Six months. Six months was a long time to spend in a cage.

And a long time to go without a shave, Will thought, scratching the thicket on his chin. Gods, but he would kill for a razor.

George, one of the guardsmen watching the gold-rank cells, had bent over backward to accommodate him, which already made this heaven compared to a real imprisonment. But he obviously couldn’t sneak Will anything that stopped him from looking the part of a prisoner. If someone important came down and found him clean-shaven and smelling of soap, there would be hell to pay.

He had it better than he had any right to, and he was still miserable. Maybe that was why Rose’s words were sounding more reasonable than usual. Not enough to change his mind, but definitely more reasonable.

“You’re an idiot, Will,” his sister growled, the iron bars rattling with her frustration as she shook them with both hands. “This is the best you’re gonna get! More than you could’ve expected! How can’t you see that?”

Lying on his cot with one arm crossed behind his head, he stared at the nauseatingly familiar cracked ceiling. He was pretty sure he could draw the spiderweb formation from memory by now.

“I’m not licking his boots,” he said, “and that’s the end of the discussion.”

“You don’t have any choice in the matter!”

“Sure I do.”

“Not if you want free! What’s your plan? Stay down here forever?”

“They can’t justify that.”

“They’re the Caldimores. They don’t have to justify anything. They can do whatever they want, however long they want, for any reason they want. Maybe if you were important, Will, but you aren’t. You’ll rot away!”

“With my dignity intact, at least.”

“I’d mistake you for a vagrant if I saw you on the street,” Rose said flatly. “What dignity?”

“Cover me in shit, tar and feather me, that doesn’t change a thing. A man’s dignity is in his actions. Getting down on my knees and kissing the boot of that spineless worm—that’s how I’d lose my dignity.”

Rose went quiet. “Will, you can’t talk like that,” she said, a note of fear mixing with the anger. “You’ll get me killed too. Who do you think you are, to call Duke Caldimore a worm?”

He grimaced. That…had been too far, yes. To be fair, he wouldn’t have used those words if George hadn’t posted outside of the room, out of earshot, or if there were other prisoners inside the three cells of this block. Still, he grimaced and took the point. He could never be sure no one was listening in.

“I did nothing wrong, so I’m not apologizing.”

“You don’t want out?”

Gods, but he did. Badly. He was so desperate to walk under sunlight and breathe fresh air that even imagining it brought tears to his eyes.

His imprisonment wasn’t even as bad as most. He had a friendly guard who chatted and played cards and smuggled in entertainment. Without that, he would’ve gone insane. How did real prisoners survive?

“It’s never about where you are,” Will said, “it’s about how you get there. No, I don’t want out. Not if I have to beg and grovel in front of that—in front of Duke Caldimore,” he corrected last second.

“And what about Dan and me?”

He winced. That question hit much harder. As the leader of their team, not to mention Rose’s older brother, he felt no small obligation toward them. And his cornerstone position as the team’s captain and defender meant the past six months had crippled their advancement. They’d been making do with freelancers, but going out on life-or-death missions with someone they didn’t know well, much less weren’t seasoned with, was questionable in the extreme.

“Should probably just replace me. Like you said, I might be here a while.”

“Don’t be an idiot. We’re not replacing you.” She sighed. “But at a certain point, what choice do we have? It’s been six months.”

“You’re right. Don’t let me weigh you down.”

Rose scrubbed her face with both hands, a muffled scream leaking out. “You are impossible. I’m not asking you to burn down an orphanage. Say you were wrong, apologize, and eat crow just this once. For the greater good.”

“There is no greater good. Only how you act, day in and day out.”

“I respect you, Will. I really do. But sometimes you’re so far up your own ass you should have brought a lantern.”

“They’re only principles if you don’t compromise on them.”

Rose threw her hands up in the air, turned around, and took several deep breaths. She faced back when she’d calmed herself.

“Okay. So that’s how it is? Because at a certain point, we really will just need to find a new third.”

“Won’t blame you in the slightest,” Will said, trying not to flinch at the idea.

Rose stood in silence, and though she was only visible in the corner of his eye, he knew she was fuming.

However the exchange might have continued, he wouldn’t discover. Because the heavy clunk of George turning the block’s reinforced handle—Will was in the fortified cells meant for gold-rank adventurers, hence his lack of company—announced an intrusion into their conversation.

Two intrusions. He sat up in surprise.

George was his usual self. Portly and red-cheeked, belly squeezed into his uniform. He was a retired low-mithril now collecting the reliable paycheck of acting as guardsman for the gold-rank cells. His connection to the Guild was probably why he treated William so well.

Maybe it was because George was the only person Will had talked with consistently for six months, but he thought he was a swell guy. Two kids, one entering the Thaumaturgical Institute. He was always going on about her. Little Maggy.

The newcomer was more interesting. Demons weren’t rare in Meridian, but their pale skin and red eyes still drew attention. Not even reaching George’s chest, the tiny woman in plain black robes shouldn’t have commanded the entire room.

But she did.

Everyone here was gold-rank or higher, so they had better instincts than average. Or maybe they fed off George’s nervousness, because the man seemed so tense Will was surprised he wasn’t trembling.

George bowed at the waist so deeply Will thought he might tip over, and the seriousness of the action contrasted so completely with his normally jovial, inappropriately lax behavior that Will found himself sweating abruptly.

“I present Lady Nysari of House Keresi, of the First Blood, Tenth Elevation, Grand Magus.”

Will knew little of demon culture, with those foreign folk being a continent away and separated by a perilous sea, but if anyone knew anything about demons, it was that elevations were their adventuring rank.

First elevation, low bronze. Second, high.

So tenth?

Upper orichalcum. This woman was closing in on a Title.

That alone would make any man stand up straighter. There were maybe a hundred Titled across all the mortal lands—human, demonic, dwarvish, and elvish alike. The long-lived races claimed the lion’s share. Each human kingdom had only a handful, though the Central Kingdom championed the most by far.

To even approach a Title put a person on a short list that all of the nobility in the world kept memorized. Not even a duke would carelessly snub an upper-orichalcum—or indeed an orichalcum at all, if they could help it. The power structures of the nobility were fearsome, but a ducal title bestowed no ability to rip a tree out of the ground with one’s bare hands. So they were wary of such people, as they should be.

The terrifying part of demonic nobility, though, was that they were often both nobles and powerful adventurers.

First Blood? That was the highest, he believed, besides their royal family, which they called the Progenitor’s Blood? Or was it Primogenitor? It was some fancy word like that.

This woman was from the equivalent of a ducal family, nearly Titled, and had been recognized by their magical academy as a Grand Magus. If that worked anything like the Thaumaturgical Institute, Grand Magus was a title that held serious weight.

And that mattered. Not all equal-level adventurers were the same. A level four hundred disciple of a Sword Saint was going to wipe the floor with an amateur gold-rank who’d only scrambled his way up the ladder with pluck and earnestness. William knew that firsthand. Had a crooked nose to remember that embarrassing event by.

In short, this woman, while maybe not quite as politically powerful as Duke Caldimore, might stand on the same footing by sheer dint of other factors. Upper orichalcum, a title from the demonic mage academy, and political sway of her own. Hells, for all he knew, she was the duchess of her family—or whatever title family heads used in their Blood system. She looked young, but appearance meant little on the long-lived races.

No wonder George was sweating so profusely. Will had no idea why someone so staggeringly important had strode into his cell. A foreign noble, too, which made everything far more sensitive.

He didn’t have a good feeling about this.

He scrambled up and bowed. He would have done that even for Duke Caldimore, as much as it would have rankled. Getting down on his knees and begging for forgiveness was out of the question, but he lived in the real world: when nobility appeared, he showed necessary deference. Else he really would find himself at the gallows.

Rose also bowed, keeping her head down.

“William?” the demon asked.

Hearing his own name made him flinch. He hesitantly straightened. “Yes. That’s…me.” After a beat, he hastily added, “My lady.” He wasn’t accustomed to interacting with nobility. He also wasn’t sure whether demons preferred some other title, ‘Your Bloodthirsty Eminence’ perhaps, but ‘my lady’ ought to be safe.

Apathetic red eyes swept up and down him, and Will knew he’d been judged as unworthy. Her nose didn’t wrinkle and her lip didn’t curl back, but the sheer bored disdain in those eyes made him feel like an insect.

“Missus Tilly sent me,” she said.

Will almost reached up and cleaned his ears. Because…what? The demon had enunciated the words clearly, but they didn’t make any sense.

He shared a look with his sister, but Rose was looking at him with the same level of bafflement—and underneath, poorly masked concern.

“The innkeeper?” he asked hesitantly.

“Tilly Tanswell. Yes.”

That erased any ambiguity. But he was no less confused. Tilly did serve a higher-level clientele than most inns, but that meant silvers and golds, with a few mithril-rank regulars that dropped in every once in a while—mostly out of nostalgia, having been prior clients. Tilly’s inn was nice, but it didn’t offer the most luxurious experience money could buy, and once a person hit orichalcum, hunts started raking in enough coin it could be difficult to get rid of it all. Only equivalent-level gear, equipment, and consumables put real dents in a team’s finances at that rank.

A nearly Titled First Blood demonic adventurer? One Tilly knew well enough to ask favors of? He was pretty sure she would’ve mentioned her.

“I…see,” Will said. “Can I…ask why, my lady?”

Instead of answering, the demon turned to George. “I wish to speak with the prisoner in private.”

George had already looked uncomfortable. That request had him paling. In just about any circumstance, a guard would bend over backward to accommodate a noble of this rank. Sometimes even if it went against the law. But a demonic foreigner asking to speak with a prisoner that Duke Caldimore himself had an interest in?

He bowed several times in a row. “I’m afraid I can’t grant that request, Lady Keresi. I must keep watch over the prisoner at all times when a guest is present.”

The demon looked at him, then at Rose. The question asked itself, but she voiced it aloud anyway. “You were outside while these two were speaking, no?”

George, of course, had no good response to that. He had only been accommodating Will...and not wanting to hear what they were talking about, because then he would have to overlook insults given to Duke Caldimore.

His mouth opened and closed several times.

Nysari flicked her hand dismissively. “Never mind.” She faced Will. “You’re under my protection, so speak freely. Please explain what happened. How you ended up here, and what you know of Saffra and how she was expelled.”

For a second time, Will did a mental double-take. Saffra? Why was this woman asking about Saffra? Sure, the girl’s situation had led to all of this in a roundabout way, but only such that it had brought him to the Institute and into friction with the staff and instructors there. Ultimately leading to him saying some…unwise, in retrospect, things about the Caldimore family.

“I’ve taken her as my apprentice,” she added, reading the confusion on his face.

“Your apprentice?” It wasn’t Will that blurted that out, but Rose. She reined herself in. “I mean—h-how? Why? Saffra? Red hair, cat beastkin?”

Red eyes drifted to the young woman. She considered her for a moment. “Who are you?”

Rose swallowed. “Will’s sister and teammate, my lady. Rose.”

Lady Keresi glanced at Will, and he nodded hesitantly in confirmation.

“I see,” the demon said. “Yes. My apprentice. I met her in Prismarche under unfortunate circumstances, and in the course of those events, she displayed considerable integrity. When she asked me to teach her, I agreed. I’m aware that there’s been a…situation, with you, her, the Institute, and the Caldimore family. Missus Tilly asked me to look into it and help if I can.”

That explained the situation in clear, comprehensive terms, but Will struggled to wrap his head around it. It was just so strange. And sudden.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” the demon said. “Start from the beginning.”