Crowley Quicke was without a feather clever. He had to be. Down by the docks, you had to be hard to the survive. The Quickes were as hard as could be. His mom ran the numbers while his dad broke arms for the union. His gaggle of siblings hauled freight up and down the shipyards. Crowley, the youngest, could be hard but he couldn’t stay amongst the gulls and fish guts.

Without a feather smart, Crowley focused on school and then the military. He learned to use his street smarts to hustle off base delicacies for the blue bloodec officers, the bored spawn of the wealthy. Crowley talked his way into a security gig with the Crannes, a family of degenerates and the last royal ruling house.

It was pure luck went he struck up an acquaintance with the up and coming Agle Blakewyn. Intelligence recognized its own and Agle worked with Crowley’s insider information to rise in government. In return Crowley got the status he craved. He could intimidate was a glance.

Everything was golden once Lord and Lady Blakewyn were elected King and Queen. They had actually done reforms in education and healthcare. Crowley would do anything for them including babysit their useless son, Swenn. Lazy and indulgent, Swenn was a throwback to the idle rich. Swenn was a damn poet for King’s sake. Now this Lady Blackfeather engagement fake fiancée nonsense.

Crowley knew something was wrong with that woman. Without a feather brains told him she hiding something that threatened his King. Everyone was hiding something. Yesterday at the Royal Museum Lady Blackfeather’s sister brcame ill and the tour was ended mysteriously. Not one of his guards could tell him how the teen was ill or even when the sisters left. Strangely no one cared. Even that idiot Swenn was vague on lady love’s departure. Crowley scanned the footage of the Grand Hall.

A series of pixelated played across the screen. It was corrupted. Crowley pounded his fist on the video monitor desk.

“It’s like I explained sir. The system overheated today. IT thinks it auxiliary backup power,” the young guard said. “But I was here yesterday and I don’t recall anything out of the ordinary.”

Crowley threw the keyboard to the museum floor. Two floors down Lady Blackfeather was searched the lady’s lounge for her nonexistent locket. A sheen of sweat covered her entire body. Her face calm but her heart pounded. This had been harder than she planned. Satisfied that everything inch of footage of yesterday was damaged, Dido pretended to find her locket in her purse’s torn lining.

The restroom attendant, the mother of one of her students, had been so kind to allow her into the art building off hours. Her power was effortless in an emergency but harder when it was deliberate. Luckily there was an advantage to going up dirt poor in the farmlands, Dido was without a feather clever enough to know how to cover her tracks.