Horst König had proven pliable as any mark, for all that he'd styled himself a world-savvy man of wisdom and culture. If she'd wanted to make him squirm, Wasila could have remarked that surrounding oneself with special things didn't make a person at all remarkable themselves.
It wouldn't have been Wasila's mouth moving, of course, but that of Liesel Meierditch: a well-respected and entirely fictional laureate of Durmstrang's exclusive Silver Sunburst Award for the Expansion of Magical Lore and Understanding—an accolade so exclusive, in truth, that it too did not exist, a fact that only enhanced the impression it could make. Exactly what lore had been expounded upon, specifically, was a joy to invent and reinvent as the scarce opportunities arose.
The little games kept her sharp between roles.
Well out of sight of König's squat and homely brick haven, Wasila watched her patronus fade into the falling dusk over twisting dead trees that reached after the stars with rime-coated fingers, pure white pinpricks that seemed to notice the silvery blot streaking beneath and shine the brighter for it, as if to exult in their elevated state. The crunch of frostbitten leaves beneath her boots halted when she did. To the ear the world then almost vanished, but for the cold breath of the wind skimming the stiff earth's powdery blanket of snow. The same chill air brought a pleasant burn to her lungs.
There was little wonder how Pyrrha would receive the news. She was a deceptively simple woman, at heart, but no less intriguing for that truth; an exemplar of power and will, molding the world around her with the tools of an architect and the capability of a child, the carelessness, leaving behind one mess after another in pursuit of her ambitions. But scattered in her wake wasn't toy blocks or upturned sandcastles: bodies. Destruction. And like the rest, she hardly seemed to glance back.
Liesel's frozen face cracked into a wide smile that didn't quite belong there.
She disappeared without a trace or impression left behind, apparated so neat and quiet the forest had forgotten her memory a moment later.
In the huddled, frost-coated wizarding village of Nachthase, there was an appointment to keep. To keep, but not to attend, and there was a difference.
August was early for ice and snow, but the little hamlet wore it over shuttered windows and slate roofs like the pale hide of some hibernating herd, clinging icicles and hoarfrost all aglitter under the wan morning sun. Wasila traveled up the cobblestone streets flanked by homesteads that woke even as she passed, curtains fluttering open here and there of their own accord to reveal glimmering firelight framing the sleepy activity within. Some who came to their windows lingered to wonder at the stranger to their insular town, and Wasila would have returned a cheery wave, but the person in her boots was a grizzled man with a face made for glowering. So glower she did, all the while maintaining a slight shuffle in her gait.
To appear as a perfect stranger amidst a setting so intimately familiar with itself might seem a mistake, but the meeting place was just that: a convenient rendezvous point on neutral ground, in the plain sight of the public, which afforded a sense of security that was, of course, all but entirely false. Who meant to find Liesel Meierditch here as agreed upon were strangers themselves, strangers bound for disappointment.
Their precise affiliations were the focus of the exercise. König had arranged the appointment at her behest, had called upon the middle-men who had brokered the deal for what had to be Dagda's harp, and he'd assured her with almost endearing innocence that the buyer intended to receive her directly. Anyone that went about their business through intermediaries, especially concerning transactions that were entirely, unambiguously legal, would have their dealings with persistent inquirers in much the same fashion. The farcical assurance had cemented her current course of action.
Not far ahead, at the slippery street's end, the town's square was drawing into view. Already the denizens of the surrounding houses had cast off the last lingering doldrums of sleep and were departing in steady trickles of life. Doors squealed, groaned or banged open and let free witches and wizards at the front of countless breakfast-scented gusts of warmth, with some carrying on parting thoughts, well-wishes and arguments up until the moment they vanished with a crack. Others kicked off on brooms, while still others plucked up irregular objects that had, minutes before, appeared on the lawns from nowhere in a burst of blue light, and they were then stolen away by the same. From some dwellings all that issued forth was a telltale flare of emerald flicking past the gaps in window shades and door frames.
The last and least of the departers were those rare creatures who lowered themselves to walking. They eyed Wasila with a healthy mix of reactions before turning and finding their own ways, deeper into town or ahead to the square, where shops and other labors awaited their attendance. Some fell easily into step and conversation when their paths converged, and some glanced over at her with half a friendly offer on their faces. In keeping with her character she wore her disinclination plainly, advancing on the plaza at a dogged, brisk pace.
"Hold on there, old man! Stop, I said!" The voice from aside came gruffly, from lower in the chest than was normal for the man; it was an aggressive response to unease, and it was plainly meant for Wasila.
She ignored the man and kept walking, the irritation on her weathered-stone face no longer entirely feigned. There were drawbacks and weak points to any plan of attack, and here one closed in on her with an energetic stumping stride. Scattered eyes were drawn from up and down the road as the wizard caught up and set himself in her path with the belligerent air of an authority catching out an egregious wrong.
"Is there a problem?" Wasila's voice was like scored bark, but the German was flawless, accent and all.
He was a broad young man with ruddy cheeks and hair like straw. Moments earlier she'd watched from the corner of her eye as he'd left behind a tired witch cradling a burbling bundle in each arm.
"Haven't seen the likes of you around here," the wizard said, crossing arms beneath thick brown robes that bunched about his defined musculature. The statement of fact was spoken like a condemnation.
"Never met someone you haven't met before?" Wasila said dryly. "Quaint."
"Don't like the look of you," the man said, "skulking about where you've got no place. Don't like the sound of you, either. What's your business in Nachthase, vagrant?"
Wasila would make light, try to get under the man's skin, but he wasn't Wasila. It was grave happenings that brought Anson Brandt here. He had to play this with care; theirs was already a scene that would stick out in memory, but the damage could yet be mitigated with a quick disengagement.
"And who are you to tell me where my fuckin' place is, eh? Go fuck yourself raw." Brandt's self-righteous inflection was just so, that conveyed the implication of ties to the town. "My business is none of yours."
"Yeah?" The wizard stepped closer to loom, radiating hostility. Brandt didn't move; they were nearly chest to chest, sharing the fog of their breath. "I see a shifty old bastard I never seen before eyeing up my street, my family—then I get real interested, see? I get curious. So I'll be having that answer now, or you won't like what I've got to say, I promise you."
With meticulous care—the wizard's glare was intense and unblinking—Brandt let his own dour expression falter into a perfect blend of penitence and a distracted sort of distress. "Right . . . I can understand that. Of course. Got to watch out for kin. Only thing in this world worth a damn, isn't it? Family."
The man's stony countenance softened almost imperceptibly, but he only grunted, heavy brows still furrowed in anticipation. While he waited, Brandt took a rough breath and grimaced before speaking again.
"Looking for my brother," he admitted. He let the reluctant pause stretch for the appropriate time. "Had a falling out, years ago, but I know he lives around here somewhere. Or he did. I don't fucking know. Just know I've got to find him before our mother passes . . . didn't mean nothing by it," he added in a mutter, jerking his head back in the direction of the wizard's home.
"Looking for your brother," the wizard echoed with a skeptical thoughtfulness. Brandt's face was now carefully composed of honest exasperation, and a far-off quality that bespoke the plague of tragedies beleaguering his imaginary life; the wizard saw it and stood back half a step. "Well."
There was a pause in which an apology might naturally pass one way or the other. It didn't, but the ghost of it colored the man's tone. "Well, don't you think you'd have better luck asking around, rather than roaming about and gawking? We're friendly enough folk."
The last was said with a rueful quirk of the mouth, and Brandt gave a chuckle as he was meant to. "Could be you're right. Could be . . ." He scratched at grey stubble. "Could be I almost don't want to find 'im, you know? Don't want to dig things up, but . . ."
"Complicated stuff, family," the man said, noncommittal. He lumbered aside and gestured ahead, falling into step beside Brandt when the invitation was taken. "So talk to me about your brother. Maybe I can point you in the right direction, eh? I know Nachthase better than just about anyone, I'll tell you that much."
What few bystanders had straggled to watch their confrontation moved on disappointed as they made their way up to the market square. Brandt kept up the act while they conversed, searching the faces of those who passed into view with a curated expression of halfhearted hope. His answers were nebulous enough to be both credible and useless. The wizard—Heinrich, after introductions—made admirable thrusts at providing worthwhile insight, but his efforts were quite literally for nothing. Wasila had to work to keep a sly smile from sliding onto Brandt's face during their side-along stroll.
The square was both cozy and spacious, the same smooth cobblestone paved from corner to corner. Lamplit shops and business fronts all faced inward at the centerpiece: a tiered stone fountain sharply carved and crowned by a hare three times the natural size. The animal alone was shaped of glossy obsidian, gleaming eyes nearly alive where they peered back over a shoulder, its body poised to take off running.
Already there were stuttering streams of people pouring into the square all around, and the rattle of doorbells rang at each come and go. A gaggle of children swooped and shrieked across the clear white sky, putting broomsticks through their paces, their general direction inclining away from a distant storm of motherly shouting. Pink smoke that smelled of peat poured from the windows of an alchemist's building, the vapor curling up along the shacklike edifice's towering ivy-wrapped exterior. All about was the compounding buzz of life and activity; the perfect environment to conceal oneself in plain view.
Heinrich had turned from a problem to a distinct edge; in the company of the amiable man and his chatter Brandt was no longer a standout, an outsider to the droves. Anyone watching with purpose would think nothing of the pair of them amidst the diffuse masses. A gesture was enough to steer their way toward one of the low stone benches encircling the burbling fountain; the bench raised itself a little to accommodate Heinrich's bulk.
"Shouldn't be stopping, really—have to see to the kidder hounds, you know—but I've got to think I can give you something to go on," Heinrich said, rubbing his calloused hands together against the brisk air. "Let's see . . . old Fryda's been here since—well," he chuckled, "since even before the hare saved Böhm, seems like. Ancient. Take what little you've got to her instead, see what she can make of it. I think that's your best bet. Long memory to match the lifespan, that one."
"She live on Trist?" Brandt named the street which had never housed his imaginary brother.
"No, but she's, eh, how do you say—adjacent? Along the next street. Heilig, number forty-two. Good fucking luck with that hag," he added, thumping Brandt's shoulder. "You'll need it."
Heinrich had shifted his weight as if to stand, and Brandt spoke: "Now hold on—why's that? Can't toss me to the firaxans without a wand, can you?"
The wizard rocked back down and let out a laugh. "Ah, I could, but you're right, old man—not very sporting of me. Anyone in Nachthase could tell you what a piece of work that woman is, and they'd all have a different story to set before you in precedent, I wager."
"Ah. So what's yours?"
Brandt kept one ear tuned to the tale being told while he scanned the square with practiced nonchalance. The designated point of contact was the veranda outside Netta's, a vibrant spectacle of a diner situated opposite where they sat, past the fountain. Between gently shimmering falls of water—subtly parted here and there with little gestures concealed by shifts in posture—the bustling patrons were visible as they caroused and flitted from table to table with no boundaries assumed in their transient groupings. The greater part of them exhibited shadows around the eyes and impaired coordination; a sleepless night's revels carried on.
The swarm of activity made an obvious outlier of the contact. A spidery man with stringy black hair sat stiffly in the shade of the awning cupping a steaming mug in his hands. His shrewd gaze flicked from the movement around him to passers-by along the courtyard, and Brandt watched him mark women from the corner of his eye as they approached, and dismiss them when they continued straight on past the veranda.
The lookouts were only a smidge more difficult to catch onto. Three of them. One man haunted the inner side of a broomstick trader's window displays, making a performance of his indecision; another lurked among the gardens outside the apothecary further off, never seeming to find what he sought among the particolored bushels and shoots of magical flora; last was a woman ostensibly engrossed with her reflection in the mirrors suspended outside a beauty supply. What betrayed her act as unnatural was the non sequitur of her drab wardrobe, an understated affair tailored not to merit even a passing glance.
A small huff of impatience escaped the contact as yet another prospect passed him by. Beneath his table he drew a wand from his pocket and swished it, the motion familiar even at a distance, and Brandt allowed a brief grim smile that was repurposed for reaction toward Heinrich's tale. The spell had been the one Wasila anticipated as obvious; the spell of life detection. A lesser player of the game might have thought well of arriving invisibly, until the discrepancy of their lifesign shining in empty space brought everything crashing down.
The contact locked eyes with Brandt for a heart-stopping split second; the traitorous instinct was to turn away, to dart his gaze far in another direction, but all his reaction was only the barest shift until he peered instead at the tumbling waters between them. The monologue at his ear was drowned in a rush and thunder of blood. Flesh prickled. His face remained utterly still.
Then the instant passed and it was as if they'd never matched eyes at all; the contact's attention swept the rest of the square before turning back to his mug with regard that seemed to resent it for a personal wrong.
Brandt's heart still jumped about, pumping needles and lightning; there was never a thrill to match that of a close call.
At last the recountings of old Freya's spats with Nachthase folk wound down, and Heinrich mirrored Brandt's sigh of relief. "Crazy old arm-flapper. That poor boy only wanted his quaffle back, you know?"
"Of course. Might've tried the same, I were him."
"You'd have regretted it just as much, too," Heinrich said with half a laugh. He had taken to Brandt's example in watching the lives playing out around them, though with markedly less intent. "That's what I'm sending you into. Hard to feel like I'm helping you out."
"Appreciate it all the same. I think I'll follow your advice."
The proffered hand was taken and they shook firmly, their parting farewells muffled by the swelling traffic; Heinrich lurched to his feet and started away, diving into the scattered streams of village folk which diverted around his broad frame. Not five steps on he stopped short and stalled for a moment, and stared ahead in an unfocused way, as if he'd forgotten where he meant to go. A harried witch clutching her shopping stumbled aside and cursed at Heinrich as he abruptly veered back the way he'd left and sat down again beside Brandt, who aimed a wand surreptitiously from between sleeve and forearm.
"Welcome back," Brandt murmured. The wizard met his eyes with a blank stare—that wouldn't do. An unspoken directive had Heinrich grinning exactly as he would for an old friend. "Don't fret; I won't keep you long."
For Wasila, there was no thrill of power in the act of subjugating another; it brought instead a feeling of taint beneath all the many layers of self, to invoke that perfect antipole to all that magic should be. The curse gripped her coldly in the claws of memory, but those had no place in Brandt's head—yet still they found their black-cloaked corners and burrowed in. Her face was numb.
There was none of this turmoil outside her head; to all eyes they were, as they had been, two comfortable acquaintances engaged in conversation. It was the suggestion that Brandt was someone else, a familiar face plucked from the wizard's head, that breathed life into the theater between them and made them part of the background, and from this invisible fold Brandt observed the observers.
Shouts of alarm and laughter preceded an outpouring of crackling sparks and flashes from the windows of a joke shop somewhere beyond their backs, drawing no more than amused or annoyed glances from from all around the plaza, with a certain sense of custom implied in the ready reactions of the townsfolk; Brandt mirrored their nonchalance without a thought.
The outliers betrayed themselves another time in their atypically curious craning and peering, the only souls not to surmise the source of the disturbance in the space of a huffed breath. They were otherwise a mindfully nondescript lot, and as a result Brandt could glean little from their manners and dress. Their presence and number was enough, however, to insinuate the type of person they might belong to—the clever and cautious type, with resources to spare. A dangerous sort of entity to pursue. Dangerous and exciting.
Morning made the slow downward climb into day and the cold thin pall of mist clinging feebly to the square was dispelled by the sunshine beaming flat and sickly, as if the clouds had scrubbed all color from the light on its way between their coarse grey shells. Not one moment of silence could pass unscathed in the square; it was brimming with voices at every edge, with striding boots and swishing cloaks, and the occasional squawk and cackle of a few squirrelly creatures with froglike hind legs leaping between rooftops and smoking chimneys.
A lone house elf tore into being with a sharp crack not twelve feet away. With a proud bearing that defied all preconception he approached the fountain, clasping something in his slender palms. Looks of bemusement and pity piled themselves onto the elf's back, and so defiantly upright it stayed that he seemed to shrug away the attention entirely. A flicker of gold winked in the air as the creature cast his burden into the bubbling fountain; the coin landed with a plink, and the elf was gone.
The little spectacle had barely registered in Brandt's periphery; one of the lookouts had abandoned his post by the broom shop's windows. The wizard stalked along the outskirts of the square and bounded over the steps up to Netta's packed veranda, shouldering revelers aside with efficiency. The contact, still alone at his table, favored his cohort with a sour look as the wizard threw himself into the seat opposite.
Brandt's wand whirled in tightly contained gestures; to the unassuming, the movements were mere idle twitches. The enthralled man planted beside him leaned over and spoke again, but the sounds didn't come from Heinrich; Brandt's wand was now aimed from the waist directly at the contact, across the plaza and its fountain, and from the tip resonated the hushed voices of the surly pair.
"Liesel Meierditch?" the contact asked sardonically, running spindly fingers over his face.
"Funny. She's near an hour late now, you know. Bitch isn't coming." Brandt mouthed along to the other wizard's speech, performing the second half of the act for the benefit of passersby.
"Ah, you're probably right. Damn it," the contact said, groaning and stretching, "that makes this little outing an even greater waste of my time than I thought it'd be." He scratched at his dark stubble and frowned, hooded gaze roaming the crowds again. "Couldn't have made us, could she?"
"She's a fucking scholar," the other wizard barked. A witch herding her children past Brandt's bench turned back long enough to shoot a nasty glare. "Not a chance in hell she'd have noticed anything unusual. No-show, for certain. You swept for lurkers?"
"Keep your voice down," the contact snapped. "And watch the jargon, idiot. Of course I did. Once every twenty, just like father taught me. Nothing out of place."
"No-show," the wizard repeated decisively. "Probably realized she can't afford to spend a decade's earnings on a pretty instrument. Makes her the only one with any sense in this, albeit late to show out."
"Because it couldn't possibly claim any value beyond what you can perceive."
"What about it could be worth fighting over? Any wizard with half a brain could spell themselves a functioning harp like that. And here we've got old Whiskers shelling out about thirty times more than the going rate for a professionally charmed harp from . . . ah, I don't know . . ."
". . . Can't you name even a single purveyor of enchanted instruments? I wish I were surprised, but you have about as much culture as a crup gnawing on its ass."
"Tch. Asshole." The wizard ran a hand over his close-shaven head. "Signal the dispersal already, would you? I'm getting tired of your attitude. And you'd better work this out with the geezer," he added, leaning forward heavily. "I don't care that nothing got done; I showed up, I get paid. Got it?"
"I'll pass that along," the contact said with clear indifference. His shrewd little eyes darted about the packed plaza one last time. A moment of calculated carelessness saw his cup elbowed off the table, shattered ceramic shards jittering across the stonebrick veranda.
The other wizard had already apparated, and his distant fellows caught onto the cue and followed suit with rather more discipline, vanishing one by one after suitable intervals; it was the sort of protocol that tallied another point in favor of an organized syndicate. Last to leave was the contact, who had quickly repaired the cup with a passable exhibition of sheepishness; he milled uncertainly among the restaurant's patronage until he'd ceased to be there.
Brandt sat back and allowed a thoughtful hum as his companion responded to a mental prompt and resumed a deluge of inane chatter, pitching his voice to resemble the one he'd been impersonating. There had been much to learn of the hired wands, and Brandt was satisfied with what knowledge he'd wrung from their presence and behavior. An invigorated shiver ran through him; the outlined path had wound in a most interesting direction.
Despite their efforts, the wands had spoken in neat German that was nonetheless subtly accented. What narrowed them down even further was the particular use of 'jargon', as the contact had put it; quite apart from hinting at structure, the verbiage couldn't help but strike up a slew of Wasila's memories. Put together with references to 'old whiskers' and 'the geezer', there could be but one wizard behind the orchestration of the harp transaction.
What sealed her notion beyond all doubt was the snatch of thought Brandt had stolen in the heartbeat of eye contact, an image floating at the forefront of the wizard's mind as he perused the faces of the Nachthase public. The vision was that of an animated photograph which Wasila herself had captured long ago; it depicted her persona Leisel Meierditch, smiling prettily before the austere backdrop of Durmstrang's torchlit Gathering Hall. Sat on her lap in prideful display was the award she'd forged, a lacquered wood plaque embossed with ceremonious silver lettering.
Across the bottom of the picture, her persona's name was scrawled in the unmistakable hand of Claudius Drang.
The examination of the traces left in the wake of their apparitions had yielded little of value; it was almost worthless to know their heading when they were, in all likelihood, meeting with a set of previously arranged portkeys somewhere appropriately remote.
Almost worthless.
After tracking the contact to an anticipated dead end, Wasila had hijacked the disgruntled wizard's destination with the same devilishly tricky bit of charmwork, and had consequently found herself standing outside a run-down bar some three hundred miles off, by her reckoning—a seedy area, with narrow streets and alleys packed beneath frosted mud, interconnected magical dwellings of faded brown brick encroaching on the walks like the walls of a desolate labyrinth. The character of Brandt had been right at home, and upon finding his quarry already rather deep in the bottle, he had inveigled the information needed with ease. It hadn't been anything Wasila's knowledge of Drang couldn't have narrowed down, but every hour saved was essential against something like Morrigan.
All the trouble had led her here. The chill of the German climate was easily forgotten beneath Egypt's burning midday sunrays. Menaphos was a hive, sweeping sandstone arches and buildings flowing together and diverging in improbable ways; they were always shaped differently upon her subsequent visits. Everywhere there were silk-curtained windows, balconies and other apertures open to the streets and neighboring homes, and the populace traded themselves in body or voice across every avenue of sight. Some floated above it all upon flying carpets, a few hovering still to converse among the darting owls, but most soared this way and that laden with provisions or children or tools of trade.
The streets below were equally lively. By day they coursed with crushing traffic, and every last person seemed to have something urgent to declare in a holler to a far-off acquaintance. Tucked here and there along the edges were shifting stalls manned by hawkers and fortune-tellers, trinket-pushers and purveyors of homemade sweets—these were most often beset by boisterous children, who otherwise congregated in back alleys and side streets to engage in mischief away from chastising eyes. Light and flowing robes with rich color and rippling cut demanded the eye, often paired with self-wrapping turbans or gleaming bands, bangles, anklets and tiaras that shifted tint to complement the wearer's garb.
Honor duels were a spontaneous and frequent occurrence; it was a rare evening one could walk the winding streets without hearing a bellowed challenge or a resounding bang of a spell striking home, or seeing dazzling bursts and flashes of light emitting from around a curve or corner. Most often an established etiquette was observed: the clearing off of bystanders, the charmed barriers around an impromptu arena, the public airing of grievances and terms for posterity. Often, but not always, and those struggles that sparked out of nowhere were contained by whoever at hand had the gumption, or else they spilled over and became streetwide affairs. At times even quarreling neighbors might exchange spellfire across the alleys from their second-story windows or rooftop terraces. In Menaphos, authorities were a rare and unwelcome sight.
That fact made it an ideal hub for illicit business. Drang's safehouse was situated snugly in the center of it all, a respectable distance from Crooked Concourse, yet not so far as to be inconvenient. Wasila observed the building from the open-air gallery of the city's most towering minaret. Wearing plain and dusky features, silken robes of a commonplace cut, and a disinterested expression was enough to ensure her relative privacy among other sightseers.
So far removed from the streets laid out below like a vast diorama, there was a glaring absence of the smells of spice and sweat, the burning ozone of landed curses and the citrus tang of intoxicating smoke seeping from the pores of the leisure houses. Wasila leaned against the balustrade and breathed in the breezy currents of clean air drifting through the open balconies at every side, the scent given substance by the heavier hint of baking stone rising from the sides of the tower. A conjured lens the size of a window floated before her, and through it she watched the quiet dwelling Drang had made a transitory residence.
Of course, she hadn't yet caught out anything of consequence. She didn't expect to. Drang was an outlaw beyond compare, widely sought after and yet not at all infamous; there was no lawkeeping body on the planet that would publicly acknowledge the embarrassments suffered at the old man's hands, him and his cadre of collected outcasts. Often as not when something of irreplaceable value vanished from its holdings, or when assets were unaccountably liquidated, transferred, drained or withdrawn; when a prohibitively exotic and illegal product saw a startling market infusion, or when a high profile individual met an unnatural end; when entire shipments of Class A materials went up in smoke or when widely espoused legislation failed to carry through, it was Drang the governments wanted to prosecute for it, though they never knew that.
He was a living, breathing avatar of criminality, and he'd taught her quite well. It was her due diligence to stake the place out, even if nothing would come of it, though that wasn't the entirety of her reasoning; sometimes a girl needed a minute to breathe, to sit back and watch. People were vile and fascinating creatures.
Three streets and an alley down from her mark a beggar had settled into a corner by an intersection with a promising volume of traffic. He was suitably pitiful in appearance, but the tatty, sun-bleached clothing and unkempt beard belied the enterprising nature of the man; unobserved to all but Wasila he had, minutes earlier, applied some concoction across his weathered face, achieving a blotchy pattern of mold-colored hives around the eyes and mouth. It was a serviceable emulation of the most evident symptom of wraithblight—an affliction painful to endure as it was to behold, yet neither terminal nor contagious.
As sympathy scams went, it struck a canny balance. Too mild an effect and the effort was wasted; too intense, and some relentless kind soul foisting a cure might be the scheme's undoing. A profitable hour passed before the beggar was driven off by a peacock of a witch who walked arm in arm with an equally resplendent wizard, whose posture had stiffened after the confrontation; four streets down, the argument ended emphatically with a backhanded slap.
Meanwhile, the swindler cradled his gains like a firstborn son as he made an efficient journey down the less reputable sectors of the city, angling toward what Wasila knew to be a narcotic nest. Sand kicked up and coursed upon rising wind currents fluting through the avenues, for a time casting all shape and form into grainy shadows haunting the streets, resulting in more than a few collisions and oaths as the beggar pressed on. Wasila's eyes followed him by his hunched posture until the wind died back down.
A scant few avenues apart from his destination, he was accosted on a quiet lane by a gang of unkempt youths. They drew their wands and encircled the man, calling out with jests and taunts, and they amused themselves by practicing spellwork on the beggar. Despite his roars of outrage he turned colors, his hair ripped itself out, his clothes changed into dirty feathers that scattered in the breeze, and he was left with naught but the precious bag of sickles which was also plucked from him in short order, between hoots of hilarity and disgust.
Never did he produce a wand of his own, save that which came as a natural consequence of nakedness. A squib, or someone with the critical moral failing that was a lack of proper education. Lack of power.
Not for the first time, Wasila wondered if she might see things much differently if she'd attended Hogwarts. Wondered if she might never have cultivated the deep tangled roots that bound her up in a backward hatred, a loathing antithetical to the world she'd been born into. But it wasn't productive to dwell, particularly now that fate had allowed her a chance to kick over the scales.
"A good afternoon to you. What, ah, what are you doing there?"
The voice broke her from her musings; Wasila turned her head from her telescopic lens to the man now leaning beside her against the balustrade. From his keen expression and exaggerated casual posture it was clear she was about to endure a sally of inelegant flirting, and she found herself not of a mind to make light of it just then.
"What's it look like?" she said flatly, attention back on the broad lens. "I'm trying to incinerate my ex-husband."
The wizard gave a startled laugh that trailed off uncomfortably when her expression remained deadpan. "I, ah, I see. Pardon me for interrupting that, and my further apologies, but I believe I've just seen a friend of mine . . ."
The wizard shuffled away, taking with him the last of Wasila's introspective inclinations. She vanished the lens and apparated directly into the bustling streets below.
Drang's building blended well among the upper crust of Menaphos. The sandstone facade was sculpted in an understated and elegant style, a withstanding testament to the skill and good taste of its transfigurer. It was framed in fixtures of burnished bronze that all blazed in the sun as if barely withdrawn from the forge, and the windows were high and arched and dressed in deep colors to ward off the day. The edifice was crowned by a typical spiral cap that presented the illusion of a slow rotation as sunlight shimmered down along its curved bronze edges and grooves. A finial fashioned in the shape of a wand jutted up from the spiral's tip to prod at the deep blue sky; by night, it and all the rest like it would gleam with charmed light at the tip, bathing the lanes below in gentle moon-yellow hues.
It was the work of several minutes to probe the building's featureless flanks for the hidden entrance that was sure to reside there; invisibly Wasila traced her hand along the smooth grooves in the stonework until she felt a response tremble up her fingers. With careful spellwork she unmade precautions and unveiled the passage lined with burning braziers, the light spilling from their bowls bitten back neatly at the jaws of the threshold, that the shine gave nothing away from the outside. Shaded between the butting shoulders of two grandiose structures, behind the inset pillars rounding outward at even spacings, the entrance was indeed well concealed from all but Wasila.
Down dim passages muffled by fine carpet and tapestry she went, a pleasant jaunt if not for the periodic brushes with grisly death when she identified and took apart wicked curses against intruders. The further she traveled, the more oppressive the atmosphere felt; the air itself seemed to push against her with clammy hands as she advanced through low-ceilinged corridors. At length a broad set of steps loomed ahead to relieve her; it conveyed her up into a vestibule cloaked in the same dark blues and purples that obstructed the windows and stained what little natural light crept in, supplemented by brass lamps hung from fine lengths of chain. At an end the entrance doors stood like a bulwark against any that might dare to seek audience, and opposite, a flight of limestone stairs parted in two to branch off toward deeper wings.
Wasila paused by the reception hall's coruscating hearth and held out her hands to ward off the unnatural chill of the lower level. Hung prominently above the fireplace was a portrait of an old witch with stormcloud-grey hair beautifully styled and threaded through an ornate set of golden rings. She stood in the mouth of a barren street that looked to have been hurriedly abandoned; possessions were strewn about the cobbles and doors hung agape on their hinges, the dismal scene weighed down by an overcast sky.
The witch peered down with distaste, and Wasila responded with a wry smile. "Regards from Wasila."
There was a pause before the reply, as if the old witch were listening to something. "Could've knocked," she said.
"I could've traveled from Germany by unicycle as well, but why in the world would I impose that upon myself?"
Another brief stretch of silence. "Follow the lights, wiseass." The old witch's musical accent meshed horribly with Drang's vocabulary.
As she was bidden, Wasila ascended the staircase and traveled the course laid out for her by the lamps that shone brighter, one after another, as she passed them through sparsely appointed chambers and corridors. She suspected that, for Drang, the house's enchanted architecture would have contrived to forego this leg of the trip, depositing him directly from the dungeons into wherever he meant to be.
In good time she came upon the correct door and stepped inside without preamble. The room was low-ceilinged and broad, and fledgling shadows crouched in cramped spaces between practical furnishings that sat staidly beneath the same manner of glowing brass lamps, these affixed to the whitewashed stone walls rather than dangling free. A capacious bay window was thrown wide to invite the bashful midday gusts, but the punishing sunlight shied away from the aperture, leaving its vicinity as pleasantly dim as the rest of the chamber. Wasila approached the window for a peek at the view; it looked out from the face of the building to the sprawl of city life up and down the lane, even though no open window had been visible from the outside, and despite that Wasila was certain the room was situated somewhere against the building's back.
Wasila turned to consider Drang. He sat waiting at one side of a low table littered with ash and scraps of parchment, wiry arms resting on his knees, knotted hands clasped and deceptive in their stillness, their emptiness; in the space of a blink they could have already flourished a wand and left someone insensate. Coarse and lined features lurked beneath a burdened brow, grown over by a grizzly layer of grey-white beard and close-cropped hair. The old man's cold gaze barely thawed upon studying her face, and somehow he managed a condescending grunt. His hoarse voice scraped the eardrums raw, a sound Wasila had always likened to that of an improbably large and articulate old cat.
"Little Erin. Ever the disappointment." Drang's ghostly grey eyes were all that moved as he took in the rest of her ensemble before meeting her gaze again. "How many times have I told you to wipe that goddamn smirk off your faces?"
Wasila hadn't been smiling, precisely; Drang had decades of experience with every quirk, tic and microexpression of hers, an omnipresent and nearly irrepressible foundation underneath all her vast ranges of facial features. A mentor's privileged insight. It struck her then that he might know her true appearance better than she did now; for years uncounted she'd shifted from one false face directly to the next as they suited her.
"Dear Claudius," she returned, claiming a seat opposite. "Whyever would I want to hide myself from you? Apart from that atrocious American inflection of yours. It's you I'm here to see, after all."
Drang chuckled like his throat was coated in sand. "Shouldn't make it so blatant when someone hits a nerve. What was it, exactly—that I know your name, or that you still don't know mine?"
"I was a child," Wasila said, feigning a pout. "You're hardly a criminal mastermind for getting it out of me."
"You're still a child."
"My point stands," Wasila said lightly. "As if any of us might've had the foresight to compose a false identity before we'd had our first wands." None of her irritation showed; she leaned forward with a conspiratorial smile meant to pique interest. "Pleasant as it is to reminisce, we've already hit upon one subject of this visit; one of your wayward wards . . ."
"Straight to it, huh?" Drang leaned back thoughtfully in his chair, crossing his arms. "Well, this is something I gotta hear, isn't it? Never was much that would get you to shut up and focus. Be concise about it," he added sharply, as if concerned he'd come across too amenable. "Got my own business to handle."
She couldn't help pouncing on the opening. "Not only your own, I've heard," Wasila said, enjoying a tickle of amusement at the old man's twitch. "I was a mite surprised to find you've branched out into the occupation of personal shopper. It's rather tame for you, but I suppose age wrests compromise from us all. But pay me no mind; you must be positively brimming with pride. Not everyone has the talent and daring to distinguish between floe-cotton and dillywool fabrics at a glance."
Drang grunted, unruffled. "Time's ticking."
"Ah, of course it is," Wasila said. She took a moment to rearrange her robes about herself. "I don't suppose you remember Pyrrha Clay?"
"Mmm . . . a ransom job, wasn't she? Take of two hundred thousand?" Drang scraped at his bristled cheek without a trace of feeling in his features. Wasila didn't bother to answer the rhetorical, and Drang said, "What about her?"
"Well, she's grown to become an associate of mine, and I'm now rather invested in her success . . . unfortunately, she's dragged us into a spot of trouble." Wasila folded her hands in her lap, tone carefully reasonable without a hint of reproach. "Might you agree that you owe the poor dear some small consideration in recompense for her late mother's fortune—not to speak of the trauma inflicted by your methods?"
"Hm. Putting aside that any 'trauma' stems from her own fragility? I might," Drang said, inflection leaning heavily toward the negative. "Good thing it's not her come asking me for help. Just give me the whole picture," he added before Wasila could protest. "And if there's something to be done, you're assuming the debt for services rendered. I should be insulted you'd even attempt to weasel out of it, but it's good to see you're still out for yourself first. Might be the closest I've ever come to pride in you."
In as few words as possible Wasila delivered the gist of recent events and the Cabal's predicament. Her brevity wasn't to appease Drang, but to safeguard what knowledge she could afford to, while also sparing them both essential time. The old man listened with impatience deeply impressed in his expression until she concluded.
"So, to parse the rambling: you need the harp." Drang produced a cigar from his robes and lit it with the tip of his finger, taking a grateful drag. Chalky yellow smoke drifted from his nostrils and gave the room a bitter taste. Eventually: "You sniffed me out, but you couldn't track the buyer?"
"I could, but given your great fondness for expediency," Wasila said pointedly, "I thought I might be afforded the luxury of skipping that step when I discovered how you figured into this situation. But you've gone taciturn. Don't tell me some goldfish-eyed spoilblood has you on a leash?"
The question shook a laugh from Drang, but it was the kind that delighted in exclusive and pertinent knowledge; the phenomenon wasn't quite as amusing on the other side, but Wasila found it in her to appreciate the reversal nonetheless.
"Nothing like that," Drang said. "It's bad for business to give up a patron . . . I hope I don't have to spell out why all over again."
"But you know very well I can eliminate our tracks. Those excuses don't apply to me. Come now—stop playing coy, or I might suppose you've nurtured a yearning for company in your dotage."
Drang snorted and shook his head, puffing yellow smoke around his harsh features. "Say I give you the buyer. You steal the harp and, what, serenade the thing to death? You're too involved in this, practically breaking every goddamn commandment all at once—what's the endgame here?"
"Morrigan's death, of course." Wasila turned her head to peer out the window over domed and spiraled rooftops gleaming white and gold. "I said so only moments ago."
"Don't bullshit me. What's in this for you? Why should I toss you a shovel down at the bottom of this fucking hole?"
"Is that concern I hear beneath such colorful language? How sweet." Wasila didn't want to think about what she wanted, didn't want to betray herself with any flicker of emotion in her face, any tremor in her voice.
"I'm concerned you're wasting my time," Drang said lowly. "If you can't give me an ironclad reason to condone this farce, well—I'm sure you can find your own way out."
From the corner of her eye she saw him glance at the window, as if entertaining a summary defenestration then and there. Despite the front he put up, it was apparent beneath his abrasive manner he didn't want her to risk herself pursuing the course she intended. It was perhaps the one redeeming quality that had secured Wasila's loyalty; if he'd lived as callous as he pretended to be, she would have put him down the first time the opportunity presented itself. For him there was love and loathing bound indivisibly.
She could sense that convincing him would call for a genuine emotional display, and then nearly regretted requesting any help; expedience now came at more than one cost. She despised baring herself even in a misleading manner, most particularly with Drang, who already possessed more pieces of her to work with than anyone else.
But soon it would be too late for that to matter.
Not nearly all of her buried emotion was allowed to surface; just enough to bring mist to her eyes, a twitch to her lip. Just enough to bring her airy voice down to earth to besmirch itself skimming the dirt.
"This is important to me, Claudius. It's—it's everything." Wasila gave a faint laugh of disbelief, matching her expression. "It's as if . . . as if my heart's won free of my chest and won't return. I don't have any choice but to follow alongside, no matter that it heads straight into danger."
"Christ, spare me the poetry," Drang said with an upraised hand, leaning forward with a look of intense scrutiny. From the corner of his mouth the cigar's cherry lit his profile in sinister crimson. "You're not telling me you're in love with this woman?"
Wasila met the look with her heart full of long-lost familial love conjured from unvisited depths, and in her mind the emotions were twined with thoughts of Pyrrha as a veneer to shelter behind. "I . . . yes, I believe I am."
No truth but her own could assert itself in her mind as she withstood the stare; it was—had always been Pyrrha with the loving gaze and ready laugh, the steady shoulder and forgiving ear. It was the prospect of her loss that fueled the latent dread ever grinding away at Wasila's ambition from the most furtive recesses of her head. There was artful disarray to the mindset she portrayed, muddled and half-obscured in a pretense of defense that rang with sincerity and shame and barely contained upheaval. Incisive grey eyes picked her apart with scientific skepticism and upturned nothing to betray her masquerade.
Drang was undeterred in his disbelief, lines in his face drawing tight with pique. "Hippogriff shit. After all you've seen and all I've shown you, this is not how you turn out. For a goddamn girl?" He shook his head in disgust, as if trying to cast off an unpleasant sensation. "I never pegged you for one stupid enough to dive headfirst into this kind of trap; would've left you to the streets if I had. Quicker and kinder way to fall. But this is—you're holding something back, and—"
Wasila's laugh was high and strained; she could feel her smile stretched too wide, broken. Her voice rang with fabricated passion. "Of course I am! I'm holding back just as much as I can manage, because it belongs to me. Climb down from your perch, you miserable old fraud—as if you've lived so long and never loved someone! Only a blithering idiot could miss that such a reductive philosophy sprang from some great loss, and as you so shrewdly pointed out, I'm not a stupid woman. Hear this well: it doesn't have to end for me the way it did for you. It's my gamble to make, and there's never been a risk more worthy of the taking. Now," she said, gathering herself with a breath, "will you put aside misgivings and do your part to tilt the odds in my favor, or have I gravely misjudged the spirit of our partnership?"
In the wake of her outburst Drang exhibited the nearest approximation to shock she'd ever witnessed from him; his gnarled hands gripped the arms of his chair as if he were adrift at sea, and he leaned back beneath a clenched brow, jaw locked around the cigar. It burned absently between his lips for an age, the ruby-red tip sloughing off dustings of ash that drifted down to settle on his lap. Pale wisps of smoke trailed up around ashen bristles.
At length Drang said levelly, "This is what you're throwing in for? Nothing at all to do with, say, Morrigan's staff, or Dagda's enchanted cauldron?"
Wasila's heart leapt back, but she kept it from her face and voice. "Nothing at all," she repeated, adding with a careful acquisitive grin, "though what boons we may happen upon on our course will be more than welcome, certainly." It was the perfect amount of inclination displayed, neither too intent nor uninterested; she smothered her self-satisfaction before it could take breath. "Above all things is putting an end to Morrigan before she corners Pyrrha. That's what I'm driving at, and as I've said, I need the harp to see it done."
"I don't believe you," Drang said quietly, chasing a chill up her spine. He plucked the cigar from his mouth and jabbed it toward her. "It's something else you're after, something you think I'd like even less than this preposterous lie you're trying to spin—and isn't that something to think about?" He leaned forward and bowed his head, elbows on his knees, taking one long drag before settling back into his ponderous posture.
By the grace of experience Wasila reined in the alarm and dismay circuiting through her nerves like a lingering curse. She had failed, but at least she'd given little away, and while Drang would withhold his aid, he wouldn't dare to interfere; she could make certain of that here and now.
"I'm sorely disappointed, Claudius, but it's valuable to know where we stand." The lilt of her voice had gone painfully false, as if in poor impersonation by some malevolent will inhabiting her shape. "Make no mistake that you've lost me as surely as if I'd died for my misjudgments. Now listen well, because I want this to land very clear: should you scrounge up inside you the audacity to attempt to subvert us, I'll have little trouble—"
"Settle down," Drang barked.
There was a promising note of thoughtfulness in his command; Wasila heeded him but remained poised at the edge of action, hardly daring to entertain relief. Her wand was a twitch and a thought from appearing in her hand out of thin air. Animal instinct yielded to her self-control and she remained motionless, maintaining a keen stare as Drang mused to himself, chin resting on his clasped hands. Apparently oblivious to the precipice Wasila teetered on, he smoked and breathed and otherwise moved not at all.
The silence felt primed for ignition, and it hung that way for a stretch of minutes that felt much slower. The window across the den permitted no light and no sound, as if there weren't an opening at all, but another painted landscape alive with a charmed imitation of motion in the shimmer of the sun coating the rooftops or the lazy passes of birds across the great empty sky. A breeze like warm breath carried in and caressed them, sending ash and parchment shreds skidding from the table. The bitter yellow smoke was chased off for a fleeting moment; Drang took another lingering drag.
The wait became such that it wore down Wasila's patience. The instant she'd decided to stand up and take her leave, Drang said, "Fine."
"Pardon?" Her limbs still buzzed with unspent energy.
The old man met her eyes with an unreadable look and shrugged one shoulder. "Said it yourself; you can get what you need with or without my help. This way, you owe me."
"I'm in awe at the application of such flawless reasoning," Wasila said icily, "not accounting for my supposed conspiracy against your interests."
"Hm. What can I say? I want to see just how far you can go. Don't look at me like that—I'm giving you what you asked for."
"I'll look at you how I please, if I can't avoid the experience altogether." Wasila's stony expression didn't budge when Drang snorted. "That accusation was brazen as it was unfounded. I thought better of you, after all our time together."
"Uh huh," came Drang's dry rebuttal, as if he still didn't believe a word. It was maddening; where had he drawn such assurance? She'd been flawless. Was it an act, a last ditch effort to shake something loose?
It didn't matter; there was nothing to be gleaned from her deportment, and their business was nearly concluded. "Out with it, then," she said after a rallying pause.
Drang gave a nod and reclined back, impossibly relaxed. "Understand, I can't just blurt out a name and call it a day. It's like I said: bad for business. I'm a man of principle, my word is my bond, and all that." He waved the cigar dismissively, grinning like a shark. "Wouldn't be right of me to take on a contract and then undermine the good faith placed in my character. You'll have to work out on your own who purloined the harp from under you."
Wasila stared at him while she processed the peculiar emphasis. Hadn't there been an above-board transaction? Where did theft come in?
Drang heaved a long-suffering sigh and added blandly, "You might've glimpsed my client's distant cousins prowling around the city . . . licking themselves, eating garbage, hacking up hair . . ."
Then several things clicked at once; Aldemena couldn't exactly attend to her affairs personally. Wasila gave a low chuckle of genuine amusement. "Well, there it is. So you're not 'old Whiskers' after all."
"No. One of mine said that out loud?" At her nod Drang shook his head and muttered something about 'dumb fuckheads'. "Sounds like some reinforcement's in order."
"Oh, don't be too hard on them; I'd have learned it all regardless what they did. Nothing escapes me," Wasila said with an impish wink.
"Aside from unprecedented volumes of hot air," Drang said dryly. He beckoned, and a glass met his hand, amber liquid quivering at the abrupt flight. "Careful not to get too comfortable with that false bravado. Too long on the skin . . ."
"It may sink in," Wasila finished, smiling. "Harbor no worries for me, Claudius. I know myself dreadfully well."