Small clusters of flowers had sprung to life seemingly overnight, blanketing swaths of the hilly moors in patches of soft purple and butter yellow: a sign of the impending spring, after so many months of wet snow and morning frost. The sun had just crested the hills in the east, and Quai sat atop her horse— a greying Shire horse with patches of white on its face— as it plodded its way southward down the twisting strip of cobblestone. A wagon bumped gently along in the horse's wake, where Copper dutifully sat, guarding his owner’s belongings.

Mist hung low around the towers that marked the Thandol Span, clinging to the still-chilly ground as the air around them began to grow warm in the first few minutes of daylight. Quai leaned forward to extinguish the single lantern that hung on a rod extending forward from the wagon. A Dwarf with his own horse and carriage came into view around the corner, headed in the opposite direction. He waved a meaty hand at Quai.

“Scylde an gar-eft! Am-kha, a kost-helm hava Kaelsag?” he called, his deep basso voice sending the words rumbling off his tongue like thunder. Quai smiled and gave a wave of her own.

“Oie, Dun Algaz ke Dun Morogh ke Ironforge— erat mok-mos tram dun Stormwind,” she called back. The Dwarf smiled at the thick northern lilt to her voice.

“S' a long journey yeh got ahead of yeh! Safe travels, lass,” he said in Common as they drew close and passed each other. “An’ yer accent’s spot on,” he added with a wink from beneath a veritable shelf of reddish eyebrow hair. Copper let out a single, soft bark in the Dwarf’s direction, and Quai gave a small laugh.

“Thanks, and safe travels to you as well,” she replied as she set her sights again on the bridge.

No sooner had the horse stepped onto the bridge than she heard the ping of her comm stone. She lifted a finger and tapped the stone set into her earring.

“What?” she asked as her gaze tracked a handful of starlings overhead.

“Good morning to you, too,” Andrew drawled, a sarcastic note to his voice.

“I’m still on the road, Andrew— I left the cottage yesterday. I’ll be travelling for another two days, at least. I'm tired, the dog's tired, the horse is tired. What do you need?"

“Ah, that’s what I wanted to ask— could you pick up something for me in Ironforge when you pass through?”

“Depends. Is it illegal, dangerous, or big? Will it bite or piss on me? Is it in a cage? A suitcase? Is it alive, or sentient? Uncontrollable? Is it a whole person? Is it drugs? Is it a cake? Is it drugs in a cake?”

There was a brief pause on the other end, then:

“Yes, yes, no, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no, no, no… no, and no.”

“So it’s… illegal, dangerous, and in a suitcase.” She chuckled. “You gonna narrow that down anymore for me?”

“Just hide it in your little wagon and no one’ll be the wiser. It’s still got that compartment in the floor, right?”

“Andrew, is it going to explode? Is it sensitive to cold or heat?”

“No to all of that.”

“Does it make noise? Is it a machine?”

“Nope.”

Quai scratched her chin. “How many questions have I got left?”

“One.”

“Well I haven’t the foggiest, so I guess I’ll do it. Where am I picking this mystery suitcase of illegal, dangerous things?”

“Your old flat, actually.”

“The place I’m letting Maud use.”

“Yep.”

“Andrew… Is the thing in the suitcase a hat?”

“Kind of. How’d you know?”

“Because she’s filled that whole fucking place with hats— hold on, how the fuck is a hat illegal or dangerous?”

“Ah, you’ve asked your twenty questions, though. But congrats on getting the answer! I promise I’ll show you when you get here,” he added helpfully. Quai rolled her eyes; behind her, Copper let out a soft whine and began to paw at the edge of the carriage, indicating his desire for breakfast.

“Fine. I’m stopping soon to give Copper and the horse a bite, then I’m heading up through Dun Algaz to spend the night at Algaz Station. I’ll be in Ironforge tomorrow night, and Stormwind the following morning.”

“You gonna bring your horse and buggy on the tram?”

“It’ll be fine, I’ve got the paperwork filled out already.”

“Why didn’t you just have Trin do a portal to your flat in Stormwind?”

“Because I don’t fancy my belongings and my elderly dog falling six feet to the ground when they go through. Copper was almost eaten by a pit lord, he's been through enough for a lifetime.”

“Fair! Alright, see you in a couple days, then.”

“See you,” Quai replied as she reached up and tapped her earring again. As she eased the horse off towards the side of the road, she lapsed into silent thought, her mind utterly consumed with the mysteries of Andrew’s dangerous, illegal hat.

The night air was cool and crisp as Quai made her way up to the aerie at the very top of the Breach: a cloudless, star-strewn sky of deepest blue blanketed the world below, cocooning it in velvety silence that would have been beautiful, had she not in that moment felt a pang of such intense loneliness. The full weight of the previous day had fallen heavily onto her shoulders, and all she wanted to do was go home— Home? Where even is ‘home’, anymore?

Well wishes and drinks with close friends had done nothing to assuage the nagging doubt that plagued her mind, even though all logic and reason dictated that this was the right path for her. Logic and reason had never steered her wrongly before. So why was the path ahead littered with uncertainty and questions? 

“Lass?” 

Quai looked over at the Dwarf, then to the gryphon beside him, apparently surprised that her feet had carried her there without conscious thought.

“Oh, sorry— just over the mountain, north-eastern edge of Lordamere Lake,” she said as she climbed into the saddle. The Dwarf handed her a pair of goggles, which she pulled snugly onto her head before giving him the signal: a moment later the beast spread its enormous wings and took flight, and Quai smiled faintly at the familiar drop in her stomach that happened with each takeoff. 

An updraft caught them as they flew over the top of the mountain, but the gryphon caught it splendidly and twisted easily through the air, over the mountain’s snowy peak, and down into an easy, shallow dive towards where Quai had indicated. She gave the reins a slight tug to adjust course, and not five minutes later the gryphon landed in a gallop that stopped just at her front gate. 

“Thanks, love,” she said as she dismounted and tucked the borrowed goggles into the gryphon’s saddlebag. The beast clicked its massive beak at her in response, then galloped off a dozen yards or so before it spread its wings and took once more to the sky. Quai watched it until it vanished into the darkness, then turned and made her way up the flagstone path. Behind the door she could hear Copper whining and pawing at the wood. 

“I’m coming, hold on,” she muttered as she fumbled in a pocket for her key. As soon as the door was open, Copper darted outside and into the side garden. “Close the door when you come back in,” she called as she stepped inside and left the door slightly ajar. Four long strides brought her to the bathroom. 

The muddy boots, the blood-spattered leathers and gloves, her weapons, her undergarments: everything was dropped into an unceremonious pile after she turned on the tap in the tub. As she stood waiting for it to fill, she heard the front door shut and the gentle footfalls of the massive, elderly dog as he shuffled back to his spot by the fire. She leaned over and took a handful of scented salts from a glass jar on a shelf and tossed them into the tub, then stepped over to the mirror and gathered up her hair atop her head; a hairpin made from a piece of sharpened yak bone slid through her twisted locks and kept them in place as she turned back to the tub and stepped carefully into the steaming hot water. 

Quai let out a slow, steady exhale as she lowered her aching body down into the rising water— now murky green from the scented salts. You’re alone again, a little voice said from somewhere in the back of her mind. 

Alone is safe, she thought. Alone is reliable. No one to count on but myself. 

And the loneliness? the voice asked. What will you do about that? 

She thought on that for some moments as she lowered herself further into the rising water: at that point, just her head poked above the edge of the tub, and the water was already nearly to her neck. She could hear Copper already snoring just outside the door as she reached out with a toe and eased the tap into its ‘off’ position. Then she leaned against the sloped back of the tub and closed her eyes. 

I don’t know, she thought. And she smiled to herself— a true smile, the first real one in weeks. I honestly have no idea. 

“...Initial here… an’ here…” 

Besides the lawyer’s words and the scratching of pen on paper, the ticking of the clock on the wall was the only sound in the wood-paneled office. Quai finished inking her initials on the indicated spots, then paused at the bottom of the page: two parallel lines, one marked ‘Petitioner’ and the other marked ‘Respondent’. She traced a fingernail along the space between them as a scene flashed across her mind’s eye. 

...

Two lines of rope extended upward before them, disappearing into the swirling snow some way up the path. Every twenty or so feet, someone had tied the rope to a stake, along with a marker: a strip of red ribbon, frayed by the biting Highmountain winds. With one hand on her hiking pole, she lifted the other to tug her woolen hat further down over her face. A dozen or so yards ahead, their guide had stopped to re-tie some of the guide rope that had frayed and come loose from its stake. 

“Nice day for it, huh?” Corban said as he stopped next to her, though she’d barely heard him: his words were swallowed up almost immediately by the mountain’s bitter gale. Quai gestured to the guide ahead. 

“Just waiting for him to finish that up—” She stopped short as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye: a piece of red ribbon had come loose from the rope and was making its bid for freedom downwind. She tracked its swirling path and— without thought— lurched sideways in an attempt to catch it. As her gloved fingers closed around the length of ribbon, her foot slipped from beneath her and she crashed into Corban, sending the pair of them tumbling into the snow in a hail of flailing limbs and hiking poles. 

“I’m— I’m sorry—” Quai wheezed through her own laughter. Corban lay on his back in the deep snow, staring up at the white sky above: for a moment, he made no movement. “Corban— Corban!” she said sharply as she gave him a shake. His gaze shifted to meet hers, and the blank look on his face slowly morphed into something altogether more mischievous.  

“Oh, I’m fine… but you’re not going to be in a second–!” He grabbed a fistful of snow and made to smush it into the top of her hat, but Quai was quicker: she lightly shoved herself off of him and just missed his attack as she scrambled clumsily sideways. 

“Gotta be quicker than that!” she called as she struggled back to her feet, graceless beneath the bulkiness of her outerwear. Corban, however, was already on his feet: he’d shrugged out of the straps of his hiking pack and was readying himself for a more full-frontal attack, snow clutched in each hand. 

“You’re gonna regret those words, Mason!” he shouted playfully. Quai threw her head back in laughter as he dove at her; she made no effort to move and dutifully fell back into the snow, the red ribbon still in hand. 

“Ah, you got me,” she said in mock disappointment as Corban proceeded to pin her down and cover the top of her hat with snow. When he was satisfied with his work, he rolled off of her and lay next to her in the snow. 

“The guide thinks we’re idiots,” he remarked. 

“You a mind reader, now?” 

“Just connecting the dots. He didn’t say good morning to me this morning, so.” 

“Well then, I can see why you’d think that. Makes perfect sense.” Quai chuckled softly. Corban reached out for his pack, but the space it had been occupying a moment before was empty. Frowning, he propped himself up on his elbows. 

“Ah, shit!” he exclaimed softly. Quai propped herself up similarly and looked to him, then to the empty spot next to him… and then to the narrow trail made by something that had gone sliding down the side of the mountain and out of sight just moments before. She held the back of her hand to her mouth. 

“I hope you didn’t have anything important in there,” she said as she made a vain attempt to stifle her own laughter. Corban stared in disbelief at the spot for a moment longer, then turned to her. 

“I– it’s—” he began. Quai cocked her head to the side. 

“It’s what?” she asked. When he didn’t respond, she waved the red ribbon in front of his face. “Corban? It’s what?” 

After a moment of staring at her, he came to and reached for her hand: he took the ribbon, stuffed it into his pocket, then tugged his scarf down just quick enough to brush the back of her gloved hand with a kiss. “It’s nothing, just clothes. Easily replaced,” he said as he hauled himself to his feet and held a hand out to help her up. As the pair readied themselves again with their hiking poles, the guide called out: 

“Not far to the lodge! We’ll make it before sundown if we make good time!” 

Corban gave her leg a nudge with his knee. “You first, love.” Quai blew him a kiss and then waved to the guide as she started moving forward, up the snowy path towards the peak. Smiling beneath his scarf, Corban set off behind her, with one hand holding firm to the scrap of red ribbon in his pocket. 

...

“...Mason? Miss Mason?” 

Quai blinked as she was pulled from her reverie, her gaze slowly shifting back to her lawyer. 

“Sorry, I… got lost for a moment.” The Dwarf leaned across the desk and gave her arm a sympathetic pat. 

“S’ never easy, lass— even in simpler cases like this.” She offered him a tight smile and pointed at the line marked ‘Petitioner’. 

“Sign here, I’m guessing?” 

“Aye, sign there, then we’ll have him come in an’ sign, then I’ll bring it ter a judge. They’ll go over it, stamp it, an’ within the week I’ll send yeh both notices on the divorce. Friday afternoon at the latest.” 

“And then?” she asked. 

“Well, then yer no longer married. I gotta say, though— talkin’ with both o’ yeh, it don’t seem like the usual contentious type o’ stuff I’m usually dealin’ with. That’s gotta count fer somethin’ good, don’t it?” Another tight smile passed briefly across Quai’s face. 

“Well, we were friends before we were anything else,” she replied without further extrapolation. The Dwarf nodded politely and watched as she finished signing her parts of the document. After giving the papers another once-over, she slid them back across the desk, along with the pen. 

“We’re good?” she asked as she pushed her chair back and stood. The Dwarf nodded. 

“Aye, lass. Oh— an’ I got those articles o’ incorporation fer yer school,” he added. “I left ‘em up front with Margie, yeh can grab ‘em on yer way out.” 

“Will do. Thanks again for everything, Grindgear.” The Dwarf waved a hand and started gathering up papers. 

“Always, lass. Take care o’ yerself out there, aye?” 

“I will.” 

A few minutes later, Quai stood outside in the air warmed by the Great Forge. She let out a heavy sigh and tucked the envelope with the articles of incorporation into her pocket, then set off towards the gryphonmaster. She’d been wearing the black diamond engagement ring on a necklace for some weeks, but somehow— even with the separation the previous month— she hadn’t been quite able to cut the snugly-tied piece of red ribbon from her finger. 

(@fragments-of-fortune)

A Favour

“Please, Quai—” 

“Gwen, no! That’s not something I would ever do, for you or anyone else.” 

A choked sob answered her first; Quai looked away as Gwen’s trembling fingers gripped at the hem of her coat. 

“I never— I never got t’say goodbye, he— he didn’t know I were lookin’ for ‘im—” 

A hand closed gently around Gwen’s wrist as Quai lowered herself to a crouch and met the witch’s gaze. Concern marred her features as she took in— fully— the redhead’s appearance: deep shadows had come to rest under her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks, made all the more pronounced by the almost palpable sadness that hovered around her like a leaden cloud. 

“Gwen,” Quai said gently, “I can’t take you there. It’s not a place you can just go and come back from—” 

“What if I don’t want t’come back—” 

A frown passed across Quai’s face. “It’s not a place you could stay, either. And you don’t know if he’s even—” 

“He’s there.” 

A sigh. “Gwen… you don’t know that he’s—” 

“He’s there, he ain’t gone on yet,” the redhead insisted as her thin fingers clutched desperately at the collar of Quai’s coat. 

Something heavy settled across Quai’s shoulders; a weight, heavy with her own memories of grief and the lengths to which she’d gone just to catch a last glimpse of someone; a last word; a last glance. 

A last memory. 

Tears had begun to fall from Gwen’s eyes. Quai dipped a hand into her pocket and withdrew a handkerchief. 

“I’ll go,” she said softly as she blotted away the tears. An almost hopeful look passed across Gwen’s anguished face. 

“You’ll—” 

“I’ll go,” Quai repeated. “I’ll see if he’s… there.” 

“Can yeh— can yeh bring—” 

“No," Quai said firmly. Gwen looked away as though she'd been slapped. “You can’t go there, and he can’t return. That’s… that’s not a life. Not with how long it’s been. It's not an option." 

“Are—” 

“I’m sure. Trust me, that’s not something either of you would want. Please believe me, Gwen.” The tears having been dried, she cupped the woman’s face in one hand and ran a thumb back and forth across her cheek, just as her father had done to comfort her as a child. Gwen’s eyes squeezed shut against the threat of more tears. 

“Just— just tell ‘im I love ‘im,” she whispered. Quai nodded and drew her friend into a hug as Gwen let out another choked sob. “Tell ‘im his mummy l—loves him s-so much.” Her words were muffled by the wool lapel of the coat, just barely loud enough for Quai to hear. She nodded and hugged her friend more tightly as the pair crouched in the open doorway to the Arathi cottage. 

A chill wind rattled the gate at the foot of the garden path; Quai watched as the tips of the barren trees near the barn reached towards a pewter sky, their gnarled branches swaying in the late fall highlands gloom. Brown, scrubby moor stretched out as far as the eye could see in every direction, all dead grass and absent flowers, everything aslumber as it waited patiently beneath the ground for another spring thaw. 

“I’ll tell him just that,” she said quietly. “I promise.” 

Gwen nodded and pulled back. “I— I should go,” she said quietly as she pushed herself to her feet. Quai rose as well and gave a nod as she folded the handkerchief back into a neat square. 

“Are you staying nearby?” 

“Stormwind. I just flew up fer the day.” 

Quai gestured to the cottage behind her. “You can stay, if you like. I know Corban would—” 

“No.” Gwen held up a hand. “Yer doin’ enough already, love. I’ve got t’ get back.” Her fingers twitched as she turned away and took a few steps down the path. “I appreciate what yer doin’ fer me, Quai,” she said without a glance back. A look of concern and sadness fell across Quai’s face once more as Gwen’s form began to shift. 

“I’ll come find you in the city when it’s done,” Quai called to her, just as Gwen became the raven once more. The bird circled once overhead and let out a forlorn cry before heading south: Quai watched as the black bird became a black speck, then disappeared into the great grey nothingness that hovered over the moorlands. 

“Was that Gwen?” 

Quai tore her gaze from the horizon and turned to find Corban standing in the doorway. 

“Yeah, she couldn’t stay.” 

“What’d she come by for?” Corban asked as he stepped aside to let Quai into the house. 

“A favour,” Quai replied simply. She looked over at him as she shrugged out of her coat while he shut the door. “It’s—” 

“I know,” Corban interrupted. “I heard,” he confessed, “through the door.” 

Quai nodded. “Okay. You’ll—” 

“I’ll keep an eye on you while you’re gone, yeah,” he said as he leaned in and planted a kiss atop her head. “You’re not as much of a cold-hearted badass as you think, Mason,” he whispered into her hair. He smiled as Quai gave his chest a playful slap. “Your heart’s as soft as Rowley’s ears, and twice as fuzzy.” 

“You’ll ruin my reputation with that talk,” Quai said as she reached up and gave his beard a tug: he caught her wrist in his hand and twirled her around on the spot, then drew her into a tight hug. 

“Good,” he replied firmly. Quai wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against his chest as she closed her eyes: Gwen’s anguished face flashed across her mind’s eye, and she held Corban a little more tightly as she fought back her own tide of tears. 

((Mentioned: @gwen-oconnell @fragments-of-fortune))

“Can I help you?” 

The mage’s voice rang out high and thin through the tin speaker mounted beside the newly reinforced door. Quai glanced at the faintly glowing bars on the windows and then back to the speaker. 

“It’s me, Mads— I’ve got some info,” she replied. A beat of silence answered her, closely followed by a metallic thunk! as the bolt was drawn back from the other side of the door. A moment later the door swung inward, just enough for her to slip through. 

“My dear, it is lovely to see you,” Mads said as he pushed the door shut and slid the bolt back into place. Quai gestured to the door and the bars on the windows: 

“Bit overzealous with your security, maybe? You know I can have someone here ‘round the clock if you need—” 

“That won’t be necessary,” Mads replied as he turned and headed towards his office. He gestured over his shoulder for her to follow. “This is now an appointment-only shop.” 

“What if the bad guys make an appointment?” Quai joked as she trailed along behind him. 

“What if I summon a swarm of bees in your shirt right now?” Mads asked lightly, to which Quai let out a chuckle. 

“Fair point. How are you holding up?” 

“No worse for wear. Your witch friend—” 

“Gwen.” 

“ —Gwen, she did a fantastic job. I’ve full range of motion and almost no scarring.” 

“She told me as much. Has Gilbert—” 

“He isn’t home for another two weeks, and I will give him the… kind version of what happened.” 

“So you’re going to lie.” 

“Like the rug I nearly bled out on.” 

“Well, at least you’ve got a sense of humour about it.” 

Mads waved a hand as he sat behind his desk and a second chair materialised on the opposite side for Quai. She sat. 

“You were saying that you had some information for me?” he asked as he smoothed out the front of his robes with his hand. Quai gave a nod as she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. 

“It was Faustus— or someone above him.” She unfolded the paper and slid it across the desk. “The guy I killed didn’t have any identification on him, but he had a snake tattoo on his left calf. I sketched it out and took it to some local shops, until I found someone in Old Town who could identify it. Guy’s name was Carl Adams— the dead guy,” she clarified. Mads raised a brow. 

“And this… Carl Adams… he works for Faustus?” 

“Not directly, but he’s part of a hired crew who does work for him when he needs more bodies on a job— security, guns, scouting, that sort of thing. Listen, Mads— do you know why Faustus would want your ledger?” 

“I’ve curated quite an impressive list of clients over the years, I assume he wanted to steal that and use it for his own gain.” 

“But if he wanted to steal your client list, he would’ve just sent in a thief. Instead he sent in a bruiser to rough you up— and he was copying down names from a random page, not taking the whole book with him.”

“Far be it from me to attempt to divine the inner machinations of Faustus’ rotten little mind.” 

“I mean, sure… but it seemed more like he wanted to send a message.” She gestured to the leather ledger on the desk, now stained with brownish dried blood. “I saw he had it open to page ninety-four. What would Faustus want with the names on that page?” 

Mads looked down at the book and flipped it open to the exact page with a sweep of his fingers through the air. 

“...Ah.” 

“Ah?” 

“These names— Juliet Lunney, Thomas Redgrave, Vanessa Alberts, all the others— they were buyers from that last big job I had you do.” 

“The museum gig in Silvermoon?” 

“The very same.” 

Quai folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair. “I found a comm on the dead guy, it was active but I couldn’t get the coordinates to where it was transmitting. Is there any chance he was able to read off any of the names before you came across him?” 

“It’s entirely possible, I’d just gotten back from picking up some breakfast, so…” 

“So Faustus might already be after your contacts. Have you checked in with any of them in the past couple of weeks?” 

“No, I didn’t think to—” 

“Do it today. Now.” Quai rose from her seat. “Copy down names and addresses for me and I’ll look in on the ones who don’t get back to you right away. While you’re doing that, I’m going to check in on our dear Mister Faustus— he’s got some explaining to do, and I’m in the mood for a little chat.” 

Mads shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense, Quai.” 

“What doesn’t?” 

“This whole situation— my entire professional rivalry with Faustus has always been a fun little game of cat and mouse, we’ve never actually gone so far as to physically injure each other or our contacts and teams.” 

“Maybe it wasn’t as fun for him,” Quai pointed out. “He could’ve spent all this time actually hating you.” 

“I doubt it. He used to send me dozens of funeral flower arrangements when he pulled one over on me— it was just as much a game to him as it was to me, I assure you.” 

“Then someone else is pulling the strings. Maybe his buyer or buyers from the last Silvermoon gig? I imagine they’d be pissed off at him when they found out their priceless paintings were forgeries.” 

“So we are either looking for one angry buyer, or seven angry buyers.” 

Quai rose from her seat and smiled down at Mads. 

“I’m going to pay our dear Mister Faustus a visit.” 

“I don’t like the way you said ‘visit’.” 

“I am absolutely going to get some information from him, and it’s entirely up to him how that is accomplished. If he hasn’t reached out to you about your injury and the changes to your shop by now, he’s probably got at least one hand in this whole mess.” 

“Just… try not to hurt him too much.” 

“Even if he’s behind this? Why?” Quai asked, incredulous.

“Well,” Mads replied, his gaze cast skyward before it landed again on Quai, “we still need a fourth for bridge on Fridays, and he is a formidable opponent.” 

“... F— okay. Fine. He keeps all his fingers, I promise.” 

“And his mental faculties.” 

“And his mental faculties,” Quai repeated as she spun on a heel and made for the door. “I’m not making any promises about anything of his from the waist down, though!” she called over her shoulder. Mads gave a long-suffering sigh and shook his head. 

“I suppose that’s fair,” he muttered to himself as he stepped around his desk and followed Quai to the front door. 

“Can I help you?” 

The mage’s voice rang out high and thin through the tinny speaker mounted beside the reinforced door. Quai glanced at the newly-installed bars on the windows and then back to the speaker. 

“It’s me, Mads— I’ve got some info,” she replied. A beat of silence answered her, closely followed by a metallic thunk! as the bolt was drawn back from the other side of the door. A moment later the door swung inward, just enough for her to slip through. 

“My dear, it is lovely to see you,” Mads said as he pushed the door shut and slid the bolt back into place. Quai gestured to the door and the bars on the windows: 

“Bit overzealous with your security, maybe? You know I can have someone here ‘round the clock if you need—” 

“That won’t be necessary,” Mads replied as he turned and headed towards the back of the shop. He gestured over his shoulder for her to follow. “This is now an appointment-only shop.” 

“What if the bad guys make an appointment?” Quai joked as she trailed along behind him. 

“What if I summon a swarm of bees in your shirt right now?” Mads asked lightly, to which Quai let out a chuckle. 

“Fair point. How are you holding up?” 

“No worse for wear. Your witch friend—” 

“Gwen.” 

“ —Gwen, she did a fantastic job. I’ve full range of motion and almost no scarring.” 

“She told me as much. Has Gilbert—” 

“He isn’t home for another two weeks, and I will give him the… kind version of what happened.” 

“So you’re going to lie.” 

“Like the rug I nearly bled out on.” 

“Well, at least you’ve got a sense of humour about it.” 

Mads waved a hand as he sat behind his desk and a second chair materialised on the opposite side for Quai. She sat. 

“You were saying that you had some information for me?” he asked as he smoothed out the front of his robes with his hand. Quai gave a nod as she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. 

“It was Faustus— or someone above him.” She unfolded the paper and slid it across the desk. “The guy I killed didn’t have any identification on him, but he had a snake tattoo on his left calf. I sketched it out and took it to some local shops, until I found someone in Old Town who could identify it. Guy’s name was Carl Adams— the dead guy,” she clarified. Mads raised a brow. 

“And this… Carl Adams… he works for Faustus?” 

“Not directly, but he’s part of a hired crew who does work for him when he needs more bodies on a job— security, guns, scouting, that sort of thing. Listen, Mads— do you know why Faustus would want your ledger?” 

“I’ve curated quite an impressive list of clients over the years, I assume he wanted to steal that and use it for his own gain.” 

“But if he wanted to steal your client list, he would’ve just sent in a thief. Instead he sent in a bruiser to rough you up— and he was copying down names from a random page, not taking the whole book with him.”

“Far be it from me to attempt to divine the inner machinations of Faustus’ rotten little mind.” 

“I mean, sure… but it seemed more like he wanted to send a message.” She gestured to the leather ledger on the desk, now stained with brownish dried blood. “I saw he had it open to page ninety-four. What would Faustus want with the names on that page?” 

Mads looked down at the book and flipped it open to the exact page with a sweep of his fingers through the air. 

“...Ah.” 

“Ah?” 

“These names— Juliet Lunney, Thomas Redgrave, Vanessa Alberts, all the others— they were buyers from that last big job I had you do.” 

“The museum gig in Silvermoon?” 

“The very same.” 

Quai folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair. “I found a comm on the dead guy, it was active but I couldn’t get the coordinates to where it was transmitting. Is there any chance he was able to read off any of the names before you came across him?” 

“It’s entirely possible, I’d just gotten back from picking up some breakfast, so…” 

“So Faustus might already be after your contacts. Have you checked in with any of them in the past couple of weeks?” 

“No, I didn’t think to—” 

“Do it today. Now.” Quai rose from her seat. “Copy down names and addresses for me and I’ll look in on the ones who don’t get back to you right away. While you’re doing that, I’m going to check in on our dear Mister Faustus— he’s got some explaining to do, and I’m in the mood for a little chat.” 

Mads shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense, Quai.” 

“What doesn’t?” 

“This whole situation— my entire professional rivalry with Faustus has always been a fun little game of cat and mouse, we’ve never actually gone so far as to physically injure each other or our contacts and teams.” 

“Maybe it wasn’t as fun for him,” Quai pointed out. “He could’ve spent all this time actually hating you.” 

“I doubt it. He used to send me funeral arrangements en masse when he pulled one over on me— it was just as much a game to him as it was to me, I assure you.” 

“Then someone else is pulling the strings. Maybe his buyer or buyers from the last Silvermoon gig? I imagine they’d be pissed off at him when they found out their priceless paintings were forgeries.” 

“So we are either looking for one angry buyer, or seven angry buyers.” 

Quai rose from her seat and smiled down at Mads. 

“I’m going to pay our dear Mister Faustus a visit.” 

“I don’t like the way you said ‘visit’.” 

“I am absolutely going to get some information from him, and it’s entirely up to him how that is accomplished. If he hasn’t reached out to you about your injury and the changes to your shop by now, he’s probably got at least one hand in this whole mess.” 

“Just… try not to hurt him too much.” 

“Even if he’s behind this? Why?” 

“Well,” Mads replied, his gaze cast skyward before it landed again on Quai, “we still need a fourth for bridge on Fridays, and he is a formidable opponent.” 

“... F— okay. Fine. He keeps all his fingers, I promise.” 

“And his mental faculties.” 

“And his mental faculties,” Quai repeated as she spun on a heel and made for the door. “I’m not making any promises about anything of his from the waist down, though!” she called over her shoulder. Mads gave a long-suffering sigh and shook his head. 

“I suppose that’s fair,” he muttered to himself as he stepped around his desk and followed Quai to the front door. 

The jingle of a small bell rang through the otherwise quiet shop as Quai stepped through the door: a puddle of muddy water pooled at her feet, and the sound of rain from outside lessened as the door swung shut behind her.

"Mads?" she called out into the dim and dusty silence. "Mads, I've been down south, I picked up that thing you wanted for the guy!" She brushed droplets of water from her arms and pushed the hood back from her head as she kicked off her boots.

"I couldn't risk bringing it into the city, so it's in that place with the thing where we hid that other thing that one time," she continued as she shrugged out of her rain coat and hung it on a hook by the door. She stopped short as her gaze locked onto something horrifyingly out of place in the familiar shop: a spray of blood splashed across two large, glass display cases. One of the glass doors was cracked around a red stained hole where a bullet had gone through, and the delicate figurines within were laying on their sides, splattered with red droplets. Her gaze followed an uneven trail of blood, which disappeared around the corner of a far counter.

"If you're in the back, I don't want tea today, I have to get going. Andrew's got another job lined up," she continued in the same light tone. "We'll be off-continent for a few days," she added as she gripped the door handle. "Anyway, I'll be back later to get my payment, just wanted you to know the job was done. Give my love to Gilbert!"

She pulled the door open, then let it swing shut as the same bell jingled again from the stockroom. Alone in the shop, she stepped silently through the narrow aisles, her gaze roving over the shelves and cabinets, on high alert for any movement or sound other than the faint ticking of a nearby grandfather clock.

She spied a cluster of crimson droplets smeared by a partial footprint near the bottom of a bookshelf. A pit formed in her stomach as she followed an increasingly alarming amount of blood through an open door and into the back. Don't be dead.

The trail of blood led her through the stockroom and back further still, through a slashed curtain stained red where someone had desperately clutched it. The droplets turned to smears as she passed into the living quarters, then from smears to one long trail that rounded a corner and disappeared into an office. Quai slipped into the shadows and crept onward.

Overstuffed shelves of books and trinkets lined the walls of the office, some in little glass cases for protection. Sprawled on the antique rug was Mads, bloody and ashen, his breathing shallow and ragged as he held one hand to the side of his chest; behind his desk stood a man in his mid-thirties with rust-coloured hair, clad in normal street clothes— aside from the black leather gloves on his hands. A few tiny flecks of blood marred the sleeve of his otherwise clean jacket, and the way he held his left arm indicated to her that was likely where his gun was holstered. A hot wave of anger rippled down her back as she watched him casually sift through the piles of books and paper, in search of something specific.

In the space of a second she was behind him, one hand gripping his hair and the other his chin: he barely had time to register what was happening before she leaned into him and twisted his head violently to one side. She let go and his body slumped to the desk as she reappeared from the shadows and liberated him of his gun, which she shoved into the back of her waistband as she rushed over to her friend.

"Hey— hey Mads," she said, patting him on the side of the face to rouse his waning attention. The man's eyelids fluttered open and he fixed her with a confused gaze.

"Ma— Mason," he wheezed as Quai began to rip his shirt open. A single, clean bullet wound had pierced the upper part of his chest: she thought back to the bullet hole in the glass cabinet in the shop.

"The shot was through and through," she said, "that's good. Take a breath for me," she instructed as she began to press lightly around his chest.

"I c-can't—" he rasped as his thin, bloody fingers tapped faintly at his skin. She pressed her fingers around on the right side of his chest, then back to the left, then leaned down and pressed her ear as firmly to his skin as he would allow, a few centimeters up from the bullet wound.

Her expression darkened. "You've got air between your lung and your chest wall, I need to relieve it or you won't make it to a healer." She turned her head and scanned the shelves and desk for something— anything— she could use. Finally she spotted it amidst the clutter on his desk: a long, thin bit of red plastic tubing meant for an aerosol can of cog grease. "Hold on."

She crossed the office in two large strides and grabbed the tube, then stepped behind the desk and yanked open the bottom drawer to reveal a collection of bottles. "Sorry if this is an expensive one," she called to Mads as she withdrew a bottle of vodka and pulled the cork with her teeth. As she crossed back to him, she dumped a liberal amount over the plastic tube, her hands, and a straight razor she'd pulled from her pocket. More vodka poured onto Mads' chest; he winced.

"This is going to hurt a lot. Don't fucking die," she instructed as she took a swig from the bottle and set it down on the floor. Quickly and precisely, she walked her fingers down the side of his chest until she felt the right space, then took up the blade and pressed it firmly into his flesh. Mads let out a strangled yell as Quai withdrew the blade and passed the tube through the hole. "Should...work..." she muttered. Her fingers finally found the angle and she let out a sigh of relief as the sound of a small rush of air met her ears: a moment later, Mads was breathing with markedly less difficulty than before, though his face remained ashen.

"You're not out of the woods yet, but this'll buy you some time—"

"The— the ledger," he mumbled.

"You've lost a lot of blood, I'm going to get someone to help—" She lifted her finger and tapped the comm stone in her ear. "Collective, I need any skilled magical healer in my vicinity to track my location and come immediately, I'm in the back—"

"He wanted... ledger..." Mads wheezed. Quai glanced at his face: urgency and fear warped the man's pale, delicate features. She tapped the comm again.

"He? The dead guy?" she asked. Mads shook his head.

"No... no... his employer..." he mumbled as his eyelids began to droop.

"Who?" she asked, but Mads didn't respond. "Mads— hey, Mads! Who wanted the ledger?" she asked a little more loudly, but all the man did was mumble something indistinct that she couldn't make out. Someone was talking in her ear— one of the Collective's healers, mere minutes out from the shop. She watched Mads, still and silent as she held the tube in place and listened to his increasingly ragged breaths.

Don't die.

It started to snow as Quai trudged uphill, back towards the graveyard. The guards had long since gone, and the noise of the tournament faded into the distance as she stepped through the gate: a light dusting of snow had settled over the weathered stones as she made her way along the rows in search of one in particular. Mid-way down the third row she stopped and crouched in front of a small, slightly crooked stone. 

She reached out with one gloved hand, fingers tracing over the division insignia at the top and the name below. 

Does Andrew visit you? she wondered as she brushed snow from the stone with one hand; her other hand dipped into her pocket and pulled out a small piece of glass. Worn smooth around the edges from decades in a pocket, the matte green shard stood out in the bleak greyness of Icecrown. 

“Throw it higher!” Emily called from the end of the dock. 

“I can’t throw it any higher than that!” Quai called back as she picked up another jar of prune jam. She tossed it low and caught it in her hand a few times before she wound up for another throw; at the end of the dock Emily nocked another arrow and readied herself. 

“Ready?” Quai called out. 

“Ready!” 

With all the might she could muster as a ten-year-old, Quai flung her arm forward: the green glass jar spun dizzyingly as it arced far over Emily’s head and descended towards the lake. A second later, Emily loosed the arrow and its sharp point shattered the jar mid-air and sent a shower of glass and prune jam down into the water below, which elicited peals of wild laughter from both girls. Quai— the basket next to her now empty— jogged to the end of the dock. 

“Eight out of ten, not bad, Em,” she remarked as she came to a stop. Emily turned around and beamed. 

“I’m getting better— soon I’ll be better than Andrew.” 

“And no more prune jam,” Quai added. 

“And no more prune jam,” Emily echoed happily. She cast a glance at the distant gates beyond the shore. “We should get back, my mum’ll want help in the kitchen before dinner.” If Quai was disappointed to hear that, she didn’t let it show. 

“Okay. Later tonight, though, after lights out— chess in the east library?” 

“Chess in the east library,” Emily confirmed as she slung the worn quiver and bow over her shoulder. She skipped ahead of Quai, who followed behind, pausing only at the end of the dock to lean over and pick up a curved piece of green glass that had washed ashore. She smiled to herself and stuck it into the pocket of her trousers. 

The soft beep of her comm stone broke her from her reverie of times long past. She lifted a finger and tapped the comm on her ear. 

“Yes?” 

“What are you doing?” Andrew’s voice asked. Quai closed her eyes for a moment and got to her feet. 

“Paying my respects,” she answered curtly, disinclined to provide further elaboration. With one last look at the glass, she set it atop the grave marker and let her hand rest upon the stone for a brief moment. 

“Funny, that’s why I’m here, too.” 

Quai turned to see Andrew at the cemetery gate, a little bag of roasted chestnuts in one hand and a sprig of wildflowers in the other. Her jaw tightened momentarily as he crossed the rows of stones and came to a stop in front of her. 

“I thought we didn’t go to Northrend,” she remarked with a hint of annoyance. Unbothered by her tone, Andrew held out the bag of warm chestnuts. 

“I was upset,” he reasoned as Quai took the whole bag. 

“You said some very unkind things,” she shot back as she popped a roasted, peeled chestnut into her mouth. Andrew gave her a pained look. 

“I know,” he mumbled. He reached out to the bag of snacks, which was quickly held out of his reach by Quai. 

“You were very rude,” she added. Andrew huffed and rolled his eyes. 

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m a devastatingly hot mess and I lashed out. I know coming here must be just as hard for you as it is for me, and— what’s more— I’m sorry we didn’t do this together sooner.” He threw his hands up in the air. “What more do you want?” 

Quai watched him silently for a few long moments as the snow fell around them. 

“Nothing,” she said at long last. “That was it, actually— for us to talk about it and come here together. I was only out this far once before, when I had a job just on the other side of the mountains.” She paused. “I couldn’t bring myself to fly over here and look for the grave,” she admitted quietly. Andrew stepped up next to her and set the wildflowers down in front of the stone, then turned and wrapped his sister in a tight hug. 

“I still miss her every day,” Andrew whispered as he rested his chin atop her head. 

“Me, too,” came Quai’s reply, muffled by his down jacket. Andrew gazed out across the graveyard, towards the tournament grounds. 

“Did you only come out with the others tonight because you couldn’t come alone otherwise?” he asked. 

“...Yeah.” 

He smiled to himself, a bit sadly. 

“Yeah, same.” 

After a few more moments, they parted: Quai brushed some hair out of her face and looked up at her brother. 

“I’ll meet you down in the drinks tent,” she said as she handed the bag of chestnuts back to him. Andrew raised an eyebrow. 

“You’re going to have a drink?” he asked skeptically. Quai gave a shrug as she turned away. 

“If there were ever a reason to have one, I think tonight is it,” she said over her shoulder as she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat and trudged back down the hill towards the chaos of the tournament. 

@andrew-mason

“Have you got it yet?” 

Quai frowned to herself as the voice drifted through her earpiece. “No,” she replied testily, “I’ve only just— okay, yes, I’ve got it,” she amended as the last tumbler fell into place with a telltale ‘click’. 

“Finally.” 

“What do you mean, ‘finally’? I don’t see you down here breaking into any safes, Andrew.” She rose to her feet and used the thumb of her glove to wipe off the notes she’d made in grease pencil on the safe door. “This one was a Jansen 3000, by the way— something you neglected to tell me before you shoved me into that sewer pipe.” 

“Well, you’re the only one who fit.” 

“No, I’m the only one out of both of us who wasn’t wearing designer alligator-hide boots during a heist.” 

“That’s on you, then. You know I live for fashion.” 

“I’m sending you my dry cleaning bill.” 

“Do you even own anything that requires dry cleaning?” 

“Just get down here. This door—” She cut herself off as she saw Andrew saunter around the corner and rip off a fake moustache. She arched a brow. 

“Trying out new looks?” 

“It was just in case they had one of those creepy eyeball things roaming around. I can’t believe you didn’t wear a disguise.” 

“Because I can be invisible, dumbass. Just help me with the door, this thing weighs about—” 

“A ton,” a third voice said from behind them. The pair whirled around on the spot. Quai had already drawn a small, wicked-looking little blade in one hand; Andrew, on the other end of the preparedness spectrum, was brandishing his fake moustache in one hand like a sword: it drooped over his fingers like a limp caterpillar. 

Before them stood a man with a gun in his hand: he moved a thumb and pulled back the hammer on his revolver as he squared up before the two. Water dripped from his pants and shirt: he’d taken the same way in as Quai had earlier. Andrew gestured with the fake moustache towards the gun. 

“That the Flemington nine-fifty?” he asked. 

“Nine-forty,” the man corrected him with a polite smile. “Do you like it?” 

“Oh, yeah. Not as much as the nine-fifty, though, I gotta say,” Andrew replied as he flicked the fake moustache aside: it landed with a wet splat on the damp stone floor. The man raised a brow at the gesture as he looked back to Andrew. 

“The nine-forty’s a classic,” he argued lightly. 

“Well sure, but the nine-fifty’s where they fixed all those fiddly little issues the nine-forty had,” Andrew said as he clasped his hands behind his back. 

“Such as?” the stranger asked, slight annoyance creeping into his tone. 

“Well, it tends to jam up when it gets wet— see, in the nine-forty they used carbon steel, which is a nice metal and gives the gun that really good weight people tend to like in a six shooter, but it leaks like a bad politician because of how they had to join up all that weighty, heavy metal.” He lifted a chin towards the man, who was now looking at his gun. Quai had removed a glove and was now cleaning underneath her nails with the tip of the sharp little blade, seemingly content to let the pair compare guns. 

“With the cylinder— and your bullets— all wet, well… I’m afraid that gun just won’t shoot,” Andrew continued. He took a step towards the man and pressed his forehead into the muzzle of the gun. “Go on, give it a try,” he urged the man, whose finger slipped beneath the trigger guard. The man shot a look towards Quai. 

“Is he serious?” he asked quietly. A shrug answered him before she did. 

“Maybe. Who’s to say?” she replied without looking up from her nails. “I’d listen to him, though— go on, take a shot,” she added, sounding bored. The man’s gaze flicked back to Andrew. 

“I’ll do it,” he warned. Andrew smiled. 

“Oh, honey. If you were going to shoot me, you’d’ve already—” 

There was a click, then a beat of silence.

Before the man could so much as pull back the hammer to give it another try, Andrew pulled something from behind his back: a similar-looking revolver, with a slightly longer barrel and an inlaid mahogany grip. He levelled it at the stranger’s face. 

“Now, the nine-fifty— this is where Flemington really started to come into his own as a gunsmith. It’s lighter, see, because of how the metal was tempered, and there’s this nice little feature where you can dunk it in the water for a few minutes and it should still reliably fire. That’s not to say you can fish one from the bottom of a lake and expect it to work flawlessly, but it’s what he calls ‘water resistant’.” He pulled the hammer back with his thumb and pressed it into the man’s forehead. “Now mine was only in the water for maybe twenty seconds. What do you say, you want to take a chance? Roll the dice with fate?” he asked. 

“Or you could get the fuck out of here and forget everything you saw and heard, and maybe we won’t kill you and hunt down your loved ones,” Quai suggested. Andrew nodded. 

“Yeah, that’s the other option— fucking off.” He leaned towards the man a bit, the nine-forty’s muzzle pressed into his cheek. “I’d take the ‘fucking off’ option,” he stage-whispered with an added wink. 

Without so much as a split second’s hesitation, the man pulled his gun back and holstered it, then spun on a heel and walked away, back down through the network of tunnels. As his footsteps faded, Andrew released the hammer and twirled the gun in one hand before shoving it back into the back of his pants. 

"You didn't even get the gun wet, you got in here the back way," Quai pointed out.

"Yep."

“You’re going to shoot your ass cheeks off one of these days,” Quai remarked as she slid the little blade back into its sheath and put her glove back on. 

“Not today,” Andrew replied as he worked his hands into a pair of his own gloves. 

“Oh, you’re a seer now?” 

“No, but my gun’s not even loaded.” 

Quai stopped and stared at him. Andrew stared back. 

“I can’t shoot my ass off,” he explained, “because the gun isn’t loaded… because there’s no bullets… in it… at this time…” He trailed off as Quai continued to stare at him. He squirmed, visibly uncomfortable with the staring and the silence. 

“The gun isn’t loaded, right? So it’s… I can’t hurt… me…” He was just talking, at that point, to fill the deafening silence.

After another beat of staring and silence, Quai abruptly turned and placed both hands on the vault door handle. “Help me out with this,” she instructed. Andrew stood next to her and gripped the wheel as well: after a few long seconds of struggle, the heavy door began to slowly swing open. 

The pair stood in front of the open vault door, peering into the darkness as their eyes adjusted to the even dimmer light of the vault beyond. 

“Andrew?” Quai asked after a few moments of silence. 

“Yeah?” 

“On a scale of one to ten, with ten being ‘all the time’ and one being ‘absolutely never’, how often do you put thought into the things you do and say?” 

Andrew paused for a moment and folded his arms as he thought. 

“Depends on—” 

“Just give me a number. Your baseline, for any given day.” 

“Mm… solid three, then.” 

“...Yeah, sounds about right.” Quai let out a short sigh. “Alright, let’s get to work.” 

((Mentioned: @andrew-mason))

“Don’t fucking move.”

The woman sat in a chair, elbows resting on her knees as she twirled a dangerous-looking little blade in one hand. Her gaze flicked sharply to the man in the doorway, whose chubby fingers were still touching the light switch. His face— gin-blossomed and pale— grew even paler in the golden glow of the Goblin-made lamps as he took notice of the raven-haired woman seated casually in front of him.

“Or— or what?” he asked, unable to keep the tremor from his voice.

“There is no ‘or’— just don’t fucking move,” the woman replied, “or you won’t live long enough to regret it.” She rose to her feet and flipped the blade in her gloved hand as she squared up with the man from partway across the room.

“What do you want?” he whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse.

“The same thing you do,” she replied.

Before the man could so much as blink, her arm shot outward: the blade soared through the air and hit its mark true, and from somewhere in the darkened hallway behind him the man heard the sound of a body crumpling heavily to the ground.

“What the f—mmmfph!” He’d yelped, but was quickly silenced by a gloved hand over his mouth. The woman held a finger to her lips and slowly pulled her hand away, then silently drew another blade from a sheath strapped to her thigh. Her gaze met his, then she glanced sideways and sent another blade spinning through the air: in the shadows at the far end of the room, another body dropped heavily to the floor.

The man squeezed his eyes shut.

A moment passed, then another, punctuated only by his shallow, ragged breathing.

A nightmare. That’s all this is, he thought as he stood there in the doorway, shaking, a noticeable flop sweat already soaking his shirt through.

“You can open your eyes now. There were only two,” the woman said. Reluctantly, the man did as instructed.

“You’re not here to kill me?” he asked, only a little bit afraid of the answer.

“No,” the woman replied as she stepped around him and crouched next to the first body, partially hidden in the shadows. “I told you, we wanted the same thing: for you to live,” she explained. She removed her gloves and placed her hands on the would-be assassin’s chest, and the trembling man watched with equal parts fascination and horror as deep, inky black shadows enveloped the body. The woman’s eyes closed briefly as greyish lines spidered across her face, like cracks in a porcelain doll.

Then, as quickly as it had all started, it stopped: the shadows dissipated, the lines on her face faded away, and the body was gone. A few stray bits of what looked like grey dust remained behind, which she swept away with her long, thin fingers. She stood and crossed the room on silent feet, and repeated the process with the second body before turning back to the man, who was staring at her agog.

“That’s— that’s quite the party trick,” he joked weakly. The woman offered the barest hint of a smile and nodded stiffly.

“It is. Now,” she continued, “you’ll want to take this—” She reached into a pocket and withdrew a slim envelope, which she held out to him. He took it and looked down at its blank face.

“What is—”

“Information about who ordered this hit on you. Everything you need to know to strike back, which you’ll want to do within the week, before he can find two more Stockades rejects to try again.”

He looked at her, then down at the envelope, then back to her again.

“Who—”

“Someone looking to take over your business,” she explained. “Rather messy way to go about a hostile takeover, I would’ve opted for something with a little more finesse than two idiots with hatchets.”

“Hatchets—?”

“Yes. Anyway, that’s the stuff you need to take care of them legally— evidence, records of meetings, people they’ve paid off, things they stupidly put on paper, that sort of thing,” she rattled off, waving a hand. “However, if you’d rather send me after them instead, get some yellow chalk and draw a diagonal slash on the side of the mailbox outside the north-east entrance of the Trade District between midnight and half past, in two days’ time. Understood?”

“…Underst—”

“Good. Well,” she said as she pulled her gloves back on, “that’s that, then. You got home and made some tea, and finished off that crossword puzzle on the table before going to bed, right? Forty-one across is ‘Blackhand’, by the way.”

“Th—” he glanced over at the crossword. “Thanks, miss, uh—” He stopped short as he turned back to face her, only to find no one there.

“…Thanks…?” he called out into his eerily silent home. “I think…”

Outside, Quai slipped around a corner and walked quickly towards the crowds. She lifted a finger and tapped her earpiece.

“Job’s done,” she said as she slipped down an alleyway.

“And you did everything?” Andrew asked. “The dummies—”

“They worked great. He was scared shitless. He didn’t see anything.”

A sharp peal of laughter met her ear.

“And the note?” he asked.

“Bunch of nonsense, he’ll never make sense of any of it, and no one will believe him if he says anything.”

“Amazing. Perfect,” Andrew replied, chortling still.

“You know I never ask ‘why’, and you know I’m glad to help you out with your little pranks… but why did you hire me to scare the crap out of some random bar owner?”

“Because he owes me twenty gold from two card games, and he’s been giving me the run-around for weeks.”

“But I charged you forty for the job. Those dummies were expensive, Andrew.”

A happy sigh answered her first.

“Yeah, but it was worth it to scare him half to death. C’mon— meet me at Tom’s, I’ll get you a coffee and you can tell me if he pissed himself.” Quai rolled her eyes.

“Fine, but he didn’t—”

“Buh-buh-buh!” Andrew interrupted. “Save it for coffee time. I’ll throw in a croissant if he cried.”

“You’ll throw in a croissant anyway, if you know what’s good for you,” Quai replied as she turned down another laneway, deeper into the heart of Old Town.

((Mentioned: @andrew-mason))

Quai set her rucksack down by the door as she leaned against the jamb and began to unlace her boots. “Dragons?” she asked skeptically. Andrew nodded as he lowered himself back onto the couch and sat cross-legged.

“Yeah, walking around in Stormwind, tons of ‘em. You didn’t notice?” He lifted his spoon and half-finished bowl of cereal, and jabbed the spoon in the air in her direction. “You’re getting soft in your old age.” 

“We were in Highmountain for three months,” Quai replied flatly. 

“They don’t have news in Highmountain?” Andrew asked peevishly, then ducked aside as a hiking boot sailed past his head. 

“Not at the top of a snow-covered mountain in the middle of nowhere.” 

“And when you came home, you didn’t notice anything strange?” 

“About the nothing we encountered? We took gryphons from Highmountain to Dalaran, Trin met us when we landed, then she popped us back here. She didn’t say anything,” Quai added, “about dragons, and we were only in the city for about four minutes.” 

“The only day of the week Trin knows is Wednesday, and she doesn’t even remember where she lives half the time.” 

“That’s fair, but I think if she’d seen dragons roaming around the city she would’ve said something about it, at least in passing.” 

Andrew shrugged. “Maybe. You know, if—” 

“If what?” Quai asked as she worked the laces on her other boot. She glanced over, only to see Andrew staring at her left hand. He set the cereal bowl and spoon down, and pointed a dramatic finger in her direction. “What is that.” 

“What’s what?” Quai pulled the boot off and held her left hand over her collarbone. “Oh, this old thing?” she asked innocently as she waggled her ring finger at him. Andrew scrambled across the room in a flurry of gangly limbs and grabbed her hand. 

“What—” he stated as he examined her hand: next to the black diamond engagement ring was tied a loop of frayed, red ribbon. "Is this a joke?"

"Is what a joke?"

"I thought it was a ring, I thought you'd gone and got married—"

"We did," Quai interrupted.

“We got—”

“You got married!” Andrew crowed. “I’ll forgive you for not inviting me, by the way—” 

“We were remote—” 

“You should’ve—”

“We were on a mountainside.” 

“Oh, then no. I don’t do physical activity.” 

“I know.” 

Andrew wrapped his skinny arms around her in a tight hug. “You’re married.” 

Quai hugged him back. “I’m married.” 

“Let’s hope this one sticks, and that you don’t have to kill him,” Andrew intoned. Quai smiled into the ruffles of Andrew’s shirt. 

“Let’s hope.”

“And he’d better treat you right, or I’ll have Copper eat him,” he added as he held her back at arm’s length, hands on her shoulders. Quai looked past him to her dog, who had fallen back asleep in front of the fire with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. 

“Copper is a ten-year-old arthritic wolfhound who’s going blind in one eye. I don’t think he could navigate a sharp corner, much less kill my husband.” 

Andrew looked to the dog, then back to Quai. “Fair.” He paused for a moment, then dropped his hands to his side. “Listen, you know I don’t do sincerity—” 

“I know.” 

“But I mean this from the bottom of my stupid heart when I say congratulations, and I hope you two have every happiness you deserve.” 

“You congratulate the groom— you’re supposed to say ‘best wishes’ to the bride,” Quai pointed out. Andrew rolled his eyes. 

“Way to spoil the moment. I was just—” 

“I know.” Quai paused. “Thanks, Andrew.” She smiled as he leaned in and kissed the top of her head. 

“Don’t tell anyone I did that.” 

“I won’t, lest your reputation suffer.” 

“Also you need a shower.” Quai rolled her eyes. 

“Thanks,” she replied flatly. Andrew ruffled her hair with one hand.

“So why a red ribbon, why not an actual ring?” he asked. 

"It's a long story," Quai replied with a smile as she raked a hand through her messy hair.

"I've got time. C'mon, I'll even make tea," Andrew wheedled as he backed towards the kitchen.

"Fine, fine— but first put the kettle on, I want to make sure you're serious about that tea." She held up her left hand and smiled at the ring and the ribbon on her finger as she flopped down onto the couch.

((Mentioned: @andrew-mason @fragments-of-fortune))

“What are you doing?” 

Quai looked up as the hall light flicked on: halfway through lacing up one of her boots, she stood and faced Corban. 

“Going for a walk,” she lied. Poorly. 

“With your go bag and your daggers?” he asked lightly as he gestured to the aforementioned items on the chair behind her. He took a step towards her. A frown creased his brow as she looked away. “Hey,” he said, his tone softened. “What’s up?” 

“Nothing, I just…” she shifted back and forth on her feet, then crouched down to resume tying her laces. “I’m restless. I need something to do that isn’t just this nobility stuff, it’s making me crazy. So I took a little job off-continent.” It was easier to talk when she was avoiding eye contact. “It’s just a night’s work, nothing too wild.” 

“Kul Tiras?” he asked. 

“A little further out than that.” 

“Northrend?” 

Laces finished, Quai pressed palms to her knees and pushed herself to her feet. “Zandalar, exfil job. Some off-the-books government thing went south and they need someone to go in there and extract a couple guys who are being held hostage on one of those little coastal islands.” 

“Why did they ask you?” 

“They didn’t— I volunteered. I’ve got people in Stormwind who keep an ear out for this kind of thing—” 

“How long?” 

“Pardon?” Quai asked as she heaved her bag over her shoulder. 

“How long have you been sneaking out in the middle of the night to do side jobs?” Corban asked as he turned and began to rummage through the hall closet. Quai ran a hand through her hair as she watched him. 

“This is my second job— you were doing that speech at that gala in Stormwind the first time—” 

“When you said you had the cold?” 

“To be fair, I said I was cold, not that I had one— I was in Northrend at the time. The comm I was using wasn’t meant for distances that far, so the connection was spotty.” 

“You were in bed when I got home!” he said over his shoulder as he grabbed a tactical belt from beneath a winter jacket and cinched it about his waist. 

“Barely, that stone Trin made dropped me a mile outside the village and I had to run back. Hey—” She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing?” 

Corban turned to face her: he held a shortblade in one hand and a loose grenade in the other. “Coming with you— I don’t think we need the grenade, but maybe as a backup? Just in case?” A smile spread slowly across Quai’s face. 

“It’s killing you a bit inside, isn’t it? The whole court life thing— you’re dying to get back out in the field, aren’t you?” she asked; the smile became a full-on grin as Corban nodded vehemently. 

“It sucks. It sucks so bad sometimes,” he said, shaking his head incredulously. “I think I’ve learned to sleep with my eyes open, you know. Those meetings are a deadly level of boring.” 

“Hey,sleeping with your eyes open is a useful skill to have,” Quai pointed out. “And just bring the blade, I’ve already got a backup grenade in my pack— and wear the boots with the really thick tread, we’re going to be in the jungle!” she called out as Corban quickly made for the stairs to grab the rest of his gear. 

“Okay,” he called back as he thundered up the stairs to the second floor. “Also, I can’t believe you made me go to that gala alone!” he called down from the bedroom. “The food wasn’t even any good!” 

As she listened to Corban clattering around in their upstairs bedroom, Quai leaned against the wall and smiled to herself, arms folded lightly across her chest as she waited for him. 

((Mentioned: @fragments-of-fortune ))

Reunion

The sun was high in a cloudless azure sky, and a warm breeze rolled over the gently sloping hills, rustling the leaves in the crooked apple trees that dotted the verdant countryside as Quai stood at the whitewashed gate. The modest little house— a dozen yards or so beyond— was a simple clapboard square underneath a sagging, green, wood-shingled roof. 

It wasn’t the house that gave Quai pause, however; it was the front yard: hundreds of plants taking up every inch of space, save for a narrow path that led to the front door. Every plant was the same varietal of rose— five-petaled, white; a compact bloom that swayed gently in the breeze and made the yard look as though it were rippling like water. Eventually, she put a hand on the gate and pushed through. 

Knocking on the front door gave no answer, and Quai was about to turn around and leave when she heard a voice call from behind the house: 

“Is that you, Carla? You’re early, I don’t even have the first batch done. C’mon back and give me a hand packing these up!” 

The voice sent an ache rippling across Quai’s chest: rather than answer, she instead picked her way around the edge of the garden and made the short walk to the back of the little house. 

A short woman— about Quai’s height— with ash blonde hair tied up in a ponytail stood with her back to the house as she leaned over a table filled with bushels of purplish berries. Quart-sized baskets stood stacked next to a food scale, and the woman was weighing out and portioning large scoops of berries into them. Quai sucked in an unsteady breath. 

“Hi, mum.” 

It was a small pub, well off the main thoroughfare: a thin, dumpy little red-shingled building sandwiched between two other thin, dumpy little buildings in a long forgotten corner of Old Town. The day’s fading light illuminated the front of the dingy pub through a crack between two other buildings; golden sunshafts against soot-caked brick. The sign— faded red paint on cracked wood— hung crooked in the single, grime-encrusted window: The Butcher’s Arms. 

It was the sign that stopped Quai in her tracks: a piece of paper with some words scrawled on it in pen, taped to the corner of the filthy front window. 

‘Sobriety for shots: 1 year = 1 shot’ 

The blood ran cold in her veins as she shifted her gaze from the handwritten sign to the pub within, which was lit by a few lanterns, and empty save for one or two regulars. She shifted the paper bag of groceries to her other arm and reached out to push the door open. 

Wordlessly, she walked up to the empty bar and set her groceries down on one stool, then sat on the next and placed both hands on the bar, her gaze fixed on the rows of dusty bottles against the back wall. 

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked as he sidled up to the other side of the bar. Quai shifted her gaze to him: a wiry fellow, about fifty, with a shock of ochre hair and a greasy handlebar mustache. 

“The sign in your window,” she said, her expression pleasantly neutral, “it says—” 

“Sobriety for shots, yeah,” the bartender said with a toothy, yellowed smile. “How long’ve you been sober, lass?” 

“Just over a year. Four hundred and fifty-two days.” She watched the bartender’s hands as he placed two shot glasses on the bar. 

“Let’s say we round up,” he suggested, still smiling. Quai nodded and watched as he turned to the shelves of liquor. “What’s your poison?” he asked over his shoulder. 

“Whiskey.” 

The bartender plucked a mid-range bottle from the shelf and turned back to Quai, poured two generous shots of whiskey, then put the bottle back on the shelf again. “On the house. Enjoy,” he said with a wink as he walked away to the other end of the bar, leaving her with her drinks. 

She cast her gaze down to the tiny glasses of amber liquid, her expression still a neutral mask as she contemplated the drinks: a part of her felt a deep yearning to toss back both and ask for more, to feel the sting and warmth and comfort that drinking used to bring her; a much larger part of her felt only a hot, burning anger bubbling in her chest. 

Minutes ticked by as she stared at the two shots before her: she picked one up and lightly sniffed at its contents, then set it back down again. 

The bartender was largely ignoring her at that point. He was wiping down a glass with a dirty rag at the far end of the bar when he heard it: a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass and splattering liquid. He spun around to see Quai standing behind the bar, gripping the cudgel that he frequently used to deter boisterous drunks clutched in one of her hands. Broken glass was everywhere, and she was soaking wet with booze. 

“What the—” he started. 

“How dare you!” she yelled at him. She wound up and smashed into another shelf of bottles: glass and booze showered down behind the bar as another dozen or so bottles went crashing to the ground. “How dare you prey on people— people who are just trying to get by! People who— who— who just—” she drove the cudgel into another shelf, “—want to—” and another, “—do their best? To be their best?” she demanded. The bartender was crouched on the floor, trapped at the end of the bar with nowhere to go as Quai stood over him, sopping wet, with a look of wild anger on her face and the worn cudgel still gripped in one hand. 

“Somebody get a guard!” he yelled, though the two other people who had been in the pub had left at the first sign of a disturbance. He squeezed his eyes shut as Quai took a step towards him, her boot crunching down on broken glass. 

“Shame on you,” she hissed as she raised the cudgel to him; the bartender flinched, as though expecting a hit, though none came. When he dared to open his eyes again, all he saw was her retreating back as she stalked out of the bar, her groceries and the cudgel in one hand and both shots of whiskey still sitting undrunk on the bar. 

She paused at the door. The bartender stood slowly and brushed some glass off of his dirty apron, watching warily as Quai reached out and ripped down the ‘sobriety for shots’ sign in the window. 

“You won’t need this anymore, right?” she asked without turning around. 

“Aye,” the bartender replied quickly. Quai crumpled the paper and stuffed it into her pocket, then pulled the door open. 

“Don’t make me come back,” she said sharply, then slammed the door shut behind her. The front window rattled in its frame as she stepped back out onto the empty cobblestone street and concealed herself in shadows for the quick walk home. 

“It’s too soon.” 

“It’s been twenty-six years.” 

“It’s too fucking soon,” Quai snapped. 

Andrew held up both hands as she glared at him. “Fine, far be it from me to try and suggest the mentally healthy thing to do,” he said, pinching a cigarette between two fingers. Behind him, the tips of the Hinterlands’ towering pines swayed back and forth in the breeze beneath a leaden sky. 

A sigh came from Quai as she tapped some ash from her own cigarette. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m just…” 

“You’re just processing, I get it,” Andrew replied. He licked his thumb and forefinger and pinched out the butt of his cigarette before flicking it away. After the cigarette had fallen from view over the edge of one of the Breach’s lonely parapets, he fixed his gaze once more on Quai. “Just don’t process yourself back to the bottle.” 

Quai looked away as she took another drag. “I know.” 

“I know you know. And do you know what you know I know?” 

“...What?” 

“Do you know,” Andrew said slowly, “what I know?” 

“That’s not what you said—” 

“I know you had a drink,” he interrupted, pointing an accusatory finger at her. She rolled her eyes and swatted his hand away. 

“I ordered a drink, that doesn’t mean— wait, you had me followed to Boralus?” 

“Well, strictly speaking, I did the following.” 

“What, you don’t trust me in a pub?” 

“Not when you’re ordering a glass of whiskey after just finding out for sure that your long-lost biological mother is still around and wants to hang out, I don’t.”

“That’s… fair,” Quai conceded, indignance melting away. Andrew arched a surprised brow. 

“It is?” 

“Mhmm.” Cigarette finished, she twitched a finger: an inky little tendril of shadow consumed the rest of it as a low rumble of thunder rolled through the valley. Quai cast her gaze skyward. “I’ll figure something out, I have time. I just need to…” 

“Process,” Andrew finished helpfully. 

“Process,” she echoed. “Anyway, I’ll see you later— I want to hit the library before I head home for the night.” 

“Boy, you sure know how to party.” A smile passed across Quai’s face as she began her descent back down the ladder, into the tower. She fixed her gaze on Andrew as she reached up for the trapdoor handle. 

“I do. And by the way— good luck.” 

Andrew was busy trying to fish his lighter out of the pocket of his too-tight leather pants. “Hmm? With what…?” he asked distractedly. In response, Quai pulled the door shut after her: there was an audible click as she slid the lock into place. His gaze shot to the closed trapdoor. 

“That’s— hey, Quai? Hey, that’s not funny!” he called out. After a few beats of silence with no reply, another— slightly louder— rumble of thunder echoed through the valley as the sky grew darker still. 

“...Quai?” 

((Mentioned: @andrew-mason​))

The air was damp and cool as Quai stepped out of the portal room and into the middle of the busy Tradewinds Market: merchants in stalls called out to dock workers in faded toques as shoppers of every social caste surged around them with armloads of hard-won, handpicked goods. Cleaned and gutted fish lay in neat rows on mounds of crushed ice, while stray cats sniffed hopefully at the air from their perches atop weathered barrels and people wove deftly around each other— barely avoiding collision— each of them weighed down with rugs, sacks of flour, fish, game, and produce from every corner of the small continent. She glanced down at an address scrawled on a piece of paper in her hand, then set off through the throngs of people. 

On the other side of the market, perched just on the edge of the foggy gloom that hung over the harbour, sat a long neglected pub sandwiched between a smithy and a closed textile shop: faded, green shingles sloped down over a single lightbulb and a battered wooden door that bore a hand-painted sign that read ‘Rail & Anchor’. Quai paused only briefly before she pushed the door open and stepped into the dim space beyond. 

“Drink, lass?” a voice asked. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room, she focused on the bartender: a pouchy Kul Tiran man with a shiny, bald pate and a blonde handlebar mustache. She shook her head and turned to look at the smattering of patrons. 

“No, I’m meeting someone,” she replied absently as her gaze flicked from the few regulars bellied up to the bar to the cramped row of booths along the outer edge of the room. A single, gloved hand gestured to her from a darkened spot in the corner: without another word, she stepped around the grimy tables towards the back of the pub. 

“Interesting meeting spot, Adam— or is it Ansel?” she asked quietly as she slid into the booth across from the man. A pair of dull, filmy green eyes stared back at her from beneath a heavy hood and scarf. 

“I wanted you to know I was serious,” he replied, his voice raspy and dry despite the dampness of the air, and slightly muffled from the scarf. 

“I have questions.” 

“I can imagine.” 

“Why didn’t you ever tell us you were our uncle? All those years working down in the Bay together—” 

“I promised your mother I’d keep an eye on you. And the last time you saw me as your uncle Ansel, I was alive,” he added quietly. Quai leaned forward, a finger pressed to the greasy table. 

“You knew my grandmother was dead, why did you keep up the charade for so long?” 

“I told you,” he replied, a slight edge to his voice, “I promised my sister that I would.” 

“Why? Why did that promise mean so much to you— why did it mean more than me knowing the truth?” 

Ansel leaned back in his seat: in the guttering light of the single candle at their table, the visible bits of his gaunt features were thrown into sharp relief. 

“Because she was the only one in the family who was ever good to me, Quai,” he answered, the edge gone from his voice. “She didn’t look down on me like the rest of them did— she trusted me. She looked after me… and I looked after her. As best as I could, at any rate.” Quai shook her head.

“It still smells a little off to me, if I’m being honest—” 

“I left the trail for your friends to follow when James took you,” he interrupted. 

At that, Quai leaned back in her own seat, a stunned look on her face. 

“You—” 

“In Stormwind, down through Westfall, all the way to Booty Bay— that was me. And when you were looking for Smith, I left you clues leading right to him. That camp in Stranglethorn? I suggested to him that he hide there, he didn’t know it was one of your dead drop spots.” 

Confusion turned slowly to realisation as she thought back to the events in question. 

“You knew we’d leave the zeppelin there when we went out into the jungle looking for him… were you—?” 

“I was there,” Ansel replied with a slight nod. “Off in a tree with a pair of binoculars and a gun, making sure you got him… and ready to shoot him if you didn’t.” 

Quai folded her arms lightly across her chest as she regarded the hooded man across the table from her. 

“So she’s alive, then— right? Like actually… alive.” 

Ansel nodded again, gloved fingers laced together on the table. 

“She is.” 

“Why did she stay away for so long?” 

“That’s a question you’ll have to ask her.” 

“Where is she?” 

“Tiragarde— a contact of mine smuggled her into the country after she left, she’s been living in the hills just outside of a little fishing village on the coast—” 

“For twenty-six years.” 

“For twenty-six years,” he echoed. “Andrew followed me there, he knows where it is.”

“And she’s been waiting for…” 

“For you,” Ansel replied simply. “She’s been waiting for you to come into your own, to take charge of your future— to choose the path that would lead you to that letter, and to her.” 

Quai shook her head, unable to speak: hot tears stung suddenly at the corners of her eyes, and fell to her lap as she lowered her head into one hand. Silence hung between them for long moments as she silently cried and Ansel sat motionless across from her. The low chatter of regulars and the clink of heavy glassware on wood were the only sounds in the pub, until Quai once again lifted her head and looked across the table to her uncle. 

“I don’t know if I want to see her,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. 

“I know… she knows, too. But she’s there, if you ever decide you want to.” He drew the hood down over his face and pulled a pair of glasses with dark, round lenses down over his pale eyes. 

“She isn’t going anywhere. You should see her,” he said as he slid out of the booth. He adjusted his jacket as he stood and looked from her to the grimy pub door. “She misses you.” 

Quai didn’t move, save for a nod as Ansel stepped past her, and a moment later he was gone: back out into the bustling market and into the crowds as the grimy door swung shut behind him on rusty hinges. 

Heavy, shuffling footsteps made their way across the pub and stopped just short of her. “Need anythin’, lass?” the barkeep asked. Quai looked down at the embroidered, five-petaled rose on the corner of the handkerchief she’d pulled from her pocket: she ran a thumb across the delicate stitching. 

“Whiskey.”