. The idea that my nerves had grown back all the way was dispelled by the fact that I was still missing the flesh that went with most of them. From the outside, it didn’t look too bad. Sure, my flesh sagged where holy water dissolved my jawbones, and there were multiple holes underneath my chin. And chunks missing from my lips.

Still not as bad as inside my mouth, where it looked like I’d tried drinking an entire bottle of acid. I had, in a way.

There was going to be a lot of bio-sculpting in my near-future. Multiple nights’ worth. All-liquid diet. And no biting into people without risking a tooth tearing out. Or I could leave reforming teeth for later, since I’d need to work on the gums first, anyway.

The potion I drank earlier worked slowly. So I’d need to make it to relative safety before my reforming nerve endings left me completely debilitated.

Screams echoed across the sky, overlapping each other, growing in volume.

Something moved across the sky, black hellfire around it winking out of existence. The Priestkiller, giving up the fight entirely.

I memorized the way they were flying before they vanished behind a nearby house. I stared at its face, scorch marks extending from every window outward, a molten gash torn through its wall.

What were the odds they were heading directly back to their nearest safe house? I memorized where I was, the point between two windows he’d disappeared behind, and resolved to come back with a map. Draw an exact line and see what it crosses inside the city. On the top of my head, there was the Quarter, and that could get you into the underground. Still, it would be a good general direction to start with.

The tread of hooves nearby interrupted me. I turned around, gun raised as a three-headed figure moved towards me.

“How auspicious,” the Queen of Masks said, voice echoing but not in the same discordant melodies as before. “To find you here, alone in an alleyway, Harrow. Fitting for you.”

My eyes narrowed. Not the devil. I made a pantomime of checking the cylinder of my revolver.

“Really?” it sneered. “You think you can challenge me, you- “

My hand fished a bottle from inside my coat.

The lesser healing potion smashed into the creature, and it hissed before its flesh turned liquid, shifting and writhing.

I considered the shrieking creature. Okay, Intelligence’s involvement and his disappearance afterward made it clear what this was. Honestly, I was more irritated that there was enough slack on Hawkin’s collar for him to even try this.

I dropped the revolver. I hadn’t wanted to wield diabolism tonight. Not when so many others were tossing it around.

But to handle another thorn in my side? I suppose a bit more rot was called for.

“You know,” a familiar voice called out from above me. “As much as it pains me to say this, I do actually have to interfere if you try killing him, Malvia.”

Rolling my eyes, I stared up at where Tagashin floated in the sky. One of the moons floated behind her, the pink suit gone and replaced by flowing robes. The kitsune stared down at both of us disapprovingly.

“I see someone hasn’t dropped all her bad habits,” Tagashin said as she dropped to the ground next to me, looking at the wreckage of my lower face critically. “Malvia, was melting your nerves off part of the plan? Because you probably shouldn’t be capable of moving.”

The most frustrating part of this was that I couldn’t even respond because of said melted face.

“Curse you, most foul furred fox!” the reforming blob known as Hawkins yelled out of a half-formed mouth. “The thing committed assault on me! End it!”

“Oh, do keep talking, Hawkins,” Tagashin said as she dropped between the two of us. “I’m sure everyone is already so happy that your grudge against Harrow is distracting both of us from supporting Major Aelderson. He needs help to handle that giant devil; just go around the corner and you should spot it. Don’t let it eat you, no one wants to cut you out of a monster’s stomach again.”

The Hawkins-blob let out many curses and protests about how it had that hydra handled while Tagashin and I ignored him.

“What did you even drink to cause this?” Tagashin said, reaching out and grabbing my chin.

That did hurt, as skin and flesh pressed together, no bone to hold any shape as they hit each other.

“Seriously, if you drank acid and spat it on someone, I will slap you.”

That unfortunately wasn’t very far from what had happened.

The Hawkins blob had stopped melting, developing tendrils of flesh dragging his mass up the side of the ruined building, latching onto hellfire-scorched walls and pulling up.

Halfway up he encountered one of the hidden maws. It decided to try to have a meal before its inevitable demise, and both I and Tagashin ignored the sound of him and it fighting each other.

“I can heal this,” she groused. “I’m very tempted not to, after what I found out earlier. Did you really try negotiating a deal with the Watch to get yourself put in the coffin?”

I raised an eyebrow, unable to verbalize a question about how she knew that.

“No, I am not watching you constantly, although sometimes I think you should be,” she said. “You were a pup let out of the den too early. Don’t look at me like that. If anything, that’s an indictment of others, not yourself.”

I stared blankly at her, hoping she would hurry with this healing. Please let her not think that keeping things this way would be a good way to avoid my rebutting any of this.

“Hold still. This will hurt.”

She gripped my face firmly, and it started as just a general sense of warmth flowing into what was left of my face. It wasn’t so bad.

Until the warmth became an itch, then a scratch, then the feeling of a thousand needles pushing in and out as I writhed in her grip while flesh, tooth, and bone pushed out. Her grip held me steady even as I tried to scream out of a suddenly ragged throat until she let me go.

I collapsed onto the ground, gasping through a throat that burned with each breath. Above me, Tagashin swayed unsteadily, her breathing unsteady for a few moments as the pain inside my head went from all-consuming to a step below that.

“Thank you, Tagashin,” I managed to get out, teeth gritted as my entire mouth felt like it had been set on fire.

“You should be,” Tagashin said, exasperated. “That is the last time I’m even trying to do that for you; it’s going to take me weeks to get that kind of power to use for free. Healing like that will demand a deal next time, and I can’t give you a fair bargain. What did you drink?”

“Holy water,” I admitted.

I did not know the words that escaped Tagashin’s lips after I said that as she turned around, fists balled, but the general impression I received was that they weren’t very favourable towards me.

“I wasn’t planning on doing it,” I said as the cursing began to taper off. “It just occurred naturally as part of the fight.”

“It naturally occurred to you to drink holy water?” Tagashin said, her anger not cooling down at all. “Do you also regularly sip poison?”

“Yes,” I said flatly, and she seemed surprised and taken aback by the blunt admission. “Tolerance building, as well as some storage for when I’ve biosculpted my body right. And I didn’t drink the holy water. I just temporarily stored it elsewhere, where the Queen of Masks wouldn’t anticipate an attack.”

“Via spitting holy water on her,” Tagashin said, although the anger was draining out. “Still incredibly stupid and reckless.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I’d still do it again if it meant defeating her. Her loose as well as the Priestkiller would have wrecked the plan.”

“Right, the ‘plan’ you made,” Tagashin said, glancing up at where Hawkins had won his struggle with the diabolic maw and continued on his way. “Both Voltars are here, Malvia. Both of them want a full report. Soon.”

I sighed, letting the pain of that breath distract me from the sensation of my stomach knotting. Right. This had the possibility of being even more dangerous than fencing with the Queen of Masks or the Priestkiller.

“Is there anyone here higher up in their hierarchy than Samuel Voltar?” I asked her.

“That we’re supposed to know about, or I’m allowed to talk about? No.”

I glared at her, although I couldn’t be too mad at her over that convoluted way of not answering the question. Intelligence’s leash on her was far stronger than their leash on me. So, potentially someone with higher standing than Samuel Voltar. I already felt that knot in my stomach tighten just wondering if this had overstepped what he’d told me last night before leaving my home. I suspected the current approach to this potential Hellgate wasn’t his own, and if the person responsible for that approach was nearby and angered by the steps I’d taken…

Well, it might be worth checking with Captain Malstein if we could reopen discussion on me staying in the Coffin. I snorted. Like being at Colonel Colgrave’s mercy again would be any better than what Intelligence could inflict.

It could be, but I’d figure a way out of that besides a cell.

Next to me, Tagashin sighed.

“You’re making me be the responsible one, Malvia,” she said. “I hate being the responsible one. It hurts to think that way, and if any of my sisters or brothers saw me right now, they’d think I was ill. Or brain-damaged.”

“Having known you for a decent length of time, I think that last assessment might be true,” I told her soberly, getting a snort and a half-hearted punch against my arm.

“Alright, I’m going to go needle Hawkins until I feel like myself again,” Tagashin told me. “Works wonders. He’s almost as predictable as you are.”

Before I could even begin a retort to that, Tagashin vanished, leaving a drifting pink-colored outline of some kind of dust.

I held my breath, anticipating the dust would make me sneeze or hiccup or something she would find amusing, and started to move towards the street.

It proved difficult once I’d gone past where I’d observed the diabolic maws. I had a shattered remnant of my saber, but it was entirely too short to try prodding parts of the ground for them, and using diabolism in this already devil magic soaked part of the city was not a wise idea. So I went carefully, dagger clutched in my tail, careful probing ahead as I walked close to the main street.

I had a way to go, darting across rooftops and then being blown off them, had taken me far from the faked route of Mourner Kelson.

I paused. I could hear sounds up ahead, meat being torn away as something hungrily gorged itself on flesh. Joy. I crept forward, revolver at the ready.

I rounded a corner, then paused, contemplating the creature in front of me.

The thing resembled some combination of praying mantis and lizard. Scales stretched over chitin, the joining between the two bloody and awkward, the thing’s legs digging hard into the street as it ripped flesh off a bloody corpse, mandibles tearing strips off the body of some unfortunate Black Flame member. Easily six feet tall and easily that much and a half again long, focusing completely on its meal, currently stripping meat from the bone into its gullet.

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This much diabolism being thrown around would mean things like this. There had been a watch cordon Malstein was going to establish around the ambush area, to keep things like this inside.

I could only hope the Black Flame hadn’t torn through them while escaping. I loaded my revolver as the thing continued chewing on the body, tearing flesh off the thigh bone. No saber, low on alchemical munitions, and bullets would take a while to end this thing. Throwing more diabolism around would probably end it. And likely make something even worse spawn instead.

I pulled the hammer back with a snap as the cylinder spun, and the thing’s head swiveled to face me, a strip of flesh gripped in its mandibles.

Something descended from the night sky: a young man with non-Anglean features and flowing black hair flying downward towards the diabolic creature, robes fluttering around him. I shifted my aim from the creature’s head, firing. My bullet blew a hole in the thing’s leg and kept its attention on me while the descending figure swung his sword.

The sword sliced through the flesh of the neck with far more ease than it should; the creature let out one pained squeal before collapsing to the ground in a heap of limbs, while the Xang lightly touched down, sword already sheathed, eyes closed.

I slowly clapped.

The Xang opened his eyes, rolling them as he looked at me. “Of course you’ve figured out how to make clapping sound sarcastic by now.”

Over a decade without keeping up with most of my relatives should have made it hard to guess who this one was. Luckily for me, his resemblance to his father made it easy. All of Uncle Liu’s kids bore far more resemblance to him than they did to Aunt Jing.

“Cousin Zhi,” I responded. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

The last time would have been a year after faking my own death. Forced to admit I couldn’t even keep my mother healthy and well by myself, I’d taken her to the Xang compound and had a tense meeting, better described as a stand-off, with my old family to get her into St. Lanians. Family connections got me the access that pilfered Black Flame money could not buy.

To say the impression any of them would have gotten back then would be negative was…minor.

“Cousin Lily,” he said, inclining his head as he moved out of the way of the swiftly melting diabolism-spawn. “Still dragging me into trouble, I see.”

I took a few steps back as well as melting flesh spread over the ground. It wouldn’t do to have any of that touch me either.

“I go by Malvia these days,” I told him cautiously. We’d been closer than I had with any of the other Xangs, but that had been over a decade ago. I can’t imagine his opinion of me had improved in the time since then. “And I remember you being the instigator for most of the incidents you could be describing, cousin. I’m not the one who suggested we use Great-aunt Ying’s axe to attack the ghost of the eastern house. Did Diwei ever forgive you for almost chopping her leg off?”

“After many years she deigned to speak to me again on it,” he replied. “I will not repeat what she said; it was very rude about both of us, Li-Maliva. You look very different from how I remember you being back then.”

“Over a decade does that, cousin,” I answered, getting an amused snort from him in response.

“Yes, it makes one older, and also sprout fins, dye half their hair, cover them in scales and change the shape of their tail to make them resemble a fish.”

“Shark,” I replied instinctively. “Shark, not a fish.”

“Cousin, we get actual fish at the family compound, not those abominations against nature that get pulled out of the Nover. You look like a fish.”

Knowing how pressed we were for time, I decided against taking the requisite amount of time to demonstrate that I was most certainly not a fish.

“I take from you being here that the main street itself is relatively safe?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said. “In that the Infernals have fled, so has the diabolist; the army chronomancer slayed the greater devil, and others handled most of the aftermath effects of diabolic magic. The noble house of Xang cannot guarantee you won’t say, trip on an errant stone and break your neck.”

“One placed by Diwei, no doubt,” I said, and his lips quirked.

“I couldn’t say. I see you collected trophies?”

He gestured towards the two masks I’d recovered from the Queen of Masks, still covered in ichor from their former wearer.

“You could say that,” I replied. “Their owner isn’t dead. I’m guessing your group hasn’t had any success.”

“No, and they are very upset,” Zhi told me. “The hunt was unsuccessful; an outsider involved himself, and then the outsider claimed the larger devil all by himself.”

“He froze it in time, and from what little I saw, it seemed a lesser beast to be claimed,” I replied. “All muscle and maw, no brain or particular abilities displayed outside of causing its surroundings to reflect its sin?”

No guesses as to what that was. That thing was almost entirely maw, clearly to feed a gluttonous appetite. Also, while it was possible it had more intellect or abilities than what I’d ascribed to it, but frozen in place none of that mattered.

“It is true,” Zhi said. “That it would not be a challenge to any of our older relatives.”

It took actual effort to restrain a frustrated sigh. “They intended to have the younger ones fight it, didn’t they?”

“Under supervision,” Zhi said reproachfully. “They said it would be a good learning experience that they would be unlikely to get under better conditions.”

That was halfway reasonable, I admitted, although even with everything within a mile of this street evacuated, far too dangerous. One little misjudgment and you would have a powerful devil loose on the crowded streets, or rampaging through homes while families slept.

It still irritated me that they’d seen that as a prime hunting ground first. What their minds prioritized instead of what was truly important.

“Where is everyone gathered?” I asked him as we continued down the alley, carefully probing with a sword and a pole I’d gathered from the ground for any hidden maws. My ears could hear other sounds now, but not anything dangerous.

Well, if you didn’t count Captains Malstein and Walston having an extremely heated conversation about jurisdiction as dangerous. Damnations, I’m pretty sure I was about to lose my Watch support.

“Where indeed, Cousin,” Zhi said, the tip of his sword stabbing the ground and eliciting an annoyed snarl as the ground split. We gave it a wide berth, my tail jabbing like a dagger against the maw’s tongue. “No one is particularly eager to stand near each other at the moment, if they don’t already know each other. The group that I believe you were working for has claimed where the carriage ended up as their own territory, while the family is keeping a respectful distance. More guardians of this city have arrived, but not associated with the ones that chose to aid you in your righteous goals.”

My lips quirked. “You can call them the watch, Zhi. Or is the forced, flowery language a new affectation, deliberate punishment on your accursed Infernal relative, or some kind of punishment for something else you did?”

“Never the second, and that is all I dare answer while my revered and honored ancestors might be lurking behind any windowsill to hear me,” he replied.

“I’ll take that as a positive,” I said. “Tell me, did they send you because you are the one member of the family they didn’t think would try to stab me?”

Zhi’s expression became briefly horrified. “What? I mean, I was sent because I don’t think the worst of you, but Lily, no one would do that.”

I gave him a flat look, then decided he probably wasn’t aware of Diwei’s admitting to wanting my head mounted on a wall, and decided that breaking that illusion wouldn’t be a productive use of anyone’s time.

“Paranoia,” I said in response. “Maybe a bit too much. My apologies.”

He accepted, eager to get off the subject, and we finally reached the main street.

Most of the homes were damaged, walls scorched with fire, marked in black, orange, and stranger colors. Some had burnt down completely, leaving skeletal husks behind. Some fires still burnt, groups of Watch moving in to form bucket chains or for mages to conjure water. They were the most frantic people moving about. No one wanted fire in the city, especially hellfire. Chunks of multiple houses were scattered all over the street along with the scorch marks of the hellfire beasts.

There was blood on the street, but little in the way of bodies still here. Those were being gathered by the Watch, Watch officers under sheets, Black Flame in a heap. I couldn’t bring myself to care about that latter detail as another group of Watch tossed some poor sap who had fallen for my brother’s lies onto the pile, her eyes gouged out and her throat a bloody ruin.

The Watch was everywhere, far more than Malstein had brought. More than even Walston’s, as these must be units that responded locally. No friendly looks from them. Not many of those from Malstein’s group either. And quite a few sheets covering bodies.

Far down, I could see a few familiar faces among a group in plain clothes near an alley, with a wrecked carriage nearby. I breathed slowly, not letting my heart race. Where Mourner Kelson had ended up. And where Imperial Intelligence had set up.

Closer, all the Xangs, maybe twenty in total, most of them loosely gathered around Diwei, Jing, Fang, and Liu, who were deep in discussion with each other.

Of the giant summoned devil? No sign at all, which I found more disturbing than if it had still been frozen in place here.

I could still hear Malstein and Walston arguing, joined by a couple of others who must have been managing the local conversation. The conversation had turned from arguing about jurisdiction, this being Walston’s case, to something even more venomous regarding my involvement. Specifically why Malstein hadn’t checked if I was operating with any actual authority, and when he realized I wasn’t throwing me in the deepest cell in the coffin.

Would it be possible to make the earth elemental blooded Watch captain collapse into a pile of rocks by informing her I’d offered Malstein that and he’d refused? No, no, Malvia, don’t risk the relatively friendlier Watch Captain’s career in an effort to make another one break down.

“Cousin?” Zhi asked, having noticed my focus on the two.

I tapped my ears. “Magic is a wonderful tool. For example, keeping me apprised of the fact that I might be spending the rest of tonight in a cell.”

“A first?” he asked me.

My smile faltered a little. “Huh. I thought Diwei would have kept everyone appraised of that part of what’s going on. Hardly the first time, Zhi.”

His eyes widened, and his mouth opened, but he restrained himself from asking questions, which I appreciated. He’d probably get his father’s version of my time after they’d exiled me instead of my own, but I wouldn’t press on that. I had enough to worry about before trying to chase after dead roots about to get poisoned a second time.

I concentrated, but could hear nothing at all from further down the street where the Intelligence agents were. Of course. They were aware of my capabilities and wouldn’t gather without some way to nullify them.

“I should talk to your parents and our esteemed aunts and uncles,” I told Zhi casually. “I wouldn’t want Diwei thinking she’s not the center of existence.”

“No,” Zhi said cautiously, and I realized I’d probably mis-stepped somewhere with that statement. “Follow me. They’re in the middle.”

The Xang clump was very loose outside the group of elders in the middle, but they drew together as I got closer, only loosening up when Zhi asked them to.

The glances I received were much frostier once they recognized me as I moved towards the interior, although no one moved to block me. And, I realized with a sinking feeling, this was without any of them knowing about what had happened to me ever since they’d exiled me to the Quarter.

It shouldn’t hurt. I’d already written being part of this off a long time ago, but some part of it still did.

I reached the four elder Xangs talking, and all of them immediately looked at the trophies currently hanging from my belt.

“Are those masks a sign that you have killed the diabolic doppelgänger you told us about?” Uncle Liu ventured.

Aunt Diwei scoffed slightly. I was certain she had opinions on the veracity of what I’d said regarding the Queen of Masks. Quite honestly, if the Queen didn’t end up dead by the end of this and people suspected she was just me biosculpted? I knew where those rumours would have started.

“Possibly,” I told them. “The devil dissolved, but it is a slippery one. And its death has little in relation to most other devils I’ve seen die. Theatrics and gore, but very little radiation of diabolic energies. Alive but undeniably weakened is my best guess. Give me some time to examine the masks, and I’ll get you a more precise answer. Assuming I have access to my usual contacts after tonight.”

“So you fail to claim the head of the lesser of the two evils you set us against,” Diwei said harshly. “Your failure, child.”

“So it is,” I replied. “Next time it won’t escape me. If you doubt my skills, maybe splitting our focus to have some of you aid me might be required.”

Bringing up her own failure to handle the Priestkiller would do nothing but prick her, and every other Xang here. I needed some of them at least cordial to me for a while longer.

“Not a terrible idea,” Aunt Jing said. “We have the measure of this ‘Priestkiller’, so some of us helping handle the end of this lesser target, then we all focus on this larger one.”

“If a next time occurs,” I said, looking down the street at where Intelligence officers stood. “There’s a good chance that I’m about to suffer the consequences of arranging this in the first place.”

Hawkins and Tagashin were there now, Hawkins back in the same disguise he’d used that night we met in the warehouse, a slim, freckled, red-haired Keltsman in a silver-threaded suit and top hat. Had he brought a spare suit into a combat situation?

I was increasingly sure that I was the most sane and level-headed Intelligence operative I’d met so far. If we discounted both Voltars. And Dr. Dawes. And most of the ones I knew on sight who didn’t seem that insane. Honestly, probably everyone but Tagashin and Hawkins.

None of the Xangs seemed willing to say anything about that impending doom, so I continued the conversation onto safer ground.

“The Priestkiller seemed inexperienced,” I said, looking to them for confirmation.

Diwei nodded reluctantly. “No form, no grace. Completely incompetent.”

“He knew very little of the way of fighting,” Liu added. “Relying on brute force instead of any actual technique.”

“Technique is one thing; our Priestkiller shows very little sign of ever having their life risked,” I stated. “I fired bullets made of a celestial servant’s flesh at them. Repeatedly. When it began failing, they became hesitant, shying away from getting close and unsure of making an attack. As if they had never experienced being in any meaningful danger before.”

Diwei scoffed. “A diabolist unused to danger?”

“Everyone starts somewhere,” I said. “More seriously, an inexperienced youth led into something dangerous by a charismatic older figure, talked into taking a deal with an involved devil, or fully embracing natural powers would fit. And fits with some of the other details. The Priestkiller seems actively attempting to prevent collateral damage.”

“Have some experience about youths being tricked into evil, child,” Diwei asked me, and I spared her a glance.

“Certainly,” I said. “Although the Black Flame was never this reckless previously, didn’t trick me into deals, and I was already a criminal before they recruited me so there was far less falling for me to do as opposed to the probable priest the Priestkiller is.”

Diwei seemed temporarily unable to work out a response to that, while Aunt Fang cleared her throat.

“Trying to avoid any collateral damage,” she said, as we stood in the middle of the ruined and profaned street.

“Mostly the Black Flame ddi this,” I replied, while part of a building fell in on itself, something inside shrieking unholy damnation upon us all. Xangs readied weapons, but Walston’s Watch officers were already moving to handle it. “Or the hellfire beasts. They caused some of this, sure, but that’s because they were trying to restrain abilities far in excess of what I predicted.”

“Something you failed to pick up on?” Aunt Jing said, sounding curious instead of scolding.

“I’ve never had the chance to see them in action before, only to clean up after their messes,” I said. “Initial read at the time was reckless, with diabolism causing it to leak everywhere. Someone restraining their abilities but still leaking enough diabolism when using it to animate statues into murderous creations and turn an entire lake into bubbling corrupted muck as a side effect suggested a level of both raw power and lack of training I didn’t consider because of how ludicrous it was. If they weren’t trying to restrain themselves at all, this would be casually easy. The only saving grace is the lack of training, meaning they’re using basic techniques besides the ritual to make the priests sacrifices to the Hellgate’s opening.”

Silence followed those words, everyone around chewing on those facts until someone finally spoke up.

“Well, that’s a depressing note,” a familiar voice said as Tagashin put her arm around my shoulder. “You know, I love family reunions, but I do need to borrow Malvs for a moment. Our mutual boss wants her to explain this whole mess.”

Four sets of weapons cleared sheaths immediately, many more right after, as everyone suddenly realized there was another Infernal in the middle of their formation in a hot pink suit. Diwei’s blade was barely over an inch away from Tagashin’s throat.

“Uh-uh,” Tagashin said, shaking her finger at Diwei. “Come now, don’t be hostile. You don’t want to join the circus that badly. You’ll end up making Malvia act as the voice of restraint and maturity between all of us again. A very horrifying possibility.”

“Barnes,” I said wearily. “Don’t provoke her. Please.”

“See? This is entirely unnatural. The world itself should be recoiling in protest over her being the reasonable and sane one in this equation.”

The tension wasn’t leaking out of the other Xangs. They knew better than to take the jokes and disarming nature of Tagashin at face value. They knew what kitsune were.

Which made the idea of breaking oaths made to her, even as a test, stupider every time I heard it. Honestly, when I ended up in front of my grandfather, before anything else, I was going to metaphorically throttle him over telling my aunts to try that.

“If you want the world to stop being unnatural, let’s get a move on then,” I told her, moving away from the Xangs. “Everyone else, thank you for your help, and good night. If anyone is willing to help any further and I am able to continue this, we can talk further tomorrow.”

Time to go face the music with the Voltars and get a straight answer on if any part of tonight had been a success.