Clouds obscured the moon that evening. Water lapped at the dock posts below, but Cade saw nothing beyond them except ink-black sea stretching into darkness. Nearby, moths fluttered around a humming streetpost. The light illuminated the peeling walls of an abandoned boathouse.
Cade crouched outside the boathouse face to face with her companion. The air genasi, a thievish type named Wyster, kept her vivid, cloud-like hair obscured under a dark hood on jobs. Her fitted navy clothes blended with her dusky blue skin. Cade had been collaborating with Wyster for a few weeks. Andrada felt their respective skill sets complemented each other, and so far he'd been right.
The two of them had spent the past week tracing a series of disappearances in Revessa back to the docks. The boathouse seemed the most likely hideout for their mysterious suspect. Huddled near a splintering old door, they listened to shuffling movement inside.
The sound of something like animals snarling and rending flesh reached their ears. Cade and Wyster locked eyes. A wordless, significant look passed between them. Shifting her crossbow onto her shoulder, Cade stood back while Wyster tested the doorknob. It moved easily under her hand. Wyster pulled her daggers free and kicked the door open with one boot.
The first thing Cade noticed was the smell. The distinct stench of rot rushed over her like a wave, and she bit back the urge to dry heave. As artificial light flooded into the dark boathouse, four figures appeared out of the dark. Their shadows stretched long across some poor soul's gruesome remains.
The figures' heads snapped to attention. They would have looked like naked people if their forms had not been so twisted and stretched. Their bloodied mouths hung slack under white, clouded eyes; their pale, hairless scalps were webbed with blue veins.
"Ghouls," Wyster muttered.
Cade loosed her first bolt. It caught one in the temple. In a blink, Wyster put a blade through its throat.
Light danced deceptive shadows across the boathouse's interior through dirty windows. As they fought, they toed along the edge of algae-green water. Mouths of decaying teeth lumbered at them out of the dark. Cade ducked away to reload her crossbow between darts. Wyster slipped out of the ghouls' razor-like claws.
It only took a short while for the two of them to kill all four ghouls. Once the last had fallen, they retreated into the street in search of fresh air.
"Did any of them scratch you?" Cade asked.
"No." Wyster checked over herself. "Got bit once, though."
"Is that bad?"
"Nothing that won't heal on its own."
They sighed. This was always the strangest part to Cade, the return to normalcy after the hunt. Just two people sitting on the edge of the street with a building full of the dead behind them. Wyster had no need to fill the silence with idle chatter, and Cade liked that about her.
Cade suddenly became aware her clothes had been splashed with rancid ichor. "We should head back. Report this tomorrow morning."
Wyster nodded once, a silent affirmation, and got to her feet.
The next day, dawn broke over a foggy morning. Andrada joined Cade and Wyster on the walkway beside the docks. The city watch, alerted to the previous night's events, cleaned the ghouls and their victims' remains from the boathouse.
"A tragic end," Andrada said. "When events such as these happen, you always hope you will find the victims alive."
Cade didn't know what to say, so she uttered an affirmative, "Mm."
Wyster silently watched the investigators attempt to match detached limbs to their skeletons. Feeling ill, Cade turned her back to the scene and leaned casually against the railing.
"I don't know how you do that," she remarked to Wyster. "We're supposed to meet Ira for breakfast after this."
The geniekin turned to her with her usual unreadable expression. She had taken off her hood, and her hair floated around her in shades of gold, rose-pink, and lavender like a sky at sunset.
"So?" she asked.
Behind them, a small flurry of excitement stirred between the investigators. The three of them swiveled to look. Two guards pulled a heavy chest out of the boathouse and onto the rickety wood of the docks. They flipped the lid open. The morning sun glinted off a hefty sum of gold.
"Damn it," Wyster swore.
Cade scoffed. "What are the odds they share any of that with us?"
"They already paid us. We're not seeing a single copper of that treasure."
Andrada interrupted with a stern, "It's evidence. No one will be taking any of that home, I assure you."
Wyster and Cade exchanged a look, but the guildmaster's message was clear: No badmouthing the city watch in front of him.
"Sir, yes, sir," Cade replied with a dutiful salute.
"Watch the attitude," Andrada warned.
The investigators waved the guildmaster over to discuss something. Probably some sort of bureaucracy or paperwork issue, Cade figured. She glanced over to Wyster, who nodded, and the two of them left the docks behind in search of a bite to eat.
"Like hell they won't be dipping their fingers into that treasure," Wyster complained in her deadpan inflection. She turned the salt grinder over a slice of mango and shoved it into her mouth. "Greedy assholes."
Cade teased, "You're the only one allowed to be greedy, right?"
Wyster gestured at her with a bite-sized lump of fried cheese bread. "At least I'm honest about it instead of acting like some hero to the community."
Cupping a small, cooling cup of black coffee between his hands, Ira listened in passive amusement. Wyster was new to him, and Cade could tell he wasn't quite sure what to make of her, but he at least didn't seem uncomfortable.
The three of them sat out on a patio, nestled into cushioned rattan furniture. The matte pink facade of the coffeehouse stood behind them, and a striped canvas awning shaded their table from the sun. A pleasant wind blew in off the sea that day and granted some relief from the heat. To Cade, the events of the previous night seemed like a distant dream.
Cade spread a mash of chilled fruit over a slice of bread and bit into it.
"Hey, isn't your friend in town?" Ira asked her.
"Hm?" She hummed around a mouthful of food.
"I thought you said he'd be in town this week."
"Oh, Singe!" She cupped her hand over her mouth as she finished chewing, then continued, "Yeah, he passes through every other week or so, but I haven't seen him in awhile. Probably just got busy somewhere."
Wyster looked thoughtful. "Is that the nightmare elf Seesa saw you with that first day?"
"Yeah, that's him."
"I know him. Or rather, I know of him," Ira corrected himself. "I did a lot of jobs for the Orrery, and everybody there knows Senjalar."
Cade snorted. "I forget they call him that there. He's just Singe to me."
"He would've been helpful last night," Wyster said.
"We handled it just fine. Plus, I get to rub it in his face next time I see him."
"You're so modest," Ira remarked.
"Yep. That's us." Cade gestured between herself and Wyster. "Modest and selfless."
Wyster brandished a bread knife. "Watch your back."
The three of them picked at breakfast, slowly sipping their coffee, until the coffeehouse closed for its early afternoon break. After waving good-bye to Ira, Cade and Wyster headed back to the guild.
The rest of the afternoon passed in relative quiet. Exhausted from the late night, Cade stayed in her room most of the day. She reread Madley's most recent letter, penned in clean cursive on quality cardstock, and set to work writing a reply. The sunlight worked its way across the sky and dimmed as it approached the horizon.
Wyster passed by to invite her out for the evening, but Cade turned her down. She looked forward to an early night curled in her bed.
Cade woke to shouting.
Throwing on some loose-fitting clothes in the interest of decency, she peeked her head out of her dormitory door. Andrada stood at the end of the hallway with Wyster. Cade had never seen him that angry. His usual careful, patient self was gone, replaced by fury.
"I didn't do anything!" Wyster insisted. "It wasn't me!"
Andrada's booming voice cut through her pleas. "I hope that is true for your sake. Until this is solved, you will not be receiving any further jobs."
"That's not fair!"
"Perhaps your contacts will have some unsavory little errand for you to do," he replied coldly.
Wyster's facial expression hardened, but even her schooled neutrality couldn't hide the betrayal in her eyes.
"Sir, I wouldn't be here if that's the life I wanted," she said.
"Then perhaps you should not have broken into the city watch headquarters."
Cade sucked air through her teeth. Someone must have stolen the treasure.
"I didn't."
"We'll see, won't we?"
Andrada stalked off. Wyster opened her mouth to get the last word, but there was nothing left to say, and her voice stuck in her throat. She scowled.
Cade slipped out and closed the door behind her. The dull thud drew Wyster's attention, and she gave Cade a look.
"How much did you hear?"
"Enough," Cade said. "For the record, I believe you."
Wyster loosed a heavy exhale, the tension running out of her shoulders.
"Maybe the city watch really did steal the treasure like you thought they would, and they're trying to pin it on you."
"No," Wyster replied, shaking her head. "Whoever it was, they killed the guard working the property room."
Cade nodded slowly. "Okay. Well, in that case, it could be anybody. Every single spectator on the road that morning would've seen the lid of that treasure chest pop open, right?"
"Don't."
"What?"
Holding up her hands, Wyster said, "Our job is done. I'll get the bartender I talked to last night to vouch for me, and this will go away."
"But—" Cade furrowed her brow. "It's not done, though. Somebody is after that treasure. They could even be connected to the ghouls, because why else would—"
"It doesn't matter!" Wyster snapped.
The hallway rang with silence.
"We got paid," She continued, quieter. "I'm not doing extra work for free because the pigs can't keep a fucking lid on their evidence."
Cade leveled a serious look at her. She pressed her mouth flat.
Wyster grumbled, "Sorry for yelling at you," and pushed past Cade into her room. The door slammed shut behind her.
Alone in the hallway, Cade fought off the urge to throw hands in the middle of the guild dormitory.
Later that morning, Andrada found her in the common room pulling on her boots. "Going somewhere?"
"Yeah. City watch headquarters."
He paused, hands clasped behind his back. "The guild has received no request to investigate the break-in."
"I'm not investigating it for the guild." Cade pulled her laces tight. "Something about this doesn't sit right with me. I don't want anyone else getting hurt."
Andrada said nothing. She could feel his eyes on her back as she stood and strode through the front door.
The relatively cool weather continued from the day before, but a fleet of clouds had arrived sometime in the night. They hung low in the sky. The humidity in the air felt so thick Cade thought she might choke. By the time she made it to the city watch headquarters, a few locks of her red hair fell out of her ponytail and turned to frizz.
A few concerned bystanders loitered around the headquarters, held at arm's length by an unusual amount of guards. Dried blood splattered across an exterior wall, but the body had long been removed. A few baffled investigators conversed in low, inaudible tones.
One of them, a nondescript human with sandy blonde hair, noticed her as she approached. He gestured for the guards to let her by.
"You're from the guild," he said. "I'm guessing Andrada told you what happened."
"I heard my colleague was a suspect."
"Ah, yeah, well. She does have a record."
Cade nodded. "I know you have to explore all your options. I'm not here to argue. But I got a bad feeling about this."
He stared at her for a moment. "Tell you the truth, I…" Turning to check behind him, he confirmed his colleague had busied herself with some other task before continuing. "I don't like the look of things much either."
She waited, listened, and let him speak.
"The body looked," the investigator paused, "withered."
"Hm. You think it's connected to the ghouls?"
He shrugged. "I couldn't say."
The other investigator called his name from across the way. His head jerked to attention. With a nod, he turned from Cade and resumed his work.
The city watch was located in a part of the city with fewer canals and more space for foot traffic. Rows of buildings populated the walkway, mostly travellers' inns and boarding houses like Ira's. Cade looked up at them as she made her way down the road. A plume of smoke caught her attention, and she turned her head to look down.
Nearby, a woman in clothes a few sizes too large sat on a front stoop smoking a rolled tobacco joint. She stared up at Cade with small, hooded eyes as she blew smoke out the side of her mouth.
"You with the watch?" she asked in a voice scraped raw by a years-long tobacco habit.
"Me? Nah," Cade said. "I just needed to ask them something."
"They're gonna come up with some story to cover it all up, I'm sure."
The woman put the cigarette to her lips. The embers at its tip flared to life as she inhaled.
Cade put one foot up on the lowest step. "Cover what up?"
"That thing skulking 'round here at night," she said. "This city's full of boogeymen, you know? The watch turns a blind eye. They're just as scared as the rest of us."
Finally, Cade thought. A lead.
"Did you see something last night?"
The woman regarded Cade for a moment. "You sure you're not a guard?"
"I'm with the adventurer's guild," she replied.
The woman laughed.
"Fine," she said. "Everybody around here knows not to be out too late. But if you're lookin' for trouble, you might want to start in that flooded crypt under the old abandoned Church of Stars."
A grin came unbidden to Cade's face. "Thank you, ma'am. Have a good afternoon."
Most places were closing for the afternoon by the time Cade got back to the guild. Andrada's office was dark. Wyster's door remained shut tight, and she didn't feel like revisiting that conversation anyway. Cade retired to her room, where she fished a map from her first few weeks in the city out of a messy chest under her bed.
Revessa was a large, old, complicated city. It took her a long time poring over the creased map to find the church. With an "ah-ha," Cade circled it with chalk and noted the best path there from her current location. She grabbed her crossbow and some bolts, geared herself up for a fight, and set off across the city.
In the middle of the afternoon, Revessa turned into a ghost town, and for good reason. Even with the layer of gray clouds blotting out the sun, the heat threatened to cook her alive. Cade kept to shadowed alleyways as she made her way to the church. By the time she arrived, winding a path over empty canals and between buildings, the heat passed its peak. The city began to stir awake.
The old church's spires peered over the tops of buildings. Its facade had been eaten away by the salt blown in from the ocean, and the stone hadn't been washed in some time. Broken, dirty stained-glass windows gazed down at Cade like eyes, and the entire building canted to one side, evidence of the broken pilings in the water beneath.
Cade lingered in the alleyway for a moment as a few pedestrians passed. When they turned a corner, she moved across the path towards the church. The doors had been boarded over with a "No Trespassing" sign, so she used her crossbow to clear broken glass out of a shattered window before slipping through.
The interior had been long abandoned. The walls were stained with water damage. Dust settled over everything, and cobwebs strung across corners. Cade picked her way around debris and stepped over puddles.
As she explored the back corridors of the building, the stench of mildew gave way to another smell. Cade recognized the rot that had emanated from the ghouls. She screwed up her face in disgust, but followed the smell until she found her way to a dark staircase leading down under the church.
Cade pulled the neck of her shirt up over her nose and mouth, and she began to descend. The stone steps were slick with water. She side-stepped her way down the stairs until she found herself ankle-deep in dark water.
Here, the church's sideways lean became more obvious. The floor on one side of the room peeked out from the water. The other side sloped down into murky depths of stagnant water. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through holes in the floor above and the walls all around.
The light glinted off her eyes, and Cade spotted a shape on the far end of the room — a pile of something stacked in the corner. She shifted with her back against the wall until she was close enough to make out a stack of valuable antiques and gold coins hoarded into the corner of the room.
"Nice," she whispered to herself.
But a guttural growling sound drew her attention. Something disturbed the water.
A human-like figure rose from the depths. Like the ghouls, it was stretched too long, with skeletal limbs that ended in spindly, clawed fingertips. The creature's waterlogged skin had grayed, and a mop of long, flat gray hair was pasted to its face and shoulders by the water. It almost looked like a ghoul, but Cade knew better. It was something worse.
In a voice that croaked from disuse, it said, "Mine."
She aimed her crossbow and pulled the trigger. A dart buried itself in the creature's eye. It slipped back under the water.
The surface remained still. Cade couldn't see any movement under the water. She sighed and turned, eyeing the algae-ridden wall behind her.
"I hate doing this," Cade muttered to herself. "Makes me dizzy."
She pressed one boot against the wall, then pushed off the floor with the other. For a moment, she wavered, but her feet stuck fast to the wall. She walked up, then onto the ceiling, her ponytail hanging down as she reloaded her crossbow.
Cade held the crossbow up to her shoulder and trained it on the water below. "Where are you, you fuckin' nasty—"
The creature leaped howling out of the water. Its long claws closed around her ponytail.
"Shit—!"
She emptied her breath from her lungs as she fell. Her back hit the surface of the icy water like a thunderclap, and then she was underwater. Cade fluttered open her eyes. They stung from the salt. Without the need to breathe, she took the brief opportunity to re-orient herself in space. Her crossbow floated just out of reach above her. Then, the creature was upon her.
It came at her with claws outstretched. With both her hands free, Cade managed to grab its wrists before it could scratch wounds across her face. It pushed her across the floor of the building. The shallow end scraped her back. Her feet found stone. She pulled herself up through the surface and stumbled out of the water.
The creature reared at her from the depths. Rows of needle teeth sank into Cade's leg, and she screamed in agony. It pulled itself out of the water and stood, looming over her. Cade tried to scramble to her feet, but this close, its stench made her senses swim. The creature raked a deep gash across her chest with its claws.
Too late, Cade realized it held venom in its talons like the ghouls. Her limbs began to stiffen. She fell limply back against the stone as blood seeped down the front of her shirt. She stared up at the ceiling, unable to move her head.
"You die," it hissed.
"Cade!"
Wyster's voice cut through the animalistic panic beginning to cloud Cade's mind. She appeared out of the church stairwell. The geniekin spotted Cade's paralyzed body first, then looked to the ghoul-like creature looming over her.
Wyster cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "You were right! It's a ghast!"
Somewhere, Cade heard Singe's voice say, "Of course I'm right. I'm always right."
The creature began to snarl, but the noise was cut off. A dark shape slammed into it from behind. Cade heard the sounds of hissing, screeching, splashing — then silence.
Feeling returned to her fingers and toes, and Cade gave them a weak flex. Wyster rushed to her side, propping her up in time for her to see Singe pulling dual shortswords from the ghast's body. The creature fell back into the water.
"Can you talk?" Wyster asked.
Cade worked her mouth. It was hard, but she managed. "Kind of."
Wyster's relief was short-lived. As she crouched, her knee touched the growing dark pool under Cade. She looked down, then up at Cade's chest, where the slashes through her clothing revealed deep claw marks. Darkness fuzzed at the edges of Cade's vision.
"Singe!" Wyster's voice pitched up in panic.
"Wh— Oh, fuck."
Cade became vaguely aware of Singe's arms hooked under her knees and around her shoulders. She felt the strange vertigo of being hoisted off the ground. Then, darkness took her.
Cade gasped and sat up. At some point, night had fallen. The room was dark, but the window was propped open, allowing the city lights and a cool breeze to wash over her. The room seemed unfamiliar at first, but as Cade cast a look around, she realized she recognized it. She was in Ira's bedroom.
As she came back to reality, Cade heard the sounds of muffled conversation and laughter in the next room.
The day's events flooded her memory — the ghast, Wyster, Singe. Bleeding out on the floor of a flooded crypt. Cade pressed one hand to her chest. Her clothes had been changed, and the wound was gone. Her head pounded; she felt dizzy. Nonetheless, Cade pushed herself to the side of the bed, then promptly fell off it.
One of the muffled voices spoke up. "Cade?"
"Yuh," was the best she could manage.
The door to the room swung open. Ira startled when he saw her on the floor and rushed to help her to her feet.
Singe had taken over the settee in the living room, one long leg running down the length of the couch as the other hung awkwardly off the edge. He'd prepared for the weather, his long charcoal hair braided back from his face. He wore a thin, sleeveless tunic that exposed the ladder of animal tattoos winding down his arms.
When Ira helped Cade into the living room, Singe turned and grinned up at her. "Hey there, dumbass."
"Fuck off," she said.
Wyster sat in an armchair across the room, cradling a cup of tea. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I just got in a fight with a dead guy and lost. How did you find me?"
Singe pulled folded paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. Cade realized it was the map she'd left lying on her bed.
"You broke into my room?" she asked.
Singe rolled his eyes. "I can't do anything right, can I? 'Thank you, Singe. I wouldn't have made it without you, Singe.'"
"Let her be," Ira scolded, gently. "She's going to be a bit disoriented for awhile. She lost a lot of blood."
Cade moved to the other side of the settee and slapped Singe's knee. "Move your stupid legs."
He feigned withdrawing his leg, then shoved it back under her as she sat down.
Ira stared down at them with a glib smile. "Having both of you visit makes me nostalgic. It's like I'm watching my two children."
"Ira!" Cade threw her head back in a wheezing cackle. "Who taught you to talk shit like that?"
"He's been spending too much time with you," Wyster quipped.
Ira disappeared into the kitchen. "I'm gonna go pour you some tea."
"Yeah, okay, change the subject. I see how it is."
After he left the room, Cade's mirth subsided. She pulled her knees to her chest in the corner of the settee and glanced between Wyster and Singe.
"In all seriousness," she began, "thank you both for not letting me kill myself down there."
Wyster sniffed. "Thanks for… clearing my name, I guess." After a moment's hesitation, she added, "I think you might be a better person than me."
"No," Cade laughed, "just dumber."
"I think the word is 'foolhardy'," Singe joked.
The three of them paused in companionable silence. Ira came back and set a steaming teacup in its saucer on the coffee table.
"When Wyster mentioned the ghouls and then the treasure, I knew it had to be a ghast. I wish I'd gotten on the first airship ferry this morning," Singe said.
Cade shrugged and shook her head. She leaned back in her seat. "You got there just in time anyway. Where have you been?"
"Department head changeover," he sighed. "One of the other councillors stepped down, so we've been scrambling to appoint a new one."
Ira settled into the other armchair with his tea. "Oh? Who?"
"Ydelle."
Ira widened his eyes and grimaced. Singe laughed.
"I see you knew Ydelle."
"Only secondhand. Not that the person complaining about her was any easier to get along with."
Exchanging a look with Wyster, Cade tilted her head toward the balcony. They withdrew from the living room and out into the muggy evening, leaving Singe and Ira to discuss wizard politics.
"Seesa threw a fit," Wyster said.
Cade laughed. "When Singe broke in? I kinda wish I'd been there."
"You're probably getting an earful tomorrow."
"I'm used to it at this point. She thinks I'm sleeping with every single person that walks into the guild."
Wyster threw a look back over her shoulder. "I'm surprised you're not. I hear nightmare elves are freaks."
"If you want to go for it, I expect a report."
"Nah, I've had my fill of snark and tattoos out on the streets."
Cade's infectious laugh coaxed a good-natured smirk from Wyster. A cooling breeze ruffled their hair.
"Are we good?" Wyster asked.
"No," Cade teased. "We duel at dawn."
She punched her in the shoulder. "Come on. I'm being serious."
"We're great. You showed up when it mattered. That's enough." Taking a deep breath, Cade added, "And I shouldn't have pushed so hard this morning right after Andrada finished tearing you a new one."
"Your timing sucks," Wyster agreed.
"Yeah, yeah."
They looked out over the city. The night had grown late enough that few people wandered the streets. Only a rare window here and there remained lit from within.
A jangling metallic sound caught Cade's attention. She looked down. Wyster rattled a handful of gold coins in her palm, then stuffed them in her pocket. When Cade's jaw dropped, Wyster grinned.
"You crazy bitch. I can't believe you went back there for the goods," Cade laughed.
Wyster shrugged coyly. "I am what I am."
Pausing to take a sip from her teacup, she continued, "It's getting late, so I think I'm heading out here soon. Are you coming back?"
"No, I…" Cade looked back through the doors to the balcony. Inside, Singe gesticulated along to some ridiculous story while Ira offered his polite attention. "I think it's best if I stay where Ira can keep an eye on me tonight."
After Wyster left, Cade found her way back to the living room. She leaned her head back against the settee. Ira's suite was comfortable, the teacup in her hands warm, her clothes dry and clean. The conversation between Ira and Singe became more noise than words to her, and she settled into the soothing tones of her friends' familiar voices. A thought crossed her mind, then. For the first time, she thought, maybe, Revessa could be something like home to her.