Kami stood sentinel in the darkened attic of Sami Suttar’s former residence and shop. It was a windowless room, its hearth and chimney long ago bricked over and defunct. Only one closed door provided entrance, though Kami had been hurled through one of the inner walls several days before, creating a second route inside. She had boarded up the resulting hole as best as she was able, though it would be an easy barrier to break. So she stood, arms crossed, eyes scanning from the door to the crisscrossing wooden planks and back again.

Dust covered everything here, showing footprints of her own slippers, countless ratfolk prints, and long furrows from ratfolk tails. A narrow table, also dust-covered, displayed a flickering candle and array of oddities—an empty brass birdcage, a thick ledger that she could not decipher, and various baubles. Most notably upon the table sat the chest she and her companions had ventured below Oakton to retrieve, candlelight dancing merrily across the jewels and gold decorating it.

Only days ago, she had fought the guardian of this room, an animated suit of bronze armor that had almost killed her associate Emah Elmhill. The armor now lay in pieces across the floor of the neighboring room. Kami had spent several bells idly examining each piece, but her only conclusions had been that they were ancient, ornately crafted, and now utterly lifeless. Whatever magics had created the platemailed watchdog had, apparently, disappeared.

The irony of the current situation was not lost on her. Now, it seemed, she had taken the armor’s place, acting as guardian of this small box whose origins and purpose she could not comprehend. It was clear that the robed priest of the ratfolk horde below the city wanted this prize desperately, for some ritual of power. Since her group had destroyed Sami Suttar’s armored guard, the job now fell to her. It was a situation she liked not at all.

Most disturbing to Kami, however, was her own body. She had, on some level, known that her transformation meant that she no longer required sleep, or food, or even to breathe. Yet almost every moment since her initial suspicion about this change had been spent reacting to threats or moving from one dangerous location to another. Now, for long days with nothing to do but stand watch, she could not avoid the unnatural lack of need within herself. She felt neither more nor less fatigued than ever, neither more nor less thirsty nor hungry. She was simply… fine, her body asking for nothing to sustain it. How long could she stand here, motionless? Would she never sleep again, or did she simply have an immense stamina that rivaled her newfound strength? Would she live forever? Was her now-pliant body even filled with organs and blood and bones anymore? Was she human now and, if not… what was she? Perhaps it was not irony that linked her with the ancient bronze armor. Perhaps she truly shared more in common with an empty helmet and breastplate than she realized. Could the magics that transformed her be the same that had imbued life into lifeless armor? Could the armor have once been a man?

Her grim reverie paused as she heard a noise upon the staircase, creaking footsteps moving from the second floor of the home to the third. The steps did not sound like Maly’s light-footed ones, or the heavy, confident stride of Emah. Could it be the panther? No, she was certain that the great black cat could approach without Kami even realizing it. So… a new visitor. Quietly, Kami padded to the closed door, opened it, and stepped into the next room. Light spilled into the room from the floor’s solitary window, a square pane of glass at the top of the staircase in the landing. It mildly surprised Kami that it was daytime, as she’d lost all sense of time within the dark coffin of her guard post.

Kami stood, feet wide and ready, arms folded, as someone grunted her way to the third floor. She was a stout, rounded woman, with tanned skin and black hair tied back in a green kerchief. The clothes displayed the yellow-and-green livery of the Oakton City Watch, though it was less garish and bright compared to most Watchmen patrols. As the woman reached the top of the stairs, using the railing to help pull herself up the last steps, she puffed and looked up at Kami. Her round face was pleasant and maternal, corners wrinkled from smiles and cheeks dimpled.

Kami tensed and frowned. “Inspector Calenta,” she said through clenched teeth.

Out of breath, the woman pulled a square of cloth from a pocket and dabbed at her sweaty brow. “Woo… stairs!” she beamed. “Not my favorite. Hello, dear. Maly said I could find you up here.”

“What do you want?”

Calenta examined the room before responding, her eyes roaming over the scattered pieces of ancient armor, the tracks in the dust, the dent in the wall. Estancia Calenta looked like a kindly mother on her way to being a doting grandmother, but her sickly-sweet demeanor and disarming smile were just a mask, like Kami’s own. The woman had risen in the ranks of the City Watch, taking posts that were usually reserved for Kaleen loyalists to the Queen, which meant that Inspector Calenta was both smart and ruthless. Kami trusted her not at all, though she was begrudgingly impressed both with how quickly her gaze took in the events of the room and how casually she then responded.

“Oh, just checking in, dear. I heard from little Maly what happened in the ratfolk warrens below the city and thought I’d get your account too.”

Kami’s frown deepened. “I trust Maly to provide the details. And she was the one who stole the box and interacted with the priest, not me.”

“Mm,” Calenta said noncommittally. “The box. May I… see it, dearie?”

Kami sighed and turned without a word, retreating to the “vault,” as she’d begun to call it in her mind. She heard Calenta picking her way across the room to follow. The inspector paused again in the doorway, eyes scanning this new space efficiently. Then she approached the long table, looking down on the ornate chest atop it.

“It’s fine to open, no?” she asked. Kami nodded once, and the inspector deftly flicked open the latch. Her eyes narrowed at the contents, a single severed human hand, dried and tightly wrapped in thin cloth.

“My, my,” she said. “Has anyone, ah… touched the hand?”

“We have not.”

“Probably smart, dear. Whatever do you suspect it’s for?” With one last lingering glance, she snapped the box shut and turned to look at Kami.

“I don’t know,” she replied, staring through her half-mask. “Do you?”

Calenta chuckled. “Why would I know, dear? No, no. These ratfolk are as new to me as they are to you, which makes their networks beneath the city all the more distressing, don’t you think? It seems like every day the city is changing, ah? Strange occurrences, talking statues, monsters in the water, people with unexplained powers…” her voice trailed off and she brightened, as if remembering something. “Say! We never had a chance to talk before, just you and me. When did your powers first show up, dear?”

Kami didn’t answer, and her eyes narrowed. She did not trust this woman, but it was a fair question for an inspector with the City Watch to ask. If indeed others were changing as dramatically as her, Calenta would want to know as much of the details as possible about how and why the changes had occurred so she could form patterns to help explain it. Perhaps even prevent it from continuing to happen, or providing answers to Kami’s countless questions. Even still, she hated that this highly political woman would continue manipulating her. After all, wasn’t Calenta the reason that she found herself as guardian to a mystical box in the attic of an abandoned house?

“Do you know, dear, it’s eerie when you stop breathing and don’t move like that,” Calenta half smiled, but Kami noticed that she had also taken a wary step backwards.

Kami blinked, then sighed, more out of habit than because she had been holding a breath. “When the Great Oak blossomed,” she said reluctantly, a twist of her lips. “At New Year. I was at a celebration in the streets with some of the girls from the Heron when the blossoms appeared.” Her voice became dream-like, remembering. No one had ever seen the enormous, mountain-sized tree blossom before, and having it occur at New Year felt like a miracle. The blossoms were bright white, laced with every color imaginable, truly beautiful. “Everyone looked up and pointed, cheering and laughing. I immediately got very dizzy, and had to be helped back to the Heron to rest. I stayed in bed for days, and when I woke, everything felt… different.”

She cleared her throat and uncrossed her arms.

“Mm,” the inspector nodded. For just a moment, her maternal mask slipped off. “That’s consistent with other stories we’ve heard. Not everyone who changed saw the blossoms, though, or were even outside. It’s just as likely that the Great Oak was responding to whatever was causing the changes as causing them itself. The mystery continues, ah? Well,” the mask returned, and she flashed a dimpled grin at Kami. “I do appreciate you sharing, dear. Thank you. I feel like we’re closer after this little chat, don’t you?” She stepped forward and reached a plump hand to pat Kami’s shoulder. “Now I’ll leave you to your guarding the, ah, gross hand there, confident it’s as safe as if I hid it away somewhere in the Keep.” She chuckled. “Safer, ah?”

Calenta turned to leave, reached the doorway, and then looked over her shoulder at Kami. “Say, when you’ve fulfilled your contract and taken care of these rats, let’s have another chat, just you and me, ah?”

Kami cocked her head, her black hair falling over one shoulder. “Why?” The word came out harsher than she’d intended.

Inspector Calenta’s smile stayed fixed to her face, but she repositioned her body to stand solidly in the doorframe, facing Kami. Her eyes twinkled in the candlelight.

“You don’t like me, do you dear?”

Kami stared a moment and then replied. “I do not.”

“But why?” Calenta blinked, looking wounded. “Is it because I know you went to the jail to kill Raffin Hothorp, that dead man in the cell?”

Now it was Kami’s turn to blink. Her mouth fell open.

“He’s the one that cut up your poor face, isn’t he, dear?” she shook her head in sorrow. “Terrible business, that, especially for a woman of the Rose Guild. Lady Brehill says you were the prettiest in the whole of Golden Heron. I can see how he took something from you. Makes sense you’d want to take it back.”

“You’ve been talking to Elyn?” Kami sputtered.

The inspector shrugged a shoulder. “There’s a lot going on in the city, dear. Mysteries everywhere. And you’re one of them. But don’t worry…” she waved a hand vaguely. “That business with Hothorp can stay between us. After all, you didn’t kill him, did you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be so mad every time I said his name. No?”

Kami leaned against the long table, one hand on it. She would later realize that her fingers left dents in the wood from the strength of her grip.

Inspector Calenta smiled, a note of sympathy in her voice. “But enough of that, ah? You asked why we should have another chat, and I have an answer for you: Because you can do a lot of good for Oakton now, dear. You’ve been given gifts that don’t belong in a brothel. I think you know what I’m saying is true, which is why you’re still here in an attic guarding a pretty box.”

“I’m here because you tricked me into a contract,” Kami said as evenly as she could manage.

Calenta tsked. “Really? Because I can’t see how I could stop you if you went back to Lady Brehill at the Heron and ignored me, ah? No, dear, you’re here because you care, about the city and about these two women you hired. And unlike Miss Elmhill, Miss Wywich, or any of my Watch members, you have the power to stand up to what’s happening in the city. They get killed or get their ribs crushed, but look at you!” She beamed. “Unhurt and ready for action.”

Kami stared back, saying nothing. She thought about Emah laying injured downstairs in bed, or the brief terror she experienced when Maly had disappeared into the crowd of ratfolk. She had come to care about those two mercenaries, and yet she knew that what Calenta said was true: They would die horribly going up against forces like the ratfolk priest or guardian armor, whereas she felt… invincible? Did she? Feel invincible?

Inspector Calenta watched Kami’s face closely, and nodded. “When it’s all done, come see me,” she winked. “May it be soon, dear! Oakton needs you!” she called behind her, and shut the door, leaving Kami in a candlelit room, alone with her thoughts.

Long after Calenta had gone, Kami remembered to blink. Once again, she sighed out of habit, or perhaps to feel like the person she had been, or even a person at all. Her eyes scanned the dimly lit room.

She did not want to be alone right now, she realized. Carefully hoisting the bejeweled chest and securing it under one arm, Kami strode to the door and opened it. She would check on Emah and Maly, so they could make a plan.

Next: Issue 4 Reflections