Witch Hunt

"Well... you saw it", A muffled voice says through the haze.

"I mean, yea, but I'm not about to make a thing out of it", says another.

"Why not? Dusty, this is kinda my department. C'mon, we're so close." Alabastra's voice. I follow the sound out of my fugue state into the land of the living. My breathing is once again hard and shallow from the Subduant, and my ragged attempts to catch up to reality cause me to miss whatever is said next.

I look up. I'm in an unfamiliar location, at first, until last night's events slowly trickle back into my mind. Alabastra, Faylie, and Tegan's abode. Their couch, to be specific. I'm wrapped in blankets that I don't remember falling asleep under. In the kitchen, back turned, I see Faylie hunched over a countertop, doing... Gods know what.

The muted talking is coming from the bedroom. I pick up the current of conversation further along its stream. Tegan's voice says, "All I'm saying is, wait until after the weird shit's over. No reason to rush."

A sigh from Alabastra. "Fine, then. I can be patient."

Tegan's laughter practically shakes the door. "I'll believe that when I see it."

"Yeah, yeah. Love you too, hun." A smacking sound, almost like a...

A kiss? No, no, I must be mishearing things. Alabastra is with Faylie. She wouldn't... and, Faylie is... right there! Unless, I misread, and she's actually...

Dammit, I'm doing it again. Focus. I sit up, feeling more than a little clammy. An enduring effect of the Subduant. The usual surge of sinful thoughts and starving desires follows, slamming me like a freight train, and all I can do is hold on and endure. When my awareness returns at the other of the battle, Faylie hangs over the edge of the armrest like a passing tourist on a riverboat, here to see the sights and sounds of my state of unrest.

"Moodie! You're awake! Moodie's awake, you guys!", she yells to the door, then turns back to me. "You're awake."

I groan. "Yes, hi Faylie." She waddles back and forth excitedly.

The door practically spits out Tegan and Alabastra. In that order, as they tumble out from the bedroom. Tegan nearly tips right over, before she catches herself on a side table. "Uh. Meant to do that", she says.

"Coulda waited, Stardust", says Alabastra. Her eyes lock with mine. "Moodie! Feelin' better?"

"Yes", I lie. Acclimated to my circumstances isn't exactly the same thing as better. But it's close enough to qualify.

She nods. "Guess I'll trust ya on that!" She dusts her hands, and looks over at Faylie. "You finish the thing yet?"

Faylie hops back into the kitchen, and produces a small, circular object. It looks to be a mish-mash of metal, fashioned from spare parts of various appliances and bent utensils. The ugly junk-constructed disk sits snugly in Faylie's palm. In her other hand, she holds a tarot card depicting a sly and sneaky man carrying a bundle of seven swords. "VERTO", she utters, and the white lines of the emanated card face match the shine of magic that glows over the strange metal object, as the sword-carrying man crouches low, bundled swords becoming harmless loaves of bread. I blink, and the object in her hand is replaced. Apparated in the makeshift statuette's space, she holds The Timekeeper.

A facsimile. "Ah. You're using something physical as a base. Clever." Illusions without form are easily discovered as such, after all. The more senses you fool, the better.

She smiles, humming a triumphant little trumpet trill. "I knew you'd get it!"

"Well. Then I'd better get to my part of the plan." I stand, pull my alchemy kit satchel off the floor, and make for the kitchen.

* * *

I toil over my makeshift alchemical setup, a small stand with a heating mixing flask over my own burner, mortar still carrying the dregs of ground greenery. Beside it, I carefully lift a pot of boiling water from the borrowed kitchen stovetop, slowly pouring into the flask, and setting the empty pot down again.

On the counter behind me sits a cold breakfast plate. Untouched pancakes and eggs, neglected and soggy. Try as I might, I just can't seem to let myself even think about food. Even the smell reminds me of just how starving I am. Of how little I can give that craving an inch.

"Not gonna eat?", asks Alabastra from across the room. I turn over my shoulder to see her approaching with three licked-clean plates. I shake my head. She continues, "Damn shame. You make a mean pancake." She sets them down in the sink.

"Where'd you learn to cook like that, Moodie?", Faylie asks. I'd only agreed to cook for the three in exchange for utilizing their kitchen, I didn't exactly expect... this reaction. "You might even be better than Tegan!"

Tegan shouts an indignant, "Hey!" Both on the couch, she playfully nudges the faun with her shoulder. "Actually though, you might be right. I only know how to cook like, a few things."

"Cooking is just edible chemistry. It's not that hard...", I say. My nights alone would often be filled with experiments, and sometimes, my curiosity would lead me to a kitchen instead of a lab. There's something... relaxing about cooking. About utilizing my skillset in a less stressful environment. If I measure wrong or skip a step, the results aren't so potentially disastrous; there's more room to improvise.

Alabastra lingers a moment longer. "That was not science, Moods. That was art."

I groan. What would she know about art, anyways.

We move in tandem over the next hour, making our individual and group preparations for the coming caper. Finally, I've finished the last of what we need. I click the burner off, gathering up the vials in my gloved hand. Two small, cylindrical flasks, the length and width of a finger, both filled with white liquids, one more opaque and viscous than the other.

The flasks start to cool, and I pass them into my non-gloved hand, shaking the glove off with a jerk.

The thieves mill about the flat, having slipped into distraction waiting for me. Alabastra's melted into the couch, reading a worn-out copy of The Complete Works of Lillian Stakestane. Faylie's pulled out a small sketchbook, jotting lines as she kicks her hooves laid over Alabastra's lap. Tegan boxes against a standing dummy in the corner of the flat. As I finish my work, Alabastra catches my eye. She rotates the faun's fuzzy legs off of her, stands, and saunters over. "You finished with the stuff?"

I nod. "I just hope it works. I didn't exactly have the highest quality ingredients to work with. Never mind the uneven heat, the unideal workstation, the distracting accomplices..."

She raises a brow. "Oh? My apologies for not accommodating your needs, Your Majesty."

As if having standards is somehow aristocratic. "At least if I were a monarch you wouldn't needle me on top of your bumbling."

Tegan chuckles. "You definitely don't know what Allie thinks of monarchs, then." She sticks out a tongue, drawing a thumb across her neck. Alabastra gives a 'what can I say?' shrug. I'm not sure if I should be troubled now by the comparison...

"Alright!", announces Faylie. "Gather around everyone, it's disguise time!" She stands in front of the couch, facing the wall, bidding us closer.

We rushed through this process yesterday. I'd like to be at least marginally more prepared this time. "Should we figure out codenames first?"

"Nah, nah", says Alabastra. "Complicated codenames get lost in high-stress situations. We'll just use initials. A, T, F, M. Easy."

"Fair enough." I register what she just said. "Wait, why am I-"

"NOVUS PERSONA." Faylie produces a card once more, channeling arcana in a no-doubt elaborate story, and a flash heralds our illusory appearances. Once more, as my eyes adjust, she's conjured a large illusory mirror on the opposite wall for us to appraise our interim appearances. In Alabastra's spot, a tall Fey being with golden-green skin, leafy hair, and wearing a slick black suit and matching hat. Beside her, a like-wise being, shorter, with plates of armor strapped overtop the suit to account for Tegan's clatter, and bark instead of leaves. In Faylie's spot, a far-too adorable sylph of wispy skin and glowing eyes, dragonfly wings behind a flowing dress, headband over golden blonde hair.

And... a blank spot between Tegan and Faylie, where I should be standing. I look down at myself to see a black suit and light-blue skin like Faylie's disguise; then back up again.

There is nothing in my reflection. "Is this some kind of joke...", I say.

Faylie stumbles over her words. "Um, no! I don't... I don't know what's wrong!" She seems as distressed as I am. I pick up a mug from the coffee table behind us, waving it around. In the mirror, it darts back and forth without source. Great.

Alabastra says, "That's probably not as bad as it seems!"

"Alabastra", I say.

"Moodie?"

"Stop." I push past the three. As if I needed more incentive to get this done as soon as possible. I keep getting worse. Who knows what tomorrow will bring... No longer entering homes without an invitation? A severe garlic allergy? How much longer before the sun is firmly my foe... I need the watch. Soon. Before I deteriorate any further.

The half-elf calls out behind me, "For the record... you are nailin' the look."

Unbearable. Perverse. "Are we ready?"

"One more thing." She steps ahead of my arrested form, gathering us at the apartment door. "Before we leave, I just wanna say... Whatever happens in there, I'm proud of us, all of us, for getting this far. I don't know what's waiting for us after we nab this thing, where we go from here... but I do know that, as long as we're together, there's not a damn thing this world can throw at us that we can't handle." She pulls us into a group huddle, that becomes an awkward triangle hug with a limp fourth edge.

Some overwhelming nihilistic part of me knows that this can't possibly end well. Something will go wrong, or someone will get hurt. But knowing that doesn't change my course an inch. It's either we do this and fail, and I die fast and bright, or we don't, and I die slow and rotting, and take who knows how many down with me.

So, once again, I march willingly into the sunlight, on the off chance it won't burn me to ash. For the nebulous prospect that someone might be spared.

It's time to get myself clean.

* * *

Alabastra kicks down the door.

The glass window of Tinker Tack's front door shatters as she does, announcing our entrance with a crash. She walks in, bow drawn and aimed squarely for the halfling's center mass. "Pardon the cliche, but this is a robbery."

"What in the nine hells-", begins Gimbleshanks.

The rest of us filter into the building behind Alabastra, with varying degrees of fanfare. Faylie practically skips inside. Meanwhile, Tegan has to push me in, as I'm momentarily too shocked to move. I have to remember; it's all part of the plan. We're not really going to murder this woman in cold blood. It's performance. Absolutely.

"Tie her up, T", Alabastra motions to Tegan. Tegan maneuvers around the woman, affixing the halfling to her own chair with a length of rope pulled from her belt loop.

The entire time, Gimbleshanks yells, "What's the meaning of this?! Who are you people?!"

Faylie yells back, "We're the fuckin' faery mob, bitch!" She jumps and covers her own mouth, like she didn't mean to say that so aggressively.

Tegan gags the halfling with a handkerchief, causing her next words to come out as a muffled, frmph fhrght fhrahb?, carrying the same cadence as, 'The what mob'?

With the shopkeeper tied up and out of the way, Alabastra lowers her bow. She steps forward, fishing through the woman's apron pockets and yanking free a ring of keys. "You didn't think your little Syndicate could stay on top forever, right?" On the one hand, I already know Alabastra's an excellent liar, and ergo, an excellent actress. On the other... she sounds like she sincerely means that.

The halfling's eyes are searching and confused for a moment, then harden into a steely stare. Arms bound and shop facing an impending ransack, it seems 'Ms. Gimbleshanks' has dropped the act. Alabastra was right... again.

The rogue tosses me the keys. Thankfully, I do not drop them, though it is a close thing. "Get to it", she says.

The three of us move to the stairs. I unlock the basement door on the second, no, third-fourth try, and start to head down, Faylie in tow. Tegan takes position at the top of the stairs. She looks back and forth between Alabastra at the entrance, and the automaton lying in wait below. Her hand hovers beside her head, twitching toward her sword hilt like a coiled viper, ready to draw.

My heart seizes in my chest as we reach the bottom, eye-level with the killing machine, an unmoving sentinel, a cyclone of cruel metal held frozen in place, waiting. Every instinct in my body screams to not go down there, to not march myself to my own early grave. But bodies are weak things. I've been hungry for three weeks, and my salvation lies in wait on the other side of its reach. Even a cyclone has a calm at its eye. Alabastra had said they only leap to attention at obvious signs of violence and chaos. She stands waiting at the other end of the shop, but in this moment, it may as well be her arms I trust fall into. A leap of faith.

I step into the cellar. The machine stays dormant. Sweat wiped from my brow, I lead Faylie on to the display case. Now comes the tricky part.

They respond to violence. Breaking is a kind of violence on a thing. It is a form of un-making, swift and savage and imprecise. But not all unmaking is breaking. So I am not going to break the case, but I am going to unmake it.

At the end of the day, it's just 16 pillars of wood, 5 glass planes, 2 inside metal hinges... and the glue that holds it all together. I produce my haphazard creation: an acid solvent. And with slow and steady application from a small vial, the burning white liquid renders the adhesive undone. From the edge of the glass plane and the corner joint of two slotted-in pieces of wood, I work outward in linear patterns. I do not have long, but I can't work too quickly. Spill or let loose an errant drop, and I won't have enough to finish the job.

Loosened of its once-bound grip on itself, I slowly pry two pillars off, and slide the entire top pane of glass from the rest of the frame. Placing the methodically de-crafted wreckage in a pile beside the case, I motion for Faylie.

She sneaks beside me, holding the imitation watch above the real, like a holy symbol brought afore a god's shrine. Carefully, she wraps her fingers around the real watch, and... stops. Faylie stares at the timepiece, transfixed.

Ah, right. I'd been the only one to touch it before. I give a light shake to her shoulder, jostling her from her mesmerized state. She looks around. "Oh... oh my gosh, that was-"

"I know." I look into her eyes, no longer alone in the knowledge of just what it is we've obtained. "Stay with me."

She closes her eyes, finding center once more. "Okie-doke." She turns back to the watch, and lifts it from the hook. With a decisive motion, she pulls it away and hooks the fake in replacement. Without a lick of ceremony, she drops the real watch into her bag.

I turn back to the killing robot. Blessedly still. I breathe a sigh of relief I hadn't realized I was holding. Quickly, I turn back to the box, producing my other flask. A likewise white liquid, but viscous, shiny, to redo what was undone.

Less careful than if I'd been the true craftsman of this piece, I hastily put the case back together. Glass in wood, in wood, to wood. With my homemade adhesive, it just about holds. For now. "That won't last forever", I say aloud.

Faylie shrugs. "Neither will my thing, but, hey, they'll probably figure that out soon anyways." Quickly, we cross the basement back to Tegan. As we go, Faylie eyes the other passing items. Necklaces, staves, even a large sword hung on the wall. Alabastra had been clear; anything we take that isn't the watch isn't for keeps. But Faylie's wandering eye hasn't quite gotten that memo. Passing by a long case with a crystal staff within, Faylie slows to a near-stop, her hands dragging over the glass, dinner plate irises scanning the mage's artifact.

"No." I grab her, lightly, with an eye still on the machine, and pull her to the stairs. Faylie reaches out with swatting arms toward the cases. Her incorrigibility is going to be the death of us one day.

"But what if... we could just grab it and run...", She says, bargaining falling on deaf ears.

Meeting Tegan at the stairs, I take one last look at the machine. Not this time. The knight in her disguise nods to us, and we ascend as a trio. Back up top, Alabastra sits on the desk, eyes darting between Carol and the street. "Right on time", she says, "Think we got law." She ushers us toward the door. Through the larger window, I see the distant crowd down the street begin to part for the vague shape of a police wagon.

Panic bids me to stop and stare. I hadn't considered how I might feel seeing lawmen actively opposed to my freedom again. I was never particularly good at running as a child. They always found me in some alley or park, took me back to the homes, or threw me in a cell until someone further up the chain bid me released. Some of the law hated me, I could tell. Revulsion dripping from them like a foul odor. They would become so angry when I didn't say anything.

"M!" Alabastra shakes me loose from my affixed stance once more.

I look around at the others, sheepish. "Sorry." I meet Alabastra's eye. "Are we leaving?"

She motions us out of the building, rushing toward an alley. "Think we'll take the high road." She points with her thumb to the building tops.

Ah, great. My favorite.

* * *

Pushing hard against the brickwork, I make a poor mimicry of the others' fluid motions, as they leap, slide, dart, and weave like unwired trapeze performers along the rooftops of The Reds. Tegan and Faylie move with a more practiced precision, steps learned from hard-won lessons. But Alabastra is completely in her element. She vaults over a roof railing and kicks off the side in a single spinning motion, soaring over a gap the rest of us have to maneuver around, and lands with a roll without a single stop.

Balancing on slanted roofs and building up speed on flats, I'm stumbling behind the others, out of breathe and muscles aching in protest. I can hardly keep pace. My halting whenever I accidentally look down isn't helping much, either. We are... very high up. My vision tunnels down at the street below, the people more like dolls from this distance. I shake myself and keep running, pushing through the burning in my chest. At least it's not raining this time.

By now the law has likely arrived at the scene, but we're already blocks away. Alabastra stops, motioning us under a small water tower, a spot hidden from street view. We all gather close together, shoulder to shoulder. Without warning, she pulls us in for a hug, laughing like a lunatic. "Clean as a fuckin' whistle", she manages through her guffawing.

I plant my hands on my knees, breathing hard and desperate. "Next time", I say, vainly indulging the fantasy that there will be a next time, "I'm brewing stamina potions."

Tegan says through short and quick panting, "You can make those?" She leans back, centering herself from the no doubt heavy task of locomoting through heavy armor. "Why have we not been buying them..."

"I don't sell them. They're highly addictive." They all cast fretting glances my way. "One won't kill you..." I put another hand on my chest, steadying myself.

I'm not some moonshiner or drug peddler. Even the chance I'd be selling something I myself had created the demand for... that's not how I want to conduct my business. If I cared enough to enrich myself, and had less scruples, it would be an excellent way to turn a profit; but profit was never my purpose in the first place.

That being said, flirting with the chance seems plenty worth it to me in the moment, still feeling my limbs cry out in exertion. It's not like I intend for this part to be a habit, after all.

Alabastra claps me on the back. "So? How you feelin'? Mentally, I mean. Because physically you look like you just ran the Ostian Marathon."

"That was...", I begin, not entirely sure where I'm going next, "... Remarkably simple." And it was. There was nothing elaborate about our execution, no indulgences or over-complications. We set out a plan and followed through. I'm not sure how to feel about how... easy it was. How unexpectedly decisive our success was, how rote it all felt. And, despite myself... how little I feel any guilt. I am not disgusted at myself, as I no doubt should be, there's no haunting phantasm admonishing me for my crimes. In fact, I almost feel... good. Great, even. Like I could do that again.

Faylie hops up, stopped from banging her head against a bar by Tegan's quick hand on her shoulder. "You took that thing apart, Moodie!"

"It was nothing, really." I can still feel my hands shaking. I'm pleased the solvent plan worked; Alabastra assured me the night before that the automaton likely wouldn't interpret taking the box apart in a more methodical manner as aggressive, but it was still a gamble. And for once, my rotten luck didn't show its face.

I almost don't believe it. Maybe I shouldn't. But just this once, I think I'd rather borrow some of Alabastra's delusional optimism.

Mixed with my own brand of cynicism, mind. Someone still needs to be. "Are we far enough away to be having this conversation?", I ask.

Alabastra nods. "Iron Fucks won't say a peep to the law. Code of silence or whatever. Flatfoots might give the place a once-over, but they won't come this far. They'll get back to twiddlin' their thumbs soon enough."

An increasingly common annoyance for me, but, I have to concede that she's right. The police are just people; lazy ones, at that. They're just as prone to slacking off as anyone, if not more so. If these criminals really aren't going to say anything... well, no reason for the law to chase ghosts across the most populated city in the country.

Tapping Faylie's shoulder with the back of her hand, Alabastra says, "Well... don't keep us in suspense! Let's take a look."

With a flourish, Faylie retrieves the watch from her bag, dangling it by the chain from her fingers. The glassy mirror surface of its face reflects the three women in stretched fish bowl caricature. Its skinny minute hand stays forever stuck at 12 o'clock, without the matching hour hand to make it right even twice a day. A broken unremarkable thing to an unknowing eye.

But armed with the knowledge of what it's capable of, it looks to me as resplendent as a sunset over the River Bassarin. It is the final key, the solved equation, to lift away my gnawing hungers and hang them on the shelf, away from the world once more. An impossible machine, brought down from on high to banish my curse. And it's ours. We did it. We have it.

I reach out to grasp my prize, but Alabastra's hands are as fast as her mouth, and both faster than mine. "Lemme take a look", she says, fingers wrapping around the metal. Like Faylie, and myself before her, Alabastra is transfixed by the timepiece, by the truth of what we have stolen, unfolded before her in an instant. "That's... that's really something." Her voice is far away, dredged from an almost subconscious place.

"I know", I say, without thinking much myself. What else can I say, under The Timekeeper's weight. Words don't do it justice.

She turns the brass over in her hands, sliding the pocket watch between her fingers like a skipping stone. And, damn my impatience, but, she should hand it over already. I almost want to pull it from her. I shake my head. No, that's the monster talking. I can wait a moment longer. Alabastra's fidgeting stops with an inquisitor's eye on the back of the watch. She pulls it closer to her face, and her eyes light with alarm. "Oh, shit." She pulls Faylie in closer. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."

Faylie leans in as well, and gasps. "Oh no..."

"What?", I ask, eyes sharp with focus. This had better not be another damned prank... Alabastra brings the watch closer to Tegan and I, pointing to a tiny blue crystal, no larger than an apple seed, sitting on the watch's metal surface. Tegan doesn't seem to connect the dots right away, either. It seems to me just a bit of residue or detritus.

"It's a tracking gem", Faylie says, a ball of nerves. She clarifies, "It's paired with a seeking stone: whoever has it knows exactly where this thing is."

Alabastra says, "Which means the Cozzos. Fuck." She stands, hunched between the bars. "Get up, team. This isn't over yet."

Of course. I had to even think it. Of fucking course my misfortunate curse would choose the apex of victory to strike at-

"Moodie!", yells Alabastra. "Get out of your own head."

She's right. Not the time. I stand, looking down at the watch, at the gem planted on its surface. "Can they... see through it?" I'm glad we discovered this before we dropped our disguises...

Faylie shakes her head. "They just know direction and distance."

"Still plenty of rope to hang from", says Alabastra. She paces back and forth in the tiny hiding spot we've chosen, tall form hunched like an old willow tree. If this was anyone else, I might mistake her look of consternation with fear, but, surely she isn't truly afraid...

"Can't you just remove the gem?", I ask.

Alabastra looks cross. "Don't you think I woulda by now if I could? These things stick like the plague..." She starts to furiously scratch at the little blue gem for show. She may as well be clawing at steel.

"I could try-"

"Your solvent!" She finishes my thought. "Do you have any left?"

Frantically fishing through my satchel, I find the discarded vial. A slimy layer of slick coats the inside, generous to call it a few drops. But even table scraps can feed a mouse. I pass Alabastra the liquid dregs of my labor. She upturns the vial, hands more precise than my own, not a shake or sway to the motion. Tiny, leaky faucet drops slide onto the gem, running down the side of where it meets the artifact. If this was the sort of watch that only told the time, I might worry about the acid corroding or warping the outer metal.

With the last driblets poured, Alabastra begins to tear away at the gem once more, poking and scratching and pulling at the tiny crystal like a scab. Even assisted alchemically, the thing doesn't budge. Alabastra begins to swear up a storm, desperately failing to pry the magical tick from its host.

"Allie", says Tegan, "It's not comin' off."

Alabastra's fae disguise misses the peculiar way the edge of her mouth curves, but this false form better befits the scowl she wears now. "Dammit." She turns to Faylie. "Think you could zap the little stinker?"

Faylie shakes her head. "I really don't know... Probably not. I'm not very good when it comes to magic item stuff." I suppose that makes a kind of sense. Artifice is an inherently permanent art, and Faylie is a wayfarer through life.

"Wish we knew an artificer..." Alabastra trails off. She snaps her fingers, turning to me. "Hey, didn't you know one, back in the Institute? That, uh-"

"No." They're all staring now. My insistence always seems to do this. "No, he's, um. He's unavailable." They seem amenable to that answer, at least, nodding and returning to their thoughts. This would be a strange time to grow pushier. Thank the Gods.

The silence begets brainstorming. My solvent didn't help to dissolve whatever force is keeping the tracking gem attached. I can only assume that bond is magical in nature. I could try to concoct something that might help, maybe break the gem itself down, but there's no guarantee it would work, or that it wouldn't also damage the watch. And I'd need to experiment closely, meaning I'd be leading these criminals to my own laboratory. Not my preferred customer.

Alabastra leans back on the support beam of the water tank, the perpetual motion powering the engine of her thoughts moving to the tapping and rubbing of her hands. Lightning seems to strike her, as she springs into action. "Okay. What if we... set up an ambush! Wait for 'em to come knockin', and then we get the drop on 'em! Swipe the seeker, sock the trouble, problem solved."

"You know them best, Allie", says Tegan, "Think we can take 'em?" We? She'd better not mean me...

"Pfft. You kiddin', Dusty? They'll act all tough, send some enforcers, sure, but it's nothin' we can't handle."

That seems to satisfy Tegan well enough. She nods. "Then that's the plan."

I, on the other hand, still have some caveats. "Now, hold on..."

"Moodie", Alabastra says, head tilted in knowing concern, "We're not gonna ask you to throw a punch on your first day. You can lay low - we'll handle this."

Though, now that she's said it... I do wish I could assist. Not that I would be much help, but I don't enjoy being dragged around and having nothing to contribute. Someone more chauvinistic might even be ashamed, letting three women do the 'men's work' of violence while I sit in some corner. Not the case in my circumstance; in fact, the thought rings a pang of disgust within me. I just... don't want to owe them more than I already do. "You're sure this is a sound decision?"

To be honest, I'm not sure why I asked. It's not like she'd be honest if she thought it wasn't. "Of course", she says. "C'mon. I know a spot."

* * *

Well into Grennard now, the distant northern factories choke the air around us with smoke. Alabastra leads us to a wide, flat brick building with an arched glass roof. Nobody has made regular stops through here in an age; the building is a corpse picked clean by carrion bird scavengers. The sick and diseased plant life of the district rises from the ground like a hand shot through a grave, dragging the old, abandoned warehouse down into the muck.

Not my preferred locale, but a perfect spot for an ambush.

"Dunno how long we've got to wait, but knowing the Syndicate, they'll want their toy back sooner rather than later", says Alabastra. "Still, hope you brought somethin' to read." As we venture inside, she points out a collection of crates well suited to ducking behind in an old moldy corner. It blends in well with the old moldy walls and old moldy floors. Support beams of rusted iron jut from the concrete floor, and only dusty broken boxes, turned over shelves, and wild cracking weeds populate this house of nothing.

Faylie chimes in, "I can make us invisible if we really wanna get the drop on 'em!"

"Good with me, as long as it won't tap ya out, Glowbug."

"Might have to stick to lower-tier magic for a bit, but that shouldn't be a problem if they're just sending a bunch of doofuses." She climbs up on a soapbox, the extra foot of height making her still-disguised sylvan form only just taller than Alabastra's. "INVISIBLIS", she incants, The Moon held high above her head. Disappeared, disguised, and untraceable in a mirror to boot... I may be the least perceivable individual in the city right now.

As much as the growing aches in my stomach pain me, even more so now that my solution is so tantalizingly close, holding onto the watch seems like a terrible idea at the moment. It negates the entire point of hiding if I'm huddled next to the lit beacon we've laid in the center of the room. And so, I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

My mind draws down in circles, over and over toward that gnawing center. The chomping pit within like a churning junkyard masher, engine greased and powered with blood. Gods, how long has it been since I fed? As necessitated by the nature of my appetite, I don't hunger as often as others seem to. But the slower horse still arrives in the end. That jaunt across the rooftops... was I so tired because I'm unpracticed? Or am I withering away, sure as a mountain ground to dust by spilled over rivers. With how little it helps with the thirst, I've been neglecting drinking even stale blood... but perhaps my body still needs it, mind-wrought starvation or no. Or perhaps I'm truly doomed without that watch. How would I even tell?

This is torturous. The last thing I need is to think right now, but what else can I do? Count the weeds? Actually, I may as well...

I feel a little tap on my shoulder, and scramble backwards in a panic. "Hey", says Alabastra's voice.

"What- How did you do that?", I ask.

"Lucky guess." I can hear her shrug.

I pull myself back up to my feet, balanced on my toes to keep from having to sit on the cold floor. "Stop with the luck, already."

She chuckles. Without source, I can only guess the width of her smile, the crook where her lips meet her cheek. "I can't help it. I'm feelin' real fortunate, these days."

Does she have to be so confusing... "Why? Seems to me like we've had almost nothing but misfortunes."

Alabastra is silent for a moment. I almost start to think she up and left, before she says, "If I spell it out, I think I might break it."

She sounds... afraid? "Break what? Alabastra, what are you talking about?"

Another pause. "Moodie. You don't... you know you don't have to go back, right?" Before I can get a word in, she continues, "No, that's... that's not the right way to say it."

Thankfully, no one can see me draw my knees close to my chest, hugging at them as I lean in closer to her voice. I don't know what to make of her, here and now. What is she trying to get at? It's like she's prodding at something, trying to find the best way in. But into what? Curse my lack of social grace; I wish I knew how to ask her what she's looking for. But if just wishing for something made it possible, if simple desire was enough to overcome the mind, the body? My life would be unrecognizable. Wishing I knew what to say won't make it so.

I can only make a gamble. "Alabastra... What was the third reason?"

She guffaws. "Wow. You remember that?" An unseeable hand meets the wood of the crate, steadying itself. "I think we're almost there, Moods. But I can't exactly tell ya here."

"Can't?" I stand. For my own sake. "Since when can't you do something? Your whole... thing is disobeying rules."

"I can have more than one thing...", she pouts. "And there ain't a chance in the hells I'm letting this go down in a freakin' rundown textile warehouse. It needs to be at least a couple of orders higher on the scenic venues list... maybe like a dirty boxing ring, or a carny break room!"

I scoff, stifling a chuckle. "You're impossible."

And then it hits me. No other word captures her more. Impossible; she has to be impossible. One of a kind. The exception that makes the rule. The proof of the law, and the point where it breaks. She is a walking fantasy, a sea of contradictions. The light of her star the melting point where all the threads she pulls together bond and reshape themselves in infeasible ways. Alabastra Camin must be these things. Always out of reach, unobtainably unabashed, so bright she can't be looked at too close. She must.

She gets to be those things, precisely because no one else can. Because...

Because if that weren't the case... Because if she isn't...

A chorus of hoof stomps and wagon wheels from the outside interrupts my thoughts. And, thank the Gods for that. "Shit", Alabastra says, "Showtime. Hold that thought, Moods."

Not likely.

Initially I crouch down behind the boxes, until I remember, invisible. I still lean low; they'll make for good cover.

A rushing in my ears starts to overpower my senses. Outside of a handful of isolated, low stakes instances, and a few fights with more monstrous creatures fought by these women themselves, I realize that I've never actually been party to real violence. The kind where people kill each other, or at least try to. I've seen its aftermath, plenty of times. I've seen its prelude, even, on the streets growing up. But never quite the action itself. I've always been a runner.

But now there's no escape, no looking away. Silhouetted by the cloudy sky beyond, four figures pour into the warehouse. All men, human, or maybe half-elf. They brandish daggers and crossbows in lax, wide swings. The frontmost mobster holds a peculiar item outstretched in his hand. A talisman, the necklace wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet, a pendant of stone. Inlaid in the center rests a glowing red gem the size of a grape, lighting the man's chin from below in scarlet hues. He points the talisman forward, toward the center of the room, where the Timekeeper was left discarded on the floor, and motions his cohort toward it.

Bait on the line. With a loud crack, Tegan emerges behind the backliner, the blunt end of her longsword delivering a decisive blow to the head. No fanfare, no drama. A quick and brutal swing, and the fighting kicks off. Pulled from her hidden state by her own escalating violence, the spell breaking under so decisive an action, the three remaining adversaries turn on the knight. The arbalists back up, stumbling as they go. The remaining knife man steps hard to the side, trying to find an angle past the paladin's shield.

As the crossbow gangsters turn to line up their shots, twin blasts of arcane energy knock them in the stomach, sending them to the ground writhing in pain. Faylie emerges from the opposite side of the room, cards brandished in a fanned array before her. One of the bowmen scrambles to his dropped weapon, firing a wide shot toward the faun from his position on the ground. She yelps, ducking under the hopeless missile and scrambling behind her own cover.

The other prone mobster, the one with the talisman, palms his crossbow off the ground in a sprint, off to find his own cover. He spots it. Mine. My heart leaps into my throat as he rushes toward me.

He doesn't make it. An arrow from the ether embeds itself in his calf, and he flops hard onto the ground. His face slams into the concrete, coming up confused, smashed, and bloody, red specks damping and staining his facial hair. Wasting no time from her emergence, Alabastra sprints forward, and kicks the man while he's down. His head jerks violently to the side, and he doesn't move again.

Something inside of me reviles. There's no grace to the brawl. It's just brutal, cruel, and messy. A level of barbarism that turns my gut. Part of me wants to turn away. Part of me knows I can't.

But that's the normal reaction. What I would expect, were I not a thing of cruel intent. Behind it, something wicked stirs. Deep, hungry and bottomless within me, something revels. Celebrates the ferocity. Drinks in the bloodshed as it would blood itself. It is not enough that I enjoyed the robbery, a fact I am already ashamed to admit. Now I'm taking in this spectacle like a common subject at the old bloodsport shows.

No. No, it's so much worse. It's more than that. This isn't entertainment. It's need. Deep, unsatisfied need, that I didn't know to voice until now. Alabastra turns to the other, sends an arrow into his thigh, and I'm horrified... and yearning. Bolts of blue light strike him hard upside the head, eliciting a crack, and I am in awe.

There's... there's more wrong with me than even I thought.

I watch in confused lechery as Tegan swings her sword low, slicing into the dagger wielder's leg and catching on the kneecap. She wrenches the sword free and bashes him in the face with her shield. He stumbles backward, only to be slammed into a metal pillar by the relentless knight. He slides off the side of the pole like a sack of vegetables.

They were right; these mobsters were no match. The four lie in debatable states of unconsciousness on the floor, their blood fast seeping into the concrete.

Alabastra looks down at the men, beaten before the three from their well-laid trap. "That all ya got?"

"Not quite", says a sourceless voice from the door.

Materializing out of thin air, a short woman dressed in jolly green overalls, with wild orange hair. The halfling from the store. And in her hands, she holds a long, sleek tube of metal, wooden finish on the underside, and a lever around the trigger. A rifle, aimed squarely at Alabastra chest. My heart cries out in protest. I'd thought Vatrizia's little palm pistol was threatening; this is a nightmare. Those old rifles were supposedly all destroyed, melted down for scrap. Where did she even get that?

"Turnabout's fair play, isn't it?" The halfling's foot slides in an arc across the concrete, readjusting her stance. "You didn't think you were the only ones smart enough to bring a mage, did you?" She briefly takes a hand off the rifle to snap. At her sides, three more figures materialize. Two mobsters aim crossbows toward the other two women. The third brandishes a black wooden staff held horizontal behind his back.

"Fuck", Tegan lets out, shaken in breath and form.

"Drop your weapons. Do it, or the tall one eats a bullet." At her request, Tegan and Alabastra throw their weapons to the ground with a defeated clatter, and all three hold their hands up in surrender. Fury ignites in Tegan's eyes, met unequally by Faylie, who's own anger is tempered with a healthier dose of fear.

Alabastra looks down at the woman. I wish I could see her face, get some kind of direction. "You're...", she begins, sounding unsure at first, "You're not just some random Syndicate member, posing as a clerk... You're Ma Cozzo."

The halfling laughs. "So you're familiar with my work? Then I guess you recognized me a touch too late, dear." The head of the Cozzo family scans the space, eyes narrow. "Where's your fourth? M, was it?"

"Gone. Ditched us after the job."

She's covering for me? Is that a cue to leave? Or a cue to stay? I don't see another way out. If I stay, invisible, will they try and find me? And even if this ploy did work, what exactly does she expect me to do next? Follow them? Call the police? Get help from... someone? Dammit, I wish I knew what she wanted.

Ma Cozzo mulls the lie over, stretching her head back and forth. "Maybe. Let's find out." She cocks the lever on the rifle. "If we can't have all of you, what's one less? If anyone's still hiding in here, you have to the count of three to show yourself and save this bitch's life."

Alabastra Camin stares down the barrel of a gun. And to her credit, she does not flinch. She makes no moves, sounds, or signs to tell me what to do. If she even should make this choice for me, she isn't.

I have to choose.

"One..."

I have no idea what's waiting on the other side of surrender. If they intend to murder us somewhere more convenient, make it look like an accident. Drown us in Bassarin River, perhaps. I'd be willingly joining in whatever fate is in store.

And all that, to give Alabastra a few more hours of life. If this isn't a plot to draw me out and finish us all off here and now, that is.

"Two..."

My life, most assuredly, for Alabastra Camin's. After all, if anyone could escape, could find the winding long shot to freedom, it's her archer's eye. She might taste freedom again. Not so for me. There's no hope for survival down that road... I don't have the knack. Give myself up now, and I may as well step in the path of the bullet. My lease on life, or at least my twisted unlife, in exchange for Alabastra's. Alabastra, who insisted on dragging me on this madcap quest, who heckles me relentlessly, keeps things from me, strings me along with capricious promises, who's delusions and impulses raise so many conniptions it's no wonder I haven't suffered a heart attack. Maddening, facetious, shameless Alabastra.

It's not even a choice.

"Thr-"

"STOP!" I let the spell fall off of me, a protective cloak of magic I've tossed aside. I feel naked under their stares. "Don't shoot! I'm right here!" The mage swings his staff toward me, the crystal at the end glowing a shade of green.

A wicked smile grows on the halfling's face. "Good." She jerks her head toward the other mobsters. They begin to maneuver around us, behind Tegan, Faylie, and myself, only a few feet from each of us now. "Real clever, the lot of you, how you got past my little machine. We've got some questions for you."

Alabastra delivers, cold and calculating. "We're all answers."

"Not here, dear." She whistles a single note.

I hear the thug behind me approach, mirrored by the others. The one behind Tegan holds a handkerchief doused in a lavender liquid... a concoction I'm well familiar with, having brewed so many in both distant and recent pasts. A sleep potion. As he steps behind the knight, the gangster behind me does the same, pressing a likewise doused cloth to my nose. I feel a strong arm around my shoulder, pulling me down.

Having been well accustomed this week to alchemically-induced stupor, I can guess at the strength from the smell. Likely fast acting, but not long-lasting, unless these were custom-made. Assuming that's not the case... they only mean to keep us out for a short while. They're taking us somewhere.

Tegan struggles against the man, legs kicking out in fading resistance. Faylie, with her smaller form, is practically out like a light. And I don't feel much further behind her. As all of my muscles lax and my mind starts to fade into unconsciousness, the last thing that catches my eye is a glint of sunlight off the brass surface of The Timekeeper, still sitting in the center of the room, clockface a permanent, broken rest.