The third time they circled back past the same small restaurant, Kay finally got fed up. “What are we doing?”

Cindy shot him a look as they turned down the one street they hadn’t walked through in the same small intersection. “We’re making sure no one is following us. Weren’t you the one that was so adamant that we not let anyone find out until we’re ready?”

With his agitation rising, he stared back at her. “Are you telling me that we’re keeping it a secret by walking in circles?”

“No,” Isla whispered, “Well, not entirely. I’ve put several different measures in place to keep it secure, but the walking in circles doesn’t hurt.”

“… Fine. How much longer are we going to do this? It’s been an hour, and I’m getting hungry.” He stared wistfully back at the small restaurant with the delicious smells wafting out of it.

“The one tail we’ve noticed finally stopped following us on that last circle, so we’ll head that way in a few minutes,” Isla told him.

“There was actually someone following us?”

“You’re the leader of a nation now, Kay. Of course, someone was following you!” Lauren snapped at him.

He glanced at the empty air next to him, where he knew she was invisibly following along.

“Shut up!” Cindy hissed.

The Blood Guard Captain cut her sigh short as they rounded a corner, and someone walked past.

“Sorry,” Kay muttered when they were far enough away, “I meant that in an ‘I’m worried about the project leaking’ way, not an ‘I can’t believe someone is following me’ way. I know that I’m a target in more than one way.”

He felt a tiny hand reach up and grab his earlobe. “I’m glad you do know. And don’t worry, they weren’t following you because of the project. They’re the lackey for a visiting Bannerthrust noble who wants to challenge you. The one time they actually tried to get close to you, they got smacked down by the Blood Guard, so they sent their servants out to try and catch you in a vulnerable spot.”

He heard Lauren growl quietly. “Which one was it?”

“What part of ‘shut up, you’re invisible’ do you not get?” Cindy snapped.

“Calm down.” Isla responded, “I started blocking sound from her after the first time.”

Cindy’s face screwed up. “Good job. Sorry, Lauren. I’m just jumpy.” They came around another corner, and she muttered, “But seriously, everyone shut up. We’re almost there. Isla, hit the illusion.”

“Done.”

There was a faint shimmer in the air around them, and Lauren suddenly popped into being a few inches from Kay. Before he had any time to ask why she was suddenly visible, Cindy pushed into a bakery right off of the small street they’d turned onto.

A young orcish woman looked over from the counter with a wide smile. “Welcome! How can we help you?”

“We’re here to pick up Miss Torsion’s order,” Cindy replied, “It should be a dozen pastries and three loaves of your brioche bread?”

“Oh!” The woman perked up, although her smile became a little brittle. “Of course, one moment, please.” She turned around and poked her head through the doorway behind her. “Louis! Some people are here for the big order!”

A very large beastkin man with small curled horns popped into the same doorway, his chest almost slamming into the woman’s face. “Oh, sorry.” He looked over the four of them, then gestured for them to follow him through the door.

They followed him back past a few ovens and racks filled with various baked goods, which Kay stared at longingly, into another small room where a few people were going about various tasks.

“What order were you picking up again?” The man asked suddenly after pausing next to one of the countertops, his posture tense.

“Five dozen loaves of sourdough and three muffins flats,” Cindy told him.

The large man relaxed, and Kay watched as the people around them, who’d all frozen when the man had stopped working, all went back to their tasks. He noticed one of them slip a dagger back underneath the counter in front of her.

“Oh good, I thought you might be here for one of the orders that weren’t done yet.” He turned and started towards another room in the back.

“What’s a muffin flat?” Kay whispered to his shoulder-top companion.

“Cindy told me you called them English muffins on your world.”

“Is it alright if we grab something for the new guy?” Cindy asked, slinging her arm over Kay’s shoulder. “He had some meetings today and hasn’t had time for lunch.”

He shot a slightly confused look back at them and shrugged as he walked. “Sure?”

Cindy reached out and grabbed a cooling loaf of something and handed it to Kay. “Here, their zucchini bread is fantastic.”

They followed the man through another three rooms, two of them filled with nothing but racked baked goods, until they stopped in the last one, which appeared to just be a storage room filled with ingredients and various tools. The large man waited for them to file in, then shut the door behind them. He glanced down at what looked like a random mixing bowl sitting on a shelf before nodding. “We’re clear.”

There was another almost imperceptible shimmer around them, and the man nodded at Cindy. “Hey, boss.”

“Good job as always, Marco.” She pointed at Kay. “While we have the moment, Marco, the big boss. Kay, Marco. He’s head of physical security for the bakery.”

Marco stiffened and bowed. “My lord.”

“Nice to meet you, Marco. I assume the lady earlier calling you Louis is code?”

“That’s right, it lets me know what to expect.” He nodded deeply to Kay and then headed to the door. “I’ll some folks disguised and heading out with your delivery. Nice to meet you, my lord.”

“Keep up the good work, Marco.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Marco slipped out the door, closing it behind him, and Kay turned to look around the storage room. “Are we inside the cliff here?”

“Yeah,” Cindy walked over to a shelf filled with sacks. “It’s a huge amount of space Avalon can use for building if we just open it up, and it lets those of us who have something to hide bury things where no one can see them.”

“We have people doing regular checks for unlicensed construction or digging,” Isla told him, cutting off his worries before he could say anything. “The Ministry of Construction is doing the same thing, but they’re looking to make sure no one digs out a room underneath an existing one while my people are looking for spies, thieves, and the like.”

“Good work.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Cindy muttered, “The spy lady is good at spying.” She reached past a couple of bags, spilling flour onto her sleeves, and grabbed something behind the shelf.

Kay expected there to be some kind of noise as a small innocuous portion of the wall slid open to reveal a thin staircase, but it was almost entirely silent.

“Let’s go take a look at my good work,” Cindy said as she started down the stairs.

They had to head down one at a time, not counting Isla hanging out on Kay’s shoulder because of the size of the stairs. There was so little space that Kay was pretty sure anyone bigger than him wouldn’t be able to physically make it into or out of the hidden area they were heading to. “What happens if we need to bring down someone larger to help?” He asked, “Or get something in or out that doesn’t fit through here?”

“We have another entrance that lets us move larger people or items up or down, but that one’s a little harder to secure, so we use it on a specific schedule.”

They got to the end of the stairs and headed down an equally cramped hallway for a minute or so. Eventually, they ended up in a small room that might have been five square feet in total. Kay was quite uncomfortably plastered against the two women, with their armor poking into him in various places.

Cindy managed to pull something from the pouch at her waist with enough shoving and undulation to get free space. “I’ve never actually done this with three people around my size before; we usually do this individually.” She slipped the small metal cylinder she’d pulled out into a hidden slot in the wall that Kay only noticed when she actually put it in. “And then…” She pushed the cylinder in, and it suddenly dropped down into the wall. “We wait for the key to make it down and hope that one of the two Earth Manipulators down there is close to the entrance.” The floor beneath them shifted downward immediately after she finished speaking. “Oh, thank goodness. I did not want to be stuck like this for too long.”

The floor slowly went down, lower and lower, until they finally stopped at the bottom. A section of wall slid open a moment later, and the three of them spilled out fast enough that Cindy almost tripped. Isla’s laughter tinkled through the air as she gracefully flew away from the pileup.

“Uh… Hey, Cindy.” Someone said. “Who’re these folks?”

She straightened up and brushed herself off before gesturing at Kay. “Lord Kay of Avalon. Captain Lauren of the Blood Guard.”

The lanky elf bowed. “Wonderful to meet you, my lord. I’m Kenneth, one of the Earth Manipulators for the project. I’m in charge of access to the area and expansion when we need more space.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Cindy gently pushed the blonde man aside and pulled Kay forward. “Come here.” She led him to the only doorway, out onto a small balcony that overlooked a small dining slash relaxation area where a few people were eating or chatting. He could also make out a small attached kitchen where someone was making food. There were hallways leading out of the area in different directions.

“Welcome!” Cindy exclaimed, spreading her arms out. “To Project Winchester!”

Kay slowly looked over the unadorned area with a few tables and chairs. The few people that were there looked up saw Cindy, and all rolled their eyes almost in unison. He ripped off a piece of his zucchini bread and ate it before turning to look at Cindy. “No.”

She recoiled dramatically. “What?”

“We already talked about this. We’re not naming our super secret project after something that easily identifies what the project is.”

Isla landed on his shoulder again, this time fully visible. “The real name is Project Chord. We picked it out of a bowl of other names.”

He pointed at Isla. “See? That doesn’t tell us anything about the actual project from the name.”

With just as much drama, Cindy slumped in place. “You guys take all the fun out of things.”

Kay rolled his eyes. “This isn’t anywhere near the level of seeing dinosaurs roaming the planet again, by the way.” He paused. “I’ve actually seen living dinosaurs now, haven’t I? Huh.”

Cindy glared at him and started down the steps. “Well, if you’re going to ruin my display, we might as well move to the workshops. We’ve had some interesting developments like I said, and I can explain those and give you a status report all in one trip.”

Kay ignored her griping and followed her deeper into the underground series of workshops that housed Avalon’s secret weapon development project.

“Hurry up!” Cindy complained. “We finally finished a new prototype, and I want to be the first one to shoot it!”