Thomi

Rai stomped on the accelerator. The grassland crawled by no faster than when he grazed the pedal.

The problem was the huge wheels grabbing at the mud and vice versa. Squeaking like rubber gloves, all disgusting tacky friction. Rai hated rubber gloves. His hands were always slightly numb due to the Life Fountain aura, but the dry-wet lick of rubber penetrated that shielding layer. The associated smells and sounds made it even worse.

No. The big problem with the car was the air resistance, wind coming in like a hook through the missing window, clawing them back.

And the engine, which had been in bad shape to begin with, now fighting the wheels and the window on top of everything, and starting to smell like burnt plastic. Or it could be the wheels burning, after grinding against the chassis. Rubber on rusty metal. Rai’s teeth ached.

Curled fetal in the back seat, Thomi coughed wetly. He could see her face - red and swollen, skin puffed up around her eyes, squeezing them. The eyes themselves had lost their liquid shine. Dark pits in wells of red. Rai almost skidded off the road when he caught a look at her in the rearview mirror. He thought her eyes had finally fallen out.

It was another near miss when his phone blipped in his pocket. He yanked it out, enraged by instinct that someone would be pestering him at this time, of all possible times, but remembered what it really meant - he had reception.

Rai hammered in the numbers for emergency and cleared his throat. “I have a woman who was hit by a truck. It didn’t stop. We need help, she’s hurt bad.”

Where was he? Between I77 and the carousel mall - and there it was now. Just closing up, with at least a dozen people milling around in the parking lot and even more waiting for the buses at the opposite side of the road. A garbage truck collecting the day’s trash. People, connection - perfect.

The operator on the line was playing coy, trying to pretend there was no building literally called the ‘Carousel Mall’ and did he mean the Interstate Highway 77 Mall on Interstate Highway 77?

He must have been screaming because a trio of smoking teenagers, dressed in carousel operator uniforms, circled in on him as he barrelled into the lot and parked across two spaces. Their faces were loose with concern. One of the teens had his phone out, already filming. Good.

Rai cut the call, leapt out and declared his badge number. Are carefully as he could manage, he pulled Thomi from the back seat. She seemed stable until the moment her knees touched the grass. She promptly vomited. “I think… drugged,” she rasped.

The teenagers eyed Rai warily.

“Dinner at the hotel?” Rai touched his throat as if feeling for it - the burn of poison, pills, powder - but felt nothing. He hoped that meant it was weak, whatever it had been.

“Your partner, he’s—” she said.

“Actually, he’s my assistant.”

“Really? You… I didn’t want to say in front of him or anyone, but you are such a damn child.” She winced at the effort of speaking, and tried to pull her hair back. A few of her fingers had broken, but she was otherwise miraculously unhurt, from what he could see. Which wasn’t much, and in the dark to boot, but he could be hopeful.

“Just tell me what you wanted to say. About him.” Rai spat the words, and knew he wouldn’t like what was coming.

“You left him.”

Rai tried to ignore the shakiness in his hands and pulled out his phone. The teenagers, throwing a few final stink eyes his way, closed in on Thomi, patting her hair down, asking her nicely if she was alright (which Rai realized he hadn’t even thought of). A few more loiterers were taking interest, pulling out their phones to report a suspicious man who had tossed a battered woman out of his car. Rai had never been so grateful.

He searched for the Saturn Hotel, Temperance, and called the listed number - nothing but a dead dial tone. He wondered if the entry had been last updated, if it was even legitimate. Myrmilion School came up as a nearby landmark, and he called that too. That one rang, but nobody picked up.

Time oozed around him, pulling him somewhere he didn’t want to be. With heavy fingers Rai knocked out a short message to HQ and let the phone screen go dark. Out of the black glass stared a face that he thought could use a pummeling. “I have to go back.”

“I thought so,” Thomi said. A thread of blood trickled out of her nose. “I’ll go with you.”

“Absolutely not. Is that the only reason you brought him up?” Rai shoved his phone into his pocket and knelt down in hopes she would stop trying to stand. “An ambulance is coming. These people will make sure you get help. Tell the doctors and the cops whatever you want, tell them everything. Fuck Hode up for life.”

“I don’t care about Hode. But the children, I can’t just leave them without saying…”

“I’ll check on them. I can probably fit them all in the car, if you want them here.” Thomi (along with a good chunk of their bystanders) cast dubious eyes on the dilapidated lump of rust hunched by the sidewalk. A strand of smoke was starting to rise from under the hood.

“I don’t expect I can stop you, anyhow,” Thomi said. “I envy you, you know. It must be nice, having someone you can speak to. Someone on your level. You’re both strangers here but in that sense you were never alone. I look at the children and think the same… Rose and Cherry… I couldn’t…” Her eyes went dim. Empty again. “Opposites always seem drawn together. Surely there’s bad blood, jealousy… but to overlook…”

“There’s no point in being jealous of anyone. I didn’t pick him, and sure as fuck he didn’t pick me. Having Sao around is just good business. He’s laid back, I put on the pressure. He gets his beauty rest, I stay up and look like I have two black eyes. He handles what I can’t, and vice versa.”

“The poison pen and the payout. Everything in its place, with its purpose. The Citadel would really appreciate you.” She slurred the words, blood trickling over her lips.

“It’s because I hate anyone too much like me.” Rai folded his arms to ward off the cold, and the sight of his hands. “I can’t even work with the most chill of Life Fountains.”

“The inhuman impulse to seek the human.” Without looking at him, her small mouth pulled into a smile, with a vertical smear of red like some avant garde lipstick. “I can understand that much. We’re both the offspring of that impulse. Maybe...”

The lights around the upper rim of the carousel mall’s dome went off with a clunk.

“I gotta go,” Rai muttered. And, louder to anyone that was listening, “Make sure she makes it to the hospital.”

Thomi waved a mangled silvery hand at him. Dismissed.

Rose

He had fallen asleep in his chair, the soft snow-colored lounger in front of his great curved mirror of television. Swaddled in one of his downy blankets, which someone had scented with a few drops of lavender oil, with notes of something less distinct. Something sour, like citrus or cedar.

It wasn’t Sao who’d applied it. The cleaners would report the smell, and the landlord hated anything foreign. Had there been a break-in?

Sao’s eyes flew open. He was on a couch; one slipcovered in worn, colorless linen. Comfortable enough, but it wasn’t his. No television. No windows. Yellowing walls, no wallpaper. The blanket fell away, and his lungs filled, experimentally, with warm, musty air. The back of his throat burned.

There was a plastic jug of water and cup on a side table. He threw back one glass after another, the flood of liquid splashing back up his throat and searing the roof of his mouth. Retching, he steadied himself against the small table.

He drew a slow, deliberate breath. An even slower sip. The next breath came more easily. As his sinuses cleared the sour smell grew more distinct. The front of his sweater was covered in vomit. He tried not to look, but the smell... In his diminished capacities he thought he’d been poisoned, but more likely it had only been a sedative.

Either way, he had to wonder why the food had been tampered with at all. A trap of Thomi’s? But she’d eaten it too, and then the truck came for her. And Rai took her away.

Sao sank back into the couch.

The room was roughly twice the size of the single hotel room. A double room, then, but no beds. It did have one couch, a tiny table with a lamp and water jug, a stack of chairs similar to those in the dining room, and a bizarrely glossy counter on the opposite side of the room, flanked by exposed pipes. At one end of the counter was a door. One of two, he imagined the smaller was to a bathroom or closet.

At the other end of the counter was a radiator with a girl tied to it.

The girl was tilted away from the radiator so she could lie nearly flat, and was doing straight-leg lifts. She was so focused on counting her motions that she hadn’t noticed his waking fit. Or perhaps she was trying to ignore him. What surprised Sao was that he hadn’t noticed her presence until now, either.

Her hair was salmon pink and slightly curly; her face had a porcelain pallor and, while not wrinkled in the least, suggested an age that didn’t quite match her childlike build.

“Rose?” Sao breathed.

She finished her set of five. “I thought you were ignoring me but it seems you really weren’t well. Better, now? You don’t seem injured. The face - if you don’t mind my impression - looks like old scars.” Once both of her legs were resting, he saw that the right was bent oddly; a pointed bone pressing up from inside the shin; the knee twisted and swollen like knotted rope. She pulled the knee of her good leg up and frowned. “Have we met, or are you an investigator too?”

Despite the disfigured leg and the fact that she was tied to a radiator, there was a briskness to her attitude he found reassuring. “Sorry, rude of me. My name is Sao. I’m actually here with my supervisor, Rai - he’s an investigator from Mainline.” Sao bent to inspect her wrists. A chain of plastic zipties were looped around the pipe behind her.

“That makes us colleagues. But you didn’t really come for me, did you?”

“Not to begin with. We were in Interstate to collect some objects from the station closing in Birdsing.” Sao stood, searching for some cutting implements. It was unlikely he could break one of the metal chairs. The jug and cup would be too flimsy. “We got lost and wound up in Temperance. And stayed because Cherry asked - she’s the one who wanted us to find you.”

Rose smiled. Her face had a recognizably mature edge without the makeup and filler, but the smile brought out the schoolgirl. Sao smiled back and felt some crust crack on his chin.

“I know she pushed you off the tower, Rose. And that she didn’t immediately call for help.”

Rose blew air. “Cherry, Cherry. I should have known that girl would be the end of me.”

“She regretted it badly. She’s what convinced us to look into your disappearance. She passed us some of your belongings too, to help, or as thanks, I’m not sure. We know now that you were looking into a crime committed by Muka Myrmilion before he left the Citadel; you posing as a student. And that you yourself are a faerie.”

She rested her back against a pillow propped on the radiator. “That saves on introductions, thank you. Did he catch you too, then?”

“No. Rather, he knew we were investigating your disappearance but we didn’t learn about his past crimes until recently. When we returned to question him, he was dead.”

Rose stiffened. “What? Age, an accident, did someone else…?”

“He was found in the tower stairwell at the school, on the second floor. Seemingly fallen or pushed from the third.” Sao felt for his phone; for the photos; but it must have been in his coat pocket. His coat was nowhere to be seen. “My supervisor noted that it looked like he had been beaten against the steps or with an object.” He paused, and watched Rose’s face fall. Sentimentality had always been a weakness of his, but he thought she looked truly remorseful. “Was there anybody else you knew of that might have been looking into him, other faeries, someone with a grudge?”

“None that I could identify. If the fae were interested in the investigation I’d have heard, and besides, if his death was as you describe, it is not in line with our methods.” She straightened her neck, suddenly very dignified. “I did what I thought was a fairly thorough search into anybody who might have looked into the case before coming here. You wouldn’t happen to have any of the evidence from Birdsing on you…”

“My supervisor has it all,” Sao said.

“I see. Good. As for human suspects, well, you likely know of the system of letters. It seemed quite clear he was responsible for more than one of them, with his watching abilities, and the impotent one he sent himself, I cannot be the only one who thought so.”

“He did seem somewhat proud of the horns.”

“‘Horns’, good lord. Hundreds of fae get growths removed, even full amputations and reconstructions, where you can’t tell any work was done at all. Even I got a—” She sighed. “Point is, Muka told a surgeon to leave the growths looking mutilated. To make the fae look incapable. He was an eccentric. But thoroughly protective of his friends and accomplices. Now, Miss Thomi, I was not sure if she was an accomplice or not, she was a harder read.”

“She tried admitting that she killed Muka, but I don’t think my supervisor bought the story.”

“And you?”

“I didn’t believe it either.”

“Then say so.”

So this was the one who’d managed to tame the tire-slashing Cherry when little else could. “Thomi became quite panicked when she saw that we’d gotten a letter telling us to leave town, before meeting her. So I don’t believe she’s masterminding anything. When I last saw her, leaving the hotel, talking to my supervisor in the parking lot…” Sao wasn’t sure if his addled brain remembered what he’d seen - wasn’t sure if he wanted to believe if it was true. “She was hit by a truck.”

“What! Absolutely not a fae, then. A truck, you say?” Rose shook the shock from her. “The mayor’s enforcer. Taking advantage of Muka’s absence, no doubt. But Miss Thomi - as you say, she hadn’t lived here long enough to be in charge of any conspiracy - do you know if she…?”

“My supervisor drove off with her after the accident. He almost certainly took her out of town. He’ll make sure she gets taken care of. He’s very…” Sao had to think. “Persistent. I’m sure he’ll come back, too. He might even be back now, whatever hour it is. He’s a terrible insomniac, you see.”

“You think so highly of him, I’ll have to believe it.”

“I only hope...” Sao tried to remember what he’d seen before being captured. Doors exploding, lights flickering, a golden mirror. Television, lavender, and a stained toilet bowl. The mess on his sweater was testament enough to the last of the images, but the rest? “He’ll bring backup.”

In a move he hadn’t been expecting, Rose pulled her one working leg up and shivered.

For want of something to do, Sao tried the main door, knowing exactly what to expect. It rattled, but didn’t budge. He tried again.

“Wait for the next time Marinell comes in to feed us. He’s not too bad. Easily distracted.” Rose spoke softly, without bile. “He was the one who forgot to lock it the last time I got out. But I wasn’t quick enough and now...” She demonstrated with a yank of her thin arms. The plastic strips locked, stripping paint from the pipe. “The leg. I’m trying to keep the working one in shape so I might stand a chance hopping.” She stretched her leg out again. “How long have you been in town?”

Too long. But an investigator wouldn’t appreciate that; he could almost hear Rai’s grumbling. “Since Friday.”

She closed her eyes. Counting. “Friday was apple pie. You might have heard me scrabbling around that evening.”

Friday. The apple, the dinner, the all-night sitcom. Rai, bursting into the room saying he’d heard a scream. “My supervisor did. I was asleep.” He didn’t have to imagine the scathing glare he’d get for that; it was coming right from the girl in front of him. “I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner. This room is in the hotel somewhere, is it not?”

“Basement level. Your supervisor, is he a magician?”

“He’s half Life Fountain.”

“Not allowed to practice, then. But their aura, I’ve heard of that, it makes sense. I don’t feel much, but I sensed a magic disturbance a few days ago. He must have been close… down the hall, maybe. That’s the extent of my senses. I know, it’s shameful. A fae with diminished magic sensitivity.”

“I really don’t know much about fae magic at all.”

“It’s likely the only way I managed to fool Muka. He’s a fairly adept watcher, but suppression is a specialty of mine. It’s not perfect, but my magic levels were low enough to be hidden by the latent enchantments of this area, so all I had to do was act appropriately, and escape his range if there was any important business to conduct. The hotel being so close, so understaffed, with its unmanned computer - it was very convenient. I could have easily sustained the investigation for over a year but Cherry…” She shook her head. “I can’t blame her. She never asked for much. I was just so distracted by…”

She began to cough, sweat building on her face and neck. Sao brought her some of the water from the other side of the room and poured it into her mouth, slowly.

“Thanks.” She rallied her strength and sat up very straight. “I never wanted this case to bring any more violence than there already was. The one murder was enough. The guardian who lost his life at the research center was a mentor of mine when I was in grade school - real grade school aged - but I only wanted to retrieve the drive that was taken and bring Muka to justice. The Citadel has no death penalty. The prison, Titania - you realize it was created precisely so that magical offenders would not have to be executed, just because unmagical society couldn’t contain them. That is not our way.”

Sao put the cup on the counter. “You regret he’s dead.”

“We live to learn. I wanted to one day talk to him, as a fellow fae and not a student. He was not evil, for sure, I can thank him for teaching me not all dissidents are delusional. And he did love children. He let them control him, I’d say. Perhaps that’s why…”

Sao waited, but whatever Rose thought of Muka would remain with her, alone.

“You’re an investigator. You could have picked up the hard drive yourself, and not bothered with the rest,” Sao said quietly.

“I know. And I should have. But when I saw Muka’s name, so close to the reported location of the drive, I couldn’t help myself. I suspected I could gain his trust and pull the reason from him; or more names, we always suspected he had a network. Or I’d find enough cause for the citadel to be called in and we’d corner him. You’ve likely heard the stereotype - from Muka if nobody else. The fae are habitual patriots. A chance to keep fae business between fae; to catch our own…” She clicked her tongue and straightened her leg again. “And I’m far from the worst you’ll see.”

“But you came alone?”

She nodded.

“You might not be the only one looking for the drive. Someone broke into our car and sifted through the evidence box. By luck, the drive was somewhere else at the time, since we’d been taking a closer look at it. It’s safe in my supervisor’s pocket now.”

Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Perfect.”

“But this happened after Muka was killed. In the first place, I don’t quite understand how did something so valuable stolen by Muka wound up in Birdsing.”

“I’ve observed Muka for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the carelessness of old age. If he’d stolen it on a whim, he’d have no use for it. If he’d planned to sell it, he never did. Maybe he misplaced it. Did you hear of the man who was murdered on the nearby highway, Triamond? He passed through Temperance, visiting Myrmilion. He must have picked up the hard drive on accident and turned it in at the Birdsing police station. Triamond was a Langgan employee. A fae company - he’d be one of the few non-fae who might be familiar with what fae technology looked like. It’s because of him that I had any lead at all.”

“He was robbed and killed before making it home. Do you believe that was coincidence, or Muka realizing and chasing him down?”

Once more she left him to contemplate in silence. Sao thought she’d fallen asleep, but her eyes were wide open under the shadow of her bedraggled fringe, staring straight ahead at the closed door. “Muka had to have an accomplice for the original murder. Muka was a watcher for immigration. He didn’t have the combat abilities to do… what was done. I’m not saying it was the same person who helped him find Triamond - I largely believe his accomplice in the murder never left the Citadel - but he was a man who always had allies, possible people over him, capable of so much worse. That’s what made him worth looking into. The night I fell…” 

Again, she shivered.

“Shall I get the blanket?”

“No. When I fell, after Thomi told Muka I’d fallen-”

“Thomi?” Sao started to feel he needed the blanket, even if Rose didn’t. “Thomi was out of town. Cherry went to Muka late, and he was the first to come to you.”

“Surely you didn’t believe that? But I can’t blame Cherry or Muka much. I got the sense Muka was truly shocked when he saw me on the ground. As for Cherry, it was an accident. I was ignoring her. Because I was watching a foul-up by that… that vile woman… I should never have trusted her. She knew too much about the Citadel, the research, what was taken. Worst of all she couldn’t resist the urge…”

“Thomi? No - Britania?” Sao ventured. Rose lip curled at the name. “She’s currently a missing person, Rose. Did she say why she was here, was it really for her child, her son? And did you hear anything about the man named Lamort?”

Rose doubled over. She was laughing, dry and hard, the sound of a sputtering engine. “Oh, I did more than hear of him. Why don’t I tell you what I saw under the tower that day…”

Cherry

The Saturn Hotel was closed for the night. The lights were off in the lobby, the door bolted. Rai trekked around the entire west wing of the building so he could check the uncurtained windows of the lounge at the back. The fireplace was dead; the lounge looking like it hadn’t been touched in years.

He circled back, breaking into a sprint as he passed the long dark stretch of windows that looked into the dining room. Nothing alive in there, either, but a faint light coming from the hallway that (if he had his bearings) led to the kitchen.

Rai knocked on the window. There was a blast of light, like the flash of a camera, but when he blinked he realized it was just the light of his wrist against the glass. Mild stress made his aura flare up, but it wasn’t until bumps started appearing that he really had to worry. Rai took a deep breath and yanked down his sleeve. He continued around the east wing, and found himself back at the parking lot.

Past midnight. Sao might be locked safe in the hotel room, or some other hiding place, sleeping. Rai had completely overreacted when he screamed at Sao from the parking lot. Hode had only been after Thomi. He’d made an even worse decision in leaving Sao behind. But Sao was pretty forgiving; he would be able to laugh it off.

If Hode hadn’t blasted his way in and continued his rampage with Sao. If Marinell wasn’t an axe murderer in disguise, who picked off unwitting solo travelers to top up the meat cabinet that always seemed to be low on stock... Rai scoffed at himself. Life wasn’t a grindhouse movie.

Sao would get a kick out of that when they talked about it later, too.

Rai returned to his car and tried to clear the back seat. Thomi had left behind only one noticeable bloodstain, but an unnerving amount of long platinum hair which stuck to the seats and snaked into the cracks. Once most of the hair was out, he reversed out of the Saturn parking lot and headed toward Myrmilion.

—

The lights were on all throughout the lower floors of the school. Without any teachers, the kids were staying up late, but that wasn’t the only thing that stuck out. Hode’s pickup was there, in the middle of the lot.

Rai parked as far back as possible, but had to pass it anyway as he stalked up to the school. Close enough to see a few sheer strands tangled in the front grille.

He hovered over them a little too long. When he turned back toward the lobby, someone had materialized - standing guard with her pockmarked pout and book against her side. Rai wondered if he should make a break for it, but Cherry windmilled her arms; beckoning him in.

As soon as he cleared the front steps she grabbed and dragged him up the stairs toward the Media Room.

Once in, though he hadn’t said anything, she shushed him loudly. “Hode said you kidnapped Miss Thomi. Explain yourself. Where is she?”

“What’s he doing here?”

“He came to tell us. Tal and Cal are in the cafeteria distracting him. I thought he was full of shit but now you’re here - and all bloody!” She reached one hand out and yanked at the tip of navy blue sweater sticking out from his cuff. Well, it had been navy blue when he bought it. “Explain yourself!”

“Alright, alright. Thomi met us for dinner. She probably told you that. She told us some of what was going on, about the letters and… why someone might have a grudge on Muka bad enough to kill him. While she was leaving, Hode hit Thomi with his truck. I think to get back at her for–”

“Not sleeping with him? I knew it. I knew it all along. That liar. I’m going to–” Her white-knuckled grip on the battered Omnibus went even whiter. “Do you have a gun?”

“No. Cherry, forget Hode for the moment, alright? I took Thomi out of town. She’ll be at Garland Hospital, and I’ll make sure of it, and if she doesn’t press charges against Hode, I will. There should be cops on the way right now, and they’ll get him. Thomi just wanted me to check in first and see everything was alright at the school - I’ll actually take all of you to her right now. I have space in the car. Uh, I’ll have to pick up Sao, too-”

“You didn’t take him?”

“He’s at the hotel. I had to rush Thomi out because she was hurt and–”

“Then why didn’t you pick him up first when you came back?”

That she had gotten priority did not impress her in the least. Rai struggled to answer. “The hotel was closed. I tried calling when I was with Thomi, but nobody picked up. I think I scared him into locking himself in a room. He’s probably fine - he’s a deep sleeper.”

“Probably?” Her expression could cut cement. “You aren’t worried?”

He almost said no. Watching her eyes burn, her scaly hair twitch, he knew that would be a fatal mistake. “Of course I’m worried. If I went back home without him, our bosses would tear me a new one for losing my assistant in the middle of nowhere.” Not enough, said her look. “And he’s my friend. You get that, right? It’s like you said. I turned around and he was gone. And I regret it - from the moment I turned away and left him there.”

That got her. She sat on one of the swivel chairs, clinging to her book, the way a small animal clung to a tree or parent. “Well, as long as you’re sorry. And you came back even knowing he could be hurt or mad.”

“He won’t be.”

But she was the lecturer now. Any further protest was beneath her. She swung left and right in her seat, an eerie imitation of Thomi on the principal’s chair. “I can show you a way into the hotel, even if it’s closed.”

“I’m not sure that’s necessary.”

“You helped me. So I’m repaying you.” She stood. “You can come back for the rest of them later. I don’t even know where Lumi and Florien are. Lumi ran away crying when Hode told him about Thomi. And Flor didn’t want to go to the cafeteria with Cal and Tal so he stayed in his room. You can’t really tell Flor what to do. Anyway, Hode won’t mess with them, I think. Come on - let’s go.”

But she didn’t get one foot out the door before backing up again. She drove Rai to the far corner of the room, and ducked behind the desks. Footsteps were coming up from the lobby. Heavy ones.

“You there,” droned Hode at the door. Cherry was gripping Rai’s arm so hard he was sure if Hode hadn’t heard their voices, he would soon hear bones snapping.

Just slightly further down the hallway came Florien’s reply. “Oh, it’s you Mr. Hode.”

“Were you standing here this whole time? Come have some hot cocoa.” A pause. “Did you see anyone come in? The hotel guests, perhaps?”

The car. Had he not parked far enough back to hide it?

Cherry had concerns of her own. “Flor… how long was he there? Was he… listening in?” she mouthed the words viciously. Rai began to fear for Florien’s safety, until he heard the kid’s answer.

“No.” Florien paused. “Why? I was just waiting for you just now. Can you help me turn on the lights in the bathroom?”

“Can’t you do that yourself?”

“It smells bad because the fans were off so long. And the walls are slimy. I can’t touch it. I have a condition.”

Rai was stunned. Florien had never shown any interest in Sao, but that languid tone he’d slung at Hode was an uncanny imitation. And it wasn’t just the manner of speaking, but the way he used it. Misdirection.

“What did you say before? Why would our guests come here so late?” Florien whined as Hode, and presumably Cal and Tal’s footsteps reversed course in scattered rhythm, and returned to the main staircase. “Did cool hands say they were coming over? Or my dad? Is Miss Thomi coming with them? Is she okay? Did they finish dinner?” His voice faded, questions unanswered, as the procession continued up the stairs and out of earshot.

Cherry tiptoed to the door and, without saying a thing, slid out into the hall. Rai followed, his big filthy boots feeling bigger and filthier than ever as he trudged behind the light-footed Cherry. They came down the stairs to the lobby and she peered out the glass doors.

“You parked all the way over on the grass?”

If he ran, with Cherry, it would probably take thirty seconds to reach. Not a huge head start if Hode looked out the window before they got there. “Yeah, I don’t know why I did that. But we can make it-”

Cherry grinned. “For sure. Good thing Hode just got out of the cafeteria. Let me show you something.”

—

The cafeteria was absolutely fit for a castle. Everything was elongated; the beams, tables, benches, longsword shaped windows covered in whirling ironwork patterns; ivy vines tipped with buds, or maybe those were arrowheads. Heavy chandeliers of black metal hung from the distant ceiling; kingly cousins to the one in the Saturn’s lobby. The light was yellow and a little dim, but there was something a little blinding about the place, more than if it were lit with neon. Rai felt that way in the old building sometimes (and his eyes were probably more attuned than most to neon lights, his hands being like they were). It was in all this grandeur that a half dozen primary schoolers had their lunch every day.

Cherry took him to the kitchen, where Rai could breathe again. A fully modernized, plastic and metal sanctuary. Behind the kitchen, there was a storage room filled with kids cereal and noodles in colorful shapes. At the back of the storage room, a pantry closet. And at the back of the pantry, on the bottom shelf, a small door, lined with the same stones as the wall. Almost invisible.

Cherry poked around for a protruding edge, tugged it open, and hopped in. “Close the door behind you.”

There would be no point in protesting now. Rai crawled backward into the hole in the wall and pulled the closet door closed, then the stone door, and shuffled back. And back, and back, in the deepest, mustiest dark he’d encountered in a long time. There were no sounds but his own huffing and shuffling, and a strange rustling, almost like static. He couldn’t see Cherry, but there was a faint light coming from behind him - ahead in the tunnel. He’d made a mistake, going in feet-first, but after a few minutes the passage widened enough for him to turn around, and raise himself up into a squat.

The light from Cherry’s flip phone obliterated his retinas.

“Turn that off - I mean, save your battery. I have my own light.” He pulled off his gloves.

The phone snapped shut. “I should have taken a video of your butt. Were you gonna go the whole way like that?”

Rai surveyed the tight corridor as well as he could. He’d been expecting dug dirt, maybe slime and rats, but the walls were surprisingly smooth, covered over with cement. “This is how you’ve been getting out.”

“It was Rose who found the tunnel. She said that castle owners always build in these kinds of secret passages for a way out in case they were surrounded by enemies. Go left here - the other way comes up in the forest behind the school - under a rock.”

“That forest wouldn’t happen to take you to the hotel, would it?”

“It’s right behind the trees behind the school. You can’t see the hotel from here but you can see the tower from the hotel, right? And this tunnel takes you past the big hill and pond behind the school, so it’s easy to go without anyone seeing. Do you want to go that way instead?”

Rai’s shoulders chafed against the curved walls. “I can’t leave my car. I have some important work in the trunk.”

“Suit yourself. We’re almost there.”

They emerged into the frigid night from under the roots of an enormous tree, among hundreds of the same. But the edge of the forest wasn’t far, and Rai could see between the dark trunks a row of lighted gold strips; the windows of Myrmilion. They were in the forest across the road - and there was his ride, parked at the first space from the entrance, somehow looking worse than he’d left it.

Cherry skipped ahead like a wood sprite while Rai managed to trip on every root that crossed his path. Even when he saw them, put his hands out to illuminate the path and raised his feet nice and high or tried to sidestep the tangle, they seemed to reach out for him.

When they finally threw themselves into the front seat, Cherry was still bouncing and Rai felt like he’d aged a hundred years.

Cherry’s beloved book was also looking several decades older. The cover was bent and bruised, and pages were coming loose from the binding. It looked like someone had tried to fold it in half. Seated happily in the passenger side, kicking at the already-flimsy glove compartment, Cherry was peeling a translucent layer of skin off the cover of the battered Omnibus. That was the rustling sound he’d heard in the tunnel.

“What’s that?” Rai asked.

“Plastic wrap. It’s not locked up in the kitchen so I always grab some. I usually cover the book if I think I’m going to go through the trees. Sometimes I come out and the ground’s all wet.”

He watched her proceed with the peeling. It made him think of a cosmetics treatment he’d heard of which had a name fit for a horror flick, ‘facial peeling’. It had come to him in an ad attached to a video about actual slashers. Grandpa Cadmus’s skin peeled as a side effect of his aura, but it was a physical process, like shaving, and there was scabbing involved (not much; being a Life Fountain, no cut or bruise would last more than a minute). Facial peels used chemicals to melt old skin off the face and supposedly encourage fresh skin to grow.

There wasn’t supposed to be any blood involved but he thought the term might unsettle Sao. It didn’t. Sao was more resilient than he looked.

Cherry was humming.

He considered directing her to the back seat. Sao wouldn’t care where he was put, but Rai suddenly remembered (and yes, had known before the slew of family advice columns he’d absorbed over the last few days) that front seat airbags could smother a kid, even break their neck. Throw a chunky hardcover in between and someone could lose an eye or worse.

Much worse.

The sick wave of realization washed over him, colder than any night. When Cherry finished wadding up the cellophane and shoved it in her pocket, she looked him straight in the eye, her smile hollow as a tunnel they had just come through. They were on the same page after all.

He started the engine.

“Buckle up.”

Marinell

Rose wound her wretched thread to its ragged, inevitable end. Unable to compose any appropriate response, Sao silently returned to the sofa and sat down, boneless. She did not try to stop him. The effort of recollection had sapped all energy from her as well.

Sao counted his breaths, like Rose counted her leg lifts. He needed to speak to Rai.

“Rose. How often does Marinell check in?”

“Every few hours. I’m guessing every four or five. He brings more than three meals a day - so he’ll be in soon.” She strained against her bound arms. “You have a plan?”

“I’m trying.”

Rose ran her sharp green eyes over him, picking him apart, trying to sift out anything useful. He didn’t envy her; it seemed like a trying task. “Your hands are free. As much as I detest suggesting as much, you being larger than me gives you several options. Try harder to break the door. Or you could strangle him on his way out - strip the cover off the blanket.”

Echoes of Cherry in there. Fae pacifism only went so far, Sao supposed. “I can’t do that. But if Marinell is our keeper, I can reason with him.”

“Really? Well, I can’t say that wouldn’t be preferable. He doesn’t seem unreasonable, but as I understand it, his son’s being threatened to keep his silence. The way he looked at you, before he left you on that couch… were you two on particularly intimate terms?”

Sao smiled. “I likely remind him of his son - in fact, the boy and I share a similar condition.”

“You’re deflecting. I’ve met Florien. You’re nothing like him.”

“We both have an aversion to skin contact.” Sao tapped the largest scar, the one on his cheek that went over his eye. “As such, I don’t have much faith in myself when it comes to fights.”

Rose’s needlework stare took him apart again, and this time came out with nothing.

—

Sao found time for a quick nap before Marinell made an appearance. He actually woke a few seconds before the soft click of the lock, before the door cracked open, the crowbar flashing through the gap to warn them the jailer was armed. Sao couldn’t remember the last time he’d been alarmed by a presence outside a door, invisible breaths, footsteps that were shifting of air more than sound. Since getting away from ‘home’ there hadn’t been a need for such paranoia. Yes, at the family home he could call it vigilance, but anywhere outside that, it was paranoia.

Nowhere could ever compare. The Saturn, this dungeon with its comfortable couch and warm walls, was nothing.

He gave Marinell a sleepy smile from across the room. Seeing that Sao was not waiting to ambush him at the door, Marinell wedged his way in, balancing two plastic covered bowls on his free hand.

“I’m really sorry,” Marinell said.

“I know. I suppose there’s no point in pressing for details?”

Marinell shook his head. Grateful to be handed an excuse, Sao thought. The man was pale as a ghost. “How’s your hand?”

The cut Cherry had given him - reopened by his panicked tussle with Rose’s pills - was smoothly bandaged. “Not bleeding. You must have taken good care of it.”

The crowbar was largely forgotten when Marinell came up to him and placed a bowl on the side table. “It’s just beef broth. Thought you might be getting hungry.”

“What time is it?”

“Past five. Almost sunrise. I’ll bring some real breakfast later.” Marinell spoke without hesitation, but without looking at a watch, a phone or any indicator of time. He was on a schedule, Sao realized. Five a.m. prisoner attendance - little wonder he looked wrung of all energy from the moment they saw him each morning. And every ensuing hour after.

The aroma seeped through the snap-on lids; warm, rich and homey. Sao remained limp on the couch, rubbing at the end of the blanket. Rose’s gaze snapped from him, to Marinell, to Sao and back, as Marinell approached her, and took a spoon from the lid of her bowl.

Sao gave her a little respite as Marinell began to feed her. The crowbar was on the ground when Sao turned his head. Rose might have easily juggled the roles of patriot and investigator, schoolgirl and best friend, but he could tell she was not a fighter. She was too dignified, and as a result, weak. The Sao to Cherry’s Rai, in that sense.

Or maybe a month in a basement had taken the hope out of her. The humiliation of having to take food from a jailkeeper with her hands tied behind her back.

Best appreciate his freedom now, in case the same were to befall him. Not without a slight pricking of guilt, Sao popped the lid off his soup. He had been given a spoon, too, blue plastic like something from a child’s lunchbox. Humiliating, he thought, for a scant few seconds - but soon enough the soup was polished off.

With the bowl cooling on his lap, he took his napkin and tried to scrape off some of the congealed mess on his sweater.

The second clink of a spoon in the bowl told him Rose was finished too. Marinell gave her face a cautious wipe with a cloth napkin and came to collect Sao’s leftovers. There was a hint of pride, or maybe relief, when he saw the empty bowl.

“If all the meals are going to be like this, I wouldn’t mind staying just a while longer,” Sao said.

From the ground behind Marinell, Rose nailed him with an agonized look.

“I’ll bring you some tea if you want,” Marinell said

“For breakfast, perhaps.” Sao dropped his voice to a whisper. “So this is Rose? I can see why you were so anxious, being forced to keep her here. For what it’s worth, she says you’ve been taking good care of her. Better than the ones in charge would want, at any rate.”

Marinell’s ghostly complexion flushed scarlet. “Her leg, she should really be in the hospital. Every time I heard someone say she was supposedly already at the hospital - I wanted to die.”

Sao drew up the warmest smile he could. “But I imagine you can’t let her go.”

“If I do, Flor-” Marinell pulled away. A wrong turn. But still, a decent setup. Sao leaned in as Marinell lumbered backward, as if drawn by a fishing line. Then drew him back, pulled him close again with a covert wave. Pointedly shielded from Rose’s sight.

“I was wondering,” Sao whispered, “and this may sound like a drastic mismanagement of priorities, but please - could perhaps have my original shirt and coat back?”

“A- are you cold? I can get more blankets. There’s plenty, and I can get you a coat, and the heating, I can change it–”

He was about to leave - no, he wasn’t. Sao fastened his hand around the loose end of the man’s sleeve which rooted him instantly to the ground. Sao probably really could have strangled him then and there with no resistance. But that was not the point.

“It's just… a matter of dignity. I may be too vain of a person.” Sao lowered his eyes - to his sweater, the wide brown blotch on the front, the orange-stained unicorn. He’d never complain about tie dye again. “But whatever happens next, I’d like to have my own clothes. Not to mention, I feel a little self-conscious sitting in my own vomit, in front of a young lady. And no doubt I’m not a particularly pleasant sight for you, either.”

He gave a pitiful laugh and let Marinell go. The man looked like he was the one who had been drugged, but he still had the wherewithal - or maybe it was muscle memory, from doing it so long - to pick up the crowbar and lock the door behind him.

“Really?” Rose mouthed.

Sao fell back on the couch and folded his arms. He still felt warm from the soup. “Have some heart. He’s doing this for his son. I don’t want to cause him any particular trouble - you don’t think I was asking too much…?”

Outside, he felt the air part and footsteps recede.

—

The coat and shirt came to him as he was drifting off, on his side, head lolling on the armest. He heard the door open and the creak of Rose pulling at the pipes she was tied to, watching Marinell cross the room.

The soft weight of fabric at his feet told him he’d gotten what he asked for.

“Thank you,” Sao murmured, without opening his eyes. “I knew I could count on you. It’ll be okay.”

Marinell paused over him for a moment, a colorless shadow, blending with the concrete. A small high noise came from his throat, the start of a word maybe, or a whine, but seconds later he left without saying anything.

—

“He didn’t even have the crowbar that time,” Rose said.

Sao was not in the mood to discuss Marinell. Kicking off the blanket he flung off his sweater and pulled on the shirt with the bloodied cuff. It was less bloody than he remembered, and slightly fragrant - had Marinell tried to wash it?

He paid due respects to the short-lived sweater and left it folded on the end of the couch, along with the blanket.

In his coat he found his pouch of coverup supplies, and under it in the inner pocket - so flat that it would likely have been missed, even if looked for - was his wallet.

He only had a few cards and the two bills Rai had lent him after the ATM at the mall ran out. And wedged into the bottom, exactly as he’d remembered, were two paper clips.

Rose knew immediately what she was seeing. “An old fashioned breakout.”

“I’ve been called old fashioned before, yes. But I think it’s fitting for the locks in this place.” He unfolded one of the little metal strips and then bent it in half, and began on the other. His makeshift tools looked awfully thin compared to the room keys; he hoped they would hold up.

They did.

With Rose’s eyes boring into his back, he set his hand on the knob and tried to feel for anything on the other side. Sound, movement, magic. Any lingering heat or odors, human or animal breath. Nothing. The knob turned - the noise was deafening - he paused again - and finally, opened the door.

He expected a guard; a thump over the head; a roar as someone spotted him and came barreling down the hall. With a chainsaw. Was that what Rai had said was the filmic weapon of choice?

He’d have time to ask, later. The way was clear enough. Sao was never so glad to see a stretch so dark and deserted.

“I’ll look for something to cut you free,” he whispered.

And he slipped out into the hall.

—

It wasn’t fully dark - there was a puddle of golden light some ways ahead. If he was in the basement, it was likely the light was coming from the wine cellar, which got its light from the lamps of the staircase and the floor above. Whatever or whoever had taken him out and dragged him down was likely upstairs. Not exactly a heavenly prospect.

Sao tried the nearby doors first, starting from the far end of the darkened hall. In there was the laundry room, a huge, low-ceilinged enclosure filled with white cubes with tiny blinking lights. All still. No Florien and no guests meant little laundry to be done.

The rest of the doors were unlocked. The majority served as storage for linens, detergent, mops, spare toiletries and damaged furniture. Those closer to the lit doorway revealed larger, interchangeable rooms with beds and cupboards, which he gathered from their coatings of dust had not been used in a while. Windowless; not much appeal as guest rooms. Perhaps the basement had been intended to house staff.

Sao was feeling rather melancholic about the state of the Saturn Hotel when he came across the first locked door he’d encountered since leaving Rose’s room.

His phone was in his coat’s breast pocket, the screen cracked, likely by whatever force had blown the hotel room door apart when he was captured. If not specifically that, the impact with the toilet tank, or the bathroom floor. In any case, he was sure he hadn’t stuck his phone there - Marinell had returned it.

Sao pressed his phone to his neck with his chin and felt for his paperclips. Within minutes, another antiquated lock was open.

He immediately saw what he was looking for - scissors. In three colors, handles sticking out of a plastic organizer that also held pens, staplers and craft knives. Beside it was a teetering stack of printer paper. He was looking at the rescued remains of the Business Center.

The room also contained a low bed, blankets folded in a pile, and a generous array of pillows. Below the bed, several pairs of soft green slippers and a shower caddy. Against the wall was a wooden closet with an open front, filled with coats and umbrellas. Leaning on the wall by the door, a full set of hiking equipment with very small boots.

On the desk, Sao recognized a suite of Langgan lotion and scrubs. The owner evidently had a liking for tuberose and jasmine. And beside the cluster of bottles - Sao steadied his light - a photo of Muka, toupee nearly blown off by a breeze, under a banner reading Birdsing Parade & Fruit Growers’ Fest. Behind him was Thomi, and Guy with one arm around her shoulders. On Thomi’s other arm was Lumi, grasping, dark haired and diamond eyed. Lumi was the only one not smiling. He looked over the others with affection, but in that affection - or because of it -

Anguish?

—

Rose took the walking stick and raised herself onto her one good leg. She fobbed off Sao’s ineffectual attempts to support her, his hands raising then falling away like he was fanning her. “If you’re like Florien, you don’t really want me clinging to your shoulder, and I don’t need you seizing up on me.”

He stepped back. “Acknowledged.”

“Don’t think I’m not grateful. I’d be throwing myself at you if you hadn’t mentioned your condition. I’m thinking I should get my own assistant,” Rose laughed. “Don’t mention Cherry. Though I imagine she’ll make a fantastic bodyguard when she’s older.” He was glad she could find a reason to laugh, the sound coming from a place of relief, not the mirthless wheezes she’d scattered throughout the story she’d told him earlier. Several times he had worried she would gag mid sentence.

Rai needed to know.

“Are you alright?”

Sao blinked. “I feel a little guilty, you asking me that.”

“And if I wasn’t so desperate I’d be suspicious. I could swear you’ve been in these situations before,” Rose said. “Fresh air awaits. Let’s go.”

There really was something nostalgic about the whole scenario, the lockpick, the lotion, the limping girl. Only, the last time, the girl hadn’t been able to walk on her own. And Rai…

How time flew. Sao smiled. “Rose, you’re a better investigator than you know.”

Lumi

Rai parked on the edge of the lot closest to the west wing of the hotel, at Cherry’s request. Judging by the four whole cars now in its lot, the hotel was busier than usual, though the lights were still off. He couldn’t make out what kind of cars they were, and everything looked vaguely green under the Temperance moonlight. Presumably Thomi’s truck was one of them, another might be Marinell’s car. As far as Rai knew, Marinell hadn’t driven anywhere since he and Sao checked in, but if the van was Guy’s it made sense the manager had his own.

That left a third vehicle in the mix.

There wasn’t time to sit and stare. Cherry had her arm looped into his elbow and was dragging him toward the left of the hotel, away from the entrance.

They circled around the end of the west wing - second time that night, for Rai - but didn’t go all the way to the set of windows that looked into the lounge. Instead, Cherry stopped under what seemed like a completely random window and shoved it upward. The foggy pane slid up smoothly and she scrambled up and over, her book under her arm the whole time.

“There are a couple others that don’t lock right,” she whispered. “But this one’s the only one you’ll fit. You should, anyway.”

“You’ve thought of everything, huh?” Rai passed her his jacket first and wormed his way into the open window. He landed headfirst on the tiled floor of an industrial kitchen. Or it would have been one, but it had either been taken apart or never completed. Whatever wasn’t stainless steel had a layer of rust, and on some of the older implements, an additional layer of mold. A huge foil ventilation tube was rolled up like a python.

“This was the first window Rose found. With the others, she messed with the hinges.” She gave the jacket a sniff before handing it back. “Smells bloody. Can you even wash leather?”

“Probably. I’ve got an aunt who would say it’s cooler with the bloodstains. Leather needs to be broken in, anyway.”

“Try telling that to my mom. She got so mad if I even touched our leather couch. One time I went on without socks and she picked me up, into the air, and threw me on the floor. Is that like how your mom dropped you?”

“No.” Rai chose not to pursue that line of questioning.

—

They were both doing a decent job of being stealthy until they got to the second floor hallway and saw the room. Rai was the one who broke into a dash. He knew something was wrong the moment they turned the corner. All the pillows had been removed from the bench in front of the window. He came up to the door - but there wasn’t a door anymore, just a bare frame.

A chunk of the door was leaning against the wall inside. This had not been a careful unscrewing, or even a chop job with an axe. The wall was gone where the hinges and lock were supposed to be and the carpet was matted with sawdust. Just sawdust, though, someone had cleaned the place up. They had even turned down the bed.

The bathroom was also missing its door. Rai went immediately for the tall black trash bag leaning against the tub. He thought he heard Cherry cry “no!” when he pulled open the top.

“You just… you’re just going to look in?” She had the book braced like a riot shield. “A body could be in there. Cut up, or something.”

“If that’s the case, we’d probably smell it.” In truth, he hadn’t even considered the possibility. The first thing he picked out of the bag was a stiff lump of paper towels dyed red and brown. He quickly shoved it to the bottom. Aside from that, aside from the destroyed door (alright, two of them) and the chipped tile and dented toilet seat (which may have been like that to begin with) and crack bisecting the tacky gold mirror (that definitely hadn’t been there before), there were no real signs of violence.

There was an unusual amount of cosmetics buried in the wood and towels. He could tell they weren’t Sao’s from the color. The zippered pouch he pulled out was definitely not Sao’s either, but looked very familiar.

He sifted up a few of the cosmetics and put them in the bag. One of Rose’s thin green ‘hard drives’ was still in the bag, the other was tangled in the paper towels, half of it. It had been snapped. He couldn’t find the other half.

“Rose’s makeup bag. I gave Sao this to hold onto. I guess he dropped it.” Rai didn’t catch Cherry’s expression as he pressed it into her hands. He went to the window, saw nothing of interest and, failing to locate the chair to the desk, collapsed onto the bed. The chintzy decor, the phony innocence of floral print and doily curtains, put him on edge. All lies, as Cherry would say. “Fuck. Give me a minute to think.”

“Don’t swear.” She sidled into the room and, even with her hands full, began poking things. “If there’s no body, you have to keep looking.”

“Sao’s fine. Even if he was cornered and caught at some point, he’s good at weaseling his way out of things. Nah, he’s probably just hiding - sleeping. I called the cops while I was driving Thomi out of town. Once they’re here, once they’ve cleared the place, he’ll probably come crawling out of wherever he’s holed up.”

Cherry nodded, way too eagerly. “People who sleep a lot are actually lucky. They get to miss all the bad parts.”

“You might be onto something. His luck tends to be better than mine.” Rai pulled his grimy gloves on and folded his hands, staring at the dead television. “I’ll keep looking until backup gets here. But you should lie low - maybe hide out in the forest.”

“No way.” She glared at him over the book’s edge. “Isn’t two better than one, no matter how you look at it? Is this because I’m a girl, or a kid?”

Rai glared back. “Both, exactly. I don’t want a little girl’s guts splattered all over me if we run into whatever did that.” He jerked his head toward the shattered piece of door.

“You were fine with a kid dying, when it was Rose. Don’t give me that look. You were going to just make a missing persons report and leave and hope someone else would find her. And you know that nobody would.”

Again, Rai was compelled to say no, stand up and push past her and let whatever was drawn by her yelling come and destroy her. He’d make a terrible teacher, and a worse parent. And at the same time he was terrified, to have his exact plans thrown back in his face. He was looking at exactly the kind of person he hated working with; a person like him.

He wanted to tear her apart for going on and on about his fuck-ups. He could turn the knife back on her; haul up the braindead sister and hateful mother and nothing of a father who no longer wanted her and rub them into her pimply scowl. He would silence her for good so he could get out there and look for Sao in peace.

He couldn’t do that.

“Cherry, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this.” Rai stood. “Rose wasn’t - isn’t a kid. She’s a full-grown faerie who disguised as a student so she could investigate Muka for a crime that happened back when he lived on the fae Citadel.”

“So what?”

Rai had been about to push past her. “You knew?”

“No…”

“But you’re not surpised.”

“I am. But at the same time, I’m not. My family sucks, I can’t ever make friends with kids even when I try. Grown ups are scared of me or find another reason to hate me, except weird ones like Thomi and… and Muka. It actually makes sense, if Rose is faerie like them. Maybe she was tricking me, like them. But whatever Rose is, she was - is - the best friend I have at the moment.”

“Uh huh. Those are my words.”

She looked at her feet. “I guess you did say them first. But Sao isn’t with you at the moment, is he?”

No more than Rose is with you. Rai watched her droop, her face growing red. He couldn’t let her sink yet. “Let’s keep looking, then.”

—

An exploration of the ground floor would probably take a while, and what Rai was really interested in was the basement. As they crept down the stairs, he whispered to Cherry if she’d ever been down there. She shook her head.

“Couldn’t find a light switch. I was afraid someone would see if I had a light on.”

“You didn’t care about being seen in the Business Center.”

“Guests are supposed to be allowed in there, and I was technically a guest. Or at least, a visitor.” She sniffed. He hoped she wasn’t catching a cold. A sneeze would give things away just as fast as turning on the lights. “Also, Flor said that Guy said one of the old owners used to lock his wives down there, and there might be a ghost or a dead body behind any of the doors.”

“Sounds like something made up to keep Flor out of there.” Rai smiled to himself. “You know, just before I got here, I stopped by a haunted tunnel nearby. I’ve actually been trying to catch a ghost on camera for a while…”

Cherry could not have been less interested.

They were in the lobby now. The chandelier was unlit, but the lounge was glowing. Rai pressed against the wall and peeked around the corner, down the stairs. The fireplace was out, but the electric wall lamps were on. A very small person in the Myrmilion School pajamas was sitting on one of the couches with a magazine spread over his lap like a blanket, reading an article about body paints for babies. Rai recognized the article instantly. The featured photo had painted infants sitting on a patch of fake grass, looking like a platoon of pastel aliens. Rai also recognized the reader, the twiggy hands and smooth bob of black hair.

“Lumi,” Cherry hurtled down the steps and landed with a thud that shook the walls. “How did you get in?”

So much for sneaking around. Lumi finished the line he was reading before pushing himself off the couch, with a sidelong look that struck Rai as oddly familiar. “You two shouldn’t be here.”

“Did you come through a tunnel?” Rai asked.

Lumi’s tone was flat. “No. I didn’t need to. I’m meeting someone here. But I don’t think you should be seen with me.”

This elicited a hard hah from Cherry. She walked up to Lumi, leading with her puffed chest, and drew up to her full height. “You turn up here, and the first thing you do is try to boss us around?”

Instead of immediately taking cover, Lumi nudged her back and smiled. “You know, I do like you, Cherry. Not the way Cal thinks. You just remind me of one of my old friends. The way you just ram through, burn through everything, so convinced it’s the right way... So it’s the truth when I say I really don’t want anything to happen to you.”

He looked around her, at Rai.

“And you too. I know you’ve been trying really hard to help. And so much of this is my fault. You should take Cherry and go.”

“You don’t know how much I’d like to do exactly that. But I can’t leave here without Sao. You didn’t happen to see him?”

Lumi mulled over the question. “Kind of. Go out through the dining room. I think you might find him somewhere out that way.”

“Nice try.” Cherry gave Rai’s arm what was probably supposed to be a friendly whack. “You can tell he’s just trying to get rid of us, right? He’s lying and if you don’t see it, you must be—”

“No need for a tirade; just call the detective stupid to his face if that’s your point,” Lumi mumbled.

The book went up. Rai leapt forward to stop Cherry from connecting with Lumi’s bowed head. But he didn’t have to. There was a sudden blast, a snap of air like a gigantic balloon popping, from somewhere in the hotel. They all froze, hanging like a demented mannequin display. Rai’s hands outstretched (tremors in the one Cherry had laid into); Cherry’s arms poised to swing while Lumi’s were coming up to protect his face.

The sky beyond the window glowed blue, one of those unnatural Temperance shades, deeper and sharper than the light of Rai’s hands. The sun was coming up.

Lumi was the first to recover. “No,” he said. “He didn’t, not again.” He dipped around Cherry, flew over the carpet and scrambled up the stairs.

Guy

Sao couldn’t help but continue his useless cycle of reaching forth and pulling back as Rose trudged up the staircase. By the time they reached the top, she was no doubt wishing she’d picked up a bottle of red before leaving the cellar. To take off the edge or knock him upside the head.

He couldn’t deny that they’d made a fair bit of noise, but the lobby was deserted. The wall lamps in the lounge were on, dimmed to just a brownish glow, but there was no appeal without the fire. And even if the fire was going, he would still have gone straight for the front door.

“Hold on.” Rose withdrew into the hallway by the unattended reception counter. “Are those headlights outside?”

Through the leaded panes on either side of the entrance, two beams of bright light were aimed roughly in their direction.

“I doubt that’s the police response your supervisor called in.”

“It could be his car.” Sao squinted. Besides the two white spots, he couldn’t make out any color or shapes. He could step closer, open the door, and check. But he thought of the door to the hotel room, two layers of doors, being blown away, splinters on his back and tiles on his cheek, and backed into the hall beside Rose.

“Better safe than sorry,” she murmured. “There are a couple ways out through the back. A bunch of windows. But with this,” and she put a hand on her twisted leg, “I’m thinking we can get out through the dining room patio.”

—

It was another winding walk. Every tap of Rose’s stick brought a fresh draught of terror. Sao didn’t say anything - she was doing the best she could, better than almost anyone could have done after falling from a tower followed by weeks in a windowless cell. He was the one who hadn’t done much. He’d managed to get captured - in retrospect, he’d gone to the most obvious place, effectively served himself up on a silver platter - he’d slept about half the time he was imprisoned, and more or less relied on the goodwill of their jailer to get him out. He couldn’t run, couldn’t fight, couldn’t even drive.

And here he was; trundling uselessly behind a fae woman with a ruined leg and who knew what other damages; he whose injuries consisted largely of a sore throat and a papercut.

He was feeling needlessly sorry for himself when he heard a thudding coming up behind them. Feet on the dusty carpet.

There were echoes. They had a decent head start - but that wouldn’t last long.

“Rose,” Sao whispered.

“I know.” But her trying to soften the sound of her stick only made her slower.

Sao quickened his walk, came up beside her, strode in front of her, looked back. The whole time he’d been following Rose, he hadn’t asked himself what Rai would have done, because he already knew it well. It just wasn’t in Sao’s character to do the same.

He was remembering again, the way he had in the room when the door exploded. He’d looked in the mirror. Seen his dirty face and for some reason, that had become his priority. His vanity would kill him, and take her down too. His past self had thought the same. What was the point of keeping up appearances when nobody was there to see?

Rose saw him leaning in again and only glared. She didn’t think he’d really do it. Rallying what meager sense of defiance he had ever had, calling upon the spirit of Cherry to supplement his lack of it, Sao curled one arm around Rose’s waist and the other her legs and, with the cane in one hand (noisily scraping paint off the wall as he turned; the stick had a steep tip, fantastic) he made some semblance of a sprint for the dining room.

The narrow hall gave way to the open space with its white tables, wooden bar and wall of glass doors. Exits, half a dozen of them, and just beyond them, the aquamarine glow of the Temperance sunrise.

Sitting on one of the barstools, head in hands until their unceremonious arrival, was Marinell. His already pale coloring was drained further in the cloudy blue light pouring through the glass doors, turning him to wax. He stared at Sao. Sao stared back with Rose hung across his arms like a fish. Suddenly nauseous, he set her down as gently as he could, against a wall. She was very still the whole time, but he still almost dropped her on her head. She didn’t look at him as he passed back her stick. Her cheeks were blots of pink in the room that was otherwise a wash of blue and gray.

Before either of them could speak, Marinell was up and shoveling Rose behind the bar. To Sao he waved, frantic, but still considerate - his hands did not so much as graze the fabric of Sao's sleeve. His look did linger, though, and Sao saw in it a resolve that nearly made his heart seize. A tenacious Marinell seemed like an ill omen.

Whatever he had in store, Marinell left them hidden and went to greet the person who’d followed them down the hall.

“Oh, it’s you. I thought I heard someone behind me,” Marinell said.

“And I was about to say, I thought I heard someone ahead of me,” Guy replied, terribly chipper for the crack of dawn - Sao had thought as much, even before today’s events. “So, there’s a problem, isn’t there?”

“Yes. I’m very sorry, Guy. But - oh, god. What happened to you?”

“I’m fine. You worry too much. If you took it easy, maybe you’d be better rested and we wouldn’t be in this position.”

A pause, the sound of chairs being pulled out.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, I couldn’t sleep, my head’s been out of order. I must have forgotten the lock, or left something in the room, or…”

“So it’s not because you felt sorry for the good-looking assistant?” Guy laughed, a terrible keening, it sounded close to crying. “I don’t know what to do now. The mayor won’t be happy.”

“Guy,” Marinell said. “You don’t need to do any of this anymore. All the coverup, holding prisoners on behalf of someone else. Muka is gone, and you know the toll it was taking on him too. The investigator who left with Thomi will be back, and he’ll bring police, and they’ll put a stop to the mayor. Whatever’s got a grip on you will be gone. I know you always wanted to travel again, and Thomi can go with you-”

“Please don’t talk about her right now.”

“Guy, you know that I care about you, you’re like a son to me.”

“Should you be saying that? You’ll break Flor’s heart.”

“What I mean is none of this should have been put on the shoulders of a child. I should have tried harder to stand up for you. Against the mayor, whatever that would mean.”

“You have no idea.”

“That’s why I called the police myself, when I saw that Rose and Sao had gotten away. I’ll turn myself in - there’s no reason for you to be involved. Make a clean break. You’ve always been a great help to me, I owe you the favor. I… I want you to be able to live freely.”

“What about Flor?”

Silence. The voice that surfaced from the stillness was soft. “I told the investigators all about him. I’m sure they’ll do what’s best for him. If not them, then Thomi. There are so many who could do better than I ever did.”

To that, Guy sighed. “You’ve always been an idiot.”

The air was stirring, in a manner that Sao did not recognize. It wasn’t just someone pushing out a chair - though he did hear that - or taking a few steps forward - he felt and heard those too. Something was pulling air to the center of the room, not fast, but with such force and friction that he could feel static building, the eye of the storm.

Rose’s hair was on end. “He’s not going to – no – distract him.” She jabbed Sao with her stick, then threw it down and pressed her hands together, as if in olden-style prayer. “You need to do it. Anything. Now.”

“What’s happening?”

“An incantation. I’ll try to suppress it–” Her stick having rolled out of her reach, she kicked him with her one good foot.

Sao stood. Guy was right in front of him, back facing the bar. “Uh, Guy, perhaps we should talk things over–”

His throat locked. Guy’s flannel and oversized pants were splattered with blood. Sao smelled it instantly, but it wasn’t just blood, there was also the stink of acid, urine, old meat, and strangest of all, grass.

Guy was pointing at Marinell. In the space before his loosely outstretched finger, color and texture were distorted, the atmosphere shivering like in a heatwave. An enormous pressure was gathering.

Sao remembered the door shattering behind him in the hotel room and stumbled back, involuntarily. His back hit the shelf of liquor, rattling them, and he nearly leapt out of his pathetic cow-patch skin. Guy’s head turned, slightly, and following it so did his arm, his finger —

Whether it was Sao’s noisy blunder, or Rose’s attempt at a reverse spell, or Thomi sweeping like a wraith onto the patio, slamming her hands against the windows and screaming Guy, don’t! – the blast misfired. At least, that’s what Sao would tell himself later, when he heard how things could have gone; when he was looking for any reason to believe things hadn’t been as bad as they possibly could have been.

The invisible force tore a short distance through the air and burst like a thundercrack. It knocked over one chair, took off the corner of the nearest table, and left Marinell with a spurting red stump where his left hand had been.

Lamort

Rai was last on the scene. Lumi and Cherry were already grabbing and screaming and bloody when Rai flat-footed his way into the dining room. He wondered - hoped, even - that he was hallucinating. Maybe he’d stumbled into a movie set. These were the kinds of situations he always tried to tell himself were relegated to the movies.

Cherry had found Rose, and Rose was dutifully ignoring her. She was instructing Sao on how to tie a tourniquet using the belt of his coat, though she was doing most of the work herself. The two of them were hovering over Marinell who was moaning on the ground and curled around his hand, or what was left of it after it had been shot off, and the carpet under him was slick with his blood. From the blood all over him and the way he was being ushered back, Rai gathered that Guy had been the one who fired the shot, although he didn’t have any weapon that Rai could see. Guy, Thomi and Lumi were engaged in some whispery argument, Thomi’s hand on Guy’s, pushing it back to his chest while Guy seemed to be trying to point out something in the rough direction of Rose, Sao or Marinell.

“I was too soft. Too fucking soft,” Guy said. “We shouldn’t have brought them here. I should have blown their heads off the moment we knew.”

“No, no, you aren’t a killer,” Thomi said.

“You,” Guy began, but changed his mind and tried again to shake her off, and snarled at the top of Lumi’s head, “this is really all on you.”

“I know,” Lumi cried, in his shrill shaky voice, “I’ll go back, I’ll go to prison, I’ll let them cut me to pieces, I don’t care. But you know I didn’t ask you to do any of this.”

“Guy,” Rai said. Sao’s head snapped up as he crossed the room, tugging a bag out of his pocket. He held the pink tile up. “Were you the one who was looking for this?”

Guy took one look at the bag and snorted. “A little bird told me it wasn’t in the box of junk you two came in with — yet here it is. Well, I don’t care too much about the drive. In fact, you can keep it - turn it in, broadcast what’s on it, break it in half and eat it, whatever you’d like - as long as she doesn’t have it.” Finally ripping loose from Lumi’s grasp, he pointed at Rose.

As if he now had her at gunpoint, Rose started to scramble away, but her leg was twisted, like one of the roots in the darkened forest across the road from Myrmilion. She fell hard and had to crawl, dragging out a slug trail of Marinell’s blood. Cherry stepped between them, her usual shield in place. “What the hell is wrong with you, Guy?”

“Cherry, no!” Rose shrieked.

Cherry basked in Rose’s objection. “You were always too weird to be a normal kid. Are you a serial killer? Wait, don’t tell me - I bet you’re a faerie too?”

Guy smiled. “A crack detective yourself. Does that mean you know what she is?”

“Yes. I’m not stupid.” Cherry’s state could melt iron. “And I don’t care.”

“Of course.” Guy rolled his eyes, but did not look back at her. “We’ve had our differences, Cherry, and I’ve got to say, I don’t care about much anymore, either. But you’re going to make some people very unhappy if you choose to die for that liar. Didn’t you always say you hated liars?”

“Almost everyone here is a liar. Even if I make a new friend, they’ll probably turn out to be a liar. But Rose is the best friend I have at the moment. I won’t let you ruin this for me!”

Before Guy could bring his hand up again, Lumi flung himself in front of Cherry, and Thomi (legs long enough that she didn’t have to dive to make it in time) stepped in front of them both, and took Cherry by the shoulders.

“Listen, please,” she said, “I have an important job for you. I was driven here by some nice ladies - they’re in the front - ask them to take you back to the school, pick everyone up, and take you to the police box on the I77 - it’s by the carousel mall. They’ll know.”

Cherry tried to look away, but Thomi’s huge bug eyes, more viscous than ever, sank into her, pulled her back like glue.

“I want to be here,” Cherry whined. “I want to watch. I bet you’re all going to run away as soon as I leave.”

“I promise that won’t happen. We’ll see each other later today. I just need to clean this all up.”

“Cherry,” Rose said. “Marinell might die if he doesn’t get help. There’s a cart behind the counter for boxes. We can wheel him to the lobby on that. Come on, I know it’s hard but we can’t waste time when someone might be dying.”

Cherry swallowed whatever she had in her throat and stood up straight. “I’m sorry I left you…”

“Time, Cherry, time!”

Guy settled on a chair with his arm on the accompanying table, blood soaking into the tablecloth. He watched with amusement as Cherry wheeled out the moving cart and almost ran Marinell over with it. Rose kicked it back with her working leg and quickly got Marinell balanced and seated herself on the corner of the cart. She had her purple pouch under her arm, and had also been entrusted with the precious Omnibus which sat on her lap. Cherry was going to be the one pushing.

It was like watching a train departing. Cherry seemed uncomfortable with all the eyes on her. “Will you be okay?” she asked Thomi in a shrunken voice.

“Yes. My girls…” Thomi ruffled Cherry’s hair and, after some consideration, ruffled Rose’s too. “I’m proud of you. See you this afternoon.”

Cherry wheeled Marinell a few inches forward, turned back again. “Investigator. You’re gonna stay too?”

“Mmh. Miss Thomi won’t kick me out that easily.”

“And him?”

Sao was holding up the wall by the bar. He was back in his white button-up, by all appearances a lounger who had wandered in to find the cocktail waiter. Taking in the carnage while waiting on his drink - and from the state of his hair and clothes, it wouldn’t be his first sip of the morning. But seeing him there, all in one disheveled piece, a weight on Rai’s shoulders eased off; the fear and headache that had gripped him all night ran slack. Aside from the blood on his hands that was all Marinell’s, Sao looked no worse than when Rai left him. It felt good to be making little jokes.

“He might not like it, but he’s not leaving my sight until this is over,” Rai said.

Sao smiled.

“Okay, but why Lumi?” Cherry was working up her whine again. “Why does he get to stay?”

Thomi opened her mouth, looked from Lumi to Cherry, and turned away. Her matted hair, which had once flowed like a chromatic cape, was now plastered to the back of her coat.

Rai caught Rose glancing at Sao. Sao, trying to be subtle, shook his head. Rai wanted to go over and shake him.

Guy groaned, loud and long. “I can’t take anything seriously when I hear people call you by that name. Handle this like an adult, Lamort.”

Lumi sidestepped Thomi neatly, to once again look Cherry in the eye. “You won’t go until you know? Very well. It’s because I need to be here for her. Miss Thomi is my daughter.”