A donkey brayed in the castle greenhouse, and Felicity was having a doozy of a time trying to keep it still while she tied its muzzle to a lattice. That meant its hind legs were dangerously close to kicking over an entire lattice’s worth of curly vines and their juicy red fruits, but so be it.

All around Felicity and Dodd, animals wandered, slept, and grazed on leafy salads. Lightbulbs as bright and hot as the sun warmed this greenhouse, and rain-dots of humidity specked the glass walls. It was difficult to see outside, through the fog on the windows and the foliage everywhere, but if you could, you’d just barely see Nyx’s kitchen.

“That was brave of you,” said Felicity. The donkey howled. She grunted as she smacked its neck and pulled it back into line.

“What was brave?” said Dodd, who was nudging a sheep away from a small plot of wheat.

“All of it! While I was giving our lord apology cards just to cover my ass, you were...I don’t know what you did, but it was...” The sparkles in her big magenta eyes told that story.

“Aw, don’t mention it.”

“Fine. I’ll talk about all the wonderful things our master is doing. That’s what you wanna hear, right?”

“More becoming for an imp,” hummed Dodd.

As Dodd shooed some chickens into a slipshod pen, Felicity took a longer look at the fire imp. Something was off.

“Not satisfied, are you?”

“Of course not,” said Dodd, “are you?”

Felicity felt...offended. Oddly yet deeply offended. “You bet I am. We’re on the upswing!”

“This doesn’t mean anything, really. It’s a first step. It’s not a follow-through.”

Felicity coughed. “Well, of course it is. That’s no reason to poo-poo it. And don’t eat that!” She pricked her claws into the donkey’s muzzle. Tomato juice trickled down its lips.

“Let me put it this way,” said Dodd. “If our castle was attacked today, how prepared would we be? And how prepared would Nyx be?”

Felicity huffed. She wasn’t interested in debating this. But she did put some more thought into it, and she did consider what Nyx was likely up to at that very moment.

She concluded, with great enthusiasm, “Well, right now Nyx is on the throne!”

“And eating, so, doing nothing in particular.”

“You don’t need to do anything if you’re a good enough demon lord. You just sit there and, uh...let the, uh, imps do all the work.” She twiddled her fingers nervously. “Well, that part's not happening today. Yet. So far.”

“Let’s hope not,” said Dodd. Then she lowered her voice: “But you wouldn’t believe what I—”

A loud thoomp shook the greenhouse. Apples fell. A starving horse whinnied.

Nyx’s distant voice screamed, “IMPS!”

***

The servants found Nyx sitting against the far wall of the throne-room-slash-entrance, behind a mound of junk. (They also found a pot full of pizza poppers idling on the throne, but that wasn’t their main concern.)

Their lord had opened a closet full of armor, clothing, doodads and accoutrements, then let it all clatter on the floor. Now they were hunting through it with sad determination, like a mole tunneling to escape a flood.

Felicity said, by way of a question, “My lord?”

It took a few seconds for Nyx to come to their senses, stop digging for a moment, and look the imps dead in the eyes. They’d never seen mortal fear on their master’s face before.

“We have intruders,” they hissed.

“...Right now, my lord?” said Dodd in a shrinking voice.

Felicity narrowed her eyes. She could tell Dodd was, if not loving this, then at least riding some tide of adventure.

“Yes now. In all the closets and pantries of this castle, there should be something useful,” Nyx groaned. “Hunt for it. Hunt with me. Look everywhere. Look here. No, let me think!” They slapped a hand to their face and turned away.

The imps stood watching.

“...If I may ask, Lord Nyx,” said Dodd, “are we thinking primarily in the short-term, or the long-term...such as a prolonged battle or raid, or—”

“What do you think?!” Nyx whirled to face her. “We’re looking for right now!”

Dodd gulped. “O-our time might be better used if we...”

Nyx stared at her like she was talking nonsense. Then they turned silently back to sifting through the pile, muttering the names of armor pieces to themself and tossing the useless portion away.

“...if we split up,” said Dodd. She didn’t dare suggest any defense or counter-attack. “Well, I do not wish to, uh, offend my master’s eyes any longer...so if I may be permitted to sift through the servant’s quarters—”

“GO AHEAD!”

Nyx flung a knight’s helmet Dodd’s way. She said “yipe!” and dove away before it could hit her in the head. It clanged against the throne.