Friedrich sat perched on the railings of the Brass Stormer as a fox with Teleri standing beside him. The pair watched and listened, trying to discern if anything was awaiting them on the shore, but all seemed quiet. No doubt, the workers, guards, and warden of the Orion Tower were not used to anyone showing up invited. It was suicidal to try, surely.

  “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Marina asked Teleri.

  “If you die in the tower, we are stranded here and dead anyway,” said the high elf assuredly.

  “Indeed,” said Pheston. “And as much as I would love to be part of the infiltration, it is better to have you guard the boat and me to guard you, Marina. Conserve your strength and be prepared to take off at full speed when the time comes.”

  Friedrich looked across the dark coast once more, not trusting Kitt’s eyes. It still seemed quiet and that put him more on edge than it perhaps ought to have, but owing to the insidious nature of demons, he knew it was possible they were waiting for the brass ship to land on the beach and would ambush once the getaway was not so simple.

  “You give us one full day,” he said, upon resuming human form. “If we don’t return, consider the mission a failure and move on with your lives.”

  Pheston smirked. “Alright,” he said.

  “I mean it,” said Friedrich.

  Pheston winked at him. “No problem, lad.”

  “Stop that! If we get killed or thrown in a stasis prison, the last thing either of us want is for the pair of you to share that fate.”

  “Agreed,” said Teleri, but she knew saying it meant little. Marina and Pheston would topple the grand tower silhouetted against the moonlit sky before abandoning her and Friedrich.

  Marina pulled her into a tight hug. “Be safe,” she said. For once, Teleri hugged her back.

  “Of course.”

  Marina then hugged Friedrich even more tightly. “I know you’ll bring your father back, but…good luck.”

  “Thank you,” said Friedrich.

  “Well, lad,” said Pheston with a grin. “I’ll patrol the forest and ensure a clear path of escape for you. Make sure that new sword of yours tastes demon blood, eh? He told me he was thirsty the second he was forged.”

  “Tierblade craves infernal flesh.”

  Pheston sighed and shook his head despondently. “A fine sword tarnished by a daft Mercian name.”

  “Mercian?” asked Friedrich. “It’s because he’s a blade made out of Tierfyr’s bones.”

  Pheston moved his mouth to argue and then cocked his head to the side. “I see,” he said.

  “You didn’t realise that’s why he called it that?” asked Marina. She tried to control her giggling, but it broke free.

  “I blame your Mercian accents,” said Pheston, waving his hand dismissively.

  “Enough stalling,” said Teleri. She turned around and leapt from the boat to the beach, splashing into the shallow waves as they retreated back into the ocean.

  “We’ll see you soon,” said Friedrich. He turned into the golden fox and threw himself over the edge of the boat, paddling his way to the shore and clinging close to Teleri’s heels as she quickstepped her way to the treeline.

  The duo continued through the trees, their steps growing more cautious every hundred yards. The guards of the Orion Tower would surely not confine themselves to the tower itself. Even if they did not stray this far from their base, it was better to proceed with caution rather than have their presence immediately discovered.

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  Friedrich slinked through the bushes as Teleri used the trees for cover, slowing to a crawl as they reached the halfway point of the island. Teleri pulled herself up into a tree with Friedrich holding onto her boots. Once on the lower branches, he released her and turned back into a human, careful to sit on a sturdy branch.

  A curious sparrow stared at him, unphased by his sudden transformation from a predator to an auburn-haired young man.

  “Shoo,” whispered Friedrich, waving his hand and sending the sparrow away.

  “It’s clearer from here,” said Teleri, looking through the gaps in the leaves to where the tower awaited them. “Can you see it?”

  “I can,” said Friedrich, his eyes fixed in its direction.

  The tower of grey stone stood straight and was separated into three segments. The base was round and wide, like a large disk that was home to many windows with only a few of them casting light into the outside world. The middle segment was ridged and rippled upwards, connecting the base of the tower to the longer, upper segment, which was easily the longest. It was topped by a crown-like structure with an aura of grandiosity that masked the sinister beings that ran the prison within.

  Friedrich was filled with fear as he looked at it, but he knew that he could not turn back; he did not want to turn back. He had infiltrated a demonic prison before to rescue Pheston and had succeeded in killing the Lord of Horns who ruled over it. In his mind, that was his trial of worth and he had passed it in no small part thanks to his friends. Pheston held his own during the escape and Marina and Teleri had shown up to fight and rescue them at the end.

  “As we discussed,” said Friedrich, “I will go ahead and signal for you to follow.”

  “I would much prefer I took the lead,” replied Teleri. “You cannot fight effectively as a fox.”

  “It’s as I said—”

  “That you won’t need to, yes.”

  “Trust me,” said Friedrich with a wink and Teleri rolled her eyes at him. He shrunk back down to his golden fox form and the world grew brighter for him.

  He skittered along the branches and leapt to the ground, rolling over effortlessly before making his way further along. Every now and then, he would sink his paws into a tree and climb until he could reach the branches, upon which he would tug at them, shaking the leaves and signalling to Teleri that the coast was clear.

  She dutifully followed each time, slowly making their way towards the tower. They would stick together as much as possible once they were inside, but for now the slow approach would keep her safer. As much as she had protested during the discussion of the plan, she had accepted Friedrich’s reasoning of nobody—not even a demon—thinking anything of a fox in a forest, but a high elf intruder would immediately send the island to high-alert.

  As they closed in on the tower, Friedrich hopped his way to the top of a tree and clung to the uppermost branch with all four of his paws. He surveyed the area, looking to the distant coasts and seeing nothing. It assured him that the Brass Stormer would remain unseen if it hadn’t been noticed on the approach. He also took note of several smaller buildings at the base of the Orion Tower. Perhaps they were armouries or guest houses for non-demon visitors, but he would be wary of them no matter what their purpose.

  He skipped down and shook the leaves once more, signalling for Teleri to approach. This time, he waited for her in the tree in human form and she joined him on the branches.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “I can see the tower, I can see a couple of buildings, but I can’t see if there are any demons patrolling,” said Friedrich. “Can you check before we move closer?”

  Teleri silently nodded before ascending. She could see everything that Friedrich had seen and more. The Brass Stormer was but a dot on the furthest beach, but Marina and Pheston were too small for even her heightened vision to catch. Upon looking to the base of the tower, she saw several armed demons on patrol, but they did not appear to be any more alert than they ought to have been. This boded well.

  “We are in the clear,” she said, upon returning to Friedrich.

  “Good,” said Friedrich. “I’ll find a way inside and let you in once I do.”

  “There is no need for that.”

  Friedrich raised an eyebrow. “Go on…”

  “The gate is wide open. We simply need to reach it undetected.”

  “Open temporarily?”

  “I do not know, but if we are quick and quiet, we may save ourselves the hassle of disguising ourselves as demons or climbing through a window.”

  Friedrich nodded. “Then let’s get moving.”

  Teleri looked at him hesitantly for a moment and then sighed.

  “What?” Friedrich asked her.

  “I take no pleasure in asking this of you, but will you serve as a decoy? It is as you said, a fox will attract little attention. If I gain entry to the tower first, you can crawl your way in as a spider right over the heads of the duplicitous demons standing guard by the gates.”

  Friedrich gave her a disgusting grin. “You’re asking me to be a reckless fool?”

  The elf sneered at him. “No, I am asking you to be strategic. I am good at remaining unseen, but if there are demons at the door, there is little I can do to avoid them without their attention being drawn away.”

  “Come on, Teleri,” said Friedrich, his face becoming more despicable to her with every passing second.

  “A distraction in the aid of a grander strategy is not recklessness.”

  “Just say it.”

  She frowned and slapped Friedrich across the arm much harder than she had intended to, almost knocking him off balance. “Fine. If it will shut you up and we can proceed more quickly…I am asking you to be a reckless fool.”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear,” said Friedrich with a quiet chuckle. He transformed back into a fox and hopped onto the ground.