Torin’s long red hair and thick red beard obscured all of his face save for his humorous eyes and aquiline nose-except when he smiled broadly, as he did now. “No, but there is a bit of a wrinkle.”
She sighed. “Of course there is.”
Manfred said, “I talked to Abbi Jaros and then her husband, father-in-law, and children, and they all say the same thing: until this morning, there was no closet there, just a blank wall.”
“So there’s magic afoot.” She fixed her irritated gaze upon Boneen. “Isn’t magic the Brotherhood’s concern?”
“Licensed magic is, yes. This is unlicensed magic.” Sniffing, he added, “The Brotherhood does not consort in magicks that cast dirt about.”
“What, your desire to keep from getting your hands dirty extends to the rest of the world, too?”
“Something like that, yes. In any case, I’ve already communicated with Lord Ythran, the local Brotherhood representative, and he and I agreed that this is an unlicensed commercial spell, and therefore not within the Brotherhood’s purview. So have at it.”
With that, Boneen gestured, muttered something, and disappeared in a flash of light.
After blinking the spots from her eyes-Danthres was half-elf, which made her more sensitive to the bright lights that accompanied Boneen’s Teleport Spell-she said, “This doesn’t answer my question.”
“What question is that, Danthres?” Torin asked as he slogged through the muck toward the front door.
“What crime has been committed?”
Torin looked down, smiled, and then looked back at Danthres. “Well, vandalism at the very least.”
“A crime easily solved even by the pea-brained idiots of the guard rank.” Turning to Manfred, she said, “Nothing personal, Manfred.”
Manfred grinned. “Honestly, ma’am, most guards’ brains aren’t that large.”
Danthres found herself laughing against her better judgment, then quickly grew serious again. The last thing she wanted to do was get chummy with one of the guards. “So why are we handling this?”
Torin walked slowly to the closet door. “I said vandalism was the very least this could be. I’ve examined the closet door-it doesn’t match the design of the rest of the house, and the space it takes up can’t be accounted for by the shape of the house. It’s definitely something magical. It might be some sort of attack on the Jaros family. Since we haven’t actually spoken to them yet, now might be the time to do that, and see if this is part of something larger.”
Rolling her eyes, Danthres said, “Somehow I doubt that very much.” She sighed far louder than perhaps she should have and asked Manfred, “Where are they?”
“Next door, ma’am-they said they didn’t want to stay in here until it was cleaned up.”
Torin gingerly walked across the sitting-room floor toward Danthres. “Perhaps you can recommend that cleaning service of yours?”
Her face darkening even more, Danthres said, “Not likely. I spent half the morning trying to find where they put everything.” At the behest of a rather aggrieved landlady, Danthres had hired a cleaning service for her rooms. Said landlady had rented Danthres the two rooms on the upper floor of her house in Dragon Precinct on the condition that Danthres keep the place clean and neat. However, Danthres had not been keeping up that part of the bargain especially well, thanks to the long hours she put in as a detective for the Castle Guard as well as her own inherent laziness when it came to matters of housekeeping. Since the landlady was threatening to toss Danthres out on her ear if she didn’t comply, she hired a cleaning service.
They’d done a thorough job of making the place neat and shiny and clean. It was far more thorough than Danthres would have believed possible-so much so, in fact, that Danthres couldn’t find a single thing she was looking for this morning. It was what had set her on her bad mood in the first place.
As Torin did his best to wipe his feet on the welcome mat, he said to Manfred, “Seal off the house for the time being, and get Sergeant Arron to send someone to guard both the front and back doors.”
Danthres rolled her eyes. “Waste of time.”
“Perhaps, but I’d rather have guards there and not need them than the other way ’round.”
“Fair enough. If you’re done, let’s go talk to the family.”
The family, to Danthres’s lack of surprise, was singularly unhelpful. That lack of surprise was due to the way her day had been going. First there was the scavenger hunt for her every personal item. Then she arrived at the east wing of the castle, where the sergeant informed her that the magistrate had returned a not-guilty ruling on her and Torin’s most recent murder case, which did nothing to improve either her mood or her opinion of the magistrate. She couldn’t complain to Torin about it because he was late as usual-only he wasn’t coming in at all, because he’d been summoned to the crime scene in Unicorn.
To add to the annoyance, none of the Jaros family seemed to be in any way insincere about their confusion over what had happened. Danthres had been a detective in the Castle Guard for a decade now, and she had gotten a good ear for when people were lying. While Millar Jaros did lie about his monetary worth and Abbi Jaros lied about how she was a good and faithful wife, and the children lied about any number of things, they all seemed quite sincere to her trained ear when they discussed the suddenly appearing closet.
Just as Torin and Danthres were about to leave the neighbor’s house, Abbi asked, “Excuse me, Lieutenants, but, well, I mean-” She threw up her hands. “What are we supposed to do about that?”
“Hire a cleaning service, I would expect,” Danthres said dismissively.
“I’m a good housewife,” Abbi said stubbornly. “I don’t believe in cleaning services.”
“Have at it, then,” Danthres said with a wicked grin. “But if you decide you’d rather not get on hands and knees and muck out your own house, I can recommend a service to avoid. They’re called Forak’s Perfect Clean, and they’ve made a mess of my own place.”
Abbi frowned. “What kind of cleaning service leaves a place a mess?”
“That’s kind of my point.” With that, Danthres left.
Danthres’ mood was even worse when she came in the next morning. After spending the morning wasting their time interviewing the Jaros family, they spent the afternoon wasting their time interviewing Alfrek Jaros’ coworkers. Alfrek, Abbi’s husband and Millar’s son, worked in the Lord and Lady’s castle as a deputy to the transport minister, Sir Lio. That, at least, made tracking them down easy, as they were in the same building where Danthres and Torin worked.
They were no more helpful in revealing why someone would mess up the Jaros sitting room from a hidden closet.
Sergeant Jonas came dashing in from the kitchen, shuffling parchments, his green cloak billowing behind him. He scowled at Danthres as she approached her desk. “You’re late. And where’s your-”
“Jonas, so help me, if you ask me where my cloak is, I will ram my sword so far up your ass the point will stick out your left ear. Just fetch me another one, will you?”
The sergeant twisted his lips, as if considering saying something, then thinking better of it, and then zipped off to fetch a fresh cloak. All members of the Castle Guard wore leather armor, a crest emblazoned on the chest to indicate posting: a gryphon for the castle, and a unicorn, dragon, goblin, or mermaid to indicate the precinct with the same name in the city-state proper. Those above the level of guard had a cloak to indicate rank; lieutenants wore brown.
Danthres saw, to her shock, that Torin was already at his desk, which abutted hers. True, she was later than usual, but for Torin, late was usual. He was also holding some parchments in his hands. “Paperwork,” he said dismissively as he set them aside. “What happened to your cloak?”
“Forak’s. I’m guessing one of their cleaning people made off with it when they cleaned the place. That’s why I’m late, I had to go over there to complain. They promised to search and get back to me.” She sat down at h
er desk. “What have you been doing?”
“I was thinking about what other avenues we could explore, and I thought we might try the architectural angle.”
Danthres frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Millar, Abbi, and Alfrek all said that the closet wasn’t part of the original design of the house, that it was a blank wall until yesterday morning.”
“Right. Whatever magic cast the muck also created the closet.”
“Perhaps. But this house dates back to when the city-state was first being built. Lord Galmar, Lord Albin’s late father, insisted that all constructions have their blueprints filed in the castle. Lord Albin didn’t continue that practice-the city-state grew too large for it to be practical to keep track of every single building-but back in the old days it was a requirement.” One of Torin’s smaller smiles peeked out through his beard. “So I’ve requested the blueprints.”
Instinctively, Danthres wanted to object. In her experience, the best way to find out what happened was to figure out who was most likely to have committed the crime and interrogate them until they confessed.
But they’d tried that, and didn’t turn anything up. Torin’s notion was as good a one as any.
“What’s wrong?” Torin asked.
“Hm?” Danthres looked up. “What do you mean what’s wrong?”
Torin smirked. “I expected at least a grouse about what a pain it is to paw through records when we should be questioning people.”
“What would be the point?” Danthres said with a dramatic sigh. “Besides, I used up most of my invective this morning with those shitbrains at Forak’s.” Waving off the platitude Torin was likely to espouse, she said, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Let’s get to work.”
“Well, we can’t until-”
One of the castle page boys came in, laden with massive rolled-up parchments, and looking nervously from side to side. “Lieutenant bin Givald?”
Chuckling, Torin got up. “Close enough. Over here, lad.”
The page boy dashed over to Torin’s desk, dropped the parchments unceremoniously on its surface, then dashed out of the squad room as fast as his spindly legs would carry him.
“No doubt concerned about overexposure to the thugs,” Danthres said irritably, using the word far too many of the aristocrats in the castle used when speaking of the Castle Guard.
Torin grinned. “No doubt.” He unrolled the dried old parchments, one for each floor of the house.
Danthres got up and walked around to Torin’s desk. As she started to peer down at the blueprints, she noticed that Torin was wearing new boots. “What happened to your boots?”
Shrugging, Torin said, “I couldn’t get that muck off, so I sent them to be cleaned, and they issued me a new pair.”
“I should mark this day down,” she said dryly. “In ten years, I think that’s the first time you’ve changed boots without being threatened with bodily harm.” She was also impressed that Torin had managed to convince the service to do the job in the first place.
“It takes forever to break them in,” Torin said testily. “I have wide feet.”
She shook her head. “They’re boots, Torin, not pets.” Not wanting to get into this argument again, she looked down at the ragged material. “I’m amazed these things haven’t fallen to pieces. Aren’t they over a hundred years old?”
“Magic, probably,” Torin said, “cast when it was realized that they were, in fact, falling to pieces.” He studied the first floor. “Interesting. There isn’t a design for a closet-but there is a space there.” He put his index finger on the spot where the closet was now. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
“Feel that.”
Looking at her partner as if he were crazy, she asked, “What?”
“The parchment, on the spot where the closet is, feel it.”
Shrugging, Danthres did so-and was surprised to feel something etched into the parchment. “It feels like a character of some kind.”
Torin looked up just as Jonas came zooming in, a cloak in his hand. “Sergeant, could you fetch Boneen, please?”
Jonas handed Danthres her cloak in the manner one would give a diseased rat to a waste disposer. After Danthres snatched it out of his hands, the sergeant said to Torin, “He’s on a call right now-Dru and Hawk found that invisible robber’s house, and he needs to do a peel-back on it.”
Nodding, Torin said, “Fine, when he gets back, could you ask him to tell us what the sigil is on this section of the parchment?”
Jonas looked at where Torin was pointing and nodded. “Oh, by the way,” he said as he turned to leave, “they couldn’t do anything for your boots. The Cleaning Spell didn’t work for some reason.” With that, the sergeant left the squad room again.
“You know, it might not even be a sigil,” Danthres said, “though I agree that’s the most likely thing.”
“Either way, best to sound sure with Boneen-otherwise he’ll yell at us for wasting his time.”
Danthres snorted. “Like he won’t anyhow.”
“Fair point. I wonder what the problem was with the boots.”
Shrugging, Danthres said, “They probably got a cheap Cleaning Spell that doesn’t actually work.”
“Probably.”
“Lieutenant?”
Since no name was given, both Torin and Danthres turned at the sound of the voice, which came from one of the guards assigned to the castle. Danthres couldn’t remember his name, so she just thought of him the way she did most of the guards: he was the stupid one.
“Yes?” she said.
“There’s someone here to see you both-she says it has to do with the Jaros case.”
“Who is she?” Danthres asked.
The guard said, “Her name’s Amaralla, and she says she-”
Suddenly, a very short, dark-haired woman barrelled past the guard and said, “Enough of this, I’m busy, dammit, don’t have time for this. Are you two Trestle and bag Wyverin?”
“I’m Lieutenant ban Wyvald,” Torin said slowly to make sure the woman realized just how badly she’d mangled their names, “and this is my partner-”
“Yes, yes, yes, you’re the ones investigating what happened to the Jaros house, right?”
“We are,” Torin said. “How may we-”
“You can do your damn jobs, that’s what you can do. You’re supposed to be able to stop this kinda thing, right?”
“Actually, no,” Danthres said with as insincere a smile as she could manage-which was pretty insincere indeed. “Our job is to find who did it and stop them from doing it again.”
“Well, then who’s responsible for stopping it?”
“I’m sorry, who are you again?”
Sighing dramatically, the woman said, “As I told this mouth-breather with the mite-sized brain-” She indicated the guard, who took the insult with aplomb. “-my name is Thea Amaralla, and I represent the Amaralla Cleaning Service.”
That’s two cleaning services in Cliff’s End I despise, Danthres somehow managed not to say out loud. “And what is your connection to the Jaros case?”
“If you’d just listen, I’d tell you. They hired us to clean up the mess in their place.”
“In that case,” Danthres said, “the answer to your question is you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You wanted to know who’s responsible for stopping it. It’s a mess, you’re a cleaning service-I would think the answer would be obvious?”
Turning to Torin, Amaralla asked, “Is she always like this?”
“No,” Torin said cheerily, “usually she’s belligerent. Madam, I’m afraid my partner is correct, cleaning up the mess is your job. We simply need to find out who did this and-”
“Not did.”
“I’m sorry?” Torin frowned in confusion.
“Not did. Is doing. The mess is getting worse. And every attempt we’ve made to clean it up has met with failure. Nothing will make it go away-and now it’s growing.” She
stomped her foot. “So will you please figure it out? The Jaroses are demanding their money back!”
Just as Danthres was about to speak, Torin cut her off. “I’m afraid that issues of payment must be worked out between you and the Jaros family, madam. However, you can rest assured that we will be looking into this new development.” He looked over at the guard. “Will you please escort the lady out?”
Smiling nastily, the guard said, “Gladly, Lieutenant.” He grabbed Amaralla by the arm and yanked her toward the door.
“I will not be treated this way! Let go of me! This is an outrage! This is-”
Whatever else it was became lost in her rapid, guard-aided retreat. Danthres made a mental note to be less nasty to that guard in the future.
Torin looked at her. “There would appear to be more to this than we thought. I suggest we go back.”
Danthres desperately wanted to argue the point, but she found she couldn’t. And that only made her mood worse.
Before they could even make it to the door of the Jaros house, Millar Jaros intercepted them, screaming a blue streak.
“What the hell’s wrong with you people? You see the mess in there? Well? Didja? It’s a mess! How’re we supposed t’live in there if it’s such a mess?”
Next to him was Abbi, who put a hand on his shoulder. “Father, take it easy, they can’t-”
Whirling on his daughter-in-law, Millar said, “How’m I supposed t’take it easy when there’s such a mess in there!”
“I know, Father, but-”
Torin finally said, “May we please take a look?”
Throwing up his hands, Millar said, “Sure, take a look, but all you’re gonna see is a mess!”
Danthres shot Torin a look, as if to say, What else were we supposed to see? Torin shrugged back, and the two of them then walked past the Jaroses to the guard who’d been assigned by Dragon Precinct to stand at the front door.
“Open it,” Torin said.
Nodding, the guard opened the front door.
The smell was the first thing to hit Danthres. On their previous visit, the place had smelled bad, but no worse than the thoroughfares of Goblin Precinct during midsummer, or the docks of Mermaid Precinct in the afternoon after the fish came in.
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