I looked down and found that the fake, beach bronze still covered my fingers to my wrists. "Huh, maybe the cufflinks?" I said. "Doesn't matter. Let's check out the crowd."

  I moved into the lightly assembled mass of early-week revelers and lost Venrick almost immediately. Most of the guests I recognized from previous engagements, though if any of them had ever seen me before they didn't show it. It was all the same crowd of rich elves and humans. Only the most inherent of magically talented were ever truly welcomed as repeat guests at the Aglowe's estate.

  There was no music and, as such, no dancing and it took me a few minutes to find the host. Aglowe was standing subdued amidst a gaggle fawning elves. He didn't shine, not even in his eyes. It struck me as odd.

  Long, delicate fingers spun me around by the shoulder before I could stare too long. The injury I'd gotten last time I was here flared with pain. When I was done cursing I found myself face to chest with Dawnlight. He was wearing his usual red and black and it continued to stand out in ridiculous opposition against his multi-colored hair. This robe, at least, was not bloody and covered in bird viscera. A full drink clinked and shivered in his hand.

  "What are you doing here? The sheer risk, the sheer audacity is unconscionable," he exclaimed in his sing-song way. Some of the drink sloshed over the cuff of his robe.

  I grabbed the elf by the wrist. The red and black velvet crumpled satisfyingly in my palm. "Trying to draw out our mutual friend."

  "By coming here, where she has every ally she could need?" he asked. His voice was so high and rapid I could barely register it.

  "I don't see any cops," I said.

  "Who spoke of the police? The longest of fingers wear many rings, Mr. Sattler. You know not the danger." His face was a contorted mass of anguish and concern.

  I clamped down on his wrist harder. "Yeah, danger. Let's talk about danger. What about that little display in front of the bureau today? How'd your guys get there so fast?"

  "It was regrettable," he said.

  "It was death. Another one, the exact same way. And I bet at least one more went down just like it at PRIMELE as we were leaving. We're putting a stop to it," I said. I felt the anger bubbling in my chest in flushing my cheeks.

  Dawnlight looked small and fearful even with the two feet he had on me in height. He took a sip of his drink and surprisingly didn't wince. "Then you and I are allied. I've told her and told her, for lifetimes now, that this was the wrong path. But there was always pressure, always some reason to continue my research. There was never a social mission. Never a reason beyond power. Did I want her to drag me to this place so that poor detective of hers can publicly light the fuse of her machinations? No, never. But we can't—CAN-NOT—deny our ancestors." He paused and I saw tears in his eyes.

  His wrist popped under my grip. "Ancestor?"

  "Of course, Mr. Sattler. Great-grandmatron, specifically."

  My fingers ground into the elf's arm. His face went white and pained. "Maybe I just take you, then. Sunroot'd show up I bet, given that you're related and all."

  He shook vigorously and dropped his drink. It shattered and splashed against my shins. A few people turned to stare. "No, no, I have done everything, absolutely everything I could to assist you. She has burned her way through the family tree. I was young, and there was a promise of mobility, of freedom. Such a life Grand-matron Vella has given me. The opportunity to work without the immortal eye of superiors standing above. And I have paid my due reverence, I should think. If we could move past all of this re-positioning, if we could just embrace what I have made. Dust, Sattler, dust for everything and everyone! That badge I gave you, do please try it some time. If her notions come to fruition then we are in for a change of the strata. Is that how you refer to it, master dwarf, the social strata?"

  My head was spinning. He'd said something important, or tossed an important piece into the puzzle box at least. But I never could keep up. "Half," I said. "Not master dwarf. Just a hybrid."

  "Oh then you must have enjoyed our little space then! And perhaps you and she will be able to commisera. . . "

  A voice cut through, clear and sharp. "That is enough Dawnlight. Leave him."

  Vella Sunroot, lieutenant of the NSPB, great-grandmother to Dawnlight, and potential conspiratorial mastermind, stood a handful of yards from us. An orc and a troll in formal NSPB blues stood to her side, and an entourage of PRIMELE gray suits arrayed themselves loosely behind her. She was wearing the same blue-and-silver dress she had when I'd first seen her with Sarco.

  I let go of the elf's wrist. He whispered something about "permanence and reversion" before scampering away in a wide arc. He reappeared behind his great-grandmother and her entourage. A good portion of the crowd, Aglowe included, had begun to take notice of the exchange. Dotted along the edge of the space I noticed a few more cops and a few more guys in gray. My own backup was missing, not that I liked our odds even if I could account for the ratman.

  "Take him," Sunroot ordered. "To the courtyard."

  I held up my hands and backed away as her retinue advanced on me. "Maybe we stay here and keep our heads, Vella. Maybe these guys don't find out what a fire induction feels like."

  There was a murmur from the crowd. Sunroot's face remained even, her hard-line features carrying the very definite promise of a threat. Something shimmered on her neck, like the skin itself was running with dust. "Edwayn Sattler," she said too loudly. " You are under arrest." She pointed at me and the orc and troll advanced, their hands on their weapons.

  I kept backing up. "I love the commitment to the whole justice bit, lady. Can I see your badge? Just to make sure?" Her fingers flashed and my feet stuck hard to the ground. The advancing cops were still a few steps away. "Can't we finish our talk from the other day? You were in the middle of trying to choke me to death. ‘Damn my beard!’ right?"

  "Somebody hold his damned tongue!" she said. One of the gray suits pointed at me with a glowing fist and I felt something hard but soft, like tongs made out of flesh, compressed around my mouth. The cops were upon me, folding my arms against my back and beginning to root through my many pockets. One of them came up with the magerock pill, cursed as it burned into his fingers, and dropped it.

  Viscount Aglowe was standing next to Sunroot, his hand on her shoulder. "Perhaps we allow our guests to adjourn to another venue," he said. His voice was low and rich. Always too much gravitas for an elf, I'd felt. Aglowe whispered something to a few well-dressed elves and humans and there was an orderly evacuation of revelers from the atrium.

  The cops had given up on my pockets. They hadn't even checked my beard. Weapons were a more obvious thing in Sketlin Proper. And I had a lot of pockets.

  When the catering staff and party guests had moved on I was left standing in the grip of the two cops facing Sunroot and Aglowe, themselves flanked by two PRIMELE enforcers. Another half-dozen cops and suits stood around the atrium silent and waiting. Dawnlight was whimpering in a corner. He'd apparently found another drink during the exodus.

  My tongue waggled and twitched as the fleshy grip let go. The array of bodies against me smacked of overkill. And Venrick was still missing, though I would have gladly bet the remainder of my beard on him coming back.

  "He's dusting," one of the gray suits said.

  Sunroot motioned to the cops holding me and they lifted up my hands for inspection. Their grips were hard on my wrists. The gray suit moved in and ran his hand over mine. He pinched and pulled at one of my cufflinks. It didn't budge. "Just a repellant charm. Permanent dust pull on both hands. Sloppy threads. No threat." He walked back to stand near the elves.

  "Was that your trump card Sattler?" Sunroot asked.

  I shrugged in the cops grip. "Just don't like getting my hands dirty. Can show you how they work if you want."

  The bonds on my feet released and I took two unseen blows to the stomach. "Hold him," she said. One of the gray suits fingers glowed as he took over responsibility for my legs.

  Aglowe held his hand up in front of Sunroot. "Vella, please, before you finish your tableaux…" He turned to me. "Sattler, right? How long have you worked for me."

  I shrugged again.

  He sighed. "You've been an asset. Reliable, but limited. You and the other hybrid earned your place here for a time. Blunt instruments to be sure, though effective in the right applications."

  "Won-der-ful, I can use you as a reference, then?" I said.

  Aglowe moved towards me with gliding steps. "Funny. It doesn't surprise me, Sattler, that, given your view from the bottom of bottles and inside an empty wallet, you've critically misjudged every situation that you've been presented with since last you were here."

  I figured Venrick was either setting up for a strike or had a problem or two of his own to deal with. Elves had a habit of verbosity when they on the edge of victory. It was easy to keep them talking.

  "What do mean?" I tried to put as much incredulity into my voice as I could.

  "The urudaen that you've taken up with, what benefit do you think he stood to gain from that relationship?" I looked at the viscount blankly. He sighed again. "Ratman,” he nearly spit it out from a lack of distaste for having to say it. “The ratman you seem to think you work for."

  "He needed help taking her down," I said nodding towards Sunroot. "And given everything, with the fires and all, I was happy to sign up."

  "Humorous," Aglowe said. "And what of your visit to your former employer? Your large friend was ecstatic at our offer. Less so at the second one we had to make when you left so dramatically. Still, another job, another sack of dust and denoms."

  I spat on the ground in spite of myself. "Yeah, all job offers are predicated by imprisonment on an office chair," I said.

  Aglowe was in front of me now, and he was luminous. It was an angry light. "And then you go on to break into a secure facility and attack uniformed officers, and burn the building down. Do you know how many deaths you caused that night, Sattler?"

  I stared at him hard. His voice was a song, a high tenor, a terrible ballad. "And then you had the audacity to waltz into the police bureau as what, a taunt?"

  "Ask her how that went down," I said. An invisible fist struck my cheek. The surrounding goons, cop and suit alike, stiffened as I twitched and grunted. Above, the quicksilver globes quivered.

  "I was not finished, Sattler. More damage, more injury you caused in your flight. Why would you have even been transferred to PRIMELE, do you expect? Because of the danger you posed?" He took a large breath. "Or perhaps because I could more easily orchestrate your release without a media frenzy, so our pilot programs could remain intact and our investments, ones that would have greatly benefited your station, would remain stable?"

  My mind clunked. I sputtered. "What, so you had my back as some minor crime boss with a luminous heart of gold?"

  "Sacrifices, dwarf, sacrifices for an easier way forward. A greater notion."

  "Go spit your shit into a fire," I said.

  "At this point, I quite intend to. But first, one final thing." His hand slipped beneath his robe and emerged with something glinting. Something small. He held a stone out towards me, clear with an inner light that shone gray, like the clouds after a storm. Its shape was curved and dimpled like a breath of air spinning into vortex. Aglowe's voice was flat and there was no music in it.

  "Let's talk about her."

  30

  The air around me swirled and I coughed. It was hard to breath. When it stopped Elara stood next to Aglowe. Her face was pained.

  "Hey, Ed."

  "What happened to you?" I asked.

  "I'm sorry. I wanted to see what they meant when they said they could help," she said. Her arm flicked back towards Sunroot who stood with arms crossed.

  "Help with what?"

  "What I asked you to do." Before I could reply Elara's body jerked to the side and fell, dissipating into mist. When she reformed she was sprawled on the ground. Aglowe stood over her, golden eyes gone gray and the focus in his hand crackling with dust. The girl moaned something that sounded like pain.

  "If that focus you'd given her had been real ,Sattler, do you know the damage you could have caused?" Aglowe asked.

  "Nope."

  Sunroot stepped forward, her face still defined by hard lines and her skin still wavering like heat off of the desert. "It took us lifetimes to find a fire that hadn't fully gone out. Imagine our luck, to have an air just walk in and practically beg for help."

  "What are you doing with them?" I asked.

  Sunroot laughed. "You could ask my progeny whenever he's done crying in his corner." A high-pitched whimper echoed out from Dawnlight's direction. "Weak, but singularly talented."

  She walked forward to join Aglowe. She undid whatever was keeping her hair in its party-do and it fell around her shoulders, bouncing and curly. The strands looked thick. "That coin of yours, Sattler. A lot of water. And water is so hard to keep together. So we've saved it for last. Take it out."

  The cops holding me released me. "No," I said. I felt an axe blade rest against my spine and I changed my mind.

  "Over there," she said, pointing to an empty spot of the atrium.

  I threw my coin. It bounced against the wood and settled with a muted rattle. "Use it," she said. The axe pressed in harder and I said my curses. The coin exploded with swamp water and mint leaves. My pouch twitched.

  "Again," she said.

  "I can't."

  Sunroot stalked over to the still-whimpering Dawnlight and rifled through he robes. She came up with his filigree dust case and handed it to a PRIMELE suit. He walked over and forced my mouth open with a flick of his fingers and upended the case directly onto my tongue. The taste was bitter and grainy, like dirt made out of all the worst vegetables parents force on their kids. I swallowed hard, and swallowed again when my mouth still felt like the bottom of a quarry.

  I didn't need a whole lot of dust, and they'd just crammed more down my throat than I'd normally eat in a month. I felt my eyes heat up and my beard stiffen. My charm pouch twitched hard enough to yank on some deeply rooted hairs.

  "Thanks, friend, that was really great," I said, nodding at the suit. I pulled out my coin and tossed it again. More curses and more water and mint.

  "Again," Sunroot said.

  "So this supposedly greatly benefits me somehow?" I asked, looking Aglowe.

  "No. Well, maybe. It will kill you, at least. But our work, the new work that you could have been a part one of the hundred-thousand beneficiaries of, will necessitate enforcement and shakedowns of a far higher caliber than you’re used to. It seems, Mr. Sattler, that you've so forcibly found yourself outside your element. It is a shame, too. Staying with me, you'd have enjoyed certain legal. . . immunities." He smiled at Sunroot.

  "Sorry to have missed it," I said. The axe dug in more and I threw my coin and cursed.

  Elara propped herself up on the ground and watched the burst of water. She looked sad. "I'm sorry, Ed. It will be better for you. You'll end easy, early."

  My pouch twitched and I threw the coin again. "Oh yeah? I'm not going to just feel like a million different little drops like you do? I'm not going to spend years pulling myself together and wish for death?"

  The coin exploded and the air girl said nothing. Aglowe shook her focus and she made a sound that felt like pain. My insides began to feel wrong. At the edge of my own-self perception something was threatening to burst in, to crash over me. I felt the axe in my back and threw the coin. It exploded. My pouch twitched. The damned thing was being far too cooperative. Something deep in my mind flashed. "What about earth?" I said.

  "What about it?" Sunroot snapped. Dawnlight whimpered loudly.

  "You're looking for a good sample of all four. I couldn’t tell you why but that seems to be the thing you’re after," I said.

  "Throw the coin, dwarf," she said. I did.

  "So, I'm to be the last?" I asked. "You've got a fire focus, clearly. He's holding your air while she agonizes on the ground. I'm feeling a bit sloshy, so that's that. I'm guessing you have earth all lined up?"

  "Say the curses," she said. Her hands flashed blue and a force on my stomach pushed me back into the axe.

  "It's just, I was wondering where it came from. Morbidly curious."

  The axe bit hard into my spine as Vella's lit hand moved towards me. Aglowe made a motion to wave her off but she continued. I gasped with the pain. "It just seems like this wasn't the original plan, you know? First you want to try to buy me off at the office. Then there's intimidating me and threatening to cut me off with that stupid pill. Try to kill me at PRIMELE after that. Doesn't make sense."

  Aglowe's hand flashed and Elara cried out. I tried to move towards her until the axe at my back pressed in fully and I felt blood run into the waistband of my pants. At the edge of my reality things were looking pretty liquid.

  "We've had to improvise," Aglowe said.

  I cursed and the coin exploded. The mist played against my cheek. "You're not very good at it."

  Somewhere, at the edge of hearing, came a click.

  31

  A bolt of ice struck Aglowe in the hand, and an improbably-sized rock slammed into Sunroot's face. They both cried out. Elara's focus clattered against the floor and she dissolved into mist.

  The ratman was in the room running and shooting. His guns flashed blue and brown and the orc that had held me ran forward with a blood cry, axe in hands. He crumpled as a rock took him in the eye. I surged away from the troll cop readying my knuckles as I went. I sent a golden fist at a gray suit's face. His hands flashed blue and my projection splashed against the air inches from his nose. With a grunt I sent another one to the same fate. Dust-powered bonds lashed at my wrists and fell off. The cufflinks burned against my skin. "Huh," I grunted as I pivoted and sent another fist into the melee.

  Venrick was trapped between two gray suits. Bits of his blazer caught and tore in invisible grips and one managed to get him by a foot. The ratman lifted into the air and got a shot off at hand that was binding him. He fell a foot only to get strung up by one of his guns. He shot again but they were on him.

 

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