Chapter 20 – A Civil Conversation

“Congratulations on the win,” Eliza said, entirely unbothered by the homicidal energy radiating from the girl’s jaw. “You certainly live up to the name. Very dramatic. I enjoyed your performance against the Icebreaker. Resourceful.”

She gestured to the empty stretch of leather bench beside William.

“Sit down. Boxer, move over. You’re monopolising the booth.”

William shifted to the far end with the careful, measured movement of a man making room for something volatile. Alice didn’t move. She stood rooted at the edge of the table, her breathing controlled but heavy, the knuckles of her hanging hands still bone-white.

“I don’t understand,” Alice said. Her voice was flat, stripped of inflection, vibrating at a frequency that suggested the calm was costing her.

William blinked, glancing between them. “What—”

Alice ignored him. Her mask stayed fixed on Eliza’s porcelain.

“I said I don’t understand. You toyed with me. You forced me to fight, played with me like a cat with something half-dead, and then you just… forfeited.” She leaned forward and placed both hands on the edge of the table. The wood groaned. “What do you want from me?”

Eliza clapped her hands together once, a single sharp sound of genuine delight.

“Straight to business. I like that.”

She gestured again to the seat, the tone shifting from amused to instructional in the space between syllables.

“But before we get to the what, I think introductions are in order. And do sit down. You’re blocking the candlelight. It’s terribly rude.”

Alice hesitated. Then she lowered herself onto the far edge of the bench, her spine refusing the backrest, her body angled toward the exit like a bird that hasn’t decided whether to stay on the branch.

“Thank you,” Eliza said, with the warmth of a hostess welcoming a guest who had arrived at gunpoint. “I appreciate the cooperation. It saves everyone time.”

She lifted her wine glass in a loose, illustrative gesture. “I’m Sheltie. The nervous wreck beside you is Boxer, my partner for the evening.”

Then she leaned forward, a precise, practised degree, and let the lapel of her high-collared coat fall open by an inch.

The silver eye of the D.A.A. caught the candlelight. Cold. Authoritative. Unmistakable.

Alice stared at the badge.

Then she groaned. It was long, loud, and entirely undignified, the sound of a woman who had been bracing for a catastrophe and received a bureaucracy instead.

“Of course,” she muttered, squeezing her eyes shut. Her hands rose to rub her temples and clicked uselessly against the lacquer of her mask. She hissed through her teeth, dropped her hands, and slumped backward on the bench. The rigid tension that had been holding her upright simply left, like a rope cut. Her shoulders fell. Her spine conceded to the leather.

“You people,” she sighed. “Because today hasn’t been long enough.”

To anyone else in the Cellar—the smugglers, the fixers, the unregistered necromancers nursing their drinks—that badge would have been a death sentence. But Alice was registered, and while she didn’t have her documents on her right now, she was still legal. The D.A.A. didn’t mean chains; it meant forms.

It was annoying. It was absolutely the crowning indignity of a day that had included being trapped in a box of solidified air and punched at by a woman who could level buildings. But compared to the alternatives her panicked mind had assembled on the walk over here—a cult looking for a vessel, a syndicate settling a score, a serial killer with excellent taste in masks—the government was practically a gift.

“So,” Alice said, opening her eyes. The panic was gone. In its place was a flat, depleted candour. “Am I under arrest?”

“We are in the Cellar, Miss Dragonslayer,” Eliza said. “Imperial law has difficulty penetrating these walls. We are both merely patrons enjoying the amenities.” She swirled the wine. “I am not here to arrest you. I am here for a conversation.”

“A conversation,” Alice repeated. She looked at the lounge around them—the high-rollers still radiating malice from every adjacent table, the woman in emeralds whose stare could have stripped paint. “Here? In the open? Everyone in this room is looking at us like we burned their village. We are comfortably the most despised people in the building. And you want to discuss sensitive business with an audience?”

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Eliza didn’t look around. She raised one hand and snapped her fingers.

“Boxer.”

William exhaled—a slow, controlled breath, the kind that precedes something practised. He placed one gloved hand flat on the table and let his gaze soften into middle distance.

The air around the booth tightened. A dry, prickling static crawled across Alice’s skin, and then the world tilted. Not physically, but acoustically, as though someone had pressed a pillow over the ears of reality. The roar of the pit, the clink of glasses at the bar, the angry murmurs drilling into their backs—all of it vanished. Not into silence, exactly, but into a thick, pressurised hush, as if the booth had been submerged in deep water.

“Don’t worry,” Eliza said, her voice landing crisp and close within the bubble. “Nothing gets in. More importantly, nothing gets out.”

Alice looked past the shimmer at the edge of the field. Near the bar, a waiter dropped a tray of glasses. She saw the shatter, saw the shards scatter across the floor, saw his mouth shape a curse. Heard nothing.