"That's—" Judy began, struggling to control her face.

"Very generous, I know," Bellwether said, apparently mistaking Judy's apprehension for raw gratitude, "But I want you to remember something, Judy. I expect loyalty because I reward loyalty."

The little ewe smiled and patted Judy's paw. "Keep that in mind, dear."

They were nearly back to the Thief of the Night, and Bellwether broke off to go talk to Ramses, who was overseeing two other agents pouring enormous bottles of champagne into the gutter. It left Judy alone with her thoughts, and the enormity of what she was risking with Nick came into an even sharper focus than before. Even if Bellwether had offered her Bogo's job, she wouldn't have betrayed Nick, but she hadn't fully realized the extent to which Bellwether wanted to see Nick punished.

The worst of it was that Bellwether probably wasn't lying, either. The ewe didn't seem to have many, if any, friends on the police force, but if she wasn't liked than she was at least respected. What kind of power did she hold, that even Keeshan didn't dare show her true feelings? What would Bellwether do if Judy didn't give Nick up?

Nick, unfortunately, was perceptive enough to realize that something was wrong when she walked over to where he was leaning against the wall, watching the work of the prohibition agents. "Why so grummy, Carrots?" he asked, as he pushed himself off the wall, "Did Mrs. Grundy there read you the riot act?"

He gestured over at where Bellwether stood a fair distance away, engaged in a low conversation with the agents under Ramses' supervision. "Not really," Judy admitted, although she had to smile a little at his description of Bellwether, despite her mood, "She offered me a spot at the police academy."

"Hmm," Nick said, looking down at her with one eyebrow quirked critically, "What's the catch?"

Judy sighed and let her ears droop, not bothering to try keeping them upright. "She still wants you arrested."

"It's nice to be wanted," Nick replied, "Tempting offer though, don't you think?"

If Nick knew her well enough to tell that she had been left out of sorts by her conversation with Bellwether, she certainly knew him well enough to know that the casualness with which he asked the question was completely forced. Judy couldn't have said exactly what it was, but she could tell that he was far more interested in her response than he was letting on. "I'm not going to give you up," she said, with a forcefulness that surprised her, "Never."

"Never?" Nick asked, his ears perking up, "I could make you regret that, agent."

He wore a slight grin, and Judy laughed. "I know you won't," she said, looking up into his eyes.

Nick held her gaze a moment before he turned away towards the Buchatti. "Come on, then," Nick said, "Let's see what Monarch has to say."

They walked in silence to the Buchatti, and Judy was surprised at how much her mood had improved from her brief conversation with Nick. If he was worried about what Bellwether might do when Judy refused to arrest him, he gave absolutely no sign of it. It would probably be the end of any hopes she had of being a police officer, as even if Bogo followed through and wrote a recommendation, Bellwether seemed like she might have the pull to have Judy's application rejected again. The thought should have been horrifying, and yet somehow it wasn't. Maybe it was because refusing to give Nick up was the right thing to do, but the thought was actually liberating. Perhaps she could never become a ZPD officer, but it wasn't as though there weren't other cities, or even as though there weren't other ways that she could be a force for good. It might be a setback, but what was one more of those? She had spent her entire life overcoming every obstacle that had appeared between her and her dream, and a small-minded sheep wasn't going to be the one that finally stopped her. Judy was going to see the case through, and if Bellwether thought that she would be a meek little bunny and turn Nick over for doing the right thing the ewe was in for the surprise of her life.

"What's Monarch like?" Judy asked as she climbed into the car, turning her thoughts back to the immediate matter.

Nick had claimed to have made a deal or two with the bear, and she thought that any insight he had could be useful. It wasn't what she expected, then, when he simply shrugged. "I've never met him, myself."

When he saw the expression on her face, he quickly added, sounding somewhat defensive, "I never said we made those deals directly. I just thought Zoya would be more open if she thought I knew him."

Judy repressed a sigh as Nick got the Buchatti started. Even when he was helping he never made things easy, and yet somehow she couldn't imagine having anyone else as a partner.

The Blue Glacier was even colder inside than the Thief of the Night had been, but that was about all that the two clubs had in common. Where the Thief of the Night had been seedy and cheap, the Blue Glacier was spectacularly impressive. Fitting the name, all of the walls and the ceiling had been painted in various shades of blue, from the pale shade of a robin's egg to a blue so dark it was almost black. The abstract blue patterns gave off something of the feel of being inside an enormous glacier, and the decorations only continued that impression. There were enormous, irregularly shaped blocks of ice scattered throughout the club with no kind of pattern that Judy could discern, but the blocks all shone with their own internal light from blue-shaded electric bulbs that had been frozen within the ice. The resulting low glow was somewhat unearthly, as the only other source of lighting came from dim green bulbs set into an abstract swirling pattern on the ceiling that cycled on and off in a way that almost seemed to make the pattern move.

The Blue Glacier was also built to a significantly larger scale than the Thief of the Night; Nick and Judy were easily the two shortest mammals compared to the club's patrons, and while the Blue Glacier had perhaps one-and-a-half times as much floor space, there was far less seating available. About half of the tall tables and stools had large mammals sitting at them, a significant portion of them predators. None of them seemed inclined to pay either one of them much attention, though, as they seemed more focused on their drinks. Although there was a narrow stage squeezed into one corner of the room, where an arctic fox vixen and two wolves, one male and one female, worked their way through something lively and up-tempo, the portion of the club set aside as a dance floor was mostly empty, the mammals in the club seeming mostly not to care one way or the other for the musicians.

The bar was set in the middle of the club and was an enormous ring, painted to match the rest of the club, and studded with green electric lights that shifted in time with the ones on the ceiling. Although the bar had at least twenty enormous bar stools spaced at regular intervals around it, the chrome gleaming in the flashing lights, there was no one there except the bartender.

When Nick had described Mr. Monarch as the largest grizzly bear Judy would ever see, he hadn't been joking. The bear polishing the bar with a rag was not simply tall; he was enormous, easily more than eight feet tall and powerfully built. He looked to be in his mid-thirties or early forties, his shaggy brown hair neatly groomed and free of tangles. He was dressed in a simple blue suit, albeit one that looked apt to tear at the shoulders if he stretched too far, set off by a jaunty red bow tie so large that Nick could have worn it as a belt and still had enough material left to make a tie of his own. The reason for the lack of mammals at the bar might have been explained by the bear's expression; he was cleaning the bar as though it owed him money, and the scowl set into his thick features was so fierce that he seemed apt to start growling.

Judy tried not to let Monarch's fierce demeanor intimidate her, and she jumped up onto the stool in front of him and cleared her throat. "Excuse me? Mr. Monarch?"

The bear grunted and then slowly turned his attention to her in complete silence. His glare did not ease even when he had what could be, for all he knew, a customer in front of him, and Judy continued. She pulled her badge out of her purse and showed it to him. "I'm Agent Judy Hopps, with the Bureau of Prohibition. I'd like to ask you a few questions about Zoya Medvedeva."

Monarch's polishing of his bar slowed to a stop. "De bu-row?" he asked, his words so thickly accented that it took Judy a moment to realize that he had said "The Bureau."

"I em not spee-king your tongue, boot a beet," he continued, "Sorry. No 'elp."

Monarch shrugged his massive shoulders and moved to turn away when Nick jumped up onto the bar stool to Judy's right and asked Monarch a question of his own.

"You're Canardian, aren't you?" Nick asked.

Monarch simply looked at him blankly. "Canardia?" Nick repeated, emphasizing the syllables.

"Canardia, yes," Monarch said slowly, the words thickened by his accent.

He regarded Nick with a somewhat puzzled expression before Nick spoke again. "J'en ai marre. Si vous êtes canardien, vous me comprendrez," Nick said.

"Tabarnak!" Monarch said loudly, his eyes wide with what could have been recognition or surprise.

Judy had no idea what he meant but she didn't think it was very polite. "Es-tu Wilde?" he asked, apparently recovering.

"Oui," Nick replied, smiling, "Si vous ne nous aidez pas, Zoya vous posera un lapin."

He briefly turned to look at Judy as he said the last word, a flicker of amusement passing over his features. The only word that Judy understood was Zoya's name, but it seemed to have the deserved affect. The intimidating air drained out of the bear, his shoulders sagging. Monarch leaned on the bar, so heavily that Judy could hear the wood groaning at his weight, and looked Nick in the eyes. "Chialez pas—"

"If you wouldn't mind speaking so that she can understand," Nick interrupted, gesturing at Judy.

Monarch nodded, and then started again. "Don't complain if I can't help much," he said.

His accent was still present, but not nearly as thick as it had been. "Anything you tell us would be very helpful," Judy said.

"The police, they say that too," Monarch said, his words tinged with bitterness, "What makes you different, Agent Hopps?"

Judy regarded Monarch levelly. "I don't think Zoya is guilty of murder."

"Of course Zed is not a killer!" he said forcefully, "Except her horrible husband, who deserved ever so much worse."

His accent gave the words, despite their somewhat grim nature, an almost musical air, the word "husband" coming out as though it were missing the h and the d. "I tell the police the same, but they are not caring what a bear has to say."

"I care," Judy replied.

Monarch regarded her for a long moment. "She was always here, Monday nights. It is a very difficult job she has, but Zed is not a complainer. Always two drinks, I set up for her, an orange juice and a lemon Neighi. At that table."

As he spoke, he pointed at a table that was as far away from the stage as seemed possible, nestled partly behind one of the enormous lit up blocks of ice scattered throughout the club. The lighting in that part of the club was dimmer than in the rest of the area, and at the moment there weren't any mammals sitting in the section. "She come around nine thirty, ten, every time."

So far, everything that Monarch had said matched up with what Zoya had said, but none of it seemed particularly useful. "Did you notice anything different about her, this Monday? Did you see anything unusual?"

Monarch shook his head. "The club was very busy. We talk, but not this Monday. Sometimes Zed is, how you say, tired and sleeps at her table. She has a difficult job, as I have said."

Judy thought that, like Zoya, Monarch was glossing over something of a tendency of the polar bear to drink until she passed out, but she let it go without comment. "What do you talk about?" Nick asked, leaning in with apparent interest.

"Books, mostly," Monarch said, although he seemed puzzled by the question, "She lets me borrow her little mysteries, when she finishes them, and then we talk about them."

He smiled, and it made him look like a much younger mammal. "Sometimes we read the same book, chapter by chapter, and make our guesses as to how the mystery is solved. We never get it right, of course, but Zed is very smart. Much too smart to drive a truck, if you ask me."

Judy thought about how to phrase her follow up question delicately so that the bear wouldn't take offense, but Nick beat her too it. "Did she ever talk about a second job, to help make ends meet?" Nick asked.

The smile fled Monarch's face as quickly as it had arrived. "Never," he said firmly, and there was a warning glint to his eye.

Between Zoya's own denial and Monarch's, Judy thought that it was all but confirmed that the rumors about the polar bear working with one of the city's gangs were true; it would certainly explain the rapid shift in Monarch's mood. "What happened when you couldn't wake her up when you were closing the bar?" she asked, trying to get the conversation back onto safer ground.

Monarch lowered his head, his ears flat. "I was worried. Very worried. She wouldn't move."

He took a deep breath before continuing, and when he looked up from the bar his eyes were glistening. "I don't have a telephone, so I ran outside, crying for help. There were two officers on patrol. One of them, a goat, he come in and he shake Zed too."

He paused again, and wiped at his eyes with his rag. "She was confused. She fell off her chair onto that stupid little goat. He starts bleating like she's killing him, and then the other officer came in. So they arrest her."

Monarch squeezed the rag in one massive paw, his enormous claws on full display. "She did nothing wrong. Is my fault, for panicking."

Judy stood up on her stool and reached across the bar. Even as stretching as far as she could, she could barely reach the bear's other paw, which was resting limply on the bar. Her own paw was almost comically small in comparison to his, but she patted it anyway. "You care about her," she said soothingly, "You were trying to help."

"She is a good customer. A good friend," Monarch said, but he didn't flinch away from her touch, "Intentions don't matter. Results do."

Judy didn't know what to say to that. She understood what he meant, which was the worst of it. "Thank you," Judy said at last, "You've been a big help."

Monarch smiled, but it seemed sad, as she jumped off her stool. Judy was more inclined to believe Zoya's versions of events rather than the version in the police report, since Monarch's statement had aligned so well with hers. It was possible, she supposed, that they could have colluded to come up with a story, but that didn't make any sense—since Monarch had called the police, they could have easily avoided the need for a story by simply having him not call for help. Once he had called for help, they wouldn't have had the time to align their stories. Judy frowned, thinking it over. She was surer that Zoya was innocent, but it was unfortunate that Monarch hadn't seen anything useful. "Come on, Nick," Judy said, "Let's go to—"

She stopped once she realized that Nick was no longer immediately behind her, and turned in place to see where he had gone. He was only a few steps away from the bar, and the arctic fox vixen who had been singing on the stage when they had arrived in the club was looking up at him with an almost nauseatingly fawning expression. Judy quickly walked back to Nick, taking the vixen in as she did so. She was about a head shorter than Nick was, and even slimmer than he was. She was wearing a rather sheer blue dress that matched her eyes and exposed quite a bit of her fur. That fur was a rather dingy gray that looked somewhat sickly under the green and blue lights of the club; Judy thought it didn't have nearly the warmth or depth of color that her own fur did, and anyway it didn't look nearly so soft. The vixen fluttered her eyelashes at Nick, eyelashes that had been caked with far too much mascara for any decent mammal to consider proper; she must have been a real flour lover. The singer cooed at him insipidly. "You're a real hotsy-totsy foxy, ain'tcha?" she asked in a sickly-sweet voice, running a finger along his chest, "Why don't we get a drink before my next set?"

"I am, aren't I?" Nick replied, but he grabbed the paw she was touching him with and delicately spun around her until he was standing next to Judy again, "But look at that, my alarm clock's here."

He grabbed Judy's paw and started pulling her forward at a rapid pace, not looking back even when the vixen called after him. "You think you can give me the icy mitt?" she demanded, "For a little bunny? You don't know what you're missing!"

Once they were outside the club, Nick looked down at Judy. "She seemed to have the entirely wrong idea, didn't she?" he said, sounding amused.

Judy folded her arms across her chest. "Someone you know?"

Nick laughed. "My, I thought I was the one with green eyes. You wound me, Carrots. Is it so hard to believe that the vixens love this?"

He gestured up and down to take in his body as he spoke. "There weren't any in Podunk, you know."

Judy couldn't claim to be any kind of authority on what a vixen might find attractive, but she had to admit that—"Of course, it couldn't have gone anywhere," Nick said, interrupting her train of thought.

"What?" Judy asked, "Why not?"

She wouldn't exactly be happy about him pursuing romance—the case was far too important for either of them to waste time, of course—but certainly afterwards there would be time. Nick rolled his eyes. "If someone put something in Zoya's drink at this club, it wouldn't be a very good idea to have a drink there, would it?"

"Oh," Judy said, and what he said certainly made sense.

From what both Zoya and Monarch had described, it certainly seemed a plausible theory, although Judy doubted that the vixen would have been the one to tamper with Zoya's drink. Still, she wasn't sure why else Nick would have rejected the vixen's advances, especially since he had been rather alone for two years. "I'm sure all she wanted was my wallet," he said, "It really is nice to feel wanted, though."

It was Judy's turn to roll her eyes. Considering the motives of Bellwether and the vixen in wanting Nick, neither one could exactly be looked at positively. "Fine," she said, "I want you to give me directions back to that parking garage."

Going back to the Blind Tiger seemed to be the next logical step, and Nick nodded agreeably as they got back into the Buchatti. "Is that all you want?" he asked, and the roar of the car's engine spinning to life gave Judy a moment to consider her answer as he waited, smiling brightly.

Judy looked up at Nick. "For now," she said.

Author's Notes:

The title of this chapter, "The Blue Room," comes from a 1926 show tune from the musical The Girl Friend by Rodgers and Hart. From the singer's perspective, it's about a room in the home he'll have when he marries his sweetheart that will be the perfect retreat for the two of them. Considering Monarch's obvious feelings for Zoya, as well as the setup of his club, it seemed an appropriate choice to me.

"Grummy" was 1920s slang for "depressed." "Mrs. Grundy" was slang for someone who was uptight and priggish, and while it's fallen out of common use it far predates the 1920s, referencing a character from 1798. The term did enjoy a fair amount of popularity in the 1920s, and is a pretty good description of Bellwether.

The ceiling lights in the Blue Glacier are intended to invoke the Northern Lights, although Judy wouldn't be familiar with them. The décor of the Blue Glacier would be somewhat tacky and gaudy by modern standards, but in the 1920s they were still cheerfully pushing the envelope on what could be done with electric lighting. It would certainly be impressive for the time period, though, and it isn't as though there aren't clubs in the modern era that don't go way overboard on the lighting.

Canarda as a pun on Canada uses the word "canard," which is French for "duck," and I simply used the same endings that English and French do for a resident of the country—"ian" in English and "ien" in French. However, nationalities are not capitalized in French, hence why that's the case in the French dialog I wrote.

I did my best to add to the story through my use of untranslated French; Nick uses some idiomatic phrases that don't translate exactly into English, but I'm providing the meaning here in these notes. Although my mother is a first generation immigrant who speaks French as her native tongue, she's not from France, so I never learned formal, proper French. I did put some effort into getting the language right, but any errors are entirely my own.

Nick's first statement in French translates to "I've had it. If you're Canardian, you can understand me," with "j'en ai marre" being a phrase about equivalent to "I've had it up to here."

Monarch's swear, "tabarnak," pretty clearly identifies him as being French-Canadian. In English, it's simply a vulgar form of the word "tabernacle," the locked box that churches store the Eucharist in. French-Canadian swearing relies mainly on blasphemous terms, of which "tabarnak" is the strongest.

After Monarch realizes that he can't pretend not to understand Nick, his question is simply "Are you Wilde?" Nick's following remark translates to "Yes. If you don't help us, Zoya will stand you up." However, he uses another colloquial expression; what he says would literally translate to "Yes. If you don't help us, Zoya will put a rabbit to you," since "poser un lapin" or literally "to put a rabbit" is a French expression that has the same meaning as the English expression "standing someone up."

The intended meaning, of course, is that Zoya will be in jail the next time that she would visit Monarch's bar if he doesn't help them, but Nick's little turn of phrase explains why he looks at Judy as he comes to the end of his statement.

Monarch gives another sign of being French-Canadian when he starts to say "Don't complain" using the verb "chialer," since it has a different meaning in the French they speak in France, where what he says would mean "Don't cry." His nickname of "Zed" for Zoya is another indicator of his heritage, as the United States is pretty much the only English-speaking country that says the letter Z as "Zee" instead of "Zed." Canada is among those countries where they say "Zed," and the Rush song YYZ (named after the airport code for Toronto's airport), for instance, is correctly pronounced "Why Why Zed."

I don't think it's necessary to understand exactly what they're saying to get the gist of it, but it was kind of fun to switch briefly to another language and use some of the nuances of it.

Arctic foxes aren't always white; while most arctic foxes do have a pure white winter coat, their summer coat is gray or slate blue. Since this story is set in the fall, an arctic fox's winter coat wouldn't necessarily be in yet. They're also smaller than red foxes on average, hence the height difference. A "flour lover" is 1920s slang for a woman who wears too much makeup, although perhaps Judy isn't being fair to the poor vixen."Hotsy-totsy" was slang for pleasing, an "alarm clock" was slang for a chaperone, and "icy mitt" was slang for rejection.

Nick referring to the color of his eyes is in reference to the green-eyed monster being an expression for jealousy, which dates back at least to Shakespeare's use of the phrase in The Merchant of Venice, although he may not have been the one to coin it.

Thanks for reading! As always, I'd love to know what you thought.