The staircase reeked of blood.

They were inside one of the towers, a tight, spiraling cement staircase with metal pole rails. Walls of exposed stone were doing a poor job of keeping out the elements. Under a pool of chilly white lamplight, a child’s body was collapsed on the second floor landing, blood trail indicating he fell from the third. A child’s body with an old man’s neck and head; bald with two small, wrinkled horns. The left horn was squashed in like a deflated balloon. There was a deep, wide dent in the skull under it, blood pouring like magma. The face was in even worse shape. All of him was stained red as the step.

“Did you think to call a fucking ambulance?” Rai roared, pounding his way up the stairs. He hadn’t seen the landing yet, but with the smell, he already knew.

“I didn’t know what to do– I didn’t–” Thomi looked quite insubstantial in a white nightdress that matched her ghostly hair. All of her was shaking, a translucent blur.

Sao came up behind Rai and tried the nearest door. Locked. A strip of window in the door revealed the school’s gymnasium; lights off, equipment covered. They’d seen it when Rai had come hunting for Muka’s office the day Cherry slashed the tyres (for the second time). The floor above them, then, was Muka’s office. Above that, the roof of the northern tower.

An unlucky place.

“Go make the call then! Unless the phones are somehow miraculously not working. Considering everything we’ve seen in this place I would not be surprised…” Rai’s scowl faded as he knelt down and moved Muka’s head. “He’s alive.”

It didn’t look that way to Sao. But he was trying not to look directly at the body. There were bright dots in the blood around the step. White and pink, like petals. Teeth from the shattered dentures. As if maneuvering around a sinkhole, Sao pressed his back to the wall to sidestep the blood, and waved Thomi over. “Go upstairs. Muka had a phone in his office. Call for an ambulance. It’ll be okay.”

She may not have trusted him, but up she went.

Sao was about to follow her when he heard Rai speak, in a voice that stopped him in his tracks. It was soft.

“Muka. You hear me? Hang in there.” Rai fastened a fingertip of a glove with his teeth and tugged it off. The blue light of his hands clashed with the red of the blood, turning it black. “We have a lot to talk about. So… just hang on.”

Rai held his glowing hand to the deep dent in the skull. The light flared - but not by much. Muka sagged, precarious, brittle as a twig, head lolling back as Rai drew near. He may have been breathing, or twitching or straining, but it was hard to make out from the shaking of Rai’s arm that held him. Sao wanted to step out of the dripping stairwell, wait for Rai inside the hallway, maybe even downstairs in the lobby – but it would be betrayal at this point. He stayed.

Rai set a knee down to steady himself and tried again, perspiration dotting his forehead. Rai’s aura had never been strong enough to heal others - as he so often saw fit to remind Sao, and anyone who mentioned it. But he was trying, and hoping–

“Rai,” Sao said.

“I know. Fucking pathetic. I know!” Rai’s head snapped up, greasy strands spraying drops of sweat. He snapped, breathlessly, “and what are you standing around for? Get the fuck up there! Is she making the damn call?”

From up the stairs, Sao heard Thomi’s voice, pitched like a whistle. “I77 off Temperance… The school… please send somebody, the principal’s had an accident–”

“She is.” Sao closed his eyes and opened them. The afterimage of the blackened blood lingered, and the walls behind the stains glowed against them, stones of ectoplasmic white and green, the colors of his new sweater.

In a horrifically tender moment, Rai’s hand pressed to Muka’s cheek. But, no – the blood had muddled the image, blending face with neck with cheek. Rai’s hand was feeling the thin red neck for a pulse.

Feeling completely insubstantial, Sao said, “I think - it may be too late.”

“We’re the ones who are late. If only I just…”

“You’ve already done more than anyone. Look around us. Who else is there, who even tried?” Listening to Thomi’s cries from the floor above, Sao lowered his voice. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Even a full Life Fountain can’t revive the dead.”

Now Rai’s eyes were squeezed closed, his face turned up, toward the upper floors. Toward the tower, the one where Rose had fallen from. In spite of every sign warning him away, Sao inched nearer, until he was almost beside Rai. Close enough to get his attention. “Are you okay?”

“Me? Why does that matter?”

Their eyes met and Rai looked away with a snarl, colorless against the cold illumination of his own hands.

“Yeah, I’m, alright. Before we try anything, get your phone out and take some pictures of the scene. God knows, it will all magically vanish the moment we turn our heads.”

Sao did as he was told, as the investigator’s assistant. He videoed then snapped the stairs from top to bottom. There were dashes of blood on several of the steps, though none above the third floor. Most likely Muka fell from one floor above. The results he reported to Rai for approval. Rai had been holding Muka’s small, limp body the entire time.

“Do me a favor and go all the way to the top,” Rai said.

Looking up the stairs spiraling into the ether above, Sao desperately wished to say it wasn’t needed, but Rai looked even more desperate. Sao went.

There was the floor containing the principal’s office, then two for classrooms, followed by a winding climb to the top. The roof door was locked - unsurprising, considering Rose’s misadventure. Sao looked out the grated window in the door. The rooftop was only a small rounded platform with parapet walls; each raised portion of wall had brick or two removed, leaving a small hole. Too uneven to be decorative - they were for the old soldiers to safely survey their surroundings, Sao supposed.

The violet sky was beginning to turn red, like a lobster being boiled. Winter brought an early sunset.

Sao took a few blurry pictures of what little of the tower’s roof he could see, and began the journey down. Rai had hardly moved.

“Well, he’s not going to care about anything anymore, but I don’t think we should just leave him here,” Rai grunted. “Sorry about that. Lost my head for a moment. I’m just fucking pissed because we had so much to ask him. About his job and the letters and the rest… fuck.”

“It’s alright. It is shockingly poor timing, considering all we learned today - so much was resting on him. I suppose we should try to learn as much as we can about what happened regardless.”

Rai grunted in agreement. In once smooth motion, he stood, supporting Muka’s broken head in the crook of his arm, the flickering fingers of one hand grasping a ball of gore that Sao realized was the displaced toupee.

“He’s really light,” Rai said as some form of reassurance.

They began upward. Rai moved gently, as if he were cradling the body of his own child. Sao trailed behind and berated himself for that comparison. Why was he thinking something so cruel about his superior? His hardheaded (which he hadn’t been recently) and child hating (well, that didn’t fit much either) boss. Or friend, since they were so far from their office. But no, now they were ‘on the job’ more than ever…

Sao caught his toe and nearly stumbled on one of the bloodied stairs. Whatever was in the air was playing havoc with his mind.

—

Thomi threw down the phone and hurried to arrange the cushions on the pleated leather couch so that Muka could be laid down. A braided throw was draped over his body. Rai removed Muka’s dirt-encrusted loafers, revealing tiny socks that were obscenely white, rudely disconnected from the gruesomeness of the situation. It seemed impossible to Sao that the blood-pulped face atop of the blanket and the pristine socks emerging at the other could be connected, parts of the same being.

After several attempts to affix it, they decided to leave the wig on the sidetable.

Thomi was desperate to keep her hands busy. Pushing past Rai she snatched a handful of tissues from a box on the principal’s desk and tried to dab the blood from the dented face, rather fruitlessly.

“He’s… is he…” Her voice shivered like struck glass.

“I’m sorry,” Rai said, pulling out a tissue for himself and scrubbing his hands.

“I thought he was already, but I didn’t want to believe it.” She rubbed her face behind its veil of hair. “Thank you so much.”

“We didn’t do anything.”

“You came back. And you brought him up. And he’s no longer on the steps... I was too scared to even look at him. Ah - I made the call but I don’t know when anyone will be here.” She was talking about the emergency response. “We’re so far away from anything. The ambulance could get lost…” She paused. “They took a long time coming for Rose, too.”

Rai collapsed on a winged reading chair in the corner farthest from the couch, a frown stitched into his forehead. “We’ll wait with you. So what the hell happened today? Did you or one of the kids find him?”

“I did. I don’t know what happened.”

“Why were you in that staircase? And why would he be there?”

“I went there looking - I hadn’t heard from Muka since after lunch. At around three I looked for him but couldn’t find him anywhere. The tower stairs are the last place I checked. He usually doesn’t use them, except for his walks, so maybe I should have actually looked in them first–”

“Thomi, let’s start from the beginning.” Sao said. Her enormous eyes were leaking freely. But even in tears her face was pale, only the slightest line of red around the tear ducts. “How did the day start? Any strangeness, any visitors?”

She grasped Muka’s hand as if absorbing the memories from him, or the strength to recall. “Everything started ordinary. He’s always up early, and we had morning tea and went to wake the children. Guy came at nine to set up lunch. He’s good with routines. Guy went back to the hotel after helping me portion out everyone’s plates. Mushroom casserole and tomato salad. He bought dessert too - apple pie. Muka saw him off, and thanked him for the meal and paid him, and Guy drove off. I didn’t see him after twelve. He was horrified when I called him, I asked him to call you–”

“And he did.” Sao watched her nod rapidly. He wasn’t about to argue - Guy had sounded genuinely distressed. “So Guy didn’t lunch with you?”

“He didn’t. Muka was there, though, we all ate at one long table. Lumi was talking about what a good cook Guy was and Muka asked everyone what their favorites were. He was thinking of having Guy do a baking class.”

“Lunch finished without incident?”

“Yes. The cleaner came by at one-fifteen. You may know her, she does part-time at the hotel too. She did the dishes and straightened up the cafeteria, took the trash. We chatted the whole time and had some coffee and leftover pie.” The red around her eyes deepened. A blush? “You said the town doesn’t have many women. It’s true. It’s hard to find someone to talk to sometimes…”

“Alright, so do you know what Muka and the kids were doing in the meantime?” Rai snapped. Thomi wilted under his corrosive glare. Working his jaw, fidgeting at his collar, Sao tried to get Rai’s attention, have him ease him up. Pointless.

“Muka, he… he said he was going for his walk around the grounds...”

“And when he takes a walk, he takes those tower stairs? That’s the north tower, right? Where Rose…?”

“Yes. It’s the privacy, a moment for himself to gather his thoughts. The tower stairs aren’t often used by the children, or anyone at all, they’re a little out of sight, so…”

“So he snuck off for his walk. You see him come back?”

“No. His leaving after lunch was the last time…” Her head drooped, hair falling and fully masking her face. “The last I spoke to him.”

At this, Rai finally, mercifully eased up on his own accord. “Alright. So what about the kids?”

“It was raining so they couldn’t play outside today. They went to the Media Room after lunch and… I checked on them once or twice. They were playing a storytelling game. And then a bit later they moved to the dormitory hall.”

“All of them? Even Cherry?”

“Yes. I mean, I think. I don’t know, I don’t know for sure anymore.” She fell into Muka’s high swivel chair and let it carry her to the desk, rotate her, toward the row of glass ornaments, to the shelf of binders, to the window, and back to her interrogators. “How can I go about not knowing anything? I’m supposed to be in charge in his absence. Does he count as absent as he is? I hope it won’t be for long. I really need…”

“I’ll ask you one more thing: do you think you could let us talk to the kids?”

She swayed in the chair, childlike. Shrunken more by the curtain of hair which spilled off the chair around her in silvery waterfalls. “Go on. They wouldn’t be very happy with me if I didn’t.”

Her voice was limp. She was carrying a lot; weight Sao never would have wished on himself or anyone else. But she was carrying it; she wasn’t as frail as she looked, how she wanted to appear.

—

Thomi opted to remain by Muka’s side to grieve and, though she did not say it aloud, to avoid Rai. He and Sao were allowed to visit the second floor dormitory hall unattended.

The children had not yet been told of the incident, but sensed something wrong. The sight of Rai, contrary to the effect he had on their assistant teacher, was a comfort. And comfort had them slingshotting out their high-ceilinged rooms and pawing at his leather jacket and still-exposed hand, all talking at once. Cherry, naturally, was the first to pick up on the presence of blood, a bit of it having stuck to Rai’s shoe despite his attempt to rub it off on the rug in Muka’s office.

“The principal –” Rai began.

Florien, prophetic as ever, asked, “Will there have to be a funeral?”

Rai’s face gave them their answer. Children really did catch everything. Lumi began to hyperventilate, heaving breaths that wracked his whole body and caused him to fall onto a nearby bench, where he began to sob. The whimpers of the other children followed suit. Only Cherry stood silent, staring knives into Rai, nostrils flaring with each forcibly controlled breath.

Helping Lumi to his feet, Rai directed them all back to their rooms and had Sao stand at the end of the hallway as extra reassurance, or as an enforcer, as he called them one-by-one to the steps of the main stairwell which overlooked the lobby, for interviewing.

The view from Sao’s post was rather unsettling. At the opposite end of the hall was a fire door that led to the northern tower staircase. They were just one floor down from where Muka had been lying, where his pool of blood still lay. And then there were the four pairs of eyes which peeked from their respective rooms. They tracked Florien’s shuffle all the way over to the carpeted stair where Rai sat waiting.

—

“We were all in the Media Room,” Florien said, knotting and unknotting his handkerchief around his fingers. “Playing a game.” He had recovered quickly when the questions began.

“Even Miss Thomi?”

“No, she was with the cleaner. And not Muka either. I meant us-” Florien waved an uncertain finger about indicating the hall, himself, and Rai -for some reason Rai was included as one of the kids. “We were playing.”

“Even Cherry?”

“Yes. We were playing ‘fortunately unfortunately.’ So Cherry wanted to join. That’s why I know we were all there.” At Rai’s baffled expression, he sighed. “It’s a game where you make a story. You sit in a circle and start with a regular sentence - like, ‘the fox went for a walk in the town’. Then the next person in the circle starts the next line with ‘fortunately’ - ‘fortunately, Guy was selling his carrot cake that day’. And the next one is ‘unfortunately’. ‘Unfortunately, foxes don’t like carrots’. So you get good and bad things happening one after the other.”

“And you left Cherry out?”

Though it was Rai who’d asked, Florien glanced up the stairs at Sao. At Rai’s nod, Sao slid just out of sight.

Florien’s voice was a stage whisper. Completely audible. “Cherry isn’t fun to play with. She is way too mean on the ‘unfortunatelys’ and she turns ‘fortunately’ into a bad thing. She’ll end up saying ‘unfortunately’ the fox got hungry and bit someone and then ‘fortunately’ Guy killed it and skinned it, or something horrible. There’s never any good with Cherry.”

Sao felt a pang of sadness, for Florien, and for Cherry.

Florien went on. “The point is to show that good things always come after the bad. That’s what Muka said when he taught us the game.”

A moment of silence, followed by the fluttering of paper. Rai asked, “Can you take a look at this, Flor?”

Unable to restrain himself, Sao tiptoed back into the stairwell and peered over the hardwood bannister. In Rai’s glowing fingertips was the Birdsing poster of the missing writer, Britania.

“Have you ever seen this woman?” Rai asked.

“Is she someone from the hotel?” Florien asked.

“I didn’t see her there, I’m just on the lookout since I heard she was in the area. Did you see her in the hotel? You look pretty carefully at the people in the hotel, when you’re there, right?”

“No. I mean, no, I never saw her. But I haven’t been at the hotel much recently. Dad’s busy.”

“A lot of guests?”

“No. He’s just always busy.”

Sao had to wonder about that. If Rai was as skeptical as he was, he didn’t let it show. “Thanks, Flor. I’m glad I talked to you first. We might talk again later.”

The duo came padding up the stairs. Sao slid back around the edge of the door and realized the children had been watching every move of his little back and forth dance around the doorframe.

As if laying eyes on Sao reminded him of death, Florien yanked Rai’s sleeve, pulling him down. In another faux-whisper he said, “Mr. Cool Hands. They won’t have the funeral here, right? I don’t like funerals.” His straw colored eyebrows knit into a tiny frown. “My dad cries a lot at funerals. That’s why we had to move away from our old house.”

—

Florien returned to the hall appropriately morose, but when the boys gathered around him, he perked up. “I told him all about ‘fortunately unfortunately’.” This elicited some groans (‘that’s not important, Flor!’) that threw him into a flurry of protests.

The next to be sent down for interviewing was the spindly Cal. He went down the first flight of stairs then huddled in the corner of the large landing, as far as possible from Rai, who was putting his gloves back on.

“You can stand there if you want,” Rai said, straightening out the poster. “I won’t ask about the principal if it’s upsetting. But I do wanna ask you if you’ve seen this woman before.”

Nudging up his glasses to wipe his tear stained cheeks, Cal scuttled over. “No. Well, maybe.” He adjusted his glasses and knelt down. “She’s kind of familiar, somehow.”

Sao was leaning over the bannister once again.

“I don’t know. She just looks so normal and we don’t see ladies much here. I’m used to just Miss Thomi. I guess I don’t know that lady for real.” Cal took a seat. “What did she do?”

“Someone’s looking for her.” Rai pulled the paper aside. “So, you can probably tell something bad’s happened to the principal. So I’d like to hear more about what you might have seen today. Anything could help.”

“You know all about ‘fortunately unfortunately’ now from Flor, I guess.”

“Yeah. So all the kids were playing that…”

Cal cut Rai off by thrusting hand up in front of his nose, like a traffic controller. “No, you didn’t hear him right then. Cherry wasn’t playing with us. She asked, but we told her we had enough of her the last time and Miss Thomi wasn’t around to force us–” The hand wavered. “- to force her to play nice.”

Rai shifted Cal’s hand aside with a leather-gloved finger. “Okay. Did Cherry hang around to watch, though?”

“No. She went out of the room after that. She’s actually the only one we weren’t watching at all times. So if anyone saw or did something, it had to be her!”

—

“Cal’s always trying to get back at Cherry for the time she broke his glasses,” Tal said. “Cherry’s not tricky at all.”

Even hunched with fatigue, Tal was nearly as tall as Rai was when sitting - and perhaps wider. He had also failed to recognize the woman on the poster.

“Cal’s also the one who thinks Cherry has a crush on Lumi. He’s a little spoiled. He doesn’t know that hitting someone isn’t the right way to show…” The boy stared at his feet, then at Rai’s bloodstained boot, then back to his own. “I actually think Lumi has a crush on Cherry. That’s why he keeps going up to her and saying things she doesn’t like. Getting her attention.”

“Uh huh. So Cherry was out of the room for a while, by herself?”

To warm his memory, or out of disappointment that Rai has so callously passed over the topic of grade school romance, Cal took a while to gather his thoughts. “Well, she wasn’t sneaking around. She’s not that smart or careful. I know how she is, because she’s kinda like me. We’re both used to being the strongest. But I don’t fight anymore, unless I have to.”

Grade school fights didn’t intrigue Rai’s either. “So do you know where she went, or…?”

“Yeah, I do. How was it… I went down to get snacks for us after we finished one story. Of ‘fortunately unfortunately’. Cherry was in the cafeteria, writing in her book and drinking milk and talking to herself a little. She does that when she writes.”

“Was Miss Thomi with her?”

“No, Miss was just down the stairs. In the lobby with the cleaner, I could hear them talking. Maybe Cherry was listening to them. Cherry likes listening in…” Tal shrugged his broad shoulders.

“Did she see you in the cafeteria?”

“Yeah. She looked up and watched me go to the kitchen and come out. I knew she wouldn’t tattle or anything.” Eyes on shoes again. “We didn’t talk though. People like us are bad at talking.”

“I think you did a pretty good job talking me through things just now.” Rai stood. “Thanks, Tal.”

—

“Why are you asking about Cherry? Cherry wouldn’t do anything to hurt Muka, nobody here would. We loved him. Anyone trying anything would be in so much trouble– ” Lumi sniffed loudly, and scratched at the damp flush in his cheeks, trying to tear the color out. “And Tal just got some packs of jellybeans for us, he was only out of the room for like 5 seconds. 5 minutes, I mean.”

Lumi looked up and down the stairs, from Rai to Sao, and back again, then again.

“Wait, wait - if you guys were coming back to Temperance even before you heard, it means something bad happened to Rose, right? There might be a crazy person hiding in the town. With Muka gone, who can keep us safe? What do we do now?”

Sao watched Rai shift away. Faced with Lumi’s incandescent panic, Rai seemed much weaker than he had been with the other schoolboys. Now he was the one huddling in a corner, twiddling his hands.

“All we have is Miss Thomi now. If something happens to her, we won’t have anyone left. Can you do something to protect her?”

“She’ll be fine.” When Lumi was obviously not swallowing that cliche, Rai circled back. “We have to find out what happened first. It could have been an accident with the stairs. Muka was getting pretty old.”

“He was fifty. Humans who are old are always over fifty. That’s just middle age - it means they should live double.”

“I guess that’s true. But faeries, over fifty… they deteriorate a little faster. Muka was in pretty good health, which is why we’re investigating, but I can’t promise…” Rai hung his head. “Whatever it was that happened, I’m sorry, Lumi.”

Perhaps Rai should have been sorrier. Lumi burst into tears. Rai chose that moment to whip out the poster and Lumi almost leapt out of his skin mid-sob. Sheepishly, Rai tried to put the thing away again.

“Who’s she?” Lumi squeaked. The jet-black hair that had been so neatly brushed when they first met him now stood on end, quivering like loose feathers.

“Someone we’re looking for. It’s an unrelated matter. I’m just asking all of you, in case. There’s a lot of strange stuff going on around Temperance.” Rai unfolded the poster again, slowly, holding it at arms length as if it might catch fire with any sharp movement. “Do you recognize her?”

Rubbing his eyes, Lumi took a long, hard look at the image. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s more like I kinda know someone who looks like… but it’s been a long time since I saw.”

“You know someone who looks like her?”

“There was a kid. Near the Saturn Hotel - or on the same street. Maybe the last house.” Lumi sniffled. His face seemed to compress with the force of it. “I used to live near there before I started living at the school.”

“A kid, like your age?” Rai asked.

“No, older. Maybe even grown up. But – this was years ago, and I guess everyone looks like a grown up when you’re really small…” And to further demonstrate his lacking stature, Lumi gazed up at the leaded window above the stairs, straining his neck to see. The red around his eyes made the blue of the eyes themselves deep as sapphires. He looked lost. “Muka would know all these people, and all these answers. The exact years and ages and names. He–” The tiny voice went quiet.

“Lumi,” Rai said, finally getting close enough to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s alright. We’ll find out what happened.”

“And make sure nothing hurts Miss Thomi.”

“Yeah, of course.”

Lumi wobbled out of Rai’s grasp. “I don’t know if you really can. Things have gotten so weird since you got here.”

“I’m sorry about that. What you said, about a crazy person hiding in the town - it is possible that me and my friend being here sparked them off. But since we’re still here, we’ll do our best to find out what happened.” And just as Sao was feeling rather proud of Rai, Rai bumbled on. “I do want to warn you though. An ambulance might come again. You may not want to watch it if –”

“Well, I’ll be watching it the whole time,” declared Cherry, filling the doorway at the top of the stairs. “Even if there’s blood spurting everywhere when they’re carrying him out.”

“Cherry, please wait for Rai to finish speaking to Lumi,” Sao said. She gave him the filthiest of looks, accented with a dribbling nose and swollen eyes.

Lumi leapt to his feet. “Cherry! You’re horrible. Muka died and you’re talking about him like he’s just a thing! Like a dirty piece of meat!”

That struck her in a way Sao’s words never could. Her mouth dropped, her eyes brimmed with tears. “I didn’t say that! Not about him!”

“I just heard you! Blood everywhere - you think it’s so funny, when you didn’t even see it happen with Rose!”

Cherry might have launched herself off the stairs at him then and there if a ghostly shape had not materialized behind her and wrapped her in its arms. A blanket of sheer hair fell around her like a net. “Cherry,” Thomi said, “please calm down. I can’t handle a fight right now. None of us can.” Then to Lumi, “You come here too. Please, be good…”

Lumi looked up, eyes like oceans. Then he glanced at Rai - and saw another unexpected apparition further down the stairs. “No,” he screamed. “You can’t come up here now!”

A gaunt figure had quietly entered the lobby and been about to mount the stairs before Lumi stopped him. He was not simply tall but stretched like a rubber doll, lengthy in hands, legs, neck and spine; the latter curved in a manner overly flexible or mildly damaged, head jutting forward and shoulders back.

Through old eyes, sunk deep in his face, the man looked up at the crowd gathered on the stairs.

“Mr. Hode?” Rai asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I was at the bar when I heard Guy making the call. I wanted to make sure everything was alright.” He cocked his head, neck snaking almost 90 degrees to catch an angle where he could see the upper landing. Behind Sao, Thomi stood with Cherry shielded under her hair.

“Things aren’t alright, but we don’t want you here. We’re trying to talk privately!” Lumi pointed a finger in the direction Hode should go - away.

Hode flinched at the shrill voice, and remained where he was. “I’m only worried that Miss Thomi–”

“Didn’t you hear him?” Cherry flung the hair aside and stomped down the stairs. “We don’t need a useless cop who isn’t even a cop anymore.” Her book was under her arm. “And wasn’t any good when he was one. This guy-” she jerked a thumb at Rai. “Could burn down half the town and be better than you were. So butt out. We don’t want you here.”

The unified front of Cherry and Lumi silenced not only Hode but all onlookers. Cal, Tal, and Florien had gathered in a small battalion of their own behind their only remaining teacher.

Hode turned a beseeching look at Rai who was still sitting on the carpeted stair. Rai stared back as if he had no more control than a kindergartener.

“Why are you looking at him, asshole?” Cherry barked. Lumi folded his arms, albeit shakily. They stood side by side, lions welded to the gate.

“Mr. Hode,” Sao said loudly, coming to stand between the unlikely twosome. “We haven’t met yet. I’m Sao, Rai’s friend. I’ve heard quite a bit about you - would like to get your input on the matter - do you go to the hotel often?”

He waved the man along, back to the lobby, as if he were giving a tour, bumping Cherry’s book as he sidled past. He felt her fury even without looking - even Rai flinched at whatever posture she’d assumed. So it was now a friendly welcome from Sao versus an almost-certain battering from Cherry. Hode couldn’t refuse. He went downstairs.

Sao came softly down the stairs and nodded at Rai over his shoulder. Still sitting, delinquent-like with his hands hanging off his knees, Rai’s grim countenance faded, just barely, for a faint smile in Sao’s direction.

—

“I’m sorry,” Sao said. “Children can be irrational. I suppose I shouldn’t keep it from you: Muka didn’t make it. We haven’t said it in plain words to the children, but they know something’s happened. I think you can understand why they’re rather upset.”

Sao pulled the plush chair from behind the reception desk. Hode didn’t even look at it.

“I see. But it’s not the old man’s doing. Those kids never liked me. The little one especially. And that Cherry girl…” Hode shook his head. On his long neck it swung like a metronome. “Well, she’s already shown you two what she’s capable of. Always does her own thing, though I thought she didn’t like that Lumi.”

Sao sat, then wished he hadn’t. He had to bend his neck back to see Hode’s face. In the dungeon lighting of the school lobby, the man was a pillar of darkness. “Children. Irrational. Especially under stress.”

“Ah, I do get it. My grandkids are the same. I’m just saying, none of them ever slashed my tires.”

“She’s gotten your wheels, too?”

Hode’s mouth crept into something like a smile. “More times than you would believe. I don’t know how she keeps getting out. Sometimes I think the school likes her being on the loose - brings some excitement to Temperance. Keeps us on our toes.”

“It’s hardly a boring place. You’ve got the mysterious mayor, the strange letters… and this is just what I’ve seen as a visitor. And of course, the events of today - death isn’t enjoyable, but absolutely not a bore.”

“Oh?” Hode’s smile was dry. “The source of all these troubles are likely townspeople becoming bored in the first place.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Sao swayed in the chair, thought of Thomi, and stopped. “Do your kids or grandkids live in the area?”

“In the area, but not here. I go out to see them once in a while, but I’ve always lived and worked right here. Course, I’m out of a job now, three years.”

“Have the ruses with the letters and mayor been going on as long as that?”

Hode’s spidery fingers folded over the counter. He leaned, loomed overhead. Sao wheeled the chair back to escape his shadow. But it seemed the old man was simply tired.

“Do you need a seat?” Sao asked, taking his chance to stand up.

“No, no. I was only – I suppose you think I’m irresponsible, not having resolved the questions surrounding both of those before my, er, retirement.”

“Not at all. You’d be surprised - or maybe you wouldn’t - how many cases, even mundane ones, go unsolved. Especially mundane ones.”

“You’re from the city. That’s how it is there. This all probably looks like child’s play to you.” After deliberation, Hode sat. “The letters were all full of nonsense.”

“Yes, judging from the teachers here and Marinell from the hotel it’s likely a prankster, and the ‘secrets’ were largely public knowledge to begin with. The drama’s all in the presentation.”

“Of course,” Hode said. “Harmless stuff.”

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a while, Sao waiting and Hode not taking the bait. Perhaps he was listening for something else, Sao thought. Rai’s discussions from the floor above were no longer audible.

—

They had retreated to the hallway, into her dorm room. Cherry was eager to get as far out of Hode’s earshot as possible - and possibly Sao’s too.

“You wanna take the bed again, and I’ll take the chair?” Rai asked. The kid’s room was about the same as when he’d last seen it. There hadn’t been much in it to begin with.

Thomi hung in the doorway like a spiderweb. Almost see-through, but a little more settled than before. “Cherry, Mr. Rai asked you a question.”

Cherry dropped her book on the bed and strutted over to the tall ironwork window. The sun was setting, and the hills were glowing pink. She rubbed her knuckles, which had almost landed in Lumi’s eye socket when he told her he ‘didn’t need her help’ on the stairwell. As lousy as he felt for Hode, Rai had been pretty impressed to see the unlikely pair band together to drive him out.

Hode was being ministered to by Sao, so Rai didn’t feel too bad.

“I’d like to talk to Cherry alone, if that’s possible. And if she’s okay with it,” Rai said. “Cherry, you can just yell for Miss Thomi if–”

“I won’t.” Cherry glared - not at Rai, but at Thomi. “I wanna talk alone.”

But Thomi stepped inside. “Cherry. I know you’re upset but I told you, there will be no more fighting. Would hitting Lumi really have made you feel better?”

“Yes.”

Rai resisted the urge to guffaw.

Thomi was frozen in the doorway, her lips pursed into the tiniest possible oval, which made her eyes look even bigger. It took Rai a moment to figure out that her shaking was not out of fear or uncertainty - she was angry. “I can’t take it - no, it’s not about me anymore. We, all of us, need to stay together to figure this out.” Then to Rai, suddenly still. “I’m very sorry for all of this.”

Cherry scowled and stomped toward the door. This did drive Thomi back out, into the darkened hall.

“You should go back up and watch Muka,” Cherry said. “Even if he’s dead, someone should be with him. You keep missing things, you’re not there for him. Maybe it was the lady who yelled at him in front of the school that did this! Ever think of that?”

“Who?” Thomi cried.

“See!” Cherry threw herself at the bed. Rai took his spot on the chair. “You really don’t know!”

—

“Do visitors ever get poison pen letters?” Sao asked.

“Why, did you get one?” Hode was far too excited at the question, but drooped when the answer was No. “Must be a local, just harassing people they know. We don’t get a lot of visitors anyway, except when the school’s having an open house or parents’ day. Happens just twice a year, in the nicer seasons. Not a lot of kids there now, either.”

“Did the school used to be bigger?”

“Only a little. Manages to stay in business, somehow. Muka’s money. Don’t worry about the kids, I’ll bet he’s left them enough to get by. More than enough. And then there’s the mayor…” Hode shook his head, the swivel chair shaking with him. “The kids will get by. Some of them were essentially dumped here by their parents. Cherry’s parents haven’t come to even see her in four years.”

“That’s terrible.”

Hode swayed, studying the black screen of the computer that had disappointed Rai. “I was still a cop when she got dropped off. Muka got me to look into a couple of things. I shouldn’t be saying this, hell, it might incriminate him. But let’s say I’m not surprised Cherry’s been here this long…”

Beyond front drive, the sun dipped beneath the magenta hills. The dry fountain, wreathed by flowers, sank into shadow.

“She’s a minor, so it wasn’t all laid out in detail, but things were bad enough to make the news, so it’s not exactly confidential. Cherry’s parents are in the legal industry. Human rights, children’s rights, animals’ rights, the good stuff. Saints, that’s the impression. Well, I can’t know if that treatment extended to their kids, but a month before Cherry was left on the steps of Myrmilion, one of their kids was hospitalized. Tabloid leaked some pictures - a little girl, little sister I think, suffered a brutal incident. And another picture was of the home CCTV cameras. Cherry knocked the sister around - she had for years - and eventually pushed her down a flight of stairs.”

“Terrible,” Sao said again. “Do you know if she was alright?”

“Doubt it. Last I read, the little girl’s still in a city hospital. Not dead, but unresponsive. Comatose.” Hode shrugged. “The big kid, Talus, is a similar case, not nearly as bad, though. Kicked out of his last two schools for plain ol’ fighting. Stomped on a kid’s arm. He has an aunt in the South who cares about him. She gets him in the summer. Any way you look at it, Muka’s got a soft spot for troubled ones.”

“Was Rose one of those kids?”

“I was over a year off the force by the time Rose came around, no way of checking. But if it helps, I never heard a stray thing about Rose. Mature girl, not one to use her fists. But now she’s in the hospital too…”

—

Thomi had gone, taken the boys with her to the Media Room so Cherry could lay it on Rai unfettered.

“Rose liked stories about detectives,” Cherry said. She lay on the bed with her hands folded over her book like a woman in prayer, or maybe in a coffin. Staring ahead out the window. Or maybe she was looking at her socks.

Rai’s brain was not in the best shape for this; interweaving crime with kids.

But Cherry rambled on. “She recommended me books about them. We don’t have a lot in the library and orders take forever to come in but I read like thirty in a year. They were good. Not like faerietales. Detectives care about real things. They worry about money. They don’t skip all the blood and death.”

“I like that stuff too - in movies. But the movies I watch aren’t usually mysteries.” Suspecting the subject was getting close to inappropriate content, Rai asked, “Ever solve things ahead of the detective in the book?”

“No. I don’t try to. There’s no point.”

“You seemed to have theories regarding Rose. Isn’t that like trying to solve things on your own?”

“I’m not the detective. You’re the one who should be solving it.”

“Mystery novels aren’t faerietales, but they’re not true to life either. The amount of unsolved cases in the Central archives would make you throw up. It’s only in books that bad guys always get caught.”

Cherry couldn’t take this one lying down. She sat up and put the book in her lap. “But sometimes I kind of hope they get away. I don’t care about the detective winning - I only need them to find out what happened.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“You don’t have to arrest anyone. That part’s always lame.”

Even if it means letting a murderer kill again? It wasn’t right to ask her that. Rai knew tween defiance when he saw it - he’d lived it himself, and it had just maybe lasted longer than his tweens. “I can’t arrest people anyway. I don’t even have that authority in Core Mainline.” And he smiled.

“You’re kind of scary when you make that look,” Cherry said.

Rai wiped that look off immediately. “But I was thinking it’s funny, if all you’re waiting for in a story is the ending, I’m surprised you bothered reading so many.”

“It was important to Rose, so I had to. That’s all.” Cherry’s voice faltered at the absurdity, or the memory of Rose. Her face sizzled. “And I do like reading what kind of friends the detectives have. The friends are alway loyal or smart or sexy. It surprises me because a lot of detectives are such know-it-all jerks, but bad times can bring totally different people together.” She deigned to remove her gaze from the window again to look at Rai. “Did your friend come to you in a bad time?”

“Not really. Our boss sent him to work with me. Pretty normal circumstances. I had a few assistants assigned to me before him.” Rai rubbed his chin. “Are you saying I look like a jerk?”

“What? No. Well, maybe a little. But you’re real, so you can be like that.”

“Thanks. I think.” Rai was eager to nudge the topic of his loyal or smart or sexy sidekick off the table. “Would you say your friend Rose came to you in a bad time?”

“Yeah. Rose could be a jerk, but she was real too. She would have made a good detective. She would have found me if I disappeared.”

“You did your best.” The cliche made her grimace harder. Rai whipped up a more practical response. “My friend and I are going to check out the hospital in Garland when we have a chance and see if she’s there.”

“What if she’s not there?”

“We’ll report her missing officially, to the continent-wide database, using the photo you gave me.” Rai paused. “When did you take that picture, anyway?”

“Um. I don’t know, maybe in the springtime. She was in my room, writing in her notebook. She wrote a lot, she was always taking notes. Not detective notes. Plans, she said. Writing takes a lot of planning. That’s why I trust her more than anyone else when it comes to writing, and she said I had talent. Not just that - market potential.”

“And to reach that market, you had to post your faerietales online. Using the hotel’s computer, I take it.”

“Yeah, well, nothing gets through the dumb broken internet here.”

He hoped her impish grin meant the next question wouldn’t be a misstep. “I’ve been wondering, and I’m sure I’m not the only one, how have you been getting out of school and over to the hotel? It’s a long road - or a big field and pretty dense forest in between. How is it nobody ever catches you?”

She thought for a long time, as if she had long contemplated the issue herself. “Rose told me how. And it’s not that far.”

“Am I getting any more than that?”

She shook her head. “If I tell, and everyone sees you do it, I might not be able to do it that way anymore.”

Rai drew back and folded his arms. “If you’re right and there is an easy way, someone at the hotel could make the trip here, do whatever dark business they had in mind, and go back without anyone noticing they were gone.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you have any more pictures?”

Cherry’s eyes narrowed and Rai thought the chapped fists were about to make good on their earlier threat, with Rai taking Lumi’s place. “Don’t look,” she said.

“Magic trick, like your trip to the hotel?”

“No. Turn around.”

Her insistence made him more nervous. He’d be defenseless against a braining by book. But Rai turned. There was a shuffling of fabric, and some ripping. Then tapping - clicking - a phone?

“Well if you’re going to be this generous, I may as well show you some of mine too. There’s one I wanted to show you anyhow.” Rai drew out his phone and opened his camera roll. First came the picture Sao had sent him via local connection - bloodied stairs, dull wall lamps with exposed wires, and Rai himself on the concrete floor, shellshocked. Stained hands holding a sopping red rag doll in a tiny suit.

Thank goodness he had used the poster when talking to the other kids. But maybe, for Cherry —

He recalled Muka’s dented face, eye leaking from broken socket, teeth blown out. Absolutely not. He closed the reel and opened up a different folder. The missing persons reports from Charmion.

Cherry’s voice was airy singsong. “Okay, you can turn.”

Rai held out his phone, Britannia’s police file photo loaded up. “So, Cherry, I’m wondering if you’ve ever seen this woman.”

“Hm?” Cherry leaned in, bringing the phone in her hand closer in the process. Rai almost leapt out his seat.

It was an old model of flip phone, with a keypad and a tiny pixelated display and a seriously dated camera. The screen had just enough clarity for Rai to make out the photo of two figures standing under the school arch, close to the lobby entrance, on a day gleaming with silver sunlight. One was short, in Myrmilion’s colors - cream dress shirt and tan slacks - back turned, with pinkish hair tied in a little shrimplike ponytail. It had to be Rose. The other was a tall woman in a pantsuit, brown haired with round glasses glowing white-hot in the sun.

He and Cherry were showing each other photos of the same person.

—

“Dunno.” Hode made a wet smacking noise with his mouth. “Plain-looking broad, isn’t she?”

Sao pulled his phone back, inspected Britania’s smiling photograph. She wasn’t particularly sultry, but it seemed unkind to make that one’s first statement when learning of a potential victim.

“So why’re you looking for her? Weren’t you two here about the Rose business?”

“We were given the reports of any incidents in the area. There were only a few - I’m glad to say it seems rather safe around this stretch of Interstate.” Sao scrolled through the report, microscopic letters whizzing by. “It was this and the Triamond murder several years back.”

“Ah, yea, I got briefed on that once since it was close by. Teenagers, probably - not Temperance teens, as you’ve noticed we don’t have a lot. But the Garland college kids...” Hode’s lip curled. “Garland Academy’s like Myrmilion ten times over. Older kids. Ten times richer, ten times more of them and ten times more troubled. Stopping a tourist, beating and ransacking the body - sounded open and shut to me.”

“This was the only report of its kind in the area for the last twenty-odd years.”

“That you’ve heard of. Like I said - Garland’s ten times whatever Temperance’s trouble is.” Hode’s lip curled again. Sao stared. He looked like a horse, baring its teeth. “College boys see a dolled-up metrosexual on their turf, they probably thought it would be extra funny to whack him.”

“Excuse me?”

The lip snapped back in place. “Sorry. But you probably read that the man was a cosmetics salesman.”

“Marketing manager. Sales are involved, but...” Sao shook his head and put on a smile. “Never mind. I’m happy to have your insight.”

“Glad to help. But the woman, though… you didn’t tell me what her deal is.”

The bravado had vaporized. Was Hode more sensitive to the plight of a woman? No, his earlier comment did away with that notion. Did he regret the callous comment about Triamond? No. Sao had a sense that Hode was a rather callous man.

And that he knew something.

If Hode had no particular sympathy for the plights of men or women, there were only so many cards to play. Sao pressed his hands together and dropped to a whisper. “She’s missing. But the case isn’t so simple as to suspect she was kidnapped or befell some incident - she has reason to hide. You see, she was last seen initiating relations with a minor.”

“You don’t say. I see, I see.”

Hode was caught by the rush of conspiracy. Most would be. Sao recalled Muka saying something along those lines in regard to the letters. The memory inevitably led his mind’s eye back up the stairs to the office, where lay the body that would never open its playful eyes to make such observations again.

Tugging together a bashful smile, Sao went on, “I’m telling you since you have experience with the lay of the land. Guy says you know a lot of people in the area. If you or any of your friends know of this person, know any relation of hers or where someone like this might hide…”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Sao’s hopes slid away.

“But,” Hode said, “I do know who this is. Muka sent a notice around, long time ago. Be on lookout - tell him if this person turns up. She doesn’t look like anything much, but when someone’s special enough to make Muka’s watchlist, I try to remember the face. Far as I know, this is Lamort’s wife.”

“Lamort is…”

“One of Muka’s friends, moved out years ago. Older guy. I never met him, he was something of a shut-in, sent his kid to some out-of-town boarding school while he holed up in the big blue house on Main Street. Guy knew him, I think Marinell and Miss Thomi might have too, but they don’t talk to me much.” Hode coughed, perhaps at the thought of Thomi, and what had just happened in front of her on the stairs not thirty minutes prior. “I would have thought the man was up to no good, based on all that secrecy, but he ran all across the country to get away from this lady. Muka told me about her. The principal rarely sought help or showed a strong reaction to much but faeries - but he was serious about her. Disgusting woman.”

“She had no criminal record, though.”

“Of course, she was smart enough for that. Must be why Lamort was afraid. She was sick in the head.”

“How so?”

Hode’s look of disgust fell away like snow off a roof. It couldn’t be reversed - and Sao knew he’d made a mistake. Hode tilted his head on his long neck ninety degrees. His eyes formed a perfect vertical stack. Sao thought of dominoes, the tile they called snake eyes.

Blank as a sheet, Hode said, “But you know why, don’t you?”

—

Oblivious to Rai’s openmouthed shock, Cherry was merely tickled at the coincidence. “This must mean something, right?” She jammed her phone up against his chin.

“Hold on, where did you get that thing?”

Cherry pulled the phone back to her chest - book momentarily abandoned at the foot of the bed. “I bought it from home. Thought I might need it. Dumb - I can’t get any signal out here. But I have the camera, and the wire to charge it and another wire to connect it to a computer for the pictures. We aren’t supposed to have cameras, but…”

“You got around the rule. Smart.”

“I can’t make calls or use the internet on it, so it doesn’t matter, right? But still, don’t tell-” Here, she obviously thought of Muka and her voice cracked. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I can keep my voice down. You having pictures is a huge help, actually. So tell me about this one. When did you take it? This woman —” Rai gestured at the woman who was clearly in conversation with Rose. “The police are looking for her.”

“Why?”

“She…” Rai thought, and took the plunge. “She’s missing. According to reports, she was last seen at a roadside motel, a couple of miles away. The day before Rose disappeared. May I check the date of the photo?”

Cherry was happy to hand the phone to a co-conspirator. She bounced to pass it to him, and bounced back on the bed. And continued bouncing. “It was a risk taking that pic. I only thought about taking it because we don’t see strangers around much. That’s what she was. Strange.”

The photo was taken the day after Britania’s mountain trip - just hours before the evening when Rose fell and vanished. The proximity of the disappearances, and those who disappeared, definitely warranted alarms now. Rai transferred a copy to his phone where it stared back at him, blown up and blurry. “Why did Rose go to talk to a stranger?”

“Because the lady was just wandering around like she was looking for something. Rose was good at talking to people, she wasn’t scared. So this lady is missing too - I might be the last person to see her alive! Well, apart from Muka. Oh no, do you think–”

“Hold on - Muka met with her?”

“Yes, Rose went to get him. And the lady got sooo mad… she was saying, ‘Let me see him!’”

Cherry’s bellow echoed through the halls. Rai shushed and shoved her phone into her hands, head swiveling as if surrounded. She got the message, shoving the phone into waistband.

“I could only hear her when she was yelling,” Cherry gibbered. “She kept screaming at Muka ‘Let me see him!’ and ‘You can’t stop me from seeing my own child! Where is that little bastard!’” She searched the bed, reached for her book. “The lady didn’t get to go into the school from what I saw. Muka was calm the whole time and made her leave. It’s sad, she didn’t get to see her kid. But maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to see her if she was going to be talking to him like that.”

“Cherry,” Rai said. “Do you know - or even have a guess -who this lady’s kid was?”

“Erm. She didn’t look like any kid I know, and I’ve been at Myrmilion for—”

Thomi ghosted into the doorway. “What was that noise? Cherry? Are you alright?”

“Yeah. I was just telling Rai the end of one of my stories.” She grinned like a jackal. Not especially subtle, but Thomi seemed to believe it - was all too eager to believe it.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Cherry. We’re having some honey and lemon in the cafeteria. If you’ve finished your story, perhaps you’d like some too?”

Cherry hopped up. “Let me find my shoes.” And she dove under the bed with one hand visibly pressed to her waistband.

—

Now that he was alone, the dim lighting suddenly seemed rather pleasant. Sao was thinking of taking a short nap in the luxurious receptionist’s chair until Rai hissed to him from up the stairs.

Sao stood with a smile. “No need for low voices. Hode’s gone. He shared some fascinating insights before I finally drove him off.”

“Won’t compare to the dirt Cherry had,” Rai said, coming down the carpeted staircase. “Not much on Muka - unless Britania had something to do with what happened to him.” He checked his phone. “I asked Thomi if we could take a peek at the kids’ records but she wasn’t willing just yet. Getting the kids to bed is her number one priority.”

“And Muka?”

Rai opened his mouth, and only sighed. “I mean, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. But will Thomi be okay?”

“It is kind of shitty that we’ve got kids and the body of their principal under one roof. I feel bad leaving her to handle it all, but she said Guy’s coming over to help. And I get the feeling she wants us out for a while.”

“Are you sure?”

“After I pushed to have a look at the files again, she strongly recommended I go get some mushroom stew at the Saturn Hotel since I must be hungry.”

“Ah.”

”Anyhow, the body will be gone within the night - whenever that fucking ambulance comes.” Rai checked his phone again. “It’s been almost an hour.”

They looked out the glass front door, at the front drive with its desiccated garden and fountain, backed by the pink sunset that was fast subsiding to dark. No ambulance.

But there was a large silver van cutting over the lot. Out hopped Guy, toting a large, rectangular thermal bag the color of his car. He hotfooted it up the steps and rapped on the door. Rai opened it for him.

“Are they all okay? I mean, I know Muka’s not, but the rest of them–”

“They’re fine,” Sao said. “Hode came by earlier too.”

“Hode! He’s not usually welcome here. That little… is he still here?”

“Sao scared him off,” Rai said.

The steam emanating from Guy trickled off. Sao hadn’t realized how upset he’d been; Guy had spoken so highly of Hode at every other opportunity. “He stressed Miss Thomi out,” Guy said. “I just took a little while longer because I was whipping up some sandwiches, and vanilla custard. I thought the students could use some sweets to take their minds off things. Anyway.” He smiled, curls bouncing. “Thank goodness you two were here.”

It felt good to hear, even if it didn’t feel earned. The most honest voice in the conversation, Rai’s stomach, growled.

Guy offered them some sandwiches and headed for the cafeteria.

“They’re in good hands,” Sao said.

Rai picked at the foil covering the sandwich, his mind visibly elsewhere. It was rare to see him looking so weightless. He was staring into the sunset as if wishing he could sink into refuge behind the clouds and mountains so easily.

“Rai. Where shall we go now?”

Startled, Rai leapt toward the door and swiveled, all in one motion, and Sao felt strangely weightless himself watching him. Gravity had flipped and they’d switched bodies. Rai had become the one who was skittish and couldn’t be touched. And Sao was one who invaded —

Sao sidled back.

They stared at each other for a moment. The sandwich squelched in Rai’s glove. His expression hardened into one of everyday distaste - and Sao was glad to see it.

“We’re gonna check out the sunset.”

—

After a day of pouring rain, the air had become impossibly still. The grass did not sway, the trees did not so much as whisper. Myrmilion stood like its twin in the mirror pond, frozen in time, fog-bound and disproportionately distant. It was not very cold, but there was an excess crispness in the atmosphere, the sensation of prickling on any exposed skin.

The school grounds were bathed in the unearthly pinkness of the Temperance sunset - presently at its hottest and darkest, day in its final throes. The sun might vanish at any moment beneath the mountains, below which a velvety blue-green dusk was drifting upward, like diffusing tea.

It might vanish - might have already - Sao was making poetic guesses. The view revealed nothing. Rai had taken them across the courtyard, past the playground to the foot of the northern tower, and the horizon was obstructed by the tall, dark column of stone, as well as the rest of the school. Rai had, to be quite honest, found the worst place for viewing the sunset on the entire campus.

“So Cherry messed up her sister,” Rai said. “That explains her obsession with magic comas.”

“And why did it happen? That might also explain why she’s so defensive of the life she has now.”

Rai attempted to break the sandwich in even halves. A geyser of brown sauce burst forth, landing on his pants, shoes, and the pearly white courtyard. He rubbed the stain with his heel. “So you also learned that Hode’s not the most pleasant person.”

“I didn’t say that.” Sao took the foil-wrapped glob Rai handed him. “He’s old fashioned, probably friends with people of a similar type. He essentially confirmed that Britania is indeed the wife that Lamort was fleeing. And Cherry seems to have evidence that she tracked him to Temperance.”

“Except Lamort skipped town years ago. She only found the kid. Exactly what Lamort didn’t want to happen. I might be reading too much into what you heard from Hode, but it sounds like she was a serious danger, enough that Muka was cautious of her.”

Rai bit into the bread. Filling spewed out every which way. Sao dodged a cooked mushroom.

Sao continued as Rai indulged. “And if what you relayed from Cherry is correct, the woman came for her son and lost her temper with Muka. Soon after, Rose vanished and a few weeks later, Muka is…”

It was fit to hold a moment of silence for the school’s fallen principal. Rai even stopped chewing his mushrooms.

“Thomi will be alright. I expect she’ll get help from the other staff when they return. And Guy is there. He seems very fond of her, and we’ve see how industrious he is.”

“And it’s not like she doesn’t have a spine to stand up with herself,” Rai said. “But if Britania’s around and she’s really behind one or more of these incidents, it might not be a good idea to wait.”

Sao tore open the foil and bit into his half of the sandwich. It was warm and juicy, and generous with the mushrooms. So generous that a good quarter of it landed on the ground.

They studied the fallen mushrooms. “Would she really be so vengeful?” Sao mused. “I suppose I can’t understand the drive of a parent. But there’s something else I can’t figure out - is her child even at Myrmilion school?”

“Cherry couldn’t confirm. That’s why I wanted Thomi to let us see the kids’ records, now that she’s in charge. But she’s not willing to stray that far off Muka’s policy.” Rai crushed his empty foil into a ball. “There’s a chance Britania was totally wrongheaded. We’ve gotten some hints that Lamort’s kid was older than primary school age. And even if he ever was at Myrmilion, it’s possible the kid went somewhere for the midterm break. To see dad, maybe. However...”

“There’s a possibility.” Sao watched some of the lighted windows go dark, and a few at the end of the second floor flash on. The dormitories.

“Muka was the root of a shitload of secrets in Temperance. And if the town followed along - for the money, or if they really believed in him - who’s to say they wouldn’t collectively lie to shield Lamort from this lady at his say-so?”

“So you’re thinking…”

“She was looking for a boy, right? And think of the names. Lamort and Lumi.”

Sao nipped at his sandwich. Under the arch that let the back courtyard look through to the front, he saw what they’d come to see. The last few inches of departing sun. In the distance, framed by the shadows within the low arch, was the black jagged mountainside, the sun a tiny slice of light, then a drop, then nothing. A firefly consumed by an enormous maw.

“Think binoculars would help?” Rai asked.

“Hm?”

“Just kidding around.” Rai pulled off a greasy glove and poked at his phone. “It’s starting to get late. Are your socks as soaked like mine? Let’s get some coffee at the hotel.”

—

The Saturn Hotel’s fire was roaring pleasantly, the lounge a paradise of warmed couches and golden light. The hall was swept and the cushions were straightened. Everything appeared to be functioning smoothly, but looking at Marinell, one would think the entire building was about to crumble without Guy to sustain it.

More washed out than usual and sporting stains under the arms, the manager welcomed them with dark-rimmed eyes and a slack jaw.

“You’ll be wanting your room again?” There was more resignation than question in his tone.

Rai, his feet crossed by the fire (and sock situation on the mend), checked his phone. “Don’t think so, we’re just waiting for one more thing from the school. In all likelihood, we’ll be leaving in a few hours.”

Was it relief or embarrassment that colored the man’s face? “Well, you’re free to wait here if it’s only that long. Can I get you some coffee or tea?”

“One of each would be perfect,” Sao said.

In contrast to their experience the first night at the Saturn Hotel, Marinell was back like a shot. Or perhaps time seemed to be flowing more easily, by the fire with head on a plumped lounge pillow.

Rai went for the coffee as if magnetized. Sao invited Marinell to sit, and after some hemming and hawing, succeeded in having him do so.

Marinell fidgeted with a paper sugar pack the way his son did a handkerchief. “Is it bad? Guy fixed up the kitchen in record time and practically ran out of here.” Marinell’s eyes shifted from wall to wall, as if they might collapse at being told their maintainer was gone. “And Hode ran out even before him. The principal had an accident, they said..?”

“Yeah, I’d say he’s not doing well,” Rai said.

“I’m sorry,” Sao added.

Marinell understood, and may have been preparing himself. With unexpected dignity, he bowed his head in silence.

“Think maybe you should bring Florien home?” Rai mumbled.

“On the weekend.” Before Rai could give reason, Marinell became firm. “He’d have called if he wanted me to get him. He’s always been much happier with his friends.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m… sure.” What went up had come down, and Marinell was now suddenly completely unsure.

“Perhaps we should ask about the other cases,” Sao said, taking his first sip of tea. Rai refilled his coffee from the pot (the hotel knew his habits by now) and pulled out the poster from Birdsing, which wasn’t looking so legible after all the folding and refolding and little kids’ hands on it. He also brought out the photo from the digital report.

A labored process for, “No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her.”

“You sure? She was a visitor to the area, three weeks ago. That would be close to when Rose had her accident.”

“Did she have something to do with it?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Rai sighed, passed the interview over to Sao, who showed the police photo of Triamond.

“Oh. I do know this one.”

Flicking a gaze to and from Triamond’s immaculately groomed visage, the manager’s face went the color of the fire. Sao wondered if he should have expected this.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Marinell said. “I actually remembered him because he said he might be living close to here. We almost never get newcomers who stay.”

“So he came by the hotel,” Rai said.

“For brunch. He was exploring the area. Said he was looking at the school and was going to visit the Birdsing parade. It's been a long time since I thought about that - maybe they don’t hold those parades anymore.”

“Nope. Don’t think they have the manpower.”

Marinell’s face was clearing. He looked Triamond over again, ponderous. “I suppose that was about five years ago. He had a daughter, Florien’s age. They would be starting school at the same time, he thought they would get along… This isn’t related to Rose, is it? I mean, she wasn’t…?”

“Triamond’s daughter goes to a school in the city. She’s doing okay.” Rai paused. Assessing potential damage, most likely. “Mr. Triamond was robbed and murdered on the I76 during that trip of his, some time after you spoke to him.”

“Sorry,” Sao said. It felt like it was needed.

Rai slid a hard look at him.

Down went Marinell’s head again. Perhaps he’d known about this too.

—

After making some brief but stern telephone calls with the lobby phone, Rai came down the stairs to the lounge.

“We’re still waiting for the ambulance, then,” Sao said.

“Yeah.” Rai fell like a boulder into the cream couch opposite to the one Sao was draped over. At the same moment, a log split in the fireplace so it sounded as if Rai went down with a crunch. Arms slung across the backrest, Rai slowly turned with a glare. “I’m wondering if the damn thing is coming at all.”

“The principal is dead,” Sao said quietly. “Should the police be called instead?”

“Maybe. But there’s something…”

Rai trailed off, staring at the rising embers with suddenly vacant eyes. For a moment, Sao wondered if he might faint. But that was inconceivable after some thought; if Rai could stay awake for weeks on end, chase cases far more gruesome while he was at it, he could sustain this.

But still – carrying the childlike body up the stairs – there was something in the memory, just the sequence of words, which drained Sao, turned him to sand. He couldn’t imagine the weight in his own arms, the exhaustion it would bring.

Rai lurched into a shrug. “I don’t really want cops crawling all over the place, making a big show of the body while the kids are all there. I don’t think Muka would mind waiting for their sakes. Dead or not.”

It did not quite sound honest. Perhaps it was how Rai avoided his eyes.

“You can get some sleep. I’ll hang around and read more about… seasonal fashion for kids and their middle aged parents, I guess. Seems to be an endless supply of that.” Rai smiled, but at the fire and not Sao. “I’ll wake you up if Thomi or Guy call from the school. Or if I hear a siren going by.”

—

A siren blared. Sao hurled himself out of the pillows so quickly he heard his neck crack. Still sitting on the couch opposite, at the end closest to the blazing fireplace, Rai looked up from his issue of Homes and Gardens.

The looping wail was definitely indicative of emergency. It was coming from outside. But it did not sound like any police car or ambulance Sao had ever heard.

Guy came vaulting down the stairs from the second floor, and landed in the lounge. “You’re both here. What’s all that racket?”

Rai stood. “Is there a fire?”

Tapping his way across the lobby, Guy threw open the front door. Though he was trailing rather far behind, Sao felt the evening chill sweep in.

“A car’s flashing,” Guy said, letting the door slide closed. “It’s not the van, is it? I hope it’s not; I need it to get back to the school in — no, it’s too small to be –”

Rai kicked the door open a second time and ran into the darkness. Apologizing to Guy and massaging his still-sore neck, Sao followed.

The right passenger window of Rai’s car had been smashed. The internal alarm was shrieking like an injured animal, lights blinking manically. A washed grey stone lay on the seat among shards of glass, one of the hundreds used to border the grass around the Saturn Hotel.

Rai unlocked the door and the car went silent with a chipper blip-blip. Mumbling under his breath, Rai shoved his upper body into the back seat and dug around.

“Rai, look out for the glass,” Sao cried, stupidly.

After a few moments, Rai emerged. “This piece of crap hasn’t had a break-in in years.” Like the car’s happy little blip, there was something irritating about his nonchalance.

In his gloved hands he held the box from Birdsing. Sao’s aggravation subsided, flooded over with fear. “Someone broke in for that. There’s nothing else in there that someone would want, is there?”

“But they didn’t take it. Not the whole thing, in any case. We gotta do an inventory.” Glancing at the hotel and back, Rai freed one hand from its glove and dug into his pocket for his phone. “Let’s do it here.”

Some distance away, silhouetted and faintly blurred in the doorway by the layers of fog and firelight, Guy was watching. Marinell had come up behind him at some point, wringing his hands. They were like figures in oil paint, rough strokes, faces unreadable.

“Alright.” Sao took the box.

Despite everything, despite the dullness in his eyes that said he’d rather be anywhere but here, Rai handed the box over cautiously, so as not to make skin contact.

“Thanks,” Sao said.

“For what?” Rai puffed a cloud of white into the wintry air and held his phone up to his face. “The stuff in the folder might be difficult, since it wasn’t part of the original list. I’ll put that aside for now. But we should have…”

Bear, cow, doll. Folding umbrella, flask, jacket, keys, wallet. Four metal puzzles, one plastic puzzle. And…

Rai seemed prepared to dive headfirst into the cardboard box. “The ‘hard drive’ isn’t here. Fuck - who knows what that thing really was, but it was clearly the odd one out the whole time. What the hell was it really?”

“Just a minute.” Sao nudged the box back into Rai’s arms and dug into his coat pocket, drawing out the translucent pink tile and its squashed plastic bag. “Sorry. When we ran out of the mall with the carousel, there wasn’t time to put it all away so–”

He almost fell backward as Rai closed in on him, eyes wild. For a moment, he thought Rai might be coming in for a hug, but a second, much more likely possibility was that Rai was going to grab him by the collar and shake him for nearly giving them both heart attacks.

“Give it.” Rai was looking past him. The waiting figures at the hotel burned at Sao’s back.

“Do you think it means something?”

“This ‘drive’ is still the odd one out.” Vigorously digging into the box as he whispered, Rai masked the movement of stowing the thing into his inner jacket. “And if someone broke in to look for it, now they think we don’t have it. This could get interesting.”

It had been a while since Sao had last seen Rai’s crueler smile, the kind he wore when things weren’t good but interesting, and he certainly couldn’t remember ever being so close to the look itself. Rai’s brow seemed to fall nearly to his nose, his eyebags deepened to pits, gorges in his faded grey complexion.

His teeth were clenched like he was expecting to be punched in the stomach. What instead swept over them both was the pungent odor of blood. For a moment, Sao’s mind raced with fear - but of course, it was just Muka’s blood, clinging to Rai’s sleeves and arms and knees where he’d knelt. And the jacket; would he get rid of it when they got back? They had been on their way home so many times now, Sao was beginning to wonder if it would happen at all.

Was it the smell or the proximity that was more stifling?

With a straight face, Sao smoothed out his coat, and took a step back. The sudden rush of cold air seemed to push Rai back too. The smile dropped.

“Let’s take the stuff inside,” Rai said. “Don’t tell anyone anything.”