"That was quick," Wandak said from where he sat behind the small table in Touanne's storefront. "Your sweetheart's got visitors."

Ana could hear soft conversation from beyond the door to the back. "Mirell and Varron?" she asked as she crossed the room.

"That's right! How did you know?"

"Good guess," Ana said. "The captain told me they were the ones who brought Messy here."

"Yeah, they said as much. Hope you don't mind I let them in. I trust them, you know?"

"I'd rather you hadn't," Ana said frankly. "Not until they'd been vetted by someone who knew for sure that it was them who brought her in, which neither Messy nor Touanne does. How well do you know them?"

Wandak's face fell. "Well, I… They were with Tarkan during the whole mess with the white obelisk. We fought side by side, time and time again. I figure, if you can trust me, you can trust them."

Ana looked him in the eyes, then nodded. He was embarrassed, but he wasn't making up excuses. He believed what he said. "Alright," she said, satisfied. "Good enough. Thanks."

In the small room that Touanne kept for patients, the Healer stood around the bed along with two visitors. Varron, the Archer, was a lanky man with long, red hair; Mirell, the Fighter, a heavyset, muscular woman with a dark complexion similar to Petra's. Both were Level 11 and young — no older than eighteen by Ana's guess — and Ana recognized them from her training sessions before they all marched out from the Outpost. She might have seen Deni speaking with them now and then, too.

Messy was sitting up in bed, her blanket covering her legs and a pillow propped between her and the wall. "Angel," she said. "You're back! Do you know Mirell and Varron? They're Deni's friends. They're, ah… they're the ones that helped me."

"So I hear," Ana said, slipping back into a persona she'd discarded a few weeks earlier, that of Marshal Stasia: confident, collected, and outgoing. She entered the room with her hand extended first to Varron, who was closer, and then, once he'd shaken it, to Mirell. "Thank you both, truly."

Both youths stood starstruck for a moment before Varron said, "Ah, our pleasure Mar— sorry, Mistress Anastasia. Is that right? Deni said you don't like to be called 'marshal' anymore?"

Behind him, Mirell mouthed the words Our pleasure? with an incredulous look on her face. "Mistress Cole," she said apologetically as soon as Varron had finished, "what my friend means to say is that we're glad that we were there to step in. I wish we'd caught some of the bastards, but we were both more concerned with getting Miss Mestendi help."

"You can drop the 'Miss'," Messy said, looking down in embarrassment. "You saved my life. I don't think we need to stand on formality."

"The same goes for me," Ana told them firmly. "I don't want to hear any 'Misses' or 'Mistresses' from the two of you. I'm Ana, or Anastasia if you're not comfortable with getting familiar. And I owe you each a favor, alright? Anything I can do for you, you let me know!"

To Ana's relief, they didn't refuse or bicker. Mirell and Varron exchanged a look. Then Varron looked at her solemnly and said, "We'll do that."

"Good. Because I intend to put myself deeper in your debt. I have something to ask of you both. Today — as soon as possible, really."

"You want our help finding the people responsible," Varron guessed.

"And to bring them to justice," Ana confirmed. Then, at Touanne's alarmed expression she quickly amended, "To Captain Falk, I mean, for questioning. If you're willing."

Again, the two youths shared a look. This time it was Mirell who spoke. "Just tell us what you need. Justice is more important than anything we had planned today. We just need to get word to Deni that we'll be busy."

"Hell, invite her along," Ana suggested. Deni was young and bubbly, but she'd also shown a surprisingly vindictive side that Ana appreciated. Many of the militia and volunteers had found it hard to kill both changelings and Karti's followers, and afterward many of them, Delvers and non-Delvers alike, suffered from the guilt of what they'd had to do to save the Splinter. Not Deni. After Ana killed Trig, one of the other traitors tried to run; Deni had put a bolt of plasma through the man without hesitation, and at no time since had Ana seen a shred of remorse in the girl. Someone like that could come in damn handy.

And she doubted that Deni would say no. If anything, she'd be delighted at the confidence. She didn't show the kind of hero worship for Ana that Jisha did — that was reserved for Kaira — but Deni definitely respected and admired Ana, and attended her martial arts classes whenever she could.

And she liked Messy. She'd liked Messy before Ana ever knew either of them. If she hadn't already heard of what happened, she'd most likely be both terribly upset and furious when she did. And she could do that trick where she held a tiny sun in her hand, too.

The more Ana thought about it, the more she wanted Deni along.

And so it was. They found Deni at her parents' shop, where she still helped out quite often despite having dropped her Clerk class for Evoker. She had not, in fact, heard about Messy, and was reduced to tears when they told her. That quickly gave way to a smoldering anger, and not an offer but a demand to be allowed to join Ana and the others in finding the perpetrators.

"You all should Party up," Ana told the other three as they headed towards the south-eastern quarter and the Revelling Revenant. Deni had never been there, but knew which street it was on.

"What about you?" Deni asked, some eagerness breaking through her anger.

"I'm still in a Party with Kaira and Jisha and the others," Ana said, smiling wryly. She couldn't blame Deni for hoping that they might be in a Party together again; all that bonus Vitality was a hell of a trip when it hit.

"Right. Okay." Deni's disappointment added to her renewed scowl. It was an odd thing to see on the normally bubbly teenager, and Ana mentally downgraded the chances of anyone Deni's friends pointed out as one of Messy's attackers.

Ana was used to drawing looks these days, though most people politely looked away once they'd noticed her. Marching down the street with three companions, though, people looked and kept looking. It didn't matter how young those companions were; Mirell and Varron were both armed, and Ana had seen the expressions on all three. They were grimly determined and purposeful, and nobody could mistake that something bad was about to happen to someone.

The common room at the Revelling Revenant was larger than that at Petra's, not as tidy but by no means dirty, and far more crowded than any inn would normally have been this close to noon. Ana wasn't surprised, though; Captain Falk hadn't said how many Stolen were being quartered at the inn, but he'd said that it was a large number. And considering how few of the Earthlings had so far made any effort to integrate with the society that had taken them in, they could be expected to spend most of their time together.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Ana couldn't even blame them. She understood why they'd want to stay in this little bubble. They might come from different nations, social classes, and cultures, but they all had something in common: they'd been torn from their lives and thrust into a world that must, to many of them, seem like some kind of hallucination. While Ana couldn't empathize, she could at least understand why they'd want to stay close to those who were living through the same situation. Hopefully, they'd slowly come to accept that all this was real, start to really take advantage of the System and what it offered, and become something resembling functioning members of society.

But not yet. For now, they were gathered in this common room, several dozen of them in various groupings that meant nothing to Ana, looking at her and her three companions with sullen, suspicious expressions.

Nobody scrambled for the stairs or a back door. That was a little disappointing, but it had probably been too much to hope for. Still, she wasn't going to let anyone sneak out, either.

"Do you recognize anyone?" she asked Deni's two friends. They didn't. "Alright. Watch the doors and the stairs. I'm going to talk to the leaders of this sad lot."

Ana's three companions did as she asked, and the tension in the room ratcheted up as they each took a position at the front and back doors, and at the stairs to the two upper floors. Meanwhile Ana had scanned the room, finding Belov and Liu watching her from a table by a large window at the back. Even from across the room she could see their lips moving, and as she stalked forward she could hear them whispering… in goddamn Chinese of some kind. Probably Mandarin.

"Sit," Ana said as the two started to rise, and they dropped back into their chairs as though her command had a physical force to it. She took a position at the end of their table, giving them the full force of her displeasure.

She must, she knew, look like hell. Her burns from Kaira's near miss still hadn't healed fully, and neither had the spotty acid burns all over her arms — and partly her face — from the slobber of various demons. She knew that Touanne had done something to help while she was out of it, and the ointments were very effective, but these things didn't heal overnight, no matter what.

She was also growing steadily more pissed the longer she looked at them, a fact she made no effort to hide. She had no evidence that they were involved in the attack on Messy, but they'd set themselves up as leaders of the Stolen and she had no problem with letting them share in the blame for anything their people did.

"Miss Cole—" Liu began, but Ana flashed him a look that made whatever he'd been about to say die in his throat.

"Yesterday," she said, "late in the afternoon, a woman was assaulted in the street. The perps were half a dozen or so Stolen. Talk!"

"We know nothing about that!" Liu said. Too quickly, Ana thought. Like he'd been expecting it. He'd just lied to her, and she was about to start making him regret it when Belov spoke up.

"Sidney, please! Let me— Miss Cole. Anastasia, right? Can I call you Anastasia? What my friend means is that while we've heard that some of our community were allegedly involved in some kind of incident yesterday, we certainly weren't. Nor do we know who it is that's supposed to have committed this crime. In fact, since we heard last night, no one has presented us with any compelling reason to believe that any of ours were involved at all. All we have is an accusation!"

"Thank you, Peter," Liu said. "That is indeed what I meant."

Ana had forced herself to listen patiently, hoping that Belov would somehow trip himself up. Unfortunately he hadn't. That didn't mean that she believed him, though. He was trying to sound offended to cover up his nerves, but he was just too anxious for her to believe him, and trying to play on her sense of justice to make her feel guilty for accusing them.

Which was absolutely useless, of course. You needed a fully developed conscience to feel guilt. And Ana would need to like either man, or at least feel that they were useful to her, to care at all about their feelings or what they thought of her.

"Fine," Ana said. "Say that I believe you. You both feel responsible for this little community, right? You're trying to keep them safe, get them organized and settled in, that sort of thing?"

She waited for a reply, staring them down until Liu said, "That's right. Someone had to."

"That's great. So I imagine you'll be eager to cooperate, and do everything you can to settle this. Because let me tell you, I will find who's responsible. And someone must have heard something, so it's only a question of how many people I have to go through before I do."

"Miss Cole!" Liu objected. "Your desire to see justice done is admirable, but this thuggish attitude is really—!"

Liu's words cut off with an indignant yelp as Ana's hand snapped out, grabbing him by the jaw and pulling him inexorably to his feet. He didn't do anything so stupid as to try and hit her or pry her hand open, but he did reflexively grab onto her wrist, trying to relieve the pressure on his jaw.

It was immensely satisfying to see when he realized that no matter how hard he pulled, Ana wasn't going to move an inch.

An outraged murmur rose in the room as she pulled Liu forward so that their faces were barely a foot apart. She ignored it. Liu was slightly taller than Ana, but that didn't matter. He stood where and how she wanted him to stand. "Listen very carefully," she said, her voice entirely flat. "That goes for you too, Belov. It's important that you understand what's going on here. Yesterday, late in the afternoon, a group of Stolen ambushed my girlfriend when she was going to dinner after work."

If Ana's anger hadn't flared so fucking bright at even the thought of what Messy had gone through, she might have allowed herself some small measure of satisfaction at the way Liu's eyes widened at those words.

"They didn't just beat her," she continued, and he groaned as her grip tightened a fraction. "They tried to kill her. They hurt her so bad that back on Earth, she'd be dead. Now, luckily for everyone involved, two locals heard what was going on and stepped in, scaring the attackers off. And they believe that they can identify these attackers. So, here's what's going to happen: I will find these people. And you two are going to make a very important choice. You're either going to help me and earn some measure of goodwill, or you're going to make this a lot harder on everyone."

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Cole?!" Belov said, finally finding his voice and rising to his feet, reaching out toward her. "You better let him go or—!"

Belov's hand touched her shoulder. A moment later there was a crash as her free arm wrapped around his and a subtle shift of her balance robbed him of his own, putting him on his knees, straining to relieve the pressure on his hyper-extended elbow.

"Or what?" Ana looked down on him with a snarl. "You're going to put another fucking mob together?"

"Woah, woah!" Belov wilted, raising his free hand in supplication in the face of her fury. "We're not your enemies here!"

"But you can help me find them," Ana growled, low and dangerous, as she increased the pressure on his elbow. "So what's it going to be?"

"Yeah, fine! We'll help you! Jesus! Just let go!"

She didn't even bother to push them to the floor. It would have been so easy, but she'd made her point. Instead she simply released her grip on Liu's jaw, wordlessly inviting him to return to his seat, and took her hand off Belov's, letting him take it off her shoulder and rise to his feet.

"Sit," she commanded them again, and they sat. The room was so silent that she could hear the two men's heartbeats clearly, rapid with fear and impotent anger. She fetched a chair from a nearby table, setting it down at the end of Liu and Belov's, and sat, resting her elbows on the wood and leaning forward. "I'm so glad that you've decided to cooperate," she said, forcing herself to calm and putting on a perfectly friendly tone to throw them off. "This is going to make things so much easier for all of us. Here's what I need from the two of you: you're going to gather all the Stolen in the square. If you can't find any of them, I want to know their names, descriptions, and who their associates are. If any refuse to come, I want you to bring me to them. Then my friends are going to take a look at every single one of them and tell me which ones were stupid enough to lay hands on my girlfriend. Understood?"

"Yeah," Belov said sullenly.

"Understood." Liu rubbed his jaw where her fingers had dug in, his voice tight with anger.

"Fantastic! I'm going to give you until sunset, so you have plenty of time! But just to keep you motivated, I'm just going to tell you that I'm keeping you both personally responsible until the actual culprits are found."

"Miss Cole—!" Liu started to object, but fell quiet at a look from her.

"No, Mister Liu. Sidney. Can I call you Sidney? I'm sure you think this sounds unfair, but it's really not. You see, you two brought this upon yourselves when you pulled that little stunt a few nights ago. If you two hadn't been so mind-numbingly stupid, I wouldn't have had to talk to your followers as harshly as I did. And then, just perhaps, nobody would have decided to throw their lives away to 'get back at me' or whatever their motivations were. So this is actually very fair. Right?"

"That was me," Belov muttered.

"What was that?" Ana asked sweetly. She'd heard him perfectly well, but he presumably meant something by it.

"It was my idea. Sydney helped me get everyone together, but if you want to blame someone, blame me."

Ana thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "No. He helped you then, and he can share the blame now." With that she pushed back her chair and stood. "Remember. The square, at sunset. Everyone. I'll see you then."

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