The door rasped open, and Cephia stopped pacing.

Her squadron of Conclave guards slid furtively into the stock room, casting wary, curious glances at each other as they went. The full guard pack comprised two brawny male wolfkin named Roave and Kelter, a female called Myra; Tayge, the acid-tongued foxkin and the female quillkin, Cinder. For four years they had been her responsibility – a group she trusted implicitly to do their jobs – but today she needed to ask more of them than she had before.

Investigating the Conclave itself.

"Cosy, this." Tayge grinned as he shuffled inside, squeezing up alongside Myra among the shelving units.

"Watch your paws, y'little leech," she replied, digging an elbow into his ribs. "Can't y'find someone in your own bloody species to bother?"

Tayge took on a look of mock offence. "Dunno what you're tryin' to say!"

"Muzzle it, Tayge," Cephia said. "Focus up, eh?" Normally she tolerated his blasé flirting – it was mostly harmless – but right now she needed all her people to be on full alert.

"Ma'am." Sensing her mood, the foxkin nodded and straightened up, clasping his paws firmly behind his back. Beside him, Myra smirked.

"What's up, boss?" Roave asked. He was a little shorter than her, and a little broader – his coat a bristly iron-grey. "If I didn't know better I'd say you've got some more bad news."

"You know I don't like to sweeten a bad treat."

Cinder's shoulders slumped. "As if we didn't have enough crap piling up. Now what?"

"What I'm going to tell you stays between us," Cephia replied, meeting the gaze of each guard in turn. "You understand? Don't gossip it in the barracks or blether it out to your dens, alright? We're about to dig our paws into some real deep muck. That means you keep your muzzles strapped tight."

"Oh-oh." Tayge grinned; nudged Myra. "This ought to be good, eh?"

The wolfkin cuffed him round the ear in response.

"We get it," Myra said, glancing at the others. They nodded their agreement, and she looked back to the foxkin. "All of us."

"Yeah, yeah, unwind a bit would ya?" Tayge grumbled. "I keep a secret as well as the next beast. Now what in the Fire's got us all stuffed into this bloody closet?"

Cephia opened her mouth to speak, but something stopped the words from coming out. She hesitated for just a moment, remembering Illando's reticence at her involving her squad of guards in this investigation. At the time she couldn't have countenanced someone so close to her being involved with anything like this cult, but facing them down now, a trickle of doubt crept into her mind.

No, she told herself. You've got to trust somebody.

The Conclave was a big place – trying to do something like this alone was an impossibility. The five kin in front of her had earned the right to her trust over the years. They deserved the benefit of the doubt.

"Boss?" Roave shifted uneasily. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. "It's just ... well, you're not gonna enjoy this one."

"Can't be worse than night duty in Helsfur."

"Alright." She drummed the claws of one paw against her thigh for a second longer, then plunged in. "You all remember Illando?"

Cinder smirked, folding her arms. "Not likely to forget who's running the enforcers now, are we? What about him?"

"A few days ago someone tried to kill him."

The stunned expressions that flashed across the faces of her guards put Cephia's mind at ease just a little. Genuine surprise at the turn of events was a good sign.

"He is an enforcer," the wolfkin, Kelter said with an awkward shrug. "Not trying to be insensitive, but isn't that kinda in his job description?"

"I'm not talking about some thug from the districts taking a swing at him," she continued. "I mean an assassin. Someone targeted him and they did it less than five hundred yards from where we're standing."

"Peace," Myra gasped. "He alright?"

"He's fine. Trying to pick off the enforcer commander was an incredibly stupid thing to do, and it means we know that there's a traitor crawling around here somewhere."

"There it is," Tayge chuckled darkly. "We're on a rat hunt, eh, boss?"

"Pretty much."

"So who'd be dumb enough to try kill him?"

"You're heard about the murders in the districts?"

The guards nodded. Cephia took a breath, gathering the disparate details, and then launched into the account of what Illando had told her. She didn't waste time on details her people wouldn't need. She told them about the murders, about the origin of the painted symbols found at Bonequill, and about the strange verses dredged up from a long-forgotten time.

Beyond that, all they really needed to know was that the cult was organised, and apparently had a longer reach than anyone realised. It was up to them to figure out if it had infected the Conclave. Eyes slowly grew wider with incredulity as she spoke, but she pressed on. Too late to stop now.

"And that's why you're going to keep this muzzled," she growled at the conclusion of her tale. "Could be a designate; could be somebody in our own bloody ranks that's gotten in on this. We're looking for one of our own."

"Could be an enforcer," Cinder snorted. "You sure it's someone here?"

"Not yet." Cephia turned a boiling glare on the quillkin. "Illando'll look into the enforcers. If it's one of them, it's out of our paws. But if it isn't, we need to know. That means that the six of us are going to do some digging?"

"Just us?" Roave asked. "I mean, there are other squads that could-,"

"No. The fewer people that know about this the better."

"So... what exactly do you want us to do?"

"To start with, get a list of the murder and abduction sites, then check it against the designates that represent those districts," she told them, the words coming easily now. The plan had been stewing in her brain ever since Illando had spoken to her. "After that, check their vote logs. See who's not been turning up for work on time. Anyone – guards or designates – that have been taking trips to the underdocks and the outer districts without an escort, I want to know about it. If you can't account for their movement on the official logs, speak to their assigned guards."

Cephia placed her paws on her hips and sighed. "This is going to ruffle some fur, no matter what we find. I know we've had a crappy time of it lately, and this isn't going to make it better. If you've got any objections, now's the time."

There were a few awkward glances but no-one spoke. At least not at first. After a moment Tayge huffed out a deliberate breath, looking doubtful as a frown crumpled his needle-sharp features.

"Problem, Tayge?"

"Not exactly, its just..." He scratched the back of his neck. "Y'know, Ol' Kremmet isn't gonna sign off on this. Y'know that, right? We're gonna kick some tails digging around like this, and when some milk-tooth goes cryin' to the big boss, he's gonna come down on you like a mudslide."

"I've had just about enough of Kremmet. Let him try," Cephia spat contemptuously. "Now let's get to work."

***

"Look, Guard-Leader, I don't know what to tell you," the deerkin said, her voice heavy with exasperation. "We don't watch every step Designate Owlunn takes. If he wants to visit his district without an escort I can't force it."

"You don't find it a little odd that Owlunn would go wandering around Helsfur without a guard?" Cephia pressed. "An unarmed designate in a place like that is begging for a knife in the ribs."

The guard rolled her eyes. "They're not all as helpless as you might think, wolf. It's not our problem. All we're supposed to do is make sure Owlunn gets there and back. Let the watchguards sort out the mess – that's their job."

Slamming her head against a brick wall would have been more fruitful. Anger simmered beneath Cephia's fur as she tried to resist the urge to jam her claws right down the other guard's throat. Designate Owlunn was a vulkin who had scored highly on their criteria for suspicious behaviour, having missed several important votes in the Conclave chambers due to 'personal' matters. In other cases he was simply missing in action, with no explanation offered.

In tracing his movements, she discovered the designate was taking a number of trips back and forth to his home district of Helsfur, none of them reported on the Conclave's system. The volatile place had three designates in total representing it, but only Owlunn seemed content to come and go without a retinue of guards, which further piqued her interest. Trying to get more specific information, however, was proving to be problematic. The deerkin guard assigned outside Owlunn's office in the Conclave couldn't have cared less. They sat behind a fat metal desk, with a small stairway winding up behind them to an office suite.

"So, y'just let him have the run of the place?" Tayge enquired. "I mean, don't catch me wrong, I'd let the idiot run off by himself if I could get away with it, but somethin' happens to him out there it's gonna be your pretty head in the chopper."

"Look, what is this about?" the deerkin demanded, slamming her mug of muskbrew down bad-temperedly on the desk. "I don't answer to you, and I've got paperwork to get through."

"C'mon, now," he persisted. "Y' gotta know about the folk getting cut to bits out there. On a normal day, sure, I'd get it, but now? Things are gettin' more nasty out there by the day."

"So what? What in the Fire matters so damn much about some gangers in the outers cutting each other to bits? And what's it got to do with Designate Owlunn?"

"Those same 'gangers' have been targeting guards and enforcers," Cephia hissed, keeping the information vague, but hopefully specific enough to drag some cooperation out of the deerkin. "Not just in Helsfur. This is a bigger problem."

"If you join the watchguards, you're going to get on the bad side of Helsfur," the guard continued dismissively. "And as for the enforcers? Why in the Peace and Fire should I care if some of those conniving murderers get what's coming to them? They ought to have been drummed right out of the city for what they did."

She almost vaulted the table there and then, but Tayge sensed it before it happened, clamping a paw down on her wrist before she could spring. Cephia bristled furiously, trying to swallow down her anger. At length, she clamped a lid on her temper and leaned in, speaking as calmly as she could manage.

"Where is Designate Owlunn now?"

She'd already checked, but it was time to see the lengths Owlunn would go to to avoid scrutiny.

"I ... err-," the deerkin glanced around, as though searching for inspiration. She clacked a couple of keys ineffectually on the keyboard of her computer rig. "I'm not sure of his exact schedule today. If you check in at the admin hub they could-"

"I'll save you the time. Go upstairs and knock on his door."

The guard stiffened at that, eyes narrowing. "Guard-Leader, I answer to Designate Owlunn and-,"

"Shut up!" Cephia roared, stepping forward. "Peace, stop talking! I already know he's here. If you're not going to help, then I'll just have to speak with him myself." She started walking around the desk and the deerkin jumped to bar her path.

"No, Guard-Leader, please-,"

She broke off as Tayge stepped between them, pressing the tip of his truncheon to her chest. He hadn't activated the weapon's electrical charge, but the flick of a switch would send the deerkin convulsing to the ground.

"You'll wanna take a step back there," the foxkin advised before glancing to Cephia. "Wanna go show her how to knock, boss?"

"That won't be necessary."

Cephia glanced up and saw a demure-looking vulkin standing at the head of the short stairway, his long, thin frame swallowed by a plush, aquamarine robe. His head was narrow, with spear-point ears cutting through a short fuzz of black headfur. His coat was dark grey over long rangy limbs. The designate's slender muzzle parted in a thin smile and he nodded to the deerkin guard.

"Thank you, Lenia, but I think it's best if I speak with the Guard-Leader. I'm sure this is something that can be quickly cleared up." He gestured to the open door behind him. "Please, join me."

Shooting the deerkin guard a black look, Cephia stalked past and mounted the stairway without a word. Tayge fell into step behind her, the wily foxkin maintaining an impish smirk on his face as they ascended into Owlunn's little slice of the Conclave. Inside it looked much like the other designate offices – a hexagonal room with three walls of filing space, a desk, computing rig, and a handful of chairs to accommodate visitors.

Owlunn swept past them, light-footed and silent as a ghost, and descended into his high-backed chair. His smile remained as he gestured to the seats opposite him.

"Sit, please."

"This won't take long," Cephia replied, ignoring the invitation. "Designate Owlunn, you represent Helsfur's industrial quarter?"

"That is correct."

"My people have reported that you've had several undocumented absences from Conclave votes in the past month."

"Regrettable," Owlunn replied, nodding sadly. "But I have had some personal matters to attend to of late that have had an adverse affect on my duties here."

"If you cannot properly represent your district, it is grounds for a censure hearing," she pointed out.

"I know the laws." A flicker of irritation sparked in the vulkin's eyes. "I do not need them quoted to me by a guard. What is it you want from me?"

"I'd like you to explain your absence from the Conclave. I'd like you to explain why you've gone to Helsfur several times without any kind of escort."

"I do not need one."

"Really?"

"I find that moving among my people with armed thugs at my hip makes it difficult to connect. Is there some problem with that?"

"That depends on what you were doing while you were there."

"And why are you asking these questions?" His smile broadened revealing short, sharp canines. "I'm unaware of any official enquiries."

Cephia felt her claws twitch with annoyance. "You're aware of the situation in the outer districts I'm sure, Designate?"

"Yes. Nasty business, those killings. I understand that is under enforcer purview?" A snicker escaped Owlunn's muzzle. "Not that I would trust them with such a task. I think they've shown their true colours, don't you, wolfkin?"

"Enough," she grunted back, ignoring the goad. "Whatever personal quarrel you have with the enforcers, or wolfkin, it's irrelevant. I'm just asking for you to account for the time missing from the official record. If you have something personal that is affecting your ability to properly represent the kin of Helsfur, then I will have to write up a report."

Owlunn's expression darkened and he clasped his paws together on his lap, fixing his beady eyes on her. "With respect, Guard-Leader, your people are assigned to keep us safe. You are not our prison guards. I am not required to divulge anything I do not wish to."

"Maybe not," she growled. "But if you can't account for-,"

"Guard-Leader!" bellowed a wild, slurring voice.

Cephia's mouth snapped shut and she looked sharply towards the speaker her ears pricking up in disbelief.

To her complete shock she found a wolfkin standing in the doorway, and not just any wolfkin. Swaying faintly, her cobalt eyes bloodshot from lasher and a wearing a snarl of drool, was Commander Senesarra. She was tall and bulky, some of it muscle and some of it indolence, and sported a motley coat of grey-brown fur. A blaze of long, greying headfur framed a face was blurred in an expression of fury.

"Commander." With frustration tightening her throat, Cephia snapped to attention, catching Owlunn's smirk out of the corner of her eye.

"What in the Fire is going on here?" Senesarra spluttered, taking an unsteady step into the room.

"I needed to speak with Owlunn."

"From what I heard you are interrogating one of our designates like a common criminal. Have you lost your mind?"

Cephia's face twisted with confusion. "Commander, I-,"

"Designate Owlunn, please accept the apologies of the guard," Senesarra continued like a clumsy avalanche. "Guard-Leader Cephia has always been ... overzealous in the discharging of her duty."

Owlunn smiled placidly. "Consider it forgotten."

"Commander!" Cephia exclaimed. "I need to speak to him!"

"No, you need to leave." Senesarra's alcohol-muddled gaze cleared for a short, frightening moment. "Get out of my sight. If I find you harassing a Conclave designate again, I'll see to it that you and your people take an extended stay in the outer districts."

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. Old, drunk Senesarra seemed to have firmly picked a side. Cephia stood her ground, every bone in her body wanting to fight her case, but she knew how futile that would be at this moment in time.

"Boss, let's just go," Tayge muttered, fixing a hateful stare on the wolfkin commander. "I reckon we got what we came for, eh?"

"I think so." Cephia nodded slowly.

She spared Owlunn a final, scything glance before turning and striding from the room, trying to calm the thundering beat of her heart.