++Elven politics are cutthroat and demanding of great wit and cunning. There is no exceptional quality to the elves that makes this so; one need only observe human politics to see that demonstrated.++

  Chapter 49

  Walyn launched into his own report so quickly that Reggie barely had a chance to soak up what’d just been said.

  “I’ve figured out a few key pressures we can apply to them,” he said instantly, “I can give you more detail later but the short of it is that as soon as you give me the go sign I’ll have a plan I can enact to lean on them. I’m confident they’ll compromise on it, too, from what Reggie’s said these people aren’t intent on pushing things too far, and mostly care about the Workers above all else.”

  Vertigo seized Reggie, a ridiculous feeling. What use did a vampire have for vertigo? What use did anyone? Oh look, a big fall that will kill me, better start feeling dizzy and become more likely to stumble over a fucking ledge. Stupid sensation. But he was feeling it all the same.

  “Then prepare to do so,” the Lady nodded. Her eyes flickered back to Reggie.

  “Is something the matter, Reginald?”

  “No,” he mumbled, “just feeling tense that this is all coming to a head. I’m the one infiltrating the union, if they catch wind of what we’re doing I’m the easiest to reach.”

  “Don’t concern yourself with that,” she told him. “We have agents keeping an eye on you. A very close eye, understand? Your safety is guaranteed.”

  Reggie did understand perfectly. She had agents keeping an eye on him, a very close eye. So he’d better not shit up her plans, or else. He swallowed his vitriol and nodded, giving the Lady as little sign as he could to expect defiance or betrayal.

  And he wasn’t even sure if that was necessary. Would he be defying or betraying her? If he did, it didn’t sound like he’d survive doing so.

  They cleared out of the room shortly after and Reggie was left to his own devices. His head felt heavy, like all he’d been told had a physical weight to it, great enough to strain the neck holding it up as it all rattled inside his skull. Without even thinking, Reggie dropped down into the sewers. He didn’t keep his Royal Presence on.

  Was he looking for a cockroach? Looking to win and grow stronger, or looking to die? Reggie didn’t bother to figure it out.

  Go back above-ground, please, Sycily asked him. Reggie listened after a few more minutes of pleading, feeling somehow even more wretched than before.

  The rest of his night passed in a sort of daze, and then the day came. Union people were knocking on his door. Any other time it would’ve been disturbing to find out they knew where to find it, but Reggie was past such things. He got up out of bed, put on the long coat he’d bought to stash his gun and, after thinking it through a moment more, tucked his stake away in it too. He headed out and found Norman waiting outside his room.

  “Ready?” the man asked, looking anxious for once. But he couldn’t possibly have diminished Reggie’s own mood more.

  “Ready,” Reggie replied. He supposed he was, too, in a way. In the ‘I will never be unhappier than I am now, so we might as well’ sort of way. It was time for everything to go wrong, right?

  He set out with the union’s people and they formed a natural wedge as they walked, like they were taking some military formation for fear of being attacked. Reggie questioned Norman about it, who just shrugged.

  “It makes everyone feel more confident,” he said after a moment, “and if it calms them, why not?”

  Reggie couldn’t really argue with that. Even if that calm was needling him now, isolating him, reminding him that the whole world was blind to what he could see. Something was going to go wrong, how could they all not know it?

  Reggie, I’m starting to worry about you.

  He had to catch himself from replying outloud.

  The Patricians of Lorwick lived in the biggest and most expensive building Reggie had yet seen, and the place was practically swarming with guards. Not just guards, Circumscribers.

  Intellectually, he’d known there’d be a lot there. Each Warden had about half a dozen Circumscribers under his command, and the Wardens attached to each Patrician were more or less balanced with their immediate superior in terms of combined military force.

  Seeing dozens was something else though. They all wore armour that was finer than anything a human would be expected to afford, little leaves of steel carefully articulated into place and humming with magic, letting their wearers move around as if the metal were no heavier than cotton.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Keep your cool,” Norman muttered to the group, “we won’t be fighting them.”

  He was right, partly because this was a negotiation and partly because, if they did end up being attacked by so many Circumscribers, it wouldn’t be a fight at all. Reggie could maybe take one, if he didn’t mind transforming and breaking his cover.

  That knowledge didn’t do much to relax Reggie, and if he was worried then everyone else must’ve been near-catatonic. They, after all, didn’t have the ability to run away as fast as a Circumscriber could give chase, even with their entrails hanging out. But Reggie didn’t see a single one of them even hesitate before continuing inside.

  He was still mulling that over when they finally reached the Patricians. Reggie recognised Aldyral of course, saw the elf slumped into one corner of the room and glaring at seemingly everyone in it. He looked nervous, which seemed about right. His peers though, the other four Patricians, looked more annoyed.

  “Let’s get this over with,” the leader among them sighed. Reggie was surprised to see it was a woman, though the other four were male. Her features were sharp and narrow like all elves, and her eyes seemed somehow even more predatory than those of her fellows. Norman took a moment to visibly compose himself before stepping forwards.

  “We won’t waste your time, your, uh, excellencies. We have our demands, they’re simple, they’re fair. If they’re met then you’ll get no more trouble from us.” Reggie somewhat doubted that, and certainly hoped it wasn’t true. But promising more problems in the future was a great way to get yourself dealt with now.

  “You’re wasting our time already,” one of the Patricians snapped, “stop dawdling and get to it.”

  Norman swallowed again, but spoke fast. “Very well…” Reggie listened to him go over everything they’d talked about, and watched as every promise he’d been told would get laid out found its time in the conversation. It was happening then. He tried to look for holes, tried to see evidence he was just hallucinating, but there was none. It was really happening. Now would the elves attack them?

  No, not even that.

  “The added wages and reduced hours are money right out of our pockets, you monkey,” one of them snapped.

  As far as diplomacy went, Reggie fancied that the humans were showing somewhat sharper skills so far. That didn’t mean they’d get their way though. Everyone had been told not to stare at Aldyral, despite the unions’ arrangements with him, but nonetheless several idiotic eyes drifted his way regardless.

  The elf met those eyes, held them for a second, and then turned to his peers.

  “I will vote in favour of granting these requests,” he told the room, continuing past the bristling colleagues who now glared right at him, “it is my people who are needed to put down the rioting the rest of you are so willing to tolerate.” So far so good. So far too good. Reggie had to keep himself from freaking out as he watched everything unfolding exactly as Norman had told him it would.

  Then Aldyral continued.

  “I need time to rebuild my police force following the damages dealt by this unrest, and I need certain guarantees that I won’t be dealing with a new age of ruin for Lorwick while the rest of you remain safely walled away from the streets I’m left to handle.”

  Reggie’s stomach fell right out of him. What was this? They’d not agreed on any extra demands with the elf, was he getting greedy now?

  “What would you amend?” the apparently-head Patrician asked, her voice actually more level than Aldyral’s own, despite his collusion with the unions.

  “The specifics I will leave for the rest of you to decide,” the overseer growled, “but I must have the strain on my guard force lessened until its humans can do as humans do best and breed up some replacements for my losses. Guarantee that and I will accept everything else.. In fact, I will support it, and if the rest of you want to keep from caving then you can find some other body to enforce your demands than my guards.”

  The room went dead silent for a moment.

  “That seems fair to me,” the lead Patrician remarked as she turned her head to Norman, she seemed annoyed but also at the point of surrender. Apparently Aldyral had enough pull to settle things after all. “What about you, human?”

  Norman’s face was steady, despite Aldyral’s unexpected hitch. He seemed entirely in control. .

  “All the people of Lorwick are suffering,” he said evenly, “and none among us have any guarantees we won’t soon be in the place of any wretch within this city.” He didn't look at Reggie as he said that, which was appreciated. “We will not abandon them.”

  “Then you won’t have my support,” Aldyral told him flatly.

  What the fuck was this? He’d been nodding and agreeing, practically drooling over the thought of keeping his own guards out of the unions when they spoke, and now he’d rolled it all back?

  Reggie didn’t think he’d just changed his mind, surely he would’ve contacted them to renegotiate if he had. So what was this? What…

  Oh fuck.

  Walyn had gone out and done something, something regarding the asylums. He’d moved political pieces on the Lady’s behalf to make sure they weren’t emptied out. To maintain their convenient little feeding grounds.

  Reggie already knew the vampires of Lorwick had dirt on Aldyral, that they had him practically wrapped around the Lady’s finger.

  He’d been slow and stupid not to see it earlier, too busy trying to tell himself to relax that he’d failed to give himself a reason to. Now it was too late. Reggie should’ve taken Walyn’s head off as soon as he was out of the Lady’s line of sight.

  He hadn’t, and now Walyn had taken the head off the unions. This would divide them, break them apart. This would—

  —”if we agree to keep the asylums open,” Norman said slowly, “we get all our other demands?”

  What?

  The elves spent a few more moments looking between one another. If they had any sort of communication, it was through means Reggie couldn’t overhear. Maybe they were talking outright and he just didn’t notice.

  No.

  “Agreed,” said the lead Patrician, “provided your people stand by at once and put an end to the disruptions in Lorwick. Halt your marches, your strikes, your rioting. Get back to fucking work.”

  A few of the union people bristled, but Norman just nodded. “Then we have an accord. In writing?” It took less than a minute to be done, all the while Reggie kept on waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the trick to unveil itself, the ruse to be revealed.

  They were already walking out of the building, Reggie trailing numbly behind, by the time he finally realised there wouldn’t be one. The union people split up and spread out, disappearing into Lorwick with bright smiles shining behind their eyes. Only Norman and a few guards lingered, turning to Reggie and looking mournful.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said.

  That made everything real. It snapped Reggie out of his stupor and into the moment, drew his eyes to focus on Norman as if he were the only thing in the world.

  “Why!?” he snarled.