Jet stood outside the ice cream shop, his arms crossed. Gideon wandered out lazily, eating a bowl of ice cream. “Huh? Jet? What’re you doing here?”

Jet narrowed his eyes. “You…”

“Went off to get some ice cream. What, am I not allowed to get a snack while you’re doing your all-important duties? That I’m not allowed to attend?”

“Gideon…” Jet said warningly.

“Oh! You want some? Jet, why didn’t you say so? Hold up.” Gideon turned about-face and headed back for the ice cream shop.

Gideon caught him by the jacket. “Come on. The commander wants to see you.”

“I don’t want to see him anymore, so that’s that,” Gideon replied.

“You don’t have an option.”

Gideon smirked. “What? Is he not going to pay me if I don’t go? Oh, wait…”

“Gideon…”

“Wait… is he going to pay me if I do go see him?” Gideon asked, putting a hand to his chin. “Is he the guy who can decide if I get paid?”

“That’s something you and he can negotiate,” Jet said noncommittally.

“Oh, so he is. Jet… why didn’t you say that in the first place? Actually, why’d you leave me outside the place if you wanted me to go inside after all?” Gideon asked, giving Jet a look.

Jet sighed.

He shook his head. “Jet, Jet, you’ve been back and forth all day. Go, don’t go, visit him, don’t visit him… what’s a man supposed to think? You being all catty like this, it’s going to give people the wrong impression…”

“What wrong impression?” Jet snapped. “Anyways, I haven’t been going back and forth. I haven’t wanted to bring you to him from the start, but you temporarily tricked me into it. I still don’t want to—”

Jet paused. Okay, I do want him to meet Gideon a little, now. But only so he, too, gets to experience the suffering that is Gideon.

“Still don’t want to?” Gideon prompted, tilting his head.

Jet waved his hand. “The man asked for you personally. Well, who wouldn’t want to see humanity’s savior? And he’s my boss. So… what am I supposed to do? He’s really pulling my arm here.”

Gideon looked at him from the corner of his eyes and grinned. “It doesn’t seem that way. Not that it matters. I don’t care what you think about your boss, I care if your boss decides to pay me.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jet muttered. He pushed off, leading Gideon back toward the garrison. Gideon followed, still eating his ice cream.

“Oh yeah, what about the collar?” Gideon fiddled with it, looking at Jet hopefully.

Jet gave him a flabbergasted look. “After you run off the second I take my eyes off you, you want me to remove the collar? If not for the collar, I would’ve run across town searching for you!”

“You did promise,” Gideon said, putting his fingers together bashfully.

“If you stayed outside like you were supposed to. Did you do that?” Jet asked, frowning.

“I stayed outside the garrison,” Gideon replied honestly, grinning

Jet rolled his eyes. “I told you specifically to stand still and not go anywhere. You can’t pull word games on me with that one.”

Gideon sighed. He shook his head. “Jet… as if I was going to do that. You set an impossible requirement.”

“It’s hardly impossible,” Jet grumbled.

They reached the garrison once more. A group of squires and trainees hurried around a set of horses, loading them up with goods and supplies. The horses stomped or sniffed at the grass, bored, ignoring the flurry of action around each other.

One of the squires paused in strapping a saddle bag onto a horse to wave at Jet. “You found him!”

Jet waved back, smiling.

“Traitor,” Gideon said, glowering at the unfortunate squire.

The squire smiled and waved at him.

A cold stone building awaited them, dark, with a few narrow, slit windows. From the inside, a wide, deep cleft led to the slit from either direction. Gideon put a hand on the cleft, peering out the slit.

“Archery windows. With the wide slope down to the slit, the archer inside has a wide angle to lean left and right to aim out at attackers, while an enemy archer outside can only aim at the narrow slit,” Jet explained.

“Guess this place was built before crossbows,” Gideon muttered.

Jet shrugged. “It’s an old building. It used to be part of the city’s fortress, back before the city was rebuilt. Nowadays, if the enemy is all the way up to the garrison’s wall, they’ve already taken the capital.”

Gideon dropped his hand. He snorted. “And if the True Dragon shows up, he’ll step on it and destroy it before any archers can take up position.”

Jet snorted as well. “If the True Dragon makes its way to the city, we’re all ruined.”

“So why hasn’t he?” Gideon asked.

Jet paused. “Eh?”

“You guys can’t stop him. The True Dragon can stomp all over your armies. Even your strongest weapons barely injure him, right?” Gideon asked.

“Correct,” Jet confirmed.

“So… if he wants this country, why hasn’t he taken it?” Gideon prompted.

Jet opened his mouth. He hesitated, then closed it. “That’s… a good point.”

“It’s almost like… there’s a conspiracy,” Gideon continued, taking a big bite of his ice cream. He waggled his eyebrows at Jet. “A conspiracy… and at the same time, a bunch of ice cream shops pop up all around the capital. Isn’t it strange?”

Even accounting for the Nightfellows’ swap, that Laura figure and the other half of the city are unexplained. And what prompted the Nightfellows to swap? Jimothy? I refuse to believe that’s all that’s behind the ice cream explosion! Someone must have led Jimothy to ice cream… or bribed him to pick up ice cream instead of crime. This goes deeper. It cuts to the core! Gideon thought, crossing his arms and nodding firmly.

Jet scowled. I almost took Gideon seriously for a minute there! Who’s kidding? Ice cream shops, connected to the True Dragon? “Why do you have it out for ice cream?”

Gideon shrugged. “It’s suspicious, that’s all. Don’t you find it suspicious? I mean, who’s got the money to waste on frozen dessert in the middle of a war? The country’s in upheaval, and they’re expanding on leisure activities?”

“That’s… the war hasn’t really impacted the country,” Jet said, shrugging. Unless you’re on the front lines, you’d hardly notice the war at all.

Gideon jabbed his finger at Jet. “That! That too. You don’t find any of this suspicious?”

Jet paused. “I guess… a little.”

“A little? A little! It’s a lot suspicious!” Gideon grumbled.

Jet grabbed Gideon’s arm and yanked him along. In a patronizing tone, he said, “Come on. You and my boss can have a little talk, and then we can talk about ice cream, okay?”

“Fine. Where’s this boss of yours? It’s high time I was paid,” Gideon declared. He followed Jet deeper into the building.