"Are you sure Anke will be alright back there?" whispered Saoirse as she and Marci crept forward through the plushly-carpeted, painting-lined, and spotlessly-clean corridors of the Salientopolis palace.

Her vision was still a bit blurry from having cast Detect Life so recently, one of the major drawbacks of the spell, but there was a solution to that— looking through Saoirse's eyes in addition to her own. Marci's use of her Shardsense had become much easier, more second nature, and it didn't even feel that odd to be looking through two sets of eyes. Part of her found that worrying, but that part of her was overworked and gasping for breath with all the terrible threats she faced, so she was resolving to mostly ignore it.

"He's just a lonely kid," said Marci. "Honestly, I hope he'll be OK. Anke better not be teaching him about 'the Great Vine of Commerce' when we get back."

"Well, OK," said Saoirse. "You didn't mean to curse her like that, did you?"

"Well, no, I didn't mean to do it that well," admitted Marci. "I was trying to get it sticky enough that she couldn't dispel it though."

"Um, Marci?" said Saoirse. "Do you… I know it isn't normal for Shardkeepers to allow criticism from their underlings, but…"

Marci paused and turned to her. "Criticism? No, you… you can… tell me what's on your mind," said Marci.

Saoirse gulped. "Well, I know you're a Shardkeeper, and, you know, for one of them you're really nice," she said. "But the way you treat Anke isn't. That was cruel, what you did back there."

Marci started. "But Anke-"

"But it doesn't matter who it is," said Saoirse. "Does it?"

"Cruel?" said Marci. "But…"

Was it cruel? Anke was awful, but Marci… used powerful magic on her beyond what she had consented to, stuck her the size of a doll for who knew how long, and then palmed her off onto a kid to get rid of her.

If she had heard of someone doing that to anyone else, she would have thought them a cackling, card carrying villain. And Anke was awful, but that didn't mean it was a free-for-all. At least, that was how Marci thought morality worked. Universality, or something?

She'd fallen asleep more often than not in the compulsory ethics seminars that she'd had to take in her Arcane Bachelors.

"Ugh," said Marci, rubbing her face. "It was, wasn't it?"

"You have, you know, power over her now," said Saoirse. She cleared her throat. "Um, sorry, I know you're my boss…"

"No, thank-you," said Marci. "I need… I need checks on me like that. I'll- I'll have to-" Marci struggled for a moment. "-apologise to Anke, later. Thanks, Saoirse. I appreciate it, you're a good friend."

Saoirse beamed, rocking back in her sensible, comfortable-looking, flat-soled shoes. "Well, I'm glad! And- and you're a great friend too Marci!" she said. "Even if, you know, you're not always the most responsible person…"

The sound of rushing footsteps came from behind them, and Saoirse trailed off. They glanced around, before Saoirse grabbed Marci's arm and pulled her behind a large hanging tapestry. Marci was forced to land, and was keenly aware that the her boots and a good two inches of her trousers were poking out from beneath the large woven artwork.

"This is a terrible hiding place!" complained Marci.

"You're welcome to find somewhere else!" said Saoirse. "I'm doing my best!"

"We could have gone invisible!" said Marci. "They're going to see us!"

"I don't know invisibility!" said Saoirse.

"But you- but you are a qualified wizard!" said Marci.

"We didn't have a strong charms focus!" said Saoirse.

"What!? But Charms are foundational!"

"I'm also not as good as you at magic, OK?" said Saoirse. "Weren't we just talking about you needing to be nicer?"

"But basic invisibility is-"

"Shush!" said Saoirse, a moment before the harried looking form of the King of the Lilies came rushing past, dressed in a long white night-gown and a floppy white nightcap over which he had put his grand, froggy crown, flanked by one of the blue-clad guards—visible through the weave of the cloth.

"What do you mean you're not able to capture her?" he snapped at one of the guards. "She's in the palace square!"

"The Outlanders, sire!" said one of the guards. "They're- they're abusing decorum! They keep on engaging us in conversation! Greeting us, and, of course, we don't want to be rude, so we have to greet them back, and- and- and they talk about the weather, so we have to give our opinions, and then, but the time we're done Ms. Chenette Guerreri just ignores decorum and moves her box even when we try and greet her! And then- and then we have to do it all over again!"

"The blackguards! Have they no shame!?"" said the King, moving across to a window that looked down in the direction of where Marci could, faintly, hear Chenette shouting about 'alienation'—whatever that was.

"Apparently not, sire!" said one of the guards.

"Bah, send more guards!" said the King. "They won't be able to engage them all in conversation! We'll overwhelm them with sheer numbers!"

There was a loose thread in front of Marci's nose. It was ticklish. She tried to blow it away.

"Yes, your highness!" said the guard, before bowing low and, despite everything, beginning what was clearly some kind of formalised farewell. "Thank-you for honouring me with your time."

Blowing on the thread just made it worse, and a small bit flicked up and into her nostril. Marci tried to shake her head.

"Don't move!" whispered Saoirse. "Marci!"

"Not at all, Sir Maurice," said the King, waving a hand regally. "You are a credit to Salientopolis, and your House."

Marci felt a sneeze coming, and tried to clamp down on it.

"You honour me, my King," said Sir Maurice. "I live only to serve the realm."

"Ah-"

"Marci!" hissed Saoirse.

"As a knight should," said the King. "It is through honour and service that we create a more perfect Salientopolis!"

"Quite right, sire, your words are as wise as they are timeless!"

"-achoo!"

"E-gads! An intruder!" said the guard.

"Show yourself, criminals!" shouted the King.

Next to her, Saoirse sighed. "You're supposed to be a great and powerful, dread Shardkeeper, you know that right?"

Marci and Saoirse glanced at each other for a moment, then, together, broke from the tapestry and flapped into the air.

"Princess Valmont!?" said the King. "What- what are you-"

"How do you do, King of the Lilies?" shouted Marci back over her shoulder, hoping that the same tactic that Olaf and the others were using with the guards might work on the Monarch.

"Most Excellently!" said the King automatically. "And how do you-" Then he caught himself, apparently realising what she was doing and not being bound to follow the ritualised greetings the same way as his fellows were. "Hey! Come back here!"

Marci did not, in fact, come back there, and instead zipped around a corner a moment before a blast of fey-lightning, presumably conjured by the King, smashed into the brickwork behind her.

"He's a wizard?" shouted Saoirse from up ahead, her batlike-wings flapping furiously. "You didn't say he was a wizard!"

"More like a spiritbinder, without the bargaining," said Marci. "All fey have their own magic."

"Do you?" asked Saoirse.

"Is this really the time?" said Marci as they took another right and then streaked towards a set of downwards stairs that, according to the map of the palace that Chenette had shown them would lead to the reliquary.

"I was just asking-"

"Yes! I can conjure dust that has a soporific effect and makes people like me a little more," said Marci. "And glitters. And, you know, fly pretty much indefinitely. Happy?"

"No need to be snippy," said Saoirse as they rounded another corner to find another pair of guards ahead of them.

The pair of guards started to react, but were foiled as Marci yelled out "How do you do!?"

"Most Excellently, Princess Valmont!" began one as they zipped past him, followed a moment later by a. "And how do you do?"

There was a pause, and then a far angrier repetition.

"And how do you do!?"

Marci didn't answer as they dove down three flights of stairs, and emerged into a large, cavernous, wet, and clearly subterranean hallway that extended off for a good fifty feet meters before coming to a huge, cog-wheel-like vault door—the kind Marci had seen in banks, and which would roll to one side—assuming it was unlocked and you turned a wheel.

Rather than a wheel, however, there was a large vodyanoy face wrought from brass, which sprang into life, or at least, animation, as they approached.

"Hark, madams; who seeks access to my interns?" challenged the animated locking mechanism.

"Err, I'm Marci," said Marci. "And this is Saoirse. We need to get into the reliquary."

"Only those of quick wit; may see what is within this pit," declared the brass vodyanoy.

"'Pit?' But- oh, you're talking in rhyme!" said Saoirse, who seemed to find the entire concept delightful. "Do we need to also talk like that? Um, I mean—do we talk like you, in order to be… err, understood by you? Oh, no, darn, I can't rhyme you with you-"

"Yes, OK, remembering we don't have time—door, we need to solve a riddle to pass, correct?" said Marci, looking back over her shoulder to where she could hear the faint sounding of rushing footsteps.

"Why would you lock a door with a riddle?" said Saoirse.

"Because these are fey; they're nuts," said Marci. "Like, actually nuts, they don't think the way we do! What's logical to you isn't logical to a fey."

"But you're so normal; well, for a surfacer-"

"That's because my people have had millennia in the Real to stop being quite so bananas!" said Marci. "And that's not the issue here! The riddle, please!"

"Although I speak and hear, I am totally without mouth or ear,'" began the frog-like brass face. "'Although a body I do lack, with a wind do I shout back.'"

Saoirse and Marci stared at the frog-like face for several long moments. The sound of rushing footsteps grew closer.

"Are you good at riddles?" asked Marci, turning to her demonic friend.

"No," said Saoirse. "Are you?"

Marci groaned. "No," she said. "I wish Olaf was here; he's good at this kind of thing." She took a deep breath. "OK, no mouth or ear, but speaks and hears… and wind? Um… a windmill?"

"Thou are incorrect," said the brass-face smugly. "For an 'echo' was what I did select."

"Fuck!" said Marci. "Echo, of course!"

"Why would it be a windmill?" said Saoirse. "They don't speak."

"How would you know? Do you even have windmills in the underworld?"

"Well, no…" said Saoirse. "Alright, do we get another go?"

"'For mere hours do I live, but my life is what I give; whilst thin am I fast, while fat I come last; breathe I must, but I'll die from a gust!"

"Err…" said Saoirse.

"Err…" said Marci.

The sound of feet slapping onto stairs behind them grew louder.

"A… pencil?" said Saoirse.

"False, say I!" said the brass door, clearly delighted. "For a candle was in my minds eye!"

"F-f-fudge!" 'swore' Saoirse.

"I hate fey; I hate fey so much," muttered Marci, massaging her temples.

The footfalls grew even louder, and Marci turned back to see the vodyanoy king and many guards pelting down the last set of stairs towards them.

"You keep on trying," she told Saoirse as she turned and raised a shield. "I'll hold them off."

This was going exactly about as well as she'd expected. Why was she doing this again? Oh, right, to spite Anke. In retrospect, that probably wasn't a good reason to do a heist.