The moment Amo passed into the building called Maniaque, the disguise they wore fell away like dust blown by the wind. Amo almost missed it, feeling some strange breeze brush over their skin and looking down to watch the illusion fade from their body. The guise of the affluent man was simply gone, Amo’s own hands all they saw. In a moment of panic, Amo pressed their hands to their face, touched their eyes and lips. Their own features had been restored. They should not have been so surprised, Amo thought right away, to find such countermeasures in a city with such menacing sorcerers. Really, it was strange it hadn’t happened at least once before.
Amo had chosen to wear commoner’s clothing that day, a simple green tunic and pants, instead of the conjured garments they’d received from Sgathaich. Maybe the additional enchantments their mother had put on those clothes would’ve resisted the wards. Maybe the conjured clothes would’ve ceased to exist. It was hard to guess. Maybe this was for the best.
“Well.” Amo sighed to themself, and shrugged. “There are worse things to be than myself.”
“A strange reaction to having one’s mask torn off,” said Norgash, who idled a few meters in front of Amo, watching them sideways. She stood in the center of the boutique’s large central room, so many fine garments surrounding her in circle upon circle of racks, so much vibrant cloth hung in an elegant whorl about the lamp above.
A heavy slam behind Amo made them flinch, and they turned to stare at the door. It had fallen shut seemingly on its own. The windows had gone dark, as though impossibly black drapes had fallen over them outside.
“Night is ending,” said Norgash. “This boutique is only open from the fall of dusk to the end of dawn. Leave now or you’ll be stuck in here.”
* * *
Just outside the doors of the Admiralty Office, Indirk stopped. Mardo paused behind her. The space between them was fragile and tense, and he didn’t want to crush it. But Indirk turned a sullen glare on him and grated, “I’m waiting for you to walk me in.” She reached a hand into that space, her claws shredding some ephemeral thing that Mardo had thought was unbreakable. Some shard of it, perhaps, struck a pain in Mardo’s chest, but he stepped forward. Indirk hooked his elbow, wrapping herself like a predator around his arm. “Just a little bit at a time,” she said, burying her face in the crook of his big arm, “We put things back how they were.”
Shocked by the almost painful power of her hold, Mardo stared down at the top of Indirk’s head and said to her, “I want us to be better.”
Indirk hummed. She pulled him toward the door. Together, they went inside.
The foyer was strangely empty. There was no receptionist at the desk. The coffee had been abandoned to burn away on the corner stove. Indirk seemed not to notice. She looked around the room but her eyes sought the windows, seemed to watch the dust that danced in what rays of sunlight penetrated the day’s fog. To Mardo, it seemed her attention was turned to musing, perhaps too busy with things elsewhere to notice what was here. Mardo might have paused then, but Indirk pulled him on.
Well, it was only burned coffee. It was only one empty desk.
But then, in the large, shared office space that dominated the building, there were dozens of empty desks. There were coffee cups and papers poised like their owners had stepped away for just a moment, a diorama of a normal workday. Only the people were missing. And the noise. It was quiet. Mardo stopped just inside, pulling Indirk to a standstill beside him. She looked up at him, then around, having only just noticed the strangeness.
She’d changed so much so quickly, if Mardo was being honest. She’d hung up her constant suspicion and guardedness like things that had always been unnatural to her, or things unwanted. It had given Mardo hope. If only it had been in time.
“I can hear that song you’re carrying, Mardo,” said a sollin anthral near the fireplace. Mardo noticed the few people at the edges of the room. They’d been quiet, patient, but they moved now. Someone sat at Indirk’s desk, reading the logs she’d left there, flanked by a pair of Watch officers. Someone else leaned unhappily on that desk, scratching at his beard. And someone coaxed the blaze in the expansive fireplace to a roaring fervor, as though they had nothing else to do. The man at the fire said, “I’d been ignoring how music clings to you, as a courtesy, but I’m starting to wonder.”
Mardo put a hand on the chiming orb in his pocket. “You said I’d have more time.”
“Things changed. We no longer need to let our timetable be determined by the reluctance of Indirk Correlon.”
At Mardo’s side, Indirk flinched. She ducked her head, whispered a small, “No.”
“You said you were going to let me handle it,” Mardo snarled.
“And I would’ve, except.” The man at the fire stood and turned. The firelight shone on the polished leather of the mask that covered the left side of his head. Half-face Mirian, Spymaster of Gray Watch, gestured across the room. “Our new friend has already agreed to give us everything we need. Unconditionally.”
The bearded man near Indirk’s desk turned his shameful eyes aside. “Sorry.”
Indirk hissed at him. “Nymir.”
“You don’t know what’s been going on.” Nymir looked like a worm of a man, patchy hair and sunken eyes, a haunted look on his pale face. “The crone’s involved. Amo’s probably in on it. Phaeduin’s gone fucking insane. I’m not going to Hell for this. I’m not letting you people send me to Hell.”
From the person sitting at Indirk’s desk, a low voice mumbled, “A spy in my own office.” The Commodor’s voice. They set Indirk’s logs down and stood from her chair. The two Watch officers on either side of the Commodore moved to flank them stoically. These were members of the Foremost Crew, the Commodore’s own special taskforce, so marked by the silver crests running over their pauldrons and the grated faceplates beneath their green hoods. At a small gesture from the Commodore, the two Foremost nocked black bolts to small hand crossbows and took aim at Indirk.
She recoiled back. Mardo put his hands on her shoulders to hold her steady. “Calm, Indirk.”
“No running, please,” the Commodore muttered, their frown disappointed, eyes cold. “The boldness it takes for you to sit in my office under such pretense galls me, but now it’s at end. Our spymaster is going to offer you a deal. Not much of one, I’m afraid. Our capacity for clemency has already been expended.”
Indirk strained against Mardo’s grip. “Nymir, you fuck!”
The thin man in the rags of a seaman crossed his arms nervously, shaking, looking at the ground. “You don’t get it. I asked them about Sgathaich. They confirmed it. It’s her. They call her the Keeper here. We never stood a chance.”
“They’re lying to you!” Indirk swung her arms up to push Mardo’s hands off of her. “You sun-scoured idiot! Coward! You have no idea what you’ve taken from me! You have no idea what you’ve done. What I’m going to do when I get my hands on you.” She started to move forward.
Mardo grabbed her again. “Please, Indirk. It’s not too late.”
Taking a deep, swelling breath, Indirk turned her anger on Mardo. “Two bullets in his head.”
“What?” Mardo pulled away as if he’d been hit in the chest. “What are you talking about?”
“Hado. You know it. You know what I did. Is that why you strung me along?” Something had changed in an instant, her fury toward him somehow cold, the depth of her voice something like a growl. “You got your month of hate-fucking in and now you’re done with me? I get it.”
“No!” Mardo moved in front of her and reached for her with both hands. “No, Indirk, it’s not too late for us to talk this through. We don’t have to-”
Indirk struck him with the entirety of her body, a flash of dark fury that knocked him sprawling across desks on his way to the floor. In the tumult of his fall, her heard an animal snarl, Indirk’s voice shouting, “You’re fucking dead, Nymir!”
