Witch Hunt

It was bad enough travelling with them when I could see them.

Now, I'm cursed to know they're there, on the reverse end of reality, at odd times yammering away into the open air despite their entirely unseen selves, turning heads in my direction. Even more often than usual, anyways.

It has only now set in that despite my very best efforts, the universe itself has conspired to force me back inside their orbit. That the very process by which I freed myself has trapped me once again. Spiteful criminals and their petty debts... making a workhorse out of me, in recompense for deeds that were never my idea, or never my intention at all. At least if this is the only price left to pay for immortality, it will disappear in time. Kings and lords and archmages have sacrificed more for less. This will all pass in the blink of an eye, when viewed back with an everlasting lens.

But seeing as I currently lack said perspective, Alabastra's voice drifting through the air behind me sends my hairs on end. "Your Auntie sure is somethin', Lightning Bug."

Faylie chirps back, "That was honestly the most I've talked to her in years. But, yeah, she's pretty great!" Their voices, carried over from the realm of phantasms, are hollow and echoey, like I'm eavesdropping down the other end of an empty hallway.

"And is she, uh...", says the disembodied voice of Tegan. "Y'know?" The rustling of her armor through the planar divide leaves a ghostly clatter, that would be eerie were it not so annoying.

"Is she... what? Super strong and powerful? Famous? Funny with a fox trot?"

Tegan stumbles over her next words. "She's not, like, a faun, so... is she really your, I mean, by blood-" The knight cuts herself off with a high-pitched whimper, for what reason I cannot begin to guess.

"Oh, my sweet knight", says Faylie, then puts on what likely amounts to her best impression of a wizened old sage, "You still have much to learn about the Faewilds..."

"Uh. I guess so, yeah."

Alabastra chuckles. "Oh, wow. It's been a while since we've had a 'Sheltered Tegan' moment! I missed those!"

"Yea...", says Tegan, curt and deflated.

An empty, uneasy silence follows. My gut twists. That's just like the rogue, to barrel through barriers without regard. Although I ultimately couldn't care about Tegan's feelings less, it is a cold comfort to know that I'm not the only one who sees it.

"... Anyways", Faylie finally fills the silence, "We can trust her! Probably. As long as we don't promise her too much, or become reliant on her, or make her angry or anything like that."

There's a single clap as Alabastra says, "Good enough for me! Hells, 'probably's' our comfort zone." I roll my eyes. Yours, maybe. She continues, "And that little trick she taught ya?"

"It'll help us clean up our mess... just a little thing. Auntie said most magic works from here! Which, by the way, this is so screwy!" Then, the faun yaps directly into my back, "You're missin' out, Oscar!"

I stop dead in my tracks, balling my fists in rage.

"For the last-", I begin, turning around to face... nothing. A passing couple of fiendlings eye me with confusion. I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Can you please show yourselves..."

The three thieves apparate before me, their forms translucent and immaterial. Faylie stares at the ground, chewing the tarmac with her eyes. Tegan pouts, brows furrowed, and Alabastra only stares. They fall silent, just as Forrest had described.

I start again, fuming with rage, "I will explain this once, succinctly. I am here to absolve my debts to the..." I stop myself, and look down at the faun. "Is there something else I can call them?"

"The Sylph Squad...", Faylie says, sadly. She flits briefly out of reality as she does.

For the love of the Dawnlord... "Is there anything... else I can call them?!"

She thinks for a moment, disappearing again. "Well... they got their start in the Gloamwood, so, sometimes other faeries would call them the Gloamwood Gang?"

"Good enough", I sigh. "My debts to the Gloamwood Gang. I'm not here to chat with any of you, or 'patch up' your ridiculous insistence on friendship - I am here to do a job. The only reason I'm sticking close to you at all is that, loathe as I am to admit, you remain my best chance at finding the source of these transformations. But do not include me in your pointless banter, and certainly don't expect me to be pleasant about it. Is that understood?"

The three tense up against the salvo. One by one, they nod, hopefully getting the truth of the matter through their obstinate skulls. "Understood", says Alabastra, disappearing from sight. The others follow behind. If they continue to chatter at all, they do so in the Ethereal Realm, out of earshot of me.

Finally, some peace and quiet.

* * *

I'd never actually gotten a solid look at the Carlivain Hotel from the outside. In fact, my only view of it at all was that tiny room. But now, a good walk and skyway trip later, that the thieves made clear they were very glad to not have to pay for, we've journeyed all the way to the eastern edge of The Reds, bordering the high rise city center borough of Nivannen, twinkling with the light of the new world and split in twain by the River Bassarin. New buildings seem to come up every month in the inner city, raised in rapid construction by the ambitious cosmopolitan graduate mages out of the Lazuli Institute: a whole new era of the classic wizard's tower.

And stood like the gated portcullis into Nivannen, the Carlivain Hotel looms as an upside-down T, short side wings and a colossal middle rising above the alike-shaped intersection it meets.

"... Anyone else think 'Carlivain' was compensatin' for something?", says Alabastra. I squeeze my eyes closed. If I just pretend I didn't hear that, it cannot affect me at all.

The hotel's intricately carved exterior is marred of its grandeur by the cavalcade of cops swarming it. Even days out from the... incident, they still cling to the premises like flies to garbage. Unsurprising, considering a firearm was obtained. That old rifle likely sent a shockwave through their department. They'll have none of the usual excuses or pretentions of laziness for this; they'll want every detail. Fortunate, then, that we're here to erase the margins.

I pop the cork on the oil flask. Just from the smell it's obvious that it's not only diluted, but expired, too. If I sold this I'd be sued for snake-oil business, and rightfully so. I was right to wait until the eleventh hour to use it; it may not even last to the twelfth.

The cold slimy lavender fluid slides over my forearms, and I rub the soapy liquid into my skin. The world takes on a foggy-blue tint, and much like The Other Side, an ever-present mist drifts over the busy street. The flow of pedestrians, the buildings, and even the sky all turn hollow, faded in color like a photograph. No necromantic shortcuts; I've arrived in the Ethereal Realm by way of alchemy, however shoddy.

The three thieves are made manifest before me, as they observe the cluster of law enforcement with practiced perception. "Alright, team. Business... then pleasure. Head in, clean up the emotion gunk, and after that we find someone who might know where Natey is." Alabastra accentuates with a chop into her hand.

Faylie asks, "Does this count as therapy?"

Alabastra shrugs. "Actually... think it might be the opposite. C'mon."

With otherworldly footfalls, blanketed behind the thin veil of reality, we step into the Carlivain Hotel, this time by choice. More cops infest the building, as bothersome as any termite plague. They dart between doors, making themselves busy through the boredom of their posts. Days old as the act is now, any of the serious investigating has already moved on from this place... this crew is near-certainly just hopeful to catch a criminal idiotic enough to return to the scene of the crime.

Ah. Well. Anyways...

The cops aren't the only ones milling about, of course. A slew of reporters from all over the country has descended upon the lobby, desperate for their scoop. The Carlivain was, before all of this nonsense, one of Marble City's more famous hotels. That it was owned and operated by a criminal element for some, if not all, of its tenure is only one of the many details of this story that journalists undoubtably salivate over. They interview whichever officers will talk to them, or the few of the hotel's staff permitted to continue working. It's mostly cleaning staff, by the looks of it, picking up not after the battle, but the messy police. Though, I'm not entirely sure who's paying their wages, if the proprietress is...

I wince. No longer in a position to issue earnings.

Otherwise, certain sections of the lobby have been cordoned off by rope and wooden barricades. Behind them, tables are set with gathered evidence. One particular table catches my eye, covered in brass scrap metal gears and plates, the largest piece a head half-again the size of a human's, cold and dead robotic eyes staring ever more into nothing. If I were a touch more foolish, I'd let myself grow curious over how the thieves managed to subdue that thing. Hm... they probably just ran from it.

As we pass the metal remnants, Faylie says, "Alright, so... Auntie said I'd just have to cast this in the... vague area of where any of us might have had some blood spilled, so... lobby, restaurant, then upstairs?"

"You'd know better than I", I say.

Faylie stares a moment too long, then produces a card. It depicts a floating hand bearing a single overflowing cup. She concentrates, holding the card out. "OBLI." The ghostly pinkish mirror of the card's illustration depicts the hand turning the cup over, and as she raises her arm into the air, the magical contents spill out in a rose wave of cloudlike cotton, washing over the space around us in a tidal sea, stretching across the room. Thankfully the embellishment seems completely unnoticed by the cops on the material plane.

As the cloud passes over various sections of the floor, it's as if stains are ripped out of the carpet in plumes of red steam, hitting the pink and impossibly creating billows of iridescent rainbow mist, sent flying up and away.

And one such cloud drifting up from near where I'm standing collides with my form. For a brief moment, I feel butterflies in my stomach. In a manner than reminds me of my now-solved ordeal, I am inundated with emotions that are not my own. But rather than the bloodthirst I was accustomed to tuning out, instead I feel... a confused sort of intimacy. Pride. Comfort... love?! Like cozying up against a warm blanket, cared for by a beloved, knowing with absolute certainty that they're safe in my arms... Relief... All of my girls made it out okay...

I snap back into my myself, darting away in a flurry as I realize what just occurred. That was... those were Alabastra's feelings. I'm not even entirely sure how I know that... My stomach flips, and I snarl at the thought of having shared anything with her.

"Oscar?", Alabastra starts. I flinch, arms pulled against me as if the words might hurt. It's not like I can put that past her. Perhaps she even orchestrated

that... somehow?

"I- I- It was nothing."

She stares for a moment, then waves her hand. "That all of it?", she shouts to Faylie.

Faylie, who had briefly disappeared into the restaurant to perform the same deed, ducks around the corner, swiping the card through the air with a thumbs up. "Think so!"

"Alright. Oscar, they had us in room 16-F. Show Faylie up."

I cross my arms and glower. "You think you have any right to order me around?" Her audacity knows no bounds.

"You said you wanted to be useful, right? It's that or twiddle your thumbs...", she says. Dammit, fine. But not because she told me to. She looks to Tegan, back of her hand lightly tapping the human on the shoulder. "Let's see if we can't find a badge who was snoopin' Latchet's place. Maybe even Not-Fuck himself, if we're lucky!"

Tegan stares a moment, a blank gaze over Alabastra that hides a roiling underneath, before she nods, and diverts an opposite direction.

Faylie looks up at me, beaming a large and oblivious smile. I roll my eyes, dig my hands into my pockets, and march up the stairs. The clip-clop of her hooves across the lobby floor echo with dull reverberation into the fog plane around us, as if a thin layer of still water blankets every surface.

As we reach the ascent of the balcony over the lobby, Faylie looks to me. "Hey, check this out." Then... she starts to float off the ground, grinning without a care as she lifts higher and higher. "Pretty cool right?" Her slow rise reaches the ceiling, and she passes right through it.

My brows furrow so low they dip into my eyesight. With a groan, I walk up the stairs, not chancing the elevator, and certainly not attempting... whatever she's doing.

 As I walk up to the next floor, Faylie's head pops out of the ground, still cheery, and wiggling her fingers. "OooOOOooo! "

"Idiot", I seethe, turning over to the next flight. As I reach the third story, the faun floats up again, dejected, ears flopped down the side of her head, shoulders slouched, like the saddest ghost I've ever seen. My eyes roll.

By the eighth floor I'm starting to regret my choice of stairs, already feeling the burning in my legs. And by the fifteenth, my lungs are struggling for breath, made worse by the only air in this horrible plane being so misty. I fold over, hands on my knees. It seems the watch's immortalizing effects don't protect me from my lifestyle choices. This is why I don't go out much.

As I look into the hotel hallway, I'm caught by the sight of charred and blackened floors, wallpaper cracked and peeled from heat, exposed sections of wood burnt. Faylie says, "I kinda... mighta gotten carried away..." I raise a brow at her. She caused the fire? I suppose all those threats of fireballings weren't rhetorical. "Anyways, feel free to catch your breath, I'll handle this." There's an undercurrent of gravity to her words that she fails to hide; a weight. Perhaps even guilt... I shake my head. If that's the case, well, perhaps she should feel guilty.

Back to the stairwell wall, I catch my breath. Something about this plane feels wrong... it's hollow and empty in a way the material plane isn't. Though, I suppose that's fitting. The dead usually are. A creeping feeling crawls down my back, hairs standing on edge. The watch feels warm on my chest, compared to the cold Ethereal clamminess, and I clutch it for comfort.

The faun returns. "Okie-doke... going up!" She sticks her index finger high into the air as she ascends again. I trudge after her, the final flight of stairs, thankfully.

As we pass through the halls, scratchy burgundy rug at our feet and flickering lightbulbs above, I reach a section coated with dried blood. A bored police officer stands outside a room labelled 16-F, open to the nauseatingly familiar sight of the room we were trapped in. The second I catch a glimpse, my mind flashes with images, his eyes burning into my brain as the life leaves him. A gasp catches in my throat, and my vision tunnels. I backpedal, shoulder blades colliding with the opposite wall. I can't feel my fingertips. I feel the -handle of the knife, greeting me like an old friend.

I turn away, walking aimlessly down the hall. I'm not sure where to; anywhere but here. Murderer... murderer murderer murderer murderer murderer...

An angry swelling hot tear wells against the side of my eye, and I wipe it away furiously. Useless, incomprehensible moron, what did you think was going to happen, coming back here again? My fists ball at my sides.

"Oscar?", Faylie says at my back. Why can't they get the message?

I turn in a rage. "Don't!" She jumps like I'm an animal reared for attack. I feel disgusting, vile, like I need a bath. "... Just... Just go. Do your damned job."

She looks nervous for a moment, then without another word, turns and walks into the room.

The second she's out of eyesight, I close my eyes, and collapse against the wall, sliding down to the floor. I clutch at the long strands of hair above the forehead, heaving the feeling out in several colossal waves, frantic expirations to excise demons, hot breaths against the forearms. I prefer to think of the body in constituent parts, when I get like this. Break myself down piece by piece, section off the dying mind from the half-living body. That way I can at least get what needs running back in order again. I bend the knees and stand. No one has any use for these worthless little breakdowns. For Runo's sake, I shouldn't even be having them anymore. I'm fixed. I'm cured! What is the matter with me? Don't I know a good thing when I've got it?

After a moment, the faun returns, looking somehow even more distraught. But she meets my eyes, and gives me a tiny nod. I turn, leading us back down the stairs.

Thankfully, the return trip isn't quite so bad as the ascent. As we arrive back at the lobby, I see Alabastra and Tegan at opposite ends of the lobby, but both looking directly at the same individual.

Wandering through the Carlivain Hotel, the distinct and irascible form of Officer Nottham, the very same that had harassed the rogue some days ago. He still wears the glasses he had been wearing, even indoors.

As we rejoin, Alabastra says, "Thought he'd be here. Didn't I, Bug?"

Faylie claps, her brightness returned just as quick as it had left her. "Ooo, are we gonna get him? Like, really, really get him?"

"Information's the most important thing. We need to know if the law ever did find our private eye. But I think I've got the angle to get us both at once." She snaps her fingers, bringing the crook of her thumb to her chin. "He thinks I'm just for show? Then let's put on a show."

* * *

As I have come to expect, this plan is absolutely moronic.

With ghostly taps on his shoulder and whispers in his ear, Alabastra's lured the officer into the hotel's basement, boiler room roiling heat, noisy generator churning, and crates of spare supplies in stacks. The heavy boots of the lawman stomp into the stairs as he descends. He surveys the scene intently, wriggling his nose. Alabastra had assured us his curiosity would get the best of him. I suppose she would know...

"Places, people...", she says, standing by the door.

Faylie stays in the center of the room, arms raised like a puppetmaster at the start of a marionette show. Tegan stands by some shelving and stacked crates where various bits of kitchenware, paint cans, cleaning supplies, and spare bits of furniture are tightly packed along the wall. I simply lean against the side of the stairs, ready to do the one and only part of this plan I was willing to enact. My hand hovers over the power breaker for the basement, waiting for the rogue's signal. For her part, Alabastra's fingers dance above the doorknob in anticipation, eagerly awaiting her own orchestrated chaos.

Nottham reaches the bottom of the stairs, looking around, mustache twitching from his half-snarl.

"And... action!"

For a moment, I consider ignoring her command, but that would only waste time. Better to get this done. I shut the lights off.

The room is cast in darkness with an electrical buzz-thrummed clang.

The officer turns with a start, hands on his waist. "What in the..." He starts to pace around the basement floor, peeling the corners. "Shoddy electric work. Leave it to the power company, can't hire good honest Anillians...", he grumbles.

Alabastra slams the door shut, using her picks to jam the locking mechanism.

Nottham spins on a dime toward the door, frozen for a moment in shock. He walks back up the steps, and tries the door, jimmying the handle to no avail. Again and again he tries, even slamming against the door with his shoulder, growing more frantic by the attempt. "H-hey! Anybody out there?! This ain't funny!"

Only inches from his face, Alabastra smiles wickedly. "Oh, you ain't seen nothin' yet", she snarls, a curse muffled by ethereal distance.

The policeman continues to slam into the door, banging on it with his palm. "Let me out!", he shouts, pride abandoned.

Having already begun conjuring, Faylie weaves a sound through the air. "Noooootthaaaaaam", a whisper from the ether drifts through the basement, a haunting chill suffocating the air.

He turns. "Who...", he begins. His wild look of terror is unmistakable... this is working. I steam from the corner. Of course it's working...

"Dusty, that's your cue!", shouts Alabastra.

Tegan darts to attention. She lifts a single plate from the shelf, and lazily shakes her hand, causing the plate to quiver, as she waves it around like a sad flag. She looks back to the other two, shrugging, clearly having absolutely no idea what she's doing.

But the officer looks to the 'floating plate', from his perspective, and lets out a yelp. Tegan smirks unsurely, and tosses the plate over her shoulder. It shatters on the floor behind her, and the officer backs against the wall.

"Throw one at his head!", shouts Faylie.

The knight looks bewildered, but picks up another plate and throws it like a discus at the wall in Nottham's vicinity, too wide a miss to have been accidental. Nevertheless, it smashes into pieces, and he yells, "Gah! You d-damned demon! Show yourself!" He stands, shakily pulling his baton from his belt and swinging it wildly. He retreats back down the steps, swatting the air around him in a swivel, jaw jutting and neck bulging in panicked rage.

Faylie says, "Well... if he insists!" She concentrates, arcana spilling forth as she fully realizes the spell she'd been casting. Whispers and random screeching wails sound discordant chaos into the basement, and illusory blood starts to drip from the walls, rolling slow streaks of crimson down the dark brick. As she does, Tegan picks up her own tempo, starting to throw more and more plates, supplies, even a chair across the room in a cascade of random violence.

And several feet ahead of Faylie, an apparition appears, conjured from the mists to show through to the material plane. She creates the image of a tall man in a beige trench coat, with a fedora hat. He looks to be in his late 40's, the weight of years starting to set into his face, gruff and stoic. This must be Nathaniel Latchet. Or, at least Faylie's approximation. It's hard to say if this is an accurate portrayal, especially through the mage's ghastly embellishments. His eyes are sunken slightly into his skull, colored a ghostly pale blue. Lines of dark veins run under his skin, and his sleeves are too long; when he holds up both his arms, the edges droop over the sides of his hands. That seems a superfluous and overly-silly detail to me, but it seems to work on the cop, as he shrieks like a scared cat.

Alabastra steps forward, clears her throat, and says in a much deeper, gruffer tone than is usual, "Nottham! How could you do this, Nottham?!" Utilizing her pre-feminine voice, I wonder if she even sounds similar to the detective at all, or if the ghostly ambience is performing the majority of the cognitive dissonance. She walks in circles around the cop as she speaks, to sell the ominous effect.

"Nathaniel? Latchet?! It... it can't be!", he says, wide-eyed. He's actually countenancing this...

"But it is!", declares Alabastra-As-Latchet. "Returnnnned... from the graaaave!"

I massage my temples in annoyance. "Really?", I groan. I'm surprised her teeth aren't full of brick pebbles, the way she's chewing the scenery.

She turns to me. "Oh, cool off, it's part of the process", she says, presumably not letting her voice through the material for that quip. Then back in her Latchet impression, she wails, "Whyyyyy, Nottham?!"

Nottham falls to his knees, taking his sunglasses off. His eyes tell a story of completely sincere distress. "I-I don't understand, Nate." His horrified expression looks outright silly when seeing behind the curtain so to speak. "How'd... how'd you know we were lookin' for ya?"

The rogue opens her mouth for a moment, eyes darting as she decides what to say. "I'm an... ace... detective! Even! In DEATH!" The facsimile Nathaniel waves his arms through the air, jacket sleeves flopping side to side. My face buries in my hands.

Tegan continues to smash various bits of furniture against the walls, even throwing out a paint can that spills its oily white over the floor. She takes a second to look back. "Think you should tone it down a little, you two? Natey's pretty aloof..." Even as she tears the basement apart, the knight continues to be the only one approaching sense.

"Don't you question my artistic genius!", says Faylie.

The illusion's back folds in on itself like a piece of paper in the wind. The cop flinches. "Ah, Gods! Nate... I'm s-sorry! I di-didn't think they'd... kill

ya?!" They...? Then... the police did find the detective after all. Or, at least whoever took him. I cross my arms and lean in.

"But they diiiiid!", Alabastra says. She looks to the rest of us and shrugs.

"You shoulda got your badge back when ya had the chance, Nate! None a' this woulda happened!" Nottham pleas at the apparition of his apparent former colleague like a soldier mourning a comrade. If this were anyone else I'd feel sorry for him... But even as repulsed with Alabastra as I am, that doesn't extend to sympathy for the cop. If anything... they're more alike than either would admit. Just users... petty manipulators. Only one ever had the chance to do so to me, but this officer would do the exact same, given the chance.

Alabastra says, "If I wanted to be a strike-breaker I'd go fucking bowling, Nottham!"

"W-what?!"

The rogue coughs into her fist. "I- I mean... I would never rejoin be- uh, because they have... mandatory unions in the underworld!" The illusion waves its arms again.

"Oh, Gods, no!" Nottham slams his fist into the ground.

My teeth grit in impatience... they're having far too much fun with this... Never mind that it's rather in poor taste if it turns out the detective actually was killed.

The officer pleads, "Nate, I'm... I can't believe this! Please don't h-hurt me, I never meant for this to happen!"

"You must assist me, Nottham! I cannot pass into the great beyond, until justice is done!"

He squints and nods with purpose. "Tell me how!"

Alabastra stands flush with the illusion, saying from its position, "You must name your guilt, Nottham! Only by admitting what you've done, will my spirit be set free!" I will credit the rogue with one thing: she's skilled at extracting confessions. Not that she would ever have the thought herself, but... she would make a terrifyingly effective fed.

The cop breathes deep, eyes shunted like the truth pains him. But he heaves it through his throat against the guilty traction, "We... we knew where ya where, Nate. In that mansion in the heights. And we didn't come get ya."

The rogue grins with triumph, clearly enjoying her enemy beaten before her. She leans down, partially to appraise him for truth, and partially to take in the look on his face, a sinister smile at his anguish. "And whyyyy?"

"Because... because of that donation that came in. It would really help the force, Nate, and... they told us they weren't gonna hurt ya none!"

Standing straight for a moment, Alabastra crosses her arms, and says just for us, "Law on their payroll... They sold ol' Latchet out for a buck. Damn. We were more right than we knew."

Mansions and bribes... our foes are clearly more monied and established than any of us realized.

Tegan says, "Think we should risk any more questions?"

"Just one more", she responds. Then in her put-on melodramatic ghost voice, "And who paid you?!"

"I don't know!", the cop laments. "Some councilman... Ah! Serrone! I think... Councilman Serrone! I'm sorry!" He lies fully prostrate on the floor, practically pleading for his life.

That's it, then. The next clue we needed. And not a moment too soon... already I can feel the oil starting to slip its hold on my form, and I imagine their own trick for moving through the realm won't last much longer, either. This preposterous charade worked well enough; I refuse to push my luck.

I stand from my spot and say, "We're finished, then."

The damned rogue stands there for a moment, the smile that had been on her face fading as she looks down at the cowering cop before her. She starts to grind her jaw again, the mirth draining from her cheeks. "I'm... I'm not satisfied."

What? Nonsense, on so many levels.

Faylie tilts her head to the side. "Whaddaya mean, Allie?"

Her hand starts to shake. "He doesn't... he can't know it was us that got him with this. And he'll never feel sorry. Won't even think twice about the shit he said. It just... it doesn't feel like I won."

"... So?", I say.

"So?! He harassed me, that's so! He made me seem like... f-feel like... Fuck! He doesn't get to just get away with it", she says, skipping over her words like disjointed thoughts are wrestling for control of her tongue. Then her focus sharpens, and she cracks her neck. "And he won't. I'm not finished." Alabastra is nakedly furious, and preparing to escalate.

But I couldn't care less for her asinine revenge fantasies. "Yes you are", I say. Selfish dullard, her damned pride. "You are not going to waste our time. My time. We have what we need, now let's go."

She turns to me in a rage, ready to launch into some rant on the righteousness of her cause, no doubt. Exactly what I've come to expect of the hypocrite... Then, her anger drops, as quick as it came. She blinks, considers, and shakes her head. Biting her tongue like she's poised to chew it down to the meat, she digs deep through her conscience, considering.

In a moment that feels like years, she subsumes her petty desires for comeuppance into practicality, blatant on her face as the realization dawns upon her. She knows it. I know it.

Alabastra returns to calmer waters. "Okay."

The faun says, "Hold on, wait! We can... we can so still give him the business!"

"Nah. He's right, Firefly." She looks down at the cop one last time, fists balled. "We're done here." She marches for the stairs.

The illusion drops as Faylie released the spell, the environment she's conjured swirling away into shadow, the detective's form liquidating and pouring like water from a bucket, washing over the cop to elicit one last scream. Tegan drops the last bits of detritus she's left un-smashed onto the ground, and all of us make for the door.

Nottham simpers, but stands, looking in confusion, searching for the light at the end of his ordeal. "N-Nate?"

* * *

As we pass through the hotel's kitchen, Alabastra says, "Well, we got what we came for. Mostly, anyways."

"Right on time, too. I think Forrest is, uh, waking us up?", Tegan rambles, waving her arm as it slowly starts to disappear.

"Councilman Serrone's mansion in the heights..." Alabastra pinches her chin. "That means gettin' into the upper city. Damn." The rogue snaps in frustration.

Casually as can be, the three phase through the outer wall of the hotel. I follow trepidatiously, feeling a strange sort of pulling as I go, like a sudden acceleration. When in the open air once more, the world starts to take on a brighter shade of color; the oil is nearly entirely faded. I remind myself to demand a lesser price for this rubbish work.

Faylie asks, "How're we getting onto the hilltop, Allie?"

I'd thought thieves such as these would have a more reliable way into the upper city. "You mean you don't know?", I mumble.

Alabastra says, "Ah, it's always a case-by-case thing. If ya got time to forge docs and put your glad rags on, sometimes all you need is a tearjerker. If your business is quick and you're quicker you might sneak in..." She thinks for a moment. "But... we're gonna need a longer stay, give us time to scope our marks. Nah, easiest way in is to get a pass from somebody who belongs up there."

The faun shrugs. "I can't think of anyone... On short notice, anyways..."

I stop dead in my tracks.

The three turn back to me. "Oscar?", the rogue says.

"I might know someone." A horrible idea... but I've already said it. And the rogue is correct, the simplest path into Firvus Heights is to follow behind a native socialite. My nails dig into the skin of my palms, nearly hard enough to draw blood.

"That's great! Who is it?"

Tegan adds, "Will they really help us?"

"I'm not sure..." I draw my shoulders inward. "Technically, we've never met."