The heavy doors of the Enforcers Headquarters swing inward under the silent signal of the elite guards. The change is immediate. The warmer, spice laden air of the Middle Section falls away behind us and is replaced by something cooler, cleaner and far more deliberate. The scent of steel, polished wood and the faint metallic tang of purple dye fills my nose. My tail remains firmly in Master’s grip for a moment longer before he releases it, the moment he does I coil it back around his waist of my own accord,.

The entrance hall is not large but it has been designed to impress. The floor is dark, close grained timbe. The walls are panelled in the same wood and hung at regular intervals with banners of deep purple silk edged in silver thread. Each banner bears the Valenti Guild’s mark. The air is cool enough that the steel of my plate feels almost cold against my skin. Everything here is ordered. Everything here has been measured.

A duty officer stands behind a wide desk of black stained oak at the far end of the hall. He is one of the Tax Enforcers, full steel, the purple dye worked into the pauldrons and the edges of the breastplate in precise geometric patterns. His helm rests on the desk beside an open ledger. When he looks up, his eyes move first to the warrant card still in Master’s hand, then to me, then back to Master. There is no surprise in his expression. Only calculation.

“State your business,” he says. The voice is measured, neither rough nor soft. “This building is restricted to active Tax Enforcers, authorised chancery personnel and those under direct summons. You are neither of the first two.”

Master does not raise his voice. He simply places the warrant card on the desk, the seals facing upward. “Returning this. The previous holder is dead. We killed the ones who took it. We’re here to offer our services.”

The officer’s gaze lingers on the card for a long moment. He does not touch it. Instead he looks past us toward the two elite guards who have followed us in and gives a short nod. One of them steps forward and speaks in the same cold, formal cadence.

“The card is legitimate. The seals match the current register. The name belongs to Enforcer Captain Veyran of the northern circuit. He has been missing for eleven days.”

A silence settles. I feel Master’s thought through the bonded soul, calm, assessing, already turning the information over. My own ears twitch once. Eleven days. The pirates in the abandoned tower had been carrying a high ranking enforcer’s warrant for nearly a fortnight.

Before the duty officer can answer, a door to the left opens.

Three more Tax Enforcers enter, escorting a man in the plainer iron of the Levy Forces. The Levy soldier’s face is pale and set. His hands are bound in front of him with iron cuffs that look far too well made for simple restraint. One of the Tax Enforcers carries a short ledger. Another carries a small iron strongbox. The third walks slightly behind, spear held at a precise angle.

They stop in the centre of the hall. The duty officer rises. Every movement in the room slows. Conversations that had been happening in side corridors fall quiet. I watch, body still pressed against Master’s, as the lead Tax Enforcer opens the ledger and begins to speak in a voice that carries without effort.

“Levy Sergeant Halren. Charged with under reporting gate taxes collected on the eastern road over a period of six days. Total discrepancy, forty seven silver and three copper. The shortfall was discovered during the weekly reconciliation. The sergeant claims the difference was spent on additional rations for his squad during night shifts. The claim is rejected. The Guild does not authorise personal redistribution of taxed coin.”

The Levy sergeant says nothing. His jaw is locked. The Tax Enforcer continues without inflection.

“Punishment is set at triple restitution and public reduction in rank. The coin will be taken from his personal back pay and from the next three months of his squad’s collective bonus. Rank is reduced to Line Trooper effective immediately. Helm and sergeant’s badge are forfeit.”

One of the other Tax Enforcers steps forward, removes the man’s iron helm and unfastens the small rank badge from his shoulder. The strongbox is opened. Coin is counted out in full view of everyone in the hall, slow, deliberate, each piece placed with a soft metallic click. The Levy soldier does not look at the money. He stares at a point on the far wall while the process is completed. When it is finished the Tax Enforcer closes the strongbox and speaks one final sentence.

“The Guild does not steal from the Guild. Remember it.”

The three Tax Enforcers turn and leave the way they came, taking the now demoted soldier with them. The entire exchange has taken less than three minutes. No raised voices. No unnecessary force. Just the cold, precise application of rule and consequence. I feel the lesson settle into the room like a second layer of air. These men do not posture. They do not need to.

The duty officer turns back to us as if the interruption had been scheduled. He slides the warrant card toward himself at last, examines the seals more carefully, then looks up at Master again. “Enforcer Captain Veyran’s disappearance is recorded. Recovery of the warrant is noted. Your claim of service will be heard by the ranking officer of this house. Follow.”

He does not wait for agreement. He simply turns and walks toward a corridor on the right. Master follows. I stay exactly where I belong, pressed against his side, tail coiled, spear ready, every sense stretched wide.

The corridor is narrower than the entrance hall but no less ordered. The same dark timber, the same purple banners at measured intervals. Doors stand closed on either side, each marked with small iron plaques: Records, Armoury, Duty Roster, Interrogation. The air grows cooler still. I catch the distant sound of men drilling somewhere behind the building, sharp commands, the measured stamp of boots, the ring of steel on steel. The two barracks the duty officer mentioned earlier must sit in the enclosed yard beyond these walls. Everything here is designed to function without waste.

We pass a side chamber where two more Tax Enforcers sit at a long table covered in ledgers and sealed coin bags. They do not look up as we walk by. Their focus is absolute. Further along, a younger enforcer in slightly less ornate steel stands at attention outside a door marked with a heavier plaque. The duty officer stops in front of him.

“Warrant recovery and offer of service. For the Captain.” The younger enforcer nods once, opens the door, and steps aside. The room beyond is smaller than I expected, but denser. A single wide desk of the same black-stained oak dominates the centre. Behind it sits a man in full Tax Enforcer steel, the purple dye richer and more extensive than any we have seen so far. His helm rests on a stand to the side. The walls are lined with narrow shelves holding rolled warrants, sealed ledgers, and small iron strongboxes. A single window high on the left wall lets in a thin bar of late light. The air smells of ink, metal, and authority.

The man behind the desk looks up as we enter. His eyes move from Master to me and back again with the same flat calculation I have now seen three times in this building. He does not invite us to sit. He simply waits.

Master places the warrant card on the desk between them.

The silence in the warrant holds room stretches. The man behind the desk, the ranking Tax Enforcer of this house, the one who commands the steel and purple elite we passed in the corridors looks at the warrant card without surprise. He does not startle. He does not reach for a weapon. He simply studies the seals for a long moment, then lifts his gaze to Master with the same flat calculation I have now seen in every face in this building.

“Enforcer Captain Veyran’s warrant,” he says. The voice is measured, neither warm nor cold, simply precise. “Missing eleven days. Recovered. The Guild thanks you for its return.” He opens a small iron strongbox on the side of the desk, counts out a neat stack of coin gold and silver in carefully measured amounts and pushes the pile across the dark oak toward Master. “Standard recovery fee. Take it and go. This office has no further business with you.”

The dismissal is clean, final, and utterly without curiosity. He does not ask how we came by the card. He does not ask who we are. He does not even glance at me for longer than a heartbeat. To him we are a transaction that has already been completed.

Something hot and unstable coils low in my chest. My tail tightens around Master’s waist until the pressure must be felt through his clothes. I step half a pace forward, steel plate shifting with the movement, and let a low, warning growl roll up from my throat. My blue eyes lock on the man behind the desk. Blonde hair falls across one shoulder as I bare my fangs just enough to be seen.

“You dismiss us like porters who have delivered a parcel,” I say, voice low and thick with the edge that always lives under my devotion. “We walked through your market, your checkpoints, your decorated steel and returned something your own people lost and you throw coin and tell us to leave.”

The ranking enforcer’s expression does not change. He looks at me the way a man looks at a tool that has begun to make an unexpected noise, mildly interested, mildly irritated, and entirely unmoved. One of the elite guards by the door shifts his weight. The leader lifts a single hand and the movement stops.

“The beast speaks,” he says, still looking at Master rather than at me. “Control it or I will have it removed. This is not a place for displays. The Guild pays for results. You delivered a result. You have been paid. The conversation is finished.”

Master does not rise to the insult. He simply rests one hand lightly against my side, enough to remind me he is still in command of the moment and speaks in that calm measured tone I know so well.

“How about a job. We work for you. Sort out your clear pirate problem.”

The ranking enforcer’s eyes narrow a fraction. For the first time something like genuine assessment crosses his face. Then it is gone, replaced by the same cold dismissal. “You two ?” He glances from Master to me and back again. “Hardly even civilised. One of you walks in here with a recovered warrant and a calm story. The other growls and shows its teeth like a half trained hunting animal. The Tax Enforcers do not hire street blades and their pets. We have standards. We have ranks. We have men who understand that coin and order are the same thing. You do not. Leave the coin or leave it on the desk. Either way, you are done here.”

The words land harder than the earlier dismissal. My ears flatten hard against my skull. The growl in my chest deepens into something closer to a snarl. I feel the bonded soul carry the sharp spike of my fury straight to Master, the absolute need to make this man understand what stands in front of him. My claws flex against the shaft of my spear. The dark blue collar sits warm against my throat. Every instinct I have wants to close the distance and show this steel and purple officer exactly how civilised I can be when Master is spoken of that way.

I take one step forward before Master’s hand tightens on my side. The ranking enforcer watches the movement with the same flat calm. He does not reach for a weapon. He simply speaks again, quieter this time, and somehow more final. “One more step and the offer of payment is withdrawn. Two more and you will both be in irons. This building does not negotiate with those who cannot control their own.”

Master does not argue further. He looks at the stack of coin on the desk for a long moment, then deliberately leaves it where it sits. The forfeiture is silent and complete. The ranking enforcer gives a short nod to the guards at the door. “Escort them out. They are not to re enter the Middle Section without a formal summons.”

The two elite Tax Enforcers step forward. Their steel is decorated with the same purple dye, their movements precise and unhurried. They do not seize us. They simply form up on either side and begin walking us back the way we came. I stay pressed against Master’s side the entire way, tail still coiled tight, every muscle ready. The corridors feel colder on the return journey. The purple banners watch us leave. The duty officer at the front desk does not look up as we pass. The entrance hall with its polished floor and careful displays of authority swallows our footsteps and then releases us back into the open air of the Middle Section.

The heavy doors close behind us with a solid, final sound. Master lets out a quiet breath. His hand finds my head, fingers sliding into the soft fur behind my ears, scratching in the exact place that always undoes me. The anger still burning under my skin eases just enough for a low, reluctant purr to escape. He keeps scratching as he speaks, voice dry and edged with that familiar noir calm. “Well, my dear kitten, looks like our mission of understanding the insides of this island is going to be trickier than I thought.”

His fingers move from the base of my ears down along the side of my neck, still petting, still claiming. I lean into the touch despite everything, armoured body pressed to his, tail never loosening its hold. “Let’s go check on the good old working class,” he continues. “They do tend to be more NORMAL than these aristocratic types.”