By the next morning, Dana had a full overview of my life. She also laughed pretty hard.

“You... you... poor bastard! Ha ha ha!” Dana laughed and laughed.

I laid there and she pat my chest as she fought to get herself back under control.

“I've never heard... such a sad... and pathetic turn of events! Ever! I'm so sorry! Bwahahaha!” Dana rolled off of me and sat up, her laughing didn't stop. “Come on... need bath... get clean.”

I got out of bed and followed her jiggling and laughing self into her small bathroom. Her tub was tiny and she had some kind of lever thing on the wall. She pulled it and water poured into the tub.

“It's cold... but fresh.” Dana said and tossed in some soapy things.

I held my hand over the thing and heated it up as she swirled the soaps around with a long stick to make bubbles, then she hopped right in.

“OH! What the...” Dana looked at me and smiled. “If I didn't already like you like crazy before, I would have fallen for you right now.”

I held up my hands and used the soap and lather spell to cover them.

Dana make an appreciative sound and moved over to let me climb in as well. “Make sure you get me all over. I haven't had a good scrubbing in weeks.”

“What about a hot bath?” I asked and started to wash her.

“I can't remember.” Dana said and moaned as I dug my hands into her back. “It's too bad you have to leave and get yourself fixed this morning. I would have enjoyed you being here.”

“You're not going to come over and take care of me?” I asked.

“Ha! I don't know the first thing about doing that, except to call a healer I know.” Dana said. “Actually, I think that's a good idea. If the healer you know won't do it and won't assign anyone for you, you have to find one yourself.”

“I have a list of assistants and helpers she used while there.” I said.

“That's perfect. You can't expect just one person to monitor you for ten whole days.” Dana said. “Give them shifts and enough sleep and food to keep themselves and you going. The healer I know will just be the supervisor and watch over everything.”

“You seem to know a lot about these things.” I said and started rubbing her breasts.

“Mmmmm.... I have... experience delegating.” Dana said and leaned back against me. “Have to... as a constable. I can't handle everything, so I hand things off to others. If it doesn't get done, it's on them, not me.”

“Even if you delegated it?” I asked and moved down to her abdomen. She had a bit of extra flesh there and I rubbed it hard for her and she moaned loudly.

“Even if. By the way, you're making me want you again.” Dana said. “Not that it's hard to do. I've been wanting you since the first time we met and you broke the academy's stupid rules to cross the city to be with the woman you were with.”

“I've been leaving when I want since I went back to do my exams.” I said and moved onto her thighs.

“You skipped a very important part.” Dana said in a teasing voice.

“No, I didn't.” I said and moved down her legs and did her calves and then her feet. I gave her a particular look, one that she knew meant that she was going to like what came next.

Dana chuckled and moved up to sit on the side of the tub and spread her legs. “You saved the best for last, did you? Good man.”

I rubbed, licked, and kissed her there, making her moan and pant as I played with her. I had only been doing it for a couple of minutes before she pushed me off and then sat down on top of me. We had sex right there in the water and it went fairly quickly. She really wanted it and I didn't disappoint her. When I was ready to finish, she hopped off and reached down under the water and looked into my eyes as she jerked me.

“I can't have you dripping out of me all day.” Dana whispered and kissed me as my shot plopped out of the water and made a little splash as it entered again. She laughed a little and quickly washed off her hand. “Now we need to empty the water to...”

I waved my hand and all of the contaminants sucked together and I tossed the palm sized mix of dirt, soap, and my expulsion, into the garbage can at the side of the room beside the toilet.

“Now that's handy.” Dana said and then spent the next ten minutes scrubbing me down and kept asking me to lather her hands for her. “I am definitely going to miss seeing you for the next ten days.”

“I won't be much good for dating.” I said and she nodded. “After that, I have some work to do.”

Dana laughed. “You're trying to brush me of already?”

“No. I'm saying our dates have to be in the late evenings and the weekends.”

Dana stopped scrubbing me and looked at my face. “You're serious?”

“You don't want to?” I asked.

“Hell yes, I do!” Dana said and kissed me. “I just thought you were going to be too busy to pay attention to anything else but your work.”

“No, I learned that lesson. I can't keep working and ignore living.”

Dana smiled. “I'm glad you figured that out. That's half the battle.”

“What's the other half?” I asked as she started rinsing me off.

“Figuring out that who you're dating also has a life and might not always be available when you are.” Dana said. “It's not them deciding to not be with you, it's them being busy and missing you as much as you miss them.”

“But...”

“You can't expect them to change to suit your needs and make them ignore their own lives.” Dana cautioned me.

“I've never done that.” I said. “Even with my previous retainers, I literally ordered them to not do that and to be themselves.”

Dana laughed. “If I ever meet them, I'll give them a piece of my mind about how stupid they are.”

“Why?”

“They had the perfect life with you. They each had an aspect of you all to themselves and they didn't protect that, and you, like they should have. They thought that as long no one else tried to take their places, it was okay for others to have you, too.” Dana shook her head. “Like you didn't have enough problems already! You can't handle all those emotional and physical relationships without guidance.”

“And you can?” I asked as I dried her off.

“Hell, no! I told you I can't really build up a relationship like a normal person. Helping you trim down the people trying to take a piece of you? That I can help with.” Dana said and dried me off. “As a police officer, it's my job to enforce the law. Rules and regulations give my life order and sense. I impart that to anyone that will listen.”

“I'm listening.” I said and she gave me a kiss.

“You're already halfway to being a peace officer anyway, so why not?” Dana said and led me into the living room and gathered up our clothing. “Get dressed and I'll start explaining about what I meant. I'll even come along on the drive back to your Sanctuary and your driver can drop me off afterwards.”

“What about the healer you know?” I asked started to put my clothes on.

“Oh, right.” Dana said and walked across the room and picked up a piece of paper. She wrote out a note and walked over to hand it to me. “I'll come along to her place and you can give her that.”

I didn't look at the note. “Why can't you do it?”

Dana laughed again as she dressed in casual clothes. “I'm not your mother! Do your own chores, you brat! Ha ha!”

I couldn't stop my smile.

“Now that's good to see.” Dana said. “I better see more of that in a couple of weeks.”

I nodded and we sat down as she started to tell me about her training to become a constable. We left her house when we heard a carriage pull up and she only stopped talking about it briefly to tell the driver where to go.

It was enlightening, to say the least. A set rules for conduct that were much broader than the army, and yet, it had flexibility and purpose that the army ones did not. Rules to govern troops were not enough to govern an entire society.

When she was done talking, I realized why Queen Ellen has been almost eager to grant me the rights to hunt down and remove the mages that were responsible for Helena's death, my persecution, and sedition against the country and the royal family. It was an extremely limited focus and it was like using a sharpened blade to kill someone and not a Kracken Tube that would destroy them.

The carriage came to a stop and I hopped out to go meet the healer.

Dana caught my arm and gave me a significant look. “Aren't you going to read the note?”

“Why? It's not mine.” I responded.

Dana huffed and let my arm go. “It seems I also need to tell you that being a little suspicious is okay.”

“Do you want me to read it?” I asked.

“I want you to decide if you want to read it. It's about you and you know it is, so is it worth knowing what knowledge I am passing about you to the healer, or do you want to remain ignorant about it?”

I stood there and thought about it. “Are you saying I am too trusting when I meet someone?”

“No, when you're intimate or close to them first and don't suspect them of any wrongdoing.” Dana said. “You have to be more vigilant than that.”

“My vigilance technique tells me that I can trust you and you haven't lied to me.” I said.

Dana opened her mouth to say something, then she huffed. “I wish I could learn that. It would make police work so much easier if I could tell when someone is lying.”

I couldn't stop my smile and she knew I knew something.

“You can give me something similar, can't you?” Dana asked.

I plucked out four vials from my bandoleer. “Truth serum. Each is a single dose, which is why they are mostly empty. Any more than that can cause sickness and perhaps death.”

“Oh. Oh, god.” Dana whispered.

“Each can make someone spit out the truth for half an hour. They physically can't stop themselves from answering.”

Dana hugged the vials and gave me a stare so intense that I almost felt a shiver down my spine. “Go get Bertha.” She said, almost angrily. “After that, we really need to discuss you giving things like these potions away like they are nothing.”

“You don't want them?” I asked.

“I want them more than anything, possibly more than I want you.” Dana said and closed her eyes and sighed. “So will every other constable in the city. No, in the country.”

“I know they're valuable...”

“No, you don't.” Dana said and opened her eyes to look at me. “If anyone important knew that you can make this, you'll be taken and locked into a cell for the rest of your life.”

I thought that wording was odd. “I won't be forced to make it for them?”

Dana barked a laugh. “No! They'll want you to never make it ever again!”

“Oh.” I said and stepped out of the carriage. I looked down at the note and back at her face, only to see no expression.

_______________

You have a minor choice to make. Will you make the right one? It will only affect your relationship with Dana and the healer, Bertha.

A) Read it. B) Don't read it. C) Burn it.

There's not really a choice. I thought. After what Dana just said, I can't take the chance. I choose A.

_______________

I opened the note and read it. Bertha, do whatever this man asks you to do. Just agree and go along with it. You must do the task! Do not betray his trust! He will also pay you well. Dana.

Dana reached out and touched my cheek. “I think that was the smartest thing you've ever done.” She said and sat back.

“You're not trying to manipulate me.” I said and folded the note up.

“No. I don't have to.” Dana said. “We really are more alike that I suspected. We grew up in the worst part of town. Fought to live. Fought to survive. We grew up knowing hunger, we're good friends with pain, and we've killed all kinds of animals when we had to.”

I reached into the carriage and took her hand. I bent over it and kissed it.

Dana laughed. “That was a great time to do that.”

“I know.” I said and let her hand go.

“We survived our childhoods and started to live our lives. We both ended up here at the capital. I just happened to choose law and order to keep myself out of trouble while you still lived by personal honor. I am really surprised they let you get away with it.”

I smiled and repeated what I said back in Ester's Village when they found me over the lumberjack's body. “No one wanted to be the first to die.”

Dana barked a laugh. “All right, get going. Bertha's not getting any younger.”

I nodded and closed the carriage door before walking over to the house that was similar to Dana's. I knocked and an older lady opened the door.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

I held out the folded note and she gasped at my missing fingers.

Bertha took the note and read it. She looked at my face and back at the note, then at my hands.

“I need someone to monitor me for ten days while I use the same regeneration potion that restored the Queen's arm.” I said and her eyes went back to my hands.

“Surely, it wouldn't take a whole dose to...”

“All my toes are gone, as well as about a third of my heart.” I said and she caught her breath.

“That explains the boots.” Bertha said and looked at my face. “Will it just be me?”

“No. I have a list of helpers and assistants. I will also provide food, lodging, and pay you for your time with either gold crowns, potions, or potions ingredients.”

“So, a more supervisory role?” Bertha asked and I nodded. “I assume we are to maintain your health, feed you, and clean you?”

I nodded again.

Bertha read the note again. “All right. Wait here while I pack.”

I nodded.

“Can I bring someone with me?” Bertha asked.

“Who?” I asked.

“My son.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don't want to leave him alone for ten days.”

I shrugged. “As long as he doesn't commit crimes or assaults the others where we will be going, he can stay in your room with you.”

Bertha smiled and turned to look inside the house. “Jackson! Come and meet my new boss for the next two weeks!”

A man came out of the living room with a confident strut. “Mother, I don't need to meet... YOU!”

I didn't recognize him, so I didn't immediately draw my sword. I should have, because he grabbed something from his pocket and threw it at me. I couldn't deflect it, so I lunged into the house and tackled Bertha to the floor as whatever it was landed where I was just standing and blew up.

I felt fire lick up the back of my legs and start to melt my boots. I kicked them off as I rolled to the side and then drew my sword. It glowed and I shoved it through the man's chest and then I threw the blade as hard as I could. The shluck sound it made as it sliced through the man's upper chest and through the right side of his head to bisect his right eye, was drowned out by the screaming.

The sword embedded itself into the ceiling and I realized that I still felt like my legs were on fire, so I tore off my pants and wrapped them around my legs to smother the barely seen flames as I cast cooling spells to counter the searing heat.

“What happened in here?” Dana asked as she ran in and then knelt to check me over.

“Bertha's son attacked me and threw some kind of fire bomb. It looks like a variant of the things the Eastern Empire's mages use.” I said.

“Bertha, you didn't tell me that your son was a mage.” Dana said with a low tone of voice.

Bertha didn't say anything as she cried over her son's body.

“I'm taking you in for questioning, Bertha.” Dana said as she stood.

“For what? I didn't do anything!” Bertha exclaimed and then pointed at me. “My son is dead because of him!”

Dana gave me a glance as she pulled out one of the vials I gave her. “I suppose this can't wait until we reach the station.”

Bertha looked surprised as she wiped at her own eyes to clean up her tears, then Dana cuffed her and poured the dose down her throat.

“Tell me everything your son has done illegally and who his friends are.” Dana said as she took out several pieces of paper, then she started to write as Bertha told her everything she knew of her son's illegal actions and who helped him.

Dana would have never suspected that the company buying up land to create a continental railway, was just a front for the Eastern Empire's infiltration to take over the country, one town at a time.