Chapter 13

There are multiple stories in our mythos featuring a fictional character who successfully traps a god and then demands from them a blessing in return. Though the methods and the demands are often different in each reiteration, one thing is always the same: it never ends well for the fool who laid the trap.

-Hecate's Guide to Arcane Philosophy

Rorick

P ain sparked in my head like a lit firework. It exploded behind my eyes and sent tendrils of agony down my spine. The pull of my wings grew heavier, the muscles in my back coiled so tight I thought something might burst inside me.

My wings beat at the air, stirring up a gust that knocked over a small table in the corner. Sharp stinging bites burned through the feathered limbs as my body remembered them all over again.

"Fix this!" Quiet shouted at Grant. "Fix him right this instant, or I start shoving the dagger end of my wand into places on your person no one wants sharp things!"

"Almost finished," Grant said, sounding winded. His next exhale passed raggedly over his lips.

Finally, the pain subsided, and my fingers slid out of the sticky dough. Quiet braced me at my side. I leaned into the comfort she offered, afraid I'd drop to the floor if I didn't. My knees had gone to rubber. I held onto her limply. The knuckles in each of my fingers burned dully. My joints hurt.

She laid a hand on my chest. "Tell me you're all right!"

"I'm . . . I'm alive . . . sort of," I managed. Then I sent her a lopsided grin. "Are you trying to boss me into wellness?"

"I'm not above using what works, and don't scare me like that ever again." Biting her lip, she added as an afterthought, "Please."

Grant removed his fingers from the dough, wiping them off on his apron. "Haven't ever seen that happen before. This ought to be interesting once it's baked." He lifted the cutting board with the dough and carried it to the back room, where the heat from the ovens culminated.

I wasn't even fazed by his naked backside this time. I was too relieved to be finished with whatever torment that was.

The law of sacrifice. The rule popped into my mind. Something had awakened in me—something more than the wings at my back. The feathered appendages arched behind me. They felt numb and achy, like a limb I'd slept on wrong overnight.

The next memory hit me almost as hard as the pain had, and my breath caught. I'd stood in this bakery many times before. I could see now how it had changed over the decades. The countertop had been refinished. Old decorations were gone, leaving the walls barren. The space had been emptied of most of the furniture that had once been built for the comfort of customers there, encouraging them to buy actual baked goods before the concoctions had become something more arcane.

In my memories, Grant leaned against the counter. His shirt was off, but he'd put trousers on for me before letting me inside.

"I can't stop what's coming even if I wanted to," I'd told my old partner, sadness clotting my voice.

"You're the Duke of Castleway now, for Fate's fucking sake. Isn't that enough power for you?" Grant had said. His cheeks had gone red with frustration. "You can stop any time you bloody want to. But will you? Give up becoming a god before the darkness overwhelms you!"

"I'm not trying to become a god," I'd told him sadly. "I'm just trying to appease the one that matters most to me." I could see in his face he didn't know what I was talking about, and I didn't have the strength to explain it all. I knew the details would simply disappoint him further. "The consequences are the worst of it. I can hear them all the time now, like a storm in my ears. The only way through it is forward."

"Is that what Hecate says? Ditch her," he'd begged me, concern darkening his brown eyes. "Ditch Hecate while you still can, mate. That kind of power is dangerous, even for someone like you. She's using you. Don't you see it? She's gotten you into this. Cutting her loose is the only way you're getting out of it again."

The memory was so vivid. Though it passed before my mind's eye quickly, it still took me a while to register when Quiet said my name.

"Rorick?" she repeated, raising her voice.

"Apologies. You caught me woolgathering," I told her soothingly.

"Are you sure you're all right?" She clung to me, her wand still in her fist, ready to strike at whatever ailed me.

I smirked at her. "You're very pretty when you worry about me. Did you know that?"

Her cheeks went pink, and she promptly let me go. "Keep that nonsense up and I'm leaving you here to fend for yourself against your naked friend."

I chuckled at her. Quiet didn't see value in beauty and didn't trust it as a compliment. It wasn't quantifiable enough as a tool for measuring the worth of anything and was more often than not used to manipulate others, earning her disdain.

Grant returned. He propped his hip against the counter in a way that was all too familiar. An old fondness for him crept inside me, warming my dead heart. I didn't have friends, especially not back then. Only colleagues. Witches had their covens, but alchemists tended to pair off into mentoring partnerships. I was Grant's mentor. I'd respected Grant. Cared about him even.

"What's wrong with you?" Grant squinted at my face.

I waved him off as he drew nearer. "I'm fine now."

"You looked like you were in a trance," Grant said. "Were you having a memory? That's odd. You haven't even eaten the bread yet." He looked me over the way a physician might, rising to his full height to inspect my eyes. "There it is. Your gaze has gone all glassy and your pupils are larger. If someone else has messed around inside your head already, you should have told me so."

"I didn't . . ." I started, and then I remembered the tea Hecate made me. "Or rather, I should say I did drink something herbal. It makes me dream deeply, and I get flashes of memory from time to time, but it's been a couple of nights since I ingested it last."

"Sounds like a witch's brew," Grant concluded. "The pain you felt was a side effect of adding more magic to the equation. It's like having too many cooks in a crowded kitchen. When you use multiple arcane arts to address the same issue, the magic fights for who gets to be head chef inside your brain, so to speak."

I rubbed at my forehead. "I didn't think on it, and I don't recall all the rules I once knew. Does this mean I shouldn't have the bread you're baking?"

"You should still eat it," Grant said. "When it's ready, you'll want to consume it very slowly. Tiny bites, a little at a time, or you'll hurt yourself again."

"I can't eat solid food," I said, flashing him my fangs as a reminder. "Only liquids go down well."

Grant snorted. "It's not truly bread, mate. It's made of bone dust and pollen and other alchemical mixtures you'd rather not know about. It's being purified in heat now, but it'll be ready soon."

"Thank you," I said, but the words didn't come out as casually as I'd intended them. There was a weight to them I didn't fully understand.

He shook his head. "It's hard to see you like this, John. You're the one who taught me most of it back when you were still just a mortal man, and now here I am reminding you of the basics."

"The memory that came to me was about you," I confessed.

"Hm," Grant grunted, "no surprise there. A great way to spark a lost thought is to return to the place it happened."

His words gave me an idea. "How much longer before this bread that's not really bread is ready? My partner and I have places we need to visit right away."

* * *

Half an hour later, Grant gave me a pinch of the alchemist bread to consume and wrapped the rest in brown paper. It dissolved on my tongue, turning my throat dry. Otherwise, I felt no different. Grant reassured me that it would come slowly. Thankfully, he also had actual pastries and day-old bread for Quiet to nibble during our wait. She was looking peckish.

Then the historian sent us off.

"Once this is all over," Grant said, hanging by the door brazenly, still nothing on his person but a loose-fitting apron to protect him from the weather, "you should stop in and let me know how it turned out."

"You'd want that?" I said, feeling a pinch in my chest. I'd abandoned him to chase my interests. I didn't fully understand why anymore, but I sensed the rift I'd left in my wake. Decades had passed. It amazed me that he'd trust me now.

He nodded. "I won't promise to put on trousers for you, but yes, I'd like that. Now get out of here before you turn me mawkish."

I shook his hand before we parted ways, Quiet at my side. She still had her wand at the ready, her protective instincts at full alert after that painful exchange, her face unsmiling. Even my coach earned a nervous glower from her, as if there could be enemies lurking inside it.

I handed her the alchemical bread. The brown paper crinkling between her fingers, she tucked it away in her witch's hat for safekeeping.

"I need to get a message to Inspector Sheridan," I told her. "I'd like him to bring me whatever his department has on my first death. Would your assistants help me with the request? We can't send a wire at this hour, and they're much faster than a messenger."

Quiet fished paper and a charcoal pencil out of her void. She handed them to me. While I wrote out a note to the inspector, Quiet summoned Gilbert.

The trusty moth climbed out of her hat and perched on the brim, wings fluttering, preparing for takeoff. Then he circled the two of us, glowing a happy blue, eager to be of use. Quiet rolled up the note after I finished it. Anita stuck her head out of the hat long enough to supply the silk to bind it.

Letting her participate did not ingratiate me with her after my most recent transgression of not allowing her to pick the bread. I'd make it up to her later.

Gilbert took up the roll of paper and jetted off into the night.

"Oh dear," Quiet said. "He's going the wrong way. Gilbert ! He isn't very consistent since he was injured down in that cistern. The poor dear."

"Give him more time. He'll be good as new again," I said hopefully.

Gilbert pressed on in the wrong direction, dedicated in the face of a strong winter wind. Quiet placed her fingers in her mouth and blew a whistle. The chunky little moth flew in a wide arc, heading back for us.

As he neared, I extended my hand, providing Gilbert with a platform to land on. His fluffy little feet tickled the creases in my palm around the rolled-up note. He raised his antennae at his mistress in question.

"The butterflies are coming with you," she said kindly. "We wouldn't want them to feel left out."

Four little butterflies fluttered free from Quiet's overturned hat. They flew into the air together, this time in the correct direction of police headquarters. When Gilbert tried to veer the wrong way, they swarmed him, gently shepherding him back onto the correct path.

When they were out of sight, I guided Quiet across the walkway toward my waiting carriage.

"Where too, Your Grace?" my driver called down, touching the brim of his bowler hat in salute. His breath steamed in the night air.

I was about to answer him when the cloying scent coming off of his clothing hit me. Instinctively, I pulled Quiet into my side.

"Your Grace?" the driver said again.

It was more than the smell. I could see it on his person now. There was something hazy around the edges of him, a hint of ethereal mist that revealed him to be an imposter.

"I think we'll walk, actually," I managed after a pause that I hoped wasn't too long. Quiet started to protest, but I squeezed her arm warningly. She took the hint and cleared her throat.

"Are you sure, Your Grace?" the blurry imposter asked. His voice was incredibly convincing, mirroring the tone and cadence of my driver Walter exactly, but I could see the illusion this ichor cast now, and I wouldn't be fooled.

I was remembering, seeing what once I couldn't.

"I'm certain," I said. "Head back to the brownstone and have a rest. We'll be there soon."

The imposter set off reluctantly, making a noise in his throat that egged the horses on. I walked Quiet in the opposite direction at a leisurely pace, not wanting it to look to anyone like we were in a hurry.

"Are you going to tell me what you're up to?" Quiet whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

"I will," I said reassuringly, "after this bend here."

We turned down Main Street onto a walkway that would be crowded with travelers come dawn. This road led to the Castleway marketplace. It was deserted now under a blanket of stars.

I stopped short and pressed close to the nearest building, a commercial property made of sun-bleached stone, pulling Quiet after me. She mimicked my posture, flattening herself against the siding.

I craned my neck to peek carefully around the corner. The imposter pushed my carriage farther down the road, still heading in the direction of my brownstone, hopefully none the wiser.

"That wasn't my driver," I explained. "That man was an ichor."

"What's an ichor doing impersonating Walter?" Quiet demanded. She scooted in closer and leaned around the bend so she could watch the carriage growing smaller in the distance with me.

"Excellent question," I told her, "but an even better one is what was that same ichor doing impersonating you ? I recognized his shifter scent, and I could see the illusion on him this time. That's not something I used to be able to see . . . Like my wings."

"We've had an arising, you and I." She peered up at me from her bent position. "We could have confronted him, you know."

"After that alchemy exchange, I'm still not feeling quite up to snuff."

"I am," she said, fisting her wand like it was a broadsword. "All you had to say was ‘ichor, get him' and I'd have seen to it!"

"If you cursed him into a bee, we wouldn't be able to question him."

"It may be hard for you to believe this," she said sternly, "but I don't go around cursing everyone into an insect. Goose taught me a curse that makes a person's bowels go loose and they heave all over. I haven't had a cause to use it yet. That could have been my moment. I imagine after a person is made empty like that, their tongue wags easier."

Laughter rumbled out of me. "And no doubt you would have performed the curse spectacularly, but we have more pressing matters to attend to, and it would look to anyone else who happened to see like you'd just cursed an innocent man. Didn't you recently tell me there's too much for us to juggle to be dealing with criminal charges?"

Her sigh was resigned. "You make a valid point, but aren't you worried about poor Walter? What'd the imposter do to him?"

"The ichor didn't bother hurting you before he impersonated you. He claims he just wants to have a conversation with me, but apparently he only wants to do that if I don't know who he is. For now, I vote we leave him and stick with the plan. Let the ichor think he's got me fooled. We'll solve my murder, then get to my brownstone and deal with the ichor. For good this time."

Quiet rose to her full height and leaned her back against the building wearily. "This letting you call the shots thing is tiring."

"Don't you worry, love," I teased. "I won't get used to being in charge. I like it too much when you boss me about." Hovering over her, I propped myself up on my arm. With her in a hunched position, I towered. "You're handling all this very well. So well in fact, I think you deserve a reward."

The corner of her mouth curled up. She tugged on the lapel of my coat affectionately, drawing me in closer. "A reward, eh? Tell me more about this reward."

I lowered my head, inhaling her scent of earthy herbs, wildflowers, and citrus, until my lips grazed the shell of her ear.

"You've been such a good witch," I whispered, delighting in the way she shivered. "I'm going to reward you with . . . math ," I said, drawing out the term like it was the most debauched word I'd ever spoken.

Her eyes popped wide, and her lips parted. "Oh," she cooed, "I do so like math." The giggle that escaped her was too sweet not to kiss her. I wanted to inhale the sound of her mirth. In the chill, her heat engulfed me. Her laughter tickled my lips and filled my mouth. The gift of her blood beat through my body, firing my veins.

She tasted like life. Like resilience and passion and competence. I could kiss her all night until the sun rose and the slumber took me. I'd collapse there on the walkway, unconscious and happy.

Too soon, I had to pull away. Her next shiver felt less like it was from desire and more because of the bitter chill. It was freezing out here, and we had a case to solve.

"Shall we head to my laboratory, then, since you sent off our ride?" she asked. "It's closer."

"We need to get to Eckert Castle," I said. "We'll use the bread Grant made me there. That's where I was murdered. That's where I'd like to collect a few old memories."

"It's one devil of a long hike," she protested. "I should know. I've made it once already, and it's a shorter trek down in the aqueducts. Here, with all the buildings and the wilds, it'll be worse. We could avoid the cemeteries easy enough, I suppose. The werewolves probably won't bother us, but what if they're particularly hungry tonight?"

"We'll fly," I said. I hated the idea, but it was better than walking by far.

"My traveling artifact took a beating the last time we used it," she explained. "We nearly turned it into matchwood. It'll be several more hours yet before it's charged enough to make that trip."

"I had something else in mind, actually," I told her.

"What?"

My wings unfurled behind me with a snap. "Let's give these a try."