It wasn't until the third day of Vigil's incarceration that he realized that he was going to probably be here a long time. No windows illuminated the row of cells, and no clock could be seen on the walls. He had only two ways to measure the passage of time. One was the way the lights dimmed at night, and then came on full force again in the morning. The second was the semi-daily meals that left him feeling hungrier than before. Mason, Grace, and Clement were nice enough, but they often talked about shows he hadn't seen or people he didn't know. In the meantime they mostly left him alone.

On the fourth day he began to worry about losing track of time. Luckily they had given him the luxury of entertainment - that is, an 800 page tome about animal history, which was already extolling the virtues of the Republic that would be born by the end of the book. Vigil folded down four corners as if to save his place. His eyes dully scanned the words as the other humans in their cells talked. The lights switched off, and an officer ordered them to bed.

He folded down another corner before stowing the book against the edge of his cot.

The next day a sheep was wrangled into a cell by a canine officer. She sat in the corner and didn't say a word, though frantic eyes could glance across at Vigil from across the hallway. Any time he caught her gaze she looked away, clearly terrified.

The sixth day came around. Another officer came in and strong-armed the sheep from her cell, taking her away. Some time later Vigil himself was dragged into the visitation room. A line of five tables were surrounded by glass to let everyone see inside. Across from Vigil sat an owl in a snappy suit, who greeted the boy and motioned for him to sit down. "I'm legal counsel for Baritus the polar bear," he started.

Vigil's stomach plummeted.

"We're collecting evidence for his upcoming defense against criminal charges of predation and I was hoping to take a deposition from you about your knowledge of the attack?"

"A… a deposition?"

"Just to record your words. Under oath," those last words were more pointed. "Do you know what that means?"

"Yeah, I know, what that means…" Vigil bit at his lip. He could see the owl tilt his head pointedly. "It means that I have to tell the truth."

"That's right, under penalty of the law." The owl placed a small bag onto the table, and produced a miniaturized legal pad and pen from it. "So, what happened?"

Vigil detailed everything. Again. The owl copied each word down carefully, so the boy paused now and then to let him catch up.

"Right, and, Ward, what do you know about him?"

"I just know he was nice to me, and…" He wanted to help me? "...he cared about the students in the academy. He's a good guy." But even as Vigil said the words, he couldn't help but feel bitter. He had asked the man not to help him. It was because of him that now he was in this mess.

"Do you know anything about where he lived?"

"Downtown somewhere, I don't know where."

"What do you know about his activities off of work?"

"Nothing, really."

"Do you know anything about where we might be able to find him, or anyone else he associates with?"

Vigil racked his brain. He felt so torn. As upset as he was, he couldn't bring himself to give up the man. Not that he had much to give up anyways. But there was something that he felt he could divulge. "There was one time, he offered to 'take me under his wing'? Sorry, for the phrase..." he didn't know if that'd be offensive to a bird.

The owl seemed to give no particular reaction as he kept writing. "Take you under his wing, what did he mean by that? In what context?"

"I was just saying that I didn't have a lot of people like me to visit the city with, and he said he'd be happy to accompany me so I would feel safer. I don't know if he meant anything by it, but I guess it's a weird choice of words…"

"Mhm, mhm…" he nodded along. "What was your reply?"

"I said that I had friends that I trusted… and I do. Jack, the labrador retriever at the school, he can vouch for me that we're friends. I never accepted Ward's offer. That's why I don't know anything more about him."

The owl paused. Thinking. Then he finished his sentence. "And you certify that everything you've told me is true to the best of your knowledge?"

"Yes, to the best I can remember."

He flipped the legal pad closed. "That'll be all. Thank you."

Vigil returned to his cell. The lights went off hours later. He folded another corner in the book.

A full week.

The next day, he twirled his pendant about in his hand. It was the only thing he'd been allowed to keep on his person. The circle, framing an ear of corn… he hadn't been seriously considering it, but it was starting to dawn on him that maybe he wasn't going to get out of here. Slowly he pushed his thumb against the edge. The hairline cracks around the middle began to show more clearly…

"Hey, Vigil?" It was Mason's voice.

He paused. "Yeah?" he finally answered.

"...your folks coming for you?"

Hearing it aloud made his throat tighten. "They will be. I know it."

He could hear Mason shift in his cell, step over to his bars. "Hey, kid. I wanna tell you something."

"I dunno, I don't know if… I feel like talking. No offense, I just… I don't know…"

"That's a lot of not knowing. At least give it a shot, for me?"

Vigil debated with himself. Finally, realizing he had little better to do with his time, he rose and approached his bars. Mason faced him, hands hanging out of his cell door in a handsomely casual way. Clement the next door over seemed to be watching and attempting to mirror the pose.

"There we are," Mason smiled. "Sorry we've been kinda leaving you out the past couple days, I just had the feeling you weren't so keen on being disturbed."

"It's alright," he lied, "I just been trying to read, you know, to kill time."

"Oh god you're actually reading that propaganda?" That prompted a laugh. "It's not even well-written propaganda at that!"

"Well what am I supposed to do then? It's not exactly like I have a library in here. What," Vigil shook his head, "what's the thing you even wanted to tell me? Just tell me."

Mason locked his gaze. His hazel eyes flashed. "I want to try to get you out of here." There was a pause as Vigil struggled to even begin to ask about it. "Look, any day now, my dad's going to come in and bail us out. It's kind of a long shot, but I'll ask if there's bail on you too. And if there is, maybe he can pay it off for you as well, or we can fundraise it for you. If there isn't — and there might not be, considering the Beastar himself got you — then we can try something else. I'm sure there's something we can do."

Grace's voice floated over from beside Vigil's cell, "I don't know if that's a good idea. Your dad's already dragging his feet as is. And, the guy's clearly not interested."

"This is what Sage would want," Mason didn't break his gaze. "Look, Vigil, I don't know what you heard about us and the Restorationists, but we want to be your friends here."

Vigil was already stepping back though. "Y-you're with Sage X?" He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to keep his anger in check. "You guys, following one of these X people. You see what it does?!" He gestured at himself. "It's always Sage X, or Scribe X, or Scholar X, trying to get humans in trouble, and it works. Oh it works…" He growled, turning and pacing to the other side of the cell. "I'm not joining your little cult thing. I just want to get out of here and get back to my life!"

He clenched his fists. With his back turned he couldn't see how Mason reacted to all that, but the ensuing silence was unbearable. Say something. Anything.

"You're right," the boy finally answered. Vigil unclenched at the unexpected words. "You're absolutely right, the animals are striking back hard and brutally. They expect us to submit, backs bowed and eyes down. If we so much as try to look around and ask questions we're punished. And I'm sorry that they took it out on you…" Vigil turned to find him gently shaking his head, "but if you get mad at us then you're playing into their hands. We're, what, four percent of the population nowadays? Even Freedom Street now is almost half animals. We need solidarity if we're going to get anywhere, and it starts between human communities and human enclaves. If we can't accomplish that then we're doomed. So what do you say?"

He extended a hand through the bars to offer a handshake. Slowly Vigil approached the hallway again. For a moment he considered it, and moved to accept. But he just… he couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead he gripped at his bars more tightly. Mason just pressed his lips together, nodding, and slowly withdrew his hand again.

"Good going," Grace quipped.

"Look, he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to," Mason fired back. Then he sighed, giving a weak chuckle. "I wish Ward were here though, he'd know what to—"

"Wait you know Ward?!" Suddenly Vigil was at full attention. "Like, a human Ward?"

"Yeah?"

"Freckles, old man?"

"Yes, yes! He worked at the academy?"

"As a janitor!" Vigil blinked. "How do you know him? He was mixed up in all this too!?"

Mason laughed, "Oh he got me mixed up in all of it. He's real close to Sage. Well, as close as anyone gets to Sage. The guy's a mystery, nobody knows what he looks like. Nobody even knows where he is. But he drops his letters at certain points, and Ward's one of the people who knows where to pick them up. That's how Sage talks to us."

"...you mean, the three of you?"

"Well yeah, the three of us. But there are dozens of rings across the city, across the region. We get copies of all his letters. And we try to help spread the word about the restoration, recruiting. Ward's really good at it, he got me and Grace together in this ring, and then I got Clement to join."

"Yeah!" The boy spoke up for the first time in a long while, grinning widely.

"And we're getting a lot of people on our side. And not just humans, but animals too!"

At that Vigil could feel his mouth tugging into a smirk. "Seriously? Why would animals support the restoration of the Union? That's ridiculous."

At that Mason guffawed incredulously. "Oh they wouldn't! No, they don't, and we don't either. I'm sorry," he raised his hand, "I know that you guys keep a lot of those traditions, but… the Hominid Union was a failure. That's the difference with Sage. The other X's were delusional with the idea that we would recreate what existed before without it falling into the same mistakes. But that's impossible. The kind of insulating fear it created was toxic. All that industrial strength got turned into a war machine, and even then when they tried to intervene in the Carnivore-Herbivore War it wasn't enough."

"No, the Chancellor was a great man…" Vigil started. At least that's what he'd been taught since he was five. "He just wanted to protect humanity!"

"And how did that end up?"

Vigil shook his head. "Then, then what are you even fighting for?!"

"We're fighting to move forward. We can't tear down the Republic and then repeat the same mistakes. Whatever we create, animals and humans both need to be equal parts of it. Look, Sage has this idea," he began to gesture, but the sound of bootsteps quieted him. A bull officer approached, jingling a ring of keys. Behind him followed a large human in a garish yellow jacket with red-tinted glasses and a severe look on his face. Mason brightened. "Dad!"

"Right, you're outta here," the bull muttered as he unlocked the door, before moving on to Clement.

"I was starting to worry you forgot about me," Mason laughed as he stepped out to face the man, only to be slapped across the cheek. It wasn't super hard but Vigil could tell it would sting.

"Hope you had a fucking horrible time," he growled.

"Ow! Dad!" Mason still snickered. "I mean, yeah, the food's not real good?"

"Hey," he snapped at the officer as he was unlocking Grace's cell now. "Tell me what you feed these kids, maybe I'll borrow the fuckin' recipe," he began to push Mason out.

"Wait wait! Hold on, Dad, can you help me out with one more thing? My friend's also stuck in here, and he didn't even do anything wrong, for real!" He motioned to Vigil.

"No, okay, I'm not bailing out any more of your criminal friends, you know how much I'm spending to keep your ass out of jail already?!"

"But he's not a criminal! I promise!"

The huge man gave a sigh. "Any idea what the bail on this kid is?"

"None," the bull glared. "Beastar's personal detention. He stays until Yafya says so."

Mason's dad gave an exaggerated shrug. "There, can't do nothing anyways. Now come on, swear you're gonna give me a fucking aneuryism... "

"I'll come back for you, I promise!" Mason shouted to Vigil before being taken away. Clement and Grace also walked by. It was the first time Vigil could see her. She had sharp eyebrows and a thin face, framed by long dark hair. Her eyes were powerful and piercing. She looked in at him. Something about her seemed to soften… and then she left as well.

Vigil now sat truly alone.

Once again he tried to thumb through his book. It droned on about the broken states of the past, little fiefdoms and clans that divided up caiman from crocodile, gerenuk from gazelle, fragmenting and fighting and feeding on each other. He dragged through a few more pages until he heard footsteps, and a baton clanging on his bars. It was the bull again.

"Got a visitor…"

His stomach felt heavy as he got up and obeyed. "Another lawyer?" he dared to ask.

"No," came the gruff answer.

Even heavier in his gut. "...is it Yafya?"

"The Beastar's in Rokuma dealing with another issue. Just shut up and you'll see." He pushed Vigil towards the visitation room again, and the boy could see through the glass.

It was Jack.

His heart leapt as he was guided through the door. The labrador turned in his seat, eyes lighting up. "Hey!"

"Jack, oh my gosh!" Vigil quickly took the chair across from him. "What's going on? Why are you here?"

"Ah, I'm sorry it took me a while," he nervously rubbed the back of his neck, his smile tinged a bit by embarrassment. "They kept questioning me, and then there were a lot of tests this week. But I wanted to make sure you're doing okay, I was worried about you…"

Vigil blinked. He hardly knew what to say. "I… thank you, I appreciate that."

"I did want to bring you something to make you feel better! Ready?" Slowly he reached into his lap, and raised up a little plastic box with a cupcake inside, yellow cake with bright blue frosting. "Surpriiiiise."

He stared at the little treat inside. "You… oh, you didn't have to, but thank you…"

"Well you gotta have something to make you happy in here!" He slid it across the table, and Vigil accepted it. "Hope it tastes alright, they X-rayed it five times before they let me bring it in here," the dog snickered.

"I mean… is there, anything inside?"

"Uh, sugar, flour, eggs, and so on?" He shifted to rest his elbows on the table, and his cheeks on his hands. "Just something to make you feel better! We also had a card, but apparently I'm not allowed to give it to you, they took it…" Jack briefly grumbled. "But it was just a thinking-about-you card. Everyone in 701 signed it. We all miss you…" Something seemed to pull his gaze to the side, and his smile dampened. "Gosh, I… I'm sorry I didn't do a really good job, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, my job was to try and make you feel welcome at Cherryton, and now…" he weakly chuckled. "I can't even give you a card without it getting confiscated."

Vigil bit at his lip. "Hey?" Jack looked back at him. "You did make me feel welcome. All of this, it's not your fault."

"Really? You believe that?" His ears perked up again.

"I do." He smiled. While he wasn't sure exactly where to channel his frustration towards, all he knew was that Jack didn't deserve it. "Here, how's it going at school?"

"Oh, things have been crazy, like I said. Especially after Sage X took over the Silver Wing Needle."

Vigil blinked. "...he what?"