“Ooh, I’ve never been a part of a secret society before,” Kelsey said. “The time I got a bunch of skeletons to wear masks and have orgies every Friday night doesn’t count.”

  She put on a downcast look and sighed as everyone looked at her. “I tried to tell myself that it did count… but it didn’t.”

  “Can you not control… this… your…” Lady Anat trailed off, her icy outrage failing to find the right words.

  “I’m sure that Kelsey can maintain decorum when we’re meeting with Count Brankil,” Suliel said. “She’s just a little more informal with family.”

  “Sorry, what?” Anton said over Lady Anat’s incoherent spluttering. “Where does the Count come into this?”

  “If Mother became a member after Father's death, it must have been Lord Brankil who inducted her. They—we—are related, and that is where she sought shelter, after all.”

  “That is correct, daughter,” Lady Anat said, regaining most of her composure. “But to correct a misapprehension of… certain entities, it is only your husband that will join the Circle. Only the holders of noble titles can join.”

  “But Mother, you don’t hold a noble title, and yet you are a member?” Suliel asked.

  “As the Regent for the barony, I qualified, for a time. I no longer do. That—” she pointed at the pendant in Anton’s hand, “—belongs to you now, Lord Nos.”

  “How are we going to have a secret society if Anton’s the only member?” Kelsey asked, pulling a half-mask that looked carved from bone out of thin air. “I’m all set for when the festivities start, but—”

  She stopped and looked at Suliel, who was glaring back at her. Anton expected that there were quite a lot of words going along with that glare.

  Lady Anat waited a beat for Kelsey to continue. When she didn’t, Lady Anat cleared her throat and clarified her previous statement.

  “Each member has a circle of trusted friends or servants who know the truth,” she said. “You would be wise to keep yours small, as each of them is a loose end, should you become compromised in some way.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ve got a tight group, hardly any people,” Kelsey said. “There’s just me, Aris, Suliel, Cheia, Zaphar, Sorena—”

  “Who you trust is up to you, Lord Nos,” Lady Anat cut in over Kelsey's list of names.

  “Haris and Saleem, Lyra, Syrena, Elysia, Morwyn…”

  “That’s enough, Kelsey,” Anton said. “I trust all of them, but we don’t need to drag them into this.”

  He looked over at Suliel’s mother. “I take it, then, that you’ve been demoted to Lord Brankil’s circle of trust.”

  “I don’t like to think of it as a demotion,” Lady Anat said. “But I suppose it is, in a sense. I was always a subordinate to Lord Brankil, and that hasn’t changed.”

  “I suppose we all are, what with him being my liege lord.”

  “I am gratified to hear that you remember that, Lord Nos. It doesn’t show on your status.”

  “Hard for me to be personally loyal to someone I’ve only met once,” Anton said. “The King managed to take it in stride.”

  Lady Anat inclined her head in an almost-bow. “Heroes are often granted more consideration than ordinary nobles.”

  “How fortunate for me.”

  It started as just the ghost of a feeling. Then it swelled, grew into a tremor that Anton could feel rumbling through him, the furniture and the walls of the castle.

  “Oops!” Kelsey said over the vibration. “Sorry about that, I didn’t think it would be so noticeable. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “What is that?” Lady Anat asked fearfully.

  “I’m just doing some renovations!” Kelsey said brightly. “It’s been going on for a while, but most of it has been quieter.”

  “This is a noise?” Anton could feel, now, that the reverberation was dying down.

  “Sort of.” She addressed Lady Anat, who had sprung to her feet. “It’s nothing to worry about. It takes me a while to shuffle caverns around underground, but it’s easy enough. Turns out, though, that a hundred million tons of water is a bit tougher to move quietly. It sloshes.”

  “You’re moving the Sunless Sea?” A shrill note had entered Lady Anat’s voice.

  “It’s just a pipe,” Kelsey said, shrugging. “It’s a big pipe, sure, and there's a lot of water… actually, I’m not sure why it’s so noisy up here. The spatial shenanigans may be having an amplifying effect…”

  The rumbling had stopped now, and Kelsey held her hands up, showing her palms. “All done,” she said. “You can go back to what you were talking about.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Lady Anat stared at Kelsey for a moment longer and then turned back to Anton. “What were we talking about?” she asked.

  “Count Brankil,” Anton supplied.

  “Ah, yes. You should meet with him, soon. He needs to take your measure and earn your loyalty. You can go on a hunt together.”

  “Sounds great,” Anton said. He’d never been near a noble hunt before, but it should be downright relaxing compared to a dungeon. He saw Kelsey shifting, probably about to suggest that they hunt on one of her levels. He spoke before she could.

  “I’ll see what my schedule is like,” he said, meaning that he’d consult Suleil about the most advantageous time to leave. “But before that, there’s some Circle business to discuss.”

  “I’m not authorised to discuss more weapon purchases,” Lady Anat said carefully.

  “This is something different,” Anton said. “Kelsey.”

  Kelsey knew what he wanted and, for once, managed to be serious about it. The mask disappeared and was replaced by the False Crown.

  Anton used Delver’s Discernment.

  False Crown, Ornament, Perfect Quality, Tier 4, Layers of Deceit, False Identification, Immaculate

  “Tell me you didn’t steal the King’s crown,” Lady Anat said quickly.

  “It’s a duplicate,” Anton said. “Or, rather, whatever you call it when the source of the first one produces another copy. I take it your only identification trait is Nobility’s Privilege?”

  “Yes…” Lady Anat said uncertainly.

  “Then, Kelsey, if you would do the honours.”

  “Aye aye, Captain!” Kelsey jumped to her feet and stepped over to Suliel. “My Queen, I do crown you ruler and regnant over all the goblins in the world!”

  She placed the crown on Suliel's head. Lady Anat jumped to her feet in shock.

  First, Anton looked at the crown again.

  Royal Crown of Zamarra, Ornament, Perfect Quality, Tier 4, Aura of Authority, Sense Disloyalty, Immaculate

  Then he looked at Suliel.

  Suliel Anat, Level 21, Human, Queen of Zamarra, Scion/Lady/Queen of Zamarra, S: 7 T: 12 A: 10 D: 12 P: 21 W: 20 C: 25

  “It changed your level,” Anton noted. “Did you tell it to do that?”

  “Queen is a Tier Three Class,” Suliel said. “It wouldn’t be believable if I were only level eleven.”

  “Your Abilities are a little low for Level Twenty-one, though,” Anton pointed out. Suliel frowned.

  “I can’t change them,” she admitted. “Most nobles wouldn’t be able to see that, though.”

  Lady Anat cleared her throat. “Such artifacts are known to exist,” she said. “But this… this is the first time I’ve seen one.”

  “Really? I’ve never read anything about them in the Adventurer’s Guild,” Anton said.

  Lady Anat nodded slowly. “They were… not exactly common, but less rare before and during the Unification War, back in Tiat. When the Emperor triumphed, he initiated a purge on the dungeons and enchanters who made such items. Here in Zamarra, the nobility have always done what we can to suppress knowledge of such things.”

  “Keeping the good stuff for yourself, hey?” Kelsey said.

  “Absolutely not!” Lady Anat snapped. “Pernicious devices like this threaten the very foundations of society!”

  She glared at the crown as if she could will it out of existence. “And you say that Kalond wears another of these? We had thought that he was using some Trait of False King to conceal his nature.”

  “You don’t get Traits at the start of a Class,” Kelsey pointed out. “He might be using one now, but he must have been vulnerable for those first few levels.”

  “The Hungry Depths told us that the wizards forced it to make one of these for him,” Anton explained. “It changes its own status, so I couldn’t say if the one the King wears now is real or not.”

  “So the Wizard’s Guild is involved in this? Well, we knew they were involved. But that they were up to their necks in it from the beginning, that is news.”

  “That brings up an important point, Mother,” Suliel said. “Where does the Rose Circle stand on Magister Tikin?”

  “Ah,” Lady Anat said heavily. “Him.”

  She took her seat again, arranging the folds of her dress with delicate precision. It let her avoid looking at her daughter for a few moments. Suliel allowed her mother to take her time, and nobody said anything else. Kelsey had been quelled by a look and a silent command, and Aris just sat, uncomfortable and silent. Anton put his arm around her, reminding her that she had as much right to be here as anyone else.

  Eventually, Lady Anat looked up.

  “Your father trusted Tikin,” she said, “And I did too. My expectation was that I would join the Circle as Regent until Suliel came of age or married a… suitably aligned noble.”

  “Things didn’t turn out that way,” Suliel said dryly.

  “No,” Lady Anat agreed. “Before our rapprochement, I expected Tikin to serve the Circle as my trusted advisor. Some of the things you said made me wonder about his loyalty, but at the time…”

  She sighed.

  “I saw no reason why he couldn’t shelter like me at Lord Brankil’s estate. Instead, he returned to the capital and holed up within the Wizard’s Guild.”

  “I’m surprised Lord Brankil let him leave. Isn’t he a loose end, now?” Anton asked.

  Lady Anat grimaced. “Ostensibly, he returned to acquire another core. The Guild holds all their spare ones. Lord Brankil agreed that he would be more useful if he could do magic again. He just… didn’t return.”

  “So you and Lord Brankil are compromised,” Kelsey said. “If he’s gone back to the Guild, and the Wizard’s Guild is in cahoots with the King, then the King knows about your little circle.”

  “Kalond knows about the Rose Circle, and has for a while,” Lady Anat said. “He knows his sister isn’t dead, for a start. Knowing about Lord Brankil… it isn’t ideal. But what counts is what he can prove.”

  “Isn’t Tikin enough to prove it?” Anton asked.

  “Tikin won’t testify,” Lady Anat said confidently. “Even if he was a traitor from the start, the Guild won’t allow a Court Mage to testify against his employer. It would cast doubt on all the other Court Mages out there.”

  Anton’s head was starting to spin. “But what he knows will get passed on to the King. So he’ll know about you and Count Brankil, and he will have to suspect me.”

  “He has suspicions—kings always do. But delivering on the guns will reduce them.” Lady Anat’s voice turned hard. “As does the fact that you murdered your way into power, against my objections.”

  “Self-defended our way into power, thank you very much!” Kelsey piped up.

  Anton sighed. “I’d hoped we were past this.”

  “How could I ever get past the death of my husband?” Lady Anat said bitterly. “I can put it to one side for the sake of the kingdom, and for the sake of a relationship with my daughter… but I can’t ever forgive.”

  “Mother, dungeons have never been held responsible for the deaths they cause,” Suliel protested. “A death in a dungeon has always been held to be misadventure.”

  “Dungeons have never been able to walk around and make jokes about it, either!”

  “Point of order,” Kelsey said. “I was making jokes about the deaths long before I could walk around. What do you think the Revenants are?”

  Lady Anat visibly held herself back from responding. She pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation.

  “The important point is that this news can’t wait. I can take the crown back to Count Brankil, but he’ll want to hear everything from you in person. You should make preparations to meet with him as soon as possible.”

  Apocalypse Academy! There, that's my required shilling done.