«I had work to do.» he grumbled, while Francesca, almost frantically, was checking that his tie was perfectly knotted. As it could ever not be. From head to toe, in his perfectly ironed black suit, Garaham was waiting beside his wife outside the glass door of the conference room.

When someone imagines a Mage Council Room, epic images come to mind. Grand halls with tall thrones, round tables of marble with esoteric inscriptions and fascinating runes, dim magic lightings, maybe on green or sparkly red tones, skillfully managed to shed as little light as possible and, that few lights, not to be enough to make out the threatening faces of the Councilors. A dozen intimidating figures wrapped in large sartorial robes, watching down on the poor underling requesting an audience. A sort of wispy fog would rise from the ground, and sometimes, menacingly, a raven would caw from someone's shoulder.

But the meeting on the agenda today didn't require the Official Council Room. So, the dozen, plus one, suited up men and women around a quite normal conference table in an office on the 27th floor of a prestigious building in the Chicago Loop, were as far as a Mage Council as any imagination could try to conjure. There was a screen with a map and pie charts, everyone had piles and piles of paper in front of them, and someone was, inevitably, doodling on his block notes. If someone would pass beside the glass walls, such a boring design choice, they would have looked precisely like a bunch of bored executives at a periodical adjournment staff meeting.

«Oh, only you could whine about being called up by the Council! Are you kidding? Maybe this is it, they're finally taking you up for a transfer!» Francesca's eyes had been gleaming with excitement and anticipation since her father's call that morning.

Garaham had seen through the glass a thing he didn't like already. His sitting figure wasn't less imposing than his standing, but he could have detected him blind in a dark room just by the nasty sensation of political climber he emanated.

But it wasn't the tall and muscular black man to come and gallantly open the door to them. It was a man with blonde hair and deep blue eyes, whose squared features and well-built body couldn't distract anyone from the fact that he was eleven good inches shorter than Garaham's six-feet-two.

«Garaham.» he greeted him, greasily.

«Joachim.» he replied, dryly enough, in contrast, tasting the childish satisfaction of seeing the shadow of disappointment rise in his eyes.

«It's Councilman , we're in an official situation.» he said, trying not to sound annoyed.

«You are. I am still out of the door.» Garaham replied, with the well-honed tone of a lawyer. Francesca, beside him, rolled her eyes towards the ceiling.

«Councilman, it's nice to see you again.» she smiled, moving a step forward, trying to insert herself between the two men. At her sight, Jägermann's eyes beamed dangerously.

«Dear Francesca, you're always a sight for sore eyes. I'm so sorry, but we can admit only Garaham. It is quite a private matter.»

«But I'm his wife!» she protested.

«I know, but this meeting is just for the people in a need-to-know chain. As ex-Enforcer, wife to an Enforcer and Councilman's daughter, I'm sure you'll understand.» Jägermann's voice was mellifluous to be annoying but not enough to be actually insulting, so Francesca gritted her teeth behind her perfect lips and put a fake smile on them, before retreating.

Of twelve Councilors. Garaham knew them all. One of them incredibly well. And he hated all of them. Not because they were particularly incompetent, on the contrary, rarely, like in the last years, the Council had been so well managed. He simply hated what they stood for. Political squabbling that made everything uselessly complicated. Even for an enthusiastic bureaucrat.

But there were two people more than usual. One had been the extra man there. He towered over him for at least four good inches, and twice as much he was larger of shoulders. Unkind dark eyes glimmered in the frame of the dark skin of his face. Thanatos was a Director of the Supernatural Diplomacy Division, and not a Councilor, but he was fairly unsurprised he was there. It was a well-known fact that the Director had his eyes on a Writ of Written Assignation. Namely: the declaration of one of the Councilors that, after his specific death, the person would have been deemed eligible to be voted as his successor. Since the birth of the Order, no Writ had ever been contested. And Thanatos had been Della Rovere's closest friend and confidant for years.

The second intruder was someone Garaham had never seen before.

He was a man in his mid-forties, with a well-groomed head of black hair, just the right number of grey strokes, in disheveled clothes, creased and crumpled. His bright deep blue eyes showed a strange light. They shone, eerily, as he smiled psychotically with his arms crossed, shifting his weight from leg to leg, unable to remain still for long. He looked like a homeless man, ended up who knows how in that luxurious office.

«Enforcer Garaham.» Councilman Giorgio Della Rovere of the Supernatural Diplomacy Division himself raised on his feet. Garaham looked at his father-in-law. He was paler than usual, his weaselly appearance trying to dissimulate a tension that was well-visible, for whomever knew him. «Thank you for coming.»

«I could hardly not to.» he replied, even a tad too fast for his own good.

His words didn't seem to make an impression. Except on the strange man, who laughed heartily.

«You're funny!» he exclaimed. «I'll kill you for last.»

«I beg your utmost pardon?» Garaham turned towards the man, crossing his mad gaze. The man laughed again. As competitive as the Magic ambient was, in-the-face death threats had been abandoned in the late Middle Ages.

«Garaham, this is Justin D'Yves.» Della Rovere interrupted their little exchange, clearly not at ease. But, and that was even stranger, none of the Councilors looked particularly so. Between them, only Councilor Viceroy D'Yves of the Libraries and Knowledge Division kept a straight, even bored expression on his face. Everyone else was hardly able to move his gaze away from the tall man with the crazy eyes.

But when he heard the name, Garaham suddenly understood it all.

«Oh, finally! You still hadn't paled. I was going to feel offended.» Justin laughed again. Garaham blinked. And he found Justin's arm wrapped over his shoulders and his face inches from his own. Nobody had seen him move. Just one or two whispers were hardly heard lingering around the Councilors. Truetime. «So, where's my music box?»

«I'm sorry to be forced to repeat myself, and thusly give the impression of having quite the limited vocabulary, but, I beg your utmost pardon?» Garaham tried to keep a straight face, and he quite well succeeded. He could see quite the strange light of approval in Justin's eyes.

«Nice. Nice, really nice. You have a good one here.» he nodded, patted heavily on his back and, then again, they all blinked and Justin was between Viceroy D'Yves and the red-haired man right beside him, Zachariah Leshrac, of the Internal Affairs Division. A hand on each other's shoulder, his head hanging right in the middle of the two. Viceroy looked even more bored, while the red-haired man lost a couple of shades of pink from his already very fair complexion. «But still, I want my music box. Who of you wonderful little men had orchestrated the theft?»

«Justin, as I said, there is no proof that any of the Order's mages had had anything to do with the theft. They had probably been mundane thieves...»

«What a gross load of bullshit Katharina!» Justin interrupted the short, blonde woman who had started to talk, Councilman Katharina Ivanova of the Magical Objects and Artefacts Division, shouting menacingly. To then go back to a happy tone. «I know, and you all know, those Pollos, is that the name? They did it, fair and square.»

«And I suppose you have proof of what you're saying?» Garaham intervened. Justin looked at him again, that dangerous glimmer in his eyes intensifying.

«Of course, I do. Yes, I do. I absolutely do have proof.» he said, with the strangest chanting. «So, let's have a trial!»

The Councilors looked at each other, and then right back at Justin, now standing again in the middle of the room, with the brightest smile on his face.

«Justin, a trial is something quite big to be called. If you have proof, show them to us, we'll let Garaham see and contest them, and have a nice and quiet...»

«You're boring Manuela!» Justin scoffed, interrupting her. The whole council held its breath. The Councilwoman of the Logistics and Administration Division became as red as her own very colorful dress, a true challenge for her slightly amber skin. Justin raised an eyebrow and sighed. «... Luisita Pordelada Dos Santos. Still boring! Stop pouting! I said it!»

The Councilwoman relaxed.

Garaham was appalled. In all the years he had had the lack of luck of facing the Council, he had never seen someone be so disrespectful towards them. And if it was true that Justin was the Head of House D'Yves, that couldn't be enough. All the things he had heard about him couldn't materialize in truth before his eyes like that. He had always thought the rumours on his madness to be exaggerated.

They weren't even close.

«It's procedure, Justin.» Katharina replied, patiently.

«Procedure says, quite clearly, that a Mage can request a trial towards another Mage to have his case well represented and to be shown as an example, to let the Order learn and grow. I know the Sixth Codex by heart, Katharina, I helped your great-great-great-grandfather proofread it.» Justin replied, appearing right behind Katharina's shoulders and putting his hands on them, so naturally. Garaham could see her shivers. «And I want to let the Order learn, quite well, that you don't take something from a D'Yves, even from a not-Mage D'Yves, and get away with it with just a slap on the wrist.» everyone could see Justin's hand clenching Katharina's shoulders, in a way that had to be hurtful. She paled even more but didn't even peep. «Family is so important... is it not, Giorgio?» he asked, turning his crazed smile right in the face of Della Rovere. The old man gulped down some saliva stuck in his mouth, grasping the walking cane surmounted by a giant rounded opaline stone.

«We can't go against the Codex's rules. We can't discuss the wisdom of the rulers, as we are but Enforcers of those rules.» he recited, by heart as all of them could, the first lines of the Enforcer's Oath. His voice, trembling, seemed to find some steadiness in the mantra. «There will be an official Trial, in four days. Both parts will be invited to bring their proof, and everything will be discussed in front of the Appointed Judge.»

«I volunteer, Councilman, to represent the prosecution!» Thanatos jumped up, Justin's eyes gleamed, and Garaham glared at him.

«No, he's boring.» Justin replied. Thanatos and Della Rovereìs shocked expressions seemed to fuel Justin's crazy laugh, yet again. When they all blinked, he was to be found standing right on the table, at the full centre of everyone's attention. «Joking! Joking! He'll be good. I think. He seems too serious. Nah, joking again! I'll find someone else. Sorry choco-love!» Thanatos did his best not to snap at him. Justin just kept going. «Don't you think, Garaham? We have to entertain the Appointed Judge, he hasn't seen a trial in years! Can't go with this party pooper. We need real drama!» Justin looked at him, finally, again. Garaham found himself at a loss of words. «Can't wait to make you cough up my music box.»

«You'll find, to your complete disappointment, that we really don't have it.» Garaham replied. He blinked, and the Frenchman's face was there, again, inches from his own. He could see the sparkles of madness right into those deep blue eyes.

«See you in court.» he whispered.

And then he disappeared.

Garaham was a lawyer. He had even worked as one for some years, right before leaving any mundane career to focus on his Enforcer role. He was used to that sentence, whispered in any kind of intimidating and bullying tone.

But never like that. He had felt shivers down his back, he had never felt before.

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Hi guys!
This part is a bit longer than the others, but it was quite "uncuttable", so... I hope you got to the end without too much fatigue. I really couldn't wait to show you some of my truly favorite characters: the Council and, of course, Justin d'Yves at his best, finally!
Any feedback, appreciation, comment, critique is always welcome! Thanks for reading and see you next chapter!