#serialfiction

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Beady black eyes glared at him through equally dark wrought iron bars. The Gringotts teller kiosks were ornate like graveyard gates, the inhabitants equally dour.

The Goblin sniffed, scratched his nose, then clicked his tongue. He licked his thin lips and drummed fingernails like talons against the marble countertop.

“I could come back with a warrant, if that would move things along,” Harry said.

With a sigh, the Goblin reached below the counter. “I suppose…” he hoisted a dusty ledger up, “we do what we must to keep the law on our side.” His lips quirked like he’d told an inside joke.

“Right,” Harry said.

The Goblin cracked the ledger open and ran a finger down a page of last names beginning with the letter B. “This could take quite a while, Mr Potter.”

“Auror Potter.”

“The law has no recourse against Creatures. We, however, have all of your gold.” The Goblin ran his tongue across pointed teeth and shot Harry a jack-o’-lantern grin. “Don’t we? Mister Potter.”

Harry tried to keep his face neutral and failed. He’d been in the Gringotts lobby for five hours. Every queue slowed to a halt when he got to the front. By his count, this particular Goblin had gone on break seventeen times.

Harry gripped the polished marble edge between them. “Just give me the list of transactions, and I will get out of your lobby.”

The Goblin smirked. “Testy, testy.” He turned a page and mouthed surnames beginning with Cs to himself. “I’ll find the vault number for this ‘Dalfoy’ of yours soon enough.” He turned another page. “Perhaps even by closing time.”

Harry’s fingerprints left wet whorls on the countertop. He glanced to his left, and the Goblin’s gaze followed. Harry reached through and snatched the ledger. He clutched the pages to his chest and barked a triumphant laugh.

Centuries-old iron groaned, and the lobby went silent. “Oh, shit.”

The bars between him and the Goblin rose like a spill gate. Talon-tipped fingers gripped the sidewalls, and the Goblin stepped onto the counter. The kiosks along the row creaked open, and their tellers followed suit.

Harry clutched the ledger to his chest, wand all but forgotten. “I- I’m just-”

“Robbing us again?”

“N- No. I’m not taking it.”

“Then you won’t mind giving it back.” The Goblin inspected his fingernails, polishing them against his shirt.

Harry slumped. “Can I read it first? Please?”

Down the row, a Goblin clapped slowly.

“Such manners. Read it all you like.”

“Thank you.” Harry hugged the thick book and sighed before closing it. Golden, embossed letters shone on the spine: Family Vaults, A-L. “You smug bastard.”

The Goblin clapped once and grinned a mirthless challenge. “That’s more like it.”

“You sneaky, snot-nosed little cunts.” Harry slammed the ledger on the countertop, narrowly missing the long, bare toes in front of him. “I ought to break your fingers off and shove them up your arse.”

The Goblin dipped his head in a trite bow. “Auror Potter, finally living up to the title.”

A Goblin down the row let out an amused whoop. Witches and wizards watched Harry with thinly veiled concern. The lobby echoed with rhythmic clicking, and the kiosk gates lowered, their tellers stepping safely behind him.

“Now, then.” The Goblin hefted another ledger onto the counter. He cracked it open to a page with Malfoy scrawled in golden ink across the top. “Ten years, correct?”

Harry straightened his robes. “Yes. Any deposits or withdrawals.”

The Goblin hummed and turned several pages. “It may very well take until closing to give you a full list.”

“Very funny, you pint-sized cock-”

The Goblin spun the ledger around and shoved it across the counter. There were pages upon pages of entries. All withdrawals. The most recent one was mere days ago. There was rarely more than a fortnight between transactions.

Harry flipped forward, then back to the half-filled page. “He’s been here?”

The Goblin leaned back to whisper to the tellers on either side of him. He almost looked worried when he turned back to Harry. “No. An assistant, perhaps. We haven’t seen Draco Malfoy since the war, either.”

--

Day seven of the Gringotts stakeout, and Harry was starting to see things. He shifted uneasily on the lobby bench, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

His year four teacher from St Grogory’s, the crotchety old bitch whose hair he’d turned blue, was queuing up behind a wizard in Healer robes. Mrs Pendergrass. The tyrant.

Impossible. He blinked. When that didn’t change her identity, he took his glasses off and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

She was still there when he put his glasses back on. She approached the kiosk, an enormous floral purse dangling from her forearm, and drew a wand from her sleeve.

The Goblin teller glanced at Harry, and the hair on the back of Harry’s neck stood on end. Harry leaned forward, weight on the balls of his feet. The tip of one of the Goblin’s ears flicked. Harry sprang from the bench and crossed the lobby.

Mrs Pendergrass looked over her shoulder. “Oh!” She snatched her wand up from where it lay on the ledger, open to the Malfoy accounts. “Oh, my!”

Harry loomed over her as best he could. She wasn’t a small woman, nor was he a large man.

She swept a pile of Galleons into her bag and turned, blocking his view of the kiosk. “Mr Potter! My, my, how you’ve grown!”

She patted his chest, and he recoiled. “Mrs Pendergrass.”

“Oh! Darling!” She backpedaled toward the lobby doors and waved. “So lovely to see you!”

Harry stood next to the kiosk, slack-jawed. On the countertop lay the ledger, a magic-secured transaction still glowing with today’s date. Two-hundred Galleons. Not a trifling amount.

The Goblin snapped the book shut and shoved it under the desk. Harry opened his mouth to protest, but the Goblin cut him off. “I look forward to seeing that warrant.”

Harry couldn’t form the words to parry a surly Goblin. He was behaving suspiciously, but that wasn’t Harry’s top concern. Nor was he worried about the amount of money. Or the magical signature issue. Or that she’d been nice to him.

No, what niggled at his mind, first and foremost, was that Mrs Pendergrass was dead.

"Of course I believe him," Luca said.

Fire boiled in Isabella's guts. "How could you be so stupid," she snarled between her teeth.

"I know," Luca said. "And I'm sorry. But I heard what the boy said."

"You could have gotten Cereza killed. Yourself, too. You put our nation's peace in jeopardy. And for what, Luca? For some mad stab at rebellion?"

"That doesn't matter anymore," Luca insisted. "The Great-"

Isabella whirled, slamming her palms hard into the gleaming surface of the queen's desk, a slab of ironwood and brass flanked by a pair of carved lynxes. The impact rattled the set of gilt pens on the desk, shook the arc of tall windows: the office's prow, outthrust from the face of the Palace like a hawk's keelbone. From here the entire city was visible, whitebrick and shadow and streetlight, a web of moonslit canals down the sheer fall of the ridge.

Isabella made herself stare at it, made herself breathe. She couldn't look at Luca without wanting to put her hands around his bloody neck.

"Isabella," her mother said. "Enough."

"How can you defend him?" She turned back. Her mother's gaze was level and cool. Isabella fought to control her voice. "He risked-"

"I am aware," her mother said, "of what Luca has risked. I have no doubt this night could have ended far less favorably."

"What does the boy have to say?"

Isabella and the queen turned as Prince Alois stepped forward. His guards moved with him like a pair of shadows. Isabella brushed her fingertips against the hilt of her sword. It was a gift from her father, given to her when at fifteen she'd completed with honors the Royal Soldiers' Academy, finishing top in her class. She'd never felt such pride- silver hawk pinned to her bandoleer, uniform pressed knife-sharp, her father proffering the sleek enameled sheath. This was a weapon she'd earned. If there was to be a fight, she was ready for it.

She lifted her chin as Alois stopped before them.

"I want to hear his account," Alois went on. "Maybe then we can..." He glanced at the queen, at Isabella, at Luca, who'd slung a towel around his neck and begun to scrub dry his hair. "Come to an understanding," he finished, diplomatically.

"I agree," Luca said.

"Thank you," Alois said, almost smiling.

Isabella looked to the boy. He sat by the hearth, firelight gilding his sharp-boned face. He was huddled in a blanket as a maid fed him spoonfuls of hot broth. He ate obediently, like some silversmith's automaton, staring into the flames, fingers clutching at the blanket. He'd said nothing since Luca and Cereza had brought him to the Palace.

"Very well," Isabella said.

"It's at my word, Isabella," the queen said. She nodded to Alois and Luca. "Go on."

Alois hung back, but Luca went to the boy- Elias- and knelt, taking both of his hands. "Tell them," he said. His voice was gentle. "Tell them what you told me."

"Why were you marooned?" Isabella asked. "A storm?"

Elias blinked. His lips fluttered.

"It's all right," Luca urged. "Go on."

"Not a storm," Elias whispered. The fire popped, illuminating the boy's face with orange and gold. He shuddered and looked away. "They had cannons. So much smoke. They came out of nowhere, out of the Great Blue. We were ranging the edge, and I didn't see...they were on us before I knew what was happening. I fell...I saw the Tern on its side in the water. Smoke from the holes in its hull. I dunno if everyone's dead. I think they are."

"Pirates," the queen murmured.

"That was all you saw," Isabella said. "You mistook them for a whale, didn't you?"

Elias turned his head. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, dark as deepwater. A chill traced Isabella's spine despite the warmth of the fire, despite the staunch, rational voice inside her head telling her the boy was mad, he'd been addled by fear and dehydration, that he hadn't known what he'd seen, not really.

"No," he said. "It was there. It was real. There was a wind, and a light. An aurora on the horizon. It swept across the sea. More than the sea. It was in the ship, it was in the air. It was in me. I felt its song like it had always been a part of me. That's the reason I survived. The Great Leviathan kept me alive. I should have died out there but I didn't because I knew I had to come back. I knew I had to tell you."

"A god needs a prophet," Luca murmured.

Enough of gods and prophets and pagan mutterings. "The Leviathan hasn't been seen for two centuries. It has no reason to return now."

"You don't know that," Alois said.

Isabella rounded on him. He stiffened.

"Not a word of this leaves the room," she said, to him, to his guards, to Luca and Cereza, to the maids in the corners, hands folded down their aprons. "Do you understand?"

"Cereza," her mother said at once. "Go back to your chambers. You've had enough for tonight, and you need your rest."

"Mother," Cereza started, but fell silent at the look the queen gave her. She cast a glance toward Luca, then turned and hurried from the room, Falcii on her heels.

The door boomed shut. Silence flooded in.

"If the Leviathan is back-" Alois began.

"The war is what is important," Isabella said. "The peace negotiations. We cannot let other matters cloud what must be done. Talk of the Leviathan or the suggestion it's returned will do nothing but sow confusion across the isles."

"But it's good," Luca insisted. "Can't you see that?"

"All I see is a boy addled by sun and fear, stranded for days without company or provisions," Isabella said. "His hallucinations are hardly reason to go sounding off about...about witches and whales and gods returning-"

"King Lorenzo Valere claimed multiple visions of the Leviathan," Luca said. "He wrote about them in his Tomes, and he describes it exactly as the boy does. I can fetch them for you from the Library if you've forgotten-"

"King Lorenzo Valere burned himself alive because he thought his enemies were trying to murder him with ghost soldiers and only open flames would ward them off," Isabella said. "Really, Luca, it's like you want to sound like a madman."

"Maybe I do," Luca said. "If that's what it takes."

"Any judgment made by you is suspect after tonight," Isabella shot back. She shook her head. "Every time you have a chance for the contrary, you insist upon failure."

Luca narrowed his eyes and half-rose from his chair. "Say that again, Bell, while I'm on my feet."

Isabella moved closer, facing him down. "Foolish," she said. Her hands curled into fists; she ached to throw one square into his face, skew that straight nose sideways. "Naive. Useless. You could never be a king. Never. Not if Lapide sank to the bottom of the sea and all you had to rule were the bones of your own bloody beast-gnawed corpse-"

"Oh, do your worst, Isabella."

"Go on," Isabella spat. "Push me. I dare you."

"I don't think you could survive a push from me. I can be extraordinarily exasperating."

Heat pulsed around Isabella's eyes. "Survive," she said. "Don't make me laugh. You were given command of one ship, Luca. One damned ship. And you failed that, too, and everyone on it burned because of you-"

"Yes." Luca's eyes were bright, his voice soft, and all the worse for it. "Just like father."

Her composure shattered. Isabella gathered herself to lunge.

"Enough!"

Queen Sofia's voice sliced between them, ringing off the vaulted heights of the grand room, off the watching heads of elk and saber-fanged Buyani leopards mounted high on the walls, glass eyes glimmering like they were listening in. Isabella stepped back. Her mother's eyes were wide; spots of color burned on her cheeks. One fist was pressed to the hollow of her throat, clutching something on a long chain. She knew that look in the queen's eyes. She knew fear all too well.

Her mother, afraid? She'd seen the queen's grief. She'd seen her elegant, deadly rage. She'd seen her send men to their deaths, and seen her pride, full and glowing like the sun. She'd never seen her afraid.

And of what? Not of her, surely, but that was what it looked like as she stared at Isabella from across the room.

"Mother?" Isabella said. She stepped closer. "Are you..."

Her mother lowered her hand from her throat. Her composure returned, like a veil dropped over her features.

"I am fine, Isabella," she said. She addressed the maids and guards next. "You will take this boy to the infirmary. You will ensure he is well-fed and his injuries treated. You will send a letter to Pavaloir inquiring as to his identity, and informing Estara of the loss of their vessel. We will not speak of this again."

"Thank you," Isabella said.

"No," Luca said. He brushed past Isabella, tossing his towel to the floor. "No, don't you see we could have a chance, for learning, for discovery-"

"Your sister is right," the queen said. "Now is a time for balance, not uncertainty."

Isabella heard Luca's harsh inhale, but he said nothing. He stood, damp strands of his hair hanging over his forehead, hands in fists at his sides. He released them with an exhale and turned, bracing one palm against the carved lintel of the fireplace.

"Does that bring the matter to an end?" the queen asked.

But as Isabella drew breath to agree, a different sound filled the air: the clamor of bells, an unmistakable four-count syncopation, echoes pealing across the Palace battlements. Alois's guards hefted rifles, flanking their prince as he looked around, eyes wide. Isabella whirled, her hand slipping around the grip of her sword as she stepped reflexively in front of her mother.

Someone had sounded the alarm.