There’s a minor risk of fire in Merlin’s beard. His hands shake as he grapples with the urge to strangle the Demon talking at him until it stops smiling. If his father hadn’t stepped in, there’d be literal thunder in the air.
‘I can absolutely guarantee that your dear mother is in no danger whatsoever right now,’ says the Demon, pleasantly. ‘I certainly don’t want to cause any harm. It’s merely a bit of insurance considering your, ah, history with people such as myself. And rest assured, any members of the crew—including parental figures held as collateral—will receive their cut, same as everybody else, if they do their part and make it to the end of our upcoming little escapade.’
Merlin is too angry to pick up on precisely how vague this statement is. Or, if he does, it doesn’t seem important at the moment. ‘Fine,’ he says, barely parting his lips. ‘But I am here against my will. Don’t forget that.’
‘Oh, I won’t.’
Taking in the surroundings, Merlin counts heads again. Five in total, not including him and his dad. Or, Merlin supposes, his mum, presumably tied to a chair somewhere and guarded by god-only-knows what Infernal monster.
His hands are shaking again.
‘So,’ he says, adjusting his beanie, to give said hands something to do. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
The Demon’s smile only widens. ‘We can get to introductions on the way. And I’ll fill you in on the job, too, since you were curious enough to ask.’ He nods to the driver, who promptly pulls out of the depot, and seems to be having a whale of a time behind the wheel of the bus.
‘My name,’ says the Demon who’s done most of the talking, ‘is Benzene. Benzene Petcoke if I’m ever in court. I steal things for a living, because I’m very good at it. Everyone on this bus, and yes the bus itself, is here to assist in that goal tonight; think of me as the mastermind.’
Merlin rolls his eyes. His dad continues to look concerned.
‘Obviously we know you and Albar.’ Benzene is referring to Merlin’s dad. Usually Albar just goes by “Al”, but the Demon either doesn’t know or doesn’t care—probably the former, considering his obvious effort to be friendly. ‘Behind the wheel is our driver, Phency,’ he continues. ‘Phency, can you drive and talk?’
‘Oh, oh yes,’ says Phency. There’s a manic look to him, and he seems to have restless leg syndrome, which is a bit of a detriment to driving smoothly. ‘What’s up?’
‘Introduce yourself.’
‘Yeah. Ok. Yeah I’m the driver. Free agent. Work for myself now. Used to run with Vic Sulph’s boys but they all got wiped out so here I am.’
Had Merlin still been drinking his cold-brew it would have sprayed out of his nose. ‘Did, uh,’ he tries, but stops and rewords his query to something a bit more innocuous. ‘What happened to them?’
‘The lot of them murdered by one man. And I swore if I ever catch up with him, I’ll have my revenge.’ Phency seems less twitchy and more dangerous now. ‘That man’s name… is Alkahest.’
A little bit of cold-brew actually does spray out of Merlin’s nose, somehow. He laughs for a solid eight seconds.
‘God, not this shit again,’ says another Demon with mint-green hair, sitting in one of the seats you reserve for pregnant women. Her name is Rembra, and she’s pawing at her phone. Merlin already knows her, and knows what to expect.
‘I take it I have you to thank for my name coming up in the list of potential heistmates, then?’ he asks.
‘Actually, no,’ she replies. ‘Weird, eh?’ She goes back to looking at her phone.
Benzene slides the conversation back towards himself. ‘Yes, you were actually a pick from our buyer, who funded all this and suggested a few potential participants. Your reputation with the more technological side of things is quite impressive. Plus, with your family’s involvement, we found ourselves a mechanic to keep our bus ride ticking along smoothly! If that isn’t serendipity, well, I just don’t know what is.
‘Speaking of which, imagine my surprise to learn Rembra—currently occupying the role of our actual burglar, and having been a mole for a few weeks—is already acquainted with you! Small Fulcrum, hmm?’
Merlin doesn’t like the sound of this. ‘A mole in what?’
‘Remember at Open Sky when I said I lost all that money?’ says Rembra, sweetly. ‘I lied.’
The last person to steal from Open Sky Capital, and thus from the Dragon Laniakea, was thrown from a top floor window. Thankfully, though, the bus doesn’t seem to be on its way to Open Sky.
‘Where are we headed, Benzene?’ asks Merlin, his need for clarity outmaneuvering his desire to seem unperturbed.
‘Stop interrupting,’ says Benzene. His composure cracks for around half a second, before he catches the slip and tamps his demeanour down.
‘Let’s get introductions out of the way first, hmm? Now, this is Amyll. She’s our fabricator; forgeries being a specialty of hers. I know isn’t quite a normal heist-crew role but hey, we’ve got to be adaptable.’
Amyll, a woman with spectacles and long hair, cocks her head at him. ‘You’re starting to sound Fae, Benzene.’ She then seems to realise she’d talked back to a Demon not above family hostage taking, and who had just seconds ago demonstrated something of a temper. She shrinks back into herself.
Merlin feels for her.
Benzene, though, barely seems to notice, an almost indulgent smile on his face. He continues to the very rear of the bus, where a large woman in military fatigues has her legs up on the back seats. Glimmering over her head is a stippled halo.
‘Finally, this is Caesura, our arcane safecracker. She’s actually here in a similar way to you, though coming at things from a magical angle as opposed to a technological one.’
‘Yes,’ says Caesura, with a heavy accent. ‘And you have taken those I love as insurance also. Very similar.’ She turns to Merlin. ‘What do you bring?’
‘…Bring to what?’
‘The table.’
‘Oh, right,’ says Merlin, remembering himself. He snaps his fingers and switches Off the bus’s engine. The lights inside go out until Phency gets it started again, muttering incessantly.
‘Mm,’ says Caesura. ‘Very good.’
Merlin shifts to look at his Dad. ‘Don’t you normally ward engines against that sort of thing?’
The other Demons are staring at them. ‘Yeah,’ says his Dad. ‘You’ve gotten good.’ He sounds utterly surprised.
The bus is just about on the other side of Middlemarch’s centre, having already circumnavigated the pedestrianised zone. They’re now trundling through the enclave of pubs and restaurants on the way towards the satellite towns.
Benzene’s eyes are still crinkled at the corners. ‘And with that, I suppose now is the time to reveal our target. Ahem.
‘A little ways north up the M1 is a convention centre. At this time of night we should get there in less than two hours, meaning we’ll be some of the first to arrive and we can blend in among the other buses, which will contain convention attendees and their security details.
‘From there, we infiltrate using cover supplied by Rembra’s insider status, with Merlin getting us through the technological security at the door and Caesura ensuring a malfunction of the magical wards, plus Amyll fabricating outfits and other signifying wristbands or whatever to fit in with the aforementioned security.
‘Once inside, Rembra will use her sense to identify the object of most value to us, and thus our target. Amyll fabricates a duplicate of it, Merlin, you create a distraction, and we make the switch. From there we all come back to our getaway-ready bus—courtesy of Albar here—and we get away.
‘We meet up with our buyer, who will be calling me directly, we give them the goods, and we get paid. Simple.’
Too simple, from where Merlin’s sat. ‘Alright,’ he says. ‘What about the attendees? Who are we stealing from?’
‘Ah,’ says Benzene. His expression doesn’t change.
⁂
Quite a bit of time earlier in our story has been dedicated to the idiosyncrasies of a Dragon and its hoard. It’s in their nature, as beings of Order. Each and every Dragon chooses a topic to build a hoard around, and pursues items that could be added to that hoard with the kind of zeal usually only seen in inquisitions, or in that crocodile that used to try and steal Coco Pops from the monkey.
Dragons are also notoriously solitary, rarely working together because despite being powerfully connected to Order as a concept, none of them will actually recognise the authority of any of the others without a concrete demonstration. And when you’re a gargantuan fire-breathing monster, any such demonstrations end with the victor the king of nothing but a small, smoldering hill.
What to do then? Perhaps some sort of abstract system that each and every Dragon could judge each and every other Dragon by? Based perhaps on traits and proclivities common to all Dragons, no matter the colour or level of power?
So Draconic society has a strict and rigid hierarchy, one that is measured based on an individual’s hoard. Dragons can innately see if an item is a part of a hoard as a kind of arcane metadata tag, and can even trade and barter with pieces they think may be of interest to others.
The hoards themselves are judged on two factors; a Dragon accumulates prestige based on the degree of difficulty to acquire pieces for their hoard’s subject, and the quality of the items in the hoard itself. It’s a similar system of judgement to ice skating, except instead of a score out of 6, you have a hundred or so Dragons all subconsciously agreeing on your place in the hierarchy.
Of course, this system means a regular check-in for each and every Dragon with each and every other one is necessary. And so every few years there’s a sort of convention—a Dragon Con, if you will—for Draconic society, where a Dragon will bring the new and prestigious pieces of their hoard to be judged.
It can be something of a high-pressure event. This year, it’s being held in the Fulcrum UK.
⁂
‘Do you have any sort of idea how powerful they are?!’ says Merlin, when Benzene tells him. ‘This is suicide!’
‘Merlin, come on, you should have a little more confidence in yourself!’
The other members of the crew seem equally perturbed, apart from Phency, who is driving just as fast.
Then a bullet hits the back window.
⁂
Nora is quite drunk.
She’s walking home with Ursa at her heels, embarrassed at how loose her tongue has gotten after only 2 litres of margarita.
‘I really think we should call an uber,’ suggests Ursa, again.
Nora gives her a look over her shoulder, stepping into the road.
She is hit by a bus.
More specifically, she stumbles out of the way as a speeding bus performs the world’s smallest swerve in a half-hearted attempt to avoid her, the mirror clips her shoulder, and she spins on the spot more incensed than alarmed. There’s a familiar face in one of the windows, and Nora spins at just the right RPM to follow its parabola.
‘MERLIN JUST HIT ME WITH HIS FUCKING BUS!!’ she roars. She pulls out her gun.
Four shots are fired. One of them pings off the reinforced glass of the rear window, the others going wide and presumably exploding a pigeon (actually, most pigeons in Middlemarch would survive this for reasons we’ll get to later).
Oddly enough, the bus rolls to a stop. This is because onboard, the driver has left his seat and rolled down a window to get a better look at who’s shooting at them.
‘What the hells are you doing, Phency?’ asks Benzene. ‘You don’t stop if we’re under attack. This is literally the reason you’re here.’
‘Oh,’ says Phency. ‘Yeah. I’m supposed to be a bus driver.’ He begins to giggle.
There’s a knock at the bus’ automatic doors. Phency sees two figures; one of them is swaying and waving a gun. The other gives him a little wave and mouths Can we get on?
Phency opens the doors, to a collective groan from the other passengers.
‘This is a private—’ begins Amyll, but Merlin’s Dad interrupts her.
‘This is a private hire, ladies, sorry!’ he says, trying to usher them off the bus. ‘We’re going to a private event, so if you’ll just…’
Nora grimaces at him. ‘Jesus, Merlin, what the fuck happened to your face? You look like an old candle.’
Ursa hisses and intervenes. ‘Nora, that isn’t Merlin! Why did you shoot the bus? Why did I let you shoot the bus and drag me to—oh, Merlin’s over there. Hey Merlin!’
Merlin doesn’t get the chance to reply, because Benzene gets back to his feet.
‘Friends of yours, Merlin? My, we’re getting more complicated by the minute.’
Merlin hesitates as he tries to think of a believable way to get these idiots out of harm’s way. His Dad sees this, and seems to grow concerned.
‘Do you know them, Sam?’
There’s a guffaw from Nora. ‘Your name is Sam?’ she says.
‘Yes,’ says Merlin to them both. Then, just to Nora, ‘That wasn’t a secret. Did you just never bother to learn?’
Nora is still grinning. ‘I suppose not, Sam.’
Ursa, seeing talks devolving into name-calling – literally – decides to establish her credentials.
‘We’re with the Caliber Institute. The three of us, including Merlin there, are the finest team they have.’
Benzene’s teeth clench. ‘And what does the Caliber Institute think it’s doing, intervening in the private affairs of—’
‘Oh, come on,’ says Ursa. ‘We aren’t here on business. We’re here for our friend.’
Merlin’s jaw actually drops, just slightly. ‘Ursa,’ he says, after a second, ‘As much as I appreciate the gesture, my Dad and I aren’t captives.’
‘Wait is that your Dad?’
‘In fact it’s really important that we get to where we’re going without incident, so if you can just… you know.’ He nods toward the doors.
‘Pshh, fuck off, Sam,’ says Nora. She plops down on the nearest seat.
‘Yeah,’ agrees Ursa. ‘We’ve got your back. Your chance to escape being friends was weeks ago.’
Benzene looks from her, to Nora, to Amyll, and then just shrugs. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘They’re in. Though Merlin, if they want to get paid it’s coming out of your cut. I’m a patient man, so I’ll even go over the plan one more time. Phency? Step on it.’
⁂
‘…and that distraction will be up to Merlin, Ursa, and Nora here,’ finishes Benzene. ‘I already know what Merlin can do; what kind of skills are you two bringing?’
Before they can reply, though, Benzene’s phone beeps. ‘Oh,’ he says, retrieving it and silencing the alarm. ‘Time for the check-in.’
He gets up and ambles towards the front of the bus. Little snatches of conversation drift back.
Ursa, Nora, and Albar are sat in one of the triple seats near the back. Merlin has gone to speak with Amyll on the seats one forward, for some reason, but she’s just looking out of the window. Caesura has her eyes closed at the very back, while Rembra still sits near the front, playing a romhack of Pokémon Silver on her phone.
Albar lowers his voice so only Ursa and Nora can hear. ‘He’s been checking in with whoever’s guarding my wife, wherever she is. He told us before that if he doesn’t call them every hour on the dot, she’s going to die.’
Nora, hearing this, sobers somewhat. ‘Morris,’ she whispers to her watch. ‘Can you trace that call?’
There’s a second or two before the reply comes. ‘No, sorry,’ it says. ‘It’s as if he’s not even connected to a call at all. Maybe the other caller is off-world?’
‘Hmm,’ says Nora.
Ursa shifts in her seat as Benzene makes his way back. ‘Let me try something.’
‘My apologies; now where were we—?’ begins Benzene, but doesn’t get to finish before Ursa jumps up and begins prodding him, both figuratively and finger-atively.
‘So let me just see if I’ve got this right,’ she says, poking at his chest with a gloved hand. ‘You have no idea what it even is you’re supposed to be stealing, you have no idea who your “sponsor” is, you have no idea how exactly you’re going to be causing a sufficient distraction to get what we need and get away clean, and then you have the gall to ask us what we bring to the table?’
Then she taps the finger she’s been poking at his suit with on the palm of her glove, twice. The Chameleon Shiftweave activates, replicating his outfit even as Ursa changes her face to match his.
‘This is what we bring to the table,’ she says, with his borrowed voice.
Benzene’s expression had been growing ever darker at her needling, but now day breaks on his brow and he’s ostensibly delighted. ‘Wow!’ he cries, and looks over towards Amyll again, just briefly. She’s talking to Merlin now, not looking back.
He refocuses his attention on his own copied image. ‘Now this we can play with. And that works on anyone, does it?’
‘Anyone I’ve seen,’ says Ursa.
‘I’m seeing double here,’ says Rembra, from the front of the bus. ‘Four Benzenes!’ Nobody laughs but her.
Meanwhile, Merlin is gently trying to get a conversation with Amyll going. ‘I uh, heard from Caesura the Mr. Mastermind over there has loved ones of hers, too. Is it the same for you?’
Amyll suddenly seems to register she’s being spoken to. Behind them, Nora listens in, apparently having little to talk about with distracted Albar.
‘Oh, oh no!’ says Amyll. ‘I might not look it but I’m a dyed-in-the-wool career criminal, haha. No need for that with me.’ She sags a little. ‘Well, no need for that with anyone, in my opinion. It’s a little… brutish.’
‘Speak for yourself. I certainly wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
‘Not even for the amount of money we’re going to make?’
Merlin scoffs. ‘Somehow I’m expecting Benzene’s cheques to bounce. As long as he keeps his word and my Mum isn’t harmed, I don’t care. But,’ and here he makes sure his voice carries, ‘if anything happens to her I’m going to wipe all of you out. Bus included.’
Benzene is still smiling. ‘Now there’s that confidence I was hoping for!’ he says. There’s only one of him now.
‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary, though,’ says Amyll, continuing more quietly. ‘We’re all on the same side here.’
‘Are we?’ says Merlin, almost smiling. ‘Because I’m feeling a bit exposed. I know nothing about these people but they know where my fucking parents live.’
Amyll pouts. It doesn’t seem to be an affectation. ‘I could tell you a bit about what we can all do? Most of it’s self-explanatory, but there’s our senses and all that?’
Merlin quirks an eyebrow, and Amyll takes it as a sign to continue.
‘Well, I’ll start with me. You already know about my “fabrication”; I can copy objects and, uh, automatons I guess. I’m an Incubus. And my special sense is that I can smell how old things are. It’s sort of niche, but it might come in handy if there are dragons, huh?’
Merlin nods slowly.
Amyll smiles. ‘You’re wondering about the Incubus-Succubus-gender-roles, right?’
‘I wasn’t going to ask.’
‘No, but everyone wonders if it’s their first time meeting someone like me, because of stuffy conservative shit like the Malleus Maleficarum. The word “Incubus” is literally derived from “to lie upon” in Latin; “Succubus” is “to lie beneath”, which automatically became “male” and “female” because Henricus Institor was an incel with a tradwife fetish.’
‘He… uh, what?’
‘Anyway! Phency at the front there is a Nightmare.’
‘He does seem like a bit of a mess.’
‘No, like a horse demon. Though you’re right, he is a mess. I’m not a hundred percent sure about his sense. I think he can hear if something is flammable? As for Rembra there, she—’
‘We’ve met.’
‘Oh. Well then! That just leaves Caesura, who as I’m sure you’ve surmised isn’t a Demon at all. She’s here because of her facility for breaking things.’
Merlin nods again. ‘What about Benzene? What’s his sixth sense?’
Amyll pushes her glasses up her nose. ‘Now that I don’t know. I don’t even know what kind of Demon he is. He keeps it pretty close to the chest. All I know is that he’ll assemble a crew, pull off a job, and then move on.’
‘Any sort of reputation for letting his crews take the fall for him?’ Merlin asks, finding that Amyll can’t look him in the eye.
‘I mean… I don’t think he’d be able to recruit people if that were the case.’
‘In this economy?’
There’s a bump as the bus pulls into a service station.
‘Alright, you crazy kids,’ announces Benzene. ‘Everybody get your ablutions out of the way, pick up some snacks if you want. This is our last stop before we get there.’
Still mulling over the conversation with Amyll, Merlin alights from the bus with his Dad.
‘Oh, I meant to say, Sam,’ says Albar, scratching at his beard. ‘I was impressed with you bypassing the wards I put on the engine before! This is like the first time you beat me at chess all over again.’
Merlin gazes at his shoes, suddenly sheepish. ‘I’ve never beaten you at chess, Dad.’
His father laughs. ‘No? Well, you’ve come close. Listen… I know I said before we should just go with it, for your Mum’s sake, but—do you have a plan? Do you think you could take these guys?’
‘…Not all at once. Look I’m not stupid, there’s no way I’m going to risk… you know. Right now the plan is just to go along with things, and track this lot down later.’
Albar seems satisfied with that, and goes to re-ward the engines. Ursa and Nora seem satisfied with it too, when Merlin regroups with them.
They lean against a wall, drinking coffee. Nora has somehow managed to convince a barista to pull 13 shots of espresso for her in one cup, and has replaced her swaying with a mild tremor. It’s probably an improvement.
‘I’m not going to say sorry about all this,’ adds Merlin. ‘I mean, the two of you literally shot at the bus and barged in without asking. But, uh. I am grateful.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Sam,’ says Nora, briskly.
‘Yeah, you don’t have to thank us,’ Ursa agrees. ‘Frankly I’d want that Benzene guy to get his comeuppance even if you weren’t involved personally. The guy’s a jackass.’
‘A bell end,’ agrees Nora. ‘Where is he now?’
Merlin cranes his neck towards the car park. ‘He’s doing the check in on my Mother,’ he says. ‘Presumably. He’s on his phone at any rate. His eyes are lit up.’
It’s true. Merlin watches Benzene pacing back and forth. He doesn’t seem to be talking, but listening, and his eyes are red and glowing. He must be using whatever mysterious sense he’s got.
‘You know,’ says Ursa, in the casual tones of one about to suggest a murder, ‘If we were to get his phone, I could copy him again, voice included. We can bypass the check-ins. Hypothetically, I mean.’
Merlin is still watching Benzene. He sees him laugh at whatever he’s listening to.
‘Maybe,’ says Merlin. ‘Might still be a bit risky. What if there’s a password?’
‘I’ll keep an ear out,’ says Ursa. ‘Maybe I should text Alkahest, actually? He might know a bit about the guy. If he routinely gets his crews killed, for example.’
Merlin sniggers. ‘You don’t need our permission to text your Demon boyfriend, Ursa.’
‘He’s not my Demon boyfriend he’s my Demon fiancé.’
Nora takes one last gulp of her hyperdense coffee and neatly tosses it into a nearby bin. ‘There is another potential route we could take. This convention is a Draconic thing, right?’
The others tilt their heads.
‘We could just alert them about the thieves in their midst.’
‘And then we get caught and Benzene has my mother killed,’ says Merlin. ‘It’s an unconventional approach, Nora, but go on.’
Nora shows him her middle finger, but continues. ‘I don’t mean telling everyone and blowing our cover. I just mean that… maybe there’ll be a Dragon there that we have a pre-established working relationship with.’
Ursa shakes her head. ‘No, Laniakea won’t be attending after all that business with the Infernomicon. That’s literally our cover story.’
‘I’m not talking about Laniakea. I’m talking about someone else we… I have a rapport with. On account of my name being in their records.’
Ursa frowns, but then her eyes go wide. ‘You don’t mean… you didn’t…?’
‘Nora,’ says Merlin, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Are you telling us that when you went to meet with Mr. Pyrite, and you were telling us what happened afterwards, you neglected to mention that you gave him your True Name?’
‘Hey, you asked if I signed his book and I told you he wanted me to.’
‘Yes, your refusal was implicit in that statement!’
‘Anyway, since I have that working relationship… maybe if we find him, he’d agree to help us out. We can make it worth his while.’
‘I’m not giving him my name,’ says Ursa, vehemently.
‘Maybe we offer him whatever the loot we’re after is, then, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. If we get his backing I bet we can turn the tables, you know?’
Merlin still hasn’t looked up. ‘Maybe? Maybe. I’d still prefer to wait until after my Mother’s safe before we kick any hornet’s nests. But you’re right, someone influential on the inside having our backs might give us some wiggle room.’
Finally, he looks back out at Benzene, who grins and beckons them back to the bus. ‘For when he eventually betrays us, I mean,’ adds Merlin.
⁂
The sun has fully risen by the time they arrive at the convention centre, though with the morning mist it has to try quite hard to light the whole sky. Their bus was indeed one of the first ones there, and once a sufficient queue of Dragons and their entourages develops, Bezene sends a group to reconnoiter dress code, entry wrist bands, and general security around the entrance.
Said group consists of Merlin, Nora, and Ursa, as well as Rembra to ensure there’s no “funny business”.
‘So,’ says Merlin, as casually as he can manage given the circumstances. ‘What’s it like working with Benzene?’
Rembra grunts. ‘Well, he’s a bastard, but he gets shit done.’
Merlin grumbles. No news there. ‘Do you know what his extra sense is?’
This gets a snort in response. ‘Actually, Merlin, I do. Heard him tell Caesura about it, to keep her from doing anything stupid. Doubt that’d persuade her though. Borscht instead of brains, if you catch my drift.’
Merlin waits politely for her to continue. She, of course, does not; instead, she just leers at him.
‘Oh no, I’m not going to tell you what it is, you lil scamp! It’s funnier if you don’t know.’
‘I wasn’t joking before,’ says Merlin, hissing through his teeth. ‘When I said I’d wipe you out.’
‘Oh, I know. You aren’t the joking type.’
The entrance is mostly what they expected; a set of cameras, bag scanners, and an electronic list of invitations. Dress is formal for security teams, with their Draconic protectees invariably more ostentatious, though ranging from red carpet to Final Fantasy end boss in their conspicuity. Guests are given a yellow wristband.
There’s also a rough-hewn monolith in a vaguely threatening archway shape, giving the impression of the full-body scanners in any given airport. Runes and sigils cross its inner surface, lighting up as a guest walks under them.
‘I can get us onto the electronic list,’ says Merlin. ‘The magical scanner, though…’
‘Will stop working when Caesura gets within thirty feet,’ finishes Rembra. ‘Right. We’re heading back.’
She turns, and the others trudge along in her wake. Ursa in particular is barely paying attention; instead, she’s typing on her phone.
Hey, hope you’re doing ok! I’m out late tonight with Nora!
Merlin is also here!
Oh shit! Lemme know if you need collecting; I finally got the car sorted out. No more driving that roller skate we had to use at Strych’s 🏁
Maybe hang fire on that for now. But I might need it soon? I’ll keep you posted!
Rembra goes all rigid, like a cat that’s spotted a bird that’s somehow holding a gun. ‘Hide!’ she hisses, and ducks through the nearby queue despite the vaguely affronted reactions of the Dragons within it.
Merlin, hearing her panic, sprints away from the building and skids under the nearest bus. Nora, who is currently grappling with a sleepless hangover, and Ursa, who is picking out a variety of emojis on her phone, attempt to hide by standing where they are in a casual fashion.
A hand comes down on Nora’s shoulder. It’s faintly green. Nora turns to see Laniakea, who is attending the event despite her loss of status. Adagio is with her.
‘You,’ says Laniakea. ‘Why are you here.’
Nora looks around as if a helicopter might magically appear and whisk her away to safety. ‘Uh. Uh. We’re part of your security team!!’
Laniakea blinks. Somehow, she believes her.
‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Your Director Brynner is a generous man. This way, then.’
She doesn’t wait for them to follow, instead walking over to the bus with Merlin under it. ‘And where is the small, impudent one. He wears a hat?’
‘Oh, Merlin is, uh…’ begins Nora, only for Adagio behind her to lean down and point.
‘He’s under the bus, Lania. What are you doing under there, Merlin?’
‘I’ve, er…’ tries Merlin, wriggling out from his hiding place, before giving up on anything convincing. ‘I’ve lost my marbles,’ he finishes, sounding more resigned than anything.
Adagio just nods, sagely, as if this makes any sense at all.
As they get on the bus, the last thing Nora sees is Rembra emerging from the queue. Her face is scrunched up in that universal what-the-fuck kind of way.
Nora just gives her a thumbs up, and the door closes behind her.
Roll History 