Part 2: The Perfect Hiding Place

Someone was playing a flute nearby and it woke me up in the middle of the night. Lorena must not have heard it because she was still asleep when I glanced at her. I sat up and looked at the nearest window but the sound wasn't muted by the glass. It seemed to be coming from all around me. How could Lorena not hear this? I turned to wake her—I saw myself still laying next to her in the bed. I must have been dreaming. Whatever it was, the flute would not be ignored. I took a moment to get dressed, then stepped out the window to get a better idea of what direction the sound was coming from.

The music drew me back to the clock tower. It seemed the loudest there but there was no one inside to play it. I closed my eyes and tried to pinpoint the origin of the sound. When I opened them again, I was looking down at the area where I'd hidden the witch's stone. Sarto's tourmaline was calling me for some reason. I had to scale the gears of the old clock to retrieve it.

I woke up just as I reached the stone's hiding place. I was back at Lorena's, undressed and still in her bed. But I was sure the tourmaline had in fact called to me in my sleep. A cold wind was filling the attic from the window I had opened in my dream.


When I returned home the next night, I immediately took the tourmaline from its hiding place. It looked like a regular gemstone at the time but by now I knew better. If it was going to be manipulating me in my sleep I was going to have to get rid of it, but where do you hide something that could be dangerous in the wrong hands?

The answer was down below one of my favorite tourist attractions: The House of Blossoms. Poor Madame Xiao-Xiao never got over how easily I made myself at home in her place of business. She tried increasing the guards and adding more lights. Problem was, she built her business in a cavern that had more entrances than she had eyes to watch them.

I made it back to the library below the House without alerting a single guard. The madame was smart enough to find its entrance and I saw that she had set up her own personal sitting area in the top level. There were many levels below that, though, and I knew one of them would be deep enough to store the witch's stone.

Everything seemed peaceful below the depths of The City. Moments like these were my reward for being able to go where others wouldn't dare. Much of the library ruins were stable enough for me to travel, but I still had to be careful. A few of the walkways only needed the slightest touch to disintegrate. I also remembered seeing Gloomers in the caverns back when I first paid the area a visit. At least I knew how to deal with them if they crossed my path.

I made it down to an area that might have been a courtyard at one point. There were archery targets across an old fence and a practice dummy sticking halfway out of the ground. The mechanism that raised and lowered it must have been broken. I could see hallways beyond a sparring circle and I figured one of them might make a decent place to store the witch's stone. Before I could cut across the courtyard to approach them, a figure shifted in the darkness.

It hadn't seen me but it was lurking as if it were looking for something. I kept to the doorway of the hall I was near. The figure wasn't a Gloomer—it was wearing a hooded cloak that concealed its features well. Another thief, perhaps, but I wasn't about to introduce myself.

Our attention was equally attracted to a pile of rocks that spilled down from above. A Gloomlurker landed unceremoniously on that pile after it was formed. It was dazed at first, then immediately looked in my direction, sensing the primal energy in the witch's stone. The Gloomer's eyes burned red as it scrambled from the rock pile, but before it or I could move, the cloaked figure rushed it from behind and killed it. In a flash of movement, he stabbed the creature in the back with a blade glowing hot as if it had been pulled from a fire.

The stranger looked in my direction then. I could finally make out that it was a man with a harsh scowl, but he turned away too quickly for me to see anything else. I didn't want to speak to him but I was going to follow him. He ducked through one of the halls and rushed down two long turns before he reached a dead end in a half-collapsed room.

I looked in the room just as he was scratching above a door with what looked like an old stick. He could have been a mad beggar—the stick knocked dust away from the doorframe but didn't do much else. Then he opened the door just enough to slip through. I waited a moment before approaching it; there was no keyhole to look through and I didn't want any surprises.

There was nothing behind the door but a collapsed tunnel. Rocks had fallen right up to the door frame and there was no room for a person to squeeze through. I felt around for hidden switches or other signs of a secret tunnel but couldn't find anything. Whatever he drew above the door had to have been a part of it. I stared up at the broad lintel until my eyes were sore. Nothing. Whoever he was, he knew something I didn't about navigating these ruins.

Now that I knew someone had been down there, I couldn't use the old library as a hiding place for the witch's stone. I returned it to the clock tower and decided to try again later.


Nothing happened when fell asleep in my own bed; perhaps the tourmaline didn't like that I slept somewhere other than the clock tower. I never realized that magical artifacts could get jealous. I had to put it out of my mind for now. The snow melted quicker than expected and Basso already had a job lined up for me.

An old friend of his was back in The City, and by "old friend" he meant someone who owed him money. Wren Perkis was someone he knew from way back in his safe-cracking days. They had stolen a large cache together but when it came time to split the take, Perkis disappeared. That was years ago, and while Basso didn't normally hold grudges for that long, jobs were still scarce at the time. I certainly didn't mind doing him the profitable favor.

Perkis had found himself a nice little house in Riverside, probably with some money he had cheated out of another accomplice. There was still a little ice and snow left over from the recent storm so I had to be careful where I stepped. I didn't have to worry about any guards, though. I only had to look out for Wren.

He was snoring so loud I could hear him all the way from the kitchen downstairs. This wasn't going to be hard at all. There were items in crates all over the house like he had just moved in. I made sure to take all the valuable ones for myself, but what Basso wanted wasn't so obviously on display.

I didn't find a safe in the basement, though there were a few personal items hidden under the floorboards—more of a consolation prize for me. Perkis couldn't have moved without any money, which meant I was going to have to enter his bedroom.

I could smell the alcohol from the keyhole of his door and it was stronger when I went in. That would keep him out of my way at least. Anyone who drank that much would have to write down the important things, so I started going through his pockets to find what I was looking for. He had a nice gold watch clipped to his vest and in his back pocket, there was a slip of paper that described the location of a hidden safe and conveniently included the combination. Basso was really going to love me after this.

I stepped out into the hallway and stopped after closing the bedroom door. That flute I heard in my dream was playing, only I knew I wasn't asleep. The witch's stone had evolved to calling me while I was awake? I didn't feel as drawn to it as I did in my dreams but it was irritating that I could hear it at all.

The second bedroom door opened and a little girl stepped out. Wren's daughter, or at least I hoped she was. She was certainly a contrast to him: Small, with curly hair kept off her face by green ribbons that matched her nightgown. I thought she might have seen me—her eyes were wide open—but as she moved for the stairs, I realized that she was sleepwalking. Interesting. I decided to do my good deed for the year and maneuvered her back to her bed. Besides, if she took a tumble down the stairs, the noise might just have been enough to send her supposed father running.


Wren's fortune was hidden in Eel's End and there was a lot more than I expected to see. No wonder he came back to The City—he probably took what he could when he left before, and came back to live off the rest. I wasn't going to be able to take it all with me but I took plenty for Basso and planned to give him the paper so he knew where to get the rest.

The flute eventually stopped playing, much to my relief. For a while it felt like it was right in my ear. I gave Basso what he was owed and took my share back to the clock tower. The night was young and I still needed to find somewhere to distance myself from that witch's stone.


The Queen of Beggars didn't owe me any favors but she always seemed to have a vested interest in The City's deeper mysteries. I decided to see if there was somewhere in the depths of her chapel she might be willing to store the stone.

"Come to keep an old woman company, Garrett?"

"You seem to have more than you need." The ruins of the old church were crowded with beggars and vagrants. They tended to huddle together in the winter to minimize the death brought on by the cold weather.

She rose from her seat and gestured for me to follow her further in. "Walk with me. I'm sure what you have to say shouldn't be so freely shared aloud."

"I thought you trusted all the beggars in your court."

"I trust the rats, for they only know to tell the truth. Everyday, new beggars join the streets and until they learn to be as trustworthy as the rats, they do not get to keep my company when I have important visitors. Now." We stopped in a dead end past a pair of tall statues. "What do you have that you wish to show me?"

I took the tourmaline from its hiding place and held it out to her. "This is the stone that Jordan Sarto was using to cast her spells. I thought I would hold onto it, but it's proving to be the one treasure I don't want."

The Queen of Beggars held her hands close to the gem but never touched it. Her eyes moved as if she were reading something that was written in the air. I became mildly concerned when she lowered her palms and turned away.

"Are you sure about that, Garrett?"

"Mystic artifacts aren't something that I want to deal with, especially if they're going to ruin my sleep."

"The witch's stone is not your enemy. It was being used, and like any tool it can be used for good or evil."

"I don't want to use it at all." I sighed in frustration. "I don't care for all the mystics that have been on the rise since Baron Northcrest tried his ritual. I don't care to be in the middle of it. If you want the stone, it's yours, but I can't have something like that around me if it's going to play with my head. I had enough of that when Erin was leading me around by my mind's eye."

She was silent for a long time. "It is true that nothing has been the same since that fateful day. The very soul of The City has changed. It has become more visible. Communicable." She turned to me and added, "That is why you must keep the stone."

"I don't want it messing with me!"

"It is trying to tell you something, if only you would listen."

Another unsatisfying conversation with the Queen of Beggars. I don't know what I was thinking. I pushed past her and headed back the way I came. I didn't even stop when she called out to me.

"Open your mind's eye again, Garrett. The City is no longer a place where you can get by using just the pair you were born with."

I returned the witch's stone to the clock tower, but I decided to sleep at Lorena's again. I didn't feel like being in the same building as it, even though I knew it could reach out to me at a distance. It was rare that any item of value made itself undesirable to me but I knew that I couldn't just sell it on the black market and be done with it. Damn the Queen of Beggars. I had to be rid of that stone.