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

Emah winced, her face a mask of sweat, her breathing labored. Her damned ribs on one side lanced pain with every stumbling step, and now her shoulder burned and stomach roiled with whatever those robed ratfolk had thrown at them. Holding the torch aloft with that arm involved more effort than Emah cared to admit. All she wanted to do was stop… to close her eyes, drop to the floor, and curl into a ball.

Ahead, the black shadow of Destiny led them with loping strides away from the ratfolk temple. Occasionally the great cat would briefly pause, yellow eyes scanning the darkness and nostrils flaring. Emah thought the panther was scanning for Maly as much as finding a way to safety. At least she hoped that was the case, and hoped equally that the creature was helping guide and comfort her friend through whatever link they shared. Why had she jumped into the crowd like that? What could she have possibly hoped to accomplish?

“Come on,” Kami urged to Emah. The brothel owner maddeningly did not sweat at all, seemed utterly in control of her breathing as if on a leisurely stroll. Yet behind the wooden half-mask, Kami’s eyes were as wide as Emah’s, as furtively searching the darkness. “The crates won’t hold them long, and then they’ll be upon on.”

“I know,” Emah growled. She pushed herself off an earthen wall that she had gripped briefly for relief and, with a groan, willed her feet forward despite every muscle protesting.

It had all happened so quickly. The scene at what could only have been a temple was unlike anything she could have imagined; dozens upon dozens of the small, furred ratfolk swaying in unison to a robed figure upon a raised dais at the feet of an enormous statue of a man with a rat’s head and tail. In front of the leader sat a golden and jeweled box that sparkled in torchlight, stolen from Sami Suttar’s home and formerly guarded by an animated suit of armor. The ratfolk had all been participating in a ritual of some kind, Emah supposed, a ritual that somehow involved the box. Whatever the ratfolk leader upon the dais had intended, she and her companions had interrupted it.

Without warning, her friend Maly had disappeared into the crowd, pushing her way forward. Then the figure upon the dais had noticed them, pointing an accusing clawed finger. The entire room had turned, and a wave of… something had rippled through the mob. Ratfolk faces that had been surprised, frightened, and confused suddenly all contorted into rage. With a collective squeal, the swarm of the creatures had surged at them.

Emah could hardly remember the moments from then until now. Eerie green, throbbing balls of light hurled from the back of the crowd at them, arcing lazily like catapult stones and splashing as they struck the floor and walls. She had been focused on the crazed, frothing ratfolk at the front and ignored the orbs of energy, and one had hit Emah in her shoulder. A searing, nauseating pain throbbed through her, like a burn and punch in the stomach all at once. She’d doubled over, gagging, and then called for a retreat.

Destiny had stayed to fight, ripping at ratfolk with its white teeth and claws. Yet through tear-blurred eyes Emah had seen the mob engulf the black panther, and in a heartbeat, it leapt from the fray. As it pushed past her, Emah had seen its fur matted in blood.

Then they ran.

Through the ratfolk tunnels they’d fled, the echoing wave of chittering, screaming madness behind them. At one point they’d passed a stack of wooden crates and Kami had, almost casually, scattered the heavy boxes across the tunnels behind them. The wave of frenzied ratfolk had hit the obstacle, the lead creatures stumbling and becoming crushed by those behind them. The maneuver had bought them some distance, and Destiny had used that distance to find their way to smaller and smaller passageways, always sloping upwards. Emah thought that they might actually make it back to the Oakton streets alive… Unless the ratfolk had circled to another tunnel to cut them off. Unless the panther had mistakenly led them to a dead end. Unless her legs gave out to exhaustion and pain.

And where in the blazes was Maly?

Through her weary and pain-filled haze, Emah realized that whether her friend had made it out of the mob alive was, for now, irrelevant. Perhaps Maly had died, perhaps she’d been captured, or perhaps she was now finding her own way to the surface. The implications of the mad Stone Islander’s impulsive dash into the temple would have to wait. For now, Emah, Kami, and the panther must survive their pursuit, and it was Emah who most threatened their progress.

It could have been a full bell in time or several, she couldn’t be sure. Everything for Emah was a shroud of pain, sweat dripping off her chin, into her eyes, making the grip on the flickering torch precarious. Every muscle burned with fatigue, and every labored breath felt like someone stabbing her repeatedly. Kami pulled her forward, sometimes physically and sometimes with urgent words. Emah remembered no details from their flight from the temple, only flashes of Destiny’s yellow eyes, Kami’s harsh and urgent voice, and the constant, menacing echoes of the ratfolk horde.

At one point, Destiny growled and leapt forward, into the shadows. Emah was sure the mob had cut them off, that they now faced enemies from the front and back, that she would die in darkness and dirt. She would not see her father again, not see the sun and sky. A wave of resignation and weariness overtook her in that moment. Emah would not see her father, but she was eager to reunite with her mother. So be it.

Heartbeats later, Kami was gripping her bicep and pulling her ahead, yelling something, before sunlight broke above them.

A barrel’s top had apparently been tossed over a ragged hole. Destiny had knocked the barrier aside and disappeared above. Kami yelled something else to Emah, which she dimly took as some sort of instruction. Emah nodded and leaned against the tunnel’s earthen surface, panting and closing her eyes, while Kami wriggled upwards through the opening. Then unnaturally long arms, like vines, snaked towards her, pulling her up and into the light.

Emah briefly noticed the blue sky above and their surroundings, dappled with wispy clouds. They were in an alley somewhere, trash piled all around them between tall wooden walls. Kami held her, frowning behind her half-mask.

It was the last thing Emah remembered. She tried to say something, but her eyes rolled back in her head, sounds muffled, and then there was darkness everywhere.

---

The world blurred into existence as Emah cracked open her eyes and looked around woozily. At first, nothing looked familiar, and she frowned in confusion. She lay in a large bed, in a dark bedroom that was not her typical cramped room at the Heart and Dagger, its windows covered by curtains. No light shone through the windows, which meant it must be nighttime. Emah blinked, her mind working slowly. Then she rubbed at her eyes with a calloused hand and looked again.

Ah, she did know this place. She was back in the musty, unused bedroom within Sami Suttar’s house, on a lonely cul-de-sac street within the Coins. It was the same place she’d woken up the day before, after getting pummeled by the enchanted bronze armor upstairs. Was it yesterday? She had no idea. Yet, perhaps foolishly, then she’d pushed herself out of bed to accompany Maly, Kami, and the panther down into a hole in the home’s basement in what now seemed a mad pursuit of ratfolk. Their journey below came rushing back to her—the endless maze of warrens, the torchlit and pressing gloom, the bizarre temple scene, the flight from the frenzied mob to the surface. And Maly, missing.

Emah took stock of her own injuries. Her midsection had new bandages, and her ribs still felt tender and sore. She suspected that moving would again prove to be agony. In addition, her left shoulder was also bandaged, covering where the glowing green attack from the ratfolk faithful had struck her. Thankfully, she no longer felt the roiling nausea from before, though her shoulder throbbed dully. At the edges of the bandage, the skin showed small, dark, spidery veins that could have been signs of infection.

Someone had left a waterskin within reach of her good arm, and Emah reached for it, slaking her thirst with small sips at first, then slurping gulps. The effort of drinking made her dizzy, and she closed her eyes again. Her ears quested past the closed door, listening for any voices or movement. She heard nothing. It must be the middle of the night, she thought dully. Who was here, sleeping or keeping watch? How much time had passed? Was Maly okay? Had there been signs of the ratfolk’s pursuit? Emah cursed her injuries and fatigue, willing herself to stand and find answers. Yet her battered body refused, and soon she had fallen back into a deep stupor.

---

“So let me get this straight,” Emah said, shaking her head and spooning soup to her mouth between sentences. “The panther yells ‘Get the box’ to you, and you just… jump into a horde of ratfolk? What was your plan?”

Maly grinned, her freckled and pale cheeks flushing slightly. “I, uh… well, my plan was to get the box. Which,” she said with an upraised finger. “I will point out that I did.”

It had been three days of bed rest for Emah, and on the morning of the second day Maly had knocked at Sami Suttar’s front door. Kami reported that the young woman clutched the golden, jeweled box in her tattooed arms, and that she looked bedraggled and in need of a bath. By the time Maly had cleaned up and slept for a full day and night, Emah was close to being on her feet again. The two hugged awkwardly, Emah favoring one side, and wept. It seemed that neither Destiny nor Kami had wished to remain for the reunion, which left the two friends to chatter away.

“Where is the box now?” Emah asked, wiping her bowl clean with an end piece of bread.

“Kami has it,” Maly said. “In the attic, where it was before. She said that if the rats wanted it, she’d know they were coming that way. She’s sleeping up there, too. Though Emah,” she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “I don’t know if the woman actually sleeps. Really. Oh, hey… more soup?”

Emah grinned and offered her bowl gratefully. “Yes, please.”

When Maly returned with the steaming bowl and a new hunk of bread, the black panther Destiny padded at her side. Behind them both, Kami entered the room. The bejeweled box, the size of a small backpack, was tucked under one arm.

Kami appraised her behind her wooden half-mask. “Maly says that you are healed?”

“Near enough to swing a sword, I suppose,” Emah nodded, and Kami nodded once back. “Does your question mean we have a plan?”

The Kaizukan woman paused, an expression on her mouth that looked almost pouty with her bee-stung lips. “We do not. It’s why I’m here. I thought we could discuss what happens next.”

While Emah slurped soup, Maly pulled a small chair from the corner to her bedside. Kami remained standing, and Destiny stretched out against a far wall beneath the only window. Maly had opened the curtains that morning, and the day outside looked sunny and bright.

“It seems obvious,” Kami began without preamble once Maly had settled into the chair. “that the ratfolk below Oakton are led by the figure upon the dais in the tattered robes, and that he…”

“She,” Maly corrected.

“Oh?” Emah couldn’t see it because of the mask, but she assumed that Kami had raised an eyebrow with the question. Otherwise the woman hadn’t moved.

“She yelled at me, in my mind,” Maly nodded, “the same way Destiny communicates. Definitely a ‘she,’ and young. I also don’t think she was leading those ratfolk so much as controlling them.”

Kami stared at Maly and Emah urged her on with a wave while she continued to eat.

“Yeah. She tried it on me, but either Destiny was protecting me or it only works on ratfolk or… I don’t know. Anyway, didn’t you notice how they all turned feral all of a sudden? That was her. I think if we take her out, we solve the ratfolk problem.”

“That is quite the leap of logic,” Kami frowned.

Maly shrugged a pale shoulder. “It makes sense, though.”

“What’s in the box?” Emah interjected, nodding her chin at the item beneath Kami’s arm.

“I did look, of course,” Kami said. “It’s… unnerving. I don’t know what I expected, but not this.” She knelt and placed the box upon a rug, its lid facing Emah and Maly so that, when opened, they could see inside. Emah stopped eating and the two of them leaned forward to see as Kami unlatched the chest and opened it.

Inside was something tightly wrapped in gray linen. It looked like…

“Is that a… hand!?” Maly squeaked.

“Yes,” Kami confirmed. “A severed and mummified hand. And not small and clawed either. It is a human hand.”

“Gross,” Maly winced.

“My thought as well.”

“So,” Emah wiped the last of her second bowl with the last of her second piece of bread. Before popping the bread in her mouth, she said, “the magical rat-priestess wanted the hand for some ritual, which we didn’t let her finish. Why haven’t they come and taken it from us? They certainly have the numbers, and I wouldn’t have been able to fight back.”

They all sat in silence for several heartbeats. Kami snapped the chest shut and stood, the box at her feet. “Perhaps they did not think we would come back here. It is a big city, and their warrens are vast. Or perhaps the priestess also needed rest, or to regain control of her people. I cannot say.”

“Maybe they took us being there as a threat to their home,” Maly offered. “A sign from their rat god, or something.”

“If that were the case,” Emah said, swallowing the last bite. “They would have spent these days fortifying their defenses. Maybe collapsing tunnels. That feels right… that we scared them as much as they scared us. Whatever ritual that priestess wanted to do isn’t as urgent as important as making sure we can’t just walk back into their domain unmolested.”

“I don’t want to go back down there anyway,” Maly said, and then her eyes widened with a thought. “Please don’t tell me whatever plan we make has us going back down there.”

“No, on that I agree,” Emah said, placing her empty bowl beside her on the bed. “Let’s figure out a way to lure the priestess to us.”

“With the box as bait? Interesting,” Kami mused.

They all looked down at the box, jewels glinting in the afternoon sunlight. Silence filled the room as their minds worked.

It was because of the silence that they heard the screaming from outside.

Next: Screaming!?