Coraline woke to the staccato wail of her alarm and answered it with a weary groan.
For several seconds, she lay there with one arm thrown over her eyes, trying to convince her body that consciousness was optional.
It was not.
The alarm kept shrieking from the bedside table with the smug persistence of a machine that had never once been punched hard enough.
She reached out, slapped it silent, and sighed into the quiet.
Too little sleep.
Far too little sleep for everything she had going on.
Her body ached with that familiar, bone-deep exhaustion that came from trying to live two full lives while pretending either one was sustainable. There was Coraline Penrose: lawyer, daughter, friend, and respectable young professional with court dates, case files, and a reputation to protect. Then there was the Vulpes, Toronto’s masked fox in the dark, currently neck-deep in a drug trail tied to The Adonis, Psychedelic, and whatever fresh nightmare the city had decided to vomit into her path.
Today, unfortunately, belonged to both of them.
She rubbed at her eyes, then forced herself upright. The room tilted for half a second before settling.
Perfect.
That was probably healthy.
“Delegate,” she muttered hoarsely.
The word felt unnatural in her mouth. Coraline liked doing things herself. It was cleaner that way. Fewer variables. Fewer people to worry about. Fewer chances for someone else to get hurt because she had pulled them too close to the fire.
But today, she did not have the luxury of being stubborn.
John would have to take point on everything she had gathered from The Adonis: names, impressions, chemical traces, security gaps, and every ugly little thread that might connect the club to the new supply meant for Psychedelic. He could sift through the data, cross-check patterns, and keep an eye on the tracking device she had slipped into the crate before the whole operation disappeared deeper into Toronto’s underworld.
Coraline had another battlefield waiting.
The kind with polished floors, expensive suits, and people who could ruin lives without ever raising their voices.
Alice’s case.
Her firm might be Alice Little’s last real hope of not being eaten alive by the system. Not helped. Not treated. Not understood.
Eaten.
Slowly, politely, with legal language and institutional concern serving as napkin and knife.
The thought cut through the fog of exhaustion better than coffee.
Coraline swung her legs out of bed and stood.
No more lying there.
No more wishing for sleep.
Today she would have to be Coraline Penrose with all the sharp edges showing—lawyer, strategist, loyal friend, and, if necessary, absolute nightmare in heels.
Soon enough, Coraline was at the office doing her absolute best not to look like one of the walking dead.
She had showered, dressed, applied makeup with the grim precision of a woman concealing evidence, and chosen a suit sharp enough to imply competence even if her bloodstream was mostly caffeine and spite. By the time she stepped through the doors of Penrose & MacLeod, she looked polished. Professional. Formidable.
Or at least, she hoped she did.
She passed several co-workers on the way in, returning greetings with practiced ease. A nod here. A faint smile there. A dry little comment to one of the junior associates that made him laugh and move quickly out of her way.
The performance held.
Mostly.
Only Arthur MacLeod would know better, and Arthur had the inconvenient habit of noticing everything.
As she approached her office, Coraline noticed an unfamiliar woman seated at the desk outside her door.
Another temp.
Of course.
The firm had been assigning them to her in rotating batches while she looked for a proper full-time secretary, and so far the results had ranged from mildly competent to catastrophically allergic to discretion. One had cried after two days. One had attempted to reorganize her files by “vibe.” One had asked if masked vigilantes could be subpoenaed.
Coraline still wasn’t sure whether that last one had been joking.
This newest secretary looked young, tidy, and slightly terrified in the way most temps did when they realized Coraline Penrose’s calendar was less a schedule and more a controlled demolition in progress. She sat very straight, hands folded near the keyboard, eyes flicking up the moment Coraline approached.
“Good morning, Miss Penrose,” she said quickly. “I’m Dana. I’ll be assisting you today.”
“Good morning, Dana,” Coraline replied, unlocking her office door. “Welcome to the war.”
Dana blinked. “Sorry?”
“Nothing.” Coraline gave her a thin, tired smile. “Coffee first. Existential dread later.”
That at least earned a nervous little laugh.
Coraline stepped into her office, set her briefcase down, and glanced back at the desk outside the door.
One day, she was going to need someone permanent out there. Someone sharp. Someone steady. Someone who could handle confidential files, impossible clients, Arthur’s booming interruptions, and Coraline’s habit of vanishing at odd hours without asking inconvenient questions.
Today, however, she had Dana.
And Dana looked like she might quit before lunch if the copier jammed.
Coraline sighed, shut her office door behind her, and prepared to become terrifyingly productive.
It wasn’t long after Coraline sat down that Arthur MacLeod walked in, ignoring her temporary secretary entirely, as was his way.
He didn’t knock. Arthur rarely knocked unless he was entering a courtroom, a hospital room, or somewhere he suspected someone might be naked. Instead, he shouldered through the door with the momentum of a man bringing weather with him, crossed to her desk, and dropped a stack of files and law books in front of her with a heavy, accusing thud.
Coraline looked at the pile.
Then at him.
“Good morning to you too.”
Arthur lowered himself into the chair opposite her desk, beard bristling, eyes bright with entirely too much enthusiasm for this hour of the morning.
“Okay, kid,” he said, clapping his hands once. “War room time.”
Coraline stared at him over the rim of her coffee. “Arthur, I have slept roughly three hours and currently hate every institution built by man.”
“Excellent. That’s the proper mood for litigation.”
He leaned forward, tapping the top file with one thick finger.
“We need to talk precedent, strategy, offence, defence, expert witnesses, procedural traps, and exactly how hard we’re willing to swing when this thing goes to trial. Because that date is getting closer every bloody day, and I am not letting you wade into shark-filled waters without a cage and a spear gun.”
Coraline’s exhaustion sharpened into attention.
Alice’s name was on the tab of the top file.
Alice Little.
Wonderland.
Arthur’s expression softened, though only by a fraction.
“The Crown is going to come at her like she’s some supervillain mastermind,” he said. “Illegal psycho-technology. Unlawful use of abilities. False imprisonment. Aggravated assault. Reckless endangerment. Maybe worse if someone upstairs gets ambitious and decides they want a headline instead of a verdict.”
Coraline’s jaw tightened.
“They’ll want prison.”
“They’ll want a trophy,” Arthur corrected. “Big public trial. Brilliant young scientist turned madwoman. A Specials case with spectacle, victims, fear, and enough technical jargon to terrify a jury before lunch.”
He slid another file across the desk.
“So we don’t let them make her the monster in the room.”
Coraline looked down.
Michael Macentyre’s name stared back at her from the second tab.
Arthur’s smile changed.
Less warmth now.
More teeth.
“We make him explain himself.”
Coraline lifted her eyes.
Arthur tapped the file again. “Because if even half of what we suspect is true, Michael wasn’t just a bad fiancé or some greedy little corporate parasite. He was selling pieces of Wonderland to foreign buyers. Military buyers. People who wanted mind-control technology with a Canadian flag scraped off the casing.”
“Treason,” Coraline said quietly.
Arthur’s grin turned grim.
“Exactly.”
His expression hardened further.
“And that brings me to the other reason I need you on your A-game,” he said, voice souring as though the words themselves tasted bad. “We’re not just up against the Crown. We’re up against McMaster, MacDonald & McMahon, Barristers and Solicitors.”
Coraline’s brows lifted slightly.
Arthur said the firm’s name with the same venom most men reserved for ex-wives, tax auditors, or old rugby injuries.
“That bad?”
“Worse,” Arthur said immediately. “They’re procedural predators with letterhead. White-shoe, black-hearted, and very, very good at making obvious guilt look like a constitutional crisis.”
He leaned back, folding his arms across his chest.
“MM&M don’t win by proving their clients are innocent. They win by making the process bleed. Motions, delays, privilege shields, jurisdictional challenges, expert witness games, evidentiary attacks—the whole bloody circus. By the time they’re done, the Crown is exhausted, the judge is irritated, half the evidence is under seal, and the public can’t even remember what the original crime was.”
Coraline glanced back down at Michael’s file.
“They’re representing him?”
“Not officially yet,” Arthur said. “But their fingerprints are all over the early manoeuvring. Reputation management. Quiet letters. Pre-emptive injunction threats. Someone is already building a wall around him, and MM&M are the sort of bastards who know how to make a wall look like due process.”
That tracked. MM&M had a national reputation for impossible acquittals, crisis management, and defending clients tangled in superhuman law. The sort of firm Crown attorneys cursed by name.
Arthur jabbed a finger toward the files.
“And if they decide to fully step into this case, we cannot go in swinging blind. They’ll try to keep Michael clean, Alice frightening, and every useful scrap of evidence buried under privilege, chain-of-custody attacks, or some sanctimonious speech about civil liberties.”
Coraline felt another layer of exhaustion burn away beneath cold focus.
“So we don’t just defend Alice,” she said slowly.
Arthur’s grin returned, sharp and approving.
“No, kid. We defend Alice by putting Michael Macentyre on trial without technically putting Michael Macentyre on trial.”
Arthur leaned forward again, lowering his voice like a conspirator explaining how to bury a body properly.
“The good news,” he said, “is that this isn’t his treason trial.”
He tapped Michael’s file once more.
“High treason—assuming the RCMP and federal prosecutors can prove he knowingly attempted to sell Canadian psycho-technological research to foreign interests—is going to become a federal nightmare completely outside MM&M’s comfort zone. National security, intelligence services, Specials regulations, classified materials, parliamentary pressure…”
Arthur gave a low whistle.
“That stops being corporate law and starts becoming the sort of thing that ruins family names for generations.”
Coraline folded her arms. “And you think it’ll stick?”
Arthur’s expression hardened.
“Oh, I suspect it will.”
For a moment, the joking edge left him entirely.
“If even a quarter of the evidence pans out, Michael Macentyre isn’t just a greedy executive. He’s a man who tried to sell mind-control technology onto the international market during a period of growing superhuman tensions. The Crown may forgive murder faster than it forgives someone making the country look weak.”
Then Arthur’s mouth twisted into something sharper.
“But that’s not our trial.”
He pointed directly at Alice’s file.
“What matters is her defence. Alice Little is the battlefield. Her mental state. Her trauma. Her culpability. Whether a jury sees a malicious supervillain or a psychologically shattered young woman who snapped after betrayal, exploitation, isolation, and a catastrophic break from reality.”
Coraline nodded slowly.
Arthur continued. “Implicating Michael in treason isn’t us trying to win his conviction from the defence table. It’s us punching below the belt so the jury understands exactly what sort of man Alice broke against.”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“Because context matters. Jurors are human beings before they’re legal instruments. If they see Michael as some polished young executive victimized by a dangerous madwoman, Alice is doomed.”
Arthur jabbed the file again.
“But if they see him as a lying little corporate Judas selling his fiancée’s life’s work to foreign powers behind her back?” He shrugged. “Suddenly Wonderland starts looking less like a monster and more like the aftermath of a psychological collapse.”
Coraline stared down at the files spread across her desk.
Alice Little.
Michael Macentyre.
Wonderland.
Treason.
Mental breakdowns.
Corporate espionage.
And somewhere inside all of it, buried beneath legal strategy, masks, and public narratives, was the simple, ugly truth that two people had destroyed each other.
Arthur leaned back in his chair with a grunt.
“Never forget this, kid. Courtrooms aren’t about truth.”
Coraline looked up.
“They’re about stories people are willing to believe.”
Arthur’s attention shifted to another file in the stack, thinner than the others but no less troubling. He slid it forward with two fingers.
- SHAWNA LEXINGTON — FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY / MASKED IDENTITY STUDIES
Coraline’s mouth tightened the moment she read the name.
“Lexington?”
“The very same,” Arthur said.
“That’s risky.”
“That’s why I want her.”
Coraline looked up from the file.
Arthur settled back in his chair, his expression turning serious beneath the theatrical bluster. “She’s not some hired-gun psychiatrist who’ll say whatever side pays her invoice. Shawna Lexington is one of the best forensic psychologists in the country when it comes to masks, personas, trauma responses, and identity fractures in Specials cases. If we want the court to understand Alice as a person in crisis rather than a cackling villain with props, Lexington can do that better than almost anyone.”
Coraline studied the name on the folder.
Shawna Lexington.
She knew it. Anyone operating in the masked world did, whether they admitted it or not. Lexington had built a career studying the psychology of heroes, villains, vigilantes, sidekicks, legacies, and costumed criminals. She wrote papers on persona construction, escalation, masked identity, and the psychological cost of living two lives; the sort of papers that made police chiefs nervous and defence lawyers salivate. The RCMP brought her in because she was accurate, not because she was comforting.
More importantly, she had testified in cases where the difference between persona and culpability determined whether someone went to psychiatric care, a supermax, or a grave.
“She also profiles vigilantes,” Coraline said.
Arthur nodded. “Yes. Which is why she’s useful.”
“And dangerous.”
“Most useful people are.”
Coraline did not smile.
Arthur tapped the folder again. “Lexington gives us the language for Alice. She can explain the difference between a constructed criminal persona and a trauma-driven psychological break. She can make a jury understand that Wonderland isn’t an excuse, but it is context. We need that. Alice needs that.”
Coraline looked down at the file again, unease tightening beneath her ribs.
Arthur was right. Shawna Lexington could help them. Maybe more than anyone. She could stand before a jury and make Wonderland comprehensible without making Alice harmless. She could explain trauma without excusing damage. She could give the court a path toward mercy that did not feel like denial.
But Coraline also knew what Lexington was.
A mind with a scalpel.
And if that scalpel ever turned toward the Vulpes, it would cut deep.
Arthur suddenly reached over and tapped one of the heavier law books near the edge of the desk.
“So,” he said, “the real cinch, if we can pull it off, is getting the Vulpes to testify.”
Coraline raised a perfectly measured eyebrow.
“You want me,” she said carefully, “to somehow figure out how to contact and convince an unregistered vigilante to testify in open court.”
Arthur nodded immediately.
“Yep.”
Coraline stared at him.
“Arthur, the Vulpes is a masked urban legend who appears at crime scenes, assaults organized criminals, violates about twelve procedural guidelines a week, and vanishes into the night before the police finish securing the perimeter.”
“Yes.”
“She is also, legally speaking, one nervous RCMP task force away from becoming an enormous political incident.”
“Also yes.”
“And your solution to this extremely delicate situation is apparently: ‘ask nicely.’”
Arthur pointed at her with obvious satisfaction.
“Now you’re thinking like a lawyer.”
Coraline pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Arthur—”
“No, hear me out.” He yanked the law book toward himself and flipped through it with the speed of a man who had weaponized legal trivia decades ago. “Canadian law is actually on your side here. Mostly because Parliament realized back during the Golden Age that if masked heroes occasionally saved trains, fought dinosaurs, or stopped robot invasions, the courts eventually needed some way to deal with them without immediately forcing everyone to unmask.”
He jabbed at a section of text.
“The Vigilante Identity Act of 1943. Rarely used. Weird as hell. Still technically valid.”
Coraline leaned forward despite herself.
Arthur grinned.
“If a masked vigilante’s testimony is materially relevant to a case involving superhuman activity, the court can permit protected testimony without public disclosure of identity, provided the judge believes the testimony serves the interests of justice and public safety.”
Coraline blinked once.
“That is an absurd law.”
Arthur looked delighted.
“Oh, it absolutely is. It was written after three different mystery men threatened to stop cooperating with police investigations unless somebody figured out how to keep reporters from printing their home addresses.”
He flipped another page.
“Most lawyers forget the statute even exists because almost nobody invokes it. Half the judiciary thinks it’s a historical curiosity. The other half thinks it’s embarrassing.” He paused. “Which is exactly why it might work.”
Coraline leaned back slowly in her chair, thoughts already turning.
The Vulpes at trial.
The media frenzy alone would be catastrophic.
The risks were obvious. Exposure. Investigation. Scrutiny. RCMP attention. Shawna Lexington sitting close enough to study every movement she made.
But the advantages…
Arthur watched her expression carefully and smiled the moment he saw her beginning to take the idea seriously.
“There it is,” he said smugly. “That’s the look.”
“What look?”
Coraline took a slow breath and drank more of her coffee, mostly to buy herself a moment.
“If it can help Alice,” she said carefully, “I’ll look into it. But I can’t promise I can somehow produce a mystery woman in fox ears on trial day.”
Arthur snorted.
“Fair. Frankly, if you can even get a message to her, I’ll be impressed.”
Coraline gave him a thin smile and prayed her face looked more composed than her thoughts felt.
Because what she was actually thinking was simple enough.
I would do anything for Alice.
Followed immediately by a much less simple problem.
How in God’s name am I supposed to be Alice’s lawyer and testify as the Vulpes at the same time?
The problem hit her from three directions at once.
First, logistics.
A courtroom was not a rooftop. There were schedules. Procedures. Timelines. Witness lists. Security. Cameras. If the Vulpes appeared while Coraline Penrose was supposed to be present at counsel table, someone would notice very quickly that reality had developed a serious continuity error.
Second, Shawna Lexington.
The woman studied vigilantes like a biologist dissecting exotic insects. Putting the Vulpes in a courtroom directly under Shawna’s nose felt less like strategy and more like dangling raw meat over shark-infested water.
And third…
Arthur was right.
The testimony could work.
Not because juries trusted vigilantes completely. Most didn’t. But because the Vulpes occupied a strange place in the public imagination: criminal, hero, nuisance, urban myth, and public servant all at once. If the Vulpes testified that Alice had looked frightened, unstable, detached from reality—if she framed Wonderland as a psychological collapse instead of a theatrical supervillain campaign—that could change everything.
Arthur was still talking.
“We don’t need poetry from her,” he said. “Just credibility. First-hand observations. Conditions inside Macentyre Systems. Alice’s behaviour. Confirmation that Michael’s operation smelled rotten before Wonderland detonated.”
Coraline nodded absently.
Inside, her brain was already spiralling through impossible scenarios.
Could the Vulpes testify remotely?
Would the judge permit voice distortion?
Would Shawna notice mannerisms?
Would Arthur?
God, would Arthur immediately realize he’d been mentoring a masked vigilante for years?
Arthur misread her silence as legal contemplation instead of existential panic.
“That look is either genius arriving or a complete nervous breakdown,” he observed.
“Both remain on the table,” Coraline admitted.
Arthur barked a laugh.
“Good. Means you’re taking this seriously.” He stood with a grunt, straightening his jacket. “Start thinking like a trial lawyer, kid. The courtroom isn’t about what happened. It’s about what you can prove happened.”
He headed for the door, then paused.
“Oh, and if you do somehow manage to contact the Vulpes, tell her I admire the work.”
Coraline nearly choked on her coffee.
She looked at Arthur for a long beat, blinked once, then said, “Are you endorsing a woman who is basically a professional thief in a fox costume?”
Arthur shrugged, utterly unashamed.
“She has the guts to drag things into the light that bad people spend fortunes burying. Officially? No, I can’t condone her methods.”
He paused, then gave Coraline a crooked smile.
“Personally? I think she’s doing the right thing.”
Coraline stared at him.
Arthur raised both hands. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m still an officer of the court. I just happen to believe the court occasionally benefits from someone kicking open the cellar door before the evidence rots.”
“That is an alarming metaphor for a senior partner.”
“It’s an alarming profession.” He tapped the files once more. “Besides, if half the rumours are true, the Vulpes has done more to scare the Rusos and Malones than three task forces and a decade of committee reports.”
Coraline took another sip of coffee to hide the twitch at the corner of her mouth.
“I’ll keep your admiration in mind,” she said carefully, “should I ever meet her.”
Arthur grinned.
“See that you do.”
Then he left, apparently satisfied that he had made her morning as legally impossible as achievable.
Coraline sat alone with the law books and brown manila files spread across her desk like the beginnings of a siege.
She stared at them for a long moment.
Alice’s case. Michael’s treason. MM&M. Shawna Lexington. The Vulpes.
A long, complicated day had just become longer and more complicated by several orders of magnitude.
Especially now that she had to figure out how to be in two places at once.
Coraline leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, exhaustion pressing hard behind them. The sensible part of her knew this was impossible. The lawyer could not sit at counsel table while the vigilante testified under oath. The mask could not enter the courtroom without drawing scrutiny. Shawna Lexington could not be allowed to study her too closely.
Impossible.
Then Alice’s face rose in her mind.
Not Wonderland.
Alice.
Small, brilliant, frightened Alice, buried somewhere under the damage.
Coraline opened her eyes.
For Alice, she would find a way.
Somehow.
