Mabbs stood in the dimly lit office, her whiskers twitching with frustration. The mousekin scrolled through screen after screen of incriminating data on her Link, cheeks flushed with a blend of anger and disbelief. "We need to advise the Governor-General to cancel the ga," she decred, her voice carrying through the cramped workspace. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, exhaustion evident in every gesture. Only a few hours had passed since their hastily assembled forensic team began sifting through Bannerdy Tomae's files, but they'd already discovered a mountain of evidence—years' worth of carefully orchestrated bribes and abuses of power. And this was only the tip of the iceberg.

  She gnced around at the improvised command center—little more than a converted storage room crammed with links, fshing monitors, and half-empty coffee Kava. The tension in the air matched her grim determination. When her boss responded with a noncommittal grunt, Mabbs let out a quiet sigh. Of course Lotha would brush it off. That was how things usually went: Lotha excelled at front-line operations, recognized by many as the greatest Commandant in generations. In battle, she could rally troops as though she embodied the Aspect of War herself, unleashing havoc on enemy lines. However, the intricacies of paperwork, protocol, and administrative vigince were far from her strengths.

  In truth, Mabbs both admired and resented Lotha. How could a woman so lethally efficient on the battlefield be so oblivious to the bureaucratic nightmare swirling around them? She'd seen Lotha single-handedly turn the tide of entire skirmishes, yet here in this office setting, the Commandant seemed more inclined to daydream than to sign critical documents or interrogate suspects. It fell to Mabbs and her small team to shoulder that burden—an assignment that had already scared off five previous recruits. Being Lotha's adjunct was a career-altering position, but one that sometimes drove Mabbs to fantasize about abandoning her Link and running for the hills.

  Straightening her Link with a frustrated twitch of her tail, Mabbs pressed on. "Look, we need to scrap the ga entirely. The pace's security is compromised in ways we never anticipated. Tomae was apparently four fingers deep with the Bck Queen's Court. It's the height of Yuletide, so authorized mind mages are scarce. We can't even do thorough mental checks on the staff, and thousands of guests are already flooding the city."

  Lotha, a tall and imposing figure cd in partial Dragoon armor, tilted her head thoughtfully. Mabbs could almost see the Commandant's mind drifting elsewhere, but at least she was making an effort to listen. "Do you think he'd like it," Lotha asked in a low voice, "if I brought him a war trophy?" Her tone was almost wistful—an unexpected softness creeping in.

  Mabbs tried, with limited success, to mask her irritation. Here we go again. The mousekin felt a headache looming behind her eyes. That was the other thing about Lotha: for all her prowess in commanding armies, she became hopelessly tongue-tied and scatterbrained the moment a cute man entered the picture. Mabbs had watched it happen too many times before—witnessing the formidable Commandant reduced to the demeanor of a starry-eyed schoolgirl with her first crush. And now it was happening yet again, all because of John—the captivating, quietly affable man with an impressively toned figure and tightest ass she had ever seen.

  Except Lotha's fascination with John wasn't merely distracting her. It was derailing their entire operation. Instead of charging down corrupt officials who had allowed Tomae's abuses to go unreported for so long, Lotha seemed preoccupied by the memory of a brief conversation and rescue she'd had with John. In her imagination, Mabbs suspected, Lotha was practically engaged to him already.

  The mousekin rubbed her temples, trying to rein in her frustration. "Commandant," she started, striving for calm professionalism, "maybe focus on the bigger issue at hand? We have a thorough security breach, and Tomae's connections run deeper than we ever guessed. Our intelligence reports suggest a potential infiltration from multiple factions, and we're short-staffed. It's not safe to hold a rge-scale event under these conditions."

  But Lotha just brushed off the concern with an absent nod. "We can't simply call off the entire Yuletide ga," she said. "It's a major statement to our allies. The nobility would riot if we canceled. Besides…" Her voice trailed off, and a faint smile touched her lips—no doubt recalling the moment John had addressed her as a friend. She tapped a gauntleted finger against her chin, lost in thought. "Besides, if I pulled it off—if the ga goes smoothly—I wonder if John would be impressed by the venue I moved them to."

  Mabbs bit back the urge to groan audibly. Impressed? The mousekin yearned to remind her boss that what she knew of John meant he was hardly the kind of person swayed by grand dispys or political maneuvers. Yet, she recognized Lotha's starstruck bubble would be difficult to burst. With a sigh, she looked back down at her Link, verifying another damning record from Tomae's seized data.

  Eventually, Mabbs risked a gnce at Lotha. "We can't keep deferring these decisions," she said, voice tight. "Lives are on the line. We need to deploy resources properly, tighten security, maybe even impose travel checks on all entry points to the pace. That's going to require a direct order from Governor-General "

  "Right," Lotha answered distractedly, flicking away an imaginary speck of dust on her armor. "I'll handle it. Soon." But her mind was evidently elsewhere, locked on daydreams of John.

  Inwardly, Mabbs cursed the stroke of fate that had pced her under Lotha's command. It's not like I hate her, she reminded herself. She can be heroic, fearless, a force of nature. But dear heavens, was she incompetent outside of a battlefield context. Already, the mousekin felt the slow throb of another headache building behind her eyes.

  "All right, I'll draft some security directives, try to call in more reinforcements," Mabbs muttered, typing furiously on her Link. "And maybe—just maybe—if we're lucky, we'll contain this fiasco before it erupts into a full-blown crisis." She cast a final gnce in Lotha's direction, catching the Commandant's faraway look. I suppose I'll also have to pray that your fantasies about that man don't derail us any further, she added silently.

  As she turned to leave, Mabbs resolved to keep pressing forward, chasing down every st shred of Tomae's hidden treacheries. If Lotha would only snap out of her starry-eyed reverie, the Dragoons might actually stand a chance of securing the pace. But as of now, it fell to Mabbs to keep everyone on track—and she had no illusions about how tall an order that truly was.

  Taimi stood at her cluttered workbench, the faint hum of mana crystals filling the air as she carefully rearranged a set of intricate tools. A bright, excited gleam shone in her eyes. Even now, she couldn't help repying her brief encounter with John in her mind well, not entirely her mind. More accurately, it was a bustling orchestra of thoughts: eight separate tracks of mental energy, all running parallel, all fervently analyzing different facets of her day.

  "Only five of them are devoted to John," she muttered, smirking to herself. "That's almost half. Progress, right?"

  She allowed herself a quick, proud grin as she broke down the mental threads, ticking them off on her small, nimble fingers. One track focused on repying every word John had spoken, dissecting his phrasing and subtle nuances. A second track lingered on the subtle warmth of his scent faint but impossible to forget. A third was busy plotting the "stages of her pn" for how she'd foster a healthy retionship with him without overwhelming him. The fourth was brainstorming an elegant approach for tonight's upcoming ga, determining exactly how she'd catch him at the right moment to talk further. And the fifth…

  Taimi sighed, shaking her head at the st mental thread. It was a persistent daydreamy swirl of adrenaline and infatuation, some half-formed fantasy about sharing an especially affectionate moment with John. She suspected it would linger there—like white noise in the back of her mind—until she had a more vivid memory of him to cling to. With a flick of her wrist, she dismissed her wandering thoughts (or at least tried to).

  "There's more to life than daydreaming," she reminded herself, pressing a fingertip to the polished surface of a mech panel. Her other three mental patterns were devoted to something equally thrilling: the finishing touches on her masterpiece. After eight long years, she was about to graduate from a mere journeyman of the Gnomish Circle to a full-fledged master. Tradition insisted on a minimum eight-year apprenticeship, though Taimi privately believed the world would advance faster if the old biddies in the Circle weren't so married to their ways. Centuries of life tended to breed an aversion to change, in Taimi's opinion.

  She gave a derisive huff at that thought, recalling her earliest days in the workshop, bouncing from one craft bench to another, full of questions and half-finished prototypes. So many of the elders—long-lived, comfortably entrenched in routine—had scolded her for wanting to create something truly new instead of refining what had already been done a thousand times over. But Taimi refused to be boxed in. Her masterwork was tangible proof of that.

  She took a few steps back, admiring the enormous frame that loomed in the corner of her workshop. This would be the first Gnomish Champion something never before seen among her Kin. Normally, only the rger Kindred had enough raw magical power to become Champions, but Taimi knew there was more than one way to rule a battlefield.

  "If you can't out-muscle your opponent," she liked to say, "then out-bst them."

  Her contraption—a massive, mana-driven mech suit—sat there like a sleeping giant, its metallic limbs folded in on themselves. She'd outfitted it with twelve cannons, four fully-articuted arms, a colpsible sword (because, of course, it needed a sword), jetpack thrusters, grappling lines, spiked armor pting, and anything else she could cram into its robust frame. All of it would be piloted by her advanced technomantic rig. This was her new frontier—a machine that could channel enough explosive force to rival any Champion's superhuman strength.

  Taimi walked up to the suit, running a hand over the cold metal. She couldn't help the surge of pride, feeling how the pting seemed to vibrate with the possibility of future glory. "The design might be a little… over the top," she admitted with a grin, "but subtlety was never my strong suit."

  Still, the best part? She pnned to showcase it tonight—not just to the Gnomish Circle but also to John. Her heart gave a little flip at the idea, and she felt her cheeks warm. "I wonder what he'll think," she whispered. "Will he be impressed? Amused? Maybe he'll think I'm insane—but in a fun way, hopefully."

  A gentle beep from a console at her side drew her attention. She hopped over, checking the readouts. Perfect. All systems were stable. She triggered a small test spark, and the machine emitted a soft whir, cannon joints shifting into pce. Taimi's stomach fluttered with excitement. It's finally real.

  She stepped back, dusting her hands off on her patched jumpsuit, eyes dancing with delight. Her mind soared through countless future scenarios: the unveiling in front of the stoic Gnomish masters who had doubted her; the crowd's reaction as she demonstrated the mech's might; and, of course, John's eyes widening, possibly following with that endearing half-smile he gave when something took him by surprise.

  "Focus, Taimi, focus," she reminded herself, pressing her palms against her cheeks. If she didn't keep a lid on her daydreaming, she'd never get any of the fine-tuning done. She still had to calibrate the thrusters, realign the grapplers, and run a final test on the internal mana channels. There was a lot to tackle—and the night's festivities were on the horizon.

  But Taimi felt unstoppable now. Yes, five of her eight mental processes were devoted to analyzing everything about John, but three more were humming away at the mechanical tasks. She liked that ratio—a sign of a banced mind, or so she told herself.

  Leaning in, she gave the mech's pting a final affectionate pat. "Soon," she said, speaking as though it could hear her. "Soon, we show everyone what a gnome can do. And hopefully,"—she paused, a ghost of a smile drifting across her lips—"we show John, too."

  She resumed her work, attaching a polished gear into pce and quietly humming tune John had taught her under her breath. The b around her was a tapestry of half-finished inventions, curled blueprints, and arcane diagrams. She wove through it all with determined grace, every movement charged with the energy of someone on the brink of a lifelong dream. Outside, the hum of the city's Yuletide preparations thrummed through the evening. Inside, Taimi's heart pounded with the eagerness of a gnome determined to shape destiny—both for her people and, if luck had any kindness in store, for a man who might finally see her for who she truly was.

  "You really shouldn't be eavesdropping on them, you know." Rhea's voice carried a hint of reproach, though her tone was more resigned than scolding. The tall, purple-skinned woman stood near the center of the corridor, her posture poised yet wary, as though perpetually on guard for unseen threats. "Adora needs her privacy."

  Kori, however, seemed unfazed by this gentle admonition. She had her ear pressed firmly against a gilded wooden door, straining to catch every murmur from inside. Her vibrant orange hair glowed under the corridor's softly lit nterns, and her golden eyes sparkled with mischief.

  "How can you be so calm?" Kori whispered, flicking her gaze toward Rhea before returning her attention to the muffled voices within. "She's finally found a man! Do you know how many handsome, strapping ds I introduced her to over the years, and she showed about as much interest in them as in a bucket of rd?"

  Rhea shrugged. Her armor—bck leather reinforced with ornate silver filigree—reflected the corridor's flickering light. "Yes, well, maybe that's because your taste in men is downright dreadful," she replied dryly. "You seem to think that all a man needs is a rge, ahem, endowment to make a woman happy."

  Kori smirked, pressing her ear even closer to the door. "Hah! You're not wrong that it'd make me happy."

  Rhea exhaled slowly, raking a gloved hand through her violet-tinged hair. She had come to cherish her companion in the years they'd served Adora, even if Kori epitomized the living embodiment of everything Rhea was not. They were total opposites: Kori radiated warmth and life, brimming with touchy-feely enthusiasm. Rhea was Deathborn—her affinity bound to the Aspect of Death and Taxes—and she had spent her existence learning to measure every interaction, wary that one wrong touch could drain the vitality from a non-Aspected person. The only people safe from her lethal aura were those blessed by strong aspects, like Kori or Adora.

  Had it not been for their respective Aspect ordering them to be Adora's Companion, Rhea doubted she would ever have crossed paths with Kori. Let alone become her...lover, if that was the right term. Over time, their differences had somehow forged a surprisingly intimate bond; she was literally sworn to the Aspect of Death and Taxes, while Kori's nature was tethered to the All-Mother's Aspect of Life and Motherhood sex-centric worship. They shouldn't have mixed, but fate had tied them together with Adora at the center.

  "Look," Rhea said, keeping her voice low as she approached Kori. "I know you've been waiting to 'get some' for an eternity and a half, and that part of you is excited beyond reason that Adora might have found a man to share. I get it—I do. But we can't just rush headlong into this. We don't even know who he is yet."

  Kori pulled her ear away from the door long enough to roll her eyes. "He's John, that's who. You saw him—adorable, polite, seems to have that lost-puppy thing going on that makes you want to cuddle him. Maybe show him a good time." She shot Rhea a meaningful grin, which was answered with a stoic, unimpressed gre.

  "What if he's an assassin?" Rhea pointed out, crossing her arms. "Or some honeypot deployed by our enemies to worm his way into Adora's circle? I can't ignore the possibility—we can't ignore it. Her security comes first."

  Kori sighed, adjusting the straps on her green-and-gold robes. "You never trust anyone new. Besides, if he tried anything, we'd spot it in a heartbeat, and you'd probably suck the life out of him before he could draw a bde. Right?" she teased, though there was truth in her statement.

  Rhea answered with a brief nod, acknowledging her companion's words. "I would, if necessary. But that doesn't mean we can be x." She cast a wary gnce at the door, as though expecting it to swing open at any moment. "It's just that Adora's feelings can make her vulnerable. The moment she grows attached, she might ignore her instincts—and that can be fatal."

  Kori reached out and gently touched Rhea's arm, her earlier smugness giving way to concern. "I'm not blind to that, okay?" she whispered. "I just… I want Adora to be happy. Doesn't she deserve it, after everything she's gone through? Being the Chosen is a heavy burden—she's been so lonely, even if she puts on a brave face."

  Rhea nodded slowly, recalling Adora's many sacrifices, the te-night strategy sessions, and the weight of endless responsibilities on her shoulders. "She does deserve happiness," she murmured. "But I'll be on high alert until I'm sure John isn't a threat. Someone has to be the cautious one."

  Kori cast a final, longing look at the door. "Fine. But if you overhear anything juicy, you'd better share."

  Rhea quirked an eyebrow. "Share what, exactly?" she inquired, already suspecting Kori's response.

  "I dunno," Kori said, tossing back her orange hair with a mischievous shrug. "Maybe the sweet nothings they whisper, or Adora's first real confession of love. If it's adorable, I want to hear about it."

  Stepping away from the door, Kori fluttered a little in midair—her ability to hover a constant reminder of her life-aspected heritage. Rhea nearly snorted, a faint smile tugging at her lips despite herself. This woman is impossible, she thought, yet she couldn't deny that Kori's enthusiasm had a way of warming even her own grim spirit.

  Rhea exhaled, feeling the flicker of protective instincts surge anew. "You'd better keep your hands to yourself for now," she warned, stepping away from Kori. "I doubt Adora will appreciate you barging in on her private talk with John just because you're curious. And I'm not sure I want the two of us pying mediator if the poor guy has no idea what's going on."

  Kori feigned innocence. "Me? Never! I'm just making sure she doesn't need backup." But the pyful sparkle in her eyes betrayed her.

  Rolling her gaze to the ceiling in mild exasperation, Rhea gestured down the hall. "Come on. We should at least pretend to follow Adora's instructions and—oh, I don't know—prepare for tonight. I doubt she'll be happy if we're just loitering eavesdropping."

  Kori gave an exaggerated sigh and lowered herself to the ground, letting her heels touch the polished marble. "Fine," she relented. "But if they so much as whisper something scandalous, I'm getting my ear back on that door."

  Rhea answered with a mock sternness. "I'll drag you away by the colr if you do, so don't test me."

  For now, Adora could have her private moment with John. But the day would come—and likely sooner rather than ter—when all three of them would have to confront the reality of adding John to their lives. And if Kori's grin was any indication, she was already looking forward to it. Meanwhile, Rhea braced herself for the complicated tangle of emotions yet to unfold, convinced that caution was still the wisest path.