Senior Inspector Lyall wasn’t one to communicate unless it included his diverse collection of insults and curses. He kept to himself, investigating on his own and dragging me along only when he was forced to keep up appearances. It led to an odd sense of isolation for me. The other officers in the unit didn’t speak to me much upon arrival, all giving me strange looks before whispering to each other. All I caught were murmurs of ‘curses’ and ‘not another one’ that muddled together into a little mystery. It made the skin on the back of my neck prickle and twisted my stomach with unease. 

“Goddammit!” the man himself bellowed, his voice soaring across the room from where he had smacked into the door frame. His coffee mug went flying out of his hand, making a wide arc across the room before shattering in the middle of the floor. 

“For such a good detective, you’re not very aware of your surroundings,” I said. He met my words with his signature death glare, one that had lost its effect on me after a few days. 

“Get me a new coffee.” He rubbed his forehead as he plopped down at his desk. A red bump was beginning to form in the center of it. 

“I’m not your maid,” I replied, skimming through a case report. He pulled it out of my hands, looking it over with a snort. 

“Muggings? Aish, this is probably far too complex for you, Foxx,” he said. “Your pretty little hollow skull isn’t made for such things.” 

“Must you be insufferable this early in the morning?” I asked. 

“I wouldn’t be so insufferable if you got me a coffee,” he replied, baring his teeth in a sharp grin. 

“Get it yourself,” I said, snatching the case file back. 

He kicked at a leg of my chair, causing it to creak ominously as he walked back out to get more coffee. I rolled my eyes in response to his dramatics. 

“Don’t take his shit personally,” Senior Inspector Reeve said. It was the first time the man had spoken to me aside from basic greetings. He was stodgy and round-faced, looking to be in his late forties with a bushy grey beard. “He’ll warm up to you eventually so don’t feed into his antagonism.” 

“He has no right to be rude to me,” I said. “He may not want a partner, but he is being completely unprofessional.” 

“Wolf has…authority issues,” Reeve’s partner, a petite young girl with dainty features and large dark eyes, said. “He’s not a fan of the upper class. Sadly, Mr. von Foxx, you’re a prominent part of it.” 

“Really? That is what this is about?” I asked. “I am a detective.” 

“A loaded one,” Officer Lyons said. “Gabriel di Imperitam is a trade magnate. He’s the whole reason for the economic boom and you happen to be his heir. Wolf must hate your guts.” 

“It just adds weight to the real issue,” Reeve said. 

“And what is that?” I asked. 

Reeve did not respond, instead going back to his quiet conversation with his partner about their current case. I decided to go back to reviewing mine. 

The case was pretty normal. It was a series of muggings that had occurred in the redlight district of the city. Men and women from the upper crust of society who snuck away to do sordid things were drugged and divested of all valuables on their person. One man’s gold tooth had even been ripped out of his skull. The only difference between the most recent robbery and the past ones was that the latest victim was dead. He had been found in a back alley with his throat slit ear to ear. 

His family had come to the station in hysterics, demanding that the best detectives be put on the case or else someone would be sued or funding would be cut. Senior Inspector Lyall was supposedly the best homicide detective in Grimwood, a genius who had caught Grimwood’s most prolific murderer as a new cadet. The city press had named the murderer the Lockrowe Butcher, and the then Officer Cillian ‘Wolf’ Lyall a shining prodigy. 

Somehow I had ended up with it instead. 

It was for the best, anyway. Senior Inspector Lyall seemed particularly incompetent for his status as the ‘number one detective’. Perhaps Grimwood’s standards were extremely low. He caught one sequence murderer accidentally and suddenly he’s the town’s hero. For a small town, he may be the best of the best, but his skill was null and void in a newly booming city. The crime rates couldn’t compare. 

It would be quite easy to catch the thief. All I had to do was dress up in my finest suit and flaunt my wealth like a proud peacock through the streets of the slums. The robber would take the bait at any sign of gold. 

Senior Inspector Lyall’s face when I caught them would be worth any chance of injury. 

~*~ 

“How’s your leg?” The trees outside my hospital room window were flowering, petals floating through the sky like snowflakes as they painted the ground a pleasant shade of pastel pink. A sparrow warbled away on one of the tree branches, its feathers puffing up when a sharp wind blew past suddenly. It smoothed them out, nestling in its spot with all the happiness in the world, the warmth of the spring sun warming its perch. “Willem.” 

It would be a wonderful scene to paint, my fingers itching to hold a paintbrush and feel the roughness of a canvas strung up on a stretcher frame. It would be perfect. The little lake sitting at the left corner of my window was clear and placid, reflecting the sunlight in a way that made it glisten. The trees that lined it were lush, the cherry blossoms a perfect framer in the foreground. The sparrow would be the focus, the lighting perfect as it shines directly down— 

“Willem, you can’t ignore me.” A hand on my shoulder roughly took me out of my reverie, pulling me back into a world of white walls and the burning smell of antiseptic. Uncle Gabriel stood at my bedside, his grim face making me feel even more like a spectre than I already did while confined to this hospital bed. “How is your leg? Is it recovering?” 

I let out a croak of a laugh, closing my eyes so as not to look at him anymore. His sorrow and disappointment sent waves of revulsion through me. Any minute now, he would tell me how much of a fool I was, how right he was, how I should have never become an officer. 

“I’ll need a brace for the rest of my life,” I said. 

“You’ll be able to walk?” he asked, voice so uncharacteristically soft. It almost hurt worse than the sharp and clipped words he normally spewed. It would not surprise me if I one day found out his heart was completely frozen solid. It may have helped him strike up cutthroat deals, but it left him a less-than-ideal caretaker. 

“Yes,” I said. “Didn’t do enough damage to ruin me completely—” 

“Don’t say that—” 

“You were right,” I said, my eyes beginning to sting as my chest felt stuffed with cotton. “I was an idiot. I shouldn’t have—” 

“Willem.” The grip on my shoulder grew tighter. “I was wrong. Being an officer is…good for you. I have never seen you so…alive.” 

Uncle’s words choked off as if ripped from his throat by some horrible thief, his eyes glistening as the stone façade he always wore began to crumble into nothing. The smallest shards of humanity, of weakness, began to reveal themselves, his breath trembling. The sharp dichotomy from his usual character was jarring as he struggled for the right thing to say from a tarnished silver tongue. 

“I will make sure you continue with your dream,” he said after an eternity of tense silence. As quickly as his vulnerability showed itself, it vanished from his face, hardening back to stone. “Once you recover, you will be an officer again.” 

“The royal guard would never let me return,” I said. “I’ve—” 

“I will make it happen,” he stated. 

He paused for a moment again, wavering slightly. 

“Inspector von Foxx.”