note: After this chapter, things really start to pick up. I think. Thanks to the readers and reviewers and "cheers!" to everyone else participating in 1kaday. We're pretty awesome.

fourteen: ruin

After dinner, we headed back up to our room. I unlocked and opened the door and froze in the middle of a sentence. Standing at the window, with her back to us, was Sofia. She turned once she heard us come in and gave me a fleeting smile.

"Hi, so sorry to bother you like this," she apologized.

"It's no problem," I assured her. "I was just a little surprised. Is something wrong?"

"No, no, I am okay. I have… I need a favor."

"Okay."

"I need you to go to my shop. I cannot. I need you to go and to find something, I am certain it is there."

"There wasn't much left," I said. "Really."

"I know, I know, but I am certain it is there. It is small. It is there. It is just my locket. Please, I need it."

"Okay, of course," I said, not bothering to confer with the others. They were both in love with Sofia so I had no doubt that they would have readily agreed. Besides, we already owed Sofia big time. This was the least we could do. It didn't seem very hard, and if we couldn't find her locket, at least we would have tried.

"You know what to look for?" she asked me, looking relieved.

"Yes, I remember it," I said. It used to be that she never took it off. She had been so covered up in blacks and shadows recently that I hadn't even noticed that it had been absent.

"Thank you, thank you. And you have more, verdad?"

Dutchy came forward and offered her the cloth bag.

"We got elixirs from One Lung Pete," he exclaimed. "Not all of them, but almost all." She took it without looking inside. "Good," she said. "I'm sorry, I cannot stay. And I cannot come back to this place again – a third time – I'm sorry. I have to go. I will bring this to Swifty."

She brushed by us, squeezed my arm, and disappeared down the hall. I leaned out into the hallway to watch her go, then shut the door and shrugged.

"Well. I wasn't quite expecting that."

"At least we don't have to keep track of the elixirs," said Dutch, sitting with a sigh.

"Are we really gonna go an' find her locket?" asked Boots. "Sounds… small."

"It's worth a shot," I said. "We'll go, sift through some of the ash, you know, look around. Dutch, you probably remember. People did a number on that place. There's nothing left. Hopefully the ruins are at least still there."

"What does that mean?" asked Dutchy. "People would have built over it already?"

"Well, soon enough. The only empty real estate in that part of the world is haunted, and even those places aren't abandoned for long. It's prime space."

"Will she ever get it back?"

I could only shrug. "I have no idea, honestly. Right now she's on the run, but she doesn't even seem to know who she's running from. All she knows is that someone is out to get her. She's not really in a good position to set herself up and get her name back out there. As far as most people know, she's dead, burned beyond recognition. And right now it's in her best interest to stay that way."

"I hope she gets it back," Dutchy said after a moment.

"Me too," I agreed.

"Ya, me too, she's a nice lady," said Boots, who was back at his normal position on the floor, against the wall. "You know, I don't know many ladies, or at least nice ones," he continued, screwing his face up as he thought. "There weren't many girl orphans at the Madame's."

I couldn't argue that. There were plenty of women in the Dark, but very few of them seemed to find their way in when they were young. "Is the Madame a nice lady?" I asked, humoring him. "She gave us some nice tea."

But Boots' mouth shut up tight and he shook his head quickly. "No," he said firmly. "No, I didn't much like it there."

I resisted the urge to exchange a glance with Dutchy, who I knew was just as intrigued as I was.

"Why not?" Dutch asked.

"Her. She's scary. And the other boys, the older boys, they're mean. I didn't want to go there. I got caught, in Brooklyn."

Now I was really curious, but poor Boots looked so distressed that I didn't have the heart to ask any more questions.

"That's too bad," I said instead, lamely. "But at least you're out now, and you get to start the next part of your life, right? Do you have any idea where you're going?"

He thought about this for a second. "I have a name," he said. "But I dunno. She didn't tell me. She doesn't tell people."

"Ah," I said, yawning. Bed was starting to sound pretty good; it was still early, but getting darker. The worst part about time in the Dark was that it was so unreliable. Night sometimes decided to fall a few hours earlier, or later, than you expected, and tended to mess with even the best laid plans. In this case, it worked out pretty well. If I fell asleep now, I would get plenty of rest before we had to wake up in time to get to Sofia's and find her locket in the morning. I didn't think I would have any trouble falling asleep. I was always tired at the beginning of the day, and its end was no better; just the constant stress of getting things done and connecting with people and keeping track of everyone wore me out pretty easily. I grinned a little as I wondered if this was what mothers on the Other side felt like all the time. I decided that it was probably just a little different.

"I don't know why I'm so exhausted," Dutchy said, echoing my thoughts. "But I'm hoping that we're going to bed."

"We're going to bed."

Boots, I saw, curled up with his pillow, was already asleep. Dutch turned out the light and I stretched out flat on my bed, thinking about One Lung Pete and the buttons. No doubt he would take a handful for himself to use with his outlandish wardrobe, but, more importantly, he could use the remainder like we might use cash on our side. Buttons were just one of those things; everyone needed them, but they were scarce, or, at least, ridiculously priced. I just hoped that he could in fact find that last elixir – and fast.

"This is going to be impossible."

Standing in the middle of the burned out husk that had once housed Sofia's store, I had to agree with Dutchy, no matter how pessimistic he was acting. Boots was crouched down a few yards away, sifting through the ashes and sneezing when the fine powder got in his nose or eyes. I could already tell that the only way we would leave this place would be completely gray and grimy.

"Well," I said, turning in a circle, "then I guess we should start looking."

"What exactly are we looking for, again?"

"Okay, but this is the last time I'm describing it. There should be – hopefully – a chain, small silver links, and the locket itself is silver and oval shaped. That should be all you need to know to find it, but in case you, I don't know, find a box full of lockets in the ashes, it has a flower engraved on the front. I think it's some kind of rose."

Dutchy sighed and shuffled off to the opposite corner, where there were some larger, charred remains. Boots continued his own search in earnest, he was still excited after having been taken through the same street Dutch and I had walked our first day in the Dark. He'd loved the trees and the whitewashed buildings, just as everyone did. I think they gave you the sense that this was a magical place, and a good place, where good things could happen. Luckily, Elke had been cut down from the giant tree that grew in the center of the square. I was happier with Boots' image of this place untainted, as mine had once been. For Dutch, though, it would never be that way. He didn't see any magic in the street or the square, just the blacks and grays of the fire's aftermath.

I stayed in place in the middle of the ruins, trying to build in my mind what it had looked like before. The door had been built of driftwood, who knows where she'd found that, and fitted only irregularly in the actual doorway. When it was opened, it hit a small, copper bell that rang once and ensured that Sofia's smiling face would be ready to greet you once you stepped into the shop.

It was small, but neat. The light inside was golden and dusty and made you feel like you were inside an old, yellowed photograph. There was barely any sun in the Dark, so I don't know how she achieved that effect, but I never bothered to ask; I just enjoyed it.

The shop was a simple square shape, with a wooden counter at the back. From the ceiling rafters (also wood, and everything bone dry, probably explaining why the fire took so quickly) hung drying branches and bunches of every herb and plant imaginable. The sides of the shop were covered in shelves that held more plants, bottles – some full, some empty – books, and other odds and ends. Behind that counter in the back was a door that led to the room (or rooms) where Sofia did her actual work and kept most of her products safe. She did a lot of work, but preferred to be out front, chatting with her customers and dusting things on the shelves, gliding around in those bright dresses of hers.

Then there was Elke. Tall, slender, and dark, Elke was a Dominican girl who had been kidnapped from her island and brought to New York, where she had run away and accidentally run into the Dark. She worked for Sofia, mostly in the back because she was so shy, and the two were like sisters, always giggling and conspiring together in their rapid-fire Spanish.

Standing in that shell of a memory, facing where the counter would have been, I felt for the first time a sharp sadness about Elke's misfortune. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I still wasn't clear whether or not it was my fault, but I felt bad enough anyway. I found myself hoping, needlessly, that she had been happy with Sofia, and that she had died painlessly.

"Sorry, are you going to help us with this?" Dutchy asked, irritated, returning to my spot. His face was smudged and his hair a mess. "You're the one who agreed, after all."

"True," I said, and turned away to root around near the street. Dutch had been right; this was close to impossible. Not only was the locket very small, but it was silver. That meant that it was near the same color as the very debris we were searching in. This was not exactly a good situation we had promised ourselves into.

So I crouched down, still in my same spot, and scanned the ground. There were tiny pieces of broken glass everywhere. All of the larger pieces, and the colored pieces, had long since been stolen to use for any of a million purposes. The same could be said for most of the nails and screws and other bits and pieces that would usually be left over. I had a hard time believing that the locket would still be here, days after the fire. Anyone who would dig around for a few nails would grab something like that the first chance they got.

And why hadn't she been wearing it, anyway?

There was a sudden crash and I looked up to see Boots falling on his backside, surprised after a delicate pyramid of beams and boards had toppled over and almost crushed him. He remained frozen for just a second, then lunged forward and grabbed something from the pile. My heart leapt to my throat and stayed there as he got to his feet and trotted over to me, not even bothering to brush himself off. It couldn't be.

"This must be it," he said proudly, shoving his hand in front of my face. "Look. It's silver – or it should be, it's a little dusty – and it's an oval, and there's some sort of flower on the front." He tilted his hand so the little locket slid from his palm. Instead of falling back into the ashen mess on the ground, it hung suspended in mid air. A closer look revealed that its chain was still attached, and wrapped around two of Boots' fingers.

"Wow," was all I could think of to say. "Uh… wow. Boots, how the hell did you find that?"

He just shrugged as if it were no big feat. By this point Dutchy had realized that something was up and ambled over to join us.

"It was stuck between two pieces of wood, I could see the chain sticking out. When I tried to get to it, everything fell down, but luckily I still found it."

I shook my head in disbelief. This kid had to have the best goddamn eyesight in the city. He handed the locket to me, eyes still shining with pride, and I dropped it into one of the pockets in my trousers, checking carefully to make sure there were no holes.

"This is crazy," I said, putting a hand on Boots shoulder and giving him a grateful smile. "This is really amazing. Dutch, can you believe-" I stopped mid sentence because Dutchy wasn't listening. In fact, he wasn't even with us anymore. He was back where Boots had found the locket, stumbling over the blackened wood, seemingly oblivious to all the obstacles in his path. I looked down at Boots, who just shrugged.

"DUTCH!" I called, but there was no answer, or even recognition that he'd heard my shout. "Come on," I said to Boots, and we went after him, doing our best to pick around all the debris. Dutchy was just pushing things out of his way with his hands and shoulders, which by now were absolutely covered in soot and grime. He never once turned around, although we were making a huge commotion while we followed him. It wasn't until I caught up and grabbed his arm at the elbow that he showed any sign of noticing our presence. He spun around and his eyes were wide, his face white – this I could tell even under all the dirt. I recognized this look.

Boots caught up a second later and paused with his hands on his thighs, coughing. Dutchy blinked down at him, then back at me.

"Let me go," he said, his voice a little hoarse and not at all convincing. Okay, maybe he wasn't entirely with us yet. He looked back toward the way he was heading and pulled weakly at my grip. "Please…"

Boots recovered from his spell and frowned at me, thoroughly confused.

"Dutchy," I said gently, not at all sure about how to approach this. I decided to take an educated guess. "That's not Specs. Specs is at the Lodging House, remember? Specs is in bed. He can't get up."

"I… he…" His voice was barely above a whisper, but there was a desperate, pleading quality to it that was extremely unnerving.

"Dutchy," I said, more firmly this time, "we have to go. We need to go see Swifty. We need to go see Sofia. Specs is fine."

"Specs… he needs me to help him. I have to help him."

"We are helping him, Dutch. Come on. Let's go."

"Yeah, Dutch," Boots chimed in nervously. "We, uh, have to go. Let's go!"

Dutchy didn't agree, but he did allow himself to be led away. Maybe it was just my imagination, but all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as we left that place. I did not look back, and I turned my head so I didn't have to see that big, awful tree, either. We walked on toward Swifty's house, my hand still at Dutchy's elbow, and I found myself hoping fervently that we would never have to return to that place. There was no magic there, not anymore. There was nothing but ashes and stone and tainted memories.

Dutchy was back to normal by the time we knocked on Swifty's door, but he was strangely silent and brooding. I decided not to push the issue of what had happened, even though I was incredibly curious. Boots, thankfully, took his lead from me and didn't mention anything, either. He was almost hopping with excitement when we reached Swifty's house. He couldn't wait to show off the fact that he had been the one to find Sofia's locket and complete what I'd thought had been an impossible task. I was still pretty impressed about that fact, and, oddly enough, even a little proud. What can I say; the kid was growing on me.

Swifty opened the door almost right away and ushered us in, stealing a quick glance at the street outside before he joined us in the hall. That's when he got a good look at us, and he couldn't help but laugh.

"You know," he said wryly, "Sofia told me about her little 'favor,' but hell I didn't expect you guys would actually do it. Guess so! Umm… just don't sit on the couch, okay?"

"Ay, Swifty, you could at least give them the bath, no?" Sofia's sweet voice called from the main room. We moved in to greet her as a group and even she had to stifle a giggle once she saw us. "Oh, boys," she smiled. "Perdòn, maybe I forgot about the… about this?"

"Ashes," Swifty said, still grinning widely. "They're ashes, and you certainly did not forget, you sly fox."

This time Sofia actually did giggle. Then she clapped her hands together happily, eyes bright. "You found it," she said breathlessly.

"I found it," Boots said, stepping forward with his chest pushed out.

"How'd you know?" Dutchy asked, finally coming out of his stupor.

"You all had smiles, I could tell," she said and winked at Boots. "You were trying to hide them."

"Here." I took the locket out of my pocket and held it up by the chain as Boots had done. It swayed and twisted, glinting in the gray light from the window. Then I dropped it into Sofia's waiting hand and she brought it to her lips and closed her eyes.

"You all probably want to get brushed up a bit," Swifty said, clearing his throat. "Come on, through the kitchen, I'll show you."

We left obediently and before the kitchen door swung closed behind me, I glanced back over my shoulder, and Sofia was still in the same position, rocking back on her heels ever so slightly and looking so relieved. It made me happy to see her like that, and I was so glad that we had gone back to the shop, and so glad Boots had been with us. I let the door close, then, and started looking forward to cool water and clean skin.

I sat, completely relaxed, in one of the chairs with a bowl of soup in my hands and my hair drying by the heat of the fire. Although the physical toil of the day was over, I was preparing myself for a long night. Sofia was looking over the ingredient list again. She seemed troubled. It was looking like we would have a lot to discuss.

"One Lung Pete will get you the last elixir?" she asked Dutchy. Dutchy looked at me.

"He'll get it," I assured her. "He said he'd get it and find me."

"Okay. Soon?"

"Soon."

"These other things. You said before you did not know the meaning of everything?"

"Yeah. Spell casting isn't really… my strong point."

The smile that flickered on Sofia's face was more polite than anything. "Maybe I can help explain," she said. "Some things in here, they are different than what I have used. It will still work. Maybe it will work better." She shrugged. "Some are the same. Do you understand what are these 'effects'?"

"I… I think so," Dutchy said slowly, hesitantly. "We need something from the afflicted, that's Specs. And from the caster, that's… well, we don't know who that is yet."

"Very good," Sofia said with a nod. "These effects are needed in the Cure because they are used in the casting of the curse. Whoever did this, he knew Specs somehow – " here Swifty and I exchanged glances – "or he had someone else go and take something from Specs."

"Something like what?" Dutchy asked, starting to get lost. "What, um, what exactly would an effect be?"

"Anything," she said with a shrug. "Something that is attached to that person physically… like blood, or sweat… or mentally… something that has a connection, that means something. Like a photograph, or a favorite hat."

"Or a locket," Swifty said pointedly.

"Or, a locket."

"So we need to get something from Specs," I said. "Okay, that's easy enough, except I don't really want to go all the way back for a five minute errand."

"You may not have a choice," Sofia said.

"We saw Bumlets yesterday," I sighed. "I wish I had put two and two together, we could have asked him to do something about it."

"Well I guess you'll just have to keep that in mind the next time one of your 'Brotherhood' friends show up," Swifty said, not bothering to mask his mocking tone.

"Wait," said Dutchy. "Wait. We… I don't think we have to send anybody anywhere." He was seated in the chair opposite mine, and now he turned so he looked Sofia square in the eye. "This effect…" he began haltingly. His cheeks darkened a little, and he continued to stammer, "would… uh, would hair work for that?"

"Claro que sì," Sofia said, at first a little confused, but then simply amused as she noticed Dutchy's blush. "Yes, of course. Let me see."

Dutchy pulled a folded white handkerchief out from his vest and stood to hand it to Sofia. He remained standing while she put her soup bowl on the floor and gently opened the kerchief on her lap. Inside and carefully preserved was a lock of Specs' curly brown hair.

"I know you did not know you would need it," Sofia said slowly, not taking her eyes off the hair, "but this was a very smart thing to do."

"I, uh…" Dutchy cleared his throat and sat back down once he realized that Sofia was nothing going to give the object back to him. He sounded like he needed to explain his actions, but he really didn't, not in this company. Boots, maybe, was lost, but he would not ask questions. Swifty and I, we understood. Swifty was watching Dutchy thoughtfully, but he never said a word.

Sofia refolded the kerchief and passed it to Swifty. "Will you please put this with the other things?" He nodded and stood. "And maybe you can give Boots one of the beds?" The poor kid was asleep on the floor in front of the fireplace. "When you come back down, we have some work to do." I couldn't help but sigh, if only inwardly. My prediction had been correct.

Once Swifty had left, Sofia turned her gaze on me, and I realized that there was another thing I had not predicted – in fact, I kept on forgetting about it. But there was no backing out now.

"Race," she said, "I believe you have something to tell Dutchy, verdad?"

"Yes," I said, and looked at an expectant Dutchy. "I found out something about Specs that may help us figure out who sent him the Fever, but it won't help much."

"What do you know?"

"Only a little. Specs came here by accident. He ran into Swifty, who explained where he was. And then… well, Specs worked a little for Swifty. He smuggled things, helped him out. But one day he stopped doing that, just stopped. And he did something – see, still no one knows what – to anger someone, and that's probably why he has the Fever."

Dutchy took all this in, simply nodding. He only had one question.

"Why didn't Swifty tell me?"

I looked at Sofia, but she didn't give an inch.

"I guess he didn't really know how you would react. If you would think he was responsible, or something."

"Isn't he?"

"Honestly? It's hard to say. But… no, I don't think so. And besides, Swifty was just like us in the beginning of this whole thing, not really sure what the hell was going on in general. Remember the talk we had, about telling people things?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, I guess it's like that. Sometimes when you have information, you keep it to yourself until you know exactly what it means, or it's useful."

"Alright…" said Dutchy, still unsettled. "But… still… why didn't Swifty tell me? Why are you telling me right now? He was in this room, I mean, he had lots of chances."

At this point I gave up, because I agreed with Dutchy. "I don't know," I admitted. "Why don't you ask him?"

Dutchy nodded slowly, but I knew he would never bring it up. Right then Swifty came back from upstairs, though the bastard had probably been listening in at the door the entire time. Dutch was sitting back in his chair, deep in thought. Swifty had been right, he hadn't known anything about "this side" of Specs. Either Specs was a really good actor, or Dutchy was just plain oblivious. Most likely, it was a combination of the two.

Swifty reclaimed his seat on the couch and looked at Sofia. "Ok," he said, "what do we have?"

"We know a few things, now," she said. "I know that Fever is very, very difficult to give to someone, especially someone on the Other side. It had to come from a high up, from a warlord. We know that Specs was involved with someone, but we don't know who. So, what we know is that Specs was involved with a warlord."

"And now we have to figure out which?" I guessed.

"Exactly."

"Sounds like fun," I said. They both ignored me, and Dutchy was still, and would remain, on some other planet.

"It should be nothing," Swifty said, speaking only to Sofia, which irked me. "All we have to do is make a list and then narrow it down."

"Vale, true, let's do that."

There was a pause; no one wanted to be the first to speak.

"Um," I said, "you mentioned the Iceman the other day. Could he-"

"No," Swifty said. "No, Specs definitely wasn't working with the Iceman. You can't just walk up to him and get a job. Have you seen that guy's workers? They're trained for like a year before they're allowed to do any of the big stuff."

"Alright," I said, and tried again. "How about the Twins?"

"Gone," Sofia said.

"Gone?" I asked incredulously. "What? How – when?"

"You have been gone awhile," Sofia said pointedly. "Many things have changed. The Twins are gone. Someone separated them – "

"Grueler," Swifty supplied.

"Sì, Grueler, he separated them. When one was killed, the other went down too. Now Grueler has the island."

"That whole fiasco was happening about when Specs disappeared," Swifty explained. "So, it couldn't have been either of them."

"Okay, then who does that leave us with?'

"I've heard that Heron has been bedridden since September. He couldn't do it and I doubt those under him would be dealing with it," said Swifty. "Sofia, what do you know about el Roque?"

"I know what you know. All his strength, it is here-" she flexed her arm – "if he had problems with Specs, he would kill Specs. There would be no curses, no spells."

I wracked my brain trying to think of anyone else Specs could have been involved with. And then I realized, and they realized, and we just sat without any words between us. I guess it was Swifty who finally said something aloud.

"Brooklyn."

"Shit."