"This one is comfortably middle-aged. He is eight."

  My fingers counted out some quick math. "Well, hey, we've known each other almost a month in ratman-years."

  Venrick clicked. "Yes. This one hopes to impart upon dense Edwayn the lack of grace words such as 'ratman' carry in subsequent months." He snapped the gun shut, returned it to his jacket and spun the hopter towards the city. "What is the plan?"

  I thought for a few minutes. There was a moderately clear line that connected Dawnlight to everything we'd seen, and whatever the ultimate purpose was, Sunroot would be at the center. But there was a big luminescent hole in my picture of the situation. My mind worked on some notions. I'd followed Venrick around all weekend, and I'd been burned, incarcerated, and made homeless. Still, we'd made progress. And I was angry. Too much death and only a half-dwarf and an exiled ratman to do something about it.

  The look on the ratman's face told me he was in, no matter what path we found for ourselves. I had an idea. "We're going to go back to the good Viscount Aglowe's place and make a lot of noise," I said.

  Venrick nodded. The weight of my emotional breakdown and Venrick's disclosure seemed to have settled beneath us, a foundation in which to stand on, to work on. The ratman began to pace. "Seems purposeful. Known ties to law enforcement and corporate interests. Sunroot might show up to deal with a disturbance to her source of clout or funding personally. And Viscount has a lovely estate that this one wouldn't mind seeing some damage done to if things get out of paw."

  I stood and extended my hand to the ratman. "I like the way you think, Mr. the Unabashed."

  He gripped three of my fingers in his tight, boney claws. "Venrick will suffice."

  28

  We flew back into the city with the hopter's transceiver tuned to the news. Reporters on every channel spoke about how a public display would have turned deadly were in not for the timely intervention of private security personnel. When those stories had played out, commentators took turns carving up the police bureau for its role in the recent tragedies and its inability to offer any kind of assurance. Several quotes from police higher-ups, including Sunroot herself, were repeated and none were commented on favorably. "She's developed an image problem," I said.

  "Entire bureau has," Venrick replied. "Glad to be unassociated."

  I directed our flight to my old place of employ, the catering office whose windblown door had yet to be replaced.

  "Why are we here?" Venrick asked as I set the hopter down.

  "It's Monday. Aglowe always hosts a little gathering to celebrate getting through the worst day of the week. Not too many guests, maybe fifty or so. It's always catered. And our entrance is the most inconspicuous."

  "Isn't being spotted a cornerstone of Edwayn's plan?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Though not right away. Gun. Unloaded, please." I held my hand out and he passed one to me. I continued. "Okay. We're going to go in and you're going to use your fancy lock breaker to get into the manager's office. Back-right corner. Grab us some new clothes from the locked closet so we can at least walk into the party without getting stopped. Make sure to get some name badges. There's usually a big pile by the press in the closet."

  "This idea seems like it will have the opposite effect of subtly, especially when catering company calls the estate to report the theft," Venrick said with paws crossed over his chest.

  I flicked at the ratman's feather. "We'll figure it out. There'll be cops and gray guys and thousands-of-years old elves on our backs before the day is out. Besides, I don't even look like myself. Calling the viscount wouldn't be my first move if someone walked in and stole some clothes."

  Venrick stared at me hard and gave me a nightmare wink. "Improvisation is not this one's strongest trait, but he is tired of scheming. Let us commit a clothing heist."

  With purpose and a smile, I walked into my old job. The iron doorframe was bent and the wall next to it ran with a dent from floor to sealing. Someone had cleaned up the shattered chair at least.

  "Alright everybody, hands up, and they better not be glowing." I swept the gun over the room. The only person inside was the payroll girl, her eyes wide and hands frozen on her desk.

  A long, wavering sigh passed her lips. "I hate this job," she said. "So, do I just sit here or what?" I gave her a shrug and vaguely pointed the gun towards her desk. No sense in being overly aggressive. Venrick moved through the room with efficient steps, gun in one hand and badge in the other. He reached the manager's door, unlocked it, and stepped through.

  There was a shout followed by "Hello, this one apologizes," and then a flash of diamond dust. A thud followed, and then another shout. "Two heads," Venrick said, his voice sounding mildly frustrated. His gun flashed again.

  I smiled at the payroll girl. "He'll just be a minute."

  We waited in awkward silence while Venrick made a lot of noise in the manager's office. I was really expecting the place to be more crowded. I was glad for less interference, though I was admittedly disappointed there weren’t many people to witness my first heist.

  "Not going to conspire to hold me to a chair today?" I asked the girl.

  "Nope," she said. Her fingers stayed flat and dull on her desk.

  A large thump and ratman grumbling came from the manager's office. I glanced at the open door and then back at the payroll girl. I remembered that her name might have been Mira or something like that. "So what was the whole thing about with gray guys and Aglowe, then?"

  It was her turn to shrug. "The morning before you came in, Aglowe was stomping around the office shoving a big bag of dust into everyone's face. He said we could have it; we just had to keep tabs on you and maybe let his guys know what you were up to if you tried to run or something. Nobody volunteered. Eventually we picked numbers and I lost."

  "I don't get it."

  One of her hands moved under her desk and I got twitchy with the gun. "Easy," she said, as it came up with a large, glowing pouch made of purple silk.

  "Dust enough for a year. And I just had to wear that little thing on my ear and talk to his goons so they could keep you strapped," she said.

  My fingers felt sweaty against the gun's wooden grip. "I still don't get it. What do you mean you lost?"

  She flicked at the bag of dust. "Nobody really wanted to be the one to sit here and watch you squirm while they pressed Jaery. Well, Urg was all for it, but you and I both know that he's an ass. You never did anything against me or anyone else. A few people looked at Aglowe like he was crazy. They called you and Jaery heroes or something."

  My head felt a little light when she'd finished speaking. It didn't change anything for me now, but the notion that not everyone had always been out to capture and coerce me kind of felt nice. Still, I was feeling a bit thick-headed and edgy. "So I can trust you?"

  She blinked slowly and flicked her hands toward a chair. The blue flash on her fingers was there and gone before I could react. The chair settled calmly next to my knees and I sat down. I let the gun fall to my lap. We sat in silence again for a minute.

  "You working for that little guy now?" she asked.

  "Something like that."

  She leaned forward on her elbows. "How's Jaery? He didn't look very good when they dragged him out."

  My fingers tightened on the gun. I loosened them when I saw the concern on her face. "He’s. . . dead. Jaery’s dead," I said.

  Her eyes dropped. "You here to do something about it?" she said after a time.

  "Yeah, maybe."

  Venrick finally emerged with a wrapped bundle tucked under his arm. "This one is surprised to find Edwayn sitting," he said.

  "No threats out here."

  The ratman looked hard at the payroll girl. "This day is delicate, can't be compromised."

  She shook her head. "If you're going to mess with Aglowe's little weekly thing, I don't care. If Urg's still asleep when you guys are gone I'm just going to go home."

  "Okay. Thanks Mira," I said.

  "Lonni," she replied. "Not even close."

  "Yeah, Lonni. Sorry." Her stare in return was not kind.

  We walked out of the office and back to the hopter and were airborne in seconds. Venrick flew us to The Bawdville. The bar was in the lull between the lunch crowd and the dinner rush and the hopter lot was mostly empty.

  "When will the viscount's gathering commence?" Venrick asked.

  "A couple of hours. Elara said she'd meet us here anyway."

  I didn't see Darmon at the door but I didn't want to push my luck with his generosity. And I might say something unkind about what he'd done to my beard and skin. The afternoon moved on. Venrick found a stick and some rocks in the grass alongside the hopter lot and taught me a traditional ratman game that was surprisingly complex given that it was played with essentially trash. We sat in the shade of the hopter. After some time had passed Elara still hadn't appeared.

  "Think she's okay?" I asked.

  Venrick looked up from evaluation of the position of his rocks. One of my predator rocks was threatening one of his den rocks, but he currently held the stick. I'd learned that this meant we were about even.

  "This one does not know," he said, and swatted at my predator with the stick. It landed in a region he'd described as "Where Sun Sets over Cousins of Mother." He hissed and apparently I was ahead.

  "Maybe she got sick of us. Took off after all the crap that we ended up going through." I shrugged and moved another rock. The ratman replied with a noncommittal click.

  Around sunset we changed into the clothing that Venrick had appropriated. I finished putting on the familiar white-collared shirt and something metal fell from one of the folds and bounced off the towertop. Bending down I picked up the small brass rectangle and turned it over in my fingers. It read Sandoval Beardface –– Mixology Transport Specialist. It even had some fancy squiggly lines under the title.

  "You make one for yourself?" I asked.

  He motioned to a smaller bit of brass on his shirt that identified him as Manfred the Humble –– Private Party Consultant. His did not have any accompanying flair.

  "I don't know if humble people wear blazers and blue-feathered hats over their catering uniforms. And most catering staff wear pants."

  The ratman shrugged and climbed onto the hopter. I looked around the tower top one more time, feeling a pensive stab at Elara's continued absence. Watching her suck the life out of a murderous cop wasn't the way I wanted to remember her.

  We flew to Viscount Aglowe's estate. New Sketlin's rich and powerful liked to make their homes atop the shorter, wider towers that had been summoned in the city's infancy. Usually those older buildings were near the water and had been summoned atop several dirt-side structures. Aglowe's entire property was three Sketlin Proper buildings long by two wide and cast unending shade on almost two square blocks of the lower city.

  The house itself was a sprawling complex of polished wood with marble accents. The balconies had foyers and the verandas were surrounded by atriums. Everything but the statuary was host to magically sustained trees replicating whatever pixie-laden forest Aglowe and his ancestors had flitted out of. The courtyard where Sarco had gone fire in was at the back of the property: empty tonight but still surrounded, like much of the estate, with imposing magerock walls.

  Venrick took the hopter on a wide circle of the estate before setting down in a lot half a bridge away. A troll with a splash of orc in him by the look of his face sauntered over and demanded payment.

  "Twenty denoms for the night?" I replied. "That's insane."

  "People aren't feeling safe, my friend. Extra security." The troll-hybrid waved towards three ogres in cheap faux-police uniforms sitting on barrels. At least four of the heads were arguing with each other. I grumbled for a while until Venrick pressed something into the troll's palm.

  "This one is running low on gems," he said after the troll was out of earshot.

  "You have enough to get us through this?"

  He pulled the pouch out of his jacket, which he still wore over his catering whites. " Yes. A few for ice. A few for water. One for rocks. Over a year's worth of saving and effort expended in the span of a weekend." He voice carried a touch of loss.

  I clapped him on the shoulder. "We're doing a good thing. We make it out, I'll pay you back."

  He clicked. It was half-hearted. I kept talking. "You still have my hammer?"

  The ratman pulled it from his jacket and handed it to me. I gripped it tightly by the wrapped leather handle. It would just get in the way. With a clenched fist I popped opened one of the hopter's storage compartments and deposited the hammer. After a moment of thought, I added my old pictures and wallet to the little pile of things that I didn't want to take with me.

  Venrick spoke up. "What about Edwayn? Equipped?"

  My fingers brushed against my chin pouch and through the rest of my jacket. "Coin, knuckles, cufflinks. That bloody pill, and this." I held out the battered bronze badge Dawnlight had given me. It made my skin hurt, like the flesh was turning stiff and dead.

  "Misguided elf claimed that it might be necessary in subduing or besting Sunroot," Venrick said.

  "Yeah, by doing what? Making me go fire?" I asked. "I don't like it. I'm thinking of leaving it."

  "Would not be fire, this one thinks. Highly-strung elf said as much. One of the others. Water maybe. Better to have it and not need it."

  "Yeah, well I don't want to be a puddle. And that's certainly quite a statement coming from a guy who carries two guns longer than his arms."

  "This one makes no apologies for his level of weaponization."

  I grunted and pocketed the badge, glad to have it away from my now-aching hand. The skin felt tight when I tried to flex it out. We walked towards the scene of the viscount's party. The grand entrance of Aglowe's estate loomed before us. Large glowing orbs rotated around two manicured sentinel trees as hopters touched down to drop off people in dresses and suits. The light was all very blue and subdued.

  I led Venrick around to the right of the building towards the worker entrance. A few guys in gray were stopping people dressed in white before they even got to the door. A light scratch on my wrist drew my eyes down. Venrick was poking me with his claws. "Edwayn would have made a good partner. Could have done much together in the bureau."

  I touched the ratman on the back of the paw. "I'm not good for much more than a few drinks and few stories."

  "Then this one would have enjoyed that."

  A few more white-shirted catering staff were approaching the gray guys guarding the worker door. I motioned towards the back of the line and Venrick split off from me to queue up for clearance. When a few people had fallen in behind him I stepped into the string of workers waiting for their night to begin.

  I felt bad about the mess they were going to have to clean up.

  29

  Venrick made it through the gray guys' inspection pretty quickly. He presented his newly minted nametag with a flourish and started talking in a high and tight rhythm. One of the gray suits looked at him sideways for a moment. The other clearly found the ratman's incessant, grating voice to be too much and waved him through. When I approached, one of the guards stuck out his hand with practiced boredom. Both were of the same featureless, ambiguous nature that I'd come to expect from public-facing PRIMELE employees. What they were doing working security for Aglowe I could only guess.

  "Sandoval Beardface, not on our list," one of them said. I hadn't seen them check a list.

  I had a lie ready at least. "In for Urg-Thwack-Thunk. Called in sick this afternoon. Working the bar."

  One mouthed the word "ogres" and they both waved me through. I noted the casual racism that seemed to pervade PRIMELE's corporate culture.

  Inside, I found Venrick still wearing his hat and blazer over his catering shirt. "You're just never going to take those off, are you?" I asked.

  "This one does not see the need."

  "Well, come on. Let's see if anyone we're interested in is here," I said.

  We followed the stream of catering staff to the prep kitchen. A few cooks were busy plating trays of appetizers that went streaming out of the room as soon as they were full. I asked one of the less-busy looking workers where the bar had been set up and he mumbled a reply.

  A nearby pot overflowed with boiling water as the small orb of fire beneath it suddenly raged. A few scalding drops landed on the back of one of my hands and I quickly wiped them off. Out of habit my fingers were in my beard and affixing my bronze cufflinks to my shirt.

  The ratman looked at me and I nodded. "I always wore them at work anyway. Keeps my hands from getting cut or dirty."

  "This one would mark such accessories as distinctive," he said.

  "We're here to be seen, right? Let's go."

  I took Venrick through a sparsely furnished corridor trailing a waiter with a tray that smelled of sugar and bacon. Eventually we found ourselves in one of the estate's larger atriums. Dozens of people in finery buzzed about sipping drinks and trading banter beneath four massive globes that gave off a pale white light. The quicksilver spheres sloshed and bubbled as they bumped off of one another beneath the summoned-glass skylight that spanned the entire space. The intricately carved and polished wood of the actual residence defined the nearest two walls of the party space while the far two were solid, lightly glowing magerock.

  Venrick tugged at my sleeve. "Edwayn might wish to inspect his face and skin."

  "What?" I said as I plucked a half-full wine glass from a nearby table. In its curved surface I saw what I expected.

  "I look fine."

  "That is this one's point."

  When I studied myself again I saw that my recently bronzed skin had gone back to the half-ruddy, half-pale mix I'd cultivated over a century of indoor drinking. And my beard had left the fake yellow-white behind for its natural black. It was still arranged in its ridiculous tiny array of braids. I would have to fix that myself.

  "Must have passed a magerock arch somewhere," I said.

  "Yes, this one feels more hungry than he did when we arrived. Though Edwayn's hands have yet to revert."

 

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