"-and do you not see, brothers and sisters, that this stratified society serves none but those at the very top!?" shouted Chenette, her voice ringing out across the square from where she was on a soapbox, holding forth with rather complicated sounding theories of politics that Marci couldn't really follow. "You have been deceived into thinking that because all of you are Lords and Ladies, that you are equal! But despite your wigs and cravats, the same material classes still exist—those who have, and those who must toil! Those who command, and those who serve!"

In front of the red-skinned frog-lady (although not a Lady!), Olaf and Tissa were standing, engaging the guard who had been nearby and were clearly trying to apprehend her in a barrage of rapid-fire small-talk that the guards, while agitated, seemed incapable of not politely engaging with. From above, Marci could see several more guards slowly making their way out of the palace, stopping, as it seemed they had to make small talk with literally every other Salientopolitan they came across.

Next to her, Saoirse was flying, looking rather queasy and seemingly trying to both look at where they were going, and keep her eyes shut. A thought suddenly occurred to her: was the demoness afraid of heights?

Clasped in the succubus' hands was the shrunk down Anke, who had insisted that since they might need to break magical warding (something she was objectively bad at), then she should go with the 'infiltration team.' Personally, Marci was hoping that Saoirse would drop her—although, both for what it would do to the kind-hearted succubus, and for reasons of plausible deniability, Marci wasn't prepared to order her to.

Well, not really. Marci hated Anke, but she didn't actually want her dead so much as… just to be not so annoying. She had to check those murderous impulses; she was a Shardkeeper now, she couldn't afford to say things like 'so-and-so should be destroyed' with bloodthirsty people bound to obey her orders around.

The palace loomed over the other structures of Salientopolis, less fortress than giant mansion, but still with towers and halls and sprawling manicured gardens tended to by a small army of gardeners that wouldn't have looked too out of place back at one of Marci's mother's palaces back in Eladraine.

Saoirse and Marci alighted on the balcony of one of the more central towers, which had a pair of folding doors, currently closed and curtained off.

"Lightly warded," said Marci, casting a scanning spell on the lock and then began to carefully map out the warding. "Nothing that should be a problem."

"Ahem," came a small, squeaky voice from where Saoirse had set the elvish spiritbinder down.

"What's wrong?" asked Saoirse, concern evident in voice. "Are you OK?"

"Unshrink me!" squeaked Anke.

"Oh… can't you do it?" said Saoirse.

"I told you, she's not a proper wizard," said Marci. "She's a spiritbinder, they're rubbish."

"That isn't very nice, Marci," chided Saoirse, who was technically correct, but was unfamiliar with how 'semi-justifiably childish' Marci usually was towards Anke. "But… you should still be able to dispel a shrinking spell—right?"

"Marci put it on too strongly!" protested Anke. "I can't get any leverage on it!"

It was, probably, true that Marci might have crossed the line between 'temporary enchantment easy to remove' and 'curse.' Although, in Marci's defence… well, she didn't really have a defence, but Anke had been so annoying about insisting that she come, and, well, it was very funny.

"Maybe if you were a real wizard, it wouldn't be a problem," said Marci, remaining focused on the warding. It was quite complex, and used slightly unfamiliar principles, but with a swish and a flick, she managed to unpick one of the secondary matrices, the entire thing unravelled, and the lock opened with a click.

"Um, Marci, I can't dispel it either," said Saoirse. "Why did you do it so well?"

"Oh, fine," said Marci, rolling her eyes and squatting down to where the three inch-high Anke was glaring at her hands on hips.

Magic swirled around Marci's finger, and she prepared a potent dispel before booping Anke on the head and…

Nothing.

Huh. She'd done a really good job on that shrinking curse, hadn't she? It didn't even unpick a little bit. Why had she put so much power into it?

"This isn't funny!" squeaked Anke. "Stop fooling around, Marci!"

"I'm not fooling around," said Marci, trying again. "I… I didn't mean to do it this strongly."

To no more effect than the first time.

"Huh, that is- that is solid," said Marci, smiling. "Wow, I guess being a Shardkeeper really helps with spells that require precision."

"Undo it!" screamed Anke, turning and pointing at Saoirse. "Undo it right now!"

"I told you, I can't get it off," said Saoirse. "Marci's a way better wizard than me at the best of times, and she juiced this curse."

"Stop it!" screamed Anke. "Get this off me this instant!"

"I actually can't," said Marci, feeling a little embarrassed. "I'm, um, I'm not joking Anke, and, well… sorry. Um, don't worry, it will wear off in… well normally a few hours, but I did put a lot of power into it…"

Anke screamed inarticulately, and rushed over and began to punch Marci's boots rather ineffectually. Marci tried, not very hard, to suppress a giggle, even though, for perhaps the first time in her life, she did feel a little bad for what she had done to Anke.

"Hey, stop that," she said. "That tickles!"

"I will destroy you, you winged harlot!" screamed Anke.

"It's OK, Anke," said Saoirse kindly. "You can ride on my shoulder. Your size shouldn't affect your ability to cast magic, so you can watch my back for me."

"No, unhand me, demon!" screamed Anke as Saoirse picked her up and put her on her shoulder.

"Well, would you rather ride with Marci?" said Saoirse patiently.

"I would rather be returned to my proper size!" screamed Anke.

Marci suppressed a guffaw. "I- I really didn't mean to do the enchantment so strongly," she said. "Honestly, Anke. Although… you have to admit that this is, objectively, pretty funny."

"You will pay for this!" screamed Anke. "I will have my revenge! You will rue the day, you jumped up, arrogant, naive, socialist!"

Anke said the last word like a vicious, damning curse, although Marci wasn't really sure what it was. Some elvish thing?

"Hello? Who's there?"

All three of them turned to the door, which had been opened, and through which a small frog-boy with pyjamas was looking up at them and rubbing sleep from one of his large eyes—which, given the way it sort of bent and shifted, was quite disturbing to watch.

"Oh, um, hello child," said Saoirse. "We're just the… balcony inspectors."

Marci gave Saoirse a very nonplussed look; the demoness blushed.

'Really?' said Marci, speaking directly into her mind through their link.

"I'm not… I've never done this before," muttered the succubus.

"I've never heard of 'balcony inspectors' before," said the young boy, cocking her head to one side. "Are you… robbers?"

"Um, no, definitely not," said Marci. "We're, um…"

Marci glanced around, trying to think about what children liked. What had she like when she was a little girl? Well, apart from storybooks about wizards, she'd liked…

Her eyes flicked down to Anke. Huh. That could work.

"G-guards?" called out the little boy in an unsure voice. "Guards?"

"Wait, no! We're- we're here to give you this dolly!" said Marci, grabbing Anke from Saoirse's shoulder. "Ta da!"

"What!?" screeched Anke.

"Oh wow," said the young boy, his eyes lighting up. "She's so pretty!"

"On the outside, at least," said Marci under her breath.

"What are you doing!?" hissed Anke as Marci held her out the almost six-inch-tall elf for the boy.

"Just got with it; think of it as your assignment," she hissed back, before raising her voice and smiling. "Now, you have to be very careful with her, OK? And you only get her for a little while? So, um, why don't you have a tea-party with her right now? Oh, and it has to be to a secret, OK? So, no calling the guards—or, or she'll vanish!"

"Okay!" said the little boy.

"This is not what I signed up for!" said Anke, shooting Marci a venomous glare as the little boy extended his green, webbed fingers for Anke. "This is not in my contract!"

"Hello, what's your name?" he said as he carefully picked her up and held her out from himself.

Anke turned back to glare at Marci, before slumping. "I'm… Anke," she said. "Hello… frog child."

"I'm Prince Damien, it's nice to meet you. Do want to meet my other friends, Ms. Anke?" asked the boy as he waddled back into his room.

The space was large and open, filled with toys of every conceivable shape, colour and size. It would have been, for many children, paradise. But to Marci, who had once had a similar room, she noted how everything was set up to be played with by only one child, and that the pictures on the wall that he'd drawn with crayons were all of fantastic, far off landscapes—not friends, not family…

This boy was lonely.

Marci felt her heart lurch as she watched him let Anke off at a stool, and then waddle off to get some soft toys and other, 'less magical' dolls.

"I hate you so much!" hissed Anke. "You are the worst."

"You keep him busy; we'll be back," said Marci, not able to keep the smile off her face as she waved to the twitching and murderous looking Anke. "And be nice, OK?"

Marci crept across to the bedroom door and cast a subtle spell that let her detect living creatures. The world plunged into black and white, objects becoming faded, blurry, and indistinct, even as her hands began to blaze with baleful ruby red light.

Marci frowned. That… wasn't supposed to be the colour that living beings were. She glanced back at Saoirse, who was more normal: although her so-faint-orange-it-was-almost-white aura was streaked with lines of the same baleful red light that Marci's aura was consumed by.

Anke was solid white, and the little boy was a soft green-gold, like what Marci's aura should have been streaked with instead of consumed by burning ruby… corruption?

"Marci, are you OK?"

"Oh, um, yes," said Marci, glancing back through the door, peering through the walls and checking that there wasn't anyone on the other side of the door before reaching up and grabbing the handle. "All clear. Let's go."