RE: Monarch

I was not unfamiliar with the way these things worked, though most of my knowledge came from authored retellings rather than the real world. Of course Persephone wouldn’t trust me right away. She’d string me along for a bit, test my patience and my ability to keep my mouth shut, then eventually—maybe—give me what I wanted.

The thing was, in the stories I’d read the initial favors were supposed to be small. Meaningless things. Like acting as a lookout, or gathering information.

But no, Persephone had skipped a few steps, and now I was roped into a plot to burgle a heavily guarded home, cursing her name, mentally preparing to commit high-risk larceny.

I’d stared at the imprints she’d handed me blankly, not quite believing what I was seeing. “Sorry, you want me to do what?”

“It’s a sapphire. About the size of a pomegranate.” A dark, elongated finger stroked the depiction of the sapphire lovingly. “I want it.”

“Yes,” I said, my accent thick. “And I would love to live in a world where the dark elves did not drive us from Panthania all those years ago, yet we do not always get what we want.”

“Don’t be mouthy.” Persephone sniffed.

“It is not a matter of being mouthy, it is a matter of survival.” I insisted. “This thing. It is not—how do you say—proportional.”

“Oh? And the information you seek is so simple and consequence free?” Persephone arched an eyebrow and took a seat on the table next to me. “Anyone with any knowledge of the asmodials is to bring it to the attention of the high council immediately. Withholding that knowledge is tantamount to treason. And I’m hardly asking you to commit treason. Just bring me one little gem.”

I gawked at her. “Big gem. This is a big gem. Stolen from a woman I do not know, in a place I am unfamiliar with, with a plan that is not mine and the help of men I do not trust.”

Persephone blinked owlishly, as if my observations were completely unfair. “I thought you’d appreciate the resources at my disposal. You’re welcome to bring an associate of your own… if you have any.” Her smile was feral and victorious. She had somehow reasoned out that I was operating on my own.

“Why do you want it?” I asked.

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Fine. This is all I have to do? I get you this sapphire, and in return I get access to the asmodials. You will not go back on this?”

“You have my word.” She glowered at me, then placed three golden rods on the table with a clink. “I’ll even throw in a bonus. To endow your escape fund.”

And that was how I ended up recruiting a fourteen year old into a life of crime. Look, I get it. I know how it sounds. But without Maya, my options were limited. Kilvius was nowhere to be found. Nethtari would have looked at me like I’d grown horns. All I had to do, however, was mention the word “Heist” to Jorra and he was enthusiastically onboard.

He bounded around his room, grabbing a blanket and throwing it over his shoulders like an oversize cloak. “This the best day ever! What are we stealing, who are we stealing it from? Do we have a code word?”

Head in my hands, I was already regretting this decision more by the minute.

“We are not stealing anything. I’m going into a situation where there are many external factors and no constants for me to fall back on.”

“You can just say you’re going into a risky situation.” Jorra looked at me dubiously.

“Yes, but I’m trying to avoid exciting you further.” I sighed. “My point is, I need at least one person I can rely on, and that person is you.”

“This friendship is paying out already.” Jorra grinned and jumped onto his bed, blanket trailing behind him like a cape. I watched, unamused, as he did his best impression of either a dragon, or some sort of large bird, complete with high-pitched undefinable sound effects.

“You know what, I’ll ask Ralakos for help.” I turned to go.

Jorra leapt off the bed and tackled me, nearly toppling me. There was actual desperation in his eyes.

“Cairn. You can’t just talk about something like that then cut me out of it. Come on. Just give me a shot.”

I gave him a level gaze. “I need to know you’re taking this seriously.”

“Done.” Jorra’s expression went completely stoic, his voice monotone, doing an excellent impression of his mother.

“Fine.” I held a sack filled with empty glass beads out to him. “Talk to me about the range on your water.”

“You’ve seen it before, in the surface caves. I back up as far as I can until I can no longer sustain it.”

I considered that. The cave we practiced in was large, not massive, but at least big enough for our purposes. From what I remembered Jorra covered at least half of it. A hundred feet at the very least. But, as Maya had engrained in me, magic had limits.

“Is it affected by line of sight?” I asked.

“A bit?” Jorra scratched his head. “If it’s water I’ve summoned with mana, I can almost always sense it for a few hours—my tutor says that’s a rare trait—but sensing it without being able to see is pretty above me.”

I frowned. That wasn’t quite ideal. I wanted Jorra as far away from the action as possible; functioning externally as a remote alarm system. I’d intended to have him fill a glass bead with summoned water, then place the bead in my pocket, so he could use it to alert me if anything seemed out of the ordinary. From what he was saying, that simply wasn’t going to happen. As much as I wanted to avoid it, he would need to come with me after all.

“Fine. You’ll need a cloak and a proper mask. Do you have one already?”

“What, the blanket won’t work?”

----

We entered the building together. It seemed that, as Jorra had never wandered into the outside world, there had been no reason to own a disguise. I’d dug into my newly replenished finances for the purchase. Jorra scratched at his yellow-green dragon mask.

I’d given him strict instructions not to speak.

There were two men: a crimson infernal and—completely shattering my expectations—an honest-to-Elphion dwarf. I’d seen a few of them in the Enclave from a distance, noticeable only by their stature, but never this close. The man’s arms were large, corded with muscle and bristling with dark hair thicker than a horses mane.

“Keep looking. Maybe I’ll get taller.” He leered at me and I realized I’d been staring.

“Apologies,” I said, slipping smoothly into character, sensing the movement as Jorra’s head jerked slightly towards me.

“I take it you’re the new toy Percy’s trying on for size?” The man who spoke was wide and muscled, but slightly hunchbacked, as if he’d lived his entire life stooping to avoid the ceiling. He looked me up and down, unimpressed. “She really does have a thing for the strange ones.”

The dwarf pointed a finger at him irritably. “If she hears you been calling her that, Shear, we’ll be spending the rest of our days in the Sanctum.”

He caught me looking and sighed. “Sontar, right? I’m Shear, and since no one can pronounce the Dwarf’s name and he gets veryparticular about it, I just call him Ginger.”

“The name is Thurm,” the Dwarf said, “S’not my fault you lot can’t pronounce your damn r’s properly.”

I cocked my head the moment he’d spoken his name. Dwarven names weren’t known for being particularly difficult, though I’d only seen them in text. Hearing it though. It was like a rolled r, if the roll barreled into a harmonic corkscrew with a low vibrating inflection caked in phlegm.

“Thurm?” I tried to roll the R.

“Thurm!” The dwarf exploded, his annunciation as inconceivable as it was the first time. His companion looked up at the ceiling as if pleading with the heavens.

“Ginger then,” I concluded.

Thurm glowered, but Shear ignored him.

Shear sidestepped the topic in a practiced manner that made it clear he was quite tired of exploring this avenue of conversation. “Let us move on, while there is still daylight left.” His eyes narrowed. “And who is this?” He asked, looking at Jorra.

Jorra breathed in, and I hastened to cut off the disaster of a lie that was likely to come out of his mouth. “This is my associate, Adage. He doesn’t speak much, but he’ll be handling logistics.”

I want to be clear, the name was not my idea.

“Logistics.” Shear said flatly.

“Yes.” I said, maintaining silence after the brief answer.

If I were newer to this sort of thing, I would have been tempted to explain. To go into detail and blabber on, filling the awkward quiet. But that was exactly the sort of overacting that would flag me as false in the eye of an experienced criminal, one who lived the sort of life I was only playing at.

So, I said nothing, staring Shear in the eye.

Shear groaned. “Fine. We’re all here because we’ve got Persephone’s boot on our neck. Let’s go over the plan, then we’ll talk about how the two of you fit in.”

Ginger unrolled the blueprints, and Shear began to speak with the calm and practiced cadence of a lecturer. His voice was clear and concise, to the extent that it surprised me. His manner seemed more appropriate to a politician than a thief, but I kept that opinion to myself.

“It’s a textbook smash and grab.” Shear looked at all of us. “Easy on the smashing, but Persephone was clear on that point. None of that enter and leave without a trace nonsense. It’s in Highpoint, so we’ll need to be quiet going in, but once we’re inside, everything is fair game.

Something about that rubbed me the wrong way.

“Why?” I asked, “Seems a little sloppy, don’t you think?”

“It’s what Percy wants,” Shear insisted, tapping the blueprint twice for emphasis. “Probably a grudge involved. End of the day, it’s none of my business, or yours.”

“Yeh,” Ginger said, “Keep it to yourself, killjoy.”

I approached Shear’s side of the table, happy to have a little distance from the leering dwarf. The house in question was more of a mansion, not quite as large as Ralakos’s estate. There was no training yard to speak of, but it was similar in size.

“What are the red X’s?” I asked, pointing to a half-dozen marked areas on the map.

“Security posts.”

What?

Even by wealthy Whitefall standards that was paranoid.

“Why the heavy security?” I asked.

Shear shrugged. “Percy didn’t tell you much, did she? Every precious gem recovered from the sanctum and lower caves goes through Mifral. She’s the resident baron around these parts when it comes to the gem trade. Makes an absolute killing.

I reached up to squeeze the bridge of my nose absent-mindedly, fingers knocking off the surface of my mask and further souring my mood.

This was not what I’d signed up for. But there was too much time invested to back down now. I was beginning to regret ever meeting Persephone.

“And where’s the sapphire located?”

Shear and Ginger shared an uncomfortable look.

“That’s the bad news.” Ginger grimaced.

“We don’t know.” Shear said.

I stared at them both.

“Adage?” I said. Jorra didn’t respond. “Adage!” I snapped my fingers and he jumped.

“Uh, yes?” Jorra tried far too hard to make his voice sound deep, and it came out sounding strangled.

I looked back to Shear and Ginger. “I think we’re leaving.”

“Now, now, don’t be that way.” Shear held both hands palms out, placatingly.

“Let ‘em go Shear. Bunch of short-ass pusses.” Ginger said.

“Shut up, dwarf,” Shear hissed.

“Persephone said you’d have a plan in place.” I shook my head. “But this isn’t a plan.”

“You haven’t heard the plan yet, lad,” Ginger said. “Maybe listen for a moment, before yeh get your panties in a stevedore’s hitch”

“I don’t even—What? Just—never mind. Fine. Tell me rest of the plan. But keep in mind, while my friend and I are capable, neither of us are miracle workers.”

“Yeah.” Jorra piped in, his voice a normal pitch. Everyone turned to look at him and he shrank back.

“Is that a kid?” Shear asked, incredulous. “Did you bring a kid in here? Wait a minute, are you a kid?”

“Do I sound like a kid?” I asked, putting every bit of frigid, biting ice I could manage into the question.

“No,” Shear admitted. “Lets just, get this over with before we kill each other.”

He pointed out two separate areas on the map where the gem could be, and I had to admit they had planned slightly better than I’d originally thought. The possible locations included a safe in Mifral’s bedroom, and a trophy room adjacent to the downstairs loft.

On the bottom section of the map, there was a downstairs area marked as “Panic room.”

“No chance she has it in there?” I pointed to the lower section on the map.

“Not a chance in heaven,” Ginger confirmed. “The whole point of a room like that is to maximize the difficulty of getting in while minimizing the reward.”

“Of course, we need to stop her from reaching that room. If she gets inside and locks the mansion down, things get very difficult for us,” Shear said.

“And how do we do that?” I asked.

Ginger grinned, and with a grunt, hefted a giant back onto the table and unzipped it. There were a cluster of devices inscribed with runes, filled with blue liquid. Though I’d never seen this particular design before, I recognized the purpose.

“Are these… bombs?” I couldn’t quite believe it, even as I spoke.

Ginger laughed. “Not exactly.”

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