“It’ll need a week,” said the solamancer.

“I thought service on a wand takes two days.”

“We’re getting a lot of stuff like this in.” The attendant affixed the completed ticket to the wand with a ball of wax and set it on the counter behind him. “And so are the noctomancers. There’s a queue.”

“A lot of what stuff?” asked Jynn.

“Omnimancer relics,” said the wizard, shuffling various enchanted devices around the shelf. “Nornstones. Theological support monk tools. That sort of thing.”

“Ah.” This marked the usual spot in a conversation to thank the attendant, and to receive a wish of a good day in reply. Yet the archmage was lost in a sudden flurry of thoughts, and the attendant’s attention had never really been on the customer, so the exchange sputtered and died like a campfire deprived of logs.

The omnimancer’s brow furrowed as he made his way up the stairs. Simultaneously malfunctioning nornstones across the city could have been a coincidence, of course, but the coinciding failure of so many devices used to measure coincidences seemed too… coincidental to ignore. The breakdowns themselves might have been an indicator of heightened levels of latent⁠—

“Jynn?”

The archmage looked up from his pondering and found himself staring into a familiar set of dark eyes. “Oh! Laruna! What are you doing here?” he blurted.

The solamancer glanced around at the conspicuous number of mages in bright orange, yellow, and red robes moving in and out of the Tower of the Sun’s main gate. “Taking a class.” She shrugged, and a slight blush bloomed in her cheeks. “But what about you?”

“I… uh…” Jynn glanced about, wishing he’d brought Patches along, then realized that the truth could be framed in a fairly innocuous manner provided he didn’t ramble on about his father’s research. “I dropped off a device for repair.”

“Another magical accident?” Laruna asked.

“Not this time,” said Jynn. “My nornstone wand is acting up.”

“Oh?” She flashed her teeth in an amused smile. “Working with latent fate? You must be trying your hand at divination.”

“Something like that,” said Jynn. “I have noticed an increase in the amount of coincidental or serendipitous events recently.”

“We do seem to be running into each other a lot.”

“Ah, yes. Ahaha. But I’m more interested in… well, it just seems that lately events have been funneling together. Specific needs suddenly being met at exactly the right moment, circumstances lining up in just such a way, funneling people toward something… that sort of thing.”

“What other—?” Laruna began, but she was cut off by a red-faced bannerman wearing a courier’s feathered cap.

“Laruna Trullon! And Jynn Ur’Mayan?” he boomed. “Must be my lucky day! I thought I’d be up and down the halls of at least two mage’s towers finding you, and here you are right on the sidewalk, havin’ a chat! Guess this means I can give you both your messages at once.”

The mages shared a wary look as they accepted two sealed scrolls from the courier. “What is this about?” asked Jynn.

“The biggest quest of the age,” said Gorm Ingerson, his beard shining like copper in the lantern’s light. “Slayin’ the Dragon of Wynspar.”

Burt waved his cigar at the Dwarf. “You said the dragon was the biggest ruse in history.”

“Which makes this the most obvious trap in history,” Heraldin added.

The party nodded in agreement. Six Heroes of Destiny and one irate Kobold sat around a small table in the dim taproom of Moira’s Tavern. Six scrolls of royal mandate and one ashtray sat in front of them.

“And ye know what that means,” said Gorm.

“This could be the opportunity we’ve been waiting for,” said Laruna with a grin.

“You’ve been waiting for him to send you into a trap?” said Burt.

“We been waiting for the right moment to talk about the dragon,” said Gorm. “Now he’s back with no evidence of the dragon, and we can make a case against him directly to Andarun’s nobility and guildmasters and business leaders.”

Burt exhaled a long, silver-blue stream of smoke. “S’probably exactly what he wants,” he said.

The heroes’ smiles faded a little. Laruna shook her head with the sort of perplexed smirk one might reserve for a child asking pointed questions as to the whereabouts of royal undergarments. “Well, no, he wouldn’t want us exposing this on stage. You can’t let that sort of accusation go unanswered, and all of the evidence is on our side.”

“Well, sure, but what’s to stop him from answering with an accusation of his own?” asked Burt. “Maybe say you faked all of it.”

“Maybe it gets messy on stage,” Gorm conceded. “But at the end of the day, a full investigation will have to be opened, and the facts are on our side.”

Jynn grimaced. “That’s seldom enough,” he said, nodding to Burt. “Consider who will appoint the investigators.”

“I see what you’re saying,” said Kaitha. “But there are certain norms that govern the nobility. They have to appoint impartial lawyers.”

“The guy who lit his own subjects on fire and blamed a made-up dragon to jack up the hoard’s market valuation is gonna follow norms and ethics.” The Kobold took another drag of his cigarette and chuckled mirthlessly at some hidden joke. “Yeah, all right. Thing is, Lightlings have been playing at decency for as long as Slaughs have liked slime, and all that time they’ve been murdering and pillaging our people and each other every way you turn. No matter how firm an ethos is, someone will always find a way to bend or shift it until there’s a good angle for them. People don’t want to be ethical. They want to believe they’re ethical, and there’s a lot of skeletons in the gap between those two.”

“Can’t say you’re wrong, but what else can Johan do?” asked Gorm.

“Blame it all on you,” said the Kobold. “Say you fabricated the evidence in a plot.”

“We got proof that he an’ his temple were behind the scheme to kill Freedlanders.”

Burt waved the idea away with his cigarette, sending trails of smoke zigzagging lazily into the air. “Proof is no better than a lie if people don’t want to believe it. And even if they were willing to accept the Golden King as a murderer, you’re making them accept that there’s no dragon too.”

“And that the dragon’s hoard they’ve been investing in is worthless.” Kaitha sucked in a deep breath through her teeth. “How many billions of giltin are invested in the Dragon of Wynspar’s hoard?”

“Enough to collapse the whole economy,” said Laruna.

“Or they can believe your shiny king,” said Burt. “The people love him. The temples see him as one of their own. The Wall is having its best run in years. And we’re going to march in and say we have a few documents that show it’s all a lie?”

“Such things are hard for people to believe, especially if they’re true,” Heraldin said.

Gaist nodded.

“Now you’re seein’ it,” said Burt. “All Johan has to do is offer a different story that people like better.”

“So they can find a new villain elsewhere,” said Jynn softly. “Like the six standing before him on stage.”

A thought struck Gorm. “It’s one of them empirical offenses.”

The others gave him a confused look. “A what?” asked Heraldin.

“Ye know. The bit from thrones—a big obvious line of attack with a clever one behind it.”