Chapter 12

An arising is nothing more than a preternatural mind finally seeing what was truly there all along.

-Hecate's Guide to Arcane Philosophy

Quiet

T he mirror glass rippled before solidifying again in the conductor's wake. Briefly we watched as Rickard stood inside a mirror image of the cabin we occupied, only instead of storage, it was a passenger car full of ghosts. The air warmed around the cabin, so much so I was tempted to slide out of my cloak.

Rorick laid a hand on my arm cautiously. His violet gaze swiveled about between the windows, like Dominion might burst out of one at any moment. "Let's not linger here."

Back out on the platform, the feeling of uneasiness didn't abate. The sensation of too many eyes on the back of my head was so profound I couldn't stop glancing behind us.

I felt it in a tickle down my spine moments before the clowns made themselves known. A tall specter wearing baggy trousers covered in rainbow-colored patches stood holding two balloons. He was long-limbed, and his smile stretched his painted cheeks wide.

Travelers on the platforms passed straight through the next two clowns who appeared near the ticket booth. They sat at an ethereal table sipping tea from tiny cups with pink flowers painted on them.

"What do you think they're doing here?" I asked, dropping my volume to a hoarse whisper.

"I don't know," Rorick said through his teeth, toting me along behind him. "Perhaps they're responding to the psychopomp's name."

The clown with the purple hair returned, standing stiffly in our path. He held in his hand a doll that looked just like himself. It reminded me of the toy I'd found during the first trial. The toy that wasn't a toy at all.

They'd been bones hidden behind an illusion. Children's bones.

I came to a sudden halt, jerking my hand out of Rorick's.

He turned to me. "Quiet?"

"Oy," I breathed, grief-stricken. Understanding had struck me hard in the chest and left me feeling battered. I put a hand over my stomach to settle it.

Concern wrinkled Rorick's brow. He moved closer to me, looming protectively. "Tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm thinking . . . Oy . . ." I knew I needed to explain better, but my heart was breaking.

A muscle in Rorick's jaw jumped. He paced in a tight circle before me, eyes snapping around the platform, taking in the clowns as they appeared. The silly, sweet specters who loved children so.

Because they were children.

Who wanted to be around young people more than other children? All their visits to the Home for Foundlings that I grew up in took on a whole new meaning. All their attempts to engage me. These poor specters just wanted someone to play with.

"I can see them now," I said softly.

This sensation coming over me in waves was similar to how I felt when I learned a new spell. Suddenly the way ahead was attainable for me, the pattern in the magic thread that I needed to weave to cast or the way I needed to hold my wand became clear. As my understanding grew, the magic was available to me. Here too, I finally understood these specters, and the illusion that covered them melted away.

It was a lanky child holding two balloons now. A young boy and girl that had a small tea party in front of the ticket booth. The clown with the purple hair was older than the others: a boy with dark brown skin and sallow cheeks. They dressed in clothes from a time that was several decades out of date: a high-collared dress, stockings to their knees over breeches, and long ruffled sleeves. The kind of clothes I wore when I was their age.

Rorick laid a hand on the small of my back, his touch vibrating with concern. "Tell me what you need?" he said in my ear.

Finally, my tongue caught up with the rest of me. "They're the children, Rorick. The clowns that serve the circus are children! I don't know why they can't or won't move on with Dom—with the psychopomp, but these are the ones we've been tasked with saving! I know it!"

Rorick squinted at the oldest child. He couldn't yet see what I could, but I had to convince him somehow.

Then something rustled behind him.

"Rorick," I gasped, "you have bloody wings!"

Feathered wings the same shade of silver as the hair at his temples drooped down his back like a cape. He peered over his shoulder, then did a double-take. "Death gave them to me. I think . . . I'm fairly certain that he gifted me his blood and this blessing of wings, and that's how I was able to fly out of the Nothing after I was murdered."

Death gave me wings . I recalled the message written on the wall of Rorick's old bedroom, the words he'd left in his journal. I hadn't thought until now that those words were literal.

Winged beings were common in mythos, sure. Gargoyles often had them, so they weren't completely unheard of, but this still felt like uncharted territory. Something beyond the knowledge of witches.

I made him turn around so I could examine them more closely. When I tried to touch them, my fingers moved straight through the feathers, like they were made of smoke. "How did you not know they were there after all this time? Can't you feel them?"

"Not exactly . . . I'm starting to, though, as more and more comes back to me. I don't think they always are there. Just when I need them to be." He rubbed at the side of his neck and pulled at the crisp collar of his shirt.

"All aboard!" Another conductor appeared, leaning out the lead car, his pocket watch at the ready in his hand.

Our eyes met briefly across the platform. This new conductor tipped his hat toward me, though his expression remained nervous and pensive. Clearly, we'd overstayed our welcome.

"I've had enough of this place." Rorick tugged at my arm.

"But the children!" I said, dragging my feet.

"There's nothing we can do for them, Quiet," Rorick groused. "They're already dead."

"Clearly there must be something or—"

"We'll talk about it in the coach on our way to find this bakery . . ."

"But they've been waiting for my help for more than sixty years! They've been visiting me since I was a child!" I gestured at them and earned confused stares from nearby geds. "How can we just walk away from them now that we know what they are?"

"Try thinking of them as sixty-year-olds instead," he said dryly. "That's what I'm doing."

"They're children," I insisted. "They're stuck at the age they were when they died. They're not cantankerous and elderly like us. Someone needs to help them pass on!"

When I held my ground again, Rorick came and caught me around the waist and tucked me against his side. "There's too much I don't remember. There could be any number of important pieces to this puzzle locked in my skull," he said, tapping at his temple just under his bowler hat. "It's past time we get at them, don't you think? Then we'll talk about the children."

He made a valid point. At the moment, though our intentions were good, we had no idea how to help them. The more information we had, the more we could be of service.

"We're going to help you," I promised the oldest child, the one still looking at me with a heart-breaking frown.

I trudged along at Rorick's side, unwilling to voice my agreement with his plan aloud. I didn't want Rorick thinking he could boss me around anytime he pleased. I only enjoyed that when we were in bed together.

* * *

Rorick's driver Walter was familiar with the bakers around Castleway since he'd worked that recent case accusing one wrongly of robbery, but Walter had never heard of one referred to as "the historian," nor did he know of a place owned by a man that also had a reputation for bargains and alchemy.

We made three attempts before we reached the tiny bakery on Fox Street. The stout building lacked the adornments common to shops on this side of the city: no glass front for displaying goods and no cheerfully painted signage. We took a closer look at the entrance, and Rorick spotted a crescent-shaped mark in the wood.

"I think we've found the place," he said.

"It does look like a coven symbol. Could be a coincidence, though. Lunar symbols are popular in Purgatory."

He fingered the marking in the wood. "It's definitely a coven symbol. Just not for the coven I thought it was."

"Alchemists?" I guessed.

Instead of answering me, Rorick turned the doorknob too hard, and it broke in his hand. He tossed it aside carelessly. "It was locked," he explained in response to the curious look I sent his way. "We haven't got time for locks."

I wondered what he meant by that. Certainly, I wanted to be through with our case as quickly as possible—when we were done running errands for Hecate, we could get back to the children. But why was he suddenly in such a hurry himself?

The knob clattered against the stone walkway as we pressed inside. Rorick stepped easily over a ward made of baker's salt, broken glass, and blood. The magic there made no attempts to stop him from entering. A small bell chimed above our heads. The interior looked more like a bakery than the exterior had, with a large front counter. It was swelteringly hot from the ovens, and the smell of yeast and the beeswax finish on the woodwork permeated the quaint space.

"Thought I locked that," came a man's voice from the back room. "We're closed!"

The man—the baker, I presumed—stepped out through a swinging door. He stood before us naked as the day he was born. My eyes immediately went skyward.

"Hell's bite," Rorick grumbled. "Why the devil are you naked?"

The baker chuckled. "Wasn't expecting guests this late. Serve you right, coming in here without knocking."

"At least stand behind the bloody counter. Are you the one they call ‘the historian?' Hold on . . ." Rorick's voice changed, losing his bite of irritation, and I dared to lower my gaze enough to see the historian's face. "I know you," Rorick said.

Beneath a short, well-kept black beard was miles of midnight skin over lean muscles and a naked chest, but the baker moved behind the front counter as asked, blocking the view of his lower half. "‘Historian' is what most people in Castleway call me. As for the clothes, it's hot as Hades in here with all the ovens on. And that door was locked. I'm sure of it."

"Hades" was an interesting word choice. Hecate had once referred to the god Death by that name in one of her more popular publications—a term from the world she originated in.

"It was locked, but it isn't now. I'll pay you in augs for the door," Rorick said. "You're an alchemist, yes?"

"I am. And you're a Rorick, I'd wager," the baker said, folding muscled arms over his chest. "You all look so much alike. You must be."

Rorick licked his lips, thinking over his words. Our eyes met, and his were full of questions I didn't have answers to. I wanted him to trust himself. He'd lacked confidence lately. He wasn't the same detective from our time before Eckert Castle. Some of that was the malady of the mind, of course. But it wasn't all of it. He didn't take risks or make leaps like he had before in that way that made him so successful. Sometimes risk was necessary in our line of work.

"I'm Jonathan Rorick," he said, taking me by surprise. That wasn't a name he used amongst others. He allowed everyone to continue to believe he was Liam, the detective who recently inherited, not the duke who went missing ages ago.

I watched the exchange, suddenly feeling forgotten there at his side.

"I'll be damned," the baker said, golden-brown eyes wide as dinner plates. "John? Well, that explains how you just pranced over my wards like they were garden-variety daisies."

"Yes . . . I . . . I don't remember how I know you, but you're very familiar to me."

The baker's brows pinched closer together. "Are you still hanging about with that blasted, no-good witch, Hecate? Because if she sent you here after she—"

"No," Rorick said hurriedly. "This is my partner, Quiet. These days, she's the only witch I care to spend my time with."

The historian took one look at me and dismissed me with a sniff. Apparently, the baker had never met my mother when she wasn't in her crone form. Otherwise, he'd have spotted the resemblance immediately and put us out.

The historian's attention refocused on Rorick. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm having trouble with my memory and was told you could help with that," Rorick explained.

"Call me Grant. At your service, Your Grace," he said with a playful bow of his head that hinted at an old camaraderie between them.

Rorick padded closer to the counter. "The Night Train conductor, Rickard, sent me. He said you owed him a favor."

I kept my distance. There were parts of Grant hidden by that counter that I couldn't see again without blushing.

"Ah. That conductor," Grant said. "Not the one who works the train for the living. Yes, I owe Rickard," the baker said with a broad smile, "but I owe you thrice as much as I do that odd duck. You saved my life, mate. Given your state, I take it you don't remember that either. I heard you went missing—I don't recall how—long ago. Decades back, at least. Serves you right for messing about with that Hecate. I warned you her work was too risky."

Rorick shook his head. "Afraid I don't remember our work. But if that's something you could aid me with and quickly, we'd appreciate it. It's a crucial matter of life and death."

"Always is with you," Grant huffed.

The historian appeared to be in his early forties. Handsome. Face unlined save for the crinkles around his eyes. His tightly textured black hair held no gray in it. If he was working with Rorick decades ago, then this alchemist had made a large number of spiritual bargains to keep so youthful.

I didn't approve of cutting corners in such a manner. It was reckless, and oftentimes vulnerable people were taken advantage of.

"One minute, then." Grant sauntered into the back room, flashing his bare ass at us. My eyes returned to the ceiling, and I didn't lower them again until I heard his footsteps slap across the floorboards, positioning him behind the counter. Thankfully, he'd thrown an apron over himself. It loosely fit his sculpted form.

He carried two balls of bread dough on a wooden cutting board, ready to be baked.

"Pick which one you like best," Grant instructed.

"I can't eat either of them," Rorick said.

"Goddess save you, you really don't remember anything, do you? A choice primes the bargain. The bargain is made with an exchange, an even one in this case. I won't take anything from you this time because I owe you a debt, and I always pay my debts. A memory of mine will be gifted so that a memory of yours can be returned. It's elementary alchemical work."

Rorick's fingers twitched at his side as he studied the lumps of dough. They looked identical in every way.

"Alchemy is dangerous," I said disapprovingly.

"This is as safe as alchemy gets," the historian said soothingly. "Our minds are full of useless memories: Using tooth powder. Scrubbing the floor. Paying rent. Scratching your arse. I've amassed any number of recollections just today I don't need. I'll transfer those into the dough to feed the exchange. A sacrifice just has to be freely given to pay the cost."

I laid a hand on Rorick's arm, sharing my unease in a touch. "I don't know about this. We're already dealing with eternal consequences. I don't think we should risk more playing with alchemy."

"Memories are safe," Grant pressed. "Eternal consequences only come for those who anger a greater god or meddle in the fate of others. Memories have already happened. It's not destroying one's fate to simply recall what's occurred in the past. In case you haven't noticed, there aren't any greater gods here at the moment to irritate."

Though this wasn't strictly a belief held by witches, his words rang somewhat true. Murder, for example, unnaturally brought the fate of others to a brutal end. It always resulted in massive consequences. Hecate frequently warned about the dangers of meddling with fate. And I wasn't aware of any gods taking offense over someone getting their memories back. But whatever Grant said, my prejudice against alchemy held firm. Bargains made in such a manner flirted with a dangerous spiritual line, and Rorick and I didn't need more danger just then.

"If you don't want me to do this, I won't." Rorick stared hard at me, his lavender eyes full of a trust that made my stomach swoop.

I bit my lip, thinking over the ramifications. Despite the danger, he was right. His head was likely full of puzzle pieces we needed in order to solve his own murder. I didn't have to understand exactly why such an old murder was crucial to fulfilling our current purpose to want to help him get there anyway.

But we didn't know this Grant person. Not really. This was an awful lot of faith to put in someone who clearly was on the outs with my mother. I didn't know how I felt about that, since I considered myself equally ‘on the outs' with her, in a fashion. Whatever our status, she was our ally. This historian was a question mark. My lip curled, hating that this new controversy forced me into a corner.

"Just this once," I muttered, then I pointed a threatening finger at Grant. "Try to take advantage of my partner and you'll spend the rest of your life as an ant."

The baker scoffed at me, and his lips quirked.

Rorick gave my hand an affectionate squeeze, then he turned to face the lumps of dough before him. "Which one would you pick?" he asked me.

I shook my head. "They seem exactly the same to me. Your senses are keener than mine. Try looking closer."

Anita crawled out of my pocket then. She leapt onto his coat and climbed up his chest, long fuzzy limbs stretching before her, drawing his eye.

"I don't suppose you have thoughts on the loaves here?" he asked her.

"You shouldn't ask for the opinion of another . . . even if that opinion is coming from an arachnid," Grant warned. "It's your memories. Let your choices guide you."

Anita did not like this answer. She paused on the lapel of his coat, turning about in a tight circle before shooting a thin string of silk into the air in protest.

"Sorry, friend," Rorick said.

She sent another glob of lacy web splattering against his cheek, then she leapt back onto my skirts, skittering her way into my pocket.

"Hm." Rorick wiped his face clean of silk. He leaned over the dough and gave them both a hearty sniff. "I want this one on the right."

Grant rubbed his chin, considering the choice. "Fair enough. Why that one?"

"Did I choose wrong?" Rorick asked.

Grant scoffed. "There isn't a wrong answer, mate. The choices we make impact the potency of the spell. So, why that loaf and not the other? It won't change anything to share it. I'm just curious."

"It's the one situated closest to my partner," he said with a shrug of his shoulders that made the wings drooping down his back rustle against his woolen overcoat. "It feels like her loaf. So I'd like that one."

His answer made my heart jump. I repressed a smile, trying to remain pragmatically focused on the task at hand.

Grant picked up the dough that hadn't been chosen, and he chucked it into the bin. It landed with a splat.

"Oy," I murmured, forlorn over the waste.

"Press your fingers into the loaf," Grant instructed Rorick, ignoring me. The baker did the same, shoving the digits of his left hand into the dough on the opposite side. "Don't be shy now . . . just like that. You'll feel a pinch behind your eyes as the exchange works between us, but it'll subside quickly."

"I think I'm ready . . ." Rorick's eyes squeezed shut. His nostrils flared.

Heat doubled in the room. It furled from the ovens in the back to curl around us. My mouth went dry, and I struggled to swallow.

Rorick cried out like his hand was on fire. His knees buckled. He caught himself on the corner of the counter, arm shaking to keep him upright.

"You said just a pinch!" I shouted. All on instinct, my wand was in my hand, dagger end pointed at the alchemist. Anita was back, pacing anxiously across my skirts.

"It usually doesn't hurt much," Grant said, dark brows furrowed.

"Rorick, just let go of it," I begged.

He answered me with an agonized growl.

"He can't," Grant snapped. "Let me concentrate. The sooner I finish, the sooner he'll be able to pull out of the exchange."