New Fiddleham was a hotbed of strangeness, odd occurrences and even odder individuals. There were several hypotheses for this, a thinness in the veil between the worlds, something leeching out of the Oddmire that got caught in the city, or even just a series of coincidences that all added up in such a way that created the perfect environment for peculiarities to brew and draw in the sort. This was mostly a manageable fact of life apart from the times where a fairy king of chaos - as he made sure everyone knew he was, once he'd been exposed for his lies it would have just been weird and embarrassing to keep trying to commit to a bit that was not working for him anymore - and so the precise combination of oddness managed to balance out to a shaky sort of harmony.

A shaky sort of harmony was about the best that the Seer and paranormal detective R. F. Jackaby could hope for, so he considered this as close to a total win as he dared consider.

In fact, as far as many of the more 'normal', so to speak, residents of New Fiddleham were concerned, the most alarming and unusual thing in the city was the man they deemed mad that had taken up in the notoriously haunted house 926 of Augur Lane. This was not true, of course. Not the haunting business, that was very much true, but the fact that Jackaby was even half as strange as any number of things he saw on a daily basis. But to be caught in the Seer's unnatural, stormy grey eyes, perhaps there was some truth to the rumours of him not being entirely human. Anymore at least. Some people had mistakenly assumed to see him somewhere, his long, dusty brown coat jingling softly as he walked, the scent of fine crushed herbs swirling throughout the air was some sort of herald of doom, much like the Augur his address referred to, but if anything, he was the only thing out there holding back the very doom that people really did seem to enjoy blaming him for.

And where was Jackaby at that particular moment? Goodness only knew, even his eternally patient assistant Abigail Rook could only really make the most basic educated guesses on the matter. That morning - at that point between horrendously early morning and mid-morning, if one happened to find themselves wanting to be needlessly precise for no reason at all - there had been what the Seer had concluded to be a locationalised earthquake of magical origins. It was not long after that the man had dashed off to try and find out what, if anything was going on. Abigail had tried to accompany him, of course, as that was her job but unfortunately he did something that he was annoyingly good at doing. He was very sensible and told her it was best if someone stayed behind in case anybody came by alarmed after the event and that she was better equipped than most to manage it if that was the case.

More annoyingly, he was completely correct about this. Several people of various degrees of dubious humanity - she was very polite about it, but it was easier to tell if somebody was actually just water in an ill-fitting suit and a mask than one might think if they, themself, happened to be water in a suit and mask - but she would like to think that she managed to send them on their ways feeling a little more secure in the knowledge that they weren't about to open the door to a multidimensional interglobular armageddon, which would have been a bit of a shame to have to deal with when life was already weird enough already.

There was certain flourish to the way her employer came and went, exuberant striding about with an energy and intensity that she was sure must have been very tiring. It was this very reason that the woman did not bother looking up from her tea when the cheerful red front door swung open. The man did not partake of his usual striding about immediately upon arriving, however, so her curiosity left her gaze wandering upwards.

"Did you find anything when you were out, s-" she began in greeting before letting out a sound that would have been kind to describe as a slightly dignified squawk, "Sir, did you kidnap a teenager?"

By this point, Abigail could wonder if she had any right to be surprised by seeing her employer carrying what she very much hoped was an unconscious body. In fact, she'd even helped him carry other people in similar states to this, but that did not mean she wasn't at least a little alarmed, even if it was more a worry for the little scrap of a fellow in general rather than why he was there.

'Scrap' did seem like the appropriate description for the fellow, whose body mass seemed to consist more prominently of the ruffles of the vibrant purple costume he wore than, well, actual body. A vibrant costume that jingled with the bells that made the slowness of Jackaby's movements a little more excusable and vaguely reminded her of the court jester in some half remembered book from her childhood.

"What happened to him?" Abigail attempted with a great deal more gentleness than her less than verbose exclamation had been.

"Not sure," came the unhelpful response of the detective, "I found him at the impact site of a magical, well, explosion isn't quite the right word. Neither is implosion. Is there an in-between? A plosion? Is that a thing?" A beat. "Anyhow, I found him at the site of a magical plosion. Whatever it was that happened was severe enough to cause a magical hemorrhage of sorts but I do hope he might be more helpful when it comes to answers when he's a little more conscious."

With a gentle care that Abigail secretly wished he'd exhibit a little more often, Jackaby gently rested the lad down onto the couch. The faded, irregularly textured, speckled - intentionally, the Seer swore no matter how judgementally the resident ghost side-eyed him over the claim - green piece of furniture was not the most conventional place to recover but it was alarmingly comfortable so there were definitely worse places for him to be. Including face down on the pavement where he had been found.

"It is odd though..." Jackaby mused aloud, distractedly wiping his hands on his trousers.

"Sir?"

"He's lacking in an aura," he explained, then noting the blank expression this won, he elaborated, "It is not that it is simply difficult to discern, it is as if it had been entirely wiped clean. I can see the absence, which seems more glaring. It's like," he paused, tapping his fingertips together as he pondered a suitable comparison, "Looking through a window that has had the glass removed. There is a part of you that knows that there isn't anything there, but there is something about it that still feels like you're supposed to be seeing something there still. It's... troubling, certainly."

Admittedly, Abigail was not entirely the most well-versed in auras and the like, that was more her employer's concern seeing as he could see them, but she did not need to stretch her imagination too much to realise this was not very good at all. Whatever it was that had landed the little silvery haired youth there in their house could not have been very good at all.

"Why have you brought an elf in here?" a voice, cool and just a little too flat to be comfortable to hear, came from the doorway.

"Mr. Tilde!" Abigail exclaimed, lying to herself as she told herself the others didn't see the way she jumped at the unexpected voice, skittering away just a little, "Are you sure he's an elf?"

Now, Mr. Tilde was a recent addition to the house. Disloyal to a fault, the fairy necromancer had decided that his work under the Dire King trying to bring about the apocalypse would not benefit him for the long run, and so defected, finding safety in the one and only safehouse that existed on either side of the veil, this being Jackaby's house. He was definitely exploiting the fact that he could not actually be kicked out by any of the homeowners no matter how many times he had ruined things for them before finding himself there, but by this point he had rather become a part of the household. A very unsettling part of the household that could have very easily killed everyone with a wave of his hand, but a part of the household all the same.

The necromancer leaned in the doorway, assessing the scene with mild disinterest, not that it was very easy to read much from his oddly sharp eyes, odd due to the post-humorous cataracts that had clouded them. This was far from the only thing that made him look dead, his skin was ashen and grey-tinged, his hair paler than it ought to he, hanging long and lank, a clear mockery of fairy hair conventions. His fingertips, hidden in heavy, thick black gloves, tapped loosely on the doorframe.

"Of course it's an elf, I would imagine you are the last to know that." the fairy remarked patronisingly drily.

Jackaby was fortunately nicer about her lack of knowledge and so waved Tilde a little closer.

"Fairies and elves have closer common ancestors than, say, humans and gnomes might, but there are some clear differences between the two. See here, his ears have a more outward tilt while fairies such as Mr. Tilde here are more upturned. I shan't ask you to remove your gloves to compare hands," Jackaby tilted his head slightly to acknowledge Tilde's sound of acknowledgement, "But elven hands are closer to our own while fairies have an additional joint. Much as they've a single pricked eye tooth whereas fairies have twin."

The fairy made a point to flash his teeth to expose the additional, longer eye teeth in question. Abigail was not subtle in her shudder at this.

"As for why he's here," Jackaby added, "I'd prefer he was unconscious here than unconscious somewhere else."

With a noncommittal shrug, the necromancer peered over the back of the couch, pale hair spilling over onto the unconscious figure. It was rare to see anything in the way of emotion from him, so the fact he raised an eyebrow definitely added to the troubling nature of it all.

"He does seem awfully young, doesn't he?" mused the fairy.

"How old would you think he was?" the Seer asked, assuming the other might have a better guess than he did, "In equivalence, at least. I don't think we need exact years."

"In equivalence?" repeated Tilde, "I cannot imagine he'd be much older than one might seem around, say, eighteen maybe twenty at the oldest, based from your human rates of maturity. But there is one way to be quite certain."

"How?"

"We sever his wrist and count the bands of his bone, like one might a tree." The necromancer looked very serious about this for several moments before he let out a giggle, a raspy sound that was clearly a rarity. "You needn't look so concerned, little girl, I was only teasing. It was something we'd oft say under my previous employer, but it does not work like that."

Abigail, who did not realise she had been making a face at all, looked away slightly, trying to make it look like she assessing the unconscious figure again.

"You wouldn't know anything about where he might have come from, would you?" asked she.

"Perhaps." Tilde returned airily.

"Would you tell us if you did?"

"No." he returned unhelpfully.

Seeing no real use in continuing to hover like he was, Tilde wandered back the way he had come. Jackaby still had not decided whether he liked the idea of letting the necromancer have complete free reign in the library and so he had asked Jenny to keep an eye on him to make sure he kept out of the Dangerous Documents section. The ghost was reluctant to be around the necromancer due to the nature of his dark magics, but Jackaby had made sure everyone involved were very aware that if he so much as looked at her in a way she did not approve of, he'd lock the fairy back in his cellar with the jams and preserves.

Though Jackaby did not have the most experience when it came to the medical care of elves, he felt like he needed to do something and so the pair got to trying to rouse the elf. This involved Jackaby awkwardly perching, cross legged, by the fellow's head with a little pouch of lavender and mint - which smelt very lovely in moderation but needed to come at such an intensity it was a marvel Abigail didn't cough about it - that he swung in slow counterclockwise circles just above his forehead. He hoped that at least one of the two components had the same benefits that they would for humans. Abigail, in turn, was sent off to find lemon balm and fetch cool towels. She wasn't sure if there was much of a benefit for resting them on the elf's wrists but she remembered a time she was feeling faint and cooling her wrists helped so she decided anything was better than nothing.

Apparently at least one of the things the two did actually did work - one could only hope, but it was just as possible that time had been on their side and things just progressed naturally - as the elf's eyes flickered open. Purple and glazed, it was unclear if they were really seeing all that much, but that was okay.

What was far more important was the fact that the Lunatic Magician, or Mad Mage depending on the story one had been told, Thistle was conscious.