We started with one of the most obvious people I could think of approaching, here in Blutstein. After our little meeting in the BB, Isolde had split from Liora and I to approach her own former comrades in SED about our little plan. While the Nocturne Division had been winnowed down to a mere thirteen members at the end of the Elderwyck campaign, our former rivals in the royal intelligence agency, SED, had been outright devastated. There had only been five members left after the ambushes orchestrated by Nerexxa. Isolde had told us that it was best if she approached them on her own, to win them over to the plan the Crown Princess was surprisingly enthusiastic about.

  I mean, I had expected Liora to be on board, but once I’d explained myself to Isolde, she had been very on board.

  There was a problem, however, with approaching our former comrades. Some were either occupied, still in the Eclipsed Dawn…

  Or had died in the fighting after I’d left.

  Of the thirteen Nocturne field agents who survived Elderwyck, three had died in the aftermath before the war ended, four had joined up with the Bluebacks, three had retired, and the remaining four were still with Grey’s Order. Those four still loyal to Grey were questionable, considering I wasn’t willing to outright poach from my mentor. However, I was willing to approach the retirees and poach from the intelligence arm of the Herztalian Navy.

  It was probably partly because of my lingering negative feeling toward Bella, who was still nominally one of their shanghaied pirate captains. I could admit that.

  Still, my understanding was that the Blueback Admirals were winding down from their wartime footing as well, with how Wenzel had welcomed them back with open arms. They could probably afford to lose a few people.

  However, I had someone else in mind to approach first.

  I just…hadn’t expected to find them where I did.

  Liora and I stood staring at the downright gaudy exterior of an upper-crust restaurant in the noble district of the middle layer, directly across the street from us. This wasn’t somewhere I had ever personally been to before, and not because I was too poor to go into.

  It just wasn’t really a… family-friendly establishment, so to speak.

  This was La Volière, or The Aviary as Language Adaptation was feeding me. Now, I could tell what language that was to my eyes, up on their surprisingly wordy sign, but I’d never seen it before here on Vereden.

  I leaned in closer to Liora. “What language is that?” I muttered.

  “The Lost’s,” She whispered back. “You don’t see it much in modern times, but…it adds a bit of ‘flair’ to the sensibilities of the nobility.”

  The Aviary was a ‘gentlemen’s club’, as they were known in Blutstein. That was the polite term, I suppose. There were less polite terms you could refer to it as, but considering I didn’t know what our target was doing inside, I’d refrain from calling it that. Liora hadn’t been able to tell me why she was inside, only that rumor had placed her here.

  How the hell had she ended up working at a…at a…

  I took a breath, exchanged a nod with Liora, and walked across the street, approaching the door of the ‘establishment’. Even though the doors were closed, I could hear the strangely upscale-sounding, almost baudy tavern music echoing through them. Arrogantly, I pretended not to hear the sudden, loud complaints of all the people lined up outside the closed door. But that wasn’t important.

  What was, were the two largest Sculpted I had ever seen, standing on either side of the door as bouncers. Some absolute madman had crafted them to ridiculous proportions, standing at a height even taller than Venix. And he was seven damned feet tall in the first place!

  The one on the left seemed to be hewn from a pink granite with bits of black and white speckled through his form, while the one on the right was mostly black granite with swirls of white. Their facial features were nearly identical, with exaggerated jawlines, a single stoney ridge down their skulls nearly akin to a mohawk, and lets say…strong noses. The both of them were standing with arms nearly as big around as my chest crossed over their own, and staring down at me with suspicious expressions.

  “Oi, now,” The pink one grunted at me. “No cuttin’ in line. We’re full up.”

  “What he said,” The black and white one nodded. “Shove off to the back, will ya?”

  The long line of mostly male patrons behind us loudly voiced their agreement with this order.

  I hid an amused smile at the difference between the two bouncers. Other than the physical ones, there was something much funnier.

  The pink one had an unusually deep voice, while the black and white one had an almost…effeminately high one. If I didn’t have the training I did in maintaining my composure, I was sure I would have burst out laughing.

  Somehow, I think the pink one noticed. His granite eyes narrowed, eyeing me suspiciously.

  I cleared my throat, and much to his chagrin, puffed up in a way I’d often seen the nobility do. “Excuse me?” I said, affecting a very put-upon, aggrieved tone. “Don’t you know who I am? I am Sir Benjamin Tenoire. I won’t be talked down to in such a manner by a pair of ruffians such as yourself! I demand to be let inside, and more than that, I demand to speak to your manager!”

  The black and white brother blinked at me dumbly, while the pink one visibly rolled his eyes. “Ain’t my call,” He said, before turning to face the other. “Oi, Checkers. Go get the boss, will ya?”

  The good ol’ noble gambit. Never failed to grease the wheels, here in Herztal. Good thing Liora had a small cache of appropriate clothing back at the BB, for just this type of situation. I’d kitted myself out in the gaudiest, puffiest set of garish silks I could find in the bunch, while my Gnollish friend was all dressed in a modest maid’s outfit. With a little bit of modification from a FAT, my scales and pointed ears were no longer visible either.

  But, pointedly, I had still kept my overall facial features the same. Most people weren’t familiar enough with the sight of me to spot the disguise. However, we wanted our target to recognize us.

  After all, she’d known me before Rhazal’s curse.

  The black and white bouncer, apparently ‘Checkers’, nodded dumbly. “Sure thing, Pinkie.” With that, he opened the double doors he had been guarding and tried to slip through. Only, he forgot to duck his head under the doorframe and slammed right into it. The wood of the frame cracked from the impact, but thankfully not enough to collapse right now. Still, Checkers cringed while Pinkie just sighed. “Third time this week. Ya know that comes outta our paycheck,” He groused, before shooing the other Sculpted away. “Go on, go get her.”

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  Her? That sounded promising.

  While Checkers scurried away in search of his boss-

  (As much as an eight-foot-tall granite man could, anyway.)

  -the three of us stood outside awkwardly, not speaking to each other. I did my best to maintain my put-upon noble airs, while Liora stood meekly behind me, nearly in my shadow.

  Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Checkers to return, with someone in tow who nearly caused me to bust out laughing in triumph and, honestly?

  A little bit of relief.

  Damn, but I was lucky today.

  Standing in the doorway was Maria Rellani, previously known as codename ‘Wisp’.

  She looked…good, honestly. Last I’d seen her, the woman had been at the meeting where the Nocturne Division was formally dissolved, all packed and ready to venture into the war-torn lands of the south in search of her family. At the time, she’d still be recovering from a wound that had nearly killed her at the hands of SED, and had been just as stressed as I was from the apocalyptic circumstances that had gone down in the city. Now, though, that seemed to have passed.

  The red-haired woman was, thankfully, not as skimpily dressed as I suspected many of the inhabitants inside were. Instead, she seemed to be dressed in a smart looking Herztalian dress suit, under which I could see the hardened patches of chain mail. At her side, she bore what looked like a slim fencing sword, though I couldn’t see her heavily enchanted shortbow anywhere. In the split second before she stepped into the light of the moon and caught sight of us, I could see an irritated frown on her face as she marched down the hall, her ponytail swinging with the movement. There was a glint that promised violent retribution in her dark blue eyes, but…

  It vanished when she laid them on Liora and me.

  Maria froze momentarily before she resumed her march. Still, that was enough.

  As she stepped out into the night air, I couldn’t help but use my hands to cheekily sign at her in the shorthand of the Nocturne Division.

  Friend, late, sloppy, inattentive.

  Even all these months later, I had never forgotten the secret language.

  In response, my old comrade crossed her arms, and prominently visible along one of her forearms was her right hand sporting an elongated middle finger.

  I had to cough into my fist to hide a sudden laughing fit, drawing a suspicious glance from Pinkie.

  Maria snorted at the sight of us. “You again,” She said disdainfully, immediately cottoning on to the ruse. To better sell the charade, I puffed up my chest again in feigned outrage. Maria just shook her head in faux-disgust before turning to face Pinkie, cutting off the ‘tirade’ I was about to lay on her. “I’ve got this, boys. This one needs a firm hand to understand their place. You!” She barked, pointing a commanding finger at me. When I affected an offended and surprised finger at myself, she just narrowed her eyes impatiently. “Yes, you. Follow me if you don’t want to be banned for life.”

  “B-But…” I protested faux-weakly over the sounds of the line cheering on my dressing down. I pretended to slump in place under her glare after a moment, however, and stepped through the still-open doors to the Aviary. “My Father will hear about this…”

  “I’m sure he will,” Maria said scornfully, before the doors of the club closed and blocked off the night air.

  The last thing I saw before they did was the doubtful look Pinkie was shooting our retreating backs.

  ……………………………

  “Damn good to see you!” Maria said cheerfully, in complete contrast to the tough girl act she’d affected at the door. Surprisingly, she reached out and gave Liora a quick hug, and then me. I barely had time to wrap my arms around her before she bounced back and shot the two of us a wide smile. “I think I’d heard something about Nathan being back in town, but I had no idea you were too, Valen!”

  Liora smiled slightly at the other woman, while I looked at the small office Maria had led us to once inside. It had certainly been…odd, to see the inside of The Aviary for the first time. Contrary to my expectations, it hadn’t been quite as lurid as I’d been expecting. The little bit I’d seen of the main floor before Maria had led us up a staircase off to the side had been of a maze of high walls, separating plush leather booths occupied by men of all shapes and sizes. Catering to them had been an equal variety of women dressed in a somewhat…shortened version of noble women’s dress. Nothing altogether untoward, but certainly a bit racy.

  At the top of the stairs, Maria had led us to a circular room that overlooked the entire floor. From above, it was easier to make out all of the individual happenings down in the booths. I…deliberately tried not to pay much attention to it all.

  I sat down at the small bar in the room, twisting on the stool to watch the two women.

  “Yes, I returned with Nathan,” Liora said patiently, while Maria held her at a distance with both hands on her shoulders. “Both of us joined the Academy at the same time.”

  Maria’s beaming smile widened even more, if that was possible. “Students, eh?” She said, letting go of the Gnoll and approaching the counter. As she slipped behind it and started to pull bottles and glasses from below it, Liora joined me on the stools. “I thought about signing up after the war was over, but decided being lectured at wasn’t interesting to me anymore. I heard enough of that from Hook. Speaking of…” She said, sliding a tumbler of something dark and oily my way. As I picked it up, Maria raised her own glass, a solemn look stealing the smile from her face. “To everyone we lost. To Hook.”

  I nodded quietly and raised my drink to join hers above the counter. “To Crook.”

  Liora carefully picked up her own and met our eyes through the joining. “To the Division.”

  We clinked our drinks together, and drank.

  I hid a grimace as the taste hit my tongue. I recognized that booze, though I hadn’t had it in a long time. That was Gnollish liquor, and it was…certainly an acquired taste. Looked like Maria did just like Azarus.

  We were quiet for a moment, letting the toast settle among us, before I cleared my throat. “I see you’ve done well for yourself anyway, Wisp. Running a bar as upscale as this? I’m guessing you’re rolling in the gold.”

  Maria snorted at my words, waving them away. “Oh, I’m not the owner. I’m just the muscle the actual owner hired to keep an eye on the floor. Most of the time, the means I’m either sitting up here and helping myself to the booze, or dealing with problems down on the floor. Sometimes I basically act as the manager.”

  “How…” Liora started quietly.. “Is your family? I…remember you left to find them.”

  Our fellow former Agent’s smile softened. “They’re fine, thank you,” She said quietly, laying a hand on the Gnoll’s. “I…overreacted, after we lost everyone. Turns out, my family had all gone underground by the time I got here. I had a hell of a time trying to find them, but there wasn’t a scratch on their heads when I did. I kept an eye on them until the fighting died, and then I found this job. Since then, we’ve…all been fine, really.”

  I exchanged a glance with Liora, then, because there was a certain hint of…apathy in Maria’s voice. And I don’t think I was the only person to hear it either, from Liora’s raised eyebrow.

  Maria noticed our look, because of course she would. She had literally been trained to be observant, and those skills hadn’t dulled over time, considering her current profession. “Now, what could you two be up to? Something is telling me you didn’t come back just to say hello.”

  I scratched my cheek, thinking of how to word my plan. I didn’t want to just spill the beans on all the refugees I intended to settle just yet, so…

  I’d just be blunt.

  “We’re going to found a new Martial Order,” I said, setting down my glass. “And we’re recruiting.”

  Maria…stilled. “Is that so?” She murmured, bringing her own glass up to hide her lips. I couldn’t tell what her expression was behind it.

  “It’s in the early stages, of course,” Liora said quietly, studying the other woman carefully. “We don’t even have a name for it, truthfully. But it’s not intended as…a normal one.”

  “There isn’t any intelligence work intended for it,” I continued, over the continuing silence from Maria. “More…outreach. I’m looking to build an organization that can help people, instead of fight them. You have to have noticed all the problems growing in Blutstein, since the end of the war, and we hope to help combat that. Plus…one other thing, which is the immediate reason for the theoretical new Order.”

  Maria finally stirred. “And you’re recruiting old Division members for this?” She said, gazing over our heads thoughtfully.

  I frowned because there was a certain shade of emotion in her voice I couldn’t quite parse. “Yes, that’s the intention. To be upfront, we’re working with Princess Isolde to recruit the remaining remnants of SED, too.”

  I was surprised, then, when Maria set her glass down with a clink. “Before I answer, we’re going somewhere,” She said with finality. “I can give you one after the question I have, when we get there. Otherwise…I’m not interested.”

  I grimaced, but after a confirming nod from Liora, I was tentatively willing to go along with this. It wasn’t late enough in the evening that I felt the need to get home quicker, and I’d already sent Bait back home to keep a watch over the girls. It wasn’t odd for me to be out past Aveline’s bedtime, so it shouldn’t cause a stir.

  “Okay…” I said carefully. “Where are we going?”

  Mara met my eyes seriously, then, and straightened up.

  “To see Sparrow.”