Hair? In a slightly more subdued style. Makeup? At a minimum, to the point that the average man on the street would assume she wasn’t wearing any. Suit? Well, the suit was pink, but it was Balmain.

Ursa looked the part, if she said so herself. Plus, the blazer had pockets for her flashcards.

There were butterflies in her stomach, lured there by the fire in her chest. She opened the door to Brynner’s office.

The director sat at his desk with fingers steepled, in what had to be a deliberate “I am patient but I’m also your boss” gesture. He didn’t smile when Ursa entered, but that was more because he didn’t have a mouth.

She glanced down at the top card; flicked lint from her blazer. Fidgeted.

‘Ah, Ursa,’ said the director. ‘It’s rather a bout of serendipity that you asked for this meeting today; there is a matter I need to discuss with you. Of course, it can wait until we’ve been through whatever it is you’re here to discuss.’

Ursa breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth.

‘So,’ she began. ‘Both of our recent field missions have ended up connected. The recent incident with Laniakea was directly caused by Fae interference after the Ikea stuff.’

Bryneer offered nothing. She moved to the next flashcard.

‘While it was regrettable what happened to Montparnasse – and I really wish it could have gone another way – he was trying to kill us, or kill the human bystanders at the very least. Alkahest may have gone too far, but…’ Here she paused for effect.

‘His actions have greatly benefited the Institute. We got to take the bones for Emva and Merlin to study. You didn’t lose three field agents, which if nothing else must have saved on paperwork. We saved those people. And we saved even more people beyond that, because there’s not an Ikea that eats people now.

‘So, although we all wish that Montparnasse had been dealt with differently, we have to admit that he needed to be dealt with! I understand the Summer Court being upset, but they’re not proceeding in a civil manner. It’s only been a month, and they’ve resorted not only to crime, but dangerous magic in their attempts to catch him.’

‘Ursa,’ said the director.

‘They’ve literally gone against an ally of the institute,’ Ursa went on. ‘Well, not exactly an ally, but something close to it. And please keep in mind that our investigations and subsequent silence are the only things stopping Laniakea from starting a war against Mr. Pyrite? During which your agents were seriously hurt, and–‘

‘Ursa,’ said Brynner, again. His voice was not unkind. Ursa shucked at his solicitude as if it were a bluebottle wheeling by her ear.

The director’s steepled fingers had moved to where his nose would have been. ‘Ursa, what is it you’re going to ask me?’

His tone had become near pedagogical. “I can already tell what you’re here for, so get to the point”, he didn’t say.

Ursa fumbled with her cards. ‘Um. If allowed to continue, their actions will become more erratic. They may turn to worse or more dangerous magic. Yes, Institute members are supposed to clear up that kind of mess, but is it worth putting your teams in danger? Is it worth putting Middlemarch in danger?’

Brynner was looking at her now with… what? Not concern, but. Was that pity? The clockwork man was, as ever, difficult to read.

Her fingers tightened around the flashcards, crumpling them into a papery bezoar. ‘I’m sure you have a backup plan for whatever apocalypses might come, but do you seriously intend to let it get to that over one guy?

‘Ask the Summer Court to drop it, because otherwise they’re going to burn the city to the ground. And we’re not going to be able to stop them if they go that far.’

Brynner waited for a moment, making sure she’d said everything she wanted to say. He sighed; affectation. If he’d worn glasses, he would have taken them off.

This was off the record.

‘Look, Ursa. I understand. I really, really do. But the Caliber Institute, by the very nature of its founding, must remain neutral. My own signature is on the Inside Accords. We can’t take a side on this.’

‘You wouldn’t be taking a side!’ said Ursa. She tried not to let it sound like a protest. ‘You’d be asking another side to lay off!’

‘If Infernal society were to stand behind Azoth Alkahest against the Summer Court, perhaps then we could step in to try and mediate,’ said Brynner, finally unsteepling his fingers only to fold his arms. ‘But you have to understand that it isn’t the role of the Institute to stand in the way of any faction. What we do is empower each faction to keep one another in check.’

‘So, what, we’re arms dealers playing all sides? Is that it?’

‘Ursa, that’s an argument from analogy, and one with quite a degree of bias. If you’d like to go down that road, I’d prefer to be compared to a library.’ The director stood up and went over to the window. This, too, could have been affectation, or perhaps he was caught up in zealous theatricality.

‘The Caliber Institute is a repository of knowledge and resources, freely available to all who might ask; Draconic, Angelic, Infernal, or, indeed, Seelie Fae. If a representative of Demonkind were to approach us and ask for the Fae to… drop it, as you said? We would, of course, provide what we could for their argument.

‘In much the same way, should the Summer Fae approach us and ask for assistance in tracking down their villain, we would, of course, provide. And every single one of our employees would do the same, because they too are members of the Accords. They would be compelled to do so.’

Ursa had intended to stand as well, but her legs felt suddenly marathon-tired. Was Brynner saying what it sounded like he was, in managerial glasses-off circumlocution?

‘And… have they?’ she asked, voice a cinema whisper.

‘They’re about to. Cait-Sìth has been in touch. He wants to meet later today, and I suspect he’ll be wanting every scrap of information the Institute can provide. Much of which lies with you, Ursa. I wanted to let you know in advance.’

No, no, no. Not like this.

Ursa had been to the fucking safehouse where Alkahest was holed up. She’d be compelled by whatever arcane Geasery was in her terms of employment, and she’d tell that feline inquisitor everything.

‘Director Brynner, I don’t want to sell out Alkahest.’ This time the pleading was obvious. She didn’t care. ‘He’s… I… He saved my life.’

‘Oh, Ursa,’ said the director. The proverbial glasses were still on the table. ‘I understand how you must be feeling. And to be honest, I feel responsible. Sending a green new recruit out on her first mission, only to have a Demon like that waiting for you? It was irresponsible.’

The blue bulbs of his eyes met hers, and Ursa knew he wasn’t looking at her as he spoke. He was looking at an image of her he’d constructed himself, carefully overlaid across the real thing so as to cover it completely.

‘He’s manipulating you, Ursa,’ continued Brynner. ‘I know it hurts now, and it’s going to feel wrong, but once you’re on the other side of this you’ll see it clearly. You’ll be okay; I promise.’

He’d already made up his mind, and he wouldn’t listen to a thing she said now. He probably hadn’t been so far, either. Well, Ursa wasn’t responsible for others’ misinterpretations of her. She’d learned that years ago.

Of course, an erroneous mental image could make fantastic camouflage. There wasn’t even a trick to it; the observer did all the work like a quantum scientist.

Ursa let her frustration mount and flush out through her eyes, let particle tears become waves rolling down her cheeks. She could only imagine how it’d look with the plasters and bruises as pugnacious accoutrement.

‘Ursa, I, er, it really will be quite alright!’ said Brynner, the situation rapidly spiraling away from his comfort zone.

‘No, I, I know, I know,’ blubbered Ursa. ‘I just want it all to stop! I nearly died and it’s all so much and I want it to be over.’

‘It will be after this one little meeting. You’ll just tell Cait-Sìth where Alkahest is hiding and you’ll never have to think of him again, yes?’

Ursa took a deep breath, made a show of trying to calm herself. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Can I arrange a meeting then? With Cait-Sìth?’

‘Of course!’ Brynner actually sounded relieved. ‘When would you be willing to…?’

‘As soon as possible,’ said Ursa. ‘I don’t want to lose my nerve.’

‘Of course. I can have him here within a few hours, I’d assume.’

‘Not here.’ She saw him regard her, the real her, now that she was playing along with expectations. She sniffed loudly, laying it on perhaps a bit thick. ‘Somewhere public. I’m scared, okay?’

‘Ah,’ said Brynner, reaching for his telephone. The rotary dial took some time.

‘And you have to promise you won’t send anyone to listen in,’ added Ursa.

Brynner would perhaps have raised an eyebrow, if hair were a thing he experienced.

Ursa looked embarrassed. She was good at that. ‘Look, if I’m giving every detail, there are a few things I’d rather not have the rest of the office privy to.’

‘…Ah. Say no more. You have my word that the Institute won’t intrude,’ said Brynner, proper gentleman that he was.

Ursa waited for the meeting to be clarified. It would be in two hours, meaning she didn’t have a lot of time to get everything in order. Typical.

‘There we go,’ said Brynner, putting down his phone. ‘Now, is there anything else I can do to help?’

‘Actually, there is,’ said Ursa, tears already dry. ‘You can accept my immediate resignation.’

‘…What?’

‘I quit.’

Ursa turned and left.

⁂

Beanie? Properly angled back. Moustache? Waxed. Blood? Sufficiently caffeinated, but only just. Merlin didn’t want to get all twitchy.

He pushed open the door of the studio and took in the ambience; the swirling pentagram design printed on the wood floor, the burgundy walls covered in flash and prints, the somewhat dilapidated leather couches that functioned as a waiting area.

There was an odd sense of pride in Merlin’s chest. He felt no ownership of the studio, obviously, but he’d found the place on BlinkedIn. Which meant the owners and artists working here were all in on the Outside world. Because Merlin was here for a quite particular, magical design.

His site (BlinkedIn) had allowed a user (himself) to track down a specific business (this studio) that would provide a uniquely Outside service (a tattoo with arcane properties). He’d done it (created a website that wasn’t totally redundant)!

If BlinkedIn had been around for his parents, when they’d been trying to find new work? It would have made a world of difference for them.

He suppressed his grin as a sparkly little ball of light flashed up to him, exploding and explicating into a tiny winged woman.

‘Hey, hun!’ said the Pixie. ‘You got a booking?’

‘I’m Merlin,’ said Merlin. ‘We spoke online?’

The Pixie’s face lit up, this time in a non-literal manner. ‘Oh! The BlinkedIn guy! I’m Bianca. You’re a bit early.’

‘Well, I wanted to make sure everything in the design was clear. And if any changes need to be made, I thought it’d be best to have enough time to incorporate them properly. It’s more than just ornamental, after all.’

‘Hrmm,’ said Bianca, looking him up and down from her hovering vantage. ‘Well, you’re shorter than I was expecting.’

Merlin laughed, but apparently Bianca wasn’t joking despite her own tchotchkesque stature. She went on.

‘That means I’ll need to do it smaller, so you might lose some detail compared to what we’ve talked about already.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Merlin. ‘It needs every detail or it won’t work. Can we just have it take up more of the canvas, so to speak?’

By the time Merlin got in the chair, the design stenciled on him took up both arms and a section of his chest. As Bianca got to work – sitting on his torso rather than hovering, presumably for stability – he found himself doublechecking the formulae that he’d worked with her to incorporate.

The idea had been to make himself a bit more adaptable. As a Wizard, if he wanted to cast anything worth more than a token effort, he needed his spellbook to hand. He’d thought himself very clever, writing a grimoire emulator on his laptop and having that serve as arcane focus, but while it was wonderfully camouflaged for urban workings, he’d begun to find it a little cumbersome.

Balancing the thing in one hand was, despite its sleek and ergonomic shape, awkward when firing bolts of lightning from the other. So Merlin had begun to research alternatives.

He’d seen phones and tablets, but none of them had the required computing power for use as a spellbook. He’d looked into more traditional methods, actual tomes and scrolls, but 1: they’d probably be just as unwieldy, and 2: hey just weren’t Merlin’s style.

Despite his nickname, he just wasn’t a very traditional guy.

So he’d moved on to more out-there choices; holographic projection (rejected – it was nigh-illegible when running for one’s life), a VR headset with a simulated library (rejected – going blind in battle would probably get him killed). He’d even conceived a complex method of roasting coffee to infuse the beans with particular spells, reintroducing them to the wizard’s mind when drunk through their complex flavours and aromas. He could fashion a kind of puissant cold-brew bandolier?

This he’d rejected on grounds of “speculated gastrointestinal tragedy”.

Some unsavoury magi, he’d found, had done extensive research into… alternative bindings for their particular tomes. It seemed there were five-star reviews from all manner of liches, plague-binders and literal geisterrufers: human(oid) skin was the choice de rigueur for powerful magicking.

Merlin reasoned that there was an idea worth pursuing there, and set aside the double-touchscreen design of glass and arcane code he’d been toying with (rejected – he’d need an almost godlike power source to get that to work).

Wizards out there were binding sheets of skin into books, and using those to contain their spells. Couldn’t he just cut out the ‘book’ part? The only tricky part would be getting to be editable, like a subdermal Etch A Sketch. And then–

‘We’re done,’ said Bianca. ‘Good job holding still! It’s like you’d gone into a zen trance or something.’

Merlin blinked at her as she struggled with a roll of clingfilm. ‘Oh. I was thinking about work,’ he said.

Bianca raised her eyebrows. ‘Right. You must really love your job, then, hun.’

Merlin left with a promise to get the studio trending on BlinkedIn, and went to look for some new shirts that would show off his ink.

⁂

Hat? Normal (black). Clothes? Normal (black). Expression? Aggravated (normal).

Nora was on her way to meet an “old friend”.

Well, it was less a “friend” and more “someone that had tried to kill her more than once”, but for Nora, that was practically family.

The bell above the door rang as she entered. She’d known that he’d retired a couple of years ago, gotten out of the game, as it were. That a reasonably powerful Fiend would open a bicycle shop upon his exit from a life of crime was odd, but not entirely surprising.

He was a Chain Devil, after all.

‘Draisine?’ she asked of the hulking figure by the counter. He was at that moment spinning the front wheel of an overturned bike, muttering about ‘scraping’, but looked up at the sound of his name.

‘Nora! As I rattle and rust! How’ve you been, you bastard?’

Nora gave a quick smile. She liked Draisine. He’d always kept things fair, and even when he’d been trying to choke her to death with a length of hoisting chain, she’d gotten the feeling that he wasn’t trying to have her head come completely off.

‘Not too bad,’ she said. ‘Busy. Currently working with some new recuits.’

‘Christ, Nora, are they still trying to get you babysitting?’ said Draisine, with a chuckle. ‘You’d think that ticking old man would have learned his lesson by now.’

‘Same as ever. Brynner’s patient, you know that. Anyway, how about you?’

The Devil shrugged and gave the wheel another spin, nodding in satisfaction at his work. ‘Good, actually,’ he said. ‘Business is a little slow. The independent retailer struggles in these days of e-commerce and medias social! But I myself am good.’

He paused, and added ‘Though, your arrival usually means things are about to fly over the handlebars.’

Nora laughed this time. ‘No, no, nothing like that today. I was actually hoping you’d have some info on a couple of people.’

‘I’m not a hunter anymore, you know,’ said Draisine.

‘I know. It’s just… I’m worried about someone. I want to know more about what she’s gotten tangled up in. Who she’s gotten tangled up in.’

‘Damn, Nora. Thought you said you were the same as ever?’

Nora ignored his incredulity, instead simply pressing on. ‘Did you know a Fae named Montparnasse?’

Draisine put a hand to his chest. ‘Not personally, but yeah. Taken from us too soon, you know?’

‘I don’t, actually. Everyone keeps saying that, though. Was he really that popular?’

‘Links and rivets, seriously?’ Draisine seemed almost offended, despite his ridiculous oath. ‘Montparnasse was practically a legend if you’re into those kinds of stories. A defector from the villainous Winter Court? Charming, funny? Possibly a consort of Queen Titania herself? ‘Course he was popular.’

This time Nora was the near-offended. ‘Piss off, seriously?’

Draisine nodded. ‘Lots of rumours about the guy. Almost all of ’em good, or entertaining at least. And the thing with rumours is they’re mutable, ain’t they? Rare powers, too. He was, uh, marketable.’

Nora grunted. ‘Well, I met him and he was a piece of shit. Don’t believe the hype.’ She moved onto her next query. ‘What about a Demon named Alkahest?’

The Chain Devil practically rolled his eyes. ‘Which one?’

‘Er… I think his first name was “Azoth”? I looked him up on the Institute’s books and there’s fuck all apart from him trying to assassinate Margaret Thatcher once.’

‘Oh, him.’ Draisine’s eyes dawdled mid-roll. ‘Opinions on him are what you might call “divisive”. Lotta Infernal folks hate him ’cause he’s trying to bring down the way we’ve run things for millennia. Then, a lotta Infernal folks love him for the exact same thing.’

‘What about you?’

‘I say “fuck that guy”. He’s a fuckin’ Marxist. Bet if he had his way he’d give away all my stock here for free… uh, but the Summer Court hate his guts especially because of deals he’s made with the Winter Court. They say Queen Mab herself owes him a favour or two.’

‘I wonder if that’s why Montparnasse was sent to keep him in check, then?’ Nora thought aloud. ‘Not that it worked.’

‘Is it really him that murdered Titania’s golden boy then? Shit, Nora, if you’ve got a friend mixed up in all that, you might want to ditch her.’ Draisine seemed to consider for a moment. ‘Mind you, killing a guy like Montparnasse is really more the other Alkahest’s style.’

This was getting out of hand, now. ‘There are two of them?’

‘Mhmm. The sister’s name is Panacea. She’s anti-monarchy, same as him, but she’s actually got ambition instead of the socialist bull he spouts. That, I understand. Anyway, Nora… you wanna buy a bike?’

⁂

Ursa had finished her work. She sat on a bench in a public park, solemnly tapping away at her phone.

Hey Mama, Tata, I’m having to do some stuff at work so I’ll be out of contact for a bit! Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything when I get back! Love you! ❤️️

She pressed send with the sort of stoicism reserved for generals consigning men to death. She’d been lying-by-omission to her parents for a while now, so this was only a step beyond that, right?

Hey Emva, I’m having to leave the institute, I just wanted to say I’m really glad we became friends and I’ll miss you and your baking.

Send. Next, Ursa swiped over to Merlin, and took a second to think.

Hey Merlin, some stuff’s cropped up so I’ve had to quit and I’m gonna be MIA for a bit. Don’t worry about the site and stuff. Thank you so much for being my friend. Play nice with Nora, k? 😉

Should there be more to it than that? No, she shouldn’t overthink it, or she’d never press send. (Merlin fished his phone from his pocket as he waited for the lady at the charity shop till to scan the shirts he’d picked. Seeing the message, he left the shop mid-purchase, and was already tracking the message’s location of origin by the time) Ursa moved onto Nora. She stopped and started a few times.

Hi Nora, just wanted to let you know that I quit ✌ Nothing to do with you don’t worry, just some stuff’s cropped up. I know we didn’t super get along but I do still think you’re cool, you just have like, major teamwork issues. I hope whoever replaces me, you give them a chance to be your friend, and I’m just sorry I wasn’t around long enough to get to do that myself.

Eventually, she nodded. It wasn’t quite everything she wanted to say, but it was enough. (Nora’s watch informed her of the message. She read it three times over. ‘Draisine, I gotta go,’ she said, backing from their conversation. What the hell had Ursa done? It had to be something major, with the finality of her message. She leapt onto her bike and gunned it, while) Ursa just had one final message left to send.

Alkahest’s picture in her contacts was a Belted Galloway cow. She almost chuckled at her own naïveté.

Hey, I pulled my string. It didn’t work. Long story short everything’s unraveled and not good. I know I just gave you that amulet but please, please lie low for a bit. They’re more on your heels than I’d realised.

I’ve got one last thing I can try. I can’t tell you what it is because I know you’d tell me not to do it. But I also know you’d do the same for me if our positions were reversed, so… yeah. I’m gonna be gone for a little bit.

(Absolutely gutted I won’t get chance to eat all those chocolates haha. The fact that you sent them, the fact you feel maybe the same as I do? Fucking wild. Blows my mind to think about. I never thought I’d fall so hard for someone, anyone??, let alone that they’d be as cool as you, LET ALONE you’d even like me back???? What the fuck, right?)

So um, yeah. You’re gonna worry – I know you will, and its gonna suck, so I’m so, so sorry for that but please trust me. I promise you I will sort all this shit out. I hope this is making sense. I don’t have much time, and it’s kinda starting to sound like a goodbye and I really don’t want that, because I am gonna work so fucking hard to get all this dealt with and sorted and you won’t have to worry. And then I’m coming back for you. Just hold on a tiny bit longer. ❤️️

(Alkahest watched as the messages scrolled up his phone screen. He’d gone very pale. ‘She wouldn’t,’ he mouthed.)

There was a presence next to her on the bench, patiently waiting for to finish what she was doing. A cat, all black for with a white spot on the chest. It watched her switch off her phone, and spoke. A burr, as opposed to a purr.

‘Hullo,’ it said. ‘I’m told you wanted to meet.’

‘Hi, Cait-Sìth. Are you, uh, doing ok?’

‘I have had better days in m’ life,’ said the cat. ‘I spent fucking hours submitting paperwork to your fucking Institute, only to be told that the one flirtin’ with our culprit quit that very morning.’

‘I’m here now, aren’t I?’ said Ursa. Suddenly, she just felt tired. Resigned.

‘Aye. That doesnae mean I didnae waste my time. Makes it worse, if you think.’

‘Well, let me make things easier. See, your culprit? It’s me.’

Cait-Sìth’s ears went flat. ‘You what?’

‘Yeah. I’m coming clean. It was me that killed Montparnasse.’

‘Fuck off, Ursa, your bum’s out the window. Why the fuck would you just hand yourself in now?’

Ursa wasn’t sure that was a real idiom, but she ignored it. ‘You were closing in on Alkahest. Turns out guilt is harder to stomach than I thought.’

‘And what are you feelin’ guilty for? The man’s head was bitten off, dinnae try tellin’ me you can get your mouth that wide.’

‘You sound incredulous,’ said Ursa. He wasn’t buying it. She had to change tact.

The thing about Fae – particularly those from further Outside – was that, as beings so close to Chaos, there was little by way of “natural laws” or “physics” that would keep them consistently real. Instead, to stave off devolution into a tangled mass of fractals, a Fae would define itself through a personal narrative.

Cait-Sìth had, despite his fur and whiskers, taken on the role of the pursuant lawbringer; a role with such luminaries as Inspector Javert and The Scarlet Pimpernel‘s Chauvelin. Cait-Sìth would stop at nothing to get his charge, locked in dogged chase despite his feline mien.

Ursa let her shoulders sag. ‘You already said you’d found traces of enchantment there. And I’d already stupidly admitted to that.’

‘Aye,’ said the cat. ‘You held Montparnasse in place, but Alkahest was the one who–‘

‘Wrong,’ said Ursa. ‘I’d charmed Alkahest. Dominated him, technically. The man’s got a lot going for him, but his brain is like a wet cake. He’s not a culprit, he’s a weapon; a weapon I used.’

Cait-Sìth’s back was up, now. Ursa thought she could hear engines getting closer.

‘What’s your fuckin’ game, Ursa? Why are you talking? I dinnae believe you just decided to come clean for no reason.’

‘You were closing in via the Institute,’ she said, hoping he’d buy it. ‘I wanted to do this on my own terms.’

Suddenly, there were shouts from either side of them, people diving for cover and hurling abuse as a motorbike and an electric scooter barreled into the park.

Ursa’s jaw hit the mantle. Apparently, Merlin had shared his notes with Nora, and the two of them had dropped everything to come for her.

But Cait-Sìth was upon her, claws digging into her legs. ‘I see your fuckin’ scheme! But oh, no, you ain’t gettin’ away, not now. You are nicked!’

The cat’s green portal opened, and the last thing Ursa saw as she tumbled through were her friends trying to save her.

⁂

‘Fuck!’

Nora let her bike crash to the ground, leaping from it to the now-empty bench. She booted the spot where Cait-Sìth had been.

Merlin, on his electric scooter, had gotten there a few seconds after Nora, and watched the warlock compose herself. She dropped into her hyper-competent work persona.

‘Right. So Ursa has decided to be an idiot martyr and sacrificed herself for the Demon. Who I couldn’t find and drag down here, because of some kind of warding keeping us out. So where to now?’

It didn’t seem like she was asking Merlin, more just thinking aloud. But Merlin still piped up, as one with a pathological inability to let questions go unanswered.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘There’s always that other Demon? We at least know where they live.’

‘Right. Strych is clearly able to contact Alkahest somehow. We’ll just have to convince them.’

Merlin’s voice was very cold; uncharacteristically so. ‘We’re going to get her back.’

‘You don’t have to reassure me, Merlin.’

‘I’m not. I’m just stating a fact.’

⁂

Alkahest closed the door to Strych’s house behind him and stepped onto the gravel. His swords were on his belt, his sawn-off shotgun concealed in his jacket. He’d helped himself to a couple of grenades from the box Strych kept in the basement, too.

He was going to get Ursa back, if he had to cut through or gun down every single Fae in the Summer Court.

Two figures were marching up the driveway. One was much shorter than the other, and they walked with purpose.

‘Is that–‘ Alakahest began, but was cut off as the arcing Witch Bolt crashed into him.

Merlin was near-berserk with incandescent fury, and Alkahest was a lightning rod. The Gnome held the Witch Bolt steady with murder in his gritted teeth.

‘Fuck! What the hell are you–‘ Alkahest tried again, but this time Nora sprinted up and twisted his arm into an agonizing lock.

‘Drop,’ she whispered.

The Demon growled and spun, throwing her from him but skidding to his knees under the arcane fulmination. Merlin’s new tattoos were already proving their worth, as without his laptop the Wizard put both hands forward to fully reduce his target to a stain on the drive.

By then, Alkahest had moved forwards to swipe at Merlin with a shadowy claw, but he was forced back by the lightning. Merlin hadn’t even blinked yet.

It was Nora that managed to deescalate. ‘Merlin. Merlin! What are you going to do if you kill him! We need to drag him to the Court to take the blame; we can’t do that if he’s dead!’

‘It’s his fault,’ said Merlin.

‘So let’s punish him and get Ursa back!’ shouted Nora.

Merlin, finally, closed his eyes. He ripped the Witch Bolt upwards, smashing the old Victorian chimney, stamping up to the kneeling Demon as masonry showered down around them both.

The slap rung out in the sudden quiet.

‘It’s his fault!‘ said Merlin again, hand still raised. ‘This only happened because she’s infatuated with him!’

Alkahest glared up at him, blood and shadow-stuff trickling from his nose. ‘You think she’s the only one with feelings?!’

Nora, watching from a few feet away, blanched. ‘Oh my god,’ she said. ‘I thought you were just… using her. But you’re serious, aren’t you? For fuck’s sake. Do you know how much that complicates things?’

Alkahest had the decency to look away. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘If you’re here, then that must mean…’

‘She’s gone,’ said Merlin, flatly. ‘Cait-Sìth took her.’

Nora explained why they’d come, though she omitted the part about Alkahest being a bargaining chip. That ship had probably sailed by now, anyway.

‘Okay,’ said Alkahest, dragging himself forwards. ‘If she’s gone to the Summer Court they’ll be holding a trial. They’re the good guys, after all,’ he added, sourly.

‘If anything happens to her, I will wipe your Demonic face off the surface of this world,’ said Merlin.

‘Get in line. Look, we need to get after her. They’ll probably be holding it on Montparnasse’s home world, you know, for drama – can we find out where that was?’

‘We did have a little card with it on, but…’ began Nora.

‘…But I gave his wallet back to Cait-Sìth,’ finished Merlin. ‘But he had a sister, didn’t he. We can find out from her.’

So it was that the three of them – blood-spattered Demon, furious Gnome, and addled warlock – ended up on a bench just outside Open Sky Capital. They’d decided there wasn’t time to go in and bluff their way to answers, instead electing to have Merlin ride the Wi-Fi to the company’s employee records.

Well, former-employee records.

‘How do we even get to whatever world it’ll be?’ asked Nora, watching Alkahest’s pacing.

‘There’s a portal just on the edge of town,’ said the Demon. ‘We can get to any world from there. It might just take some time.’

‘And how much time will we have?’

‘Don’t know.’

Nora was about to press him, but a call from behind her interrupted. ‘Oh, what the hell,’ she muttered.

Her sister, Ella, was waving at her.

‘Ella!’ said Nora, heading to her sister and trying to stand between her and her other companions. ‘What… are you doing here?’

‘Oh well!’ said Ella, in apparently stellar spirits. ‘You know how it’s been at work recently? And I’ve been looking for, uh, other options? Well, I’ve been headhunted by this place here!’

She jabbed a thumb towards Open Sky Capital.

‘It’s a big pay rise,’ she continued. ‘I’d be the PA for the CEO herself! Triple what I’m on now!’

Nora took a moment to come up with a nuanced, persuasive reason for her sister to give Open Sky, and its Draconic CEO, a wide berth.

‘Don’t,’ she said, lamely. ‘I’ve, uh, come across the owner of that place, and she’d treat you like shit if you mess up. You know?’

‘Aw, Nora,’ said her sister, mood uninumbrated. ‘You know I never mess up. Anyway, I only paid for two hours parking so I’ve gotta go! We’ll catch up later!’

Nora cursed beneath her breath, and moved back to the others. ‘Any luck?’ she asked.

Merlin held up a wait-a-second finger, then said, ‘London, UK, Earth#C0027.’

Alkahest nodded, filled with adrenaline. ‘That’s not too far. Let’s go.’

‘Wait,’ said Nora. ‘Merlin, before you log out… can you have a look at who’s in Laniakea’s HR team? Or recruitment? I’ll get you a coffee.’

Merlin gave her a quizzical look, but began to type out a search. ‘Looks like HR is basically nonexistant. Recruitment is all through Laniakea herself.’

Nora swore again. ‘Thought as much,’ she said.

‘Hey, can we get a fucking move on?’ said Alkahest. ‘We need to–‘

‘Actually, we’re going to grab some coffee first,’ said Nora. She said it with such a brusque finality that they’d sat down in the nearest café before the Demon even responded.

‘We’re losing time,’ he said.

‘I know. But we need to get our breath back, you and Merlin both.’

Nora had genuinely wanted to take a second for recovery. That, and she was aware Merlin had put a lot of work in for their current course of action, and she wanted to keep things going smoothly.

Give them a chance to be your friend, Ursa had said.

Nora clenched her teeth. The wire in her chest had begun to thrum, faintly.

Merlin was sipping at his flat white and glaring holes through Alkahest.

Alkahest hadn’t noticed. He was fidgeting, thumbing at his phone. Reading through all his texts from Ursa.

⁂

In a cage on a world not her own, Ursa wondered about her friends as a courtroom was assembled all around her. She hoped they weren’t mad. She also hoped they weren’t just fine with it, even if she suspected that might be the case.

It’s fine. Ride this out.

She watched as benches and podiums were erected, turning at a deep, sonorous clanging behind her.

A group of Fae were carrying in a massive, ornate bell. Ursa couldn’t help but remember the prophecy from Morta, below the Caliber Institute.

Your life comes to an end almost as loud as the crack in the bell.

But, she’d quit. Surely the prophecy no longer applied?

‘H-hey!’ she called to a passing attendant, who looked at her with mild derision. ‘Whats the big bell for?’

‘It is struck when a verdict has been decided.’

‘Oh,’ said Ursa. Her mouth was suddenly quite dry. ‘Maybe this wasn’t a very good plan after all.’

Brynner hunched atop the report on his desk, scanning it over and over. The field agent that had brought it to him – their name was Leaf, Brynner seemed to remember – was sort of edging back toward the door.

‘Wait,’ the Director commanded. ‘I’d like some clarification. You’ve written here the phrase “a billion feral hell-dogs”?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Leaf. ‘Is that a problem? Not the dogs, I mean. I know the dogs are a problem, hence the report. But the phrasing, I mean. Is the phrasing a problem?’

Leaf had at least had the decency to print the report out rather than having Brynner use his ghastly lap-top computer. Perhaps a measure of clemency was in order. He looked up. ‘It’s just that I’m unsure whether this is hyperbole.’

‘Well, it’s an ongoing incident, sir.’

‘You know you don’t have to call me “sir”, right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘…Well, if we’re having a sudden influx of feral Infernals we’ll move to emergency containment measures. Penny?’

Penelope’s phantom head popped up from the floor.

‘Penny, we’ll need to send a message up to the Lakes. Have them prepare for a full breach – centralised on Middlemarch itself – but as the situation is still developing they are under no circumstances to act except upon my order.’ He paused and glanced down at the report again. ‘Or upon my death, I suppose.’

⁂

In an ascending lift at Open Sky Capital, Merlin, Nora, and Ursa were discussing their options.

‘So, it makes sense to do things in order of proximity,’ Merlin was saying. ‘We’ll finish up finding what we can in the vault, and if no more urgent leads arise, we’ll go to see Mr. Pyrite.’

‘We don’t want to be traipsing around the city trying to find some slippery Angel if we can help it,’ agreed Nora. ‘So Adagio is a last resort, right?’

Ursa looked up from the text she was sending. Both Merlin and Nora were pointedly looking away. She pressed send.

‘Hey, so we’re just clearing up a couple things at the crime scene but then we’ll be heading out. Got to go see a Dragon called “Mr. Pyrite” next! But then after that I think we can go see your friend? Hope you’re ok!’

Merlin squinted at the phone’s reflection in the lift’s reflective doors. He could make out the word ‘Pyrite’. He made a conscious effort not to make any assumptions.

Ursa got a reply near-immediately.

‘Holy shit, Mr. Pyrite the judge?! You’re dealing with the big names now! He’s a dealmaker and then some; the kind of guy that’d do wonders for, say, someone trying to organise a bit of Fiendish collective action.

‘I’ve tried to strike up meetings with him before but he’s a bit out of my price range, metaphysically speaking. Hey, you’re charming – can you maybe drop my name? Put in a good word?

‘For real though, be careful. He’s a big name, like I said. If you’re between him and Laniakea? Keep your head down, Ursa.’

⁂

Laniakea was waiting, immaculately tense, at her desk when they arrived on the top floor. Ursa slipped effortlessly into her role as Face.

‘Hi, we were just coming back to finish up a more thorough inspection of the scene of the crime, if that’s alright with you?’

Laniakea glowered at her, but it was obvious now that that was just how she looked all the time. ‘Have you identified the culprit?’ asked the Dragon.

‘We’ve got a couple leads but we need to confirm a few things first. With your permission of course.’

‘Very well.’

When Laniakea didn’t move to open the vault, Nora took it upon herself to push through the waterfall and do so instead.

‘Wait, it’s just a big lever on the wall?’ asked Merlin, joining her once the waters had parted. ‘Come on, that’s such a cliché! Is there no lock? No security?’

Laniakea was behind him, having moved in utter predatory silence. ‘I am the security, little Gnome.’

Merlin peered up at her. She wasn’t as tall as she seemed to be, but she was still a good two heads taller than him. He gave a friendly little smile. She didn’t return it.

They moved into the vault proper with the Dragon accompanying them, as – in her own words – she’d be ‘quite upset’ were anything else to go missing. Merlin got to work inspecting the arcane fortifications, the Dragon keeping within about four feet of him at all times. Apparently he was the most suspicious one.

‘So there are powerful wards against teleportation,’ he said as he worked. ‘Summoning, gate spells, and even planar shifting included… Astral projection wouldn’t breach these. Nor would a spectral intruder, like a ghost… Scrying isn’t possible either. And weirdly enough, it’s set to break invisibility too.

‘If someone came in here disguised or invisible, the wards would go off.’

Nora was sweeping the room with her Eldritch Sight to look for traces of magic. ‘We saw the footage. There was pretty clearly an invisible something,’ she said, absent-mindedly.

‘Well, said footage is on an analogue format. It’s a damn pain to edit something in or out of it, magically or otherwise.’

‘So it’s more likely they bypassed the wards rather than messing with the footage after the fact,’ said Nora. Her Sight wasn’t picking up anything other than the massive amounts of coalesced power in Laniakea and almost every single item in her hoard. It was hard to make out anything else, like driving with the sun in your eyes.

There was just a hint of something. An illusion? Or rather the traces of one, in the same way you can sort of tell if someone’s made a curry recently when you pass their kitchen.

‘But illusions on a person would break as they entered?’ she asked of Merlin, who nodded. ‘And they were in and out of the building in less than ten minutes, right?’

While they pondered, Ursa’s searching had come up with very little, so she resorted to her only other present means of education: the Dragon, currently trying to fossilize Merlin with the pressure of her stare.

‘So, Laniakea, could I ask a bit about your meeting with Mr. Pyrite?’ Ursa asked, watching as Merlin moved to inspect the broken case. ‘Its purpose, I mean?’

Laniakea’s eyes moved to hers. ‘You are prying into my private affairs?’

‘No!’ said Ursa. ‘No no, it’s just that we’re wondering if he may have had a hand in it, and been using the meeting as a distraction.’ She did not mention the double-agent Kobold currently manning the security desk downstairs. Laniakea probably knew about turncoat Tasi, but just in case she kept his orders from Pyrite to herself.

The Dragon didn’t respond right away. ‘I myself am Mr. Pyrite’s alibi,’ she said, prodding at the idea like a missing tooth. ‘Do you think he could have hired someone on the outside to steal my book? And pretended to have our usual meeting, when in fact he is the prime suspect?’

‘We’re trying to find that out!’ said Ursa, unable to keep a trickle of exasperation from her voice. ‘It’s a regular meeting, then? Like a catch-up?’

‘Mr. Pyrite and I have an understanding. We discuss upcoming projects, and ensure that we do not cross paths accidentally.’

Nora had come over, and even Merlin stopped what he was doing to back Ursa up. ‘You meet regularly to ensure you don’t meet?’ asked Nora.

‘Yes. A scheduled meeting in a public forum and an unexpected meeting at crossed purposes would be very different.’

‘Has that happened before?’

‘Yes. It has,’ said the Dragon. ‘Most recently when I acquired my still-missing book. Another clue that points to Mr. Pyrite as the prime suspect.’

‘Who else would have known about the book?’ asked Merlin.

‘Only myself and Mr. Pyrite. And those who were on the team to retrieve it.’

‘So could one of them–‘

‘No.’ The corners of Laniakea’s mouth twitched up, revealing her teeth. ‘I took measures to… guarantee their discretion.’

So she’d killed her employees. That was reassuring.

‘Couldn’t one of them, you know, have survived, though?’ insisted Merlin. ‘What if–‘

‘Do you doubt my ability to cull pests, Gnome?’

‘Well! We’ll just finish our inspection and then we can be out of your hair!’ said Ursa, clapping her hands together. She almost missed.

They resumed the look through the crime scene. At Laniakea’s needling, Ursa found herself crawling around on hands and knees beneath the broken case, picking her way around the shards of glass. She emerged to find Merlin talking through a discovery he’d made by analysing the broken glass itself.

‘– this, along with the breaks with the smallest perimeter, leads me to believe that the case was broken with something small but flat. A mallet, maybe? And… oh, Ursa, you’ve got something on your…’

He plucked something from the small of Ursa’s back, causing her to shoot bolt upright.

It was a feather. Dusky blue at its base and sunset orange at its tip.

Laniakea reacted as if Merlin had held up a severed head. ‘That,’ she breathed. ‘What is that?’

‘It’s a feather,’ said Merlin.

Lanikea’s whole demeanor had shifted. The executioner’s composure she normally held, all the coiled-up violence, the searchlight of her ire all flooded away. A plume of poison jetted from her mouth, and the grinding of her teeth lit the little cloud into a constant, sputtering green flare. Her eyes, though, were filled with misery, not anger.

‘Adagio,’ she said.

The others looked to one another. Nora was the bravest of them. ‘Does this look like it belongs to her?’

‘She is the prime suspect.’

Nora’s voice was not unsympathetic. ‘You said before that she was another enemy of yours? Could you tell us when you last saw her?’

‘I last saw her here. In the office.’ Something in Nora’s tone had softened her, almost imperceptibly. ‘That was the day she made herself an enemy.’

None of them knew quite how to respond. ‘Aw,’ said Ursa, but very, very quietly.

Their deadline was approaching, though. Having found what they could here, excuses were made and the three prepared to visit Mr. Pyrite.

‘Wait.’ Laniakea halted their egress. ‘I would like to keep the feather. If that is possible.’

⁂

The address for Mr. Pyrite’s chambers listed them as about five minute’s walk away from Open Sky Capital. Merlin made a brief reference to the rival gangsters in Lucky Number Slevin, but trailed off when both Ursa and Nora indicated that they’d seen the film.

His grumblings were interrupted by a ferocious barking sound. The three turned as one to see an odd-looking man sprinting full click down the opposite side of the road. As he almost fell, tumbling to one side and vanishing down an alley, his pursuers grew ever-closer.

Said pursuers were, at a glance, two small dogs – pomeranians or bichon-frises, maybe – and what appeared to be a rat, clinging to the back of one dog’s neck.

‘Huh,’ said Merlin.

Then the filter wore off, and the agents of the Caliber Institute saw past what the Vanilla Humans watching could see. In truth, the odd man was probably right to be running.

The dogs were Hellhounds, all hunter’s muscle, and acrid slobber, and mouths like a shark mixed with a cactus mixed with a tribal tattoo. The rat was some kind of cackling little imp, astride one hound like a jockey.

‘Should we… help?’ asked Merlin.

Ursa had already taken off running, and with a cry for her concern, Merlin took off after her. Nora sighed and followed with all the urgency of a chain-smoking teen on school sports day.

The alley was a blind one, because those are the only kind that exist when you’re being chased. The hounds’ quarry had sequestered himself inside a bin, Ursa could see his eyes glittering from just below the lid.

Her fingers came down to pull a power chord from her Midi Fighter, levelled at the Hellhounds as they advanced on the bin with the prize in it. But in her haste, the cable had somehow come unplugged. ‘Oh shit,’ she said.

Merlin was passing her, arcing bolts of lightning leaping between his hands like an accordion. He lobbed the Lightning Bolt down the alley, where it passed over the head of the imp and just obliterated one of the hounds. The Gnome planted his feet and held the lightning in a sustained blast, its crackling offshots quickly reducing the imp to toffee.

The blue light of the bolt faded, and there was one Hellhound left. Ursa finally snapped back from the spectacle of it, and got back to fixing her instrument. Merlin, too, retreated to hide behind a nearby bin.

The hound had turned to leap at Merlin, but an Eldritch Blast from Nora in the mouth of the alley slowed it enough that Ursa had time to mash the keys and level Dissonant Whispers in its direction. She looked back to thank Nora, who was advancing on the Hellhound, holding a bin lid like a shield.

The hound winced, but continued its advance.

And a tiny, glowing ember drifted to settle on its head. The odd man that had cast it sank further into his protective trash shell, closing the lid.

The ember bloomed, turning the whole of the world into fire and agony.

Ursa was just fast enough to see the Fireball‘s rapid expansion, and retreat before it could reach her. Merlin and Nora, though, took the full brunt of it.

They emerged from murky unconsciousness to see heatwaves still shimmering in the air, and Ursa standing over them with healing magic dripping from her palms.

‘Are you guys okay?’ she asked, eyes full.

‘Uh, yes,’ said Merlin.

‘Ow,’ said Nora.

With the status of the other two confirmed as ‘Still Living’, Ursa stomped over to the bin with the Fireball caster and sent the lid clattering to the floor.

‘What the fuck was that?!’ she demanded.

The man inside was trying to merge with the trash for camouflage. It wasn’t very effective. Momentarily, he’d emerged from the refuse and dusted himself off with an unwarranted and thoroughly undeserved flourish.

‘My apologies,’ he announced. At first it seemed like he was taking the piss, but after a moment it became apparent that his voice was just like that. ‘Were you caught within the blast of my immolative dweomer?’

There was a banana peel on his shoulder. He noticed and put it carefully back into the bin, before producing two vials of viscous red something.

‘It’s medicinal,’ he said, an unhealthy note of conspiracy to the word. Still, when Merlin and Nora drank, they began to feel better.

‘Right, who the fuck are you?’ asked Merlin. He was understandably a bit dyspeptic, and not only from the mystery potion.

The odd man squatted down like so his eyes were level with Merlin’s, as if the Gnome were a toddler. ‘Well, little man,’ he said, and stopped talking as Merlin pushed him off balance to careen backwards, knocking over the bin again.

The man took a moment to put all the rubbish back in; banana peel on top like a fascinator. He straightened up. ‘My name is Stiletto Benevolent,’ he declared, holding aloft a grimoire that flipped through pages in a nonexistent breeze. ‘I am a distinguished, discerning detective and puissant practitioner of the arcane arts!’

Nora threw her bin lid at him. It bounced off his face and he careened backwards, knocking over the bin again. A pendant of some sort dangled from his neck, revealed by his tumble – Nora took a moment to scan it with her Eldritch Sight, but everything about it, and its wearer, was completely obscured; a magical–null-space.

Once all the rubbish had been reorganised again, he continued with a bit less bluster. ‘I’ve been hired to look into a case of bibliolarceny at Open Sky Capital.’

‘Wait, stop talking,’ said Nora. ‘Hired by who?’

‘That’s the thing, I don’t know who! I have no idea who it was that has procured my services.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Compels me, though.’

‘So, what, you just got an anonymous tip?’

‘That and an envelope filled with cash,’ said Stiletto. ‘I have it here!’

He produced a nondescript brown envelope, warped by the sheer number of notes inside. Merlin knocked it from his hands, and Stiletto dove to catch it, careening backwards and knocking over the bin again.

‘But Open Sky won’t let me in for some reason, even after I charmed the receptionists,’ said Stiletto, after the usual trash-restoration. ‘And when I picked myself up from the kerb, a rift had torn the very air asunder and I was soon beset by those calamitous canines. There has been a sudden uptick in Fiendish activity throughout the city, you know. The mindless, antagonistic kind, I mean.’

‘Right,’ said Ursa. ‘We’re looking into that ourselves. Have you found anything worth sharing?’

‘Oh, no, I haven’t even been able to inspect the scene of the crime! I had heard tell of Laniakea’s trademark intensity, but I did not think it extended to those in her employ!’

Nora scoffed. ‘So you’re literally useless, then.’

‘Useless?! You already felt the sting of my magic, did you not?’

‘Fireball, though?’ asked Merlin. ‘That’s old man magic.’

Ursa held out a business card, which Stiletto eyed suspiciously before taking. ‘If you do manage to find something, my DMs are open,’ she said. The card had a little picture of herself and everything.

‘Ah, yes, you may require assistance,’ said Stiletto, producing a pen. He scrawled his own phone number across card-Ursa’s face, then handed it back. Ursa glowered at it with Green-Dragon ferocity.

‘What if you need to get in touch with us, though?’

‘I’ll remember,’ said the detective.

‘Ugh,’ said everyone else, as they watched him leave. There were no more Hellhounds on the way to Mr. Pyrite’s chambers.

⁂

Mr. Pyrite’s chambers held the sort of cosy opulence that could launch a thousand Pinterest boards. The polite and well-dressed receptionist had told them they were expected, and not been offended or even surprised when Merlin had asked for a cappuccino.

‘Okay, wait,’ said Ursa, swooping round Merlin like they were on opposing basketball teams. ‘Merlin, I want you to promise not to say anything that’ll offend him. It’s another Dragon, and you tend to think out loud and piss people off.’

‘Like with Laniakea,’ agreed Nora.

Merlin’s brow furrowed. ‘I thought Laniakea and I rather struck it off, to be honest.’

‘What? Good lord,’ said Nora.

Ursa tried to say a few different things, but kept trailing off. Eventually she settled on ‘Merlin, she almost decided to kill you. Twice.’

‘That was just banter,’ said the Gnome. ‘Or flirting, maybe?’

‘Merlin do not pursue that line of thought.’

‘I’ll ask her when we see her next.’

‘Merlin I repeat, do not pursue that line of thought.’

Inside the chambers proper, Mr. Pyrite rose from his seat to greet them. He was a big man, bald with a series of golden, floral tattoos on the left side of his head. When he spoke, his voice was unexpectedly nasal.

‘Ah, Laniakea’s extempore investigators, is it? Come in, come in, have a seat.’

Ursa made sure her smile reached her eyes. That was important. ‘Hi, Mr. Pyrite,’ she said. ‘It’s a real honour to meet you!’

‘The pleasure’s mine,’ said Pyrite. His smile stayed confined to the lower half of his face.

‘How did you know we’d be coming?’ asked Nora, looking not at the Dragon but at his furnishings; the stuffed bookshelves, the framed diplomas, the antique mahogany desk.

‘Ah, my inside man phoned ahead, as I’m sure you already know. Tasi tells me the three of you are quite talented; wasted in the Caliber Institute I’m sure. Humour me for a moment, if you don’t mind?’

Pyrite moved over to a large, ornate book mounted on a lectern behind his desk. This he retrieved, and set reverently upon his desk. ‘I’m sure you’re aware of the Draconic disposition,’ he said serenely. ‘This whole affair concerns Laniakea’s hoard, so you must be to at least some extent. Would you like to hear the subject of my particular fascination?

‘It’s True Names. Beautiful. This is my collection here. Want to take a look?’

He gestured at the page, at the cramped text spanning the paper. Though the text was in no language any of them could understand, what could be understood clearly – to anyone with even a lick of nous – was the sheer potence contained in the leather-bound volume.

‘It would be remiss of me not to ask three promising new figures if they’d like to add to my little collection?’

He held out a pen. All they’d need to do was sign their names on the page, and it would be encrypted by the magic binding all the others; added to the hoard.

‘What does having someone’s True Name do?’ asked Merlin, carefully.

‘Oh, it ties in well with the business I’m in. See, by holding the True Name of both parties, it’s much easier to quell any arguments and ensure that everyone respects myself and each other.’

‘So you hold power over them?’

‘Only in a very technical sense. It’s very unlikely that it would ever come to that. After all, if a bank were to spend its reserves, nobody would trust them to hold their wealth in future, would they?’

Merlin kept his mouth shut, as instructed. He didn’t voice any further trepidation.

Nora subtly spelled out a message to the Morris Worm on her wrist. ‘Should we trust this?’ Its reply was ‘I wouldn’t.’

For Ursa, she was thinking ahead. She wanted to hold her name back as a potential future bargaining chip, particularly after she’d found an opportunity to drop Alkahest’s name.

‘No takers?’ said Mr. Pyrite. He stuck his bottom lip out and made a show of his disappointment, putting the book back on its lectern. ‘Very well, very well. How may I be of help?’

Ursa checked the others didn’t want to speak, and cleared her throat. ‘So we’ve heard that Laniakea was at a lunch meeting with yourself when the incident took place. If we could ask, where was this lunch and what was it for?’

The Dragon waited for her to finish. ‘Am I to undertand that – despite my being with Laniakea at the time – I’m a suspect in this little investigation of yours?’

‘We’re just making sure we’ve got our timeline right,’ smiled Ursa, lifting a line directly from the procedurals she liked to watch.

‘Well, we’d gone for… what is it they call it? A “Cheeky Nandos”,’ said Mr. Pyrite. He noted the derision on Merlin’s face, adding, ‘It’s not about the quality of the establishment as much as how public it is. It happened to be the busiest at the time.’

‘Typical,’ said the Gnome.

‘Indeed. We were discussing upcoming projects and making sure we hadn’t double-booked anything.’

This matched what Laniakea had told them. Which meant the next step was…

‘We heard from Tasi that he’s been working for you for a few years now,’ said Ursa. ‘Why is it that you need a mole in Laniakea’s company?’

Pyrite’s eye twitched; it seemed that either the line of enquiry or Ursa’s tone had bothered him just a little. ‘It’s like they say,’ he explained, getting up and sauntering towards the door. ‘Friends close, enemies closer.’

The lock clicked shut.

The Dragon’s friendly smile still sat on his lips as he acknowledged their sudden concern. ‘Ah, you wouldn’t want anyone to walk in on a clandestine accusation like this, would you?’

‘N-no, I guess not,’ said Ursa, her smile less predatory and less convincing. ‘So, um, we heard from Tasi that you’d told him to leave the door unlocked as long as possible while the fire test was happening? Why was that?’

The room was warmer with the door closed. ‘Ah, that’s a bit of a joke at Laniakea’s expense. I do like to keep her frustrated where I can.’

‘It was a prank?’

‘It was, in fact.’

Contrary to what he might believe, Mr. Pyrite was not at all a good liar. He looked from face to face, checking for any spark of distrust. After a moment he seemed satisfied, and visibly relaxed, choosing not to elaborate.

‘Well… uh.’ Ursa tried to keep the dubiousness from her voice. ‘That doesn’t sound true, does it?’

‘Doesn’t it?’ Pyrite’s smile was set in marble, unwavering. ‘Oh well. Perhaps you should try finding Adagio? Laniakea and she fell out recently so maybe it’s something personal? Don’t let me keep you.’

‘You’re not keeping us!’

‘Oh, good,’ said the Dragon, and reopened the door. ‘Then you’ll be leaving, I assume.’

It wasn’t going very well. Ursa had been trying to say it wasn’t any trouble, but instead had agreed to leave – she wondered if that had been the intention. Nora, sensing that their time was growing increasingly limited, flashed on her Eldritch Sight in the hopes of picking up at least something.

Aside from the book of True Names and the Dragon himself, there was one source of arcane power in the room. It was Evocation, and condensed into something very small, in the top drawer behind Mr. Pyrite’s desk.

So Nora had to do something. She sat herself down and tried to look natural.

Pyrite saw her sit at his chair, and casually put her feet up on the desk. ‘I’m sorry, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

Ursa saw this too, and trusted that Nora surely wouldn’t do something so stupidly rude without a good reason. Probably. She needed to get Pyrite’s attention, and maybe if she phrased it properly he’d appreciate her frankness and stop lying?

‘Alright, let’s cut the bullshit, huh?’ she said. ‘Obviously you’re involved in this theft somehow. I don’t know if you’ve planted evidence – just bringing up Adagio like that was weird either way – or it’s some sort of “prank”, but we’d appreciate it if you’d start telling us the truth.’

She looked him dead in the eye, confident, assertive. He stared back. The temperature of the room began to rise, layers of heat emanating from Mr. Pyrite’s skin.

‘Frankly,’ he said, having apparently gone through such a meteoric ascent of rage that he now floated in a serene and stable orbit of placid fury. ‘I am having quite a bad day. I have had plans go awry because I made the mistake of relying on others than myself, and then on top of that I allow the three of you lesser creatures into my chambers, only for you to accuse me of petty theft?!

‘You would do well to leave, immediately, before I incinerate you.’

With a shrug, Nora shut the desk drawer and pocketed what she’d taken while Pyrite had been distracted. She got up and followed Merlin and Ursa, who were waiting just before the doorway. ‘Okay,’ she muttered, making sure the Dragon could hear. ‘I guess we’re telling Laniakea we’ve got our guy.’

A hand came down on her shoulder, kiln-hot. Nora panicked for a second – he must have seen her open the drawer. But instead, Pyrite spoke quietly behind her.

‘You can tell Laniakea that if she wants to go to war over this, she is more than welcome. But on your head be it.’

Merlin stood, mouth hanging open and finger raised like he had a point to make. Ursa, close to tears, tried desperately to smooth things over.

‘Well, uh, bye?’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry that–‘

Mr. Pyrite had gone over to the lectern with his pages of Hoard upon it, and seemed to be trying to calm himself. ‘Close the door on your way out.’

The three fled into the cool air outside.

⁂

Nora gently placed the gavel on the table. They’d gone to a coffee shop for shelter, and sat themselves at a table in the back after Merlin had tried unsuccessfully to order three cups of Vietnamese Cà Phê Trung (‘Mate, we don’t serve food,’ is what he’d been told).

The gavel was ornate and well-crafted, made of a rich brown wood with golden rings that looked like the real deal. The smoothness of it was only interrupted by a little inscription near the bottom of the handle, marking it as piece ‘2 of 3‘.

‘It’s got some damn strong Evocation baked into it,’ said Nora.

Merlin was eyeing it over. ‘I can’t identify anything without testing it… but it’s remarkably similar to the profile of what may have broken the case in Laniakea’s trophy room. Maybe a little bit smaller?’

Soon they’d retreated to an alleyway after some debate on what to test the thing on.

‘We can’t just smash up someone’s car!’ Ursa had said, when Merlin suggested a nearby car park.

‘We can’t just kill a guy!’ Ursa had said, when Nora suggested phoning Stiletto Benevolent.

‘Ready? Okay.’ Nora swung the gavel at a nearby skip. The side of the skip dented inwards, and the whole thing skidded to the opposite side of the alley with a fresh hole in the metal.

The three stared at it.

‘Okay, let’s… not swing that around anymore,’ said Nora. ‘So we think that might have been able to break the case with the books in, but we can’t exactly check as the case is already broken.’

‘Not to mention bringing that gavel to Laniakea is as good as accusing Pyrite and maybe starting a war,’ said Merlin. ‘The question is, did he lend out one of those gavels, or was one stolen from him?’

‘He was easier to steal from than you might have expected,’ mused Nora.

‘Hmm. I think Ursa was right to assume he’s definitely involved somehow. Ursa?’

‘Huh?’ Ursa looked up from the text she was drafting, trying to euphemistically – but without any ambiguity – explain to Alkahest just how badly the meeting with Mr. Pyrite had gone.

‘I said you were right to assume Pyrite is involved. What are you doing?’

‘Oh. Well, uh. I actually have this friend, you see, and they might be able to shed some light on the gavel and whether it could break that case. And hopefully they’d also know a bit about what book’s been taken, so we might be able to tell if it’s something Mr. Pyrite would want enough to steal?’

‘We do know he wanted it before Laniakea acquired it,’ said Nora, rubbing at her chin. ‘But I’m concerned about the number of people that know what we’re up to. Like, there was that Stiletto guy – still don’t know who even hired him, but they must know too – and now Mr. Pyrite? Maybe we should be keeping our investigation a little bit closer to the chest?’

‘Oh, we can absolutely trust this person!’ said Ursa. It might not have been a lie; she didn’t know yet. ‘We’re running out of other leads. We need to follow this one up as much as we can, right?’

Merlin thought back to the texts he’d snooped on earlier, but kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t healthy to just assume.

Nora was tapping her foot now. ‘Alright. Okay,’ she said. ‘But we only reveal as much as is necessary, nothing more.’

‘Okay!’ said Ursa. ‘Oh. They are a Demon, by the way.’

Merlin threw up his hands.

⁂

The address Alkahest had sent pointed at a detached Victorian house with a long gravel drive, nestled about half an hour away in the surrounding suburbs. It was nice and upscale, with a little stepped porch over the door and a little window beside it and everything.

Ursa knocked, and the door swung inwards of its own accord.

‘Oh, of course,’ said Merlin.

Inside, the house seemed to be full of a pervasive smoke, lit by no lamps. A voice drifted out towards them. ‘Well? Are you coming in?’

Ursa, though, was staring at the wallpaper. It was green and faded just slightly, in that Victorian style often emulated by the sets of period dramas. She’d seen it before on a video on her phone. ‘No,’ she muttered. ‘It’s just green wallpaper, loads of houses have that. Stop being weird.’

Nora jostled her shoulder.

‘Oh!’ said Ursa. ‘Yeah, uh. Alkahest gave me your address, and he said you might be able to answer some questions we might have? I’m Ursa, by the way! It’s nice to meet you!’

She turned to see both Nora and Merlin looking irritated.

‘I thought you said you were friends?’ asked Nora.

‘Well, uh. Friend of a friend.’

A figure was coming down the stairs, slowly, wreathed in smoke. They paused after a few seconds. ‘Ugh,’ they said.

Then they billowed out into smoke, vanishing and reconstituting themselves on the doorstep. ‘I’d forgotten how slow physical bodies are,’ they said.

Their clothes were feminine and fashionable, in a gothy sort of way, and a cigarette hung from their lip. Their hair was long and straight. Their eyes – four of them – were black with yellow irises. And they were retreating into the house, without waiting to see if the three were following.

Ursa jogged after them, with Merlin and Nora reluctantly following her in turn. Soon, they found themselves seated in a smoky dining room with the gavel on the table and the Demon mid-rant.

‘So, let me get this straight, stop me if I’ve misunderstood anything… Alkahest tells me a friend of his might be visiting, so she can make a couple enquiries about a missing book. I say yeah, no problem, it’s no skin off my back. And then said friend turns up and says that not only does the book belong to a catastrophiliac Ancient Dragon, but you’ve also stolen a magical something belonging to an entirely different Ancient Dragon and brought it to my dining room.’

‘Yes,’ said Ursa, checking for exits in case things went sour. ‘That about sums it up.’ There was the way they’d come in and another door on the adjacent wall, probably leading to a kitchen. The light was on around the gaps in the doorframe.

‘Right, just checking. Well. Whatever. I’m Strych,’ said Strych.

‘Strych-ly what?’ said Merlin.

His colleagues both shot him a look, and Strych leaned back in their chair. ‘Oh, he thinks he’s funny, does he? Well. He is, actually. Hahaha.’

They held up the gavel. ‘So,’ said Strych. ‘This thing would punch a hole of a certain depth in anything, no matter the material or wards or whatever. Glass, concrete, steel, tofu? Always the same depth. I’m guessing based on the little maker’s mark that 1 of 3 and 3 of 3 might have a bit less and a bit more power respectively.

‘As for what you told me about the book, and the ones that were still there… plus the sudden influx of Hellhounds and the like?’ Their face had gone a bit pale, and they took a second to light another cigarette. ‘It’s bad news, unfortunately. Someone’s gone and stolen the Infernomicon of Caravigg.’

The Infernomicon of Caravigg, known in other worlds by other names, was the most thorough and definitive tome of Infernology – the summoning, study, and taxonomy of both Demons and Devils – in the multiverse. The tome recounted both the oldest and most current descriptions of every Fiend in existence, and caged behind lines of its script roiled a devoured reference world of Death itself, which kept the book up-to-date, no matter how many pages might be removed.

‘It’s got the True Names of every single Demon and Devil, and it’s probably got a bunch of scary fuckers sealed up inside it too,’ explained Strych, ‘But worse than that, if enough Fiends of sufficient power were to tear out enough pages, they could feasibly pull the reference world from inside it to collide with this one.’

‘Hence why both Laniakea and Mr. Pyrite are interested in getting it,’ said Nora. ‘What about Adagio, though? Why would she want it?’

‘Adagio?’ asked Strych.

‘Oh, there was apparently an Angel at the scene of the crime. She left behind a feather that Laniakea recognised.’

Strych snorted. ‘That’s not how Angels work!’

‘…Okay, is Laniakea faking it then?’ said Ursa, more thinking out loud than anything. ‘It’s an excuse to go to war with Mr. Pyrite, maybe?’

‘Or Adagio, if she’s being framed?’ wondered Merlin.

‘Or,’ suggested Nora, ‘Is there someone else entirely that we’ve been overlooking?’

The three of them looked around the room as they thought, with Merlin and Ursa in particular glancing back through the hallway towards the front door.

A pair of sheathed swords were in an umbrella stand, and Ursa’s stomach did a flip when she saw their distinctive hilts. She remembered a certain Demon slowly putting them away when she cast Charm Person on him.

He was here?

But more pressing than that was the pair of eyes in the window by the door, which were what had caught Merlin’s attention and soon everyone else’s too. They were yellow, with slitted pupils, and sat in a feline face with black fur.

Cait-sìth was watching them from the windowsill outside.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an Ancient Dragon in possession of great power, must be in want of a hoard.

Or at least more things to add to their hoard. It’s psychological. Some say that with such long lives, a Dragon treats their hoard as a kind of external hard drive, storing their many centuries of experience in individual pieces like a student with a stack of flashcards.

This is why even benevolent dragons are so incensed by larceny; it’s not theft of a shiny bauble, it’s theft of a piece of the dragon’s mind.

That’s all well and good for your fantasy worlds where everyone is constantly covered in shit and all houses have a thatched roof. In worlds like that, Dragons still live in caves, and there’s no such thing as a capacitor.

In the world of Caliber, a Dragon doesn’t need to build a hoard for external storage. There are literal external storage devices for that. Yes, it’s a bit less romantic, but it’s indexable, searchable, and much more portable. There are pros and cons.

Yet the Dragons, despite spending the majority of their time condensed into a human shape, all still work tirelessly to cultivate a hoard. Few accumulate gold or gems; it’s more that they fixate on a subject or theme, and seek out items to collect within that genre. It’s not about objective value, it’s the personal value the Dragon places upon it; gilt by association.

So why do they do this? It’s simply the way their minds work. As creatures of Order (on a cosmic scale), they enjoy collecting and categorising. A place for every thing, and everything in its place. It’s psychological.

⁂

A single chair had been laid out before the Director’s desk on the top floor of the Institute. Upon it was a Gnome.

Merlin hadn’t been in the Director’s office alone before. He was used to two other chairs on this side of the desk, and two of his colleagues alongside (one of them refusing to be seated).

He didn’t appear nervous, mind you. More just uncertain, and irritated at the uncertainty.

Director Brynner’s metallic fingers clinked as he clasped his hands. Penelope Bynner, his spectral Granddaughter, bobbed slightly in the air with her feet at shoulder height.

‘I’ll get straight to the point, Mr. Williams,’ said the Director. ‘Penny has been telling me more about the potential of the social network you are working on.’

‘BlinkedIn,’ provided Merlin.

‘Yes, quite. If it were to really take off – “go viral” is the phrase, is it not?’ The others shook their heads, and the Director pressed on. ‘Well, should that happen, whatever it’s called, it could prove an incredibly useful tool both for the Caliber Institute and the Outsider community at large. In light of this, the Institute would be interested in funding your project as it exits the formative stages.’

For once, Merlin didn’t have a response already lined up. ‘Um… yes? That would be, it would be. Um. Yes! Fantastic?’ A beat. ‘Could I ask about my pay in that case?’

Penelope cleared her throat. Interestingly, ghosts still need to do this, though because of ectoplasm rather than phlegm. ‘We’d be looking to make BlinkedIn an official part of your role here at the Institute, so there’d be the wage for that on top of your salary for field work. We’d be hosting it on the servers onsite – you’ve already seen them, on the inbetween floor.’

Brynner was leaning forward in his chair. ‘I take it you’re interested, then, Mr. Williams? I’ll have a formal contract drawn up and we can get things properly signed and sealed soon. I think its capacity as an avenue of surveillance is extremely promising. That will be all.’

He began to shuffle papers on his desk, which were absolutely just blank.

⁂

Meanwhile, Ursa was sat on a stool in R&D while Emva did something arcane to a staff whirling away in the lathe. A gift bag containing some luxury hot chocolate kits and a book on cupcakes had been presented as a sort of bargaining chip.

‘…what I’m getting at is, uh, can a spell backfire and work on the caster instead?’ Ursa was saying.

Emva waited until she’d finished whatever step she was on before responding. Or maybe she was thinking through what to say.

‘I don’t think that’s a thing. Like, if you shot a Fireball another caster could send it back at you if they were powerful enough, I guess? But that’s less the spell being redirected and more the fire itself. Can you be any more specific?’

Ursa’s cheeks took on a bit of a Fireball of their own. ‘Uh, well, if I were to say, Charm Person, could the spell for example affect me and have me feeling weird feelings for a while?’

‘How long is a while?’

‘Oh, about a month now.’

Emva booted the E-stop on the lathe. ‘Then no,’ she said, quite firmly. ‘That’s not a thing.’

‘Oh. In that case, a completely unrelated question. You’re in a relationship with Cepheus…’

‘I am in a relationship with my husband, yeah.’

‘Yeah, I was just wondering about… like, you’re a Goblin, he’s a Minotaur… Is that something that’s, like, frowned upon in Outsider culture?’

There was a quirk of Emva’s eyebrow. ‘Ursa, are you asking about the… intimate logistics of our nights together?’

‘What? No!!’

‘Because let me tell you, it’s–‘

‘I wasn’t asking that! Oh my god!!’

‘–100% Beef–‘

‘Emva please that’s not what I–‘

Ursa desperately scrambled for a way to change the subject as Emva began holding up her hands as if estimating the size of a fish she’d caught.

‘Oh also Emva could you make some sort of charm that would protect against Scrying?!’

Emva stopped. She seemed to forget the previous topic. ‘Yeah, I could put something together.’

⁂

Nora had woken up that morning after a night of sleep that was to rest as raw tofu is to flavour. She stared at the ceiling in a fugue-like state for a few minutes, before her eyes came to rest on a long, silver thread that was coming from her chest.

‘What the fuck is this,’ she said to the Morris Worm, a few minutes later. She’d found that she couldn’t touch it unless she focused on it, and that it passed through walls and clothes. She’d tried to pull it out but to no avail. Checking through the window, it stretched off as far as she could see, vaguely northwards.

‘What is what?’ asked the Worm. ‘I don’t know what you mean?’

Nora plucked at the silver thread. ‘This!’

‘Uh… your shirt?’

‘Ugh.’ Nora switched off the monitor and left for work.

On the way she found that the thread was invisible to seemingly everyone; it passed through Humans and Outsiders alike. It always led off north. Whatever it was connected to must be quite a way away.

⁂

When Nora arrived at the Institute, she did so to find a message waiting to tell her she was required in Director Brynner’s office ASAP. It had been sent about 30 minutes ago.

She stopped by the canteen to get a cup of coffee first, because the ability to prioritise is what separates us from the animals. A Gnome in a beanie seemed to have had a similar primary concern.

‘Merlin.’

‘Nora.’

Their catchup out of the way, the two took the lift up to the top floor. Ursa was waiting in the little lobby before the office proper, and the three of them went in as one.

Most aspects of the office were familiar by now. The usual three chairs had been set out before the desk. The desk was largely normal, though it had been completely cleared of paperwork.

The comfortable leather chair behind the desk didn’t contain its usual occupant. Instead, a woman none of them recognised sat in it, curiously managing to both lounge and look like she was on the cusp of exploding into berserk rage.

Brynner himself was stood at the window, looking out over the city with his arms behind his back. He turned and addressed the situation before anyone else had the opportunity.

‘Ah, you’re here. It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Laniakea; she’s a… friend of the Institute, and holds no small amount of sway over the Draconic end of things in the city.’ His voice was perhaps a bit strained. ‘She’s here because as a key diplomatic ally of ours we do owe her for–‘

The woman got to her feet. She wore a smart business suit, hair tied back, and her eyes held gleaming murder. ‘I am here,’ she said, slowly and with an accent like translating her words into something understandable was a personal offense, ‘Because something has been taken from me.’

Brynner waited to see if she’d continue. When she didn’t, he turned back to his three employees. ‘Yes, unfortunately there’s–‘

‘I cannot rely on my own resources,’ continued Laniakea, ‘As they are more likely than not involved in this act of larceny. Understand that I would never stoop to utilising this Institute were it not a necessity. Tell me your names.’

Brynner nodded encouragingly.

‘Well, I’m Ursa!’ said Ursa. When the other two didn’t speak up, she added, ‘And this is Merlin, and this is Nora.’

‘That is enough. Will you accept the task I require of you?’

Brynner nodded again.

‘I mean, it’d be nice to get a bit more info before we agree to do anything,’ said Merlin.

The other two shot him a look, but he just gave a shrug that said What? It’s true.

Laniakea’s eyes narrowed. ‘You will be given only what you require. If you will not give your word that you will solve this incident, I am not willing to risk a leak of information. Do you accept?’

‘I never said I wasn’t going to,’ said Merlin. The others agreed.

‘Good. Minette?’

The woman that had been stood unnoticed in the corner rushed forwards with a laptop, and set it on the desk. She had the demeanour of a field mouse with an owl looming over it. She pressed a key and a video began to play.

In it, footage from what was obviously a security camera showed a display case containing four books. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then the glass of the case smashed inwards entirely on its own. One of the books lifted into the air slightly before vanishing.

Laniakea moved from behind the desk as if to leave. ‘So, you have seen what occurred. This should be enough information for you to begin. Retrieve my stolen property. You need not bring the perpetrator to me, but I would like to know their identity so I can mete out sufficient punishment.’

She made a little gesture and Minette held out a cigarette for her. Laniakea snapped her teeth and a little green spark lit the end. ‘Minette is my personal assistant. She will give you any other information you need. You have 24 hours.’

With that vague ultimatum she made her way to the lift.

‘Wait, wait,’ said Ursa to Minette. ‘Is that 24 hours because something bad is going to happen, or 24 hours because that’s just what she’s decided?’

Laniakea’s voice came back from the direction of the lift, which apparently hadn’t arrived yet. ’24 hours because that is the limit of my patience. So yes, something bad would happen.’

Minette gave a nervous laugh, though with her mouth clamped firmly shut so as not to let the sound carry. ‘Um, I can talk you through the events on the way,’ she said, still barely moving her mouth. ‘You’ve got permission to view Laniakea’s private collection; the, er, scene of the crime. So I can drive you across to Open Sky if you’ll follow me? We’ll… just wait to make sure Laniakea herself is already out of the building.’

⁂

On the way in a tinted-window SUV that was entirely incongruous with Minette’s seeming desire to be as small and quiet as possible – presumably a company car – it was explained that Laniakea was acting under the assumption that the theft must be an inside job, as the whole building was warded against teleportation and the like.

Said building, Open Sky Capital, was a private equity firm of which Laniakea was the owner and chief exec. It vetted its employees quite thoroughly, but apparently not well enough.

The firm owned an entire skyscraper, top to bottom; Minette’s explanation continued as they pulled into the on-site car park. Laniakea herself was an Ancient Green Dragon, so whoever did this was either strong enough to go toe-to-toe with her, or was stupid enough to necessitate a new category in the Darwin Awards.

‘Speaking of which,’ Minette murmured as they walked by the security desk. A Kobold and a Dragonborn watched politely, with the Kobold giving Minette a salute and Minette giving an eye-roll in return.

‘Laniakea has been calling those two the prime suspects,’ she said, once security had pushed the button that opened the lift. Inside, Minette tapped her I.D card to the control panel and the lift began to move. ‘See, we need to scan I.D cards for certain secure floors, and other than security, only Laniakea and I have access to her office.’

‘Is there a log of whose cards are scanned?’ asked Merlin.

‘Yes, it’s accessible from the security desk. We can check that after viewing the, uh, Hoard?’

‘That’s a point,’ said Nora. ‘How are we supposed to find this book when we don’t know what it is?’

Minette had the decency to look embarrassed. ‘I’m not sure about that myself,’ she mumbled. ‘Though the official line is that “you will know it when you see it”.’

They arrived on the topmost floor. It seemed Laniakea’s ‘office’ encompassed the entire floor – as the doors of the lift opened with a little ping, they were greeted by lush, tropical vegetation and a running stream. Perfume on the suddenly humid air. Birds and insects flitting about in their own miniature ecosystem.

A path lead up to Laniakea’s desk, which was more a throne with a table in front. There was an actual waterfall behind it, because of course there was.

‘I really dislike this bit,’ said Minette, and walked into the waterfall.

As the others debated if they were supposed to follow, there was a loud, mechanical sound and the water parted to reveal a dripping Minette by a nondescript door. ‘Shall we?’

Inside was the vault from the security footage. There were several display cases, multiple shelves of books, a rack of weapons on the wall – each of which was gleaming and razor sharp. There was also a large table at the back, done up like something in a church with candles and a fancy tablecloth, upon which was a simple mortar and pestle.

As the three visitors looked around, there was a shepherd’s crook mounted on the wall to one edge, there was a locked display with two fist-sized glass orbs in it, there was a display containing a leering face with some kind of sphere of pure blackness in its mouth, and a folded piece of cloth just next to it. A fiery red crystal about the size of a human palm, kept in a glass case so powerfully warded that Ursa’s hair stood on end when she passed by (the others had hats for protection). A crooked staff with a skull on top. A wand that looked like an iron spinal cord.

‘So…’ said Minette, ‘I’d recommend not touching anything. Laniakea’s hoard, the uh, subject of interest for her, is specifically doomsday artifacts.’

The case with the stolen book lay to one side of the room. There were three other books still in the case, untouched save for the broken glass atop them. Merlin inspected them; two had Infernal and Celestial imagery on the cover, one was simply labelled ‘The Archive’. Unimportant.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Firstly, this vault is incredibly poorly-hidden. The warding seems passable, but putting it behind a waterfall is a bit of a cliché, isn’t it?’

A voice rang out from the doorway behind him.

‘It is not a cliché. It is… cool.’

Laniakea had appeared in her vault. The others went completely silent. Merlin, though, found himself grappling with the danger he was in and the inherent comedy of the Ancient Dragon’s response.

He began to sweat. Couldn’t help laughing. Tried to suppress his grin.

Laniakea was standing over him then. A plume of green gaseous poison curled from the corner of her mouth, though her cigarette was long gone now. ‘Is something the matter, Gnome?’

There was a snap as she closed her mouth, and the plume ignited in a flash of viridian.

‘No. Nothing,’ said Merlin. He thought back to a dark room beneath the Institute, and a Fate with her back turned.

‘You can go now, Minette,’ said Laniakea, still bearing down on Merlin.

‘So! Can we ask a few questions?’ asked Ursa, while Laniakea’s assistant scurried off. ‘First of all, where were you when the theft took place?’

Laniakea turned quite slowly to face her. ‘I was out at a lunch meeting. Do you have any suspects yet? I am suspicious of the two manning the security desk at the time of the incident. There is also a new employee. She may have joined the company just to steal from me.’

‘Well, uh, we’ll start looking into suspects when we’ve got the timeline down. Who knew about your lunch meeting?’

‘The one I was meeting. Any who saw me leave. And Minette. Do you believe her to be the prime suspect?’ Another plume of poison.

‘No, no, we’re not–‘

Nora cut in. ‘You mentioned new employees. How long has Minette been working for you?’

‘A decade now. Do you think someone may have gotten to her? Has she been blackmailed into betraying me?’

‘We’re not accusing anyone yet!’ insisted Ursa. ‘Can I ask who your business lunch was with?’

‘You are asking a lot of questions.’

‘Well, yeah, that’s what we’re here to do?’ said Ursa, before covering her mouth.

On the bright side, Laniakea seemed to have forgotten her ire for Merlin.

‘I was meeting with Mr. Pyrite. He is another Dragon. An old enemy.’

‘You were meeting with an enemy?’

‘That is the whole purpose of business. Is Mr. Pyrite the prime suspect?’

Ursa suppressed a groan. ‘Well, if he’s an enemy of yours maybe we should look into him. Are there any other enemies that could pull this off we should know about?’

Laniakea thought for a moment, though her face didn’t change in any way. ‘There is… Adagio. But you will not find Adagio. She is elusive.’ She held out a card for Ursa to take, which held an address – a Judge’s chambers downtown, where Mr. Pyite could supposedly be found.

‘Isn’t there any kind of security system apart from the cameras?’ asked Merlin.

Laniakea showed her teeth. ‘I am the security, little Gnome. This is another clue that points to an inside job. The birds and the insects out there, they are my eyes and my ears. But the thief knew I would be distracted by my discussion with Mr. Pyrite.’

‘Do you let them come and go? Could someone have shapeshifted and blended in?’

‘I do not. If that is all for your questioning, I will be in my office proper. Minette will be on hand to provide assistance as you retrieve my property.’

‘We’ll do our best,’ said Ursa.

Laniakea tilted her head like a bird inspecting a grub on a tree branch. ‘I have been assured of your competence by your Caliber Director. Already I have overlooked several insults from you as I’m told your talents guarantee my property’s retrieval.’

Her face was inches from Ursa’s now. ‘I sincerely hope that our concepts of “your best” are one and the same. You have 22 hours left.’

⁂

In the lift downwards, Ursa whipped out her phone and penned a flash-quick text to a certain Demon.

Hey, so we have to find like, a doomsday device that got stolen off an ANCIENT GREEN DRAGON????? She’s fucking terrifying, but the good news is we only have 22 hours?????? Wish me luck?????? 💀 💀 💀

Merlin watched her do so on the semi-reflective walls of the lift. He couldn’t make out the message itself, but he could make out the word ‘Alkahest’ at the top of the screen.

They’d asked Minette to set up a room in which they could interview their suspects, but first and foremost, they wanted to take a look at the security logs and camera footage.

Alkahest had replied by the time they reached the ground floor, though from a different number than the one Ursa had sent her message to.

What kind of device?

A book. That’s all she’d tell us. Have you met her?

Shit. Could be a few things. But if it’s any of the ones I know about then that’s going to be… extremely bad. I’m sending you an address. It’s an old friend of mine. They should be able to give you answers.

I’m assuming ‘her’ means Laniakea? We haven’t met, no. Hope we never do.

Oh jeezeeeeeeee 😱😱😱 Thank you, will go check them out! Hope you’re doing ok!

‘Excuse me.’

Merlin’s voice ripped her from her messages. She frantically locked the screen, but fortunately he hadn’t been addressing her.

They were at the security desk now, looking down at Tasi – the Kobold – and Urknall – the Dragonborn. Well, they were looking down at Tasi. Urknall’s massive form still towered above them, despite her low chair.

‘Hello there,’ said Tasi, in a voice like a cartoon beetle. ‘How may I help you this fine afternoon?’

‘We’re investigating the theft that occurred yesterday, at the request of Laniakea herself. We need to see the security tapes covering the time of the incident.’

‘Oh, sure,’ said the Kobold. ‘It might take a little while to rewind though.’

As it turned out, the security tapes were literally that; there was a VCR with a screen built into the desk. Each tape supposedly covered one week. Laniakea insisted upon them, because analogue formats were harder to tamper with, magically or otherwise.

They sped through the footage. Tasi’s greetings were comical in fast-reverse, particularly his salutes that made it look like he was punching himself in the side of the head. Urknall barely moved; it looked more like she was at regular speed.

The tape slowed down to show lunchtime of the previous day. The lobby was full of people coming and going with lunchboxes and paper bags. Tasi marched toward the desk phone, saluted again, and stood at attention with it to his ear.

‘Oh, yeah, we do the weekly fire drill,’ said Tasi. ‘That’s what the callout is for.’

There was no sound on the footage. A Fiend with horns and mint-green hair wandered towards the stairs with her hands in her pockets. Merlin winced upon spotting her, but said nothing. The others in the lobby reacted just barely to the alarm, and stopped scanning their I.D cards to open the main entrance.

‘Oh the doors unlock when it’s the fire drill,’ explained Tasi when this was remarked upon. ‘For safety.’

‘Wait. Go back a second,’ said Merlin. ‘See there. The lift door opened.’

‘Oh yeah, that’s another fire drill thing. The lifts come right down to the ground floor when there’s a fire.’

‘That doesn’t seem very safe,’ said Nora.

‘Hey, I didn’t install them.’

‘Are the lifts still usable after they’ve come down to the first floor?’

‘Yeah, I think so?’

‘Then we’ll need to see the log of who used it during that time,’ said Merlin.

‘Uh, sure,’ said Tasi.

There was a rumble from Urknall. When she spoke it was slow but implacable, with the sort of inexorable momentum of a glacier. ‘That wouldn’t do any good though. The computer stops tracking while the doors are unlocked.’

Tasi shot her a hard look. ‘Well yeah, but you still need a card for the lift to work.’

Urknall nodded. Down on the screen, Video-Urknall had gone to check that the magnetic locks on the front doors had reactivated. Video-Tasi typed away at the security console.

‘What’s going on there?’ asked Nora.

A deep sound heralded another sentence from Urknall. ‘I went to see if the door had locked. Tasi does the computer things.’

‘So let’s just go over the facts,’ said Merlin. ‘Laniakea was out to lunch. So were a lot of people. You two did the fire drill, which meant the front door was all-access and there was no longer any tracking of who used the lift or what floors were accessed?’

‘…Yeah,’ said Urknall. ‘I think so. Probably.’

‘Could someone have used the stairs?’ asked Nora. She was growing more and more suspicious of them both, particularly Urknall’s deliberation before everything she said.

Urknall shook her head. ‘The doors only open for like, a minute until Tasi turns on the lock again. And it’s a big building.’

Ursa had been thinking through events. ‘Are there cameras facing the lifts on other floors?’

‘Yeah,’ said Urknall.

‘So can we see the one on the top floor?’

‘Oh. No, there isn’t one there.’

Tasi nodded in agreement. ‘The boss likes her privacy,’ he said.

Nora’s fingernails were digging into her palms at this point. ‘Did you notice anything suspicious? You’re the fucking security. Seems like you weren’t paying much attention.’

Tasi kept quiet. Urknall blinked and said, ‘Why we suspicious?’

‘Right, that’s it.’ Nora had her gun to the back of Urknall’s head in less than a second. ‘You’re covering for something. Both of you. Start talking.’

Urknall stayed completely still, as Tasi just stared dumbfounded.

‘Me, uh… me…’ Urknall began, before her shoulders sagged. ‘Alright, yes, I admit I may have overdone it on the whole “dumb muscle” archetype. That’s hardly reason to point a gun at me, now, is it?’

Tasi’s mouth dropped open.

‘Yes, yes, contrary to appearances my I.Q is a positive number,’ said Urknall. ‘Can we perhaps de-escalate the situation? I’m happy to talk.’

Nora lowered her weapon, and Urknall got to her feet. If Nora wanted to shoot the Dragonborn’s head, she’d need to fire her pistol straight up like she’d just found oil (black gold!!).

‘Okay,’ Urknall said. ‘Now, I wasn’t hired for my astute observations, I was hired because I’m nearly as broad as I am tall. But that does mean people will just assume I don’t notice things. Yesterday, the doors remained open – that is to say the magnetic locks didn’t re-engage – for quite a bit longer than usual.’

‘And why was that?’ asked Merlin.

‘I don’t actually know. Tasi really does do all the computer things. One of the perks of being thought an imbecile is that no one asks you for help with technical busywork.’

The three from the Institute turned to address Tasi. ‘It just sometimes takes a long time to activate,’ he said.

‘Does it really?’ asked Merlin, typing away at his laptop. ‘Because I’ve just accessed the logs and it seems to require an actual command. It isn’t on a timer.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes, really. It seems you waited seven whole minutes before locking the doors again.’

‘Oh. Well, sometimes you have a bad day. I’d been out drinking the night before. I was hungover.’

‘Who were you out drinking with?’

‘Oh, uh, just my cousin and my… grandmother.’

Ursa stepped into the foreground, leaning smoothly on the desk. ‘Tasi? I Suggest you stop fooling around and tell us the truth.’

She’d held a subtle little chord on her Midi Fighter the coated her words in salted-caramel magic.

Tasi blinked as if the pollen count had rocketed, then smiled. ‘Alright, fine. I was given orders to leave as long as possible before reactivating the locks and the security logs.’

‘From Laniakea?’

‘What? No, from my other boss.’

‘…Who’s that?’

‘Oh, it’s Mr. Pyrite.’

The others stared at him. ‘Tasi, how long have you worked here?’ asked Nora.

‘It’ll be five years in April!’

‘And was it all leading up to this theft?’

‘No, no. I’m more like a spy.’

‘What would you do if we were to tell Laniakea?’ asked Merlin.

‘She probably knows already!’ said Tasi, grin unfading.

‘So,’ said Ursa, thoughtfully. ‘If it wasn’t you that did it, you just helped… do you know who did? Obviously it wasn’t Pyrite himself, or he’d have missed his lunch meeting.’

‘I have no idea!’ smiled Tasi. ‘Mr. Pyrite tries not to give me details because I’m a bad liar!’

That seemed fair.

There was a ping from the lift at the lobby’s far end. The Fiend that Merlin had spotted in the footage earlier appeared, saw the Caliber Institute employees, and immediately vanished back into the lift.

She emerged on a floor about halfway up the building and made her way swiftly down a corridor. Merlin and the others were waiting.

⁂

One Hold Person and a length of rope later, the Devil named Rembra found herself tied to a chair in the party’s makeshift interrogation room.

‘How did you even find me?’ she asked, sourly.

‘We were literally at the security desk,’ said Merlin. ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Rembra?’

Ursa did a double take. ‘Wait, you know her?’

‘Yes. We’d worked–‘

Rembra leapt in. ‘I hired him before for a bit of help getting into a certain bank’s security!’

Merlin gave a shrug at the other’s incredulous looks. ‘She tried to pin it on me, too. I’ll repeat the question: what the fuck are you doing here?’

‘This is my job.’ said Rembra. ‘Been here a couple weeks! Lots of fun.’

This time Merlin wore the incredulous look. ‘What? What are you doing working? What happened to call that cash?’

Rembra’s archness trickled away. ‘I, uh. I lost it.’

Merlin laughed for a solid ten seconds.

‘Can you tell us where you were during lunchtime yesterday?’ asked Nora. ‘Merlin tells us you were in the footage heading into the building rather than out.’

‘Well, I never go out to lunch if that’s what you mean.’

‘Don’t you eat?’ asked Ursa.

‘I don’t eat food.’

Ursa frowned. ‘What do you eat, then?’

The ropes snapped. A pair of sharp, grey, bat-like wings grew from Rembra’s back. Her face elongated to unnatural sharpness, and her horns grew along with it, much more natural but no less sharp.

‘Hope,’ she rasped.

And then she leaned back, normal shape returning.

Ursa cleared her throat. ‘That seemed unnecessary.’

‘Meh,’ said Rembra. ‘So, I was just at my desk.’

‘Can you prove that?’ asked Nora.

‘Uh. I’d rather not.’

‘Why not?’

The Devil said nothing. Merlin, though, was furiously typing on his computer.

‘You were just sat looking at porn!’ he yelled. ‘For… seven hours?!’

‘I get bored,’ said Rembra.

⁂

Once Rembra had left, a few leads still bore further investigation.

• The scene of the crime presumably still held some potential clues.
• Mr. Pyrite was obviously involved, though precisely how remained to be seen.
• Ursa had been given the address of a contact of Alkahest’s, who may know more about what it was they were trying to find
• Plus there was the elusive Adagio, a known enemy of Laniakea.

Lots to do. Mysteries are a lot of work.

Upward, in the sky above the city, a bubbling red rift blinked open.