“Aren’t there any former students you can enlist?” asked Tes, “Ones that didn’t quite graduate to the university, or chose not to?” It was against regulations to form cells with outsiders without first consulting SEELIE, but she knew Chief Payne was no stranger to bending rules. She only hoped her suggestion hadn’t overstepped even his boundaries.

“Are you suggesting we hire outsiders without going through official channels?”

“I…”

“We have four cells worth,” he said with a reassuring smile, “Their skills are barely cadet-level, but they’re enough for dealing with minor issues, taking the pressure off our official forces. Obviously this information isn’t public knowledge and if it were found out I were stretching the rules to breaking point…”

“Understood, Sir,”

The Chief picked up his mug of coffee and held it expectantly in front of his lips while looking at Tes over the brim of his glasses. “Sage Khandro and Brian Smith deal with those cells and since neither of them are official members of SEELIE what they do has nothing to do with us, officially,”

“They warned me you played the rules hard and fast,”

“And did they ask you to inform them of any such misdemeanours?”

“Of course, Sir. Not that I would,”

“If I suspected you would, I would never have selected you.”

“I was quite far down the list of potential teaching staff, wasn’t I?” It was a question that had plagued Tes’s thoughts over the nine months she’d been here. She’d only applied to be an Academy Instructor because she feared she wasn’t strong enough to be taking field assignments. Teaching potential candidates literature, language and communication skills, while providing backup support for the local cells, seemed like a much more efficient usage of her abilities at the time.

“I wouldn’t worry,” replied the Chief, “So were most of the staff I’ve chosen. It doesn’t go down well with SEELIE, and I’ve ignored their recommendations every time, but since I have jurisdiction here there’s not much they can do about it,” He lent back in his chair again and reached over to rearrange the pose of his Azarat Haan action figure, whose permanent fixture in the Chief’s office frustrated the Commander no end, “I sometimes wonder if they provide us with such lacklustre support as a punishment, or because they’re afraid…”

“Afraid, Sir?”

The Chief smiled to himself. “We’re a potential liability, lieutenant: a group of borderline-rebels holed up in a backwater town minding their own business. They’d rather we not have the power to act inappropriately,”

“Chief, if I might ask, why would someone such as yourself, with high grades, a distinguished career, and contacts at the very heart of the Royal courts, be considered a potential liability?”

“You’ve answered your own question there, Lieutenant.” he replied with a chuckle. Tes wasn’t sure what part of her statement was the answer and mulled it over in her head for a moment. Was it that Chief Payne was too good to be stuck in a place like Torsten, or because he had certain contacts that others did not? SEELIE was connected to and advised by the four faerie kings, but Chief Payne was also acquainted with Queen Thetis herself. For all their supposed superiority and purity, Tes knew that faeries had their own internal struggles and politics just as much as humans did. Some even suggested they originally learned such things from humans.

“I may push a few more of their warning buttons soon,” he added, “We need to make up for lost time and teach the current students all the things they were forbidden to learn by Godhand. There are ways of doing that which aren’t by the book, so to speak…”

“Sir?”

“You were too young at the time of the last Apostle War, so you missed the recruitment drive. There were methods of wartime training used by some less-scrupulous organisations that could turn the average person into a solider in a matter of months,”

“I heard things…horrible things…” Tes couldn’t believe for a minute that Chief Payne was going to instigate something like that either. That really was about turning innocent children into soldiers of war, giving them the bare minimum of understanding to go with sudden growth in magical ability and then dumping them on the battlefield to act as cannon-fodder against demon armies. Most died, and those that survived…

Chapter 57
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