Restorative artists, we’re called by the lords and ladies who solicit our services to smooth over their acts of legacy-taking. We sweep inheritance powders under expensive carpets, daub cosmetics over injection sites, lock doors from the inside. Through our professional tweaking of sticky situations—tastefully paid—lineages lean in new directions and crowns quietly change hands. Ebissa learned ages ago that murder, if it cannot be avoided, is best treated with discretion.

We’re not like the necrosourcers of Angeln in the far north, recycling corpses beyond their prime. Those hacks work almost exclusively alone. Mole and I, however, have been together for nearly a decade. And we’ve always preferred the term desairologists. Ours is science, not frivolity.

We have no home, but go where the work takes us, dressed simply in white and carrying only the barest necessities. Towns know us by the rumors that waft in our wake. Cities know us by the political shuffling that precedes our arrival.

Mole paints their lips with chalk after breakfast. A branching crack divides their reflection in the handheld mirror that has been in my possession almost as long as they have.

Their hair is short, bleached as regularly as our monies and supplies allow. My hair is of no consequence. I shave it every evening, loving the feel of wind across my bare scalp.

My tattoos, too, creeping over my cheeks and framing my eye sockets, are part of the uniform.

“Dew, how do I look?” Mole turns to me, lowering our communal mirror. Their dark eyes stand out in their chalked face, giving them the desired deathly appearance.

“A little by your ear. Let me.” I take the chalk from their hand and fill in a section where their brown skin still shows through.

We’re sitting on a wall, halfway between our destination and Apotho, the nearest town. A thin mist clings to the air, challenging our makeup. When I finish, Mole takes the chalk from my fingers and touches up my face as well.

Our patron’s manor is faintly visible ahead, perched on the crown of a bracken-belted hill. Lady Vellichor has lately come into her aunt’s fortune, evolving from heir to Heiress. Our arrival is timed carefully, falling after the reading of the will, but before a deeper analysis of the estate is made.

“There.” Mole packs the chalk away. We rise, fixing our whites and hefting our wooden cases. Shoulder to shoulder, we walk towards the hill.

The rain holds off as we climb the winding drive, gravel grumbling with each footfall. Stone walls slither down and meet us halfway, lichen discoloring their worn edges. Through an open iron gate, we pass into Lady Vellichor’s inheritance.

A thin shadow of a man meets us under the marble portico, his face the color of tallow. “Your names?” he demands without prelude.

“I’m Emrys Mildew, and my colleague is Alma Mould. We’re desairologists, here by invitation of Lady Vellichor.”

The man—butler, footman, porter (I don’t rightly care which)—squints from me to Mole and back again. Behind us, it begins raining in earnest.

“Follow me, then,” he says with a humph.

The doors creak on unseen hinges. It seems to take all the man’s strength to heave them open and closed, each many inches thick. Mole and I wait in the foyer while he shuffles off through a set of small internal doors.

Inside, the manor is a picture of faded Ebissan opulence. Dusty statues leer over moth-eaten carpets imported decades ago. Portraits of long-buried relatives hang between beams, their faces less remarkable than their obvious excess of wealth. I wonder where it all went. Perhaps the late Lady Vellichor was of the miserly spirit.

“Smells like exhausted patience,” Mole mutters on my right. I nod. Were it my birthright gradually vanishing under neglect, I might also be tempted to take matters into my own—or hired—hands.

After a respectable stretch of minutes, the doors across the foyer reopen, expelling the rude man, followed by a woman clad elegantly in mourning white. Her black hair is braided with delicate lace. A silver lattice rests on her bosom, woven to imitate a spider’s web. Pearls playing at dewdrops reflect the candlelight.

“Lady Vellichor, the restorative artists you requested.”

“Thank you, Scuttle. That will be all.”

Scuttle bows his way through a side door, leaving us alone with our generous patron. At least, I hope she’ll be generous—in pay if not reception.

Lady Vellichor smiles at us. Her lips are thin, her eyes cold blue. “Messrs Mildew and Mould. Thank you for coming. This way.”

She leads us back through the doors, into a dark library heavy with the scent of aged leather and settled dust. Mole glances at me before perusing the shelves, their keen gaze picking out titles and authors for later recollection. I hover by an armchair. Its headrest is darkened, recalling a mistress now gone. The new Lady Vellichor shuts the library doors. I hear the lock slide home.

“We shall not be disturbed here,” she says, dabbing poetically at dry eyes. “Please, take a seat.”

Mole perches in the center of a deep-buttoned loveseat. I fit my body into the ghostly impression left in the armchair. I’m reminded as the upholstery sighs how leather is just another type of skin.

Lady Vellichor wanders to a drinks cabinet, selecting a decanter and three cut-glass tumblers. She pours us two fingers apiece.

“My great Aunt Honora passed just a week ago. It was not unexpected—she was of an advanced age—but now I find myself snowed under with funerary arrangements, and as heir and executor, the estate is my sole responsibility.” She distributes the liquor. My glass is cold, a thin layer of dust disturbed by my grasp.

“Our objective is to assist in any way we can,” Mole says, their voice smooth, professional, and just a hint consoling.

Lady Vellichor nods, sitting herself down beside them. She drapes her arm along the back of the loveseat. Mole stiffens, but maintains their composure as she leans close, clinking her glass to theirs.

“I know I can trust you,” she catches my eye, “to tread lightly.”

I raise my glass. “It’s our job to be discreet, Lady Vellichor.”

“Please,” she says, straightening to face me, her tumbler cradled in a lazy hand. Mole exhales. “Call me Drusilla. Aunt Honora was always Lady Vellichor, you know. Sure, it works well enough in public. In intimate company,however…”

She meets Mole’s eyes, an impure smile creasing her face. “Drusilla is faster to say.”

Perhaps she’ll pay well, after all. Abandoning Mole to mounting discomfort and a sure tip, I drink. As promised, the whisky is expensive and excessively old. My lips leave a white crescent on the glass—like the lusty kiss of death.

Drusilla leads us up a winding staircase, medieval arrow slits providing occasional glimpses of the rain-soaked grounds outside. Amid the rustle of white silk, I can hear distant thunder. We stop on a wide landing. Drusilla swishes elegantly down the branching corridor to a closed door, producing a silver key from her pocket. With a flirtatious smile, she unlocks the door.

It creaks open and a poisonous fume rushes out to greet us. Mole gags, staggering back into me. I grasp their shoulders, staring with horror at the viscera soaking the floorboards before us.

“Oh, dear,” Drusilla says with embarrassment. “The moth balls aren’t helping as I’d hoped.”

I’ve dealt with some pretty messy “solutions” to problematic relatives. Stabbings, botched burials, and choreographed spontaneous combustion can all leave stubborn stains. Most Ebissan gentry, though, opt for the quieter and cleaner options: poisons are easy enough to obtain, mimicking illness to hasten dear daddy’s descent into convenient silence.

I’d figured Drusilla as a poisoner, or perhaps defenestrator (this turret would provide ample height). Whatever happened to Aunt Honora, though, looked positively beastly.

“So, you can see we need this cleaned up,” Drusilla says pleasantly. A putrefying eyeball stares at me, stuck to the doorframe.

Mole swallows. We don’t ask questions of our patrons. It’s desairology code, what sets us apart from clumsy beadles and their prying.

Still, I shudder to imagine what went on in this room a week ago. I take a tentative step forward, looking for the late Lady Vellichor’s other eye.

“Do you think it will take long?” Drusilla asks, honeytrap-sweet. When Mole doesn’t reply, I answer after a steadying gulp.

“We’ll get started right away.”

With a good-natured smile that doesn’t quite touch her cyanide-blue eyes, Drusilla wafts back down the corridor. I wait until her steps retreat to the ground floor before stepping into the room. Dimly, I notice the lock’s empty. She’s taken the key with her.

“What in all hell happened here?” Mole whispers, picking their way around the rotting remains of Lady Honora Vellichor. Curls of skin look waxy in the little light let in by the windows. Fragments of bone grind under my heels.

“Explosion?” I wonder aloud, trying to piece the body together based on the wild distribution of bits. Still missing the second eye. Maybe she never had one. Maybe dear Drusilla turned it into a brooch.

“Maybe she locked a wolf in with her,” Mole grunts, pressing one white sleeve to their nose.

I roll my own sleeves up to my elbows, setting my case down on the least tainted surface. “Okay. Solid pieces first, then we can address the liquefaction.”

Gathering Aunt Honora’s bones, skin, and more solid organs takes us into the afternoon. Mole and I fill three waterproofed sacks and pile them under the window, hoping the worst of the stench will flow outside. As the light fades, we assess the room.

Two walls hold glass-fronted cases populated with taxidermied creatures and books on hunting. Geologic specimens and occult fragments intersperse the dead. Opposite, the outer wall’s three windows look down on the manor grounds. I can see someone—probably Scuttle—walking across the grass towards the house. The last wall has an arched door, leading to a closet or neighboring room. Mole tried getting in. It’s locked.

Then there’s the matter of furniture. A velvet couch, matching chaise longue, squat ottoman, and side chair are arranged in a crescent shape on a now-ruined rug. Two tables hold candelabra Mole lit in an attempt to burn off some of the stench. Gazing at the configuration, it takes me until now to realize the inherent wrongness.

“How was none of this knocked over?” I ask, wiping my hands clean of body fluids for the fourteenth time in the last hour. My trusty little bottle of anise oil—hardly able to combat the overpowering stench of decay—is almost spent.

Mole pauses in their study of the display cabinets. Most of their chalk has rubbed away, leaving their face splotchy as a cow’s. They frown at the tableau. “I don’t like that.”

It’s not a natural configuration, at least not for this room. I pace around to stand facing the seats, calculating capacity. “Five, maybe six people? It’s like it’s set up for a floor show.”

Mole walks behind the couch. “And you’re the attraction, standing there.”

I turn around. Behind me, the outer wall meets the inner. The object of interest seems to be not the windows, but the corner between them and the blank wall. The one with the locked door.

“I think that’s enough work for today. You agree, Dew?”

When I turn back, Mole is standing by the open door, both our cases hanging from their arms. A creeping feeling trickles up my spine and I can’t help glancing back at the locked door. I feel … watched.

“Y-yes.” Wiping my hands again, I follow Mole out of the room.

We’re on our way downstairs when a white flash announces the return of the rain. It pelts the house, running in miniature waterfalls down the arrow slits. Scuttle meets us at the bottom of the staircase, his trouser hems darkened.

“Lady Vellichor graciously offers that you stay the night,” he says with a sallow sneer. “On account of the weather’s foul turn.”

He gestures to the right. I swear I hear his bones creak. “This way.”

Despite Mole’s haunted look, I force a smile. “That’s very kind of her. Thank you.”

Scuttle leads the way across the dusty floor, mislaid tiles tilting under our feet. He deposits us at an unpainted door at the end of the corridor. Mole catches his arm as he goes to leave.

“The key?” they ask.

Scuttle shakes their hand off, brushing chalk from his sleeve. “You won’t need one. That room doesn’t lock.”

As he walks away, his parting remark is nearly swallowed by a deep roll of thunder. “The maid will bring some supper, presently.”

Since Mole refuses to touch the doorknob, I open the door. Our room is small, twin beds wedged on either side of a table with a single candle. I light it with brittle matches and look out at the rain.

“I’ve been in this business for a long time,” Mole mutters, closing the door after checking behind it. “But I’ve never had a worse feeling about a job. Dew?”

I set the candle down, patting the beds. “Which do you want?”

Mole shoots me a glare, setting our cases on the floor by the wall. “I won’t sleep.”

“Right, then.” I sit on the left bed, pulling off my white boots. The soles are ominously sticky.

An hour passes on leaden feet. My stomach is cramping by the time a soft knock announces our meagre provisions, borne by a cruelly malnourished girl. I try to offer her a tip, but she flees as soon as Mole relieves her of the tray.

We eat in silence, Mole sulking. As it grows dark, I wash the last of my chalk away and climb into bed. I’ve just blown the candle out when Mole says, almost inaudibly, “No burns.”

“What?” I ask the dark.

“Not on the upholstery, or the floor. It couldn’t have been an explosion.”

I picture the unsettling room, three floors above us. “As for your wolf theory, no bite or claw marks on the bones, though they were broken,” I say.

“And the furniture, undisturbed,” Mole murmurs. “If this was a straightforward inheritance grab, there are ways to make it look a lot more … natural.”

No matter what scenario I conjure to explain what we found upstairs, I don’t have an answer to Mole’s implicit question: why?

We don’t see Lady Vellichor in the morning. After a depressing breakfast featuring stale pastries of unspecified age, Mole and I don our white clothes and chalk our faces. Hefting our cases, I lead the way back upstairs, Mole trailing reluctantly behind. Unlike yesterday, sun is streaming through the arrow slits. Some of the unease has loosened from my shoulders.

That is, until I find the door to Aunt Honora’s final resting place locked. Stopped at the threshold, I cast around for a bellpull to summon Scuttle. Mole sidles past me, heading for a door further down the corridor.

“I think this is the connecting room,” they say, trying the latch. It clicks, and they shoot me a wide-eyed glance.

“Don’t—” I begin, but Mole pushes the door open and steps inside the room. Gritting my teeth, I follow.

“Oh.”

The room is mostly empty. Thick black curtains cover the windows, the only adornment on otherwise bare walls. On the left wall, the arched door leading to Honora’s room stands closed. What’s captured Mole’s attention—and now mine—is the object in the middle of the room.

The coffin lies open, white silk lining perilously pristine. A bouquet of deep red sword lilies occupies the space usually claimed by a corpse. They look uncannily fresh.

“Drusilla must have prepared it for us … ” I say, fumbling my way to a reasonable explanation. “To put the remains in, I mean.”

Mole’s whitened face seems to glow in the dimness. “Five flowers. How many people did you guess sat in the next room?”

“Five or six,” I concede.

“Right.” Mole lets out a long breath. “How much are we getting paid for this?”

I wish I could say for certain it’s enough to compensate for the rampant dread wreaking havoc on my small intestine. I drag my gaze to the arched door. “There’s a key in the lock,” I say instead.

Mole skirts around the coffin and unlocks the door, swinging it into the next room. The familiar scent of rot wafts over us. They disappear for a moment, returning with the two sacks of remains we collected yesterday. Unceremoniously, they empty first one, then the other into the coffin. We always retain our sacks.

Now this room swells with odorous perfume. With Mole’s help, I pick up the coffin lid and put it in place. If the sword lilies had a scent, it’s now crushed under bones and worse. We seal the remains into their intended box. Stepping back, I feel a little more normal.

While this is certainly unconventional, it’s not that far outside of the whims of noble families. We’ve seen it before. Well, not exactly, but—close enough.

“Rugs and upholstery,” I say, trying to put my nerves back on track. Mole takes their case from my hand.

“Whatever you say.”

We spend the morning mixing solutions, bleaching some fabrics and dyeing others as best we can to remove all traces of Aunt Honora from the site of her untimely end. Due to the flammable nature of our most effective chemicals, we leave the candelabra unlit. Fortunately, the sun streams through the open windows.

I’m on my hands and knees scrubbing the floorboards when the door unlocks behind me. I sit up just as Scuttle appears, a look of perturbed surprise on his face.

“How did—” He spots the open arched door and pales.

“It was unlocked,” Mole says, straightening from their work combining ingredients. “That is, the next room was, and the key to that door was left in the lock.”

Scuttle seems unwilling to enter either room. He blusters for a moment in the doorway, then vanishes, footsteps fading down the corridor. Mole and I exchange a look of merged confusion and relief. I feel lightheaded from hours of breathing volatile compounds after our sparse breakfast. I sit back on my heels, flexing cramped fingers.

“Odd,” Mole says, corking a methyl bottle, “that she didn’t tell us how long until the family comes.”

“Considering how we found it, I think we’ve made good progress here,” I say, looking around. “We might even finish before suppertime.”

“I’m not staying another night,” Mole says. “We finish today and get out of here. Deal?”

Outside, the sun hovers halfway across the sky. I think about the coffin in the next room, wrapped in artificial darkness. “Deal.”

Just before four o’clock, we close and latch our cases. What rags we can wash and reuse go in a sack. Those beyond remission we bring into the coffin room and stuff under the lid to join the bones.

Mole locks the connecting door, leaving the key as we found it. Weary but relieved our task is done, I lead the way into the corridor and down the stairs.

We see no sign of Scuttle as we approach the manor entrance. It would be easy to slip away now, were it not for the matter of payment for services rendered. We linger in the foyer, listening for distant sounds of life.

Mole breathes shallowly beside me, gaze fixed on one of the many portraits. Their eyes narrow.

“Spitting image of her,” they murmur.

“What?” I ask, half turning. I was on the verge of venturing into the library in search of our patron. Instead, I follow Mole’s gaze to the portrait.

A woman sits on a stone bench in a twilit garden. She holds a bouquet of sword lilies. She does look remarkably like Drusilla, but I put it down to familial resemblance. And the flowers—they must be a family tradition. Part of the Vellichor crest, maybe.

Mole approaches the wall. The portrait hangs high above, an aged brass name plaque affixed to the base of the frame.

“Lady … Honora, it says.” They step back, glancing at me. I shrug.

“So she looks like her aunt did when she was young.”

“Hm.”

I hear footsteps at last. Lady Vellichor emerges from the depths of the house. She wears the same white dress as yesterday, pearl earrings glinting against the dark background of her hair.

“Leaving already?” Drusilla asks, sweeping around to stand between us and the doors. Mole steps closer to me, eyes flicking from her to the portrait and back.

“We’ve finished upstairs,” I say, trying to quell my rising unease. Beside me, Mole turns their attention to a newer bust, depicting a different woman.

Drusilla clasps her hands. “I know. Simeon said as much.”

“Simeon?” I ask, confused.

“Simeon Scuttle,” Drusilla says, an edge to her voice. “He’s been a loyal servant to my family for a long time. Very long, in fact.”

Looking from the sculpted face to the living woman, I see very little resemblance at all. My creeping unease rises to a blaring shriek of alarm.

“You’re not her at all,” Mole utters, gripping my arm as they stare in horror at Lady Vellichor. “You’re Honora.”

“Close,” she says with a chilling smile. “I was Honora when it suited me. I’ll be Drusilla now, as it suits me. In fifty years, I’ll be someone else, I expect.”

I don’t realize I’m backing up until my heels hit the bottom of the staircase. Mole trembles beside me as Lady Vellichor advances. No shred of benevolence remains in her hungry, rictus grin.

“You ruined it,” she growls, grasping the bannister as Mole and I back up the stairs. “My beautiful silk, my lovely blossoms. You dumped her inside, spread her all over my things.”

I trip, catch Mole to regain my balance. “We thought it was for the remains—”

“She deserves no such dignity, after how she fought me. Stupid, ugly girl. Her youth was mine by right.” Lady Vellichor spits the words, driving us further up the stairs. Paradoxically, she looks more dangerous from a step or two above. Her flawless cheeks contort in a sneer. “All five of them were the same—frivolous, shallow, weak. It was a kindness to take their place. I’m the only lady in this family.”

At the landing, Lady Vellichor pauses, her cold eyes suddenly alight. “I’ll have Scuttle build a new coffin. I’ll have a new portrait made; a new bust, too. Best there’s no more question what little Drusilla looked like, don’t you agree?”

Madly, Mole nods. I feel my way to the corridor wall, dragging them with me. Lady Vellichor returns to herself, glaring at me. “Unfortunate you won’t keep until I need you. I don’t like getting any younger than this.” Her expression softens as she regards Mole. “But I could use a partner.”

Grabbing a fistful of Mole’s shirt, I turn and run down the corridor. I heave them into the coffin room, slamming the door behind us as Lady Vellichor screams.

“SIMEON!”

“Coffin,” I gasp, pulling Mole with me to the horrible shape in the middle of the room. Between us, we can just barely lift it, staggering back to the door and dropping it in front. While I cast about wildly for a means of escape, Mole vomits against the wall.

I hear running footsteps in the corridor. Hurrying to the windows, I pull the curtains open, my stomach doing an awful flip when I see the bars over the windows.

“Bring them,” Mole chokes, pointing to the curtains as they unlock the arched door. I can’t believe the key’s still where we left it. Loyal Simeon must’ve forgotten to retrieve it after we cleaned up.

Accompanied by what I assume to be Scuttle’s attempts to break the door down, I unhook the black curtains and follow Mole into the next room. Mole locks the arched door behind us, pocketing the key.

Our cases are downstairs, abandoned in the foyer. The only tools available to us are the candelabra and various rocks and taxidermy specimens. Mole grabs a candelabrum and smashes the nearest glass display cabinet. In the corridor, silence falls.

“The key!” Lady Vellichor cries. “Where’s the key?”

Heart in my throat, I throw my weight against the loveseat, shoving it in place against the door. If Scuttle doesn’t have the key, we have a little time. I go back for the chaise longue while Mole picks through broken glass, selecting the sharpest shard.

As I pile furniture against both doors, sealing off both entrance and potential exit, Mole slices the velvet curtains into strips. I don’t need an explanation to catch on. I grab the strips as they cut them, tying the ends together and praying my knots hold.

Behind us, the corridor door unlocks. It opens only an inch before knocking into my makeshift barricade. Lady Vellichor screams.

“Break it down!”

The curtains are spent. I hope it’s enough. Mole throws the nearest window open, testing the lead pane with a few panicked tugs. I hand them the end of our lifeline and they tie it quickly around.

Furniture falls. I spin to face Scuttle, living up to his name as he scrambles towards me through the partially open door. I thrust my hand into the broken cabinet, seizing the closest thing—a mummified weasel—and hurling it at him. Next I grab a crow, then a squirrel, then a hefty chunk of pyrite. Scuttle curses, dodging the onslaught as best he can. Behind him, I see Lady Vellichor struggling through the door.

I’m not sure what Scuttle might be, but instinctually, I know Lady Vellichor is worse. I pull an armload of books from the shelf and scatter them in their faces, followed by a jagged piece of blood-red quartz.

“Dew!”

I’ve just seized a handful of white beads from a dish in the cabinet. At Mole’s cry, I abandon the attack and make for the window. Swinging one leg out, I realize I still have the beads in my hand. Without thinking, I push them into my pocket.

Mole is already making their way down the curtain-rope. I slide after them, setting sun suffusing the side of the turret in ghastly light. Clattering above tells me that our pursuers aren’t far behind. I have a too-clear image of Scuttle cutting the rope away, Mole and I falling three stories to our deaths on the gravel.

Instead, the rope jerks, and begins to rise. I look up, two pale faces gazing down with unnatural hunger, four hands working to pull us back.

I decide then: there are worse fates than death by impact.

“Slide!” I scream to Mole, loosening my grip until velvet whizzes between my palms, my grasp nearly breaking over each knot. Below me, Mole yelps. Before I can wonder if they fell, the curtain slips entirely away and I’ve nothing left to hold.

I fall for just a second before meeting the ground. Instead of the gravel I feared, a flowerbed catches me in a plume of trumpet-shaped flowers. Sword lilies.

My daze is broken by screams from above. Mole grabs my hand and I force my body up, holding tight to them as we run down the hill. We flee through the gate towards Apotho, not chancing a single backward glance, our only objective the distant gleam of the village.

Desairologists, we’re called, though not by many. Restorative art is more to the point: putting things back the way they were, smoothing over unwelcome wrinkles. Still, I’ve always preferred the former. It sounds modern, appropriate for a quickening world. The old magicks are giving way to industrialized alchemy, and the last thing we want is to be left behind with the necrosourcers—or worse.

After the Vellichor incident, I’m happy to put as much distance between our profession and occultism as possible.

Many months later and hundreds of miles away, Mole and I sit on the edge of a stone bridge overlooking a slow-moving river on the border of Angeln. We pass the chalk back and forth, touching up our faces.

“You have a picture of this Lord Ellis?” Mole asks. I pass them the cabinet card of our latest patron. They examine his image closely before passing it back.

“He’s been in the papers, too,” I say. “Across some years.”

Mole gives me a side-eye. “I won’t stay the night, if he offers.”

“Of course. There’s an inn nearby.”

“Separate beds? You’ve tossed and turned much more lately.”

I sigh, stowing Lord Ellis’ card in my case. “I’ll be sure to arrange it. Then will you be satisfied?”

Mole checks their makeup in the mirror. “Throw them away, and I’ll be satisfied.”

They mean the trophy I inadvertently removed from the curiosity cabinet, months ago. I reach into my pocket and withdraw a small pouch. I pull the ties open, pouring the contents into my palm.

What I’d taken for white beads are actually human teeth, mixed with white crystals I identified (via taste, to Mole’s horror) as salt. Mole looks at the mixture and shudders. I don’t know how to explain why I keep them. As much as I wish to deny the strangeness of our near-death experience … if some wyrdcraft did take place, this feels like a talisman.

I pour the salted teeth back into their bag, tightening the ties. “She didn’t follow us. And nothing has happened since. Isn’t that reassurance enough?”

Mole swings their legs around to the inside of the bridge, standing. “I’d rather not mess with anything like that. Not in our business.”

“In our business, we could use a little protective charm,” I say, slipping the pouch back into my pocket and joining Mole on the road. They shake their head, sun reflecting off whitened cheeks.

“And you call yourself a scientist.”

I take their arm, steering us toward our next adventure. We’ve only gone a few steps when Mole holds their hand out.

“One more look.”

I hand them the cabinet card. They scrutinize it for the rest of the walk, meticulously memorizing the face of the real Lord Ellis while I hold onto my own macabre reminder of our ordeal.

Just in case.

Fiction Editor: Joyce Chng

Copy Editors: Kit Pyne-Jaeger

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