Elliott Dunstan

Chapter 21: Malachite Rising

July 5th, 2022

CWs: drug use (opiates), violence, body/eye horror, psychosis, manhandling of a disabled person (reasonable in context), self-harm, injury to hands

…but the wicked sorceror could find no purchase, for every blow he landed upon the princess’s form left her untouched. “What is this trickery?” he howled, unable to leave so much as a bruise upon her. And then at last he turned to look upon the man he’d taken for a servant, and the smoke that hissed from the incense burner, and found that every bruise and every blow had landed on him instead.
“Identify yourself,” demanded the sorceror. “For thou art no servant.”
“No,” Perceval admitted. “But even in a leper’s rags, I have more nobility than thee, and more claim to the glory that you have stolen…”
The Ragged Knight, version by Charles Perresohn Janssen, 1863

The only warning Csindra got was the smell of something burning before the door burst open with a burst of eye-searing, bright light.

Csindra ducked her head, hoping she’d gotten her eyes away in time; the odjaken wasn’t so lucky, it seemed, with a rattling shriek. Rook…? She lifted her head, wincing as her next breath sent spores flooding uncomfortably down her throat. Did fly agaric spores affect the mind? She couldn’t remember.

The light started to clear, and the figure behind the door stepped forward, tossing aside the burnt candlewick leaf and already lighting another wrapped wick of leaf and twig as smoke surged up around his face. What of it there was, anyway; instead of the thin, ghostly boy she’d expected, two dark-glass eyes stared out at her from underneath a black cloth hood, set into the face of a bird-of-prey. The sable leather jutted out into a short, hooked beak, and only the jacket and skirt were familiar – the same inky colour against the spray of wildflowers and red-and-white that was crawling across the marble facade.

Rook.

She thought.

“Another of you?” the odjaken snarled, eyes still closed. Eyelids were only so much protection from that kind of glare, and she was visibly thrown off, two spots of colour appearing high on her cheekbones.

“You’re our killer, huh?” Rook replied, amusement audible even through the muffling of the mask. “I expected someone a little taller.”

The odjaken’s lip lifted a little at that. “And you’re another thaumatist.”

“Another?” Rook kept his voice still at that, even though it said plenty. They’d even asked Olive, hadn’t they? None of the dead Rivieres were thaumatists. Maybe she meant Csindra. But–

Csindra suddenly felt her heart flip in her chest. Nine bodies. That didn’t mean only nine murders.

The odjaken’s nose flared. “And what are you burning, little bird?”

Rook shrugged, the casual gestures looking all the more odd on the bird-headed form. “You want it? Catch.” And before he’d even finished speaking, he threw the smouldering wick at the odjaken — and a handful of powder into the air from his other hand.

Powd—

Csindra put her face to the ground, arms over her head, as the lycopodium powder caught alight. She could feel the fire rushing overhead, a sudden and brief inferno that was gone almost as soon as it came. When she lifted her gaze carefully, just enough to try see what was happening, the smoke left behind — a mix of the lycopodium and whatever else Rook had been burning — was twisting and turning, convulsing in the familiar throes of thaumaturgy.

Rook twisted his hand around in another gesture, and the odjaken’s arms followed the movement, folding behind her and held by invisible restraints. “Who are you?”

“Let go of me!” The odjaken thrashed against the binding spell, her voice sounding younger, more frantic. “What are you doing?”

“I asked first.” Rook approached the odjaken, his goggles reflecting the afternoon light in a white gleam. “Under the authority of Her Lady Elessa’s National Security and Defense Division, I’m taking you into the custody of Regiment 214, Akelei Company, and placing you under arrest.”

“For what?” she snapped. She didn’t show much recognition of anything Rook had said, but that was fair enough. Most people still knew the 214th as the Dievelhunters.

“Suspicion of murder. Use of feral magic. Pissing me off. Really, I’ve got forty-eight hours to decide what to charge you with, so you pick.”

Csindra realized that the ivy had long since stilled; the odjaken’s attention was on Rook. Even better, she’d dropped Raivita after the binding spell. Still, she wasn’t going to move just yet — not until she figured out why the odjaken didn’t look nearly as concerned as her voice made it sound.

Rook took another step towards the odjaken, and Csindra caught a brief glimpse of his eyes through the goggles, the paleness making them easy to spot. He was scanning the odjaken. “Who are you?” he asked again.

The odjaken pouted, arms still bound. “None of your business, kalba.”

Rook was too close to her. Why on earth was he putting himself in danger? She was bound, but that meant nothing.

“Open your eyes,” Rook ordered.

She hadn’t been able to see, from where she was. The girl’s eyes were still closed? After all this time? Csindra wasn’t even sure the idea of her being blind was much comfort, with the speed she appeared to move.

But for the first time, the odjaken seemed thrown by the question. “My eyes?” Then she laughed. “I’d say over my dead body. How about over yours?”

The binding spell snapped in a flash of blue sparks, and Rook — barely — dodged the fist thrown at his face. Shit.

Csindra threw out her hand, and this time, Raivita came back to her without the odjaken interfering. “Hey, asshole!”

The odjaken barely seemed to acknowledge her, black hair coming undone as she struck at Rook — Rook, who wasn’t fighting back, who wasn’t doing anything but blocking the blows as they came, falling further and further backwards. Something cracked — Csindra thought it must be a stone or a twig, but then Rook fell down to one knee, and she realized in horror that the sound had come from him. Had he broken something? No, it would be visible if he had–

Then the girl turned towards Csindra, something in her changing. She had already looked wrong somehow, too thin, a jumble of pieces, not quite fitting together right — but now her neck was getting longer, the teeth barely visible between her lips lengthening. The nails on her hands were getting longer, too, turning into claws, talons, something birdlike.

Csindra backed away, gripping Raivita in both hands, trying not to be afraid. But she’d never —

“What’s the matter? Scared?” The voice that came out of the odjaken’s mouth was warped, too, the mutations of her teeth and tongue showing in her words. “You should be.”

More mushrooms, more vines —

Csindra lashed out with Raivita, but she could already tell it was too slow. The claws found her shoulder, raking deep into her skin, and with a kick in the back, she staggered forward. Pain. Pain is good. You can use that.

If she could just focus for a second —

Another kick, and when Csindra hit the ground this time, the flagstones had completely grown over with moss, tepid water leaking out from underneath them. The water stung when it touched her hands, and she got back to her feet, but not in time to avoid another hit that threw her back against the pillar. The blows were strong, that was the problem. The type of strong she kept not bracing for, because this girl was tiny, she was starving —

But when Csindra met her face again, six black eyes were staring back at her, and she couldn’t think of anything at all, anything except a few rattled lines from prayers she’d forgotten long ago. Monsters from the deep, she remembered those stories, monsters with too many eyes and teeth like needles — the poisoned ocean —

“Leave her alone!”

The voice cut through the dense humidity and the fog drowning out her own thoughts like a breath of fresh air, and in the split second she had, Csindra realized the odjaken’s own eyes were still closed, nestled below the six new ones. The other six turned to Rook, who had gotten back to his feet, even though he was still staggering a little — and the new spell-wick he was burning.

“Another pretty spell? How nice.”

Rook didn’t do any gestures with this one, just glared the odjaken in the eyes as the smoke twisted up and around Csindra. It caught the light and shimmered like a mirror — and when the odjaken’s taloned hand struck at Csindra again, it was Rook who staggered slightly. Csindra hadn’t even felt it—

The Knight.

He’d cast The Knight.

“No, you idiot,” Csindra whispered in horror. He was protecting her. She didn’t need his fucking protection — if anything, from the way he was standing, he needed hers. But when she threw herself forward, Rook’s voice snapped at her.

“Stay where you are, Sergeant.”

Sergeant. Asshole.

“How cute,” the odjaken mocked. “Protecting your girlfriend.”

“I’m pretty sick of that joke,” Rook replied, a strange new quality in his voice. “Sorry, but she’s not my type. Neither are you. Too many pointy bits.”

The odjaken raised her hand, then closed it into a fist; a moment later the water rose again, and Csindra moved away from the pillar, trying to escape it before it reached above her boots. It was dirty water, like it’d been piped in from a swamp or a sewer, but that didn’t explain why her palms could still feel the sting of it — Quickwater. She recognized it now, especially since she had the Elessan word for it in her head, not just whatever word they’d used at home–

Rook ignored it. And when the odjaken came at him again, claws slashing out, he threw himself backwards, gloved hands bracing against the stone before he sprang back at her feet first. His boots met her chest, and Csindra heard another crack, this time probably a rib or two from the odjaken — but her hand lashed out, grabbing his ankle and jerking him down with her. She was going for something specific, Csindra realized—

His mask.

With a victorious shout, the odjaken tore the mask off his face, ripping it free of the hood, and Rook’s white hair fell free, eyes and mouth exposed to whatever else he decided to burn. But the odjaken froze. Csindra could see it too. Different faces, sure. Different hair. But they were just as ghostly-pale as each other, skin thin enough to show the veins underneath.

Rook was still for maybe half a second, not a moment longer. Long enough for Csindra to see something else, too — the way his pupils were pinpricks in his pale eyes, the flush on his cheekbones that was from more than just exertion. He was high. He’d taken something.

Half a second later, the air that had been humid and hot and sticky plunged into freezing cold.

———

Rook liked his job. When he’d started dealing with pain he wasn’t sure how to handle, the first thing he’d been worried about was being able to keep doing missions. That was the most important thing; it was why he wouldn’t tell anybody. The second anybody caught on that he was weak, he’d be dead or discharged within the week.

But much to his satisfaction, he’d found out that adrenaline made it easy. He could do everything that he could manage before, as long as he got the adrenaline pumping, and as long as he kept some helpers on hand. And now that the laudanum and everything else was surging through his veins, he was fine. He had it —

(who is she)

—handled. He had it handled.

(who is she)

And then his mask came off. He hadn’t even thought — but with nails as sharp as hers, it wasn’t so difficult, was it—?

(WHO IS SHE)

(can you hear them)

(I shall steal the breath from her lungs and the warmth from her bones and—)

(izhya)

(WHO IS SHE)

(—then we shall be free—)

(ethya)

I told you to be careful–

Everything had gotten so loud.

The temperature was going down. He barely noticed it, though, getting to his feet and watching the odjaken’s face change.

(IT HURTS)

He pulled his knife free of the sheath tied to his leg, and the odjaken just snarled back, but the cold was affecting her. More than that; Rook could see her struggling to breathe. Funny. He could breathe fine.

(—strength of beasts and the teeth of hunters—)

“You’re like me,” she said from between panted breaths.

(NO)

(ongye)

And he wasn’t sure who was actually speaking when he lifted the knife, twirling it in his hand — “There’s nobody like me.”

(NO STOP)

(achye)

(ROOK YOU HAVE TO STOP)

Too late. He couldn’t hear them, and the knife slid along the side of the odjaken’s throat, crimson blood spilling down over her ghast-white skin before she pulled away, throwing herself into the air and her legs knocking Rook off balance again —

The ivy vines lashed at him, given a sudden burst of speed, but he managed to knock them aside, blade slicing through them faster than they could make themselves grow. He could feel the water stinging at him, now, too; he hadn’t felt it at first. But then he felt her hand in his hair, and he jerked backwards, back suddenly pressed against her front.

“Who made you?” she hissed.

No one, he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out. He drove the knife backwards, but her hand closed around his fist, decay crawling up her skin in a tattoo of withered skin —

Easy enough. He slammed his other hand against hers, the claws that had grown without him noticing punching through her palm. The shriek of pain he got in response was worth it, even as he yanked the claw out and tried to ignore the punctures in his own hand. He’d gone right through. There was blood mixing into the water below them now, and he could use that, it was faster than Smokework —

Except something was faster still, and the water began to freeze over. The odjaken noticed, pulling herself out of the water and onto the thin ice before it trapped her — and threw another blow at him. Another — he was having a harder and harder time dodging, his eyesight getting fuzzy, limbs not responding as quickly as they were supposed to —

A little longer. Please.

(LET GO)

Rook stopped in horror. No. No, no, whatever he let go of was — no, he wasn’t that far gone.

The next blow caught him square across the face, and as his head spun, he felt the throb in his nose that meant she’d either broken it or given it a pretty good bruising. Binding. I need to bind you, I need to know, I need to—

(KILL HER KILL HER KILL HER)

(THREAT THREAT THREAT)

“Until next time, pretty boy,” she snarled. Another bit of misdirection, he realized too late — before something sharp stabbed into his leg. He looked down, eyesight blurring in and out, and gazed almost idly at the spike pulling free of his thigh. Like a cactus spine, he thought, but larger, and wielded with intent by a vine it had no business being on.

The odjaken walked away from him. Rook tried to reach for his knife again, somewhere in the freezing water. “We’re not done—”

“Yes, we are,” she said over her shoulder. Then she was gone, and the world was trying to turn on him, and he couldn’t be mad about any of that, not now — not when the pain was finally, finally starting to lessen, and leaving only exhaustion in its wake.

(izhya, ethya, ongye, achye)

His vision flickered one last time, before giving up entirely.

——

The door was blocked. And Csindra knew what was coming. Not for sure, no — but she had an idea. She had listened, maybe not as closely as she should have, but she had listened–

The window.

Csindra steadied her grip, closed her eyes and smashed Raivita through the window. There was a scream from inside — she couldn’t blame Odette for the reaction, and she only made time to clear away some of the broken glass from the edges before diving through.

“What on earth—”

Csindra shook her head. “We gotta go. Now.”

Odette stared at her in fear. “But — Where?” She gripped the arms of her chair. Shit, no wonder she was scared. The wheelchair would move fine on the hardwood, but it couldn’t do stairs, really, and she couldn’t exactly move fast, either.

The temperature was still dropping.

Just leave her, Csindra tried to convince herself. Yeah, not happening. She leant over and hoisted Odette into her arms, one arm under her legs, the other steadying her back, and immediately fled up the carpeted stairs.

“Put me down! What’s going on?”

Csindra ignored her for the moment — she could only do one thing at a time right at the moment. She went to the farthest room away from where the fight was happening, shouldering it open with a flurry of papers from the other side. Someone’s study. There was a heavy oak desk in the middle, and she ducked down behind it, steadying Odette next to her. Far enough away from the epicenter, and up. “A’keni revatu nav’, ąkra shevatu kanav’.” she murmured. Hotter above, colder below.

Odette glared back at her, but couldn’t quite hide the fear. “What’s wrong? Tell me, now.”

“No time. Listen, Odette. You have to listen to me. Close your eyes. Cover your head. And do not open them.”

“What? Is this a game—?”

“I swear by Kesh’lashe herself.”

Odette clearly didn’t know who that was, but she nodded, shutting her eyes tight and putting her shawl over her head. Instinctively, Csindra reached out and pulled Odette close as the temperature continued to drop.

Drądązen shoi-nget-Odjon’nez kish nur’ne þar’n suba tashera.

Stories. Just stories. But still, with her eyes closed tight against the urge to look, Csindra found herself mouthing words in barely a whisper. “Nav-aléçatza, nav-aléçatza, nav-aléçatza…” Pass over us.

The temperature was still dropping. She couldn’t feel the tips of her fingers. The radio was on her belt, and she put her hand around it. She had to wait. If she didn’t, she was putting both her and Odette in danger.

And finally, the oppressive cold lifted. Csindra felt herself go almost dizzy with relief. She fumbled with the radio, but it slid out of her fingers, the cold making them stiff and numb. She opened her eyes, carefully, slowly; it was almost a normal temperature in here now, but her fingers —

Odette had hairpins in. With another silent apology that she’d maybe say out loud later, she pulled one of the pins from Odette’s hair. The woman whimpered, and Csindra quickly reassured her. “It’s me. You can open your eyes now – well, wait two seconds.”

Thank god for hairpins being sharp. Cause she still didn’t have a knife. She drove it into the fleshy part of her thigh with a stifled noise, and the fire leapt up near her fingers almost without her asking for it. Not on her palms, this time — when she thought of it, she had more control than that — but her fingers warmed up quickly.

Belatedly, she realized that Odette had not kept her eyes closed. Well, she’d worry about that later. She grabbed the radio. Channel…

She’d forgotten again.

“First for everyone, second for cops, third for Investigations…” she recited, but panic had driven it from her head.

“NatSec is four,” Odette said quickly.

Thank god. “Thank you,” she replied. She didn’t miss the fearful-but-curious gleam in Odette’s eyes; but for now, she just hoped she wasn’t too late.

Rook, you had better be alive. So I can kill you myself.

———

There is someone with you, down here in the cold. You are too deep in the darkness to hear him, to see him, to know he is there beyond the beating of his heart against yours, cold blood giving whatever heat it has to keep you alive. You will not let him die from it, even unconscious —

You have that power. Do you understand it, yet?

Your lips barely move in the cold, shaping words you do not know, a tongue you do not speak.

Pass over us.

Nav-aléçatza.

And so you shall.

(Izhya, Ethya, Ongye, Achye.)

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….Okay, fine, my Jewish is showing. But also there are plenty of stories of this kind. At the time I was writing this, actually, I’d just finished watching the incredible movie Finding Ohana which has a similar device in its folklore about not raising your head/looking up out of respect.

This is one of my absolute FAVOURITE chapters in the whole book, especially with how the extent of Rook’s problems starts showing. For the curious, ,there’s a big dose of supernatural involved, but plenty of it is also mental illness on its own – running theme in my work is how the two can collide, rather than just explaining away one with the other. The visuals for the odjaken here are very strongly influenced by the Doomspell trilogy by Cliff McNish – both the witches and the Griddas.

Song: She Is Young, She Is Beautiful, She Is Next by Alex Yarmak

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Chapter 20: Lunar Shadows

July 5th, 2022

CWs: violence, racism/anti-indigeneity, starvation (referenced/implied), drug use (opiates this time, whew), body horror

And O, I have seen the lotus-eaters
drinking laudanum and wine
with voices loud and hollow
with nothing left inside—
O, thy tempting nature rails
against the strength of every soul
do not eat the fruits of Lethe
keep your virtue whole.
Prohibitionist and anti-alcohol activist Andrew Matthesohn Wilkes, 1919, from “Against the Degeneracies of Youth”, a pamphlet of polemic and rhetoric poetry.

The cruelest thing about being a bastard child to two cultures, Csindra thought with the taste of bile in her mouth, was that you never knew who was abusing you because of the stranger in you, and who was abusing you because of the familiar. Maybe she was overreacting.

Maybe, but still.

She’d been angry with Odette for the comment about Kaullo. But when Odette had gotten that little smirk, and barefacedly admitted to the manipulation, she’d gone cold. She could still feel it, the stiff ache. Temper, temper. It didn’t really matter where she was – someone found a way to push her buttons and make her look ridiculous.

God. She kept finding new reasons to hate it here. She pushed through the doors back outside, and took a deep breath, hoping the fresh air would help. Then she leaned against one of the carved marble pillars holding up the portico and tried not to cry, or be furious with herself for how much she wanted to. She’d tried to warn both Scheffen and Rook about her and manor families, but that was their problem for not listening.

And the fact that this is why you left home, too?

Let them blame it on her being primitive, or whatever other word they bit back or replaced with something nicer. Backwards, uncouth, feral — they found all sorts of ways to disguise their disgust in pretty words. She got crap for being Kanet’ or “tribal” in the first place, even before anybody put together that she had an Elessan father. Until now, nobody in Den Elessa had run their mouth about it — but Den Arden, Haberjasse, Avolara, people had always put it together eventually, and the white assholes started making comments about mixing and the clansfolk who were supposed to have her back suddenly got distant and nervous, if they weren’t implying that she was a traitor in the first place.

No point in getting hung up on it now. It wasn’t like she’d expected anything different. She adjusted the radio that sat uncomfortably on her belt, trying to get the crawling feeling off of her spine. Rook had given it to her in the car, and she understood how radios worked, but she wasn’t used to having to carry one around like this. “First station for military-wide, second for cops, third for Investigations, fourth for NatSec, fifth for… uh…” She’d forgotten. Whatever. “Oh, right. Fifth for medical, sixth for bomb squad.” At least she could remember that much, and as she calmed down, it helped to remind herself that Rook… well, it seemed like he was on her side. It felt like he was, which she couldn’t take to the bank, but if it meant she could focus now, it was worth it. On her side, even if he was inconsistent in what he believed about himself.

Csindra closed her eyes, still rankling a little over Odette. She could already hear the accusations her anxiety was spinning out of nothing. That she’d attacked Odette, or tried to, or that she’d overreacted, or been bullying the poor little white girl. That she’d insulted her — well, she had called her a bitch. There was even the small, quiet part of her asking if she should consider apologizing – the part of her which was long overdue for a good hard stabbing, but you couldn’t stab all your problems, apparently.

If she’d been less preoccupied, she might have noticed the change in the air sooner. It didn’t bother her, either; it wasn’t until she found herself shrugging off her jacket that she froze. The air had gotten thick with humidity, hot and damp, sending trails of sweat dripping down her back.

Den Elessa was cold. Not freezing; but north enough of Etamara and far enough from the desert that she shouldn’t have found herself feeling at home.

The back of her neck prickled, and she reached for her knife – before realizing she still didn’t have one. Axe or nothing.

“Show yourself,” she said, feeling a little stupid as her voice hit the empty air. The humidity was the only part she didn’t like; humid heat was completely different. Maybe it was a heat wave.

Yeah, and maybe all of the murders they were investigating were suicides.

She glanced around at the trimmed and shaped hedges, and the fountain in the front field, gripping the handle of her axe. Nothing yet, but the heat was rising. Why here? Why now? All the other murders had been at night.

Csindra took a step back — and her boot trod on something. She looked back over her shoulder, and swallowed, her mouth dry. The broad flagstones had previously been neat and well-groomed, at worst a little worn; now three of them were being pushed aside by something growing beneath them. Toadstools; red and white, with small but expanding heads. Nothing grew that fast naturally, which meant —

Something breathed.

Csindra whipped her head back around, and found herself face to face with… something. Someone. She looked human enough, but lingering on the edge of it; ghostly pale, with her eyes closed, and unnaturally-black hair falling down her back, strands framing her sharp cheekbones. The odjaken. She could tell, even if she hadn’t shown up out of nowhere. The twinge of her healing wounds illuminated the silver threads of édjan’na hanging off of her like cobwebs — just like they had off of Rook.

Csindra’s breath caught in her throat, even though they weren’t making eye contact – and the odjaken’s lips twisted up into a smile as razor-edged as the rest of her. She was too thin. Not slender, the way the women on billboards and in newspaper ads tried to sell as desirable now; she looked like someone who hadn’t eaten properly in months. A famine victim, on her feet out of some miracle, with jutting bones at her shoulderline and wrists.

“And who are you?” the odjaken asked. Her eyes were still closed. “You aren’t on the list.”

List. What list? Csindra took another step backwards — and onto one of the toadstools. This time, the crushed fly agaric sent up a cloud of spores, and in sudden horror, Csindra lifted the neck of her shirt over her mouth and nose.

The odjaken didn’t move or avoid the spores, which confirmed what Csindra had already known. They were her weapons. “I’m not here for you,” she said with a small frown. “Step aside.” And even before Csindra had the time to think about it, she shoved Csindra aside and strode for the door, black braid swinging down her back.

Csindra had been almost paralyzed at the girl’s appearance, but the shove — and the touch of skin on her bare arm — brought her down to earth. Skin. Warm, human skin. Normal skin. Odjaken or not, this was just another person to fight. And she didn’t care for the Rivieres — but a job was a job.

She hoisted Raivita out of its sheath and threw it at the wooden door, blade thudding into the heavy oak with a splintering noise. The odjaken, Csindra noticed, didn’t flinch as the axe passed over her shoulder… only when it hit the door. Sound. She was tracking sound, at least in part. Was she blind, or just odd?

The girl scowled, glancing back over her shoulder. An odd gesture for someone not using her eyes, but maybe a learned one. “You’re wasting my time.”

She wanted to say something in response, spores or no — but something yanked on her ankle before she could decide, and she instinctively let go of her shirt, palms slamming into the flagstone. She kicked back at whatever it was, but her boot only landed on what felt like leaves. And when she caught her breath, this time she did feel it – spores flooding down her throat.

Csindra threw out her hand, and Raivita started to pull itself out of the wood. She glanced back. Ivy vines, moving of their own accord, coiling like snakes around her legs —

That’s it. I’m sick of feral magic.

Raivita finally tore out of the wood. Csindra waited for it to come back through the air —

A pale, black-nailed hand closed around its handle in mid-air.

Csindra froze, staring at the odjaken in horror, and at her still-closed eyes. At the feeling of the handle in her fingers, the odjaken just smiled again, cocking her head. “Isn’t this pretty,” she said, with a voice poison-sweet, drawing her fingers across the blade.

The enchantment. Raivita was supposed to come back to her. Nobody else.

“Give it back,” Csindra seethed.

The odjaken frowned — then lifted Raivita with obvious effort, resting it on her thin shoulders. “No.”

A thin whip of ivy found Csindra’s neck, and tightened.

——

“Major?” Odette said nervously, the bravado fading fast as the light did. Rook dove for his bag. He hadn’t planned on this until sundown —

Why?

Fuck.

He hadn’t even questioned the assumption. T.O.D. for the other corpses had been roughly sunset, sure. That said nothing about how long they’d been stalked before then.

Gun. Hated the damn things, but it was a back-up. He clipped the holster around his waist, and the radio to it. Flute on his back. Smokework pouch across his chest, with his lighter. He preferred to keep Mirrorwork out of his battles, so he left that one in the bag — but he did grab his butterfly knife, and the bottle he’d kept aside just in case.

“What’s that?” Odette asked abruptly as he uncorked it. At first he thought she was just being nosy, but then he remembered someone like Odette would recognize the lingering smell of liquor and honey for what it was.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a small smile. “It’s mixed in with other stuff.”

“Like?” she challenged.

“Like stuff that won’t kill me. It’s a drink. I know what I’m doing.” He took a swig, pulling a face at the odd mix of tastes and the burning trail the alcohol left down his throat. “Stay here – and stay quiet.”

Odette just glared at him, her fingers gripping the wheels of her chair — but she nodded tersely, face tight with fear.

The last thing he needed was his mask, and he gripped it in his hand, flipping his butterfly knife in the other and trying to get a glance at what he was dealing with through the thin margin between the ivy and the window-pane. He couldn’t see the attacker through the vines coming down over the glass, and the red-and-purple staining wasn’t helping either. But he could make out someone moving on the ground, fighting against the tendrils—

Csindra.

He yanked off his boots, bare feet quieter against the dark wooden floors, and crept as quickly as he dared towards the front door. Bitey crawled off of his shoulders, curling onto the ground and Rook waved him away, trying to keep him out of trouble. He was useful from time to time, but this didn’t seem like someone who’d hesitate to snap him in two.

Don’t panic, come on. You’re good at this. He had twenty minutes before the drugs started working. Fifteen, if his metabolism was nice to him and worked as fast as it usually did. Csindra didn’t have twenty minutes, so he was going to have to make it work. What did he have? He’d been smart enough to restock, except —

—Except he hadn’t restocked what he’d used in the Pawn spell. He’d forgotten about it.

Fuck.

Rook swallowed, mouth dry. It wasn’t that he never made mistakes. Well, he didn’t. Not when it came to this. Not when it came to what he’d been doing for three years, training for on and off for six. What he’d been doing with his entire remembered life. And when he miscalculated, they weren’t mistakes this stupid.

Keep it together, he told himself, already feeling the wood floor slip away from him. He could panic about losing his mind again later. He pulled his mask on, gripping dried plants and incense sticks alike in his hand.

Showtime.

——

You remember, and forget, and remember, that this is not the first time you’ve seen your own blood, and you forget it again, push it to the back of your mind, where the rest of your cast-offs live, and we hoard them and collect them like pieces of glinting gold here below the waves. You will never come back to the ocean. You throw so much here and let it sink beneath the foam, down to where you believe something of you must remain. You have forgotten, and sometimes remember, and forget again that you have looked beneath the black already and found only flotsam.

And yet, like driftwood washing up to shore, something has come back to you.

I don’t know who she is, either.

Please be careful, Rook.

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Oh, I have been looking forward to these chapters. Folks, meet the character officially pushing this into the ‘horror’ section. You’ll learn her name later.

Also, Rook is making really bad choices, and I need to be really clear: laudanum is administered in drops. For a reason. When I say Rook is making bad choices, I mean ‘it’s a literal miracle he’s not dead’. Don’t do laudanum. Even if for some reason or another you’re doing opiates, prescribed or otherwise, don’t do laudanum. Certainly don’t go mixing it like it’s Red Bull. Normally I like to let ‘don’t do this at home’ speak for itself but I cannot even begin to emphasize the level of ‘don’t do this at home’ involved here when I have a character just straight up fuckin’ swigging this shit.

This and the next chapter mark the official mid-point for The Nowhere Bird! I’m still cleaning up the end, but I’m very excited with how the first book’s been coming together. No guarantees on when (or if, frankly) a print copy will become available, but I do want to make one – it’s just a matter of figuring out how bloody expensive it’s going to be at how big this is clocking in.

Song: Moondance by Nightwish

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Bell, Clock and Candle is free to read online and I don’t plan on changing that; however, if you like it and want to support its author, please consider supporting me with a Patreon pledge or a Ko-fi donation! For bonus goodies, Patreon readers get every chapter a week early, and pledging to the Elementals tier ($5+) gets you access to deleted scenes and conlang progress posts.
Chapter 19: Fox and Wolf

June 1st, 2022

CW: paranoia, racism/anti-miscegenation

Two representatives from every family shall sit in the Parliamentary Assembly, one the elder and one the younger, between the ages of twenty-one and seventy, and in this way shall the voice of each of our illustrious families be heard.
Elessan Law Code

I think it’s ridiculous to pretend that the Garrows have any status in Parliament. If you can’t so much as provide two adult representatives for Parliament, I see no reason to take you seriously. Come back when you’ve got more than two sons barely out of diapers.
Albert zul zier Gehrichten Johnsohn Janssen, current elder Janssen representative

An interesting critique, if it didn’t become so difficult to ascertain your status as an ‘adult’ representative every time you opened your mouth.
Achiel zier Schwarzerde Kieransohn Vandemeer, current junior Vandemeer representative, in response to the above.

Once this case was over, Jacob swore, he was going to go to one of his clubs and drink himself stupid with a cute boy on his lap. He had earned it. He wasn’t looking forward to the rest of the day. The entire squad was scattered across the city with rank-and-file squads and military police under their command, setting up observation spots on the taller buildings in Den Elessa and sectioning off some of the public buildings for “construction”. If they’d had even the slightest idea where to look, it would have helped. And he was stuck being the central contact point, when he would have much rather been at one of the stakeout points — but he was heading up the case, so at the Centrum he stayed.

He splashed some water on his face, groaning. At least he’d slept a little better last night.

Red Team, Blue Team, Green Team, White Team. He’d even gotten to collaborate with the other Akelei squads and one from Candlewick, although they weren’t his favourites. Fuckin’ meffs, mostly, but manpower was manpower. The only person he’d kept here with him was Wolfie, because he needed a Smoke on hand for sending and communication in case radios went down.

Jacob let himself out of the bathroom, still feeling a little like he’d rather lie down on a railroad track. At least Rook and Djaneki were well out of it. Rook was a good person to have in your corner for the direct stuff, but he’d never taken well to the watching and waiting style, especially not when they were trying to keep it out of the public eye. To tell the truth, Jacob didn’t enjoy it either; he’d probably have traded for the serial killer in a second if he wasn’t likely to be a direct liability. He stuck to Advolk cases for a reason. At least he’d eaten now. Breakfast, at that.

Today was going to be long.

He sighed, heading for the stairs… then paused. He’d thought — nah. Probably nothing.

Nothing is nothing. Not right now.

He was on the first floor of the Centrum. Plenty of people went in and out of the main lobby; just like with the Palace, they had their own cleaners and servants, too. Support staff, they were called — the same non-rank rank as the librarians and nurses. Except the person dutifully cleaning the glass on the administrative offices’ doors was a little too familiar.

Jacob played at nonchalance, going up the stairs and glancing out of the corner of his eye as he ascended. He could be wrong; it wouldn’t be the first time. He had an alright memory for faces once he’d seen them a few times, but sometimes the first couple meetings really threw him. Plus, she was dressed differently, and he’d interviewed a lot of people yesterday. But once he got to the landing of the first floor and got an angle on her face, it was unmistakable. It was Mary-Ann Daniels, the maid from the Palace and Coben’s would-be lover.

He frowned, leaning on the banister and watching her. The Palace and the Centrum didn’t share staff. You didn’t have to be military to be support staff, no, and there was nothing stopping you from working at both, except that neither were part-time positions. The girl must have been dead on her feet — and both positions paid plenty, he knew that for a fact, so why?

He got at least part of an answer when Wolfie came through the front doors, clearly straight from the mess hall, holding two coffees, and offered one to her with a grin.

Jacob pressed a hand to his forehead, suddenly tempted to throw Wolfie through a window. This wasn’t the first time. Wolfie was engaged to Ive, sure, but it was arranged; they got along fine, but Wolfie’s eyes… wandered. Jacob wouldn’t have minded if he’d been a little more discreet about it. Or a little more discerning. But that was what you got with straight men, apparently. Queers knew how to keep their show out of the workplace.

And then there was, well. Mary-Ann was seventeen. Which — Jacob sighed. He’d thought Wolfie was better than that, but to be fair, it didn’t look like anything more than technically-harmless flirtation.

But then there was the way she’d talked about Coben. And the fact that she was here.

Ignoring coincidences was fine, for other people.

Jacob waited until Wolfie had headed up the stairs towards the office, gave him a casual-looking wave, then headed down the stairs, keeping his peripheral vision on Mary-Ann. She hadn’t noticed him, and he knew how to keep his shoulders relaxed and his gaze unfocused so he looked just like the rest of the people around him, the speed he was moving at almost unnoticeable because of how casual he seemed. He had long legs, too, so he looked like he was moving slowly; you picked up on tricks like this over time. Dasta had actually taught him this one—

—and damn it, he was tired of thinking of Dasta.

Mary-Ann sipped at her coffee, then, almost imperceptibly, her eyes flickered up towards him. She discreetly began to wander down the hallway, leaving her cleaning supplies behind her.

Gotcha.

He sped up a little more, and closed his fingers around her upper arm before she could break into a run. He could see it in the way she’d tensed up, one foot starting to rise up off the ground. “Miss Daniels,” he murmured to her in a low voice.

“Lieutenant,” she seethed from between gritted teeth.

He half-dragged her along until he found one of the storage units near the quartermaster’s booth, and shoved her inside, closing the door behind him. To Mary-Ann’s credit, he noted, she hadn’t spilled a drop of her coffee, open lid and all. She had excellent balance. Excellent balance, excellent reflexes, and excellent observational skills — which didn’t quite track with the innocent, sweet maid routine, but did track with the clever mind she hadn’t been able to hide.

She huffed at him, putting the coffee cup down on one of the metal shelves inside the storage closet, between a roll of paper towels and a spare bucket. It was cramped, but big enough that she had room to move about, at least. Jacob was just glad he was between her and the door — he had the feeling that she would have made a break for it otherwise. “What do you want?”

He crossed his arms. “I thought you worked for the Palace.”

“I do.”

“This ain’t the Palace. Unless you’re lost.”

“Is there a law against having two jobs?” she shot back, voice sugary-sweet. She even looked different; the Palace servant uniform had been soft, feminine, with skirt and apron, whereas the support staff uniform was denim overalls over a workman’s shirt, designed for invisibility just as much as utility. It had been the ribbon that had caught his eye, he realized; the same bright-blue lapis ribbon wound into her black curls. Garrow blue.

“No, but I am wonderin’ when it is you sleep.”

She rolled her eyes, hackles lowering slightly. “So you’re just showing your concern. How noble. For your information, I enjoy having the extra money around. It means I have more to send back to my mother.”

“Etamara?”

“Again with the assumptions.”

“Am I wrong?”

She hesitated, then glared at him. “It’s none of your business.” Which meant he wasn’t, she was just annoyed about it. He did his best not to laugh.

“And I’m sure Lieutenant Vandemeer’s got nought to do with it.”

Mary-Ann frowned at him at that one. “He’s nice to me.”

“You told me about Coben—”

“And I thought I was perfectly clear that I’m friends with him and nothing more. If nothing else, perhaps having a suitor will shake off his idiocy a little.”

Idiocy? God, he almost liked this girl. Scratch that, he did. He just wondered if she was bold enough to say that to Coben’s face, although with this kind of attitude, he had the feeling she was, had already done so, and that it was exactly why Coben was after her. He leaned against the wall. “Firstly, if you think competition’ll scare off a man who knows the feeling’s mutual, you need a touch more education on how men work.”

“I know perfectly well how men work. Better than you might think, unless you think I’m blind to why you dragged me in here.” And she smirked.

…Brat.

Jacob rubbed the bridge of his nose, in part to hide his entertained grin. Could be worse, he reminded himself. Just think how badly any of the other men would deal with this. Manor boys like Wolfie were probably eating out of her hand. He’d been half-raised by Sigaro tinkers, Vijaroki gun-runners and Shufennese prostitutes. “Secondly, Vandemeer’s engaged and the Judge’s godson, so your standards either need lowerin’ or you’re a brave, brave little lady.”

“Call me little lady again and I’ll bite you.”

“Cute, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. You’re not my type, and I don’t fuck teenagers.”

“What is your type?”

“Men, mostly.”

That shut her up. Even if it wasn’t really true; he liked men and women, but every now and again it worked in his favour to bend the truth the other way round. Usually it was pretending to be straight that got him out of trouble. Besides, it was worth it for the embarrassed flush on Mary-Ann’s face. A support-staff teenager wasn’t likely to get him in any more trouble than any of his actual lovers could, so he wasn’t worried.

“So,” he said after a moment. “Wanna tell me what you’re actually up to? ‘Cause I figure W- Vandemeer’s under the impression you’re a wee bitolder than you are.”

“Twenty,” she mumbled.

Aha. So he could gain some of his respect for Wolfie back. “Lyin’ about your age like that’s dangerous.”

“We’re not—” She sighed. “He helped me get the job here because I was struggling to make rent. I messed up my math.”

“Really? You didn’t meet here?”

“No, at the Palace. He was visiting one of his cousins.”

That was right, there were Vandemeer kids at the Palace too. Although they were certainly more free to leave than the others; Garrow and the Vandemeer boys were practically blood-brothers. Jacob was starting to feel bad for jumping to conclusions. God. He really was on edge.

“Are you done interrogating me?” she asked with a soft sigh. “Because I will get in trouble with my boss if I leave my cleaning supplies out in the open like that.”

Jacob reached forward, checking the temperature of her coffee cup, then groaned. “Yeah. Sorry, love. I’m jumping at shadows. Lemme buy you lunch sometime, make up for it?”

“I thought you were gay.”

“What, so I can’t be friendly?”

Mary-Ann did laugh at that. “Oh, fine. Another time. If I decide not to hold your paranoia against you.” She picked up her coffee, and Jacob opened up the door for her —

—and so smoothly it really did look like an accident, knocked one of her knees out from under her. Not by much. He was tall, he was lanky, he was clumsy. Nobody could hold it against him.

“Damn it, sorry—”

She laughed it off. “I’m fine.” Other people would have gone flying, maybe steadying themself on the doorjamb, or the opposite wall; it would have at least taken them a few steps. She’d adjusted almost immediately. And the coffee that should have ended up all over her front still hadn’t spilled a drop. “Have a good day, Lieutenant.” There was a slight note of stress to her voice.

Jacob watched her leave, tapping his fingers on the doorjamb and chewing on the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t just being paranoid. Not entirely. This whole thing still might be entirely innocent… But nobody, nobody got that good without being trained. He’d checked the coffee because he didn’t want her hurt, just in case, but he hadn’t expected that level of poise. It—

—well, it reminded him of the Black Guard. That was what unnerved him so much. But she was too young. She could pass herself off for twenty, but she couldn’t be older than that. She would’ve been a toddler when the Black Guard was formed, seven or eight at most during the massacre.

Who the hell was she?

He was startled out of his thoughts by the crackle of the radio at his hip. “Red Team in position, over.”

He grabbed the radio, heading up the stairs and into the NatSec office before he responded. “Control, I hear you. Everything normal?”

“So far,” Martinadocht sighed. Her team was over in the warehouse district, watching the river docks from one of the few watchtowers still standing. “Got some people doing the door-to-door, coda two. Over.”

Coda two meant they were asking casually if anybody had seen anything odd or magical; it was just an excuse to see if any of the warehouses or the few residences didn’t respond, acted shifty or had anything out of place. The problem with the radios was that even the secured channels were only secure to a degree; they had to operate under the assumption that even people with access to the NatSec channels could be dangers, so they kept communications limited and coded. Martinadocht in particular wasn’t fond of it, but she’d been born and raised in Den Elessa; she was used to telephones, which were slightly less frustrating.

Jacob kept his chuckle to himself. “Keep me posted. You might be there a while, love.”

“Don’t call me love.” Pause. “Over.”

“Over and out.” Then he rolled his eyes and returned his attention to Wolfie, who was sorting through his plants on one of the desks. At least he was on top of things. “You fully stocked?”

“Mostly. Don’t ask me for more’n a few Grand Arcanum spells, though. This stuff doesn’t — well, you know what I mean.”

“Were you going to say grow on trees?”

“…Well, plenty of it doesn’t,” Wolfie defended. “I was waiting for you, but I can cast something for some recon while everybody’s still getting set up.”

That was probably a good idea, especially with the bloodstone. Jacob sat at the desk next to Wolfie, already half-set up; the one on his other side was cleared off for Sylvia. He didn’t know Smokework spells off the top of his head, although like anybody who worked with thaums, you picked up on some of them after a while. “You can’t cast remembrancy for other people, huh?”

“Nah. I mean, I’m sure Rook has some sort of nonsense he pulls out of his ass, but I can’t.”

“Rook’s busy,” came the response from Sylvia’s office as she opened the door. “And unfortunately, no, even he can’t do that. You can walk them through it, but we don’t have anybody on hand.”

…Damn it. He should have dragged Mary-Ann up here. Well, at least he knew how to find her. Vague suspicions weren’t enough to hold someone, though, and the military was trying to fix relations with the Kanet’, not make them worse.

“What I can do,” Wolfie said instead, “is cast Eight of Gems. Narrow things down a bit.”

“Eight of Gems. Which one’s that again?”

“Yes or no questions about a person or place. Problem is it gets really picky about the yes/no thing, so you gotta pick the questions carefully.”

Sylvia nodded carefully at that. “Lambert, what were the standouts from the Palace?”

“Coben’s got himself a girl.”

Sylvia’s eyebrows nearly flew off her face at that. “Does… anyone know?”

“Don’t think so. She seems pretty discreet abou’ it.”

Wolfie shook his head. “Nah, it’s pretty low-key. I think a few other maids know and that’s it—”

Jacob stared at him. Wolfie lifted his head and blinked back at Jacob. “What?”

“What do you mean, what?”

Then Wolfie snorted, grinning. “Oh, you thought I didn’t know. Gimme a little credit.” He kept sorting through his plants. “She’s Kanetan, so it’s not really destined for success.”

“Coben Garrow,” Sylvia said, a little incredulously. “Well, that’s a motive.”

“Is it?”

“Think about how many manor families are trying to marry off their daughters to him,” Sylvia sighed. “If they’re not trying to take him out of the picture entirely before he sits in on his first session of Parliament, or before the vote for Judge.”

“They can’t possibly believe the Judge would actually let—” Then Jacob paused and groaned. “They might. Whether or not it’s true.”

“If all else fails,” Sylvia said darkly, “bet on the racism of established nobility. Er, with some exceptions,” she added somewhat hastily, but Wolfie just snickered.

“No, no, it’s a safe bet if you’ve met my great-aunt.” Wolfie bound together a bundle of plants, some dried, some fresher; Jacob thought he saw the distinct red of fly agaric in there, and he was tying it with the frond of one of the giant ferns, but beyond that he didn’t recognize any of them by sight.

“Masks on?” he asked to be sure.

“That depends on how much you want to be Alice in Wonderland,” Wolfie shot back with a smirk, grabbing his from the back of his chair. Sylvia just rolled her eyes, picking one up from the other desk for herself and tossing another to Jacob. Every type of magic had its inherent risks, but Smokework was like Bloodwork in that some of them were inherent to the performing of it; not every plant was good for you. Some were only toxic if you ate them, and therefore only the physicians and apothecaries had to worry — others were poison to touch, which was why Wolfie had flexible leather gloves pulled over his hands, and others still carried their poison even in the smoke they made when they burned, which meant Smokes always had masks, and anybody working with them usually did, too. Wolfie’s was custom-made, the front shaped into a canine snout and leather detailed with fangs just above where it gave way to hardened rubber; the ones he and Sylvia had were just standard-issue gas-masks.

Before he pulled the mask on, Jacob pulled out a pen and paper. They could talk through the masks, but it was a lot of work and frankly, they couldn’t afford mistakes. Then he pulled the mask over his face, and handed Wolfie the list of questions, Sylvia peering at them over Wolfie’s shoulder. He waited nervously to see what Sylvia’s response was, but she nodded, giving him a thumbs up.

Wolfie opened his box of matches – he always insisted on using matches instead of a lighter, god knew why, but every thaum had their quirks — and lit the wick.

Immediately, the light in the room changed. Jacob had learned the hard way that not everybody could see this; for some people they got a sense of it, while others just saw what was in front of them. It was part of his own personal curse, he supposed. He couldn’t participate in the magic thaums performed, and instead he got a unique, bird’s eye view of it. The smoke from the small flame curled and coiled upwards, turning into different hues in the otherwise-still air — red and white, yellow, deep-green.

Wolfie took a deep breath, the sound magnified by his mask. He looked like something out of a long-distant past with his hood pulled up around the sides of the mask, mismatched eyes only slightly visible behind the goggles — one a bright blue and the other hazel. Then he closed his eyes, and Jacob could hear him mouthing the question, forming it in his head as his fingers moved through the smoke. The first one on the list, and the one they needed an answer to first. Is Coben Heathsohn Garrow still alive?

On the desk in front of Wolfie was a stone; white on one side, black on the other. Another thing that Jacob could see, but others couldn’t, was that the smoke responded to the question; it dove down towards the stone, coiling around it almost curiously. Others, apparently, only saw the stone move.

The smoke flipped the stone, and flipped it again, and one more time. It always took a few times. Then it drew back, and Wolfie opened his eyes — and his shoulders fell in obvious relief.

White.

Coben was alive.

That was one less thing to be worried about. Thank fucking god. Coben had only turned twenty-one a month or so ago; in another month, when Parliament reconvened, he would be able to attend as the first new official Garrow representative in — ridder, over forty years. That was what had occurred to him while talking to the Judge. It hadn’t clicked before because like most people, he thought of Heath himself as a Garrow representative, but as the Judge, he wasn’t actually officially a Garrow representative in Parliament. So if Coben happened to suffer an accident before showing up in the assembly-house, it’d be another eleven years before Rue was old enough.

Don’t get too excited yet. He’s alive now. That doesn’t mean he’ll be alive later.

The next question was important, too. “Is Coben Garrow within the City of Den Elessa’s borders?” He’d had to think that one through. If he’d just written Den Elessa, like he was tempted to, the spell would likely search the whole county, which included a whole lot of space beyond the city itself. Specificity was good.

Another yes.

Jacob traded a glance with Sylvia, and even through the goggles of the gasmask, he could sense her equal relief.

Next question. “Is Coben Garrow currently being held by force and/or restrained?”

Yes.

Hell. There went any lingering hope of Coben being holed up in a brothel or just running away from responsibility.

“Is Coben Garrow currently injured?”

No.

…Huh.

“Is Coben Garrow within any of the following estates: Den Riviere, Den Bergen, Den Pont, Den Miller, Den Haber, Den Janssen?” The manor families they knew had lingering grudges against Garrow.

No.

“Is Coben Garrow within the estate of Den Forrath?”

Jacob braced himself for that one. That one would be bad beyond all imagining—

No.

The smoke was starting to fade, too. Wolfie put another match to it —

Jacob frowned. Something was bothering him.

Coben Garrow had vanished from the Palace late at night. Which, sure. That made sense for a kidnapping. No forced entry, no sign of disturbance, and they’d been operating under the idea that it was someone who was excellent at what they did, because Coben wasn’t social, he didn’t have a lot of friends, nobody had disappeared at the same time as him, so the idea of ‘someone he trusted’ didn’t —

Fuck.

He grabbed the piece of paper from Wolfie, furious at himself for brushing off the possibility, for overcorrecting (more than fucking once, too) and scrawled in large letters the question that did need asking. He gave it back to Wolfie — who made a sound halfway between a whimper and a curse. But he returned to the smoke curling up from his desk to ask it.

“Did Coben Garrow leave the Palace on the night of May 2nd with Mary-Ann Gilbertadocht Daniels?”

The smoke coiled and twisted and turned —

Yes.

Jacob sprinted out of the office, tearing off his mask as he nearly flew down the stairs, hauling himself over the banister once he was close enough and hitting the hardwood with both feet. People scurried away from him with surprised noises, but he didn’t care — he scanned the faces, the crowd for any visual on someone fleeing or hiding. No sign of her. He marched down the first floor of the Centrum, sticking his head into each office —

He pulled out the radio once he reached the other end of the Centrum, biting his tongue until it bled so he’d stop feeling so fucking helpless. “All teams attention, be on the lookout for a new suspect. Details sent through Smoke thaum, seventeen-year-old clan girl.” He pressed the radio to his forehead, still feeling the urge to slam it against his head. Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. He’d been so busy convincing himself he was twitching at nothing, still trying to do penance. “We have thaum info that the package is unharmed for now. Over.”

For now.

Mary-Ann was Advolk.

And he was in so much fucking trouble.

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Mary-Ann returns! And now you all see why I was so excited :3 The Advolk will be showing up lots, so don’t worry – if you’re having a flinch reaction to them conceptually, I completely understand, and I only ask patience. (One of my biggest influences is FMA 2003, if that helps with what my approach to “villains” is.)

While I was working on this chapter, it kept striking me that I’m not used to characters like Jacob being both gay/bi and the Badass One – usually if a character like that’s bi it’s severely downplayed, and at least in military-themed stuff, gay characters are… not common. I know this is changing, but it was just really odd to realize partway through.

Minor edits on July 4th!

Song: Survive by Night Club

Type your email…

Bell, Clock and Candle is free to read online and I don’t plan on changing that; however, if you like it and want to support its author, please consider supporting me with a Patreon pledge or a Ko-fi donation! For bonus goodies, Patreon readers get every chapter a week early, and pledging to the Elementals tier ($5+) gets you access to deleted scenes and conlang progress posts.
All The Lonely People /// a poetic flash fiction

May 24th, 2022

tw: childhood (sexual) abuse, PTSD/mental illness

There’s a ringing in the air that she can’t quite place
a little everywhere, every moment, when she turns her head
here and there, like the calm before the storm, like the rising
of a quake, the seismographic shake, and it follows, follows, follows—

She is twenty-nine years old; she works at a bank; she walks to work and back each day; she pays her rent on time.

She calls her mother on Mondays; they talk about the weather; they talk about when she’ll get married, she laughs it off again—

“Mother. Please. I’ll meet someone, when I have the time. It has to be the right man.” And really, it’s a little more complex, because—

She has things in order now. And nothing has to change.

–it follows and it falls in step, the fear of some unstable
puzzle piece that she can’t find – it lives and grows
in the clefts and cracks of her mind, pulsing in the hollow
cavern of her ribcage, where it whispers, whispers, whispers—

She is twenty-nine years old; she runs on Sunday mornings; she does her groceries on Wednesdays at the local store; she donates to the Mission when she’s got some extra cash, and she keeps meaning to go to the shelter for a cat—

There is nothing wrong with any of this. The picture is intact. So what’s missing? What’s missing? What’s missing?

Does she want it back?

–it whispers things that she can’t hear and she doesn’t want to,
the sibilance erases all the consonance away,
leaves her only with the vowel-shaped impression
of a guilty conscience and a ghost that’s rising, rising, rising—

They don’t talk about it, her and her mother, they never have and never will, they dodge around it in conversation, there’s no call on the anniversary.

The dead have no power over the living. That’s what they say; she is twenty-nine years old and the departed have no sway. She works at a bank. She walks to work and back each day. She pays her rent on time, she wants to get a cat—

–all these little facts like cards in stacks and when one starts to bend she tries so hard to put it back.

Everything’s just fine. Don’t worry. When she calls her mother, she doesn’t hit a dial tone or get told it’s the wrong number. When she talks to her mother, she doesn’t hear another voice, whispering in the background about how she made her choice—

Nightmares, nightmares, stay where I put you.

–it rises and it rises like the tide and salt-born sea
and bone-dust and fossil and petrified-black hearts
and she has managed so far so why not manage more
the mind’s a crystal palace but the body keeps the score—

She is twenty-nine years old; she runs on Sunday mornings; she tries not to look at red flags as invitations and not warnings. The storm’s been over now for years and still new things keep dawning, like how not acknowledging a ghost doesn’t stop its haunting, and—

–has anybody noticed that she never joins the games? Of ‘Never have I Ever’ and ‘Spin the Bottle’ and ‘Truth and Three Lies’?

–have people started noticing the way she holds her keys? Claws at her knuckles, she’s so quick to improvise–

–have they wondered idly why she’s terrified when punished? Like it’s just an excuse for something worse, something hidden in the dirt and crawling words–

–have they ever asked, or thought, about the cut-out pretty hole
that’s left in her mantra when she recites her normal, normal days
there are lots of absent fathers, there’s nothing special here
except the fact that she won’t leave a door unlocked
or that she hasn’t kissed a man without a knifeblade in her heart—

She is twenty-nine years old.

She will hit thirty soon; her father will be ten years dead; she will quit her job without knowing just why she’s doing it; she will stop running, her vigilance too acute; she will ‘think about’ the cat forever but never get around to it; she will keep insisting that there is nothing wrong.

–does she remember? It kind of depends
on the day, the hour, the moment you ask, which shadows shade her face,
which stone she’s last engraved, whether she’s been saved or safe
little illusions keep you numb, shove the corpse behind the door
the mind’s an easy swindle but the body keeps the score.
Chapter 18: Nightshade Pupils

May 15th, 2022

CW: implied-but-clear transmisogyny/homophobia, bullying, violence, implied sexual assault, ableism, racism/colorism/anti-indigeneity (sort of ticks all the boxes)

The last polio epidemic to sweep Elessa was from 1896-1898. To the horror of manor families, proletariat and disenfranchised alike, however, the Judge showed a shocking lack of interest in slowing its spread. Rather than using the emergency powers he’d claimed a decade before to enforce mandatory quarantines, supply families with aid or even support the doctors trying to save the afflicted children, Forrath simply pretended it wasn’t happening. Worse, it seemed that he was happy to encourage the disease’s effects in the poorer parts of the capital cities, punishing factories and poorhouses that chose to shut down while with the other hand simply allowing the manor schoolhouses to make their own decisions — most of which tried to follow his example, and suffered for it. Only the election and intervention of Tribune Weiss drew the epidemic to a close, and the children of Elessa paid a terrible cost.
Excerpt from “The Dragon of Vijchmaar: Chapter Five: Absolute Power” by Rowena Angdocht Gweon Zeng-sun, 1919

Rook had fought demons before. Not often — wraiths or phenomena were more common — but demons showed up here and there. The drabuka that Phania and Wolfie had unwittingly unleashed had been the first — albeit a fairly harmless example. One time, he’d been on a mission in Meergaarten and nearly gotten poisoned by an adweg. That one he’d trapped rather than killed, which he would have bragged about more if he hadn’t been flailing about in a near-panic knee-deep in swampy water. Then there’d been the lizard… thing he actually had killed in the forests outside of Kiesland, nearly the size of a car. That one had given him the normal kind of nightmares for a while. But the idea of intelligent demons was new to him, and despite what Csindra had said, he wasn’t entirely giving up the idea that it might be one of those instead of an odjaken, which sounded even worse.

So, he needed equipment. Smokework, Songwork, all his tricks were all well and good, but when it came to anything with feral magic, you needed more than that. That was what the traps were for.

And if he’d been able to find the damn trap he wanted, he’d have been less frustrated.

“Looking for something, Zeesohn?”

Great. Just what he needed. He was shoulders-deep in military ordinance somewhere he wasn’t technically supposed to be, and nobody he liked called him Zeesohn. He extricated himself from the box, preparing an excuse —

—and found himself face to face with Bryan Fairfax.

Fucking great.

It was impossible, Rook knew, to be the kind of person he was without making enemies. Not even because of his attitude, which he could begrudgingly admit could do with some work. Most people couldn’t even enter the military academy or take the exams with the Colleges to become a registered Thaumatist or Thaumatist-Soldier until they were eighteen. He was… an exception.

“Bryan,” Rook sighed in response, which might have been a bad move, because Bryan’s false grin turned into a scowl. As far as Rook was concerned, when someone had been hounding you for six months, you’d earned first name privileges, especially when Rook could hardly be bothered with the last name thing with people he actually liked. “Don’t you have some puppies to kick or something?” Or friends to steal? He added. Not that he was taking it personally or anything that Bryan was engaged to Phania. It wasn’t like Phania even liked the guy.

“And here I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“Why on earth—” Rook cut himself off, fuming. He wasn’t as clueless as people thought he was. He knew perfectly well he couldn’t talk back to Bryan the way he wanted to. It was just like Scheffen had been saying; her actions reflected on Jacob, because Jacob wasn’t from a manor family. Rook wasn’t just a commoner; he was beyond a nobody. No family, no protection, no backup. Whereas the Fairfaxes… “Look, uh, I don’t really have time for this. Can we pick this up later?” He might not be talking to Phania anymore, but that didn’t mean he wanted to pick a fight with her fiancé.

“Oh, what, you call the shots now?”

Bite your tongue, Rook, don’t rise to the bait— “You might have missed the memo, but not only do I outrank you now, I outranked you last time, too, Lieutenant. So, yeah, I do a little bit.”

That had probably been a bad move, from the way Bryan’s cheeks were turning red with humiliation, but it had felt awfully good. Rook returned to the box, and to his joy, glimpsed the trap he needed stuck near the bottom on the side—

“I want to know how you got Major rank.”

“By being promoted from Captain, Bryan, it’s not that hard to figure out,” Rook replied, mostly distracted by pulling out the trap. It didn’t look like much; it was a disc of silver, about the diameter of a large book, with a series of crystals embedded around the outer edge.

The kick took him by surprise, and he managed to hang onto the edge of the crate to avoid falling over entirely, hissing in pain. Fucking steel-toed boots, and Bryan had aimed for the back of his knee, too. It would have hurt even if he’d had normal knees, and he managed to suppress most of his reaction. Don’t let on how much that hurt. Don’t do it. Don’t give him ammunition.

“I want to know what you did to get Major at eighteen, shitlips.”

One day, Rook thought, mood officially soured, I am going to beat the crap out of you and enjoy it. Consequences be damned. “Classy. I earned it.”

“Yeah. Bet your knees are sore.”

It took a moment for Rook to catch on, especially since his knees did hurt — they were the joints that gave him the most trouble. A lot of things went over his head – usually he let them. More often than not, he’d know there was some sort of joke in something and let it go, because he couldn’t be bothered. But this one stung. It stung because, bis Nirgendveugel, this was what Bryan had been bitching about the whole time, wasn’t it? Rook had skipped the academy and started off at 2nd Lieutenant at fourteen, and to someone like Bryan, that looked like privilege, because he couldn’t recognize the silver spoon in his own fucking mouth. And Bryan had played fair, kind of, right up —

—hah. Right up until Phania wasn’t around.

He’d been trying, so hard, to play nice. Fuck it. “If you wanted a turn, you just had to ask,” he leered — and when Bryan swung a fist at him, this time, he caught it. Fuck you, he seethed, and the pain from his knees shifted, changed, turned into power. It came so easily, now. He’d done Bloodwork so much that it wasn’t so much a question of making it into magic as no longer stopping it.

Bryan’s smug smirk began to fade as Rook’s hand squeezed around his.

“I didn’t get here by sucking dick, Fairfax. Although if that’s what gets you off, go right ahead.” He kept squeezing, and he’d been in pain for days, he was fucking tired of this, at least he could do something with this, and distel und visser, it was satisfying seeing the way the older boy cowered, wincing as his knuckles began to crack. “I got here by being scarier than you.”

Bryan sank down to one knee, looking ready to cry. His pupils were pinpricks in his eyes —

-what’s he reacting to, this isn’t enough—

“Oh, now who’s on his knees-?’

“Rook.”

The voice cut through the haze of pain and fury, and Rook let go of Bryan’s fist. Almost immediately, Bryan looked ready to do something — and there was a flash of silver as something cut through the air. A gust of air that might have been a squeal left his mouth.

“I suggest you leave,” Csindra said almost conversationally. “He gets in a bad mood when he hasn’t had his coffee.”

Bryan didn’t need any more encouragement — especially when the axe buried into the crate wood began to shift, then hurtled back through the air. By the time it returned to Csindra’s hand, he was gone.

“You know,” Rook commented, trying to sound normal, “I forgot it did that.”

“I try to keep things novel. You really scared the daylights out of him.”

“Yeah, well… he had it coming. He’s not supposed to be in here either.”

“Don’t doubt it. You get a lot of people like that?”

Rook looked up at her — then tore his eyes away, face burning in humiliation when he realized she’d heard more than he thought. “Happens. Got sick of it today.”

“Mm. Be careful.”

“Careful?”

“Check your teeth.”

His teeth? What on earth did that mean? He shrugged her off, trying to look casual — but as he bent back down into the crate, he experimentally ran his tongue over his teeth, and his shoulders tensed up in sudden terror as his tongue met a ridge of points. Terror, because he hadn’t noticed himself doing it, and because Csindra hadn’t been surprised. Had she noticed his fingers the other night? Or — worse — had there been other things he hadn’t been noticing?

Relax, he told himself, lifting the trap out of the crate and forcing himself to breathe. You probably did it with the Bloodwork. It’s teeth. They’re dead cells. It’s not anything important.

Still, he handed the trap to Csindra, nervously checking the rest of him as discreetly as he could.

“Rest of you’s fine. He probably thinks he hallucinated the teeth.”

“I’m probably hallucinating them,” Rook mumbled. After a moment, he checked his teeth again. Flat and normal. The only points were the normal ones on his incisors. Perfectly ordinary. “What’s the, uh — where’d you get that axe, anyway?” The topic change was conspicuous, but it was easier than trying to cope with the fact that Csindra was taking this part in stride. Was she just hiding the surprise? He wouldn’t put it past her.

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“I hope you’re joking.”

She laughed a little at that, strapping it back into its sheath. “I guess you can’t really arrest me again. Can you?” she added nervously.

“You stole it, huh?”

“Years ago,” she added defensively. “They weren’t using it. I don’t think they even knew it was magic.”

“Most people wouldn’t consider that justification for theft. However, I’m not most people. And I’m curious, and the car’s gonna take a while to get here.” At Csindra’s questioning expression, he tried not to roll his eyes. “We’re not going to a stakeout on public transit, Csindra.”

“Look, I don’t know these things. I was prepared to walk.”

“And we’d be exhausted by the time we got there. You don’t do these a lot, do you?”

“I’m a merc. Stakeouts aren’t usually in the job description.” They’d reached the main gate, and she leaned against the iron fence, humming a little. “It was, uh, two years ago, I guess? Me and Bryd teamed up for a job in Drijkanberg, on one of the manors.”

Rook faintly remembered the name from her file. “Bryd… Brydan? Kaval Brydan?”

“Oh, nav’ti vol. I forgot he’d be in there.” She looked distinctly embarrassed.

“This was the one where you got caught?”

“Only a little caught,” she protested. “I was new to the breaking-and-entering thing.”

“And on the list of ‘things not to say to a soldier’…”

“You hired me because of all the laws I break,” she retorted, which was true, so he let it lie. He was still grinning, though. There hadn’t been a lot of details in the file, and he didn’t remember all of them — the name had stuck because he’d made a note of possible other leads, but that was all. “Anyway, the plan was to break into their vault and see what we could make off with. Turns out Bryd’s recon wasn’t quite up to snuff, so yeah, we got caught. Lucky thing was it was the Lady there, not her son, so we got off with a month each in prison.”

“That easy? Why?”

She really did look a touch — well, not pink. More like copper. “Uh. Well, I wasn’t actually seventeen yet, and Bryd’s the same age as me—”

Rook couldn’t help the sudden wave of cackling laughter, or the fact that he nearly fell over. It wasn’t his fault. It was just that Csindra mostly pulled off the big tough muscle thing, and then every now and again — just every so often — he got a reminder that they were the same age. “She let you off because you were kids?”

“It was really sweet of her!”

“So you promptly went back and robbed her again.”

“Not again. We didn’t actually rob her the first time. Get your facts straight.” She did smirk a little. “…Little bit. We didn’t take that much.”

“Again, justifications—”

“We barely made a dent in that vault, Rook. It got me this axe, paid for food and lodgings for six months, and I sent enough money back to my mother to pay for her food for another six.”

Oh. Well, when you put it that way. “Can I see it?”

Csindra pulled a face at that, then shrugged. “Won’t work for you, if that’s what you want to try. I have to be the one to throw it, so don’t make work for me.”

“Good to know.” Although that just raised further questions about how the damn thing worked. He’d assumed it was a wielder’s enchantment – whoever threw it would have it return to their hand. A personalized enchantment, he’d assume Csindra herself would have cast. The way she spoke about it, though — well, she’d as well as said she hadn’t.

When she handed him the axe, he ran his hands carefully over it, avoiding the wickedly sharp edge on both sides and putting his bag between him and the head facing him. It was steel — not stainless steel, no, but with something else in the alloy. “Cobalt?” he asked.

“Molybdena.”

He paused, and stared up at Csindra. “Bullshit.”

“Swear to Nirivite.”

“You can’t use molybdena.”

“Well, someone did.”

“How do you know?”

“Bloodwork’s good for a lot more than just breaking walls, Rook. I guess I have more to teach you than I thought. It’s steel with molybdena, cobalt and nickel.”

He stared down at the axe again, suddenly extremely glad he’d never been cut with it — and extremely glad that Csindra’s prior arrest had been before stealing it, not after, because she would not have gotten off so lightly. His perspective had already changed immensely. This wasn’t just an axe, this was probably one of a kind, and a mystery. Factories were only now starting to use molybdena reliably; he knew because Scheffen was trying to use it in her projects. It had a melting point higher than almost any other metal currently in use.

Which was exactly why an axe that had to be at least fifty years old couldn’t possibly have it in the blade. Maybe the blade had gotten reforged at some point. That was the best explanation he had.

He ran his hand down the central pole, then paused at where the metal wrapped the shaft between the two blades. There was a seal stamped there, slightly corroded — no, as he leant closer, he realized it wasn’t corroded. It was simply that the paint that had originally been there had flaked away. Or scrubbed, he thought with a sudden jolt as he recognized it. A flame within a circle.

House Forrath.

Csindra hadn’t said which manor family she robbed.

He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. He didn’t know his history well enough to know if this had belonged to any of the Forraths. He imagined if it was any of the ones still alive, Csindra would have heard about it by now — but that wasn’t any more comforting. Still, he couldn’t imagine that Csindra had just happened to steal a weapon that belonged to Endon Forrath.

Rook glanced uneasily up at Csindra, wanting to ask why the enchantment responded to her alone, and not really wanting to at all. She was resolutely not looking at him. Not a question she was likely to answer, then, even if he asked it. So he stood up, ready to hand it back —

— and nearly fell over. “Pissen ridder!”

“There’s a reason I waited until you were sitting down, Rook.” Csindra retrieved the axe from him before he fell over and hurt himself with it, resheathing the blade and sliding the pole back onto her back with an ease that did not give away how fucking heavy the thing was.

Rook looked at Csindra’s arms with a twinge. “…So, I’m starting to think your Cutter magic is the least of my concerns.”

“Hm?”

“How much can you bench press?”

“More than you weigh, easy. But you look ready to drift off in a strong breeze, so that doesn’t say much.” She did look smug, though.

“Come on. You got a number?”

“Do I look like I go to the gym? Raivita’s supposed to be a double-handed weapon, but that’s all I got.”

“Raivita. That’s a pretty name,” he wheezed. Then the rest hit. “Double-handed?”

“Well, yeah, but I needed more flexibility, and what’s the point of a boomerang enchantment if you need two—”

“You’re insane!”

“I’m a Cutter! It comes with the territory!”

“Clearly, since you apparently robbed Vijchmaar.”

Csindra pulled a face at that. “Oh, you noticed. Yeah, I had a grudge.”

“Against Forrath?”

“Who doesn’t?”

Okay, point. Rook sometimes felt like he was the only person who didn’t have something personal against Endon Forrath, and that was only because he’d shown up too late. He saw the after-effects all over the place, though; in the way people would twitch at him sometimes when he showed up at their door, with different expectations from the military than he’d been led to believe, and in the tensions between people older than him, with careers predating Garrow and parts of their lives he couldn’t even imagine. By the time the car pulled up, he’d almost — almost — convinced himself to drop the issue, that it was a coincidence that Csindra had an axe that had belonged to the Forraths; the Forraths, who were famous for auburn hair and tempers to match, who specialized in fire magic so much that Endon Forrath had been called the Dragon of Vijchmaar, and who he couldn’t imagine going light on any thieves. Even teenagers. Especially teenagers.

Then again, he thought, he’d been warned enough times by Scheffen while searching. Some might call him lucky, being able to start from scratch; not everybody liked where they came from.

——

You remember, only in pieces, what it feels like when she touches you. You don’t stop her. You play a part.

You remember thinking, I should have told her that I’m not here,

You remember that it feels good but only in fragments.

You remember that she does not know. She does not know. You have gotten so good at pretending. You will pretend, and pretend, and pretend until she is gone, and you will try and make yourself feel something later, and you love her too much to tell her that something is wrong—

You are drowning.

You are drowning.

You are drowning.

——

“Rook. Rook.”

It was dark under the water; it was dark, and cold, and he couldn’t find Dimitri, and —

“Rook!”

He startled awake. That had been happening too often lately — not him getting woken up, but the horrible sense of being wrenched out of something. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep at all. In fact, he couldn’t quite remember it happening.

Dimly, he realized two things — one, that the light had changed and that it was early afternoon, and two, that the car had stopped. “Oh. We’re here?” They’d stopped to pick up a few things, extra plants for his Smokework and some snacks in case they were there all night — you couldn’t depend on manor families to actually offer — and then…

The water. That was all he knew.

Csindra glanced up-front, but the driver was leaning out of the window, talking to a servant in a black coachman’s coat. Still, she lowered her voice. “Rook, are you up for this?”

“What? Fuck you. Course I am.”

“You can’t blame me for asking. We’re not having a picnic—”

“Who’s the actual soldier here? I know what I’m doing.”

Csindra rolled her eyes and shifted back. Rook couldn’t blame her. He was being an ass, and he knew it; Csindra had just as much experience as him, and frankly, being a mercenary seemed more fraught. Definitely less job security, and less backup. But he could still feel Bryan’s eyes on him. Something about the way Bryan had looked at him had felt different. Before, Bryan’s harassment had been annoying, a bit stressful, but not charged with the same creeping feeling of being a bug under glass. He wasn’t sure what had changed, but he didn’t like it.

The driver pulled his head back in, then leaned back towards them. “You’re cleared to go in. Coachman says to go right inside — the missus is in the parlour.”

Rook nodded, still getting his bearings. “The missus? Markus isn’t home?”

“Apparently not. It’s Miss Odette home right now.”

Damn it. He’d been hoping for an adult. Not that Odette wasn’t an adult — but she wasn’t exactly her great-uncle either. And it meant he wasn’t going to float the trafficking topic. “Alright, alright,” he mumbled. He hefted his bag onto his back, nestling his familiar around his neck and rubbing its scales. “Ok, buddy, if you have any hidden magical powers, this’d be a good time.”

The snake gave him a baleful glare.

“Other than that, Bitey.”

“You should think about naming him.” Csindra stuck her hands in her pockets. “Might behave better.”

The snake nipped playfully in her direction at that, and Rook just shrugged. Naming him would run into the issue of trying to hide that it was the same animal he had with him all the time; either a demon, although his familiar claimed otherwise, or some other sort of creature, but certainly not acceptable under the strictures of thaumaturgy. It would all be much easier to answer if he knew what the creature had even started as.

“—Oh, this is what Scheffen meant.” Csindra mumbled, mostly to herself.

Each of the manor families had a single estate within the borders of Den Elessa – even the Millers, although how that had been secured, Rook didn’t want to know. They varied pretty dramatically; he’d only visited three of them before, and this was his first time to Den Riviere. Den Bergen was where he’d met the Commander; it was a stately, older building, a little dusty, mostly made of flagstones and worn masonry, and constructed on the high point of the River Heilige banks. Den Vandemeer was wider than it was tall, filled with more paintings than people, and a surprising amount of pets who had gotten along well with Bitey. To be fair, he’d been a fox at the time rather than a snake; that probably helped. Den Baer was actually about four houses next to each other, on a stretch of land filled with riding trails and trees.

Den Riviere was something else again. Rook wasn’t sure if they’d been deliberately trying to outshine the Palace – he wasn’t sure when Den Riviere had been built — but it certainly evoked the same feeling with the faux-columns at the front, and four storeys of brick face dotted with stained-glass windows stared down at them.

“That’s…a lot. Don’t these people ever get tired of showing off?”

“I’ve yet to find out,” he replied. “C’mon.”

“Wait, wait. What do I say?” Csindra asked, fumbling a little. “It’s, uh, Miss, right?”

“Miss Odette or Mrs. Weiss. Depends if her mother’s there.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

Rook snorted, trying to decide how much he was allowed to say. He hadn’t actually met Miss Odette himself, but he’d heard Jacob complain here and there, mostly when he’d had a drink or two. “She’s married. Technically.”

“Technically…?”

“She likes to pretend she isn’t. So does her father, apparently. It’s all very…” he gestured vaguely. “I don’t know. Rich people.”

“How is it I’m more lost than I was five seconds ago?”

“I say, again: rich people.”

He walked up the half-circle of the front steps, glancing curiously at the columns supporting the porch and the small, incongruous ramp leading up into the house itself. Then he eased the wooden door open, not entirely trusting the open invitation. “Parlour—?”

The moment the door opened, though, a warm voice greeted them. “Just around the corner, dear.”

Rook opened the door the rest of the way, immediately feeling out of place in his all-black outfit and instrument case over his shoulder. The hallway was dark hardwood, gloomy even with the wall-mounted anbaric lights, and the lapis-and-sable carpet that ran all the way to the twisting staircase wasn’t quite worn enough for him to ignore the sea life depicted within the ornate diamond pattern. He took a few steps forward and followed the voice, Csindra close behind. The parlour really was just around the corner — the first room to the left — and filled with even more conspicuous display of status. Blue-green paisley wallpaper, indigo velvet drapes, chairs and sofa with mahogany wood and brocaded upholstery, and of course a painting above the fireplace with their folkloric ancestor. Jean-Luc Riviere, the placard below read, standing above the Zwartstrom.

Odette herself was sitting by the fireplace, blonde hair tied back into a modest bun with a black milliner’s flower. “Oh! The famous Rook Zeesohn. I’ve wanted to meet you for so long,” she gushed. “Come, come here!” She leaned forward, shuffling her dress around on her legs a little with a rustle of taffeta.

“Oh, lovely, you have a fanclub.”

“Hush, you.” Rook approached, trying to find his professionalism somewhere. “Miss—”

“You have a snake? My goodness, he’s ever so cute, isn’t he? Or is it a she?”

Rook watched as his familiar dodged away from Odette’s hand, then searched for his place. He was still scrambled from the dream he couldn’t quite remember. “Uh, Miss Odette, I’m here with Sergeant Djaneki, about the, uh, recent murders—”

“Yes, I supposed so,” Odette sighed. “My cousins aren’t particularly mourned, but it’s a little worrying. And you’re concerned about little old me.”

He tried not to look too annoyed that she already knew. He had been warned about Odette, once or twice. Sure, Jacob mostly complained about little things, but even before Scheffen had told him straight-out, he’d known Jacob was involved with the Rivieres in some way; and Jacob had let on that Odette wasn’t nearly as helpless as she looked. “It’s the only Riviere residence in town, O- Miss Odette. The actual people inside aren’t really relevant.”

Odette leaned back in her chair, a touch of a smirk around her mouth. She didn’t seem offended. “And who’s your friend? Sergeant… Djaneki, you said?”

“Please don’t call me Sergeant,” Csindra replied. “Csindra is fine.”

“Csindra—? Ooh, that’s a Kanetan name, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m a contractor.”

“I love your hair. May I—”

Csindra glared at Odette so ferociously Rook thought the Riviere woman might catch fire, and he had to hide his pleasure as Odette sulkily but obediently retracted the hand that had been ready to touch Csindra’s hair. Who asked to touch someone’s hair? “Miss Riviere,” Csindra continued, a thread of ice in her voice barely detectable but firmly present, “was there anything connecting the people killed?”

“Ansel, Perry and Neil? Nothing beyond the obvious.” Then Odette raised an eyebrow at Csindra. “You mean the Beckers?”

“The Beckers, the Hedricks – and Kaullo Angtaiki.”

“And why would I know anything about that?”

Csindra sat down on one of the chairs in the Riviere parlour. “Normally,” she said quietly, “I’d expect someone to be a little more torn up about deaths in the family.”

“It’s a big family, Djaneki. Ansel Rolandsohn was – hm, what is it, second cousins? Peregrine was a cousin once removed, and I truly don’t remember the details of my relation to Neil, other than that he owned Rijder Tor and I don’t know or like his son enough to know what’s to become of it.” Odette inspected her nails with a practiced, careless grace. Rook wondered where Csindra had learned her skills of observation, because rather than the fear she’d had of messing things up, she almost seemed better at this than he was.

Which didn’t sit particularly well. But he’d always been better at the more direct parts of the job.

He opened his bag, extricating the binoculars and radio and standing by the broad bay window at the front of the parlour. If this was a normal stakeout, just watching the gates would have been fine — but if Csindra’s theory held up, they were looking for someone actively using feral magic, which was going to be a bitch and a half to protect against. And this was way too big a house.

“And the Beckers and Hedricks?” Csindra pressed again.

“You are persistent. Or stupid, one of the two.”

Csindra gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Every single one of them was killed in the same way.”

“I’m the youngest of the Rivieres, trapped in a wheelchair, and practiced with neither thaumaturgy nor military business,” Odette retorted, tapping the wheels of her chair. “If you’re looking for someone to interrogate, my father’s due back from Draaienstrom in a week or so.”

“Interesting. So it’s just you here at the moment.”

“And staff, of course. I can’t exactly climb the stairs on my own.”

“So when did your father leave?”

And Odette paused — just long enough. Rook glanced back over his shoulder, catching on and frowning. He doubted how much Odette was trapped in her chair, but she was certainly limited by it in a house and a city built for people on feet instead of wheels. Quite aside from that, Jeroen Riviere doted on his daughter. She was married — in name, anyway, but still lived in Den Riviere almost exclusively because of her disability. Aloysius Weiss bore patiently with the unusual arrangement, even the strange double-think of her being both Mrs. Weiss and Miss Riviere, while holding quarters both in his own estates and at Den Riviere.

But if he had left after the murders had started, then he had left her here with no protection. No thaumatists had been assigned to Den Riviere until now. No bodyguards had interrogated them on the way in.

Most annoying, Rook sulked, was that Csindra didn’t know any of this. Csindra was reacting to the simple fact that one Riviere had left and another — the vulnerable one — had remained, or been made to remain.

“I don’t remember exactly,” Odette said finally, but she’d paused a long time already.

“More than three weeks ago? Or less?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Could we ask one of the staff? I’m sure they’d remember—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Odette cut Csindra off. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not like that. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“You were just telling me the opposite.”

Odette was fuming by this point. “Major, I don’t appreciate the way your subordinate is speaking to me.”

Subordinate—?

Oh, right. Csindra was technically a Sergeant. Shit. He was almost never actually in command of anyone. “Uh—” Just pretend you’re Scheffen for a bit, he told himself. Easier said than done without feeling like he’d have to scrape the grease off himself later. “I’ll… reprimand her later. Csi- Sergeant, give the lady some room.”

Csindra gave him a slightly aggrieved look, but leaned back a little, straightening up in the chair. Rook left the window, quickly scanning the sky to check how long they had before dark. Usually sunset was pretty reliable, but it looked like it was going to storm. Then he took a seat near Csindra, frantically trying to figure out how Scheffen… did anything. “Mrs. Weiss—”

“Please,” Odette scoffed quietly. Rook tucked that quietly away if he ever needed to guess her opinion of her husband.

“—Understand that we’re on your side here. We’re trying to protect you and your family — but we can’t do that without some more information. This is a matter of national security at this point, and—” He stopped. Odette’s face had changed. She hadn’t put together that Rook wasn’t Investigations. Interesting, what she knew and what she didn’t. After a moment, he kept going. “And I know if anything happened to you, I’d probably never hear the end of it.”

“From your higher-ups, I presume,” she snorted quietly, trying to cover up how white her face had gone.

“Them, and Lieutenant Lambert,” he added. Coup de grace, and a stab in the dark. Jacob hadn’t ever said anything, but…

Odette’s cheeks turned a little pink. “He’s not on this case, is he?”

“No, no. Conflict of interest.”

“Right,” she whispered. “Certainly I can see how there’d be issues with potentially investigating his sponsor family.” Rook doubted that was all she was taking from it, and he felt a little slimy, but he hadn’t actually lied. Just guessed. She shifted, and sighed. “…National security?” she said, a little weakly.

“No one told you?”

“I only knew about the deaths,” she murmured – then with a touch of anger, “I suppose even little birds get ideas about my delicacy. National security can only mean a few things. Which is it?”

“Feral magic. Potentially a demon.”

Odette closed her eyes with a deep inhale. It hadn’t been the answer she’d expected — another curiosity to note down. “Oh, my stupid, stupid, stupid family.”

“Was one of them trying something—?”

“No, we’re not largely blessed with thaumatists. There’s a few here and there, but certainly not the men you’re asking after.”

“Just say it straight, Odette,” Csindra sighed. “We’re not about to tell on you, and by the sounds of it they may have had it coming.”

Rook winced a bit at that. Maybe Csindra did need a primer or two on being circumspect — but it seemed to land. Odette pursed her lips in a moue, then dropped her shoulders from the tense position she’d been holding. “The fools were involved with the mob. That’s what the Beckers and Hendricks are about — plenty of them are petty criminals, but they don’t have good names to ruin.”

“What? Why the mob? Aren’t you rich enough?”

And in response to Csindra’s question, Odette began to laugh. “It’s not about the money, you silly tit. It’s about what you do with it. Me, I could think of a number of more interesting projects to do with my life than buying control of slum towns with drugs and weapons, but perhaps I just lack a man’s perspective on entertainment.”

“And Kaullo Angtaiki?”

“Oh, who knows? Probably just another of the bottom-feeders caught up in the whole nasty busine-”

Csindra surged to her feet, and Rook just as smoothly managed to grab her before she could do anything. Odette stared up at her with not fear, but the casual curiosity of a scientist or an outside observer.

“Interesting,” she commented dryly. “I was wondering how you’d react.”

Csindra’s jaw worked behind her skin as she tried to summon up an answer to that. “Bitch,” she snapped finally.

“Family member? Or just tribal loyalty?”

“He’s Tosaka, you dumb—”

“Sergeant.”

Rook counted his lucky stars that he’d actually managed to shut Csindra up with that, although so, so much of him hadn’t wanted to. He didn’t like Odette much either; he kept almost agreeing with her, and then dizzily feeling like he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. He didn’t quite understand Csindra’s reactions, though. It was like being caught between fire and ice, and trying to figure out which one he’d rather be burned by.

“Csindra,” he murmured, “take a walk.”

“I don’t—”

He leaned in, whispering low enough that Odette couldn’t hear, “Unfortunately, we have to keep her alive. Take a walk.”

Csindra looked ready to snarl at him. Then she walked off instead, and Rook felt himself almost deflating. Pissen ridder. Now he was stuck with her.

Odette, however, had a strange look on her face as Csindra left. Rook couldn’t quite interpret it. He wasn’t the best with expressions, especially when they could mean so many things. He couldn’t tell if she was sad, or contemplating something else entirely. “Well-handled, Major. Especially for someone new to command.”

“Don’t call me Major. And don’t try buttering me up.”

“I see you’ve lost your patience. This should be fun.”

“Are you this much of a smug snake with everyone?”

“Not everyone,” she admitted. “Just where I can get away with it.”

That made sense, even if it was particularly vile. Being coddled by everyone meant you flaunted power where you had it. It wasn’t an approach that made her a lot of friends, Rook would wager.

And how different are you? whispered one of the voices.

One of.

Rook shoved that observation, as well as the voice, away. “So why did your father leave you here? Was he involved with their dealings?”

“Not directly. He’s just… concerned.”

“But not about you.”

“I haven’t touched any of that mess. I shouldn’t be a target.” She was sounding less and less convinced, though. “Feral magic wasn’t part of the equation.”

No, and you weren’t involved in the calculations, as much as you like to pretend. It was a shame, actually, that everybody else kept talking about her like some helpless child. Rook would almost have liked her if she hadn’t been deliberately antagonizing Csindra. Doing it by accident would at least have been forgivable. The fact that he didn’t understand the specifics didn’t take away from it being pointed.

“It usually isn’t—”

He stopped. Something was wrong.

“What? What is it?” Odette asked, a note of rising concern in her voice.

It was darkening — but not because it was midnight, or because the clouds had rolled in. Something was blocking the sun.

The ivy at the edge of the bay window had begun to move.

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COMMENTS

MAN, Bryan Fairfax sucks. He’s just. Such a goddamn tool. Unfortunately you will be seeing more of him; he’s very much the exemplar of Everyday Bigotry from completely “ordinary” people that is a pretty strong backbone to this book. There’s a reason why he and Odette are in the same chapter (although Odette is much better Overall). However, I am genuinely excited to introduce everyone to Odette Riviere, who is one of my faves. I doubt the elements with Rook have been subtle, but I get so tired of fantasy that doesn’t even acknowledge that disabled people exist. (Kudos to GOT, it at least does have disabled people like…. existing. Small kudos, but kudos nonetheless.) Odette is a polio survivor; something we don’t have as much reference for these days now that polio is pretty much eradicated, but polio tended to go for children, and if you survived at all, you usually had at least some muscle weakness.

Molybdena is a real thing by the way! I love Csindra’s axe a lot – especially the fact that she’s basically jerry-rigged the damn thing. While we see double-headed axes a lot in videogames and such, they actually weren’t that common for actual battle use. The two heads made them unwieldy and difficult to use, and like Csindra says here, they would have been two-handed weapons. (It tells you a lot about Csindra that she acquired a weapon and immediately set about making it work for her No Matter What. I love her.)

Edited slightly on July 4th!

SONG: Monster by Meg & Dia

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Bell, Clock and Candle is free to read online and I don’t plan on changing that; however, if you like it and want to support its author, please consider supporting me with a Patreon pledge or a Ko-fi donation! For bonus goodies, Patreon readers get every chapter a week early, and pledging to the Elementals tier ($5+) gets you access to deleted scenes and conlang progress posts.

CWs: drug use (opiates), violence, body/eye horror, psychosis, manhandling of a disabled person (reasonable in context), self-harm, injury to hands

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CWs: violence, racism/anti-indigeneity, starvation (referenced/implied), drug use (opiates this time, whew), body horror

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Song: Moondance by Nightwish

CW: paranoia, racism/anti-miscegenation

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Song: Survive by Night Club

CW: implied-but-clear transmisogyny/homophobia, bullying, violence, implied sexual assault, ableism, racism/colorism/anti-indigeneity (sort of ticks all the boxes)