The teapot was empty, and the scone bunnies were mere crumbs. Exhaustion was a guest that had come to stay in the bones of the men seated around the table. Yet the behemoth in the center of everything continued to grow and accumulate mass. What had started as ten simple rules had become a labyrinthian mess of legalese, a jungle of bylaws from which even the most ardent lawyer could never hope to return.

  And it was entirely Mir's fault.

  "Darling, it's late. Please stop thinking of loopholes." Leifr's eyelids felt thick, drooping behind lenses that had slipped to the end of his nose. His hair was that perfect state of messy where he'd run his hands through it far too many times.

  Across the table, Greystone picked his head up from his folded arms, glancing toward the sky warily. "The sun is going to rise soon. I need to be home in my earth before then."

  Vladimir was in his element, tired certainly, but he was sitting in the lawn chair like it was his throne. A piece of paper was held in each hand as he compared two versions of the clauses under A.N.C § 2(a)(3). He glanced up, snorting. "The sun isn't going to rise. Stop sniveling, we have all the time we need to get this done."

  Both of the other men turned to look at him sharply with those words, their expressions very different. Greystone's face was written with an awe-struck sort of horror, while Lei's face was tight with mild disapproval. Mir, realizing they were misunderstanding, took a moment to clarify.

  "No, I didn't stop the sun from rising. I used warding principles to shunt us into a bubble of still time, essentially trapping a modest amount of twilight in a stationary position, a temporary pocket dimension if you will. Think of the timestream as a tall blade of grass and our current position as a bead of dew lazily sliding along its length. It's not an indefinite solution, but if we're still here when night falls proper I can release the weave, and we'll rejoin the rest of the world smoothly. As long as I maintain concentration on it, we shall be fine." His eyes returned to the paper, deciding that the second version of the clause was fine and moving to the next discrepancy in the pile.

  They were in a private time pocket that was maintaining temporal parity with proper linear time? It was elegant. It was complex. It made Alastair Greystone feel like a complete fool for making an Ascension bid to become Dark Lord. He wouldn't be able to do something like this if he lived another three hundred years. So he felt compelled to ask the other question caught in his mind. "...but you could have stopped the sun from rising?"

  Mir paused. His eye lifted from the paper again. "Absolutely." That ink and gold gaze pinned the vampire for a long moment before the former Dark Lord looked back to the paper, voice thoughtful. "The terms of my retirement forbid it, though. Now, I'm almost done reviewing this section. If you'll kindly hold questions for a moment, we'll be done sooner."

  The vampire had no words. He just stared for a long moment at the pale man who was casually keeping a complex weave of quantum magic powered and actualized at the same time he was crawling through the thorniest legal document Greystone had ever been in the presence of. And he'd seen contracts signed in Hell for the souls of kings before. "My sire was right..." The old vampire had tried to warn him. He'd been a contemporary of Mir's, had actually met the man. When Alastair had been delivering the final monologue before killing him, the old bastard had actually laughed at him.

  'I have spawned an ambitious fool. Mark my words, boy, that is not an empty throne. Its master has only left it vacant for the time being.'

  Lei, seemingly sensing his distress, offered the vampire a casual smile. "He can be intense like this sometimes. It just means he's taking our security seriously. We all might have sat down today with the intention of fairly supporting mutual survival, but this is being written for the future as well. Who knows what other neighbors will have to sign these and if they'll do so with the same thoughtfulness toward mutual survival in their hearts."

  Greystone gave the dragon a thin smile. "I understand, I'm just a little in awe that our neighborly agreement is perhaps the most intimidating legal document I've ever laid my eyes on."

  Mir snorted, leaning back in his chair. "You should see our prenup." This document had absolutely nothing on the airtight legal masterpiece he'd spent two years drafting with the full weight of his devious mind behind it. The prenup made this behemoth of bylaws look like the latter had been written by a child with colorful wax sticks.

  The vampire glanced between the married pair, bemused. "You have a prenup?"

  "It's for his protection."

  "It's for my protection."

  The couple answered in flawless synchronization, glanced up at each other when they realized they'd done it, and then shared a perfectly timed mutual chuckle. It was disgustingly sweet. Mir returned to the document, and Lei began idly collating the papers into neat piles.

  "I married a Dark Lord, Greystone. Even if it were just the average mortal marriage, I would be exposed to risks that a certain someone found unacceptable." The dragon's voice was mild, his gaze glancing over to Mir and then back to the pages in his hands. "I'm sure you'll understand at some point if you continue on this path. Or perhaps you won't, some people never do find the one they're meant to share their life with after all." It was a sad truth that every dragon accepted. Sometimes they were just shaking their way out of their shells as their destined pair was drawing a final breath.

  "Oh, for Hell's sake, if I can get married, then the vampire can. My heart, sometimes you can act tragically romantic." Mir finally set down the papers and pinched the bridge of his nose. "And this is as done as it needs to be for tonight. I'm certain that a clever devil or a particularly motivated fae can and will find or force a loophole out of it, but I just cannot be asked to give any more of a damn." A snap of his fingers and the pages fluttered, pulling themselves up from where they lay and pressing themselves together.

  With a faint smell of ozone and a pop of light, what had previously been enough pages to construct a small fort was now a single slim file. Bound in a rich, dark green leather that seemed oddly warm to the touch and held closed by a ribbon of bright gold. Embossed in an elegant script that always shifted to the reader's native tongue were the words 'Accord of Neighborly Co-habitation'. Mir tossed it onto the table, the cover flicking open to reveal the first page. One claw opened his fingertip neatly, the blood welling and channeling down the dark nail. Using claw and blood as pen and ink, Mir signed it, his signature a strangely elegant thing of thin, swirling lines.

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  Lei was much more practical, summoning a pot of ink as his medium, though one of his fingers became a draconic talon, scratching softly across the parchment before it was spun around and slid before Greystone.

  "Baron." The dragon's voice practically purred, a happy note knowing that they were all finally going to get to crawl into bed soon.

  Normally, Alastair Greystone made it a habit to thoroughly read every document he signed. Sometimes, if it was especially weighty, he'd consult with hired demonic barristers to make sure his exposure was limited. This time, he just summoned a quill of shadow and wearily put his name to the signature line. If it came back to bite him in the end, well, this was a battle he was always destined to lose. He didn't have the power to fight a man who could stop the sun.

  Satiated by signatures, the folio snapped shut, and Mir sighed in relief. "Well, that concludes our business." He stood, stretching an arm above his head and rolling his shoulders, tail curling first one direction and then the other. A hand was extended to his husband, a warm smile on his face as he did so. "Shall we seek our bed, my heart?"

  "Darling, our guest?" Lei gestured to the miserable-looking Baron who was idly poking the tea cup in front of him with one slim finger.

  Greystone looked up. "Oh, don't mind me... Although I do suppose I'm going to die the moment that this lovely little piece of eternal twilight vanishes into the nether. I'm horribly allergic to daylight after all."

  "Oh, will you stop being so dramatic?" It was quite easy to connect their current time bubble to his usual pocket dimension. Mir didn't even need a medium for the portal, the edges of reality parting like cheap cloth under his will. The scene on the other side was raucous. Goblins, clearly having managed to get the stills working, were celebrating ten days accident-free. Quite the milestone, one that wouldn't be surviving the party, sadly.

  Their drunken antics involved sparring with whatever could be improvised as a weapon. Riding several of the recovered menagerie beasts, much to the annoyance of several of them, who were attempting to consume them in various ways. Lastly, there were varying games of chance that ranged from tame games of cards to Goblin Roulette. The latter wasn't anything like the human kind, though, involving strapping a goblin to an upright spinning wheel and throwing knives into painted sections of wood. There were bonus points for drawing blood! Flarb, who'd been busy winning a game of strip knucklebones with what was assumedly an attractive goblin woman, caught sight of them and instantly straightened up.

  "Ah! !Uh! Boss! We didn't realize that you- this isn't what it looks like."

  Mir raised his eyebrow. "Are you insulting my intelligence, or are you telling me what I'm supposed to be seeing?"

  It was a trap question, and Flarb knew it. Either answer was wrong, and the leader of the Shadow Gang was about to spend an uncountable amount of his afterlife as a reagent. Or would have if Lei hadn't waved.

  He poked his head around Mir's broad frame, his voice as sweet as sunshine. "Hello, Flarb, lovely to see you and the Gang engaging in morale-building exercises! Could you be a dear and perhaps get a room ready for our guest? He'll be staying until nightfall." Smoothly, the dragon shoved the vampire forward, Graystone barely having time to process what was happening.

  The goblins looked over the vampire. Many shiny things. Easy prey. Flarb's smile turned extremely toothy. "Well of course, vice-boss! We'll take excellent care of the house hostage!"

  Lei's expression tensed. "Guest Flarb."

  "With all respect, same difference in this place vice-boss!" Flarb bowed, making a discreet gesture that had the Shadow Gang creeping closer and closer to Greystone. "Welcome to Sorrowstone Keep, most esteemed house hostage. Now, why don't you have a seat at the table?"

  The Baron's face showed nothing but horror as the name was revealed. Sorrowstone Keep was not at all known for hospitality. Rather the opposite actually, it was a place where hopes and dreams went to die, just like the Heroes that carried them. He licked his lips, holding up his hands as the goblins drew ever closer and the gazes of dread bests locked onto him. "Oh, I really don't think that I should. I'm just here for- Lord Grimm, sirs, please hel-"

  Mir shut the portal, pressing the heel of his hand to his eye and letting out a deep sigh. "...you realize I still have to punish the minions, my heart? I can't let them just get away with things like unsanctioned parties. It'll give them hope and undermine my authority all at once."

  Lei leaned against his husband, an arm wrapped around Mir's waist, and a soft smile on his face. "Didn't you already punish them? I mean, they're looking after Greystone for an entire day. Fate worse than death." It seemed the dragon really harbored a distaste for the vampire.

  The Ley-Scarred tossed his head back in laughter, the joke and the reaction both amplified by the fact he was quite tired. "Oh my darkness, to what do I owe your sudden streak of wickedness? Lei, that was positively savage of you." His kind, soft, cinnamon roll of a husband actually thinking badly of someone? That was probably only the fourth time in a decade.

  Lei made a small face, beginning to drag his husband up the path toward their home. "I don't like him. He thought he could take your place." His voice seethed with scorn. "It's a lack of shame of the highest level! He doesn't even have the magic to have a make sun shield! In my experience, that's quite basic for any true Vampire Lord." Lei didn't have much experience with vampires, they never really had run in the same circles, but he had encountered one or two before. "On top of that, his contributions to the Accord were laughable, his manipulations were transparent as glass and just as fragile. I can't believe he ever thought that he was worth making an Ascension bid!"

  Mir was too tired to contain his laughter. The more Lei's scathing words continued, the more Mir's deep laugh rolled out of his chest. His husband was so outraged on his behalf, it was touching. It brought a warmth to the edges of his black soul and had him nuzzling against his husband's temple as they stumbled up to their front door. "...you've described a typical vampire, my heart. They either die spectacularly or live long enough to irritate everyone around them. Arrogance is the leading cause of vampire deaths." He paused. "I suppose that's why it features heavily in my own death narrative. I, too, am an arrogant creature." The difference was that he didn't make promises he couldn't keep.