Neither Allia nor Sarrah know a tracking spell, but Sarrah improvises something functional. She takes a scraping from a footprint and does a quick resonance chant, causing his other footprints to emit a dim red glow as they get within 10 feet or so, easily visible in the fading light.

  Like this, they quickly track down the demon to a small clearing where he’s crouching next to a single seat skiff (Barely even that. Just a cylinder that you straddle with handlebar controls, footrests, liftorb and something to keep it standing.) and muttering absolutions over it. Suddenly, one of the girls snaps on a twig and the man spins around with his hand going to under his jacket to grab a pistol wand.

  “Drop it!” Allia shouts, creating several spears however in front of his face.

  He fumbles his draw and inadvertently complies, falling backwards on his rear. “Eeek! I surrender!” His hands alternate between going to the air above his head and behind it. His eyes narrow as he sees the two girls step out into the clearing. “Wait, you’re not tinners.” He slowly goes for his wand in a non-threatening way, but is interrupted by Allia erecting a small dome over it. He looks up questioningly to find Allia pointing to her wrist where she spotted the blue skin. He tilts his head quizzically then looks at his own wrist, his face blanching as he realizes her meaning.

  “We might not be police, but we are curious about what a demon is doing here?” Allia says.

  “What does it look like?” he responds sarcastically. “I’m running away.”

  “After partaking in last night’s attack, no doubt,” Allia says, saying her question as if a statement.

  The man scoffs. “You’re delusional, kid. Do I look like an operative? Nah, I’m a spy.” He says the word operative with a tone of disdain, and spy with a note of pride.

  Sarrah speaks. “That um… that’s not exactly a convincing argument for innocence.”

  “What? Why… Sigh. Kids. Too many chatterbox dramas and half absol paperbacks. What do you two even think spies do, anyways?”

  “Um…” the two girls look at each confused and start alternating guesses. “Steal secrets, sabotage… assassinate… abduct…”

  “Ok, stopping you there. Those are all things operatives do, not spies…Well, some spies do the secret thing, and yeah, you want to catch those, but even they go about it in a completely different way than you’re thinking. No infiltrating heavily guarded compounds and rappelling into a vault room in the dead of night. Chance, they probably don’t even know how to crack a safe – I certainly don’t.”

  “So what do you do?” Allia asks.

  “Sighs… I guess, how I always like to look at it, is that we’re what you might call ‘diplomats in reverse.’”

  “You call last night an act of diplomacy?” Allia scoffs.

  “Well, some theorists do. Though again, I had nothing to do with that. In fact, if I knew it was happening, I would have been long gone.”

  “Okay,” Sarrah says, “say we believe you. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take you in, and saying nonsense phrases like ‘diplomat in reverse’ doesn’t help your case.”

  “Okay, let’s see if I can’t explain in way you two can understand.” He makes a triangle shape with his hands and presses them to his lips in a ‘thinking’ gesture, then shifts it to something almost lewd. “So, you see, when a mommy nation and a daddy nation hate each other very much… they break all diplomatic relations. Which is a really dumb thing to do cause that’s actually when you need the diplomats the most. Cause, now I hope I don’t need to explain this to you, but the primary goal of a diplomat is to convey information to and from their government. Cause lack of information means ignorance, and ignorance means fear, and fear is how you start wars.

  “So that’s what I do. I stop wars by conveying information and combatting ignorance. Not even important information. Yearly reports on cultural shifts and the like. Cause let me ask you this; What’s the difference between two nations having diplomats in the other, and the same two nations having spies? Cause trust me, both sides do have spies. Which is good. Information needs flows in both directions. The only difference is the order of operations.

  “So that’s why I’m here. Of course, all of that got fucked to pieces last night.”

  “Tell us what you know about that then,” Allia says.

  “I don’t know anything about it! That’s the problem!” He throws his hands up in the air in exasperation, but in a way just similar enough to spellcasting to cause Allia to flinch, though he ignores this. “Yesterday I was just collating my notes for the year’s cultural report, then all the sudden half the city is lit up with wand fire, and everyone’s talking about how some lunatic attacked the school without even a courtesy warning. Bloody operatives. So next thing I know, the police are rounding up all the known spies, cause you know they know about a lot of spies and let them be, cause the reasons I said, and then I get a message to flee to a Chthonian warship of all things. Can you believe it?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Wait,” Sarrah says, “you’re saying West Chthonia is involved in all this?”

  He laughs. “I’m not saying nothing. I have no idea what’s going on. I just know that the baited breath is supposed to pick up all the wayward spies of Newflor. I have no idea what sort of deal went down to make that happen.”

  “And you trusted that message?” Allia asks.

  He shrugs. “After that lunatic screwed us over by attacking the school? No, I don’t trust any communications from the homeland. But it sure as hell beats hoping your counter espionage boys don’t already know about me. So, I came to this island pretending to be a tourist, hid my skiff thinking I’d let it absolve for one last burst of speed and wait till nightfall to make the last leg. But of course, that plan got fucked to shit the moment your government found out that my ride’s been disavowed. Now every ship in 50 leagues is going to be patrolling these waters. Not to mention being caught by a pair of idiot kids hopped up on dramas and paperback novels.”

  The girls look at the confessed spy. He looks pathetic. Not at all the suave international man of mystery that inflames the imagination. Despite his aggressive, berating tone, his eyes are full of tears at realizing his likely fate.

  Taking a few steps back, Allia whispers to Sarrah. “So um… what do you think? I kinda want to let him go.”

  Sarrah’s head snaps towards her friend. “Allia, he’s a spy!” She says, emphasizing the word in disdain.

  “Diplomat in reverse,” Allia corrects.

  Sarrah rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe you bought that line.”

  Allia shrugs. “I don’t know. I kinda like it. It’s a nice sentiment, you know. I kinda want to believe he believes it. Don’t you?”

  Sarrah blushes then glance away. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “So, you don’t object? I mean, spy hunting isn’t our job. We aren’t obligated to report him. We’d only be obligated if we thought he’d cause harm if we let him go. I mean, look at him; does he seem like he’s capable of orchestrating a nefarious plot?”

  “Heh,” Sarrah chuckles once at the pathetic display, “I don’t know, it could be a special spy acting technique taught to make him seem too pathetic to bother with.”

  “Hey! I can hear you!” The man says, causing both girls to giggle.

  “Besides,” says Allia, “if he’s to be believed, letting him go might actually stop a war. Dispelling ignorance and all that.”

  Going sombre again, Sarrah nods. “Alright, we’ll do it this way, but I need to know one thing.” She walks over and crouches in front of him staring him directly in the eye. “Zexle. What do you know about him?”

  “Never heard of him. Is he supposed to be someone important?”

  Sarrah continues to stare, assessing the statement, then sighs. “Yeah, he was the one who led the attack on the school.”

  “Oh,” he says with a look of surprise. “Good to know. Though why do you know that?”

  “Because we fought him last night.” Sarrah’s face is completely void of emotion, which seems to do the intended effect of intimidation. She stares at him, assessing for a few seconds before finally exhaling. “Okay, yeah, sure, I know it’s dumb to since this could all just be an act, but I believe you… You really believe your job is to stop wars?”

  He nods. “Yeah, I couldn’t do it otherwise. Living here, talking with the people every day. Being a part of them. It’d be too much.”

  Sarrah nods. “Do you think you can stop this one?”

  He laughs. “No. But I don’t think anything I have to say will spark it, either.”

  Sarrah’s face makes a ‘fair enough’ expression then she stands up. “Alright. We’ll help you escape.”

  He perks up. “You will? How?”

  Sarrah explains methodically. “I know a few illusion spells. They’ll work best if you go now, while it’s still twilight and the search lights won’t be as effective. It’ll help you blend into the waters. I also have something to help against topography scanners, but it won’t be as good. Still, it should be enough if you stay… at least 500 feet away from them, I’d say. Though it will at least give you a few seconds to get away if you stray too close.”

  He nods eagerly. “Thankyou so much. Please, by all means.”

  “Before we do this though, there’s one more thing we need to know.” Allia steps forward.

  He sighs. “Another thing? What? Let me guess? The location of the sky kraken breeding dens?” He says sarcastically.

  Allia scrunches her face in confusion. “You know that?”

  “No! Of course not. Only a handful of major leaders do.”

  “Oh, well that’s not it anyways. What’s your name?”

  “Oh… is that all? Um… It’s Jack.”

  Allia shakes her head. “No, I mean your real name.”

  He winces. “Why do you want to know.”

  Allia shrugs. “Well, I guess I just want to have the right one when I wonder if you made it later on.”

  He makes a face as if he’s about to tell her that’s dumb when Sarrah interjects. “Also, it’d be nice to have a name we could call in the favour from if we ever found ourselves in a reversed situation.”

  ‘Jack’ nods. “Okay, yeah, that’s a better reason.” He breathes deeply. “Okay, sorry, this is just kinda a bit stressful. You understand – deep cover and all… Okay… My name is Chaxal Lowcloud.”

  Allia politely smiles. “Pleasure to meet you Chaxal. I’m Allia Tredwel.”

  Sarrah snaps her head at her. “Allia, I can’t believe you just told him your name.”

  “What?” Allia laughs softly, “You already said it earlier; remember?”

  Sarrah blushes at the realization of what she said prior to the decision to release him, turning her head away in the embarrassment. “Well, I’m not giving my name,” she mutters.

  “Probably wise,” Chaxal says, struggling not to laugh. “…But… thankyou. I won’t mention you two in the report. I wouldn’t want the operatives to think you’re a liability.”

  “Thanks,” Sarrah mutters, “Well, I guess I better get started. Don’t want to lose the best light.” She spends 2 minutes chanting the complex illusion over the vehicle, causing it to shimmer slightly and shift in colour. It’s not much, but Sarrah says the effect is really only noticeable at a distance.

  Chaxal looks between them, smiles nervously then silently makes to mount the skiff.

  FLASH!

  The moment before he reaches the skiff the clearing is flooded in blinding white light from above, then another from the opposite direction, washing out the colours of the vibrant plants. A booming voice calls out from the first light’s source.

  “STEP AWAY FROM THE SKIFF! LIE ON THE GROUND AND PLACE YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD! YOU ARE SUROUNDED! DO NOT RESIST!”