The Mortifera Enforcers moved in. Those tal ant masks stared like they were already convinced Gael was guilty of sothing he hadn’t done yet, but only a fool would fight or resist them on a border crossing. He lifted both hands, left his cane stabbed into the ground, and flicked his head back at everyone.
“Let them search you,” he said cheerily. “We have nothing to hide. They only get excited if you look excited. Ain’t that right, boys?”
Evelyn made a noise like she wanted to spit. Cara’s fingers flexed once at her side, knuckles whitening, but she held still. Maeve’s posture stayed polite and straight—probably because she’d done this before as a forr Vharnish—while Vivi shrank closer to Maeve, hands clasped at her satchel strap like she could pray the leather closed. On the boys’ side, Liorin, Jin, and Fergal were all casual as they held out their individual bags and satchels, doing a much better job of looking innocent than they appeared.
Pairs of enforcers peeled off to search each of them, quick hands patting seams, yanking on straps, and rifling through their bags.
“Watch where yer mitts go, aye?” Evelyn snapped, leaning away from the man trying to search her pockets. “I bite.”
“Evelyn,” Maeve warned softly. “Don’t.”
“I’m only sayin’.”
Captain Orsa wasn’t one to delegate his job to others. He himself stepped forward to search Gael, so Gael greeted the ant-masked man with a pleasant tilt of his hat.
“Captain,” he said.
“Shut up,” Orsa grumbled.
The captain yanked Gael’s satchel open and shoved his gloved hands inside, ruffling through completely common goods: dried herbs, cloth wraps, and tons and tons of surgical instrunts sealed in waxed paper. There was also a bottle of cheap but pungent alcohol that clinked and made Orsa’s antennae twitch in disgust.
“Really, though. What’s the big deal?” Gael asked, keeping his voice light. “You didn’t search us last ti we crossed this bridge. We even waved at you. I thought we had a mont.”
“Don’t play dumb,” Orsa growled. “Everyone’s heard the rumors.”
“You’re gonna have to elaborate. Rumors are like mold in Bharncair. You breathe them in whether you want to or not.”
“You want an elaboration?” Orsa glanced up at him for a second, brows tightening. “Rumors go that the Raven of Blightmarch made a deal with the Steelborn a month ago. In exchange for a regular supply of drugs and dicine to all of Ironwych, the Heartcord Clinic will be allowed to set up storefronts and expand their operations into Ironwych. All of that will have to pass through Umbracross—Vharnveil territory, if you haven’t forgotten.”
Gael sighed.
“Captain, the clinic’s only supplying dicine to sick people. If your ears sohow heard ‘smuggling’, I think that’s just a you-problem.”
Orsa stepped in closer anyway and began patting Gael down. The man’s antennae twitched and angled, sniffing for anything sharp, sweet, chemical, and illicit. Gael let him. He even turned slightly to make it easier, hands still raised.
“Do you know the Ashbound Ledger of Controlled Substances, Raven?”
“I know a thousand laws,” Gael replied, “but half of them were written by priests with clean hands and dirty thoughts, so I can’t say I know that one in particular.”
“The law prohibits the passage of quantities of dicine and stimulant compounds beyond personal allotnt unless cleared through proper Mortifera Enforcer channels,” Orsa recited. “Furthermore, all drugs and dicine cleared through our channels must first be evaluated and sanctified by the Church of Severin’s grand dicus before they can be passed through Vharnveil territory. I’m willing to bet not all the ‘dicine’ your Heartcord Clinic trades are legal and safe. Not by our standards. Turn around now.”
Gael turned obediently, but he couldn’t resist a small jab.
“But you do know I’m a Raven, right?” he said. “Have you considered how irritated I might get if you keep searching and my boys every ti we pass through on the basis of re speculation and rumors?”
And the bridge imdiately beca colder because of that.
Every single enforcer stopped searching their pockets for a heartbeat, heads turning in unison. Two dozen ant masks tilted towards Gael, and while it wasn’t the first ti he’d felt murderous intent, it was the first ti it was this overt with n holding rifles.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringent.
“Don’t test us,” Orsa said quietly. “We Mortifera Enforcers have put down Ravens before. An unnumbered like you poses no threat to us.”
Maeve’s fingers twitched once, as if she wanted to reach for the bloodshackle at her ankle and drag Gael back by force. She didn’t—smart lady—but she did make a face at him, a quiet plea and a quiet warning in the sa glance.
Gael tilted his head, smiling wider.
“Oh?” he drawled himself. “You’ve put down Ravens before, have you?”
Captain Orsa didn’t answer, but the way the enforcers’ rifles tightened in their grips answered anyway.
… So Gael lifted both hands higher and made an exaggerated show of surrender, shoulders rising.
“Just joking,” he said cheerily. “Saintess, you lot are humourless. Search away, captain. You’ll find my little vacation troupe has nothing illegal on us, and then you’ll have to go ho and admit you wasted your morning being paranoid.”
Orsa’s antennae twitched again, and he resud the pat-down with a sharper, more aggressive rhythm. He checked Gael’s sleeves, the seam at his shoulder, and even instructed Gael to take off his coat so he could show off the hexagonal repositories bored into his back. The man found alcohol. The man found bandages. He found even more dical instrunts tucked away in hidden corners and little pouches of dried, completely legal herbs, but… nothing worth triumph.
Nothing Gael could be brought in for.
Around them, the other enforcers finished their searches as well. One by one, they shook their heads at Orsa, and Orsa stared back at them, scowling.
Gael remained grinning.
“What’d I say, old boy?”
With a final, frustrated shove, Orsa released Gael’s cloak and stepped back. Gael gave the man a tip of his hat as he put his cloak back on and pushed past the enforcers, pulling Maeve’s hand along with him.
“Do excuse if you’ve got nothing else to bother with,” he said, winking at Orsa. “I’ll see you next week?”
He didn’t stay to see what sort of face Orsa was making now. He strutted past the enforcers with the rest of his gang in tow, and Evelyn jeered at the enforcer who searched her as they left the Wild Bridge behind and stepped into Umbracross.
Maeve moved up on his left while they slinked into the ebb and flow of the crowd, quickly distancing themselves from the enforcers just in case Orsa felt like stopping them on grounds of another baseless charge.
“Are we really going to have to worry about searches like that every ti we send sothing out of Blightmarch?” she asked, looking behind her nervously. “At so point, we will have to send sothing not approved by the Church of Severin, right?”
He shrugged. “Eh. Searches are just part of the business. You don’t build an empire of bandages without soone trying to peek under the wrappings.” Then he turned his head slightly and looked at Cara. “Did you morize their faces already?”
Cara, however, was already walking with her notebook out, furiously scribbling faces into the pages with her quill. “Already on it. There were seven young enforcers who looked just a little bit like they pissed their pants when you threatened them, so next ti we need to move bulk through Umbracross, we’ll wait until those seven are on duty. Then we’ll bribe them and put them on our payroll.”
“Good shit.” Gael turned to Fergal next. “And if they ever get a little too daring with your boys as they run goods across the bridge, tell your boys they’re allowed to be a little threatening as well. Just don’t go too overboard with it. We don’t actually want Vharnveil barging into our southern ward, yeah?”
Fergal nodded. “Got it.”
As the street leading up to the Hanging Market thickened with bodies—rchants calling out deals, masked ladies strolling like they were on parade, and dockhands hauling crates up pulley lines—Gael veered off into a narrow side alley, dragging Evelyn along with him.
Before anybody could ask him what he was doing, he fished out a small, pungent vial from his coat and downed it in a single gulp.
A beat passed.
Then he turned away from Evelyn politely before retching. What ca out wasn’t bile, or blood, or any of the dozen usual humiliations of the human body, but instead a series of wet and heavy pouches that clinked as they fell onto the ground. A dozen of them in total, all slick and swollen.
Vivi let out a small, frightened sound and took an involuntary step back, leaning around Maeve.
“Is… is that a technique all Exorcist Hosts are taught?” she asked shakily. “I don’t recall learning anything like that during training.”
“That’s just Gael. You don’t have to learn it,” Maeve replied plainly.
Gael wiped his mouth with the back of his glove, crouched, and began patting the pouches dry with thodical care. Once they were dry enough, he bundled them together and tossed them into Evelyn’s arms.
“There we go,” he said cheerfully. “Inside these lovely sses are a hundred and fifty vials of powdered symbiote elixir compressed extrely into pills. You rember where to et the Steelborn boys?”
Evelyn nodded. “et the two smugglers at the mouth of the Ember Bridge and tell them the Heartcord Clinic has honored its end of the bargain for this month. Also, tell them we’re eagerly awaitin’ word on their moonflower haul from the Grand Ironwych Mountains.”
He patted her back. “Good girl. Now go.”
As she unfolded her wings and launched herself upward and eastward, vanishing over the rooftops in a rush of wind, he stepped back out onto the main street.
“Thank the Saintess I predicted Captain Orsa was gonna be a bitch about us coming into Umbracross,” he boasted, rubbing his stomach. “This baby can fit a hundred and fifty more pills inside, and I can also do thi—”
“We don’t wanna see it,” Maeve grumbled, smacking the back of his head. “Now what? We have to wait for Evelyn to co back before we head to Bleakhearth, right?”
Gael grinned at all of them. “Yep. Feel free to run around and enjoy Umbracross a little before evening. We’re paying a visit to the bosses of the Three-Faces tonight, so everyone—do try to look your best.”
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