The light fell on no less than a dozen men and women in deplorable conditions, chained to the wall and half-starved. The room smelled of every fluid a body could produce, and some of the prisoners were sitting in their own filth.

Bruises, sores and despair.

Nadia ran a critical eye over the slaves, who looked up at her hopefully. They were each wearing a gag, making their pitiful moans more annoying than informative.

Let’s see, mostly Gadveran from the most recent war. No one above third Break, judging by the size of their shackles.

“First question: You got proof of ownership?” Nadia asked, glancing around the room at the struggling people. She didn’t particularly care about their circumstances, other than that they indicated lord Troutman was very poor at managing his property.

“Second question: What the fuck?” She asked, motioning to the dead-eyed prisoners.

“I’m just going to come out and say this. You do understand that slaves are more valuable when they are fit to work, correct?”

“Ah, indeed. For your first question, yes, I have proof of ownership, and for your second question…” He glanced aside shiftily. “They are criminal slaves, working on the Shelf. Each one of them is guilty of violence and attempted escape, so we’re in the process of Humbling them.

“Oh?” Nadia asked, watching as phantom versions of herself knelt and freed the prisoners, visualizing their most pressing desires through the Lure eye inside her horns.

One of them wanted her to kill lord Troutman, but most of them just wanted to be free.

Nothing out of the ordinary there. what is strange is the gender divide. Of the twelv slaves, five of them were women.

“Troutman, do you know the per capita rate that female slaves attempt violent escape?”

“Umm…”

“Of course you don’t. You never had to take slave husbandry classes when you were twelve.” Most nobles didn’t bother with it, but her father thought she should see how the sausage was made, so to speak.

Now it was just another personality-defining scar on her psyche.

“Among female slaves, Nadia said, holding up a finger,” One in five thousand attempts violent escape, while for men, it’s closer to one in five. The vast majority of female attempted escape is non-violent.”

“So?”

“So, where are the other twenty-four thousand nine hundred and ninety five female slaves? Wandering around the city somewhere?” Nadia asked, giving troutman a wicked smile.

“I didn’t mean-“

“Right, these ones simply attempted to escape, and those ones were violent, right?” she asked, pointing between the men and the women.

“Yes, thank you for correcting me.”

Nadia’s eyes narrowed. Something about this whole situation was off. She scanned the room, noting the door to the servant’s entrance.

“My lady, you are late for your appointment with the mayor. Do you not wish to speak with him?”

“Mmm,” Nadia grunted, turning back to Troutman. If she didn’t do this now, her true intentions would be made public, and Nadia didn’t quite want that yet.

Royal Order

“Sleep.”

32/35 Bent remaining.

Troutman struggled against the Ability for a second before passing out.

She knelt beside his skull, fingers on his temple.

Memory Stitch.

31/35 Bent remaining.

Memory Stitch was the best memory wiping Abilities she possessed, because it blanked out the memory of waking up as well, then helped the victim patch together the blank spot in their recall, hiding its own presence.

The downside was it didn’t work on long-term memories. But for spot-removal of an incriminating memory, there was nothing better.

Nadia smiled faintly as she remembered the time she’d used it over and over to stuff herself on cookies from the royal baker, who didn’t remember giving her sweets.

Of course, I started getting chubby, and father killed her.

Not a single good memory wasn’t tainted by something.

Nadia stood and glanced at the slaves. She was tempted to take one with her and debrief them, but she didn’t want Troutman sounding the alarm.

Well, I don’t have to take one with me… Troutman was going to be out for another couple minutes, at least. She looked around for someone easy to talk to.

Not the gadverans, they’re probably pretty pissed.

She singled out an ilethan woman in the corner as the most likely to talk, knelt down by her and took her gag off.

“Please, please,” the woman started begging immediately, making Nadia’s hackles raise. Oftentimes begging was enjoyable, but in this case, it was just disappointing.

“Let me stop you right there,” Nadia said, booping the woman’s nose. “What I want from you isn’t pitiful begging, but a faithful recounting of your circumstances. What is Lord Troutman doing here?”

“I don’t know,” She said, tears running down her cheek. “I was working in the mansion just a week ago, and I spilt some ink on his jacket.” She broke down into sobs.

“They took me to prison and made me a debt slave. I’ve been here ever since! Please, let me go! They take away people, and they don’t come back.”

“Who’s they?”

She shook her head, sobbing. “I don’t know they wear hoods.”

“So…what do you know?” Nadia asked, growing impatient.

The black-haired woman gave her a panicked look, then started bawling.

“Okay, good talk,” Nadia said, mercilessly shoving the rag back in the former-servant’s mouth.

Stranger and stranger. A young, handsome lord didn’t need to resort to conning his servants into debt slavery in order to get a little ass. That was just the way the world worked.

And if this was his fetish, it would look different. Nadia knew what a sex-dungeon looked like. This was not one. There was no sexual component to this mistreatment.

So why? It didn’t really make sense from a money standpoint, either.

The anecdote about people being taken away didn’t mean much either. They could just be being moved. How would she know? She’d only been here a week. Nadia rose to her feet, stretching.

“You guys won’t tell on me, right?” Nadia asked, winking at the shackled, unwashed masses.

Realizing she was about to leave, the slaves shouted into their gags with muffled desperation.

Nadia ignored them, stepping over the moaning body of Troutman. He was starting come to, which meant it was time for Nadia to make herself scarce.

She stepped out of the manor and flew as stealthily as possible over to the Mayor’s house, alighting on the man’s porch.

***

As she’d expected, the mayor had someone deep clean his entire manor over the course of the afternoon. All the clutter and stench from before had been replaced with a refreshing floral scent.

They guided her to a quaint little dining room, where she listened and feigned interest in the Shelf, and the wonderful opportunities it represented. It was hard not to yawn after the fourth reiteration of all the benefits, the structural stability, the genius behind the idea, and so on.

It wasn’t until a servant brought out cookies that Nadia saw her opportunity.

“Are these cookies dusted with cinnamon?” Nadia demanded, Shaking the cookies in front of the mayor’s face.

“Um…Yes?”

“Do you know the pastry etiquette for the Royal family?” Nadia demanded.

“Ummm….”

“The nerve! Do you have any idea what the symbolism of cinnamon is!?” Nadia demanded, shoving it in his face.

She was fairly sure he didn’t, because if there was any, Nadia had no idea what it was.

“Putting cinnamon on cookies is the greatest insult you could possibly give,”

“Forgive me princess, my cook –“

“The cook!?” Nadia said, launching herself to her feet. “I must have words with your boorish chef.”

“Princess, wai-“

Ignoring the mayors words, Nadia stormed off down the hall, kicking the door of the kitchen open and strutting in. Inside, three chefs reeled away from Nadia’s sudden intrusion. A dumpy woman and two younger men.

“How long have you worked for the mayor?” Nadia demanded immediately, scanning the walls. No signs of removed chains.

“We were contracted for today only.” The dumpy woman said.

“Do you know anyone else who works here?”

The two younger men glanced at each other. They shared some of the woman’s features. Likely a local mom-and-pop catering business, then, and these were her heirs.

“There was a girl named Charlie, but she left town a month ago.”

“You personally saw her leave?” Nadia asked.

“Naw, old Harris said he saw her go.”

“Really?” Nadia asked, opening the door to the larder. She caught the faintest whiff of telltale B.O. in the chilly, food-packed room. She pulled one of the shelves forward an inch or two and peeked behind it, noting the gouge in the wall where chains had been riveted.

“Princess!” the mayor said, bursting into the kitchen as he caught up with her, face flushed.

Nadia clicked her tongue. She’d been moving inhumanly fast down the halls to get a couple extra seconds of alone time with the cooks.

“And if you EVER put cinnamon on a cookie again. I’ll find you!” Nadia shouted, rounding on the suddenly very confused young man and jabbing a finger into his chest.

“And believe me! It’ll be PLEASANT!” Nadia shouted into his face.

He frowned, trying to parse the difference between her words and her tone.

“I’ve finished correcting these ingrates for insulting the royal family. Life my father always says, you don’t punish ignorance, you correct it. Or exploit it. You know, depending on your needs.”

Which was ironic, because she’d exploited his ignorance of cookie etiquette.

“I…see. If you’re done, may I interest you in a scale model of the Shelf?” The mayor said.

Nadia muscled down a huge sigh, instead, putting on a business smile. “Of course. Let’s leave these plebians to their duty.

While the mayor’s back was turned, Nadia jammed the delicious confection into her mouth and choked back a groan of pleasure before giving the cooks a grateful wave and following the mayor.

…

She spent the rest of the evening feigning enthusiasm until night came and she was able to extricate herself.

When she arrived in her room, she spotted George sitting on her bed and leaning against the wall, bleeding from a gash on his arm that he was carefully sewing.

Nadia cleared her throat.

“Eh?” George grunted, glancing up at her.

“You’re bleeding on my sheets.”

“Tell ‘em it’s your time of the month,” he said, returning to his task.

“Remember where you are on my shit-list?” Nadia asked.

George grunted and stood up, sitting on the floor and resuming his task.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me how I got cut?” he asked.

“I’m fairly confident you’ll tell me whether or not I ask.

George broke into a grin.

“I suppose you’re right about that.” he said, wincing as the needle passed through his flesh. “I was asking around, I found the local sheriff has pretty deep ties to the mayor, and he has been subtly misdirecting and squashing investigations of missing persons for months.”

“Name of…Harris, I think,” George said, putting the final knot in his arm. “Once word of a nosy stranger got around, I got jumped in an alley. They think I’m dead.”

“I thought you were a Legend,” Nadia scoffed, glancing at his arm. Legends don’t get ‘jumped’.

“I’m not the fighting kind of Legend. Besides, you should see the other guy,” George muttered, cutting off the stitch with a knife.

“I heard about this Harris guy today, too,” Nadia said, musing. “Said a girl left town.”

“Total guar shit. They’re selling it to anyone who’ll buy it. Keeping people calm as they disappear them one at a time. this Harris guy is doing all the mayors footwork. We can crack him like an egg, and secrets will spill out.”

“But why would they need to disappear their own people?” Nadia asked aloud with a frown. “They already have the Gadverans.”

“Gadverans?” George asked with a frown. “ I haven’t seen any anywhere, slaves or otherwise. Where did you find them?”

“Troutman’s mansion. I think all the nobles of the city have got a pen of slaves tied up in their homes for some reason or other. Most of them were Gadveran.

“Most of them?” George asked, frowning. “Brennoth should have barely any Gadveran slaves. Iletha didn’t get any in the last two conflicts with Gadvera, so where could they have come from?”