“This… this will have to do.” said Saghir. Harbour stood wordlessly at the threshold, awaiting orders. The Efrit paced, reading and rereading the scroll Harbour had delivered, until she regarded her, as if noticing the fairy’s existence for the first time.

“You did not dismiss me.” Harbour answered the unasked question. Saghir was Efrit, she wasn’t privy to all fairy laws, and Harbour had been told, though it went against all custom, to explain herself unasked when needed.

“Come in.” She ordered, and Harbour obeyed. “I require counsel.” The door shut behind her, and Saghir continued to pace. “Your vassal has just completed the orders given to her, though in the process ruining several other plans. What do you do?”

“Pardon, Mistress?”

“She kills a valued ally, Hasbi-among-the-Jinn, and through incessant human craftiness fulfills the pact and escapes her alignment under you. What do you do?”

“I cannot answer that, mistress”

“Why?”

“I am not of the rank to make military decisions.”

“What is your name?”

“I am Harbour, fifth d-” she stopped herself. Reason was not a virtue typically excised by those of her rank but the formalities seemed to annoy those like Deloran, and Saghir-among-the-Jinn was clearly annoyed. “Fifth of the fourteenth.”

“Fifth. You are close to promotion, then?”

“Yes. Should five fairies fall in the war, I shall join the Twelfth Caste of philosophers.”

“Fourteenth, Twelfth. Harbour, what do you know of the Thirteenth caste?”

For a reason unknown, Harbour shivered to hear the word. The Thirteenth Caste was a rumour, a story. Not even that, a rumour of a rumour. “There is no Thirteenth Caste”

“Then what lies between the Fourteenth and the Twelfth, Harbour?”

“I do not know.” Saghir stopped pacing and went to her desk. She pulled a paper from a clean sheaf and began to write. Harbour stood, attending her, till the message was done. Saghir stamped it in black. Black, the colour of nothing, for messages that contained nothing. Harbour was to deliver this to someone she did not know, and then lose the memory, draining it from her head to the rivers.

“You will take this to Lo, third daughter of the Thirteenth Caste. It contains orders to have you… promoted, as it were. You will not drain the memory.” Then she pulled from her robe a roll, tied in red, and handed it to Harbour, shaking with fear from the knowledge. She had never known the contents of a message before. She had never had to. A world of possibility erupted, every scroll, every letter, everything she had delivered, all of it contained information such as this. Saghir-among-the-Jinn’s tusks curled to a grin, revelling in the smaller fairy’s panic. “This one is to be delivered to Natalie Callahan, of the Royal Witch Hunter’s Society. A human. You will read it, then you will destroy it, and you will speak the words to Callahan. She will be expecting you.” Saghir turned back to her desk. “Go, Harbour, ninety-second of the Thirteenth.”

“These orders are most unusual.” Harbour felt the venom in her new superior’s voice. Treasonous, almost, but for some reason, Harbour felt no pull to tell those above her about Lo, Third daughter of the thirteenth caste. “But we will bring you nevertheless. Welcome, Harbour. Speak your name.” Harbour rose from her kneel. “I am Harbour,” she said, “Ninety-second daughter of the thirteenth caste of the Lower Court of Londinium.”

“Look around you child, what do you see?” said Lo. The headquarter of the thirteenth caste were not standard to the lower court. They were far underground, behind layers of hidden doors that Harbour had not seen before.

“I see stone and torches.” there were also tables, inkwells, scrolls, but Lo didn’t seem interested in them. She focused on Harbour with definite assurance, despite her earlier irritation. Harbour concluded she was a fairy of considerable loyalty.

“The first time you came here you said you saw nothing but ruin and rubble.” Harbour had no memory of seeing this place, which was to be expected, but she was slightly shocked at her words, to speak of her own court like that.

“I… apologise to my treachery”

“You were not wrong. We are not of the Lower Court, the Lower Court does not deal in our trade.” Another fairy, the name of which Harbour didn’t know, which was a rarity, produced a bejewelled black lacquer box, and from it pulled a dagger that seemed to make the air cold. Heat and the lack thereof was a staple of the human world, not this one. Harbour was repulsed by the thing.

“This will break your alignment to the Lower Court. You will be among them, loyal to them, but not of them. This will help in your lessons.”

“This weapon can break alignment?” Harbour couldn’t break her gaze from the blade. It sucked light in just as it did heat, so that part of it was in shadows, which made the rest look jagged and rough. Lo brought the knife up to Harbour’s throat.

“It will cut your alignment to the Lower Court.” She pressed the knife into her so that it should have broken skin, but it didn’t. She added, “Or if you do not allow it, it will cut your throat.”

Lo raked the blade across Harbour’s throat, and brought it between their two faces. For a moment, Harbour eyed the jagged blades for her lifeblood, but there was none, instead was only the silvery reflection of a fairy betraying too much of an emotional reaction to be associated with the Lower Court. Tentatively, she brought her fingers up to the neck of her dress, the lace frills were unstained. Above, the silvery skin of her neck was unbroken.

“What is your name?” Harbour looked at Lo, at the rest of her kin. It was as if some great weight had been removed from her, and for the first time she knew what it was like for humans to regain breath.

“I am Harbour. Ninety-second of the Unseen. Loyal to the Lower Court.”

Natalie Callahan was, in fact, expecting Harbour, but not in the way she thought. Befitting her new rank in the Thirteenth, Harbour manifested in the humans’ bathrooms as a human woman and immediately felt the trigger of a perception spell. She wasn’t sure which human woman she had turned into, but whe knew it was one that she’d seen before. The scroll she had turned into a brown paper folder, as was fashionable. She peered at her reflection in the mirror, she had a nose and two eyes, and her ears were rounded. Her skin was pockmarked and porous, with tiny bristles of hair that she could barely see. Her fingers were tipped with similar stuff, though harder and clearer, and she felt it when she wiggled her hands. It was an odd feeling. As she left the bathroom, three human guns blocked her path, each held by a human arm, attached to a human.

“Hello.” Said Harbour, “I would like to speak to Natalie Callahan.”

“You’re not the usual one, are you?” Said Callahan. The three humans (Harbour thought they were the same three, but she couldn’t be sure) still stood with their guns ready, but no longer pointed at her.

“I am Harbour. Ninety-second of the Unseen, loyal to the Lower Court.”

“Thought so. You’re too talkative.” Harbour said nothing. “She’s not a threat, you can go.”

The three humans filed out, leaving Natalie Callahan at her desk, and Harbour felt the rough bristles of the carpet between her toes. Clothes. Harbour had forgotten to manifest clothes. She quickly mirrored Natalie Callahan’s clothes, hoping she wouldn’t notice the change.

“The last time one of yours came to me, I had to kill two people I thought were allies.” Their faces flashed into the air next to her for a moment as she thought, imperceptible to all but Harbour. She didn’t seem to make any point, but Harbour waited. After a few moments, Natalie Callahan continued. “What were you sent here to say?”

“I was sent with an offer.” Harbour went to produce a scroll, but remembered her orders. She was to commune with the humans. “The offer is such; an alliance between your humans and the fairies of the Lower Court.”

“You know what the RWHS stands for, don’t you?” Natalie Callahan crossed her arms

“The Royal Witch Hunter’s Society, I am aware”

“And you know what that means, don’t you?”

“Eradicating the bloodline of Shuhalla.”

“So how desperate are your masters to try and ally themselves with an organisation dedicated to killing their lot?”

“The daughters of Shuhalla are not ‘our lot’, as you would say.” Harbour tried to keep the disdain out of her voice, “they are thieves, siphoners. Their work robs us of our essence.” Natalie Callahan coughed, or laughed.

“So they’re not your lot. That still doesn’t explain why you want an alliance.”

“Those I am loyal to believe you may be of help in our war, and we are capable of helping with yours.” she said. Natalie Callahan got up, out of her desk. At her full height she towered over Harbour

“We’re doing just fine, thank you.”

“That is a lie. There are many daughters still in London. Seventy-three.” Natalie Callahan blinked at that, in worry, or excitement.

“We don’t need your help. The RWHS is doing just fine without contracts, I’m not pulling us into them now.”

Harbour tensed herself, she had never argued before, and she’d certainly never blackmailed. But such was the lot of the Unseen. “I have been told to offer a gift, and I am prepared to offer one more.”

“We don’t want your help.”

“The first gift is information, and the second is a privation thereof. We will tell you the location of each and every Daughter within the city limits” Natalie Callahan opened her mouth to say something, but Harbour continued, “except one.”

Natalie Callahan closed her mouth and her eyes widened, only for a second. Her breath sped up, and she pulled out the gun she had been secretly shifting from the hidden holster under her desk to the hidden holster in her jacket and pressed it into Harbour’s neck, bringing her face close. “Threaten me again and I will kill you.” she whispered, or hissed.

“It was not a threat, Natalie Callahan.” Harbour knew full well it was a threat, and she was proud of herself for it, but she retained the facade of unknowing, “It was an offer.”

Natalie Callahan stared into Harbour’s eyes, as if she was trying to find meaning in them, an answer, and then lowered the gun.

“Tell your masters to meet me in this building in three days to discuss terms. And tell them if I ever see your again I’ll kill you.”

Harbour noted both down, nodded, and disappeared. Through the energy transfer of her disappearance, she left a note, handwritten, in the style of whoever she was impersonating. It held an address and a name, she could have written any name from her little band of allies, but Harbour had prioritised their Pathbearer, Chloe Nash.