Magic and Loss

reflected in the pub’s atmosphere. This was not the kind of place you go to in order to celebrate a birthday or commemorate an anniversary; this was the kind of place you go to in order to drink as much as possible, for as cheaply as possible, for as long as possible before either throwing up, losing consciousness, or being thrown out, if not all three.

At the back of the room was what passed for the bar, behind which stood an older maenad, her leopard- skin cloak askew and one boob hanging out. As I watched, she poured absinthe into a greasy-looking cocktail glass and handed it to a blowzy nymph, who transported it to a booth in one of the shadowier corners of the main room.

“That’s our contact,” Madam Erys said, pointing to the older Kymeran the waitress had just served.

Although I had never personally met the tall, thin man with the receding sage-colored hair and long, tapering fingers before, I instantly recognized him as Dr. Moot, who occasionally worked for the Maladanti. This was because, months ago, I had seen him reflected within a scrying stone, mutilating the feet of my friend Lukas with a silver scalpel.

Hexe recoiled, his mouth twisted into a grimace of distaste. “You can keep the gauntlet, Madam Erys. I know this man, and I refuse to have anything to do with him.”

As Hexe turned to leave, Dr. Moot raised his glass of absinthe in a mock salute. “Have it your way, Serenity,” he said in a slightly slurred, overloud voice. “But good luck finding anyone else willing to work as cheap as me. Or, perhaps, you’ll find a boneknitter somewhere who can turn a Malleus Maleficarum fracture widdershins.”

Hexe spun back around to glare at Moot, his face gray as old porridge. “How do you know about that?”

“How do you think I know?” the psychic surgeon sneered. “Now sit down before you call any more attention to yourself.” He gestured to the seat opposite him with a long-fingered hand. “The tosspots around here aren’t so soused they won’t eventually notice the Heir Apparent slumming it amongst them. And if Marz finds out I’m talking to you, he won’t hesitate to clip my wings, so to speak,” he said, miming cutting off one of his fingers with a pair of scissors.

Hexe hesitated for a moment and then grudgingly sat down in the booth opposite the disgraced surgeon. I slid in after him, leaving Erys to drag over a chair from a nearby table. The smell of wormwood radiated from Moot so strongly I at first assumed he’d accidently spilled his absinthe onto himself.

“When Madam here told me she had someone interested in the Gauntlet of Nydd, I knew it had to be you. I’ve agreed to do the surgery—but only because I owe her a debt. After which, we’re done; is that understood?” Moot said, shooting a meaningful look in the glover’s direction.

“Of course,” Madam Erys replied stiffly.

“I used to be friends with your Uncle Esau, you know,” Dr. Moot said as he studied Hexe over the rim of his glass. “I worked with him on those clockwork limbs of his. He first learned how to construct them from the Royal Surgeon, Dr. Tork, but Esau later went on to refine the technique. He crafted the limbs, and I handled the surgery. That was a long, long time ago, though.”

“Did you know his wife back then?” Hexe asked.

The question seemed to catch Moot off guard. He glanced over at Madam Erys and then dropped his gaze into the green depths of the absinthe. “Of course, I knew Nina,” he said solemnly. “I’m the one who introduced them.”

“What was she like?” Hexe asked, a quizzical look on his face. “No one in my family is willing to talk about her. In fact, I never even knew she existed until recently.”

Before Dr. Moot could reply, Madam Erys abruptly stood up as if an unseen puppeteer had yanked her upright by invisible strings. “Please excuse me; I need a drink,” she said in a cold, clipped voice. As the glover headed toward the bar, a look of relief flickered across Dr. Moot’s eyes.

“Nina was a wonderful, wonderful woman,” he said, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper, as if afraid of being overheard. “I met her at the same place I met your uncle—at Thamaturgical College. She and I were both studying the Healing Arts, and happened to take the same potions class under Professor Kohl. I later went into psychic surgery, while she developed into one of the best potion-makers I’ve ever known. One day I invited her over to the workshop I shared with your uncle, to see what we were working on. The moment she and Esau saw one another, any chance I had with her went out the window.” He gave a wry, sad laugh at that point, and suddenly, despite myself, I felt a twinge of pity for the butchering bastard. “Nina was a very kind and caring woman—and that’s what made her such a marvelous healer. She could not look at a person in pain and not be moved to alleviate their suffering.”

“I’m having a hard time imagining my uncle being married to someone like that,” Hexe said skeptically.

“Esau was . . . different back then,” Dr. Moot said with a heavy sigh. “He was always possessed of a strong personality, and he was never that fond of humans to begin with, but he didn’t become a devotee of the Left Hand Path and radical misanthrope until after he lost Nina. She was the one who kept his darker nature in check, I guess.”

“What, exactly, happened to her?”

“About thirty-five years ago, Nina got a call from one of her steady clients who lived outside Golgotham. The client had originally been cursed with dropsy, which Nina succeeded in reversing. However, the client later suffered an unexpected relapse, swelling up like a parade balloon. Although she was uncomfortable with leaving Golgotham at that time of night, Nina agreed to personally deliver the necessary potion. On her way back from the client’s apartment, she ran afoul of a group of human street toughs, who, once they realized she was Kymeran, starting chasing her.

“Nina wasn’t a strong spellcaster—like I said, her specialty was potions—and didn’t believe in using offensive magic, even for defensive purposes. She was so desperate to avoid conflict, she ran out into Broadway without looking, and was hit by a Yellow Cab. She was already in a coma when they wheeled her into the ER at Golgotham General. As it happened, I was working the surgery rotation when she came in. I tried my best to revive her, but the trauma was too great. I was forced to declare her brain-dead. Esau never forgave me for not saving her. And neither did I.” Moot fell silent for a long moment, his eyes unfocused, as if watching something far away and long ago, before taking a deep breath and shaking himself free. “Let me see your hand.”

Hexe shifted about uncomfortably, but did as he was asked, presenting his splinted hand for inspection. Dr. Moot pursed his lips and gently probed the damaged appendage, his own hand climbing about it like a spider checking its web. To my horror, the psychic surgeon’s fingertips dipped beneath Hexe’s skin as easily as if they were breaking the surface of a pool of water.

“The injuries to the metacarpals are quite severe,” Moot said with a frown. “But the nerve damage isn’t as bad as I would have thought. I should be able to bond the gauntlet relatively easily.”

“How soon can you do the work?” Hexe asked, excitement starting to seep into his voice.

“I’ve got a surgery set up in Pickman’s Slip,” Moot replied. “I can do it now, if that’s what you want.”

“Are you certain you want to go through with this, Hexe?” I asked worriedly. Everything seemed to be moving way too fast and way too weird, even for Golgotham.

“What I ‘want’ has nothing to do with it,” he replied grimly. “I have no choice in this matter. I have to regain dexterity in my right hand. Without it, I can’t provide for myself, much less our child.”

There was a sudden gasp, and I looked up to find Madam Erys had returned from the bar. She stood there with a snifter of Cynar in one hand, staring at me with a barely concealed looked of disgust and horror. So much for inviting her to the baby shower.

Chapter 13

It was not surprising Moot worked out of Pickman’s Slip. Golgotham’s riverfront neighborhood was notorious for its rows of ancient warehouses, flops, and taverns that catered to longshoremen, and had long been considered the kind of place where dirty deeds could be done dirt cheap.

Save for the tacky, over-the-top splendor of Lorelei’s tiki restaurant, Pickman’s Slip can be best described as low-rent, although “depressing” and “unsafe” also come to mind. The neighborhood’s general gloominess is due to