Karl had just returned to the store with Rue, who was hiding upstairs where customers couldn't see her, when a sudden wave of power caused the frantic crowd to part.
Four men in matching white tabards with golden sun emblems on the front stepped through the door, glancing disdainfully at the customers. The crowd all seemed to know who they were, though Karl had never seen anything about a Clan or Sect with that emblem here.
The leader of the group, a Supreme Ranked man with a carefully shaved and waxed head and a prodigious moustache, stopped in front of the counter.
He still had that same disdainful look as he did before, and Karl already knew that there was going to be something dumb coming out of his mouth before he started speaking. That look said that he hadn't even considered doing the smart thing.
"Should you not be bowing before the Patriarch of the Church of Light?"
There it was.
