Krouri sat in silence while her mother tried to process everything she’d just heard.

  "You’re telling me," Akri said at last, her tone caught somewhere between disbelief and horror, "that you made a deal. With something wearing your grandfather’s face. In your dreams."

  Krouri nodded.

  Akri’s hand shot forward, but instead of striking, she caught her daughter’s wrist and pulled her into a fierce, shuddering embrace.

  You shouldn't have told her. You've done more harm than good. Order's voice boomed from inside her mind.

  Krouri closed her eyes and suddenly was back in her grandfather’s study. The old vulture looked down at her, eyes full of cold disappointment.

  "You don’t know what you’re doing."

  "You don’t get to decide what I share, or with whom." Krouri snapped. "Yes, I asked for help. But everything you said was twisted. Even when it was true, it was used to manipulate. That isn’t order."

  "You needed focus. Purpose. I kept him anchored."

  "No. You tried to control me. You lied to Buck. Tried to steer him towards obsession. A horrible, toxic Deception!" The word flung from her beak like a dagger.

  The Eidolon’s expression shifted into a scowl. "How dare you—"

  "I chose this path," Krouri said, stepping forward, voice rising. "Not because of legacy. Not because you told me to. I built my name. I forged my relationships. I am Krouri Kukri. That is my Truth."

  The declaration sliced through the room like a blade of light. The vulture’s face twisted, features warping into a shifting patchwork of eyes, beaks, muzzles—an ever-shifting mask. The true face of Deception revealed.

  It lunged with a deadly claw—but stopped short, inches from her face. A shackle rattling from its wrist. Chains snapped taut. They led to a small paperweight on her grandfather's desk, one she remembered from her childhood. A set of scales with a couple of fountain pens on one side and an ink well on the other.

  There, trapped behind the glass at the apex of the scale, the pale figure of Truth held the chain tight, bloodied hands refusing to let go.

  With a mighty yell, Truth dragged Deception backwards—

  —and Krouri snapped back to the real world.

  Akri still held her, voice trembling. "We need to call someone. There has to be someone who can help. A demonology expert. A cleric—someone who knows how to fight this.."

  "There is," Krouri said, breath still shaking. "A professor at the university. We’re meeting him next. Just…trust me."

  Akri stopped and looked, truly looked at her daughter as if she was seeing her for the first time. Her little girl was all grown up. Asking for her trust like when she first learned to fly. She nodded with a reluctant smile.

  A soft scratching sound distracted them both. They looked down. Two small, dusty paws grasped for purchase from the slots in an air vent. Krouri blinked—then burst into laughter. "It’s Sparks! Open the vent!"

  Akri pried off the vent cover and stepped back as a ragged, soot-covered orange rat crawled out and expanded into a soot-covered orange tabbi in a suit, still puffing on a half-burned cigar.

  Before he could dust himself off, Krouri threw her arms around him in delight. "I knew you'd be watching!

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Of course!" he replied. "I wasn't about to let you have all the fun. Buck tossed me in the vent. A completely undignified experience, I assure you."

  Akri checked the back of the vent cover and read the disclaimer aloud. "Protects against conjurers and familiars." She scoffed. "Of course they neglect wild shapers. Damn it, now I need to source a whole new defense grid."

  "To be fair, I'm surprised the plan worked too. Cigar?"

  Akri looked between the offering and the placard on her desk that proudly read 'No Smoking'. She slapped it face down and took the cigar. "You're in immense danger, sir," she warned as she accepted a light from Sparks. She inhaled deeply and released a huge plume of smoke into the ceiling. The tiles absorbed it greedily. "Between Fixer and V, there's barely a safe place left for you in the city. Am I to understand V has been living in your house for the last several years?"

  "Living with and being paid for the privilege. He was my butler."

  Akri gave a single laugh. "You're a dead man."

  "We all gotta go sometime, baby." Spark answered with a grin. Krouri slapped him lightly upside his head with her wing.

  "Not what I meant. He went to such severe efforts to keep you in line and now you've broken free of that. I'll be surprised if there's anything left of you when he's done." Akri addressed her daughter with new determination. "Go get your father and the others. It’s time we stopped reacting and started fighting back."

  *  *  *

  Krouri entered the break room and Buck immediately straightened. "Finally. Everything all right?"

  "For now," she said, ushering him out into the hallway. "Come on—I’ll fill you in."

  They reached Akri’s office just as she and Simon were finishing a tense exchange. "…and you didn’t tell me Pazienza was here?"

  "The situation was tense. I didn't want it getting any more complicated than it already was."

  "I could have helped! Do you really have that little faith in me to think I'd make things worse?"

  Akri dismissed her ex-husband with a wave and turned to address the room, posture stiff. "Victor’s name went out with the last Lighthouse broadcast. He’s not a rumor anymore—and that is going to make him lash out. He would sooner see everything he's built burnt to the ground than lose control of it. We need to get ahead of it."

  Krouri picked up the thread. "I know you and Dad have already had this argument but we can work with the Beacon—but we need a coordinated plan, not a public shout. We expose V and cut off his leverage."

  "I have a theory," Sparks said, coughing into a dusty sleeve. "Pazienza isn’t Victor’s partner—he’s his employee. Which means he can be turned."

  He paced as he spoke. "I've thought about it. The debt he claimed I owed? Manufactured. Zadron? A plant. The Aethercorp job? Orchestrated. Victor’s had me on a leash this whole time."

  Buck clicked his tongue, grudgingly impressed. "Not bad, matchstick."

  Sparks offered a tiny, rueful grin. As he relayed the events prior to his house exploding, Kindling climbed out of his pocket holding something in its mouth. A gold ring, gleaming with inlaid jewels. It dropped it neatly into Buck’s open hand and chirped.

  "That's Gaul’s ring," Sparks breathed. I thought the cops confiscated it." He scratched Kindling under the chin. "Kindling, you little sneak!"

  Buck turned the ring over, watching the jewels catch the light—and suddenly the world tilted. A low hum in his skull. The fox’s hungry voice whispering:

  Answers…

  He slipped the ring on.

  A shimmering projection burst into life above his palm. Blueprints. Mugshots. Contracts. A wave of raw data swirling in midair. Buck reached out, flicked one of the images, and it shifted to a holographic figure…of Sparks…running across the room like a looped recording.

  "So that’s what I look like from the back," Sparks murmured. "No wonder you were chasing me."

  Buck didn’t answer. Something in the image triggered a shiver of memory. A hallway. The warehouse. The smell of smoke and hot metal. A flash—

  —and he was there.

  Not aiming down that warehouse corridor.

  Running.

  Perpendicular. Towards himself. Buck.

  Towards—Gaul, half-hidden in the shadows, his pistol raised and ready to fire until—

  Their eyes met.

  The shot.

  Pain.

  A leap—

  Sam pushing him out of the way.

  And then fire. Rubble. Silence.

  The world snapped back. Buck was shaking, eyes wet. Sparks’ voice sounded far away.

  "Buck? You alright?"

  He wiped at his eyes and let out a broken breath. "…It wasn’t me." The words were thick with shock—and relief. "It wasn’t my shot. The ricochet didn’t hit Sam." He swallowed. "It was Gaul. He was there. Waiting for us that night. He killed him. Sam… Sam saved my life."

  The burden he’d carried for months finally slid from his shoulders. In its place, a cold and crystalline clarity.

  He turned to Zywrath, eyes blazing. "Get the task force together," Buck said. "We're taking the fight to Fixer."