Fairytale Leak Case File #5

Associated story: FLOWERS OVER THE MOON

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[REGISTRY COMMON ROOM BOARD — GODS AUDIT TRANSPARENCY APPENDIX]

Recovered from the Gods Audit end-of-day Communications Log, distributed at 18:30 GMT to the Common Room Board per the audit's transparency protocol. Auditor: His Honour Bartholomew Vex, House of Gods, Quarterly Review Division. Subject of the audit (passive, in body, in chair): Senior Director Rosalind, seated since 09:00 GMT, still seated at time of writing. Margaret has reacted.

From: Cashmere — First Elite Class, Department of Match Integrity To: Rosalind — Office of the Senior Director (read-only during audit window) Subject: Read this when the auditor is reading aloud Time: 16:18 GMT

Rosalind, 

I assume you are now seven hours into the audit. I assume Bartholomew Vex is currently complaining about the filing system in the basement, which he discovered at 14:00 and has been unable to let go of since. I am writing knowing you can read this but cannot reply, cannot watch a video, cannot listen to audio, and cannot, regrettably, gesture.

I have paced this email to last you approximately forty-five minutes. I have included three jokes. Pace yourself.

I will give you the news in the conventional order: good, bad, good, qualified-good, and one item of administrative housekeeping you will need to sign off on tomorrow which I have, in fact, already signed off on.

Good news. Sir Nugget did not read the book.

The original containment held. He left the Reference Annex without reaching page 412. The Registry is, professionally, owed a round of biscuits.

Bad news. The residue, you will recall, has been seeking a host. While I was occupied with Sir Nugget on the east side of the annex, the residue jumped — to a different book on the same shelf, Quibblestock's 1613 stuffing-materials pamphlet, which was the next item on the reading list of a graduate-school shifter at the table three rows down.

The shifter's name is Magnus Fenwick-Whitcombe. Magnus is doing his PhD on Cushion Stuffing: A Reassessment.

I will let that title sit with you for a moment.

His supervisor at Oxford believes the field is "ripe for re-evaluation." Magnus is in his third year. He had been preparing for this morning since Monday.

The residue is in the pamphlet. Specifically — I will spare you the runes — on page 347.

I had a decision to make. I made it. The decision involved Sir Nugget, who had at this point been redirected from the Velvet Subseries shelf and was eating a post-redirection satchel of oats I had given him as a thank-you. He was in a good mood. He was, professionally, available.

I briefed him in thirty seconds.

He accepted the brief.

Good news #2. Magnus did not read the pamphlet.

You cannot, in your current state, see the recording, which is sitting in my drive and which I will play for you in person on Wednesday. Allow me, in the meantime, to describe it. I have done this before. I am told I am very good at it.

Pace yourself.

We had a problem before deployment. Magnus is six foot four and, under stress, capable of consuming a small mammal. I have read his disciplinary file. The Cambridge dining-hall incident was hushed up but the file is thorough. I could not send Sir Nugget into reach of Magnus's hands without insurance.

I located the insurance.

You will recall that Marjorie, the librarian, has a cat. The cat is named Beulah. Beulah lives, when she is not on the issue desk, in the staff bathroom. Marjorie is too busy to scoop Beulah's tray on what I would describe as the recommended cadence.

I escorted Sir Nugget to the staff bathroom.

Sir Nugget refused.

I will not transcribe the negotiation in full. It lasted four minutes. He objected on the grounds of "personal brand integrity," "the Fortnum & Mason precedent," and "the firm's standing tagline." He asked, with a tone I am not equipped to fully convey on the page, whether there was anything else. I told him there was not.

He looked at me. I looked at him. He said — and I am quoting — "I will require this to be in writing later."

I then rolled him in Beulah's tray. Twice. He glared. I rolled him a third time for even coverage.

He emerged smelling like Beulah's most regrettable Tuesday.

At 14:47 GMT, Magnus opened the pamphlet. He had a cup of black coffee on his left, a Moleskine notebook open to a fresh page on his right, and a small mechanical pencil he treated as if it were a sword.

Sir Nugget entered via the dumbwaiter. I lifted him in. The dumbwaiter delivered him behind the periodicals. I will admit, Rosalind, that the dumbwaiter — which has been operating since 1947 without incident — was not designed for what now travelled through it. I am told it will require professional attention.

At 14:48, Sir Nugget walked along the floorboards. He climbed the table leg. He walked the length of the table — trailing, very faintly, in the direction he had come. He arrived at the open pamphlet.

Magnus, to his credit, looked up.

There was a fixed staring contest. It lasted eleven seconds. Magnus blinked first.

Sir Nugget then placed a paw on the page, and — with a precision I have not previously observed in any of his administrative work — flipped directly to page 347. He did not browse. He did not skim. He did not pause to take in the introductory matter on cushion fibres. He went to 347. He sat down. He ate page 347.

Only page 347.

He burped.

Magnus reached.

What followed was, in the recording, brief. Magnus's nose registered the situation approximately a quarter-second before his hand did. Magnus made a sound — a small, considered sound — and withdrew the hand at speed. His eyes watered. He held his breath in a way I would describe as strategic. He took two steps back. Then three. Then he was, in effect, standing against the bookshelf at the far wall.

Sir Nugget did not move. Sir Nugget made further eye contact.

Magnus packed his things. He left.

In the recording — audio only, Wednesday — he passes the doorway saying, into his collar, "maybe Dad was right about law school."

The shifter-academic cushion-stuffing revival, I am reasonably confident, has just lost its most committed third-year.

Sir Nugget burped a second time.

I retrieved him at 14:57. He was still coated. He said, "I felt nothing." I do not think this is true. I think he felt a great deal. He has requested I include, in writing, that he found the experience "professionally beneath him." I have so included it. Here. It is in writing.

Qualified good news. Sir Nugget, on retrieval, requested compensation.

This is where I need your standing approval — which I do not actually need, because I have already given it on your behalf — but I would like you to read this and not be cross when you emerge.

He wanted to be knighted.

I told him fairies are not royal. He looked at me. I looked at him. I added that the Soulmate Registry, despite the senior fairy godmothers, does not in fact possess the constitutional authority to confer knighthoods, and that any attempt to do so would be challenged by, at minimum, three mortal courts and the College of Arms.

He looked at me with an expression I would describe as professional disappointment.

I let him sulk for forty seconds. Then I said — as if it had only just occurred to me — that the Registry was, however, in a position to appoint official Field Agents, and that the post was both compensated and titled.

He brightened.

I described the role. I told him the principal would, in the first instance, be his own human, Emma. He volunteered. I let him volunteer.

Rosalind — and I will trust you to read this part with the appropriate appreciation — he believes he has won the bargain. He believes he negotiated a knighthood down to a Field Agent post. He does not know that the Field Agent post was, from the start, what we were going to offer him. He has, on the train back to Mayfair, been mentally redesigning his business card.

He will, for the avoidance of doubt, expect an interview with you. With biscuits. Shortbread. I have already cleared Tuesday.

Next step. Friday. Mayfair. Emma is delivering flowers to a corporate gala on a vintage bicycle. The alpha is there. The Velvet Diffusion is firing. Sir Nugget is now Officially Embedded.

We have until 19:30 Friday to brief him, get him to the venue, and position him to intervene when the crash happens. He will, of course, ask to negotiate the briefing terms. I will, of course, let him think he is negotiating. We have done this before.

I will write again at end of day if you are still in the audit.

Yours, in the meantime — with one (1) Field Agent recruited, one (1) page consumed, one (1) PhD candidate redirected to law school, and one (1) thoroughly disagreeable bath now booked at Sir Nugget's earliest convenience —

— Cashmere (your humble right-hand man cat, who is today especially humble, given the day's results)

P.S. Derek now has his hat back. He has not asked where it has been. The smell, in his case, is almost gone.

P.P.S. Margaret has, in the last hour, sent three separate emails to the audit committee asking when you will be released. She is "concerned." We both know what she is concerned about. It is not your welfare.

P.P.P.S. The residue, by my best reading of the runes, will pass through Sir Nugget in approximately six hours. We may have an opinion to form about where he is during that window. I have one. Will discuss.

P.P.P.P.S. Beulah saw the whole thing. She is, on balance, fond of me. She has not said a word.

[END OF EMAIL — Margaret has reacted: 🍵 🍵 🍵]

Senior Director Rosalind, on emerging from the audit at 19:14 GMT, read the email in full. Witnesses report she laughed twice, sighed once, and asked her assistant to clear Wednesday afternoon for "the playback." The email's leak to the Common Room Board via Gods Audit transparency protocol has been logged. No correction notice has been requested.