I was struggling to move through the crowd gathered around The Gnashing Teeth while Void was already ahead yelling at the Royal Guards blocking the entrance. She had leveraged her two Advancements to their full effect to force her way through the onlookers while leaving me behind.

  Most of the people were not paying attention to me and looking at the pub. The few who did gave me a bow and backed away. That gave me an idea.

  “Make way for Baron Stewart!” I bellowed.

  That got everyone’s attention. Now with their eyes trained on me and not the Teeth, the crowd parted like a religious figure commanding the seas.

  Even Void and the Guard she was arguing with stopped to stare at me. Void had a look of surprise on her face.

  “Explain to me why you’re blocking my home,” I demanded when I made it up to the Guard.

  “Baron?” the guard, a beaver-clan man, stammered. “You live here?”

  “I was telling you that this entire time!” Void snapped. “Pursuant to Vialinan Royal Code Section 32, Subsection 3, Part 19, impeding access to a Noble residence comes with a minimum of three months enslavement.”

  The Guard immediately stepped aside and saluted. “Apologies, Baron! You may enter.”

  Void stormed in ahead of me. When I arrived, Void was standing still and staring. There, kneeling of the floor, were Mira, Doun, Lia and Tizek, each with a collar glowing red on their necks. The red meant they were suspect collars, not full slave collars. All they did was compel telling the truth. Mira and Doun were stark naked. They were clearly woken up by whatever this raid was.

  The rest of the main floor was a mess. The tables in the center of the room were overturned and pushed away to make room to make the others kneel. All the liquor bottles were cleared from the bar back and smashed. The Guards even pulled apart sections of the bar top and were peering inside. Atop the bar was a stack of papers in a box.

  “Mom! Dad!” Void yelped. She trained her rage on the nearest Guard, a badger-clan woman. “You couldn’t let them get dressed?”

  The Guard was about to retort when she saw me. She knelt and bowed her head. “Baron! What are you doing here?”

  “I live here,” I said. “What is happening.”

  “Don’t answer that,” another Guard, a tall jaguar-clan man said. He was wearing ornate metal armor and had a Captain’s badge emblazoned on his breast. The chest had the Vialinan Royal Seal, the two red Welsh-style dragons holding hands.

  Void snarled. “Explain yourself! You’ve entered the home of a Noble. I hope you can show me an official High Council search warrant?”

  The Captain snorted at Void and ignored her. His eyes trained on me. “Apologies for the intrusion, Baron. I’m Captain Dalvin Sorrel, Lansen of the Sorrel Barony. Do you own this property?”

  Great, this guy is a son of Baron Sorrel, one that isn’t going to inherit the title. He’s used to talking to nobles and won’t be cowed. I shook my head. “I don’t.”

  Dalvin nodded. “I was already aware. Your House Seal wasn’t properly presented on the exterior of the building. Sadly, we have full rights to search the residence of any commoner in the kingdom without prior approval or notice, even if a nobleman is renting space. Can you tell me which room you are renting?”

  “Second floor, first on the left,” I responded.

  “Note that room as off-limits,” Dalvin shouted. The Guards affirmed the order. He turned his attention back to me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an investigation to conduct.”

  “Can you tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Apologies, Baron, we cannot,” Dalvin replied.

  “Captain,” Void interrupted. “Pursuant to Royal Co—”

  Dalvin put his hand up to cut Void off. “Yes, yes. You city Guards are irritating in your poor comprehension of the details of Royal Code. Yes, I’m aware Section 8, Part 14, Subsection 3 requires all law enforcement to include the nobility in all investigations upon request.”

  “Then why—” Void snarled.

  “What’s Section 8, Part 15, Subsection 1 say, former Guardswoman?” Dalvin said with the tone of a drill instructor.

  Void’s eyes widened and her expression fell. When she didn’t respond, Dalvin went back to what he was doing.

  I pulled in next to Void. “What happened? Why did you stop?”

  I could see tears welling up in her eyes. “This raid was directly ordered by the King. We can’t do anything.”

  I blinked and looked at my friends and family kneeling on the floor. Tizek looked downcast and was beaten up. Lia had her mask removed and was quietly looking at the floor. Mira and Doun, despite being completely nude, had defiant expressions on their faces.

  I couldn’t accept that there was nothing that could be done. I marched across the floor and up to Dalvin who was securing the box of papers. He looked over at me. “Can I help you with something, Baron?”

  “Is there nothing you can tell me? Those are my future in-laws, my adopted little sister and my, uh, Guard Captain.”

  Dalvin looked over at his prisoners on the floor and sighed. “Baron, I know you’re new to this, but the protections of a title only extend to you, your spouse, your children and your heir’s children. Adopted siblings and in-laws aren’t granted any special protections.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I sighed. “I’ll have to study up some then. You sure you can’t tell me anything?”

  I could see Dalvin’s expression change to one of sympathy. “I can’t tell you the details or crime. What I can tell you is your adopted sister and Guard Captain are only in the collars as witnesses. Once we question them, they will be released. The other two? Unfortunately, we’ll be taking them before a magistrate this afternoon. We have enough evidence to sentence both of them to a Max Sentence.”

  I suddenly felt ill when I heard that. I turned my eyes to Mira and Doun sitting there on the floor. My mind went back to what Lisa did to me and imagined Mira and Doun going through that every day for the next 15 years.

  “This one is going to be popular,” one of the Guards, a marmot-clan man, said as he leered at Mira. He reached down and ran a hand across her breast. “I’ll be sure to get an appointment for her.”

  “And this one without the sack, too,” a female wolverine-clan Guard commented about Doun. “Good size and won’t need the extra drugs to keep him infertile. Those make them lethargic.”

  “Excuse me,” Dalvin said with a scowl on his face. He walked over to the two Guards and punched them in the head. “You two! Stow your talk! You’re in the presence of a Noble.”

  “Sorry, Captain,” the wolverine-clan woman said while rubbing her head.

  “Collect the evidence and move out,” Dalvin ordered. He gave me a bow. “Once more, apologies for the inconvenience. I expect the trial to be at 3 Af if you wish to attend. It’s a closed session for House Heads only.”

  Void and I watched as our four family and friends were marched out of the pub and loaded into the wagons. The crowd was shocked to see Mira and Doun led out nude, their faces still defiant as they walked. The Guards didn’t bother giving them any dignity given whatever they did to justify the treatment.

  Mira looked particularly bad with her thin figure accentuated by the rain sticking her fur to her form. I got an eyeful of something I never wanted to ever see.

  When the door swung closed, we were left in the wreckage of the main pub floor. It was deathly quiet and it felt lonely inside.

  Dalvin said the court case was at 3 Af. Like I’d allow that to happen. I pulled out my Heartstop dagger and prepared to jam it into my leg.

  Void’s iron grip stopped me.

  I glared at her. “What are you doing?”

  “You can’t!” Void exclaimed.

  “Can’t what? I’m used to this. Dying means nothing to me,” I growled.

  “Just don’t, we—” Void started.

  I couldn’t take it. Images of my time in Lisa’s prison flooded back to me. Then I saw a train of dozens of men taking advantage of Mira’s “services” in a dingy government brothel. I saw Doun’s stoic personality breaking under the stress of being force-fed pills to keep him hard and ready for customers.

  “I can’t have what happened to me happen to them!” I shouted. “They don’t deserve that. Your parents are good people. This whole nation is sick to think that’s appropriate, even for the worst criminals!”

  “I know, but—” Void started.

  I cut her off again. “Don’t you care? They’re your parents. I have to loop to stop this from—”

  “Oliver!” Void shouted at me and wrenched the dagger out of my hand, breaking me out of my spiral. “Of course I want to stop this! They’re my mom and dad! But we have to figure out what happened before you loop.”

  “But the trial—” I started.

  “Isn’t for another six hours,” Void finished. “If you loop now, this will just happen again. We need to figure out what we should be stopping first.”

  I felt my adrenaline dump. I sighed and ran a hand over my face. Void was right. I was too close to this and was letting my emotions drive my thinking. “You know, as bad as this ability is, I’m glad you’re in it with me. You’re keeping me centered.”

  Void nodded. “Come on, let’s split up and look around. I’ll check upstairs and you check here.”

  I agreed and we split. I first took a look at the wrecked bar and found, well, nothing. The Guards left a lot of holes and seemed to enjoy smashing every last liquor bottle and wine glass in the place. My feet crunched on broken shards and I smelled a terrible mixture of booze soaking into Doun’s nice floors. Yet nothing stood out inside the various holes smashed in the furniture.

  Next, I checked the kitchen. It was the same as the main eating area. All the cooking utensils and pans were thrown on the floor. Fruit and vegetables were smashed and the stone oven had a massive crack running through it where someone tried to see if something was hidden in the sides. The jerks even left the water running.

  I looked out the back window to see if Hespeth and her crew were around for intel, but found them gone. I slapped my face. That was a stupid thought. They were crooks, of course they’d have skipped the moment one of them spied the Royal Guards marching down the street.

  Next, I went downstairs to the larders. Again, everything was smashed and I saw a few bites taken out of a smoked ham in the cool box. They even took the cooling stone and crushed it.

  I was about to leave when I saw something behind a tangle of tree roots which were maintaining the integrity of the cellar. I walked over, pulled one aside and saw a small nook hidden behind it. There was a stone lying on the floor and the interior was empty.

  “Find something?” Void asked. She had come in behind me and, when I turned, I saw her holding her copy of Irene and Stephon. The Guards had already tossed our room before Dalvin gave his order and decided to play literary critic with the steamy romance. She had tears in her eyes as she held the book.

  “How bad was it up there?” I asked.

  “They ripped up every portrait. My baby pictures, the one with the rabbit, graduation from Guard training, everything,” Void sobbed.

  “We’ll reset everything in a moment and it’ll go back to the way it was,” I replied. I then pointed to the hole in the wall. “Do you recognize this? I only spent around 23 years with you guys and didn’t come down here all that often.”

  Void sniffed and wiped away a tear. She went up to the hole and her expression became puzzled. “I never saw this before.” She put her hand in the hole and started feeling around. Then I heard a click and one of the walls popped open. When it did, I caught a slight whiff of sewage.

  “What the heck?” I said. I pulled the wall open the rest of the way and looked inside. It was dark and I found a switch on the wall. When I flicked it, magic lights illuminated and I saw a stairwell leading down.

  Void suggested we check it out and we descended the stairs. Beneath was a door which opened to the sewers.

  “What’s going on?” Void asked. We looked both ways in the sewer and decided we weren’t going to discover anything here. The wall was closed, meaning the Guards didn’t stumble on the mechanism when opening the secret compartment.

  "It explains why the Coastal Ratcatcher was upstairs and where the rat came from," I muttered.

  Returning to the cellar, we stopped and thought.

  “My guess is those papers in the box were in the wall,” I said. “They look about the right size to fit in there.”

  “How did the Guards even know to look there?” Void said when she put the brick back in place. It vanished into the wall and it was impossible to see a seam.

  I shrugged. “No idea. I think the two pressing issues are to find out what the Guards were looking for and how do we stop it?”

  “Looping answers the first,” Void replied. “We just come down here and look. The second? Hmm…”

  I patiently waited as Void closed her eyes in thought. I knew she was digging into her extensive education as a Guardswoman. I knew the Captain didn’t have much respect for the city Guards, but Void was well-versed in law. She had plenty of time on her night clerical shift to learn. If this country allowed lawyers for anyone other than the nobility, she would have made a good one.

  Her eyes snapped open and she slapped herself in the face with her wrecked book. “Section 13, Part 4, Subsection 9!”

  I waited for her to continue. Instead, she had a look of pride on her face. I raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  “What? You’ve been here hundreds of years. I thought you’d be an expert on legal code,” Void replied.

  “The giant squid wasn’t going to be dissuaded by a restraining order,” I replied. “I never took the time to read up on law.”

  Void blinked as she realized I wasn’t a walking encyclopedia. Sure, I could read every text in the country, Ancient Vialinan included, and had a strong understanding of a vast swath of the library and things in the city, but I didn’t know everything.

  “The section relates to Noble’s private holdings,” Void explained. “A noble is allowed to maintain one tax-free residence and one tax-free business holding. Since the rules don’t specify you can’t sleep in one or run a business out of the other, nobles will have two places, one a business and one a home.”

  I nodded to indicate I was paying attention.

  “If we register The Gnashing Teeth as a business or home, then you gain immunity from Guard investigation powers. A warrant needs to be issued, which requires a ? vote of the Low Council then approved by 4 Dukes and the King,” Void continued. “If you buy the Teeth, then the Guards can’t search the place.”

  That was a good idea, but I realized there was a flaw. “I doubt your parents would go for that. Besides, we don’t have that kind of money.”

  That didn’t seem to dissuade Void, who once more went back into her deep thought mode. A grin formed on her face. “I know how to convince mom.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Section 13, Part 7, Subsection 3. A Noble’s registered primary business operates tax-free,” Void said. “We can structure a loan-lease scheme. My parents sell you the property and hold the lien as a self-financed loan. If we set the loan to 10% over 30 years, then the rent will be around the same as the property and income tax on the business. You pay the rent back to service the principle and interest on the loan.”

  “I’m impressed. Your parents got their money’s worth sending you to private middle-class schooling,” I said. “Now we just have to figure out what’s in that hole that’s so illegal to convince them to sell the place and protect them from the law.”

  A sudden look of guilt came over Void’s face. “I never thought I’d be skirting the law like this. It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Welcome to the world of chaotic-good,” I replied. “It’ll take time for you to shirk your lawful-good ways.

  “What?” Void asked, confused by my reference.

  “I’ll explain it later if we have time,” I said and held out my arm. “Mind doing the honors to reset the loop?”

  Void pulled the dagger and looked at it. Instead of jamming it into my arm, she handed it to me. “No, I don’t want to hurt you. This still feels wrong.”

  I took the dagger and now it was my turn to feel guilty. “Sorry. I’m so used to this I forgot about how you’re feeling.”

  Void shook her head. “It’s alright. We both have changes to work through.”

  I nodded. “Alright, time to loop back to a very pleasant morning with a hot, naked woman pressed up against my side.”

  Void snorted. “Romantic.”

  I grinned and jammed the dagger into my leg and felt the world go black.

  When I looped, I did have a woman pressed against me. Except this one wasn’t naked and I wasn’t in bed. I was back in the alley next to the cross-dressing cabaret with soiled shorts and Kelly was crying into my shoulder. Nearby, Void, Tizek and Lia were looking around with severe confusion.

  Confusion I shared. “What’s going on?”