“Thank you, sir.” Ned adjusted his spectacles again in an effort to look even more bookish, but his flesh wore the reminders of forty-nine grisly ends. The scars crossing his arms and face, particularly the long, nasty one across his right cheek down to a red slash around his throat, made a far greater impression than his eyeglasses. And of course, there was his missing eye, his cauliflower ear, and his bad arm. All the marks of a man who should’ve been dead long ago. For a bookkeeper, he’d made a barely adequate soldier.

The gryphon cleared his throat, and Ned took this as his dismissal. When he turned to leave, Tate spoke again.

“When you were first assigned to me, I assumed you would be my dinner within the week.” He ran a black tongue across his beak. “Instead, you’ve become one of the most trusted members of my staff.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Pity I have to lose you.”

Ned, taken aback, stared into those merciless eyes. Tate’s gray and black feathers ruffled, and he sneered.

“I’ve just gotten the news today. You’re being transferred.”

“Transferred, sir?”

Tate nodded very slowly. He smoothed his feathers back with a talon. “I tried to talk them out of it, but this comes straight from the top. Upper, upper, upper management.” He rummaged through his nest of paperwork and pulled out a blue scroll.

Ned swore under his breath. Blue scrolls were irreversible, unstoppable. As inevitable as death or, in Ned’s case, even more inevitable than death. Tate handed over the blue scroll, but Ned refused to unroll it and take a look at his new orders just yet.

Tate cocked his head to one side, then another. His lion’s tail swished lazily. He cleared his throat again, and again. Before Ned could leave, the gryphon spoke up.

“It’s a promotion. You’ve earned it.”