She stops before a blank wall on the side of the log house and waits, her arms full of fruit basket, as an opening slowly appears. When it is large enough, she steps inside and the portal closes behind her.

Inside, Meadowgloom is sitting, propped up in a chair near the fireplace. He is pale and thin now. His hair is thinner, and white. His large watery eyes dominate his sunken face and his meaty jowls hang on an otherwise gaunt face.

It is traumatic coming back from the dead.

Blackguard and Maddox are sitting with him.

Iofi sets the basket down on the table and retrieves one of the long, yellow, fuzzy pods. She peels it open revealing a bright green flesh speckled with small dark seeds. She scoops out the flesh, plates it with some bread, and brings it to Meadowgloom who accepts with a weak smile.

Maddox shifts uncomfortably in their chair. Iofi looks at him questioningly.

“Nothing,” they say. “I just. I just didn’t expect it to still be this hard. Being back here.”

“You don’t have to keep going down there,” she replies gently, sitting down next to them. “Why don’t you come on back. There’s no reason to torture yourself.”

Maddox looks away, closes their eyes, and nods slightly. Another Maddox snaps into existence by the table with the fruit basket. “I’m recalling everybody,” this new Maddox says, the first Maddox popping out of existence. “I need to have just one person in my head for a while.” They leave the common room, going into one of the bedrooms and closes the door behind them.

Iofi turns and looks at the fireplace. She and Blackguard watch in silence as Meadowgloom pretends to eat.

~ * ~

Bridgers Farm is an abandoned orchard just outside the walls of Kriteach. The goosefinger trees are growing untamed. More and more they are becoming a small, wild forest. Goosefinger fruit lies rotting on the ground in the summer. The birds and small critters can’t eat it fast enough.

The farm used to supply Melior Abbey with goosefinger to make wine and brandy, which the monks sold to support the abbey. And the farm.

When the King Vulture died and the monks all went mad, the abbey was abandoned. And then it was razed to the ground: what the people of Kriteach started in retribution, the monks themselves finished in penitence.

A lot of rubble and a few walls, an intact room here and there, are all that remain of Melior above ground.

Below ground the tunnels remain. The cellars and the catacombs, and a few sealed tombs. One such sealed tomb is rumored to still hold the remains of the 12th abbot of Melior who, according to legend, was entombed alive as punishment for heresy and for plotting against the King Vulture. For centuries the abbot’s remains have rested inside the wall undisturbed until just very recently when he unexpectedly gained a new cellmate, the Hand’s master assassin.

The Melior tunnels connect the abbey, nestled inside the city walls in Scholar’s Gate, to the orchard on the outside. A convenient way to transport fruit, and one of the few ways to bypass the city walls.

The privacy and freedom of movement provided by the tunnels, in addition to the farm’s remoteness and its taboo association with the mad monks of the King Vulture, are why Iofi and Maddox moved their new base of operations here from the compromised Bone & Beak bookstore and cafe.

“I think it’s time,” says Iofi and Blackguard tenses. “The Crown and the Hand are both looking for you, Blackguard. Why?”

Blackguard seems to deflate. Meadowgloom is sleeping in a chair by the fire.

“I didn’t know,” Blackguard starts. “I was – I was moving cargo. I would get a shipment container number, and then my men would go down to the dockyard and load up the crates and carry them out to Chicken Gate. And there’d be somebody there waiting to take the shipment. I didn’t know where it came from or where it went.”

Blackguard looks up at Iofi, wild-eyed. “You have to believe me. Nobody believes me. I just move cargo. The Count thinks I’m behind the whole thing! I don’t know how he found out. But suddenly I had royal funding. The shipments started coming in more frequently, and I had to step away from my other ventures and just … do whatever this is fulltime. Of coure I knew the Hand would find out. They know about everything that comes through the harbor. I knew that being in the pocket of the royals would do me any favors with them. But for a while it seemed I was untouchable. Until … until I found out what we were moving.”

Blackguard’s voice drops to a whisper, he casts his eyes downward and rings his hands. “It was people. People, I tell you.”

He looks up at Iofi, his eyes blazing. “It was Western people. It was Givzi people.”

Iofi and Blackguard are gingerly laying Meadowgloom down in the pantry, which is just barely large enough to accommodate his frame. He rolls his large watery eyes around without focusing on much of anything. He gasps for breath, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly like a fish. He is deathly pale.

Iofi looks up over her shoulder and glares at Maddox. They continue to fume, but quietly.

“Go get ready to snap inside the wall,” she says.

Maddox raises their eyebrows, a silent question.

“We shouldn’t move Meadowgloom any more. And,” her voices hardens, “I want whoever did this.”

“Are you sure about this? You’re willing to be god’s hammer?”

She nods resolutely. “Take the bathroom door.” Maddox nods and leaves.

“You,” she says, turning back to Blackguard, “stay here with Meadowgloom.” Probably didn’t need to be said. The man in the top hat has made no effort to leave his side, not even once.

“Stay quiet. We’ll be back for you when this is over.”

She stands up and exits the pantry and closes the door. She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a trinket, a small tin key that might open a music box. She stoops down and places it by the door frame, and touches the door, and whispers, “Hidden.”

The door vanishes.

She makes a round through the apartment, blessing each door and making small offerings.

~ * ~

Outside, a small street urchin watches from the gutter as a figure emerges from the shadows and approaches the door to the apartment. It turns the handle and silently crosses the threshold. The urchin vanishes.

The Dead Ringer climbs the steps up to the apartment above the bookstore. At the top of the stairs is a closed door, the door to the living area. He listens and hears nothing. He tries the handle. It is unlocked. He lets himself inside.

Inside is a plain, empty room. There is a small table and chairs in the middle, and a door in each of the other three walls.

The Dead Ringer listens and looks for signs of activity and, finding none, steps into the room and looks around a little. He tries one of the doors, opens it and peeks inside. The next room is plain and empty. There is a small table and chairs in the middle, and a door in each of the other three walls.

He looks back at the current room. And back through the door. The rooms are identical. He cautiously steps inside and closes the door behind him. He tries another door, only to find the same room once again.

He retraces his steps to the original room and opens the door to the stairwell. On the other side is a plain, empty room. There is a small table and chairs in the middle, and a door in each of the other three walls.

He closes the door quietly and backs up and looks around the room again.

~ * ~

Iofi and Maddox are sitting in the bedroom.

She is sitting on the bed, feeding a strawberry to the small, two-headed, black turtle in her lap. Both heads are eating toward the center from opposite sides, and both seem very content.

Maddox is sitting still staring blankly at the wall. They do that when concentrating on their other eyes and ears. And now that they seem to have more eyes and more ears than before, they do a lot more staring.

They blink a few times and turn to Iofi.

“Okay,” they say in their quiet melodic voice. “We’re ready.”

Iofi nods, and strokes the turtle’s back.

~ * ~

The Dead Ringer has been wandering through the single room labyrinth for a while now. It is starting to take some effort to continue to suppress his rising panic.

After an hour of trying doors at random, he opens a door onto a lavish library. He almost cries out in relief at seeing something different, and rushes into the room, closing the door behind him, his chest heaving.

Sitting at a desk on the other side of the room is Rose Walker. She looks up in surprise at the noise. When she sees who it is, she startles, and slowly lowers the book she had been studying.

“What are you doing here?” she asks quietly.

The Dead Ringer draws a dagger and springs across the room. In an instant he is lunging across the desk raising the tip of the dagger to her throat and reaching for the back of her neck to draw her toward the point.

His hand passes through her head.

The silent assassin’s composure finally breaks as he flinches and moans out loud, “Wha-”

Walker smirks and says coolly, “Good to know.”

“Snap.”

A sudden smell of burning oil, a bright light and a flash of heat behind him. A hand grabs the Ringer from behind even as he turns. He adjusts his grip on the knife and spins toward his assailant.

“Snap.”

The library disappears and they are plunged into darkness. The only light is his attacker’s lit torch. For a brief second, he can see his foe, their face distorted by the flickering light and the dancing shadows caused by the torch. It’s the short one with the blonde hair. Maddox. The Ringer slashes at them, but they leap back and throw the torch at his face. He dodges and it falls to the ground, sputters, and nearly goes out.

From the darkness, “Snap.”

And then silence.

The Dead Ringer waits, tense as a coiled spring, for something or someone to leap out of the shadows at him. But nothing happens. He is alone.

He picks up the torch and looks around. Solid, dusty stone floor, about five feet by six feet. Low stone ceiling. Stone brick walls. No door. No windows. No exit.

In the corner is a tiny desk holding a dust covered book and a spent candlestick. A human skeleton sits behind the desk, slumped against the wall.

The Ringer screams out loud in anger.

Outside his tomb, his voice echoes impotently and unheard throughout the tunnels below the ruins of the abandoned church.

EOF

They are dressed for the meeting in voluminous, jet-black robes lined with fur. And a black velvet mask with gold trim. The face depicted on the mask has large, owl-like eyes, and no mouth: they see all, and keep all the Hand’s secrets.

They look up as the door opens and the other four file into the small room beneath the wine cellar. All wear the same robes, and each wears a unique mask.

The masks are mostly for ceremonial purposes at this point. The true identities of the Hand are a fairly well-known secret within the inner circle.

Except for the Dead Ringer, of course. The current spymaster, nor their predecessor, have ever been unmasked.

The sit in order around the stone table. The Thumb to his right, the Tall Man to his left, then the Dead Ringer and the Pinky.

The Index marks their place in the book, closes it and sets it aside. They then produce another book from a bag under the table and opens it up.

“We can begin,” they intone after finding their place.

Pinky has been compromised again,” rumbles Tall Man. His mask depicts a face twisted by anger, or in anguish. He is an imposing figure. Many enemies have assumed that his large physique must mean a lack of smarts. They were wrong.

Pinky’s mask has hooded eyes and a smile, a face of indulgence and merriment. “It’s to be expected,” she retorts. “I’m the most public member of this organization. My businesses operate in the open.”

“When they come back,” interrupts the Thumb. “They can contend with the Ringer.”

The Thumb is a fat man. His mask has plain, straight lines for the eyes, mouth, and nose. A study in neutrality.

Dead Ringer sits back in their chair, half in the shadows. Their mask is unique in that it has no facial features. It is blank, with gold trim only around the neckline, uncomfortably like a noose. They don’t speak in meetings.

They nod to the Thumb.

It is settled.

“We’ll up your protection in the meantime,” the Thumb says, turning to Tall Man, who grunts and agrees to allocate some muscle.

The Index makes some notes in their ledger. “Very good. I think that concludes unfinished business, yes? Very good, on to new business…”

                                 ~ * ~

Iofi makes herself busy building little shrines to Janice. Small altars with incense and dried flowers and tiny stone carvings of two-headed turtles. She leaves little offerings of brass hinges, keys with no locks, locks with no keys, bits of shell, small vials of colored sand, and bits of dried seaweed. She is fasting in preparation for the first of the month and the rites she will perform.

There seems to be a perpetual secret scrum of Maddoxes in this corner or that, whispering intently amongst themselves.

Meadowgloom has given up on trying to serve them tea after they keep emphatically passing their illusory hands through the cup. He almost spilled the entire tea set once, expecting some of the weight to shift from the tray to them. “Let them just come and get the tea if they want it,” he grumbles to himself. “Assuming they can even lift the cup and saucer!”

Soon it is time to return to Madam Walker’s Supper Club.

                                 ~ * ~

Her information network is comprehensive.

Even if one doesn’t actually use her services, it is possible to construct a basic profile based on the “you” shaped hole in the information provided by her existing customers and her runners and spies.

Nothing is really private.

It doesn’t take long to build a basic profile on Blackguard. He is an importer of goods, and an investor in trades and ventures. Which can mean good money in a busy port city like Kriteach. He doesn’t frequent any of the brothels. Never married. No children. Has a cousin in Coopers Kettle that he writes. Usually takes supper at the Yeoman’s Club.

Recently gone missing. House recently burned down.

She puzzles over that last detail, not for the first time. Each of her colleagues has assured her that they played no part in the arson. This suggests there may be another player with stakes in this game. She taps a pencil pensively on her desk.

Early last year Blackguard appeared to divest himself of most of his portfolio. It is assumed that he subsequently focused his full attenion and all of his capital in a single venture, but it remains to be known what that venture is. He went completely below ground around the same time. Stopped going out. Ceased correspondance. Refused visitors.

Some things, after all, do remain secret.

Madam Walker sits at the desk in her library trying in vain to concentrate on the memo in her hands. She keeps glancing up at the door and resisting the urge to get up and look out into the hall.

As an experiment, she kept the door open. Light from the reading lamps in the library spills out into the hall on the other side. Until suddenly it doesn’t.

The hallway goes dark, as though a curtain has been drawn across the doorway. Walker stiffens. The darkness recedes and she catches a glimpse of an unfurnished room on the other side as the short thief walks in, closing the door behind themself.

“You have the information we were promised?” they ask in a quiet voice.

Walker nods and slides a folder across the desk to them. They glance at it but make no move to pick it up.

“Will you read it to me?” they ask.

Walker raises an eyebrow and smirks a little, and tells them a summary.

“He’s not one of my customers,” Walker concludes. “As I told you when we first met, I don’t know him. And I don’t know where he is.”

“Is that true for the rest of the Hand? None of you know where he is?”

Walker presses her lips together and smiles. “I don’t know what the rest of the Hand does and doesn’t know. That’s not how we operate.”

Maddox grunts. “Sure, I–” but the they cut themself off abruptly with a sudden intense look, and they snap out of existence.

Madam Walker blinks a few times in surprise at the abrupt departure. She stands up and crosses the library and opens the door to the hallway, only to see the hallway.

                                 ~ * ~

Meadowgloom is walking back from the grocer clutching a bag of bread and fruit for dinner.

He passes under the etched wooden sign of the Bone and Feather bookstore and cafe: a rook perching on top of a skull. He turns the corner of the shop into the alley and walks up to the side entrance, the stairway that goes up to the apartment above the bookstore where he’s been living with the cleric and the thief.

He reaches into his coat pocket and fumbles around for the key. It took a while to even get him a key to the place. Not because they didn’t trust him, but because neither of them uses the front door. Iofi seems to be able to connect arbitrary doors, so she can walk into the upstairs closet and arrive at her destination. Maddox either uses Iofi’s doors, or else they just teleport around between their different illusory selves.

“Meadowgloom?” a voice from behind him asks.

Meadowgloom startles, and fumbles and drops the key just as he pulls it out of his pocket.

Standing behind him, between him and the entrance to the alley, is a backlit figure wearing a coat and scarf and a flat crown hat with a brim. The figure is backlit, its face hidden in shadow.

“Yes? Who’s there?” Meadowgloom answers, and stoops down to fetch the key.

The figure steps forward out of the shadow revealing a lined, determined face wearing glasses and a mustache and goatee.

Still crouched down, Meadowgloom stops with his hand hovering over the key. He says in surprise, “Mister Blackguard?”

Blackguard’s seems about to break into a smile, but instead raises his hand in alarm and shouts, “Meadowgloom!”

For when Meadowgloom bent down to retrieve the dropped key, Blackguard was able to see a shadowy figure clad all in black with a black mask over their face step out of the gloom. It lifts an arm up over its head, a long bladed dagger gripped in its hand.

When it hears Blackguard’s name spoken out loud, it pauses for a fraction of a second, blade suspended in air, and tilts its head slightly. And then it plunges the blade into Meadowgloom’s back.

                                 ~ * ~

Upstairs in the apartment Iofi and Maddox hear a man scream in anguish outside in the alley. They look at each other and leap up and rush toward the stairs. Two other Maddoxes appear at their side as they go, running alongside them.

Iofi quickly unlocks the door and throws it open and a bunch of Maddoxes flow through the opening out into the alley.

They find a man sitting hunched over on the ground cradling Meadowgloom in his arms, rocking back and forth, both of them in a pool of blood.

Two Maddoxes dash away toward either end of the alley as the third steps forward, daggers in hand, surveying the immediate area. There is no assailant to be found.

Iofi stoops down and touches Meadowgloom. His face is frozen in one of curious surprise. He doesn’t respond or react. He doesn’t breathe. There is no pulse.

The man is crying. He looks up at Iofi and takes a couple breaths to compose himself.

Iofi squeezes her eyes shut and, hands on Meadowglooms chest, whispers forcefully, “The tide goes in, the tide goes out. All things come to an end, but not for you. Not here, not now. Your story isn’t over yet. Come back to us.”

She opens her eyes and peers expectantly at Meadowgloom’s face. Her countenance falls in defeat when nothing happens. But then his eyes go wide and he takes a violent gasp of air.

She sighs with relief. “Get him upstairs,” she commands the strange man. “He’s still gravely injured. We must tend to him if he is to live.”

The man nods and together the two of them lift Meadowgloom up to his feet.

“Who are you?” Iofi asks.

“My name is Dedric Blackguard. I heard you were looking for me. I need your help. I’m in danger and there’s nobody I can trust.”

EOF

In the dining hall, one of the girls startles them. But they talk their way past her.

They climb the stairs at the end of the hall to the second level.

When they get to the top of the stairs, a large, beefy guard jumps out and swings a fist at Maddox, but they dodge out of the way. Maddox swipes at him with a dagger, and the guard jumps back to avoid its point. The guard swings again and Maddox feints and stabs. The guard barely avoids the attack.

This time the guard lands what should be a direct blow, but his fist goes straight through the side of their skull. The guard stops and blinks a few times in confusion. Maddox whispers a single word, “Snap.”

A second Maddox steps out of the shadows and stabs the guard in the ribs. Iofi lunges forward and strikes him in the head with her hammer, knocking him out.

Maddox tries the single door at the top of the stairs. It is locked. Iofi lays her hands on it and opens it, and they slip through.

At the end of the hallway are two guards, on high alert due to the sound of the scuffle. They pounce, and Maddox turns and runs back down the hallway. They give chase and as they pass through the hallway, Maddox and Iofi attack from behind.

Iofi’s hammer knocks one out in a single blow. Maddox throws a dagger and catches the second one in the neck. He cries out, turns and jabs with his spear. Maddox takes a scratch from the spear, but then stabs again and the guard goes down.

Maddox continues down the hall, leaving Maddox and Iofi behind. They pause to listen at doors as they go.

They finally arrive at Walker’s study. The lights are on. She is sitting at her desk reading papers and making notes in a journal.

Maddox slips silently into the room.

Rose Walker looks up and sets her papers down and sighs, “I obviously need to up my security.”

“Not necessarily. There just aren’t really any doors that can keep us out,” Maddox replies with a nearly apologetic smile.

She smiles back and folds her hands together, waiting.

“I’m looking for somebody,” Maddox continues. “His name’s Blackguard.”

Walker unlaces her fingers, places her hands on the table, and stands.

“I’ve never heard him,” she says, walking around the desk and standing before Maddox. “He’s not one of my clients whoever he is. So why are you asking me?”

Maddox narrows their eyes.

In the hallway, Iofi holds the grimorie in both hands. Her lips move silently as she reads.

In the study, Walker’s smile fades and she falters, hesitates. Her confidence is suddenly, inexplicably shaken. Maddox smirks.

They take a step forward. “Help us find Blackguard.”

“I tell you I don’t know the man!” she protests, taking step back.

Iofi finally steps into the room. The grimorie has been placed back into her satchel. She holds her glass hammer at her side.

“Then find out. Ask your girls.” Iofi says idly, looking around the room. She walks behind the desk and flips through the papers, pocketing one or two of them. Walker frowns.

“We’ll be back in three days,” Maddox warns.

Iofi crosses the room again and lays one hand on the door to Walker’s study. “This door is now one of mine,” she says. She opens it and on the other side is the safe house. Meadowgloom, setting out a tea set, looks up in surprise and lets out a squeak.

Maddox smiles. They follow Iofi through the door and close it behind them, leaving Walker alone once again in the study.

Walker composes herself and crosses the room and opens the door and looks at the empty hallway on the other side, exactly where it should be.

EOF

“Yes, yes.” Dindrati waves his hand dismissively. His thumb and first two fingers are scaly, and each ends in a pointed tip.

He picks up a piece from the board and moves it.

“Your priorities have changed,” he says, finally looking up from the board. His wide, smooth face would probably be quite unremarkable were it not for the raised gold-colored scales on the side of his jaw, like beetle carapaces crawling up his left cheekbone and encircling his eye. That eye has no pupil, no iris. Just a solid pool the color of liquid, molten metal.

“I have reason to believe that the Hand may be involved in Blackguard’s disappearance.” Maddox shifts their weight back onto their heels. Iofi draws her shoulders back a little. “I want you to find out. And if it’s true, I want you to make them feel my disappointment.”

He turns back to the game. “Start with the Pinky,” he says and waves again, dismissing them.

Iofi clears her throat and says, “Going after the Hand is not nearly the same as interviewing the butler of a rich merchant. We’ll need to renegotiate our contract.”

Dindrati sighs and nods, and presses himself up from his game. He turns around and crosses the room. He draws one claw-tipped finger across the spines of the books on the shelf.

He pulls down a thick journal and turns back to the duo.

“Here,” he says, holding it out to Iofi. “This should be enough to balance the scales.”

Iofi reaches out and takes the book from the count.

“I’ll adjust your pay accordingly,” he concludes, sitting back down to the game.

The count nominally governs Kriteach County. He speaks with the authority of the king, and enforces his will with his own police force. But it is the Hand that in actuality runs the day to day operations of the city. They indulge in the standard practices of organized crime. Racketeering, bribery, extortion and the like. But they do so with the begrudging support of the citizens, because they also spend a significant amount of effort enforcing their own code of ethics. They investigate and punish breaches of conduct both within their own ranks, and also amongst the people. Theirs has become a sort of people’s court.

The governing body of the Hand is a council of five. Hence the name. The individuals may change and come and go over the years. But the positions and the titles are always the same.

There is the Thumb, as in “under my”. They serve an executive function in the Hand, getting to set agendas and priorities and direction.

The Index is the book keeper for the whole organization. His accountants and lawyers know all the secrets and how to protect them. And only he knows the extent and the contents, and the whereabouts, of the Hand’s coffers.

There is no subtly to the Tall Man’s racket. His is enforcement and protection. Usually through muscle and brute force. Although his crew has been known to pull off a clandestine operation or two.

The Dead Ringer employs a small number of spies. They broker in espionage, intrigue, disguise, and when necessary, assassination and disposal.

And finally there is the Pinky–as in “wrapped around my little finger”–whose portfolio includes information and blackmail. Their network of spies is not necessarily limited to, but is largely comprised of, the working girls in the brothels. And their intel are the secrets that foolish men let slip while their head is on the pillow.

It is a well known secret that the current Pinky, one Madam Rose Walker, is the owner and proprietor of Madam Walker’s Supper Club. A charmingly seedy establishment where you can get a good bite to eat and then, if you pay a little more, you can head upstairs and have one of the girls for desert.

Iofi and Maddox spent the day preparing. The book that Count Dindrati gave them was a grimorie. A book of magic.

One of the rituals they prepared involved Iofi consuming the heart of an animal. Meadowgloom dutifully obtained and prepared the beast while the two of them continued to study. “Divination is more your thing than mine anyway,” Maddox said apologetically as Iofi frowned and suffered through eating the thing.

And now here they are. Standing in the shadows outside the supper club in the southern part of the Lost Arch district, near the harbour.

Convention dictates they conduct their missions after hours. But “after hours” at a brothel is typically midday, which they agreed would leave them feeling a little exposed. So they opted for 3:00, the bewitching hour.

“Ready?” Iofi asks quietly. Maddox nods and the two of them step out of the shadows. Maddox grumbles once again at the lack of windows on the ground floor. They walk past the painted red front door and around to the back alley where the entrance to the kitchen is. Iofi reaches into her satchel to pet the black turtle as she walks up to the door. She places her hand on the door and speaks with two voices, “The door is open.” She presses gently and the door swings open.

She steps aside so that Maddox can slip in, and then follows them and closes the door shut behind them.

EOF

The four of them are sitting around a table in the safe house. Maddox, the bone doctor, Iofi, and Meadowgloom.

The bone doctor, summoned by Other Maddox, is extraordinarily pale. They have just finished stitching Maddox up, and are now wrapping them up in a bandage. They also set out some salve for Iofi, who is rubbing it into her boney forearms. They ache deeply from when she took the brunt of the blow from the axeman.

“I really don’t,” confesses Meadowgloom in his high, soft voice.

Meadowgloom is Blackguard’s majordomo, head of his household staff. Up until recently he was quite happy and content with his job.

That was before, of course, he was detained and threatened with bodily dismemberment by three thugs who broke into the Blackguard house. Before being rescused by the tall dark haired woman and the short fair haired man, both of whom command strange magicks and are also quite handy with a hammer and a knife, respectively. Which makes them in some ways even scarier than the burglars were. And ultimately they also eventually threatened him with violence.

All because of Blackguard.

Blackguard, whose investments, speculations, and ventures have made him one of the most conspicuously wealthy merchants in Kriteach. Possibly on the entire island.

Blackguard, who over the last month started becoming increasingly anxious and secretive. Holding meetings at odd hours behind closed doors. Spending more and more time alone with his books. As though he knew the net was tightening, drawing closed around him.

Blackguard, who disappeared three days ago and left Meadowgloom holding the proverbial bag. After years of service and loyalty.

Fucking Blackguard.

“I don’t,” continues Meadowgloom. “But I can recreate his final days in the house for you. I can give you access to his books. His correspondence. Everything.”

Meadowgloom’s confidence starts to waiver as the three of them walk back to the Blackguard house. It was his sanctuary mere days ago. But now the illusion of safety has been shattered, and when he thinks of returning he feels a knot of dread in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t think he’ll ever feel at peace there again.

He doesn’t know how right he is about that.

The street is blocked off. The house, in the middle of the block, is collapsed in on itself and continues to smoke and smolder slightly. It is blackened by soot, gutted by fire, and utterly soaked from the efforts of putting out the blaze.

The fire brigade is now focused on putting out a neighboring apartment.

Meadowgloom moans helplessly and wordlessly. He was already mourning the psychological loss of his home. But he wasn’t prepared for its physical loss.

“Shit,” curses Maddox.

Iofi looks at them and frowns.

“It’s a setback,” she offers.

“It was our best and only lead,” they counter.

Meadowgloom moans again and rushes past the barricade toward the house. He is stopped by the brigade, who won’t let him advance. Maddox gives him a moment, and then steps forward and gently pulls him away. They walk back in the direction from which they came. Meadowgloom, silent and dejected, flanked on either side by Maddox and Iofi. Nothing else to be done here.

“You’ll stay with us,” Iofi pats Meadowgloom on the arm.

Maddox mumbles something under their breath and nods.

“It’s the least we can do given the circumstances.”

EOF

“Does the formality of it ever strike you as funny?” asks Maddox. They are short and fidgety, with a ruddy face, small squinting eyes, and short shaggy blonde hair.

Iofi drags the fingers of one hand gently across the face of the door. Her other hand starts to reach instinctively for the satchel around her waist, but then the returns it to her side after all. “Funny?” she echoes quietly, almost to herself. She is tall, almost gaunt. Her long dark hair is pulled back into a low tight bun. She has slightly buck teeth and a slight overbite, and large dark eyes with hooded eyelids.

“Knocking like that. Like you need permission.” Maddox continues quietly, their voice just above a whisper. “You don’t find it funny?”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Iofi answers, turning her head slightly toward her partner.

Maddox turns from the lawn, satisfied for now, and leans over the railing to peer in through the window.

“The right thing to do,” they counter, “is whatever gets you what you need.” They squint, trying to make out the inside of the room through the thin curtains. “And right now, we need to find the merchant.”

The door opens a crack just as Iofi raises her fist to knock a second time.

Maddox quickly straightens up and tries not to look like they were just spying through the window.

In the doorway is a small bald man with a thin, meticulous goatee and mustache. He stands in the small space between the door and its frame and peers out at them with large watery eyes and a gaping mouth like a goldfish.

“Yes?” he greets them with a soft, high voice.

“Hello,” Iofi smiles, revealing an impressive amount of teeth, her mouth giving a round shape to her vowels. “We’re looking for Mister Dedric Blackguard. Is he available?”

Maddox clears their throat and tugs on their sleeves on the front porch. The small man glances at them briefly before flicking his eyes back to Iofi.

“No, I’m afraid Mister Blackguard is not here at the moment.”

Maddox asks, “Do you know when he will be back?” their voice a little raspy as they speak up to be heard.

“I’m afraid not,” he answers in his childlike voice. There is a heavy thump and a scrape from somewhere behind the door. The doorman flinches and smiles nervously.

Maddox narrows their eyes, and concern appears on Iofi’s face. “Is everything alright?” she asks. The doorman’s eyes flit quickly behind the door.

“Yes! Yes, everything is quite alright. It, erm. It was just the cat!”

“The cat,” echoes Iofi.

“Look,” the doorman squeaks, “I really must be going. I really am busy. I’ll tell Mister Blackguard you were here. Miss?”

“Iofi.” She gestures behind her, “and Maddox. From the office of the Governor.”

The doorman meeps quietly again. “The governor? Oh, um. Yes, very good. I will let Mister Blackguard know. Now, as I said, I am very busy. Good day!”

The small man closes the door in their faces. There is the sound of a key turning in a lock, and the sliding of a bolt.

“Do you think he’s in trouble in there?” Maddox asks Iofi, their voice a little more melodious as it drops to its natural register just above a whisper.

“If he is, it would be the right thing to do to help him, wouldn’t it?” Iofi answers dipping her hand into her satchel.

“I’m more concerned about losing a lead than doing the right thing, but you know. Tell yourself what you need to hear.”

Iofi places her free hand on the door and when she speaks next, she does so with two voices at once. “This door is unlocked.” She lowers her hand to the door handle and turns it, and steps aside making room for Maddox at her side as she silently opens it a crack.

Maddox peers into the empty foyer on the other side of the door. There is a staircase leading up to the second level, a hallway receding away from them toward the back of the house, and a large doorway on either side.

A second Maddox walks briskly but silently in from the room on the right and looks expectantly at the two of them lurking in the doorway. The Maddox on the front porch nods at Iofi, who pushes the front door open wide enough for them both to fit through.

Maddox tells the other Maddox, “Continue searching the downstairs. If everything’s clear, head back to the safe house and wait for us there.” Maddox nods, and silently continues through the doorway on the left into a dining room.

Maddox turns back to Iofi and nods questioningly toward the stairs. They go first, a dagger suddenly in each hand. She pulls a glass rod out of her satchel, something between a large hammer and small club, and follows.

At the top of the stairs is a hall with four rooms. Two to the left, one to the right, and one straight ahead.

Muffled voices drift down the hall from the room at the far end of the hall.

Maddox and Iofi creep forward. One of the voices is the high, soft, trembling voice of the doorman. The other voice is low, calm, and commanding.

“I told you I don’t know where he is!”

“And I told you that is not an acceptable answer.” Maddox frowns at the voice’s western accent and glances back and up at Iofi. She nods, a single line of concern creasing her brow. She heard it to.

“He has something of ours,” the voice continues. “We need it back.”

The doorman yelps and there is the sound of a brief scuffle, and a thump, and the doorman cries out in despair.

Iofi leans over Maddox and places her hand on the door. “Ready?” They crouch and raise their daggers. “We’re already on the other side.”

In an instant, Maddox and Iofi find themselves on the other side of the door. Two thugs are holding the terrified doorman down in a chair. One is pressing his hand flat down on the table in front of him, fingers splayed. A third brute is standing before the doorman, a cleaver in his hand, raised over the doorman’s fingers.

Maddox flings one dagger at the brute with the cleaver. It lodges in the meat of his shoulder and he howls. All eyes turn toward the door, which remains closed and locked.

Iofi points her rod at the brute and says, “That’s not a cleaver, that’s an eel!” The brute watches in amazement as the cleaver in his hand bends and warps and elongates and grows flesh and teeth. Teeth that the eel sink into the brute’s forearm.

The brute cries out and throws the eel to the ground and stumbles back.

The doorman scoots quickly away as the thugs release him and lunge toward Maddox, the first drawing a shortsword, and the second swinging an axe.

Maddox parries the shortsword, but the axe slices them across the ribs. They cry out.

“Maddox!” Iofi cries and brings her club down on the thug. It’s an awkward swing and glances off the thug’s arm, but it lands a substantially more solid blow than a frail glass rod ought to.

Maddox dashes to the side and throws another dagger, striking up to the hilt in the brute’s chest. He clutches the blade and staggers to the floor.

The thug with the shortsword hesitates and takes a step back. But the one with the axe charges forward and swings at Iofi. The blow is heavy and rattles her bones, but she deflects it and swings her club again, this time cracking the thug in the head. He stumbles.

Maddox, having produced another dagger, lunges for thug with the axe, but the slash in his ribs is so painful that he is unable to strike a killing blow. Still, the axeman cries and stumbles.

Seeing his opportunity, the swordsman darts forward and pierces Maddox clean through the shoulder. Maddox cries out, barely still standing.

Iofi advances in a fury and the swordsman falls beneath a flurry of blows.

Maddox collapses in her arms and she drags him over to the doorman, who is huddling wide-eyed in the corner.

The thug with the axe staggers forward and raises the blade over his head as Maddox reaches out and weakly grabs the doorman by his lapel. Iofi looks up and makes eye contact with the axeman as he grunts and swings down on them. At the same time Maddox whispers, “Snap,” and the three of them blink out of existence.

The axe buries itself in the floor, and the axeman looks around the room, empty except for him and his dead and dying comrades.

They arrive in a heap on the floor in safe house. Other Maddox is standing over them. They look gravely concerned, but they don’t move forward to help them.

“I saw,” they say softly. “I already called for help.”

Iofi, still holding Maddox in her arms, looks up at the other Maddox. “Thank you,” she says.

The doorman whimpers and tries to crawl away on all fours, and vomits on the ground.

Maddox groans, doubled over in pain. From between gritted teeth they hiss, “Wait outside. Stand watch.”

Other Maddox nods and silently exits the room.

Maddox drags himself over to the doorman, the two of them both on the ground, and they shove him onto his back. From somewhere, they have produced another long bladed dagger. “Now,” they whisper, holding the tip near the doorman’s face. “Whatever it is you were about to tell those goons, you’re going to tell us instead. Where’s Blackguard?”

Iofi, her gown covered in blood, stands up and walks over to Maddox and the whimpering doorman.

She crouches down and reaches into her satchel and pulls out a turtle shell the size of her hand. It is jet black, with a bright orange dotted line around the edge. She places it on the ground next to the doorman, and watches it intently.

The doorman glances from Maddox to it, as first one and then another head pokes out from the shell. One looks at the doorman curiously, and the other ignores him, looking as much in the opposite direction as is possible.

“Yes,” Iofi nods and says to the doorman, eyes still on the turtle, “I suggest you tell them what they want to know. It would be the right thing to do.”

EOF