Notes: I have to apologise for the break between this chapter and the last one. The reason for that is that I've been going through some changes with my job and haven't had a lot of time left over for writing. I'll still be busy for a while long as I settle into my new job, but rest assured that once that happens I hope to get back to this story as soon as I can. There's still so much of Act Three that I'm looking forward to getting to write about.

There was definitely an over-hanging feeling of tiredness about Sharpace Rest that morning. Which wasn't at all surprising, given that Crow, Badger and Scraps had spent much of the previous night running about a construction site being chased by dogs and Roddy. They had only themselves to blame. But despite that being the case, this was one of the few times that even Badger wasn't keen to get an early start.

"Could have done with a couple more hours..." Scraps yawned.

"This is Roddy's revenge," grumbled Crow, "I bet 'e'll turn up 'ere all cheerful, knowin' that we're knackered. Roddy always 'as bin an early risah..."

Sure enough, it wasn't long after that when there was a knock on the door and Roddy made his way inside the house. He seemed at least a bit satisfied by how tired and grumpy they were, but this was drowned out by a feeling of general awe about the house.

"Are you sure it's not big enough here? This place is huge," he whistled.

"It's big for an 'ouse, yeah," agreed Crow, "But for an auction 'all it wouldn't even come close. The door wouldn't be wide enough to get more than a few people through at a time an' the basement we wanted to use is tiny."

"When you put it that way, I see what you mean," Roddy hummed, "Let me take a look at this basement and I'll see what I think might work."

"Wot's the plan if ya can do somethin'?" asked Crow, as the four of them headed down the corridor.

"Dad's busy with work on the site," Roddy answered, "Heck, even I should be. As much as you don't wanna hear this, neither of us will have loads of time to help you. But we'll do what we can. I told him about how you gave me work to help support me and mum back in Misthallery, so he's happy to do what he can for you. There's even a chance he might be able to borrow some of the bigger tools if work will let him. We'll see about that."

Badger wasn't certain what Roddy meant by 'bigger tools' but his mind instantly brought up images of the cranes that he'd seen last night. If they needed to bring one of those in here then there was no way for them to avoid getting a lot of notice from their neighbours. And they hadn't even talked to Umid about any of this yet...

"It'll go faster if you lot are willing to do some work as well, but I doubt there'll be a problem there," Roddy went on.

Scraps nodded; "We've been sat around doing little of use for too long already. I've got so much back stock that I've even had to get buddy-buddy with some of the local antiques shops to get rid of the extra."

"Really?" Crow gaped. It wasn't clear from his voice if he approved of this or not, but he was definitely surprised.

"Don't be like that," Scraps scolded, "We needed to get money from somewhere while you've been decorating underground. Badger's even been talking to Becky about doing some cleaning shifts at the hotel."

"Badge', is that true?" checked Crow.

"Y-yeah..." replied Badger, not feeling thankful to Scraps for dropping him in it, "It were nowt serious, just a little extra fer if this took much longeh to set up."

"It will do," Roddy assured him, before Crow could say a word, "So you two having jobs on the side might be a good idea. Leave bird-boy to focus his whole self on this project, that's what he usually does, but if you guys being elsewhere puts food on the table then do it."

"I guess that makes sense..." mumbled Crow. He seemed resigned and Badger felt that maybe he was a little betrayed, but at the same time what Roddy said made sense and there was no getting away from that.

However, before they could talk any more about alternate employment, Crow pulled the hatch of the trap door open to show Roddy the basement. The tour didn't take long, because there wasn't much to see. It was obvious to Roddy that they'd given this place their best effort, but it just wasn't enough.

After looking around for a while, he began to tap on one of the walls.

"Just as I thought," he stated, "These aren't proper walls, not like you'd expect. They're temporary and seem to have been set up in recent years. If we knock them down then I bet the basement would be big enough to cover the entire underbelly of this house and then you'd have a big enough auction hall. Once we've done that it'll just be a matter of widening the trap door and the entrance. We might need to work into some of the rooms, but I reckon you expected that."

"Sounds like ya know wot ya talkin' about," Crow commented, impressed.

"I learn quickly," Roddy dismissed.

"Is everything all right down there? I did not expect you to be working on the basement again this early."

The four of them looked up to see Umid climbing down the ladders to join them. He seemed confused at the sight of Roddy, not that Badger could blame him. Amongst other things they hadn't told Umid, none of them had mentioned that there'd be company this morning.

"Perfect timin'!" chimed Crow, "Umid, I want ya to meet Roddy, one o' the original Black Ravens from back 'ome. Only 'e lives in London now, so 'e's gonna be 'elpin' us out. Roddy, this is Umid, our newest membah."

"I'm sorry in advance for everything," Roddy greeted Umid with.

Umid raised an eyebrow; "There has been nothing to apologise about so far."

"No, but there will be," promised Roddy, "Since I'm guessing that Crow hasn't told you what he plans to do with your house."

"What does he mean?" Umid asked, looking at Crow with wide eyes.

"I was... thinkin' o' the right way to tell ya this..." mumbled Crow.

"Ask him. You were thinking of the right way to ask him, not tell him," Roddy corrected.

"Yeah, um, wot Rod said. If ya ain't all right with this then we'll find somethin' else. Even if I dunno wot yet," Crow said, "But we... well, remembah that practise auction we tried with Max, when we all decided this place ain't big enough to 'old auctions? I'd bin thinkin' about makin' it biggah. Roddy an' 'is dad are construction workahs, they could really 'elp us. Heck, Roddy's just said that this basement is much biggah then we realised an' with a bit o' work we could knock in the walls an' get a lot more space to work with."

There was a long silence. Admittedly, Badger had expected Umid to respond with his usual mild confusion at Crow's strange forwardness, but ultimately agree this would be for the best. That wasn't what happened. Instead Umid narrowed his eyes and glared sharply at Crow.

"When were you intending to tell me this?" he demanded.

"A-as soon as ya got outta bed," Crow replied.

"But not before you brought a stranger into my home to find out the details for a plan you did not have permission to go through with?" Umid retorted.

"Wait a minute, Roddy ain't a strangah," protested Crow.

"No, Crow. To him I am," Roddy corrected, "And he has every right to be annoyed about you doing this behind his back."

"I'm glad to see that at least one of you is reasonable," Umid said.

"I'm sorry, all right. I've bin a pig-'eaded brat like usual, blinded by my own ambitions," Crow agreed, "But we need this so much. We can't make the auctions work without it an' ya already said ya want in on that."

Before Crow could put his foot in his mouth any further, Roddy stepped in front of him. He held his arms out openly and addressed Umid.

"Look, you have every reason not to listen to any of us. If I'd known that Crow hadn't talked this through with you before coming here then even I would have felt uncomfortable," he admitted, "But I'm not that surprised, because I know Crow. And I think you know Crow, too. So we both know that once he gets an idea into his head, nothing stops him from going through with it. He... does do tactless things and make mistakes along the way, but he gets results. If you can find it in yourself to forgive him and let us go through with it, then you'll benefit from all this as well."

Umid took a deep breath, before turning away from them.

"I thought I knew Crow..." he whispered.

"If you need more time to think about it..." Roddy offered, letting that hang in the air.

"No. No, I don't," answered Umid, "Because you are right. This would be best. Even if I'm not happy about how Crow has gone about it... I would just be being stubborn to refuse you. So you can do this." He turned back to look at them again; "Just let me be part of the decisions in future."

"Of course, Umid," Crow confirmed. He looked relieved that this had ended up getting the answer he wanted.

That relief was short-lived.

"I was not talking to you," Umid growled.

With that, Umid turned away for a second time and headed off up the the ladders. Even Crow had the sense not to follow him as he disappeared out of the trap door. Or maybe it was more that he didn't have the heart to. He certainly looked dejected when Badger glanced his way. And as much as Crow deserved it, Badger couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

The moment was broken by Scraps suddenly clapping his hands. Badger almost jumped out of his skin.

"Well, that's settled then," Scraps breezily cheered, "Let's get on with the work."

"This is all a big show to you, isn't it?" Roddy sighed.

"Give me something to do and I might stop being so heartless," offered Scraps, "No promises though."

"Think... think yer readeh, Crow?" Badger checked.

"...Hm? Oh. Yeah. Let's get started..." mumbled Crow, "Roddy, why don't ya... um, see wot ya need to do with these walls. The rest o' us can do wotevah ya need us too. Measure up the door frames or somethin' like that."

"That would be an idea," agreed Roddy. He rummaged around in his pocket, then pulled out a tape measure and threw it to Crow; "Get started on that."

Without any argument, Crow took the tape measure and left to go find out the sizes of the front door. It was hard to say exactly what kind of measurements Roddy would need, but Badger suspected it was more about giving Crow something to do than because it actually needed doing right now.

"He liked that Umid guy, didn't he?" Roddy asked Badger, as soon as Crow was gone.

"Yeah... Yeah, 'e did," Badger confirmed.

"Maybe you're in luck then," Roddy suggested, with a shrug, "Because I think whatever was going on there is officially over."

"I-I dunno... what... um, okay..."

It wasn't the best reply that Badger had ever given to anything, but he'd realised too late after opening his mouth that there was nothing he wanted to say. When it came to Crow, you couldn't get anything past Roddy.

Not that now was the right time to be arguing anyway. Or thinking about his feelings for Crow. Because they suddenly had so much to do...

The weeks turned into months and what had once been a drab winter eventually rolled into an optimistic spring. During that time, the work on Sharpace Rest had become something of a routine. Certainly for Badger, his life had finally settled into a comforting sense of knowing where he needed to be and what he needed to be doing each day.

In the morning he would get up, put breakfast on for the others and then get himself ready to go. By the time Roddy or his dad arrived, Scraps, Crow and Umid would be awake, so Badger could head off to do his shift at the Weathered Duke's Hotel. At first Badger had been a little nervous of Mr. Hardy, but it soon became apparent there was nothing to worry about – the man was clumsy and forgetful, nothing like Roddy at all, but it was plain to see that he cared a lot about his son and was good at his job. There always needed to be one of them at the construction site, so at this time in the morning it would be only one of the two Hardys, not both, but that was enough to see them through.

With everyone fed and off to work, Badger did the same. He fast became a reliable hand at the hotel and while he'd made it clear that he wouldn't be staying there forever, they welcomed him while he was. Each day he'd do whatever tasks he was given and once a week he'd be paid for his troubles. That money went straight into the bank account that Becky had helped him open.

Once he'd finished working there and maybe been to the bank if he'd needed to, Badger went back to help work on the house. At that point it was Scraps and Umid's turn to disappear, with Scraps going to make deals with the various antiques shops and Umid going to cover the afternoon shift at the hotel. Admittedly, Badger had no idea what it was that Scraps was up to, but he seemed to get the job done and came back with a decent amount of money, so no one complained.

The only one who wasn't balancing their project between another job was Crow. Just like Roddy had predicted, the leader threw himself entirely into working on Sharpace Rest. He was dedicated and relentless. If he wasn't planning how something should look then he was working on making it look that way. Nothing would stop him from working. Though part of Badger wondered if that might have been to keep himself away from Umid. The two of them were back on civil terms, but it was clear that some ice still hung in the air from Umid towards Crow and that Crow felt down about this. For once in his life, Badger decided there wasn't anything he could do to help Crow's feelings and just let the two of them get on with it.

Sometimes in the evenings, if it had been Hardy who'd come to work on the house that day, then Roddy would join them after he'd finished at the construction site. His dad would insist that he was working too hard, but that was Roddy all over. Either way, it didn't stop Roddy from throwing himself into this work just as much as he probably was back at his actual job. And as an added bonus, he'd sometimes bring the two dogs along with him for a visit. The humans were always happy to see Ringo and Sausage, but the ever-trespassing Catanova was not.

It took them a long time to widen the hallway and the trap door. Just like they expected, many of the surrounding rooms had been affected by the work and were smaller now, but that was fine. At some point they'd decided to use these rooms for storage and other auction requirements. They could live entirely on the upper floor of the house and get that fitted out once they had a decent income from the auctions and were more able to to it.

Once the ground floor was done, they moved their work underground. One of the suggestions that Mr. Hardy had made was to replace the ladders with a wider staircase, so that guests could wander down more casually. This fitted with Crow's vision of grandeur, so he naturally agreed. But before they could do that, they needed to finally tear down those temporary walls.

None of them had quite known what to expect. Both Roddy and his dad assured them that the walls were recent enough to have been put there by the last occupant and that the work that had been done on them was hasty at best. It didn't take much persuasion to knock a hole into the first wall – a job they managed to do early one afternoon, when Badger had gotten back from the hotel. It was Roddy on shift today, not his dad, and even Umid and Scraps had given into curiosity to hang around and see what was on the other side.

It took Roddy a moment to clear away enough debris to shine a torch though. It was dusty and the atmosphere was stale, but it seemed that whatever was on the other side had caught his interest.

"Looks like someone wanted to hide something," he commented.

"Let me see," insisted Umid, uncharacteristically pushing through to have a look.

It took a few minutes for Badger to get a turn, but once the hole was big enough for him to have a look, he realised that this room was the same was what the basement had been like when they'd first found it – ransacked, with only traces of whatever had been going on beforehand left behind.

"This Sycamore guy, what sort of person was he?" Roddy asked, after they'd made a big enough space to get through.

He'd picked up a newspaper article that had been abandoned on the floor. There was a picture of a man, dressed in white and wearing a smiling mask on the cover. Badger couldn't read the article, but he remembered hearing about something weird going on in the elusive city of Monte d'Or that had involved a masked magician.

"He was... he is a good man," assured Umid. With that, he took the newspaper from Roddy; "Do you mind if I clear this up? I'm not sure how he would feel about us going through his belongings. Assuming that these are his."

"Go ahead," mumbled Crow, who had learned better than to argue with Umid. Although Badger wondered if maybe he would have pushed to check the papers had it been anyone else. Certainly it seemed as if Scraps wasn't happy about this – he made it clear that he was watching Umid the whole time that their friend was cleaning up the mess.

Whatever the deal was with the extra baggage, it didn't seem to affect their progress too much after that. Umid took the remaining papers away, the rest of the walls were knocked out and then they had the bigger basement they wanted to work with. After that they added in the new staircase and even a stage. It wasn't the same as the one in Misthallery, but it was a promising kind of different.

So once all of the work they needed was eventually done, each of them was able to look over their improved house with a sense of pride.

"I propose that we 'ave a party," Crow stated, "Money 'as bin a bit tight lately, but soon enough it won't be an' I wanna celebrate all that we've done. We'll wait 'til the 'otel an' the construction site 'ave closed for the night so that everyone can come. Roddy, bring both ya parents an' the dogs. Badge', go fetch Becky, Max, Mags an' Grafton from the 'otel. Scraps, go... find Catanova?"

"Sure, give me the hard one," Scraps tutted. It was a good-natured tut though. They were all in high-spirits now.

That evening, every member of their little London crew got together to eat, drink and be merry about a job well done. Poor Margaret and Grafton didn't actually know what it was the Black Ravens had been up to all this time, but to them it just seemed like they had made some cosmetic changes to the house, which was fair enough. If there was a party on offer then there was no point getting too caught up on why it was happening.

"A toast!" Crow called, as everyone was lounging about the now much smaller living room, "To good friends, 'ard work an' a bright future 'ere in London!"

Many mismatched glasses chimed in the air and a bit of wayward drink sloshed onto the carpet. They could clean that up tomorrow.

"Anyone wanna say a few words?" checked Crow.

Surprisingly, it was Umid who got to his feet.

"If you don't mind I have some things I want to say," he asked. After a quiet nod from Crow, Umid went on, "I was not sure about this at first. Any of this. When I first came to London from Mosinnia, even then I was not sure." He paused here as Ringo started to bark softly. But given that Ringo was known to bark at nothing, no one paid him much mind and Umid carried on. "However, all of you welcomed me into your lives, got me caught up in your strange plans and gave me a sense of purpose. For this, I thank you."

"What is that dog's problem?" muttered Scraps, as Ringo carried on.

"There are still things I do not know and sometimes... sometimes I think that I will need to learn those things on my own," Umid continued. Badger wished he could pay more attention, but right now he was too busy looking at the dogs. Ringo yapped loudly and the massive Sausage was trying to hide his whole self behind Ringo's tiny body; "But all the same, I'm glad to have so many different people to ask for support whenever I need it. I am glad th-that... you are here...?"

It took Badger a moment to even realise that Umid had trailed off, but when he did he tore his gaze away from the two dogs and onto Umid, who was staring at the door, his expression fearful.

The room turned almost as one, to look in the direction that Umid was staring. And there, like a world-worn, aged traveller, stood the man from the portrait in the hallway.

It was Desmond Sycamore.