Chapter One

Summary

• The protagonist, Bryce, works at Griffin Antiquities, a gallery with high-grade spellwork and security technology.
• Her friend, a wolf named Danika often visits the gallery after her Thursday patrols. This day, she comes in covered in dirt from breaking up a fight between two creatures.
• Bryce and Danika have a playful friendship, teasing each other about their habits and responsibilities.
• Danika plans to use the gallery's shower and requests to leave her sword in the office, which worries Bryce.
• Bryce asks Danika if she has a meeting with the City Heads. In their five years of friendship, Danika has only cleaned up for such meetings a few times.
• They discuss Danika's strained relationship with her mother, Sabine, who disapproves of Danika's causal demeanor, despite her high ranking within the shifter units in the city’s Auxiliary.
• Danika's discontentment with her current duties arises when she discloses that Phillip Briggs, a human rebel they previously arrested, is being released due to a paperwork error.
• Bryce is concerned but knows Danika will voice her opposition at the upcoming meeting with the City Heads.
• The chapter ends with Bryce receiving a call from her boss, Jesiba, who threatens to turn Danika into a lizard if she continues to use the gallery's closet as her personal locker.