With the evil sprite on her way, Len cleared her mind. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to keep her own thoughts separate from the influence of her shadows. Sometimes they were overt, sometimes they were subtle, but she often found herself catching their preferences leaking into her own being and it was disconcerting every damn time. She suspected that a lot of it wasn't even intentional on their part, just a part of the nature of the bond they shared, but it was the sort of thing that could drive one to madness if they were careless. And Len found herself being careless a lot more often than she cared to admit. She didn't really have time to ruminate on the matter, though, because she had to get herself set up for the meeting with Klarion.

She left the final business with the current band of Banished to Keris and made her way back to Balar Hammerfist's house sled. Technically she was entitled to use the Head's building but she couldn't stand that gaudy mess of a vehicle and would rather tear the whole thing down. She really didn't know what her long-term plans for her position of leadership within this city were, but they definitely did not involve that abomination. Balar was still working off a fair bit of his own karmic debt with Len so he'd been more than happy to accommodate her. He spent most of his time running errands, greasing palms, and generally doing what he could to smooth over the ruffled feathers from her rather direct management style and to stay away from Keris.

While Len had mostly been able to forgive the woman's treachery, her husband had had a harder time of it. Personal conflicts of that sort weren't really Len's responsibility to mend and after basically telling them both to make sure it didn't affect their work, she'd left them to it. A part of her had kind of hoped they'd be able to patch things up. She wasn't a love fool or anything like that, but she still felt a fair bit of sadness at the idea of seeing long-held relationships shatter, no matter how justified the break was. Ultimately, they'd come to the conclusion that the split needed to be permanent and from that moment on, Balar had been nowhere to be seen within his own house. She'd talked with him in passing a few times about it but he'd been pretty clear in not wanting to talk about it and she'd left him to it.

Thoughts of marriage brought her back to the... vision? Out of body experience? She really didn't know what to call the whole ordeal but seeing her old apartment had been difficult because it had shown her Craig at the very end too. It had been brief, she hadn't been able to talk to him or anything like that, but she'd seen him. Craig was the man she'd agreed to get married to. A long-time friend, confidant, occasional lover, but not really a man she loved. They'd just... settled into a pattern that worked for them both. They'd been making do just fine living lives that were somewhat isolated but close enough that they were comfortable and when he'd popped the question she'd mostly agreed because it made sense.

It stung to realize just how stupid that line of reasoning had been. Since coming to this world, she'd met so many wonderful people and, most importantly, she'd met Astrid. The Demon Lord was arrogant, chaotic, ridiculous, infuriating, and even occasionally passionate. None of those words described Craig and Len found herself infinitely more interested in seeing where things might go with her than she'd ever been with Craig. The only solace she had while admitting those feelings to herself was that Craig wasn't really the sort of guy to take a thing like that personally. He was as tough to get close to as she was with even more antisocial behaviors than she had. Realistically, if they hadn't ended up rooming together out of convenience, it was very likely that nothing would have developed between them. Mostly she felt guilty with saddling him with the rent (and a Dark Elf warrior possessing her body, but she couldn't really be blamed for that). He'd land on his feet one way or another and even if Len did find her way back home, being here in this strange world had done wonders to shake her of the delusion that she could be satisfied with a man who was just comfortable.

"Gah! What the hell am I going to do?"

"Give my father back, I hope," growled Klarion, snapping Len out of her reverie.

Somehow she'd managed to get herself arranged in her office while pondering her fate and had missed the woman's arrival entirely. That was probably at least a little concerning, but it was so far down the list of things that worried her lately that she could only chuckle.

"I was not looking to amuse you," Klarion growled again, irritated.

"Nah, it's not you. Don't worry about it. So, how've you been?"

"You mean since you showed up at my doorstep, humiliated me in front of my men, and once again waved the fact that you could kill my father at a whim in my face?"

"Yeah, that."

"Just great," Klarion deflated slightly, losing a touch of her bravado. "What do you want from me, Head?"

"I want you to be a partner in this city rather than an enemy. I want you to recognize my authority and work *for* me rather than seeking to enrich your own little faction. I want to be able to trust that you won't sell me out to Claymar at the first opportunity like your father was going to."

"What are you talking about? My father would never betray this city to an Orc."

"He absolutely was going to do that," Len dropped a stack of papers that she'd had Pitch acquire from the Silver Sentinels' barracks. "That's really a thing that impresses me about your society: the bookkeeping. Right down to taking notes on a goddamn criminal conspiracy, you folks are obsessed with your paperwork. One can't help but be amazed at the thoroughness of it all. Your father was completely on board with selling the entire city to Claymar so that he could rake in some extra cash and get away before it all burned."

"This is a lie," Klarion said flatly, but she still paged through the doccuments.

"It's not. Honestly, I'm surprised he hadn't clued you in. He was already drawing up plans to have more citizens banished but this time with the twist of making sure that Claymar had some goons ready to capture them immediately. Fun fact: the Demon Army doesn't believe in slavery. Outright banned by Demon Lord Astrid herself. Theoretically, that'd mean that Claymar would be committing a heinous sin against his Lord but he found a neat loophole. He wouldn't be enslaving these poor saps, he'd merely be conscripting them into service. The line between the two is about as razor thin as one could ever hope to find, but it would hold up. Your countrymen would be used as cannon fodder for a thug looking to wage war on other humans. How neat."

"You expect me to take you at your word with this? There's no reason to believe any of it."

"No reason except that you know that it sounds like something your father would do. Doesn't matter how much we love our family, we still know what they get up to. We know their failings, we know their greed. Everything I just told you is the absolute truth and you would've been a part of it if his plans had gone through. Only question is whether or not you'd have stayed by Daddy Dearest's side or if you'd have ended up on the line yourself."

"He would never have betrayed me."

"Probably not, but that's not what I was suggesting. Tell me, Klarion, at the end of the day, with your back to the wall, whose side are you on? Your father's or your people's? You're fast approaching the point where you can't pretend to be on both."

The woman glared at Len. It was a much fiercer hatred than she'd shown before. Before there'd been resentment, a definite urge to do harm, and quite a lot of irritation at the inconvenience of it all but now? This woman wanted nothing more than to leap across the desk and strangle Len with her bare hands. It was the rage of someone having their foundational beliefs questioned and it was uncomfortable to watch. Len didn't have much pity for her.

While she'd had Pitch dig up everything he could about the organization of private security that was causing her grief, she'd learned quite a bit about their misdeeds. These were armed thugs with the authority of the Head until a short while ago. They had been involved in monstrous acts that made Len's skin crawl and a number of their rank and file deserved truly gruesome deaths. Klarion was a part of that. She wasn't the worst of the bunch but she was a part of the system that allowed it and had participated in her share of treachery for the benefit of their system.

Still, it was tough to look at a woman having to come to terms with the fact that her father wasn't just a monster, but a traitor as well. That wasn't the sort of thing anyone liked to learn about their loved ones. Finally, she threw the woman a very tiny bone.

"You weren't involved, I know it. For all that you're pretty terrible in your own right, you're loyal. I suspect that's a part of why you haven't gone out of your way to antagonize me. Sure, you don't want me killing your father and you're not all that sure what the full extend of my abilities are, but you're also not looking to destroy your city from within by staging a coup in such a delicate time. I believe that we have room for an accord here, if you're willing."

"What are you offering?"

"A seat at the table."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that if you agree to assume permanent control of the Silver Sentinels, I won't destroy them outright. Your father will be charged for his crimes and you will support the investigation. It will be mostly perfunctory. I already know what he did, I know how he did it, and I can prove it. He will be going down for this. You save yourself by distancing from him now."

"You expect me to abandon my father in favor of an outsider who usurped our leadership? Are you mad?"

"Quite possibly, for any number of reasons. But not this. You're going to have to pick a side here and now and that side had better be mine."

Klarion fell silent, seething as she tried to come up with a response.

"Believe it or not, that's the carrot. If you really want to make this a battle to the end, I'm willing to go that route too. We are stretched painfully thin, but we are going to need every last shred of unity we can muster. If that unity has to be without the best trained and best equipped force within the city walls? I really am willing to make that sacrifice. You know what will happen when Claymar gets here, don't you?"

"Death, destruction, carnage. The usual sort of mayhem that we've come to expect from your degenerate races."

"Not sure that last bit was called for, but you're not wrong. A raging band of warriors is preparing to tear through this city. Are you going to stand with us, or are you going to stand with the man that would've sold them all out for his own sake?"