Content Warnings

References to transmedicalism (if you squint)
Discussion of slurs
Intrusive thoughts (very, very brief)
Vague implication of police harassment

And, no shit, that’s actually pretty much it. Enjoy ❤

There is a fundamental premise at the heart of alchemy. Stretching back from its roots in both medieval mysticism and pre-history herbalism, all the way up the modern form of biochemistry and potioncraft it has become.

‘In all things, there is potential.’

From the loam beneath our feet, to the birds in the sky, anything can be remade, reshaped, forged into something useful. There are perhaps criticisms to make of such a treatise, of course. It’s thinking like that that leads men to wage wars over resources. To covet what others have. If one sees the world in not but terms of what they can extract from it, what use something is—that leads to ordering. To sorting ‘all things’ into categories of ‘use’ and ‘less use’.

But there’s merit, too, if taken another way. ‘Potential’ does not have to mean value, after all—something’s potential can simply be to be beautiful and appreciated, or studied and understood. Having virtue just by being. A holistic view of the universe, connected in a circle of life and death, which is itself just a different sort of life, if you take a microscope to the equation.

For some, more literally than others.

And applied to people—perhaps not ‘potential’ as in some greedy and gluttonous drive for productivity, but ‘potential’ as in a spark for change. Any potential selves waiting to be born from the ashes of the person someone once was.

I’d never thought much of the premise, taught to me first by my mother, and reiterated at the Institute. At the time, it seemed too maudlin a thought for a field of science. Now I can’t imagine not feeling it with every fiber of my being, in the woodwork of my counter and the plantlife set back in their pots along the walls and shelves and the three women who help to refurbish the interior or apply a hopeful balm of sunlight to the flora or assist the glazier in finally replacing my window.

A large pane of glass that once more reads ‘Bromley’s Apothecary – Potions and Herbal Remedies‘ slides slowly into the building-frame at the front of shop. I’d often put an asterisk on my own last name, feeling underserving of it, like it wasn’t truly mine. Like this place. A distance I’d maintained to myself and my surroundings; that some inner, eviler ‘me‘ was the true me, and the ‘me‘ moving through the world was some simulacrum.

It’s almost amusing, how close I was to being right, while still being so wrong. Rounding up all of my own idiosyncrasies and wants and putting them in little self-contained boxes, and having the gall to think that a merit. Starving myself and calling it frugal. Running from a me I thought was vile, but couldn’t be more fascinating—my other half, a person to share it with.

It’s not even been a full day since we’ve settled into this, so of course there’s still so much to discover about ourself. What our newfound connection looks like. Ground rules to set, endless facets of each of us to reassess, defenses to take apart. Redecorating, in a word.

That reminds me.

Fear? Do you… want my last name?

Bromley? It has no connection to it beyond Marlowe. She will think on it, but expect a no.

That’s fair. I’d never want to force it on her. I’ve done enough of that.

She retreats back into a corner of our mind. I think she enjoys the opportunity to see or experience the world in short bursts, but would tire having to run the body long-term. An arrangement that works perfectly fine for myself; I’ve my own living to do, now.

A timer goes off beside us. I press the button down, and look to Alabastra across the counter, who’s scrubbing a bit of resin into a notch in the woodwork. “Don’t let the glazier try and double charge you while I’m gone—I’ve already paid.”

She smiles, and taps her forehead. “Well, thanks for the heads up, Marlowe, but I’m pretty sure I woulda figured that one out.”

It has not escaped my attention that since last night she’s been shoehorning my name into sentences she wouldn’t otherwise need to. She always did enjoy getting a reaction out of me. I roll our eyes and march upstairs before she can savor our blush.

They’ve already replaced the smaller window, thankfully, and we’ve made sure the curtains stay drawn thanks to our newfound allergy. I’ll need more hats, and awnings, and parasols.

Hopefully my newest creation will assist with that. I walk to my alchemy station. At times it seemed so daunting—a machine I was chained to. Now it’s just an old friend. A reminder of people I’ve loved and lost, and still think fondly of, despite their, and our, flaws.

The pot has finished boiling the viscous liquid within. I turn off the burner and stir, further thickening the beige-colored concoction to bring it to a creamlike consistency. And while it cools, I watch the embers of the furnace die down in a smolder.

I’m reminded of the last time I was forced into experimentation. Weeks of it, cooped up in this office, as the urges grew exponentially worse. I thought I’d find salvation in a bottle. These beakers and flasks and furnaces and cauldrons might have eventually caused me to stumble upon some other way to stop them, but they’d never have given me what I have now.

The cure we’ve stumbled upon, or at least my hypothesis on what it precisely was, is a deeper sort of soothing. Alabastra was close with ‘a good sense of self‘, but the others out there are diverse individuals. Obviously few would hate themselves as deeply as I do. Did. Clearly there was more to it.

I’d thought about what broke Tegan out of the cycle—coming to terms with being a werewolf after repressing herself for so long the first time, and that it was okay to be the second.

All it took to break out of those fears imposed by Lyla was a moment of reckoning with oneself—accepting a truth that they’d kept hidden, or actively pushed down. Rewriting one’s story; a new inner paradigm, to release one’s self of the imposed old. For whatever reason, such a revelation is enough to stop marching to the beat of a drum drilling hatred’s melody.

Fear and I had… many such revelations in rapid succession, I will admit.

But for the rest of the afflicted—and I do imagine there’s still more than a few dealing with these urges—they’re not without recourse. I think it likely that everyone has something they’d rather not confront. Hopefully we’ll find Thassalia again, out there, and test that particular theory. And any others, too. Hells, maybe we’ll open a walk-in clinic for the time being; it would be something for the thieves to do to keep them out of crime, for now. After all, nobody understands everything about themselves intuitively. Some of us need a push.

Or a shove. Or to be dragged kicking and screaming.

Once enough time has passed, I take a small handful of the cream, and rub it up and down our arm, lathering it into the skin. I don’t expect this initial test to turn out perfect results, but I’m settling in for a long haul of trial-and-error.

After all, I am still an herbalist; now I’ve entered into a long war with the sun, and it’s one I intend to win. Perhaps this will serve as our armor. With our other hand, I slowly peel back the curtains of my office window, watch a ray of sunlight scatter across the dusty interior, and our newly-coated fingers reaches across the divide, into the light.

It stings a little, but the lotion seems to be helping a touch. I’ll need to reinforce it somehow, but it’s not bad for a first try. Our hand darts back to our side, and I shudder the blinds again, noting down my observations in my notebook.

The last month of ramblings, journaling, experiments, and desperate cries look back at me from between the lines. It’s hard to believe that the person who wrote these words, so alone and afraid and hurting herself longer than she knew, would come out the other side of this not just alive, but wanting to live.

I’m not a particularly profit-driven person, but if I was, I’d think it a shame that I can’t bottle this feeling; I’d make a killing.

Though, I’ve already gotten as close as I think is possible. I didn’t find salvation in a bottle before, but now, ironically at the other side of it all, I just might. In the other cauldron the opposite side of the station I’ve already started a boil, and throw the familiar ingredients inside. Melted red trillium, ashes of rashvine and lifeleaf. No recipe required. I’ve made it dozens of times for someone else. I set another timer, winding a dial backwards.

It conjures thoughts of a very different kind of keeping time.

We never did find out what happened to Latchet after the scuffle. Whether he teleported away, or sent himself to some other time or place, or paused time long enough to escape, or erased himself from our history altogether; who could say? But wherever he went, the others were glad enough to see him stay gone. Personally, while I didn’t like the man, I didn’t know him long enough to truly hate him. But any hate I lack for him I more than make up for with hatred for the watch. The Timekeeper, that horribly nihilistic person wanting a partner in fatalism. Wherever they went, they deserve each other.

Not that I’ve let go of my own cynicism, mind. But I think I’ve more healthily tempered it—bent it to better purpose. Someone around here still needs a head on her shoulders, after all.

I head back downstairs, spotting Tegan assisting the glazier in applying an epoxy to the edges of the glass. Thanks to Fear’s memories, it’s now obvious why she feels responsible for the window in particular.

Alabastra stretches lazily across the counter, admiring her own handiwork, and cracks peanuts over the top for a familiar bird-girl to feed from. Her corvid feet tip-tap over the lacquer.

“Is it too optimistic to assume that your residency won’t include the bird?”, I deadpan.

Paella darts her head towards me, squawks once, and transforms back into her humanoid self in a spray of feathers. “Stupid-stupid vampire!”, she says, with crossed arms and an upturned nose. “I go where I want to go, and that is that and that!”

She’s revealed herself to be more than just a simple corvid, yet somehow has become more annoying. Wonders never cease. “I have a name, you know. Marlowe.” This is at least helping me drive that new truth inside myself.

“Marlowe-Marlowe? Marlowe-Shmarlowe? You’re still stupid, okay?” Was… that a question? Why can no one speak conventionally in my life? She continues, “You’re a girl and that makes you less stupid-bad-terrible. Still terrible-bad-stupid.”

“So ecstatic to have garnered your approval”, I snark.

“Idiot vampire!”

The rogue says, “She just wants to know if you’ll be roomin’, Pae.”

Paella stomps her boots into the side of my till twice. “The answer is no-maybe-sometimes. I don’t need a room but I will enter-exit when I want, okay?”

My eyes plead towards Alabastra, who helps not at all. I sigh, “I will… leave the roof access unlocked.” Like her or not, she did save my life. Twice. It’s not a debt for Alabastra to stay here, but for Paella, I certainly feel like I’m paying dues. And then a thought occurs—she has shape-changing abilities. “Paella… have you been feeling the urges, since this all started?”

“Hmm?”

“The… the urges. The uncontrollable transformations that have been affecting a portion of the—”

She looks to Alabastra. “Allie-Allie-Allie, why is she stupid?”

For once, the rogue looks exactly as confused as I am. “Whadda ya mean?”

“If she felt stupid-urges why didn’t she just tell them to stop?” And back to me, “Huh? Huh? Huh? Why didn’t you? Huh?”

I cross our arms. “It was not that simple.”

“Yes it was? A stupid-stupid voice said ‘You are a bird‘ and I said ‘Yes-yes-yes I am a bird‘. It was simple. Are you stupid?”

She’s not… there’s no… Ugh. Of course she is. I squeeze our eyes closed, and pinch the bridge of our nose. To Alabastra I direct a seething question, “I will assume you didn’t know about this?”

Though I don’t spot her face, I can tell she’s likewise grimacing via the sound of her voice. “No. No I did not.”

All this time, Paella had the answers to the urges after all. That may actually have been the final straw a short amount of time ago, and honestly it still might be. “I am going to go drink a vial of acid, if you will excuse me”, I snark.

The bird-girl says, “Good. Die. Idiot.”

“Paella“, the blonde admonishes. “Go to the meetin’ spot already, would ya? You’re gonna be late.”

Without another word, Paella turns back into a crow and flaps towards the door. Which is currently closed. She lands on the door knob and squawks loudly in my direction.

I raise my voice and point with my whole palm, “Use your HANDS!”

She turns back into a person, sticks her tongue out and pulls her cheek at me, opens the door, retransforms, and flies away. The glazier outside stumbles backwards in shock at the suddenly released bird noisily taking to the sky above him.

The moment rests, before I look back to the rogue. “I think she might be even pricklier than I am.”

She shrugs, and lets me know she found that amusing with a fond chuckle. “You two are peas in a pod. Er… three peas.” Fear communicates a vague, unspoken appreciation at being included. “Give her some time. She’ll warm to ya, ‘specially now that she knows you’re not a guy.”

That almost elicits a shock in me, before I remember, that, yes, in fact, I am not a guy. Still getting used to it. “You say that like I want her to warm to me.”

“Ain’t got a choice. She’ll grow on ya, eventually. And you’ll grow on her. Like a… garden?” And she taps her forehead again. “Got a psychic connection with her. I can guarantee it.”

“I will assume that is a joke?” Unless… It would explain how she always manages to swoop to her aid without words. And her face doesn’t budge. Ugh. I walk back to the till, folding our arms in to make a headrest. “That’s annoying.”

Then the rogue bumps up against us, sliding up to our side. “Yeah, well, consider yourself lucky that you’re not the one with an angry teenager with a direct line to your head.”

“Are we not counting Fear?”

Careful…

Alabastra chuckles. Then her voice gets smaller, gentler. “Marlowe. Paella’s… like us, y’know?” At my raised brow she clarifies, “In more ways than one, actually. Gutter trash, acquired taste, but, the big one, too. Girlhood’s somethin’ she claimed.”

Huh. Is that why she cares about her so much? “Do her shapeshifting abilities help with that?”

Alabastra shakes her head ‘no’. “She’s tried, but, can’t keep anything that isn’t her born-self or her, eh, bird-self together for very long.”

“Oh.” That’s a cruel irony. “Does she know about my elixir? I suppose I could—”

“She does. Told her about it, and she said she didn’t want anything ‘the stupid vampire‘ was servin’.” She pats me on the back. “Plus, she also just likes bein’ a bird more than a person. Can’t fault her that.”

Not my place to judge; in fact, I’m almost hoping to pick her brain on that, some day. And maybe I’ll talk her around to using the elixir after all—it may make being in her human body more pleasant. And… and that’s how I know I’m truly far-gone—I’m feeling empathy for Paella. Gods damn you, Alabastra Camin. These are the depths that caring takes one to.

It only strikes me a moment later how naturally she slid in the ‘like us’. A shared bond between Alabastra and I, in claimed femininity. After so long in the dredges of denial, to have the thought so freely is still a touch frightening. Disorienting, too. Like opening my eyes to a bright room after too long in the dark. And the exact way she phrased that has conjured another question.

“It occurs to me that I do not know if there is a… word for this? For girls like us.” I stumble on girls, but carry on. “There is that one elven term, isn’t there? Is that the same thing—”

“No”, she responds, harsher than I expected. Than she expected, too, if her reaction to herself is anything to go by. “No, no, it’s not the same thing. You’re thinkin’ of the reftthenan. Elves that can switch themselves up on the fly. The real elfy-elf types make it clear—they’re blessed. You get born that way or you’re not.” And her gaze goes far off for a moment. “So, no. Not the same thing.”

I get that sinking feeling that I’ve touched on something that goes much deeper than the surface, here. Best I save it for another day; no sense in throwing her off-balance when there’s still much to do today. “So, then as far as we go?”

She nods. “Right. ‘Official’ government term is ‘Sexually-Inverted Person’, but ‘Invert’ doubles as somethin’ folk’ll call us if they’re bein’ nasty, so, not a fan. Y’know, unless I’m feelin’ feisty. I know Rana Horowitz was thinkin’ of running a study, once, before she got canned from the Institute. Maybe she woulda found somethin’ kinder. Too late now.” She shrugs. “Dunno, I’d have thought if anyone would have a nicer word for it, halflings would. Those communes of theirs got all kinds of genders.” And she’s looking at me expectantly.

Our hand runs down our bicep. “I… unfortunately did not get a chance to learn the language much.”

Alabastra’s brows knit, and she kneads comfort into my shoulder. “Guess we’ll just have to think of somethin’ ourselves, huh, Marlowe?”

Unceasingly sentimental. Saccharine, really. I lean into her. We watch Tegan through the window, finishing up with the repairman, helping him load his supplies and tools back into his cart. Beyond the two, the stretch of peoples moving through the city are broken up by another of those terrible automobiles, and I roll my eyes.

Then I realize something is missing from this equation. “Where did Faylie go?”

The woman beside me says, “She took off to see her Auntie. Get a leg up on the plan today. She’ll be meetin’ Pae there.”

Her ‘Auntie’ Antitia. We caught her again before making it home last night. Or, maybe she caught us. Apparating once more out of thin air on our walk home, she explained how her subordinates had the Lupines handled; they cleaned our blood echoes for us, and any combatants that weren’t extinguished in the initial fight instead had their memories of the entire event expunged. Alabastra had some choice words on that, but it was already done. The Gloamwood Gang clearly holds the attitude Faylie had alluded to about Faewilds enchantment magic. Personally, I thought it was at least better than having to spill more blood; I have always been a pragmatist.

When I asked the fae about my debt, she explained that there was no longer a need to remove our contract; and sure enough, I realized that the fae compulsion was gone since the moment Fear and I actualized. ‘The contract was with one ‘Oscar Bromley’‘, she had said, ‘… And he don’t exist anymore, does he?‘

Fae words games; I couldn’t even tell if that was a joke anymore. It’s only too much to hope that we will continue to stay out of their business, or on their good side if that proves impossible.

Speaking of our plans—Tegan marches back inside, as the glazier’s cart pulls away. “Hey! We ready to go?” Her tail wags in anticipation.

I nod. “Just let me finish the potion upstairs and we can depart whenever.”

As I march up the stairs, Alabastra says, “Go make your Girl Juice.”

Our feet stop. “There is absolutely not a chance I am letting you call it that.”

And back in my office, as I finish preparing the familiar pink potion, a thought occurs to me. I don’t bottle any, yet. There’s something I need to see to, first, if we have time today. I throw on my hat, and march out the door, with the two other women at mine and Fear’s sides.

* * *

The Marble City Landlord’s Association is a fresh kind of heartless, hellish bureaucracy, having recently lobbied the city for official recognition in all rentier’s affairs. This gives them the power to set the terms of evictions, fix rent prices, and decide exactly how their property auctions work.

Despite the nightmare scenario this has created in the last year, as Alabastra explained in more colorful terms on our walk over, this has left us with one advantage—the organization of said auctions are still rather sloppy. Perfect for an intrepid group of thieves to swindle their way through.

Though the particulars of the plan they’ve come up with cause me some pause, I’ve learned not to doubt.

We step onto the familiar Grennard street, where the girls’ former apartment awaits. Outside, a small crowd has formed, maybe a dozen or so vultures come to pick clean the carcass of my favorite people’s belongings. Not today. The winding street brushes through with the last dregs of late-autumn leaves, and the carrions are clearly less-than-pleased about the stench hanging over the auction’s locale. They gather before a soapbox and microphone, where an elven auctioneer adorned with a bowtie and a tall hat taps at the side of the mic stand, waiting for the go-ahead to begin. Beside him, another bored-looking city official in the imposing black and gold robes of a taxcaster; an orcish man in a greasy shirt that I can only assume is the landlord Jon; and the security for the event. A single cop, repellently familiar to us by now, with a twitching mustache and too-large sunglasses. Officer Nottham may very well have taken a personal interest in these proceedings.

But surprisingly, Alabastra isn’t perturbed by his appearance. She’s smiling like a maniac. “There ya are.” And she taps Tegan with the back of her hand. “Told ya.”

She sighs. “We’re not gonna have to talk to him, right?”

“Seein’ as I’m the one most likely to be hurt by his tiny-brained garbage, I wish I could say we won’t.” She rolls her shoulders. “Part of the plan. Don’t worry, whatever trash he spills, he’ll get his.”

The question that pops into my head is something that just a few weeks ago I would have considered far too personal to ask, but now, I look up at her from under my parasol. “How does he even… know about you? I mean, he certainly could not have made the assumption on your circumstances from looks alone, that is absolutely certain.”

She smiles down at me, and I realize I’ve just put my foot in my mouth. I’m starting to understand Tegan’s plight more. “That’s sweet of ya to say, M.” We’ve agreed to stick to initials in public settings, at least until I’ve caught up to her. Which, obviously I’ll never quite do, but that’s a worry for later. And she explains, “Guy got obsessed with us a few years back—obsessed enough that he dug into my files. Now, we did Operation Black-Out way back—”

“‘Operation Black-Out’?”

“S’what we called it. Our little plan to swoop in and change some records so that my old name was dead and buried. It’s how I got the Institute admin to recognize me without having to go through the official channels.” There’s a proud little twinkle in her eye. “One of our finer capers. Unfortunately, we forgot to amend the disciplinary records. Nottham looked into ’em and found a couple errant ‘he‘s and ‘him‘s. Not my former name, thank fuck, but the damage was done.”

Tegan adds, “Seriously, if this guy wasn’t a cop, he’d basically be a huge stalker.”

Before I even have time to ask it, Alabastra says to me, “We could probably get somethin’ similar done for you. It’s a lot of illusions and casting and a bit of fae name magic, so, kinda Faylie’s show, but…”

I’ve only officially claimed this name for all of seventeen-ish hours, so it’s perhaps a touch brash to say that I think I’d sooner die than go by anything else. That being said… “Perhaps just wait for if I’m ever fully presenting in public?” I still need to hedge with an ‘if’. Anything could happen, after all. I may need some time to work up the courage again to take that next step. I’ve only just started, after all.

She will do it or Fear will start to scream. And she will not stop.

Have one iota of patience, would you?

Before we’ve reached the din of the crowd, Alabastra issues a last order, “Try and look glum as can be. Really sell it.”

The knight performs her best pout, but her new wolven features are painfully honest, and do not help her with her lying problem. She seems to notice. “Ugh, Allie, this isn’t gonna work.”

“C’mon, Dusty, sad thoughts.” And she looks to me. “Just do what M’s doin’.”

Our arms cross. “What? I didn’t even change anything—” I stop. And stare.

She shoves an index in my face. “Like that!”

I huff, “You are insufferable.”

Her hand pats our back. “You know you love it.”

I don’t dare tell her that I do.

Alabastra leads us into the street auction, and starts parting the sea of people with shouts and frantic hand motions. The hopefuls to buy and pilfer her things on the cheap are clearly annoyed, and that’s likely before they realize who exactly they’re annoyed at. The auctioneer and city official just look confused at the approaching woman. Especially the auctioneer, who seems a touch chagrined that she still manages to match his height even as he stands on the box. The landlord crosses his arms, snarling at his former tenant. Whether he ever did figure out just how had he’d been by the three is unclear, but at least some of it must have dawned on him.

But the officer is smiling, a horrible grin that makes us both want to claw the meat from his face.

We’re… still working on our little violence problem. As it turns out, those intrusive thoughts haven’t entirely gone away. It would be easy to write this off as a lingering side effect of Lyla’s psychic storm, but it’s also not impossible that they’re a deeper-still component of ourself. Exacerbated by both the curse and by my and Fear’s separation, yes, but even with those healed, there is still some amount of malcontent and masochism in us both. Those thoughts are ignorable now, at least—they don’t come with any desire to act upon them. Barely a quirk of our shared mind, rather than anything to fret over.

Nottham drawls, “Camin. Ain’t got a clue why you’d actually turn up to this, but I ain’t complainin’! Hoo-hoo! You should see the look on your face!” He leans in closer, pulling his glasses down just a touch. “We may not have anythin’ we can arrest ya on, yet, but this is almost better!”

Putting on a fake sorrow, Alabastra says, “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, Nottham.” And she looks to the auctioneer. “Put my name down for the auction. That’s ‘Alabastra Camin’.”

Jon The Landlord grumbles to the side, and says in a boorish voice, “Why should you get to? Any money you could pay with, you should fork over to me! Like you owe.”

The taxcaster, an unassuming woman of neat brown hair, says to Jon, “You’ve already cut all business ties to Ms. Camin when you agreed to this auction to recoup your losses, Mr. Merah. She is legally in the right to attempt to bid for her belongings back.” She sounds bored and matter-of-fact. I do not believe she defends Alabastra out of a sense of duty or charity, but simply to be pedantic.

Alabastra nevertheless gives a nod to the bureaucrat. “Thanks, miss”, she says, though I imagine it kills her just a touch to give any amount of gratitude to a taxcaster. All part of the show. And then she turns back to Nottham, and throws out the bait. “Hey, Nottham… heard about what happened to Natey. Damn shame.”

And at the mention of the detective, the smirk is wiped from the cop’s face. “Wha… what did ya hear?”

She shrugs, hands in coat pockets. “Dunno! Just picked up a rumor that he kicked the bucket—though they didn’t find who-dunnit.” And she chuckles to herself. “Guess, uh, ironic, huh? If only the guy could solve his own death…” She trails off as if the joke brought her little comfort. I’ve never seen someone fake gallows humor.

“Is, uh… is that so?” Though he’s speaking to someone he holds irrational hatred for, there’s a quiver at the back of his throat.

“Y’know, I’m a little surprised—I thought it was bad luck to kill a revenant. And right around Devil’s Night, too.” And she practically needles him. “At least we can take comfort that anyone who had anythin’ to do with offin’ him is gettin’ all seven layers of hell, huh?”

The idea’s taken root in the cop’s mind. He’s jittery and nervous, but says, “Get… get back in the crowd, Camin.”

The rogue gives a solemn two-finger salute to the grumbling landlord and the now-jumpy cop and steps back into the crowd, at our sides.

I lean in and say in a hushed tone, “‘Bad luck to kill a revenant‘? Is that a real superstition?”

She shrugs. “Probably?”

Unbelievable. “I’m banning you from using the word ‘luck’ until you learn to wield it responsibly.”

“Good luck with that.”

Now she’s trying to annoy me. I look around. “So are we simply waiting for her to begin or do we have a signal?”

Alabastra snaps before I finish my sentence. “Option B. She’ll do her thing once I bid on somethin’.”

Well, at least we won’t have to take anything off anyone’s carts. That would likely get complicated, fast.

The auctioneer speaks into the microphone, “Alrighty, everyone! We’ll be conducting this in a quick and orderly fashion—the expensive, high-ticket items first and individually, and then the rest of the belongings in bulk.” He motions behind him, and emerging from up the basement stairs, two musclebound hired hands lug a familiar couch up into the street level. “First, we have this… well-used settee. Though it’s somewhat marred, it’s still in good condition. We’ll start the bidding at half a dollar.”

Someone raises their hand. “75 coppers!”

“A dollar!”, someone else bids.

Our arm bumps our rogue as the shouting continues. “Aren’t you going to bid?”

“Nah”, she says, “With how big our bed is, the couch won’t fit in the cart. I’ve been meaning to get rid of it, anyways.” And she winces, wiping her hand through the air like she’s cleaning a window. “There are stains in that thing you wouldn’t buh-lieve.”

I am too afraid to ask what that means.

The final bid on the couch rises to a whole 8 dollars, still a steal compared to retail I suppose. The auctioneer paints his face with a fake smile and claps like a seal as the ‘lucky’ winner loads their new couch into the back of a cart, and one of the hired hands walks out with the next item—a record player, of a cherry wood base, round turntable, and large brass horn. “Next, we have this Kictola Gramophone, in nearly-mint condition! We’ll start the bidding at 5 dollars!”

Alabastra leans forward. “Oh, Hells fucking no, not my Kictola.” Her hand shoots up. “5 dollars, right here!”

The bidding continues around us, and she doesn’t try again… instead, she’s watching the stairs.

“Ten dollars to the young couple up front, going once… going twice…”

There’s a rumble from the direction of the apartment, that feels for a moment like it shakes the entire street. Everyone stops, looking wide-eyed.

And a haunting, wailing voice echoes out, “Noooooothaaaaam…” It cries louder and louder, turning to a baleful moan. It unsettles even me, and I know it’s for show.

Officer Nottham’s veins bulge out of his neck. “N-n-no, not again!”

And crawling over the top of the stairs, a ghostly figure drifts into the space. “You did not avenge me, Nottham!” The familiar faux-ghost of Latchet wails bloody murder, and the crowd scream in terror. “Now the spirits of death come for thee!” And a larger creature, translucent and ghostly, bursts the illusion of Nottham to pieces, crawling from behind it. It’s an exact copy of the strange death lizard we fought in the tunnels, its salamander face wreathed with necromancy, as it takes from the plane Ethereal.

A stampede down the street follows in split directions, anywhere but here. Their running startles the mounts of the nearby carriages as well. All but ours, anyways. Just a touch of sedative; I’ll wake the horses again once we’re done here.

Joining the crowd in the scramble is Nottham, waving his arms and pleading to the high Effigials to save him. I sell the allusion of being frightened and duck behind a nearby fence. Alabastra and Tegan draw their weapons, leaving only them, the landlord, and the two city officials.

The taxcaster yells out, “Wait! It must be an illusion!” She concentrates toward the lizard creature as it ambles forward, unphased, conjuring a spell to banish falsehoods. Until she opens her eyes, and she’s as horrified as the rest. “Oh dear.” The death lizard disappears from sight as the woman is knocked across the street. At the very same moment, the same thing happens to Jon the landlord. He stumbles end-over-end, then stands once more and abandons his own real estate to run. The taxcaster isn’t far behind him.

Alabastra waits with a drawn bow and fires a few token shots in its vicinity, all the while the ‘detective’s’ sobbing continues. The lizard reappears, and twists over to the auctioneer, causing him to fall from his hiding spot. It veers over him menacingly. He cries out for help on the floor, hands over his grimacing face, as ghostly death energy drips from the plane of fog.

Tegan, finally given a role she can act without difficulty, plays the hero. She jumps up in the air, vaulting off a set of steps, and swings her sword down through the ghostly creature. Its form dissipates in a dramatic whoosh, and the sound and horror stops.

She sheathes her sword, and dusts her hands. “And that’s that. Let’s getcha up, bud.” The knight reaches a hand down to the auctioneer.

He takes it, and looks around, unbelieving. “That was…” Then he raises a brow. “Ugh. Do you… smell that?”

The rogue steps forward, laying her arm around her girlfriends shoulder. “Must be the… residue?”

The auctioneer shrugs. “Well, as I was saying, that was incredible. I imagine you very much saved my life.”

“Don’t mention it.” But she waits for the next sentence expectantly.

Though we didn’t cast him for this role, he nevertheless plays his part perfectly. “Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

And maybe just a little too quick, she pulls a 20 dollar note from her back pocket. The last of my own savings not already set aside for replenishing my supplies, but absolutely worth it. “Howsabout you just mark us down as having swept this auction and let us take our stuff home, no sweat.”

Considering his life was just ‘saved’, from his perspective anyways, the auctioneer agrees.

We dip into the apartment, spending the next twenty minutes or so grabbing the thieves’ things and loading them into the cart we rented. Thankfully, it seems the auction runners already packed most of their things for them… how gracious. There’s a hint of nostalgia in Alabastra’s eye as we go, but it doesn’t slow her down. We intend to make our exit before any more police arrive.

As I take a box of kitchen supplies back up the stairs, a familiar voice chirps beside us from the ether. “Well? How was that?”, says the Faylie, not merely invisible, but ethereal.

Alabastra chuckles. “Brilliant performance, if I do say so myself. Well done to the both of ya.”

Faylie says, “I think Paella says thanks, but it’s kinda hard to tell in this form.” The fact that she’s shown up as a monster here does at least put a petty thought in my head of the same monster physically wrecking the inside of Forrest’s shop back in the Other Side. At least Paella’s acting was accurate. Perhaps a little too accurate.

“And no lasting damage?”

“Forrest said I’d be okay, but that I shouldn’t do this again for like, a long long time unless I like, want my spirit to detach from my body. Which… I mean, it’s fun for a bit but it kinda gets old.”

Alabastra swipes in the vague direction her girlfriend’s voice is coming from. “I like ya whole, Lightning Bug. That’s a wrap on your ethereal shenanigans.”

“Well, good timing, because I think he’s calling us back.”

“Are you just saying that so you don’t have to help us move?”

The faun starts to make sounds with her voice. “Ah, psh, the… the planar connection, trcht, it’s- it’s breaking, crrsht.”

Without the help of our two ghostlier members, we’ve just about finished loading the cart, and I wake the horses back up with a very careful shot of stimulant. Around the back, I meet Tegan’s gaze as we ensure we’re done here.

I ask, “Would it be too much trouble to request that we make a stop on the way home? It mostly on the way, regardless.”

“Sure thing!”, she says, hopping up on the cart and taking the reins. Then she laughs. “Hey, did you see the way Nottham ran the second Fake-Nate showed up again?”

Alabastra laughs behind us, taking the final box out of their apartment, full of her own book collection. “Sure did. Wasn’t even the monster that did it, I think the fucker’s just got a ghost thing.”

“Do you think he always did? Or did we, like, put that in him?”

“Oh, I’d way rather be proficient than lucky.” She loads the box over the precarious pile the rest of their things are placed in at the back of the cart. It’s stocked and overfull, and I help her to throw the tarp overtop it all.

As I do I deadpan, “Didn’t I establish already? No more luck jokes.”

She fastens the tarp, then marches right to me. “Rules only matter if you got the authority to enforce ’em, Marlowe.” With her hand on her hips, she cranes her head over me, peering down, intense. “So go ahead, Kitten. Enforce it.”

Our face burns. I stammer out, “Ch-cheating. Cheating. You’re cheating. That’s cheating.”

Then she laughs. “And now you’re finally gettin’ the luck thing!” And with a roll of her shoulders, she turns, heading for the front of the cart. “After all, life only deals ya in once. So whaddaya do when ya get a rotten hand?” And she looks back to me, and winks. “Ya fuckin’ cheat.”

* * *

We pull the cart to a stop outside a familiar building, and Alabastra and I get out. Tegan’s volunteered to stay with the cart, but the blonde has something to check, here, too.

The Andric V. Washel Republic of Anily Post Office is no less a horrid realm of nightmares to me now than it was a week ago. I haven’t changed so drastically. The medley of movement through the mail room is accompanied by too much sound and sight, but it is at least at a comparative lull this time of day. Thankfully there doesn’t seem to be a wait at the window today, either. Something to be less thankful for is that the infuriating young clerk from earlier is still manning the desk. His is the only open till.

Alabastra taps me on the back. “You go first.”

“But of course.”

As I approach the desk the young man looks up at me, recognition passing over him. “Ah, Mr. Bromley, sir, are you here to pay this month’s holding fee? A little early, don’t ya think?”

I’d have thought that now that my identity is touch more solid, those little honorifics would hurt less. The twinge of pain has changed. It’s more precise, now. I think I could learn to armor against now that I can actually pinpoint its source, but in this fresh state of recently acquired womanhood? Ow.

“No”, I say. He looks surprised. “In fact, I’d like to retrieve that letter now, please.”

He could have the decency to at least not look so shocked. “Oh! Well, in that case, just one moment!” He stands, departing from the desk into the back rooms, leaving me tapping my foot anxiously.

In retrospect, I feel more than a little silly paying so much just to let this letter sit in a box for so long. I wasn’t ready to read anything it might have had to say, since I was first informed of its existence several months ago, but I didn’t dare have it thrown out either. This was a comfortable limbo for a while, but an impasse is no way to live. And it bit into my finances to boot; even if I wasn’t ready to read it, I’d have had to end the stalemate eventually.

The clerk returns, letter in hand. “Alright, Mr. Bromley, letter for you, from one L. Sedgwick!” Then he stops, and double-takes at his own words. “Wait… Sedgwick?”

“It’s a… different Sedgwick”, I lie.

He shrugs, and hands me the envelope. “Here ya go!” And louder, he shouts, “Next!”

The letter feels like lead in my head, the weight of it sinking down. I turn, nod once to Alabastra as she steps up to the booth, and find a seat in the lobby. I could wait until I’ve returned home to read it, but I’ve waited long enough. The letter came in April, so, anything… anything she had to say is half a year out of date by now. I couldn’t possibly know why she’d reach out now after so long, but I hope it’s good news. She deserves some of that, to be certain.

I take a moment to spy the return address. It’s from Lav Chimera. The complete other side of the nation from here, far out west. Not quite nowhere, as she’d have indicated; it’s well-populated, a railroad hub, and cultural capital. It doesn’t match Marble City, of course, but it’s no backwater. I wonder if that’s recent.

My fingernails dig under the envelope and I pry the paper apart. Out folds a weathered letter. I’m almost scared to start reading. Terrified to know if she’s alright. What she thinks of me after all this time.

But she always did instill me with bravery. I unfold it, and begin reading.

Dear Marlowe,

Meowdy, there. Remember our little joke?
I hope you do not mind me using that name. Perhaps I am being a touch overly optimistic, but after all these years, I think I nearly need to believe that you figured it all out. Maybe you chose a different one, and this will be a nice reminder. Maybe you have buried it, and this might be just what you need to stop digging that hole. Or maybe I am just bringing up old wounds for you. I am sorry if I am.
For the past year or so my father and I have lived in Lav Chimera, in a modest home in the Rosewood Hills. We have a laboratory and experiment often, and though we are regularly looked upon with suspicion, we have found some work selling our inventions under pseudonyms. Perhaps you have even seen our handiwork first hand, out in Marble City. We had a breakthrough some years ago on the creation of a hued lightbulb. I imagine those pretty lights down the Riverwalk have benefited kindly from such a thing.
It is not an easy life. We have fallen on hard times financially due to several outstanding debts, but it is the isolation that hurts the worst. Being so ostracized is hard to bear, but there is a silver lining, in that should you come to terms that you will not be accepted no matter how hard you try, then it frees up the things you have avoided for that acceptance’s sake.
Though it is terrifying, I have accepted myself completely as a girl, and present as such when I can. When it is safe to. Though it has been a tough few years for us, and thus, I do not have the money or connections to change my body with magic. Even if I did, sometimes the prospect of such a thing terrifies me. I have begun to suspect that women like us are not looked kindly upon by the magister politicians of this country.
Dad does not quite understand, but he has seen that it makes me happier, so he has no great complaint. Some days I think I have disappointed him, that I could not be the legacy, the heir, or the son he had hoped for. If he does feel that way, he has the kindness, or perhaps the cowardice, to not say so. Or perhaps it is all in my head.
I have made a couple of good friends, in the city. Not as many as I would have liked, but I am not lonely. Most days, anyways.
I think about you often. Funny, the other day someone asked me who the first person I ever fell in love with was. I said it was you.
That is not a lie. I did. I loved you.
I also hated you.
Some nights I would wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of you. I had this recurring nightmare, that you were holding me down in a pool of water until we both drowned. I did not cope overly well with what had occurred between us in the year or so afterwards. I had so many dreams and so much I wanted, and I hated that I felt as if it was taken from me. That I let your worries filter down to me. That I tried to balance so much only for it all to fall apart.
For the record, I never blamed you for the bite. I asked for it, and I accepted the consequence. It was everything else that hurt. I do not wish to recount the details in this letter, but I hope time and perspective mean I do not need to clarify.
But I do not feel that way anymore. I did not like what holding on to that anger did to me. And later, I realized that was an unfair way to think of you at all. You and I were both hurt by expectation. There was a pain in you that I could not heal or help, and might have made worse at the time for trying. I wish more than anything that I had the words then to shake you, and not be shaken instead. It breaks my heart to imagine you still in that place.
So please tell me you are well. Please, even if it is a lie, write back and tell me you do not call yourself a name you so clearly hated and you do not think of yourself as a monster and that there are people around you who love you. That you treat yourself kinder.
You were never a monster, Marlowe. You made mistakes. And if you have not yet accepted yourself and you have somehow reached the end of this letter—you deserve more than what folk forced upon us.
If you are feeling so bold, though I do not imagine you would have cause to, should you ever find yourself in Lav Chimera, I would like to see you in person again. See you standing before me. Perhaps that is all that would be required to feel some measure of closure.
There is not much else to say. It has been raining out here. Spring showers. How is it out there?
Do you still talk to Alabastra? Is the shop well? Have you made anything interesting?
I truly do wish you well. I would love to hear the answers to those questions.

 With hope,
Lainey Sedgwick.

Our fingers crease over the edges of the paper, and I put a closed hand to our mouth to stop the sob that threatens to break through. It gets a little difficult to read the end of the letter through the misty welling in our eye. And I just stare at the words a while longer. Part of me is so immensely relieved I didn’t read this until now; the old me might have thrown it away before she ever got a chance to get it through her head. Maybe this was always a small glimmer of hope I allowed myself. It’s as good a story to tell myself as any.

Gods, what a relief. She truly is well, and figured herself out, too. Though, it sounds as if things aren’t all entirely perfect, out in Lav Chimera. She’s without access to further care.

That’s confirmed it, then. I know what I need to do.

“M?”, Alabastra’s voice startles me.

I look up, wide-eyed, entirely forgetting to hide the wetness under our lid. “H-hi.”

“You alright?”

Our head bobs. “Yes.” And I look fondly down at the letter again, before folding it up into my pocket, and wiping at our cheek. “I think I’m going to be.”

She smiles, patting us on the shoulder as I stand. “Good to hear.” In her other hand, she holds a small notecard, looking as if it’s already been opened. “Least one of us got some good news.”

“What about you?”

She winces, and with one hand flips open the card she’s holding, and shows it to me.

There’s only two lines of writing, large and diagonal across the card, itself signed with a kiss of lipstick in one corner.

See ya soon, Allie!
— V.L xoxo

* * *

Upon further thought, perhaps we should have delayed getting the window fixed until after we moved their belongings in.

Allie and Tegan continue trying to fit their mattress through the door of my shop, growing increasingly frustrated at the endeavor, to the point that they’ve now personified both the mattress and the door and heave angry insults at the both of them. Faylie’s had to be talked down twice from using her magic, and my own suggestion to take the door off its hinges would have been a sufficient plan, had I thought of it before the bed was already wedged stuck.

“Just put your back into it babe, c’mon!”, yells Alabastra.

She huffs back, “I’m not trying to break Marlowe’s shop any more than I have, Allie!”

Faylie says, “Oh forget this, I’m doing it!”

“W-wait!”, I yell, but the cards are already out.

There’s a flash of purple light. The good news is at least that the mattress is inside the building. The bad is that having to pick up the shelves its knocked over is going to take yet more time. I steeple a hand against our forehead and get to work.

Back and forth, from the cart, up and down the stairs, the rest of the day is spent getting the three situated. We fail to unpack everything or fully reconstruct all of their furniture before we’re all too exhausted to continue, but at least it’s all inside without further property damage.

We’ve dragged their mattress into the master bedroom, which prompted a second round of inanity itself, and my own bed into the office. It was only right that the three of them should get the larger room, after all. It’s the obvious choice, and means I have even less of a commute to my work station I suppose. Though a shame the third floor is out of commission for the time being. If they truly wanted we could eventually give them all their own rooms, though when I mentioned it they scoffed at the idea—they’ve grown very accustomed to sharing.

Alabastra touches back on the topic over a plate of hastily made dinner, “So what’s up there, anyways?” She points to the stairs with a chicken-skewered fork.

“It’s empty at the moment. Just some storage.” I roll my shoulders a touch. “We’d have to do some additional work if we wanted to use it for anything. The lights haven’t been replaced in years, it’s likely infested with spiders, there’s no telling if there’s damage to the electrical work, and it could do with reflooring, too.”

She chews her bottom lip. “Always been that way?”

I shake our head. “The previous tenants used to rent out the third floor. My parents lived up there, until they bought the building out from under their landlord with their savings.” I scratch my shoulder. Though they’d only done so a few decades back, already that seems like a distant dream for most Anillians, now. A different time. “They told me once they wanted to save the space for when the family expanded. It… never did, of course…” I drown my feelings with a bottle of blood, drinking down the drippings to the drop. Such a relief, that I can rely on my old stocks again.

Faylie is currently setting up her things through her exhaustion. Actually some of them look like my things—those bits and pieces she said she’d hold onto at the skyway station. She isn’t putting them back where they should be, but that’s a tomorrow problem. She speaks up, “So that’s like, half of this building that you’re not even using for anything? What about that greenhouse on the roof? Do you use that?”

“Also no.” When there were two people running this shop, the greenhouse was necessary for the larger operation. I haven’t gone up there in a long time. I suppose there’s never been anything stopping me, but 492 West Mayflower Drive has never really felt like my home, and thus I’d stripped it down to utilitarian purpose. Anything that wasn’t for function was for lashing myself with guilt, and the rest was discarded and left to ruin.

Guilt to drive the purpose, and purpose to wash down the guilt. A horrible cycle, now that I can see it more clearly. Kansis was correct; that isn’t what Mother would have wanted for me. Though it’s anyone’s guess whether or not she’d be proud of the…

The daughter that she never quite got to meet. Our chest twists into thorns at that thought… I’ll unpack that later.

It is going to ensure that she does.

All that is to say, this wasn’t a home for me. It’s empty walls and boxed trinkets and uniform furniture was testament to that. But now I’ve opened it to these three, I think it would be foolish to not consider it mine, too, in all the ways that reclaiming something gives one leeway to reshape it.

Alabastra stands, deposits her empty plate in the sink, and says, “We’ll think of somethin’.” Then she creases her brow. “Hey… where the hells is Tegan?”

There’s a crash from the master bedroom. For a moment my greatest worry is that she’s accidentally damaged something trying to reconstruct their bedframe… until a low, long wolf’s howl rocks the building. “Awoooooo!”

We all back up. “W-wait…”, Alabastra says.

And Tegan’s massive werewolf form pulls into the hallway, taking up the entire space from wall-to-wall, before she bounds forward, wild look in her eye. The other two stand to attention, worried beyond words.

For just a split-second I fear for the worst… until her hulking arms wrap around Alabastra, scared but protective as she lifts the blonde off her feet, actually managing to tower over her girlfriend for once.

Through her squeezed lungs the blonde says, “Tegan?! Wha—… are the urges back?!”

If they were then certainly we’d be feeling something, as well. Then I do some very quick head math. “Ah. I think I have a theory.” And I walk to the window, and pull the curtain aside. The night sky beyond is now fully absent any light of the sun. And the window perfectly frames the full moon hanging amongst the stars.

“Ohhh”, she says, summarizing my thoughts succinctly.

Yet another thing we’re all just going to have to get used to. At least this sort of transformation isn’t of the violent kind, either, though she certainly seems a touch more feral. “I’ll get us a calendar to track the full moon. We won’t be caught off-guard again.” It is more than a little ironic, that Lyla’s storm let Tegan shake off the very thing she was trying to impose. In a roundabout way.

Tegan unwraps herself from her girlfriend, and bounds towards us, wrapping us tight as we’re pulled into her warm brown fur. She is softer than she looks, like a blanket.

And she’s crushing our windpipe. “Y-yes, I appreciate you too, Tegan, thank you.”

A doglike whimper whines in response from the mashing snout currently above our head. Then she lets us go and I stumble backwards, nearly losing our footing. She moves to the lounge, circles once around Faylie, then plops down on top of the faun, all but pressing her into the futon.

Faylie says from beneath her, “Oh… okay! I guess this is my life now!” Barely visible over the mound of fur that is Tegan of Drywater, Faylie gives a little thumbs-up.

Alabastra and I finish cleaning the kitchen, since the one who had volunteered to do so is now wolf-brained, unpacking their kitchen supplies as we go. Their cutlery is a chaotic miss-match of wildly different styles, some looking far more expensive than it otherwise should, and—

They stole all of this didn’t they?

From the lounge, Tegan stands back up, and picks Faylie up by the hood of her robes with her mouth. The faun hangs from her girlfriend’s jaw as she’s walked towards the master bedroom. “Um. Not opposed to this!”

She is… fascinated. Can she learn this trick?

What? No, obviously not- what do you even mean by that?

Tegan possesses an impressive mandible. Perhaps she can instead… partake?

Partake?!

As I’m left arguing with myself, Alabastra moves to join her girlfriends. But before, she turns back to me. “You headin’ to bed?”

I shake our head. “I have one more thing to do tonight.”

The rogue shoots me a finger gun. “Well don’t overwork yourself, alright?”

Not even a full day and she’s already picking apart my un-living conditions. “Most of the work’s already done, I assure you.” And I make for my office.

* * *

I sit hunched over my desk, having just finished laying out the shipping container I picked up after our post office visit. It’s a small wooden crate, no larger than a shoebox, and it’s been stuffed with straw to fill out the empty space. I’ve laid a small sheet of silk overtop, and dug out space in the middle for the cargo to sit comfortably.

Two potions bottles sit to my left, filled with a familiar pink bubbling liquid, waiting for me to finish the hard part. And directly below me is an empty page, patiently holding out for my quill to touch. I keep trying to find words profound enough to capture how I feel, but nothing matches. Even comes close. Then I realize, there truly is not a thing I could possibly write that says what this gesture doesn’t already.

So I know exactly what to put down.

Dear Lainey,

– 1 bloom of red trillium
– 8-10 inches of rashvine, preferably dried
– 1 sprig of lifeleaf
– 4oz of ochre acid (or most other types of ooze. a gelatin and heavily-diluted aqua regia mixture might work in a pinch)
– 6 liters of water

1. Dissolve the red trillium in the acid. Do not over-dissolve, or you will dilute the effectiveness of the potion. You should be left with a messy, soft, pink paste.
2. Grind the rashvine and lifeleaf in a mortar and pestle. Ensure you include the stem of the lifeleaf—most of its magical potency can be found there.
3. Set the water to boil.
4. Heat the trillium paste until it has reached a sticky, syrupy texture.
5. Add the rashvine and lifeleaf salts to the boiling water.
6. Slowly add the syrup to the cauldron in methodical drips, stirring frequently, slowly, and at a consistent pace. This is the tricky part.

Lifeleaf is a fickle plant, easily extinguished—do not fret if you do not succeed on the first attempt. The resulting mixture should look in the cauldron as it does in the bottle. Shelf-life should be about 3 months, and this recipe will make enough to last that same amount of time. You should only need to take one a month—but try spreading your intake out over the course of a week, to ensure more even results.
Expect softer skin, a more feminine fat redistribution in the body and face, decreased muscle mass, breast growth, changes in mood, changes in body odor, lessening of tumescence, lessening of body and facial hair, diminution of primary sexual characteristics, and eventually long-term changes to shoulder and hip bone configuration and slight loss of height. Some changes should be permanent once the potion is taken long enough, but regular, lifetime use will be necessary to maintain the rest.
Side-effects include possible infertility, bodily aches during long-term changes, mood swings, and, according to my initial test subject, a newfound fear of death.
Hopefully the ingredients will be easy to find out in Lav Chimera, but should you require, write me back and we can establish a regular supply.

With eternal gratitude,
Marlowe Bromley.

I lay the quill back inside the inkpot and just stare down at the letter a moment, checking it over for mistakes. I never thought for a moment I would ever send something like this, but here I am. Here we are. A thank you, an apology, and hopefully a wrong righted, or at least the start of one. I only wish I’d thought to do it sooner.

“Gee Marlowe, I thought you said to pace myself”, says Alabastra’s voice from the doorframe. I startle briefly. I left the door open—perhaps a foolish gesture, but one of absolute trust. She’s leaning against the open door, and gesturing to the two bottles next to me. “Now you’re double-dipping? Greedy, greedy girl.”

“I thought you were going to bed.”

She shrugs. “Got curious.” She’s still staring at the twin potions.

We stand to our feet. I pick up one of the potion bottles. “This one isn’t mine.” And I lay it inside the box. Overtop I lay the letter, and then fit the lid over the box. There’s already a ‘FRAGILE‘ painted on the side, thankfully. They craft these potion bottles out of rather sturdy glass, but I still worry for the transit. I’ll be more than a little cross if it doesn’t make the trip. Maybe I’ll spring for a teleport delivery, just to be sure.

Alabastra looks over my little project, curious eyes scanning. “So… gonna tell me what that’s about?”

“It’s not entirely my story to tell”, I say. In truth, that’s only half the reason. I have more to untangle in regards to those days, and don’t feel equipped after the chaos of the last month. Later. “Just someone who needed help.”

She looks like she’s going to explode with questions, but is gracious enough to not bombard me with them. “Fine, fine.” Then she walks deeper into my office, one hand leaning against my desk. And she gestures down at the other bottle. “And… your medicine?”

My nerves crawl over me. “Right”, I practically whisper. And I pick up the bottle, the bubbling pink liquid within full of a promise I’ve finally had the courage to make to myself. My fingernails tap against the glass, tip-tip-tip-tip, and I stare at it, as if it might come alive in my hand. “I’m… a touch nervous, I must admit.” Years of making this for her, dozens and dozens of doses—but this one is all mine. And though it’s just a bit of liquid, there’s a power to it. A weight. Like teetering on the edge of a cliff. “Do you think it will it… change me?”

Alabastra stares at me a moment. “… I… Wh— Yeah?!“

“N-no, not like—”

“Well, I know. But… yeah. Yes. Probably—you’ll be a little different, Marlowe. Past the physical stuff. Or…” She reconsiders her words, beyond the little joke. “Maybe it’s like… It’s not changing you. You’re changing you. Step by step, you build yourself out. That’s the point, ain’t it? Like I said. Actually… like you said, too.”

The context of our last conversation in this room was quite a bit different, but I suppose I did, yes.

I’m not sure why I’m so on edge. It’s not anything to do with my own creation, I think. I made it, I know better than most what it does. And this was the entire point. So, then… what? Is it just the anxiety of a life-changing decision I’m at the precipice of?

Well, actually when I put it that way that sounds like it could be it, yes. Walking the rest of the way through the door, into a new life. Into a life at all, beyond the realm of ever-stagnant death. Out of the underworld.

“Y’know, even crammed up like you were, I’m still a little surprised you never tried your own supply—just outta curiosity’s sake”, she says to break up the tension.

And a memory comes back to me, vague and broken as memories should be, not in haunting detail. “I… did actually. Once. Shortly after I first gave it to you, I had some leftover and I… tried a single spoonful of it.” A single huff leaves me from disbelief at my own density. “I panicked so severely I didn’t leave my flat for a week. I got an angry letter from a professor demanding I not take my spring break early.”

She laughs with me at the story. “Oh, Marlowe“, she croons, though I think that was directed at my younger self and not the me standing before her. Then her head shakes, and she grips our wrist. Our head swims for a moment. “Take your time, alright?” And she guides our hand down, until we’ve set the potion back on the desk. “Chug it without me here—don’t do it for me, this is about you.”

“Well, I will not be ‘chugging‘ it, I assure you. Your inability to take medicine in controlled and regular doses is not a transferable affliction.”

Her arms cross. “If you want me to take it in doses, Marlowe, you should just be labeling the bottles.”

“That’s… an excellent idea, actually.” I scramble to my notepad to write that down. Then I take a moment to appreciate what it was she actually just told me. “And, I… I know. Don’t get me wrong, I’m elated, too. I just… remain a habitual doubter.”

“Well… don’t doubt so hard you fall back into old habits, alright?” Consoling but stern, she follows up, “You’ve got a lotta shit to unlearn. And all three of us are here to help, so don’t hesitate, okay? You tell us what you need, and we’ll do it.”

Only a short time ago I’d have felt like I had all the cause in the world to poke holes in that statement. Now I believe it to my core. “Okay.”

And she smiles. That infuriating grin that has driven me up the wall, knocked down my barriers, forced me to strip away those barbed defenses so that she stopped hurting as she tried, indefatigable, to breach me. “‘Bout time I got to bed, huh?”

There’s so much I want to say, just like with Lainey; only I don’t have some grand gesture to say it for me here. Just words, against a woman who plays with them like fire, can see through them like glass. I fall short, an inadequate and ineloquent tongue for what I need. I want to tell her, but I don’t know how to say it.

Out the door she goes. Down the hall. I leave my room to watch, and its only when her hand grazes the edge of the bedroom handle that it strikes me. “Alabastra.” She turns again, a little confused. “Thank you.”

She sighs, endless relief in her eyes, and marches back across the hall. One hand plants on the wall. “Marlowe… It was, truly, my fucking pleasure.” She looks like she’s going to say something else. The air goes taut and tense. Something swims in my stomach. For a tiny second, I let my imagination run wild with what she might do next.

And then the moment passes. She bites her tongue. Time stretches out and opportunity falls through the laxing chords.

Her shoulders drop. But her smile is still warm as the hearth. “I can’t wait to see what kind of woman you become. You and Fear”, she says. “It’s a new day, soon. G’night, Marlowe.”

“Goodnight.”

She departs, into the room I’ve given her, and I’m left alone with my other half in the hallway.

It’s not pleased with me.

What is she doing? After her!

For… what purpose, precisely?

Fear says nothing for a moment, in dumbstruck anger.

Go to Alabastra! Kiss her! Declare our love for her! We should be inside one another’s bodies and minds—

Wh-what?! No! Fear, it isn’t like that.

She cannot be this foolish.

Ridiculous.

Yes, I have a great amount of respect, and even perhaps love for Alabastra, but not in a romantic sense! And obviously she wouldn’t feel the same, so, even if you were correct in your assumption, it would hardly matter.

It cannot believe she is this foolish.

Plus… she just moved into our apartment. It would be improper to make such a step now. I don’t want her to feel like we are taking advantage of her.

Well, if she will not, then at least it will.

That would become complicated in so many innumerable ways I don’t even bother to count them.

I… obviously cannot stop you, but first of all, do remember for the future that you cannot just go around, kissing people whenever you feel like it? You need permission, first.

Alabastra didn’t mind.

You don’t know that. And even if she didn’t, it was an outstanding circumstance—it won’t happen like that again. And she’s been very gracious to us for not bringing it up.

That has her paused. I continue.

But also, please at least consider the fact that you have been an active part of our lives for all of twenty-four hours. You should give yourself a chance to live a little, first, before you come to a decision so rash. There’s so much world out there—who knows how you’ll feel in a month’s time?

She’s considering it, I can tell.

Fine. She will not let this go so easily, but she will be patient. For now.

That’s all I’m asking. Just be open to a touch of perspective.

I walk back into our office, and my hands wrap around the potion bottle.

Besides, we have enough life-altering items on our agenda tonight.

Do not tell it she is undecided on this, too?!

No. I’m decided. But not here.

We walk up the stairs. The dark interior of the third floor passes me by as I go, a shaded, haunted, thin hallway dividing the half-dozen rooms up top. Identical and full of detritus and cobwebs. I keep going, up the stairs one more time to the roof access. And step out into the open air.

The nightly autumn chill sends a shiver down our spine. I put our back to the glass of the decrepit greenhouse, picked clean by birds and lacking even soil. Our feet crunch the gravel beneath us.

I stare up at the stars. It’s funny—when I had the watch I gained my nights back. But not once in that time did I think to stargaze. To look up and glare at that beautiful moon, or connect the shining dots in the black of space into constellations, or appreciate the sounds of the city.

The glass of the potion bottle is smooth against our thumb as I run it up and down, sending little circles against the exterior. I created this potion to see someone I cared for, deeply, self-actualize. But I didn’t let myself consider if perhaps there was another reason. If alchemy, a field of study thrust upon me that I have taken to with hard-won lessons, might be a way to escape my own drowning cycle, too.

‘In all things, there is potential.’

Yet I’d denied it in myself.

No more stagnation. No more exile. I want to see this world in its furious entirety. I want to change. I want time to pass, to watch the leaves fall off the trees and grow again, and to see ourself from a thousand angles over a thousand days.

I never want to stop looking at the stars.

Our hand pops the cork on the bottle. It’s cold as it meets our lips. It’s bubbly when it hits our tongue. And… and I’ll be damned.

It tastes like vanilla.

And through the night, we don’t dream of blood or hunger or hatred or paranoia or monsters or mandates or dread. We don’t dream of memory or guilt or regret or duty or emptiness or sorrow or pain.

We just dream of tomorrow. And everything it might bring.

— Fin

With the publishing of this chapter, book one of Witch Hunt becomes the first major piece of writing I've finished and fully released. I cannot begin to describe how immensely proud I am of this book, of these characters, how deeply touched I've been by what others have brought to this work. As you might be able to tell, Marlowe's story is deeply personal to me, both in obvious and inobvious ways. This horrible little vampire grew a garden in my heart, and I can only hope she's done the same for you.

Of course, Witch Hunt isn't ending. Book one may be coming to a close, but my ambitions for this world, these characters, and the stories that can be told with them have expanded so much further than I would've ever realized. There's plenty more to come in the future, and based on what I've already written of book two, I think you're going to like it. 🙂

However, creating stories takes time. Which is why Witch Hunt will be on a brief haitus for the next two months, as I rebuild my backlog, give folk who like reading complete stories a chance to catch up, and give you time to miss these idiots. We'll be back around mid-late winter, with a whole new plot for our familiar cast. I hope you'll join me then.

Lastly, for the final time for a little while — thank you. Thank you for every like, comment, review, or read of this work. This is undoubtedly my favorite thing I've ever done, and a big part of that is you. And so, if you'd like to come talk to me, or others, who've come on this journey, I've set up a little discord server. I may even soon set up a lil' q&a and answer any burning questions folk might have in painstaking detail. Would love to see you there. < 3

To all who have felt broken, cursed, or left behind by a cruel world, who have seen parts of themselves in my characters, I thank you, sincerely, for reading. And finally, without further ado:

Next update is (2-1) snowdrops; coming soon