“Tastes awful,” Madi complained, coughing into her hand.
“Aye,” I said merrily. “It is downright disgusting. A bit like steeping the fur of an expired opossum and mixing it with tar.” Then I tipped my head back and downed my portion.
Hana just laughed as she drank her own. She pinched her nose, and I admired her courage as she finished hers nearly as fast. “I don’t know why, but opossum actually seems right on,” she said afterward.
“Foul on the tongue but good on the body, my master used to say. We will be sore in the morning, but even my cracked ribs will be healed.”
Tejón lapped at his own and shook his head in protest. Madi patted him on the haunches and encouraged him to finish, though. The shudders that rippled down his body gave us all a laugh we sorely needed.
“I don’t get it, Alysand,” Hana said. “Someone tried to rob you, and had full access to your home, yet I found coins on the ground, a gold pen. Why didn’t they take your valuables?”
I nodded for a time and considered what I should tell these two. Looking into their eyes and seeing the implicit trust that sat there, my decision was made.
“There are many items of power in this world, as you both know—that is one that is especially potent,” I said, gesturing to the sword on Hana’s hip. “The Rat King has made use of many of its components already. Should he come to own its completed form, he would be able to use the power for great evil.”
The girls watched me patiently as I began to unfasten the knot that bound the canvas bag. “I have been gifted with several of these items as well. My guns, for instance, have the wisdom and magic of every bard who held them before me. They even have names, though I will not tell you. Such is my burden alone to bear. But I don’t think they were after my guns. No, I believe they were after these.” I unfastened the plain silver cuff links from my sleeves, then passed one to Hana and one to Madi.
They looked at the items, and by the look on their faces, inspected them. As I’d done so many times before, I did the same.
Culbert’s Cuff Links
Quality: Legendary
Durability 1/20
+20 Dexterity
Special Ability: Time-walk
Time-walk: When invoked, the caster has the ability to step into the past itself, allowing them to alter events as they see fit. Each use reduces item’s durability by 1. Warning: Certain events are fixed to the greater thread of life and will remain unalterable.
After a few solemn moments, my companions returned the links to me. I buttoned them back in place and held my hands out, palm up. “As you can see, a power-hungry cretin like the Rat King would love to have his paws on such an item. No doubt, the minions he sent were told to take any curiosity they found, but I leave nothing that cannot be replaced behind.”
Madi shook her head and stared at me with a blank face. “I swear, Alice, I’m just glad we’re homies. You’re more of a wizard than Judas, though to be fair, if you could pack your home up like he does, nobody would have been able to break in at all.”
Then a sound erupted in our midst, a groaning, terrible noise. It came from the warrior’s belly.
When the laughter died down, I revealed my ultimate surprise. “Now friends, you have not known the hospitality of Gilsby until you’ve had Mr. Pithers’ pastries.”
The smell of lemon curd, jam, and buttery dough filled the inside of the barn, and with it, our spirits were restored at last.
3: “You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.”
— The Bottle King
HANA
Sleeping under Alysand’s roof was the best way to get to know the man. After we’d cleaned the mess the robbers had made, a weight seemed to lift from the man’s face. He was, in an uncomplicated and intimate way, home.
After we had pigged out and eaten way too many pastries, we all got ready for bed. A guard was posted even though we were sleeping in the gunsinger’s house. The town had an eerie feel to me as well, and Alysand simply seemed too ill at ease to let it go.
I took the first shift and passed the time by listening to the merry chorus of breathing. Tejón’s lungs were like bellows. He had grown again, another hand taller at the shoulders and a few dozen more pounds, after the ambush. Madi snored, unladylike and true to her nature. She surpassed the bear in volume, and I was sad that I did not have a phone or any other tech device capable of recording her. She would have killed me, though, so it was for the best.
The house itself, though, made the most interesting noises of all. Ticks and groans, almost as if it were the hull of a ship moored in the tide.
My father had been a noisy sleeper as well, but always unexpectedly. He slept silent, almost looking dead, then his breath would hitch, and he’d gasp for air. These fits were often followed by a few muttered words I could never make out. I smiled at the memory until I remembered that his troubled sleep had largely started after mom had passed. It was stress ruining his rest.
Night passed uneventfully, and when we awoke, Alysand had a chipper air. After a fresh shave he came out of the washroom and declared that it was time to visit the cafe, his second favorite besides the one in Benham.
When we walked through town, the people seemed a bit less shocked, though it was probably due to
