As the weeks pass, we see the cream rise to the top. Who puts the working man first? Who refuses to accept donations from corrupt Houses? Who pledges to bring the fight to the Conclave?

Guildsmaster Reed – that’s who!

Reed reclined in his chair, regarding the Redeemer witch with a jaundiced eye. “You ask for so little?”

Lace weathered his glare with a straight back and folded hands. Her silver gown spilled over the tiny stool so that she appeared to float, prim and proper, in the middle of his office.

“Are my terms unacceptable?” she asked, her expression as schooled as any governess.

Two of Reed’s favored watched from the shadows. Thomas and Trent were seniors of the Masonry Guild, though neither knew how to wield a hammer against anything that didn’t bleed. They had followed Reed when Lumia was a swampy pothole, and they remained loyal where so many others faltered.

They would kill Lace if Reed so much as caught a cold. A witch could never truly be trusted, after all.

The Guildsman drummed his fingers, letting his gaze drift across his trophies – buck, bison, tiger. Greatest of all, an elemental serpent hung by cords from the ceiling, its fangs still bared.

Reminders of mortality for the guests who squirmed on the hard, little stool before him.

“No, it is easily done. You could be appointed by noon of the day after my confirmation,” he drawled. What would be her next move? A little provocation couldn’t hurt. “But why the Cathedral of Fire? There are faster routes to the heart of the church. I happen to know an Inquisitor of frightening skill…”

Threat and offer by equal measure.

“The Cathedral of Fire,” Lace replied firmly. “The Inquisition plays too many games.”

Perhaps she meant to integrate her cult into the church itself. How much more powerful could the witches become if they no longer operated under the threat of heresy? The Keeper of the Flame would rub elbows with all of high society while maintaining little in the way of actual responsibilities. An advantageous position from which she might spread her acolytes far and wide.

A sensible plan, he thought, but far too slow. Years of toil for her precious cult, and a single Inquisitor could prove her doom.

Then again, the witch was a small-minded woman. She only assumed ownership of her little family after the previous owner fled the country, and her control of the Redeemers was more a matter of inertia than spine. Even in this city of opportunity, she sought to attach herself to a powerful man. Reasonable dreams for a reasonable woman.

A pity that Reed was a visionary.

“Very well,” he agreed. “You shall be the Keeper of the Flame. You have my word.”

Lace inclined her head. “Thank you.”

He knew more about her coven than she did, catalogued and alphabetized. Yet still the paranoid itch tickled at the back of his neck…

Trent dipped from the room for a moment and returned to whisper a message into Reed’s ear. “Our evening guests are ready. Should I kick the witch out?”

“No,” Reed replied. “She is our ally and deserves our full trust.”

Lace inclined her head again, expression placid. Some lies were too obvious to call.

Thomas pointed the witch to a corner, grabbed the stool, and crossed the room to flank Reed. A moment later, Trent fetched the guests.

Two accountants entered the luxurious office, glancing at the dead trophies with apprehension.

“Please forgive the lack of seating,” Trent offered, plopping on the stool in the free corner.

The duo grimaced together and shuffled to the center of the room. One glanced at the serpent looming overhead and swallowed.

What’s the problem, boys? Reed smirked. Heresy only counts if its alive.

“House Curia. House Eide. What matter may I help you with this evening?” Guildsmaster Reed asked, projecting his basso rumble like a weapon. He couldn’t have said which man served which House, and he did not care.

“You know what this is about!” the first man sputtered, clutching his hat in his fists. “Why have the Guilds demanded payment on the Van Buren accounts? Every installment has been quite prompt!”

Guildsmaster Reed settled into his recliner to play the game as demanded. “The Van Buren accounts?” he feigned.

“Yes, the Van Buren accounts! This financial chicanery risks our production schedule, and every moment we delay our competitors grow stronger!”

“Oh, those Van Buren accounts. Yes, your House was quite fortuitous to snag import rights for that entire product line,” the Guildsman agreed. “It required quite a substantial down payment to the rock thumpers down south, didn’t it?”

The accountant reddened in fury. “Do not pretend ignorance on this matter. It is hardly a secret that you have ordered your goons to call our debts in retaliation for House Curia’s open support of Father Lucas in the election!”

Straight to the chase, then. Just as well. I’m getting hungry.

Reed leaned forward, squeezing his meaty fists together. “I fail to see the connection. Guild contracts stipulate that payment may be advanced in the event that a House is thought to be insolvent. Am I incorrect in this?”

Thought to be insolvent. Ah, the wonders of weasel words.

“Interference in the Conclave process is punishable by–”

“Then are we not lucky that the election is not a Conclave process?” Reed interjected, baring a smile. “Indeed, they went to great pains to distance themselves from the entire proceedings.”

“You cannot simply intimidate us so easily!”

“Do you dispute your accounts?” Reed demanded, rising to his feet.

The second accountant stepped forward, puffed with a veneer of courage. “This is clearly an attempt to influence the Conclave. We have a vote this Monday!”

Which meant the vote tax…and dissolution for any House unable to pay.

Reed held out his hand, and Thomas deposited a fresh newspaper. “I see here that House Curia and House Eide are both forecast to suffer liquidity problems in the next weeks and months due to poor Harvest results. Am I to allow these Houses to renege on our contracted agreements?”

Liquidity problems that the vast majority of Houses faced, and a rumor in a paper that Reed owned.

The first accountant hurled his hat to the floor. “This is blackmail, pure and simple, and House Curia will not be cowed by such a blatant act of disrespect by a commoner!”

Reed lowered his voice to a growl. “Then I anticipate full payment in the morning with legal action to follow.”

The second accountant staggered. “Your man said we had until the end of week!”

“Yes. You did.”

“The Conclave will hear of this!” the first vowed. He shook his finger valiantly, but sweat ran from his temples in little rivers.

“The Conclave will hear how insolvent Houses refused to pay their legal debts to the tradesmen and laborers who built this nation? I look forward to it.”

Pay and die before the vote tax. Balk, and I will drown you in lawyers.

The snobbish elite squeezed the innocent working man for every silver while stiffing their own creditors!

Actually, he might run that story even if they paid. Nobles thought of the city the same way as pigeons: just a place to deposit their crap.

“Now get out of my office!” he bellowed, rattling the windows.

The second one began to stutter, “But I have not –”

“Out!”

Thomas and Trent shoved the House accountants from the office, and Reed returned to his recliner for a cigar.

Lace fetched the abandoned hat from the floor, flipped it, and ran a finger along the brim.

“Going to curse him with his own hair?” the Guildsman asked, puffing smoke.

“A nice hat,” she replied. “Worth a week’s wages. Shame to waste it.”

“Do your pets have my intel?”

“I cannot say; they cannot enter. You have blooded the grounds of your estate against them.”

“With good cause,” he sniffed. “I know exactly what those little buggers can do.”

The witch smiled. “Of course. I will have your reports delivered in person, then.”

“Speaking of the blood wards, I require a list of every House with wards.” He already knew, of course, but he could compare the reports to see who she left off. Where she accepted her bribes.

“Anything else?” She twirled the hat on her fingers, but stopped short of raising her arms to place it on her head.

Given a collar that tight, lass, I’m amazed you can raise your arms at all.

“No, but you are to inform me as soon as your packages arrive. I look forward to their performance.”

Given how much he was paying, he expected them to bedazzle the entire city.

“Very well.” She dipped into a curtsy and took her leave.

He finished his cigar in silence. Then he dismissed his Livery servants, waited ten minutes, and checked every room in his mansion just to be sure.

The Livery Guild would share the wall with the nobility when he received his due. Those little miscreants knew how to remain just useful enough to continue breathing, and that game grew tiresome.

Finally, he dismissed Thomas and Trent, letting them take the car.

With the lights dimmed, the golden glow of the noble hill bled through the windows. Their electric lights blotted out the stars. For now.

Reed returned to his office, locked the door, drew the curtains, and threw the secret switch behind his token bookshelf. Then, he descended the stone stairs to his private study.

A man waited in his chair, sipping tea. Short, scrawny, olive skinned and dark haired, he glanced up at the Guildsman and smiled with crooked teeth. “All done then?”

“You had nowhere else to be,” Guildsmaster Reed told the spy.

The punishment for consorting with foreign agents was a hanging with the dawn. The rewards, though…

“Then shall we speak on business?” the little man asked.

Reed contemplated reclaiming his study chair from the agent of Moros, but better to let the spy have his petty displays. The Guildsmaster was not yet the greater power in this room. “Yes. You have promised me contacts.”

“Indeed. My masters are familiar with a number of like-minded individuals in Lumia.”

Theologically speaking, Moros blamed Ruhum for deicide. Every other tribe had a god, and Moros did not. That had to be someone’s fault, after all.

More importantly, Moros believed that Lumia basked in material prosperity in need of radical redistribution. Both men in this room knew that was a bounty that the Conclave would never share.

“Rabble-rousing college students are not of interest.”

“Indeed,” the spy agreed. “But you are not a college student writing a controversial paper. Your gifts these last months have convinced my benefactors that your intentions are serious.”

They had best. I spent a Guild’s fortune on them.

“Thus, we are willing to make available to you a number of cultivated resources. Individuals of some clout who have proven their disaffection for the establishment.”

“Do these men have the stomach to stir the pot? I won’t have bluster, not for what I’m paying.”

“They can be suitably encouraged.”

Guildsmaster Reed committed to high treason. “Then encourage them.”

Here was a true gamble. A man of his middle age and common blood could aspire no higher than Guildsmaster. Unofficially, he controlled two thirds of the Guilds and half the businesses in Lumia, yet unofficial control left him no better than a scullery maid before the Conclave.

In the Ruhum of ancient Houses, he was condemned to remain a servant.

Yet Reed saw the Inventors at work, and he asked, Why does progress stop at pots and pans?

The nobles grew weak, drained of cash and weakened by their war of attrition. They didn’t wash their own clothes or harvest their own grain. In every facet of life, they depended on their Guilds.

This was their weakest hour. It was an opportunity that should not be squandered.

In time, victors would emerge in the House war. The hour of opportunity would pass, the emboldened victors would carve the country into fiefdoms, and the Guilds would be crushed like rodents underfoot.

The election was the key. Guildsmaster Reed, martyr and savior in equal measure! Let his legion of newspapers extol his virtues so that all Lumia might know that he cared for the common man!

Three cheers to the foolish sod who engineered this election. When I am king, I might even buy them a drink.

The Moros provocateur smiled. “They shall be encouraged. The Houses will tremble.”

“Weakened, not killed.”

A dead House fed the survivors. A cluster of weak Houses dragged down their fellows.

“That is agreeable.” The spy stood. “I believe this will prove very profitable, Guildsmaster Reed. Thank you for your time.”

Reed crossed his arms. “See yourself out. I have other business waiting.”

He was a busy man, after all.

Kingmakers usually were.

***

A furtive imp shoved his rotund head through the wrought iron fence that surrounded the estate of House Visage. A true veteran of the field, the five-year-old imp easily dodged smelly men and their hated dogs. The beasts sniffed after his trail, but he lurked in the astral realm, safe from their slobbering reach.

This imp was such a decorated veteran that he even owned a name!

Dimples was named for the furrows on either end of his maw, grooves worn by chomping on hunks of meat as large as his head. Fresh marrow was his favorite, and his expertise in infiltration was for the sole purpose of obtaining more.

When Dimples was not on missions, his favorite activities included long prowls in the astral, lurking out of reach of predators, and eating everything that fit into his unhinged jaw.

He held his breath while the dogs sniffed around. His lungs began to ache, but still he waited.

Finally, the last mutt trotted away, and Dimples jerked back into the living realm. He sucked in a fresh breath of air, listened intently, and then scurried through the fancy gardens. There were humans everywhere, and he kept to the shelter of the shrubbery. From between the leaves, he glimpsed at the feasts that awaited human hands.

Only a lifetime of tortured training kept him from leaping onto the tablecloth and raiding the scallops.

Why did humans cook things? Meat was so much better fresh.

Preoccupied, the imp collided with a cat in the bushes.

The cat hissed, hackles bristling.

Scallops or no, Dimples leaped back into the safety of the astral! An angry cat was far more dangerous than the shadows of dreams and ghosts that haunted the astral for humans!

The echoes whispered into his ear, but they offered only illusions. Their words were too complex for his thimble-sized brain and too ephemeral for his cavernous stomach.

His breath ran out soon enough, and he reappeared beneath the mansion windows. Wonderful aromas leaked from within, but too many humans and too many lights guarded those treasures.

Dimples scrambled up the masonry in a shower of flakes to a higher window. Here, the lights were red and sultry, and the curtains revealed the passage of women dressed in little more than suggestions. Disinterested, the imp scampered to the third floor, dark and quiet. Now this was an imp’s entryway!

Wiggling his haunches, he shifted into the astral and leaped forward.

He smashed against the glass.

Squawking in annoyance, he poked at the glass. It was quite solid.

Sniffing, he quested for blood on the panes, but there was none to scrape off.

Next, Dimples unhinged his jaw and gnawed on the panes, but it only hurt his teeth.

If he could not get inside, he would not be fed fresh marrow!

Growling, he retreated to the second floor, rattled on the glass, and mewed in his best impersonation of a cat. A sick, snarling, rabid, dying cat.

Still, the people inside danced through dreams, and one flicked open the window to let in the…cat.

The activities within would have given a tabloid journalist a paroxysm of joy. A man of some repute sashayed across the carpets in black high heels, serving drinks and winks in equal measure. A woman of less repute taught a teenaged noble boy how to huff tantalizing powders. The guests traded pleasures and favors, and no one asked for names.

This was House Visage, the pleasure House where no stories ever surfaced the next day.

Droll fantasies for droll men, drunk on their little powers, whispered a lullaby that lurked just beneath the commotion. Little monarchs with libertine fantasies of sex and heresy.

This is the House Visage they wish to see.

What of you, little skulker?

Dimples wanted the fancy papers that he offered to the witches in exchange for more meat.

So it was the prostitutes and noble men parted, the perfect opening to the higher floor.

The imp scurried between the legs of a drunk alderman, squeezed through the door to the stairs, and raced up the narrow stairs to the forbidden third floor. At the top of the stairs, he found a workshop that dominated almost half the floor, freshly constructed and piled with bodies.

He froze in place, but the bodies were dead metal. Limbs sorted by size; heads mounted on stands; naked torsos swinging by hooks.

What a waste. All these corpses, and not even a finger worth eating!

Dimples clambered onto the tables and poked at everything. His fingers jabbed against a pane of glass, and the screen flared to life. He squawked in annoyance and jabbed repeatedly; each impact revealed a new set of schematics and notes. The secrets within could grant man the stars, tame the weather, order the seas, cure old age, and master flesh itself…

But none of them rustled like fancy papers.

Next, he tried chewing on the edge of the tablet. There could be papers inside the shell like the goo inside a beetle! Instead, he bit into the battery and received a sharp jolt for his trouble.

This way, little skulker, whispered the music, though there was no radio on the third floor.

Spitting, Dimples followed the tug across the laboratory and into the living hallway.

The last door was open for him.

The bedroom beyond hummed quietly with music and swirled with lilac. The furniture was old and scratched, hardly appropriate for a noble Lady, and a row of well-worn stuffed animals watched atop the faded dresser.

Mirielle read on her bed, ankles crossed and hair left loose. The demon of indulgence wore an old pair of pajamas and hardly glanced from her tome. “Ah, there you are. I thought I felt a different dream amongst tonight’s hedonism.”

Dimples leaped into the astral realm.

She watched with polite interest. “There is no food in this realm, little skulker.”

At her gesture, he became aware of the succulent temptation of freshly baked rump roast, waiting for him on a silver tray in the physical world.

Dimples shook his head in confusion. An imp did not reach ripe old age without an instinct for wariness.

“Eat your fill, skulker.”

The Redeemers never let him taste rump roast. Only rotted leftovers…

“Aren’t you hungry?”

His stomach warred with his sense, and his stomach won. Phasing back into the physical realm, he carefully prowled around the edge of the room towards the silver tray.

Mirielle finished her chapter.

Once sure she was suitably distracted, Dimples dashed onto the table, poked the meat, and waited for attack.

She smiled.

Dimple’s resistance caved, and he fell on the rump roast in a fury of teeth.

“They always starve their imps,” the demon mused. She slipped from the bed and stroked his bald, lumpy head with one finger.

Her touch sent earthquakes of pleasure through his primitive mind.

“This is called petting,” she murmured. “Witches rarely bother with it.”

The plate was empty. Why was the plate empty?

“Imps are fodder in this world.”

Dimples burped.

Mirielle scooped the languid imp into her arms. Normally such sudden contact would warrant a savage mauling, but Dimples found he simply did not desire such a thing. Not for the woman who offered him meat and petting.

“Your world is hunger, pain, and war,” she mused. “Your little mind shackled to such limited possibilities.”

The demon spoke to him, but her eyes drifted to the city beyond her window.

“You do not even realize you can dream of more.”

Raising a hand, she conjured forth a new dream for the imp. A bottle of warm milk condensed in her hand, and she popped the nipple between his sharp teeth.

He suckled by instinct, and the taste that flooded his mouth was ambrosia of the gods. In all his little life, he had never imagined such sweetness! For this goddess that offered such gifts, he stared with wide and adoring eyes.

“Yes, little skulker,” the demon purred. “We can conquer pain. Everything you need is right here.”

He melted in her arms, delirious with pleasure.

Without a knock, Thea entered the bedroom, a tablet between her fingers. Livery black swishing, she paused at the sight of an imp suckling in her companion’s arms. “…again?”

“We are popular this season,” Mirielle agreed, jogging Dimples.

“And what has this one gotten into?” the demon muttered. She awoke another shell, and a silver doll in her workshop slid from its table. One armed, one eyed, this body surveilled the laboratory and found the mauled tablet, now leaking battery acid.

“Anything irreplaceable?” Mirielle asked.

“A tablet.” In the bedroom, Thea handed her device to Mirielle, and she spoke of more important news. “As anticipated, Alva had allied with the Redeemers. Their spies delivered the first schematics to him an hour ago.”

Mirielle used one finger to scroll down the display. “Hm. He will have to talk quite fast to sell these as his own.”

“Desperation. He sinks.”

“A pity. He had the genius to match Nova but not the temperance. We have no need for drunkards.”

There were plenty more waiting where Alva came from.

Thea shrugged.

Dimples burped.

“This will be a good excuse to whittle the ranks,” the demon of indulgence mused. “Let them steal from each other. Let a few fall from grace. We wouldn’t want the rest to forget the schedule, would we?”

“Production delays continue to be a problem, especially inside the Plateau. It is too lucrative to manufacture delays. Given Novia’s state of health, I recommend we open a source of competition.”

“Ah, yes. The rutile mine.” Mirielle smirked. “Open the gates, dear. Let the angels have their money.”

Thea arched an eyebrow, her other features placid.

“Yes, Alisandra will benefit. Don’t give me that look.”

Thea lowered the eyebrow and offered a new document on the tablet.

Mirielle scowled at the information within. “Reed is a daring man…”

“Are we within tolerance?” Thea asked.

“Too late for the pebbles to vote, dear.”

“The avalanche rumbles from every quarter.”

Mirielle thought a moment. “You have a point. Let us stay ahead of the rocks, then. Would you like to see to matters, or shall the Lady Visage grant a few private audiences?”

“Allocating resources,” Thea responded, curtsying.

The demon of indulgence reached forward, interrupting the dip with a finger to Thea’s silver lips.

“I am fully capable of handling the matter,” the demon doll said.

“I know you are, dear,” Mirielle agreed, finger still pressed firm.

“Then your objection is?”

“We are going to make this world a better place, Thea,” the demon of indulgence affirmed. “Together.”

Partners in crime, united by a whispered dream.

The demon doll curtsied once more, and only someone who knew her intimately would recognize the subtle flourish to her step.

Mirielle released Thea to her duty. Alone with the imp once more, the demon smiled wryly.

“Everyone has needs, little skulker. Everyone has pains. Even our quiet, lonely Thea.”

How the pains echoed, day and night...

“Is there not plenty, skulker? Why should we suffer so?”

Why should the fruits of Eden remain locked away in the Archangel’s moldy library? Why should man suffer dysentery and polio when vaccines could be grown? Why should man spend weeks on a ship when a simple flight would suffice?

If God’s design was for man to suffer, then Mirielle would stand against the heavens.

She would bring them comfort in this harrowing place.

“And if hypocrites who pretend to mortality brand me a demon for my actions, who is Mirielle Mishkan to care?”

The demon caught herself, chagrined, and felt her music hitch. Downstairs, dreams of bliss stuttered, and noble playthings briefly wondered at their role in her grand design.

“Mirielle Visage,” she corrected, strengthening her song. “Names are too important to neglect.”

Dimples blinked in blissful ignorance. Warm and fed, petted and held, he could not conceive of anywhere else in the entire universe he wished to be.

“Alice understood,” the demon muttered wistfully.

The beautiful woman continued to speak, but Dimples tuned out. He was full; it was time to sleep.

Soon, Mirielle carried the imp through the halls. She found one door among many and opened the way to a dark and humid den full of low cots.

A dozen other imps slept unmoving in the dark.

“Welcome home, little skulker,” Mirielle sang. “Free at last to dream.”

Dimples felt himself sinking into the light and warmth, and he could think of no reason to fight its pull.

Mirielle deposited the imp on an empty cot.

“Yes, little skulker. No more pain.”

Dimples surrendered to bliss, and he sank into his final dream.

***

Thomas and Trent, professional goons par excellence, drove with the abandon of men above the law. They enjoyed the petty displays of power that came with flouting tickets from the constables and running wagons onto the sidewalks. They made full use of their Guild benefits: high salary, Novian car, numerous excuses to commit violence on people deserving or otherwise.

In short, they had it made.

Thomas drove tonight, roaring through the dark outskirts like a hellhound.

At such speeds, he had no time to react when a sharp corner revealed a woman calmly waiting in the middle of the road.

With more time, he might have noticed that the woman’s very flesh rippled with liquid metal.

Instead, he had just long enough to notice her casual disdain for the threat of impact.

The front end of the car slammed into her ribs and came to an abrupt halt.

Since neither man bothered with seatbelts, both briefly experienced human flight.

Thea pried her combat body from the wreck a moment later. She surveyed the scene, counting the pieces of Thomas and Trent smeared across the culvert.

“Messy.” She added a new note to her ever-expanding list of items: Mandatory seatbelt laws. Reiterate the important of traffic enforcement.

Several of her Livery bodies emerged from the shadows to clear the road. She dumped the corpses in a fresh grave, covered the turned dirt with a few patches of weeds, and rearranged the wreck to her liking.

Something less obviously fatal, perhaps.

There was an art to the crumple of steel and the angle of a broken axle. A story in the repainted skid marks and the dab of engine oil along the road. A sprinkling of broken glass would convince an inspector where a thousand-word essay would fail.

Satisfied with her work, Thea carried out her two newest dolls. Male, though she preferred to be a woman. Goons, though she found such work inelegant. Dimwits, of course, but that would save her the trouble of speaking often.

Just another role to be played. Mirielle played the vixen; Alisandra the dutiful daughter; Thea the help.

Like all angels, their faces concealed by the Light of the mantle they claimed.

When Thea finished, Thomas and Trent lay unconscious and battered for the next drivers to find on this darkened road.

God must surely have blessed the goons, for they would suffer no lasting injuries.