SEAN ROBIN HUGHES

This portion follows The Mercadian Heist and The Mercadian Heist, Part II

The day took forever to trod along its proscribed, droll route. The dead end suitor shoved off after the appropriate amount of empty courting, the staff buzzed about trying to make Jax’s mother, Mayzeri Deanna Armas, happy and mostly failing. Her mother was a force of nature in her own way, and if one had any wish to preserve themselves, they would need to find a safe distance and appear compliant to her whims and wishes.

Jacqueline Deanna Armas, known to Jackie to her friends and Jax to her colleagues, had learned early on that if you wanted to hold your own against someone of her mother’s ilk, all you had to do was smile, nod in the right places, and let her carry your side of the conversation as she saw fit. Most of the time, that worked.

Today was no exception. Jax nodded where she needed to, smiled where she was expected, and kept her mouth shut otherwise. She absolutely had to find out what was in the leather bag sequestered under the false decorative top of her armoire. The bag was simple in design, with two brass buckles holding the flap down, and the leather itself was well worn, weathered by either time or stress, but cared for along the way. It appeared to be a good bag.

Its shape was held firmly in her mind, and she ran her imaginary fingers over the leather, fingering the belted closures, wondering what was held within. Jax risked breaking the silence to find out. “Mother?”

Mayzeri looked up from her piles of court papers strewn across the dinner table. “Yes, Jacqueline?”

The staff hated when her mother used the dining hall for her work. Work that was better suited for the parlor or the office, and not where the smallest spill of food or drink could risk a verbal assault from the Lady of the House for something that was wholly out of their control.

“May I be excused for the evening? I wish to go to bed after having a day like today.”

Mayzeri raised an eyebrow. “A day like today, love? A day where you have to do your part for the success of your family in securing your future? Unfortunately, my dear, that will be every day for the rest of your life. That is the role of a woman in this society. Fight for what you are owed.”

Jackie sighed inwardly at the bait, but she knew it was expected to question. “What are we owed, Mother?”

A hint of smile at her mouth as she leaned back over her papers, “The world, my dear one. We are owed the world. We just have to stand up and take it. Good night.”

“Good night Mother,” Jackie pushed away from the table and nodded to Mr. Graves, the butler, as he opened the door for her. “Good night, Mr. Graves.”

“Good night, miss!” He smiled kindly.

Jackie pulled her dinner dress up to her calves and took the stairs at speed. She felt like a criminal in her own house. Never mind the fact that she had robbed a bank this morning. It was stealing her time back from her mother that made her a real criminal. She kicked off her shoes, picked them up with the free hand and practicing her silent run, praying all the while that the household staff where elsewhere. She turned the corner of the hall that had her room door off of it, spun inside her door, and locked it quietly from the other side.

Her sanctuary was calm, quiet, and empty. Mekka, one of the housemaids that was assigned to this side of the house, must have already been in here. The fire was crackling lightly in the hearth, and the bed was already turned down. Harrisa, her lady’s maid, would not be expecting Jax to ring for at least another hour, so she had time.

She tossed her shoes near the footing of the changing blind in the corner, pulled a chair to the armoire, and shifted the trestling of the false top to the side to free the bag from its hiding place. She pulled it down gingerly. When she had picked the bag up in the Mercadian Central Bank she had a felt buzzing in her hands, like there was an angry bee in the leather satchel. And now, here, she felt that buzzing again. She sat on the edge of her bed staring down the bag in her hands as if she was making a choice that would end the world.

Jax paused.

Should she open it? Would Armond be angry? What if there was something inside that was dangerous? A construct that could was beyond her understanding? She was not a magical person. Magic did not run in her family at all. There was an old rumor that she had a great-great Aunt on her father’s side that had a touch of it, and she had gone mad, living alone with a great number of cats and a live-in female friend.

Jax was mature enough to know exactly what her great-great aunt was, and mad was not it. That aunt probably had been a very kind and passionate person who knew exactly what she wanted out of her life. Just like Jax knew what she wanted out of hers. She wanted the same thing, in a way.

She wanted choices. And maybe a cat. Maybe a lover… someday.

So what if there was something in the bag she wouldn’t understand? Armond would not have sent her home with anything dangerous. It was just a leather bag. A simple satchel with two brass buckles, and simple shoulder strap. If it had been dangerous, it would be in a iron box, or void locker, or something even more exotic. Whatever was in the bag was valuable, but not dangerous. She squeezed her braid, feeling the jeweled comm concealed in the many dark strands, and thought briefly about trying to reach out to Armond.

Jax heard her mother’s voice in her head, “We are owed the world.”

Damn right we are, Jax agreed. She had carried this bag from the the most secure vault in all of Mercadia all by herself. She had carried it out of the Mercadian Central Bank and through the city, under the watchful eyes of many sorts. Whatever was in the bag did not warrant a second glance from any number of magically-aware beings that she had crossed paths with. No troll or goblin had stopped her. How many Sylvians had she walked near? Not a single one had batted an eyelid in her direction. She had been a simple teenage human girl carrying her bag on her way to somewhere.

Jax made her choice, undoing the buckles and pulling at the straps. She took a deep breath and held the bag open tentatively, expecting something to happen.

Nothing happened.

She sat it on her knees and looked into the dark of the bag.

Wands?!

At least twenty. Of all shapes and sizes. What the fuck where wands doing locked up in a bank vault? Wands were focus objects for very specific types of magic users. Magic users often made their own based on their preferred specialty or focus of magic. And everyone knew that wands were about as useful to another person as a used through pair of shoes. Nothing special about shoes. They won’t make you walk any faster, or do your walking for you. They are just shoes. Used ones are doubly useless at that. Kind of gross to use someone else’s shoes. It was kind of gross to use someone’s wand. It would help focus in a pinch, but it would be off and not nearly as useful as your own.

Useless fucking wands.

Jackie shook the bag gently, and the wands all woodenly clicked and thunked together like a bundle of sticks. She literally had kindling on her knees. Useless, stupid, …worthless sticks!

Jackie felt a flair of anger. Why had she risked a bank robbery at the most secure bank in all of the city, just so Armond could get his hands on a bag of used, nasty, wands. Like what the fuck is going on here!?

There had to be something else in the bag. She ran her hands over all the edges of the leather, hoping to feel a hidden zipper or a secret fold, something that held a piece of paper with a secret, or a Elvish map to a dragon’s hoard hidden somewhere deep in a mountain. But there was nothing else.

It was just a bag. She rifled through the bag’s contents, her hands brushing all of them, and nothing changed.

Full of useless wands. Jackie leaned back, shaking her head in wonder at the monumentious stupidity of it all.

“Pick me up.”

Jackie screamed, throwing the bag off her lap. It bounced off the rug, and the wands scattered across the floor, sounding just like sticks being scattered from a woodpile. She held her breath, both hands over her mouth. She exhaled raggedly, her hands were shaking. She almost pulled her enchantment out and spoke the trigger word to disappear. Almost.

Her own voice was shaky in her ears, “Who’s there?”

The voice was soft, genteel almost. Like a soothing balm given voice and action. “Just a useless wand.”

Jackie nearly repeated her scream. But she tempered her urge, feeling her emotions running through her veins like fire.

“Good. You have control,” the voice reassured.

Jackie’s eyes surveyed the room of wands, and her eyes fell on one near the middle. She knew it was that one. A dark brown one about the length of her forearm, twisted like a grape vine, one end smoother than the other. No carvings, no jewels, no inlays or fitted handles like some of the others. It was plain. Utilitarian. Unassuming.

“Yes.”

“H-h-how?” Jackie stammered. She didn’t know what she was asking. Well she kind of knew. She kind of was asking all the questions, all at once. How did she hear it? How did it talk? How could a simple wand be anything more than a shoe? Did everyone hear it? Could it talk to anyone? Was it sentient? Was this a curse? Oh my god, is the wand a person? Can you even transmute a person into a wand? What the fuck? What the fuck is happening? What the fuck is happening to me? Am I crazy?

Oh my god, she thought, maybe my great-great aunt was crazy and not just a lesbian.

“Stop.”

Jackie stopped.

“Deep breath. Count to five. Release. Count to five. Breath in again. Repeat five times.”

“What?” Jackie tried.

“Do it!” The voice said with authority. An authority that Jackie respected, so she followed the instructions.

“Feel better?”

She did. Her mind was calm, and the questions had started to take priority while the emotional responses had faded to a dull roar in the background. “Yes.”

“Pick me up.”

Jax did not move. “Why?”

“So we can communicate better. This takes effort.”

Jackie lightly stepped on to the carpet, and gathered all the scattered wands, making a point to not touch the obvious one trying to steal her soul or take over her body.

“That is ridiculous.”

“Ok. Stop. How are you doing that?” Jax asked, shoving the other wands back into the leather bag. “Invading one’s thoughts is impolite.”

“As a wand, think about this for a moment, a wand is not interested in stealing a soul or taking over a body. What use is either to a wand? I am a wand.” The voice said it as if it was the most absurdly obvious thing that could ever be said in the history of the world. “And the way that I communicate is profoundly easier and faster.”

Jax squatted down near the wand, still lying askew on the carpet, looking over it carefully while she shook the last of the wands into the bag, settling them back into place. “I think I am mad.”

“Not yet.”

“Great help,” she sighed. “But to everyone else that can’t hear you, witnessing me talking to a stick, I think it would be obvious.”

“Its temporary.”

“The madness?”

“The talking out loud part. You will learn to converse more directly in the future.”

“And that is why you need me to pick you up?” Jax tried.

“No. You have to learn things on your own.”

“Then why would I need to pick you up?”

“Because you need to make a copy of me, put the copy back into the bag, and then give the bag to whoever bought your crew to steal me in the first place.”

“I am not a wizard, I am thief.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” Jax said, returning the obvious matter of fact tone the wand had used earlier. “Only magic-touched folks can use magic. Most barely. Only the great ones are able to actually use it use it, in the way the stories are told. I am not one of the former, and definitely not one of the latter. I am not magic folk.”

“That’s a lie.”

“What’s a lie?” Jax was caught off guard.

“Everyone can use magic. Anyone. All living things are tied to the fabric of the universe. Why would magic only exist for a select few? Magic is not sentient. It cannot make decisions about who gets to use it. It is energy. Pervasive. Everywhere. All things are bound in it and by it.”

“So what are the Trials for?”

“The Trials as you call them are to keep the lie alive. Why would power invite competition, Jacqueline?”

“But everyone would know it was a lie, eventually, right? It only takes someone to come along and do it without the schools, the training, and the rest of it. Some hermit wandering in from a lonely mountain and using magic as if it was the most natural thing, that is all that it would take,” Jax paused and curled her lip into a sneer. “…And I hate that name.”

“Its what your mother calls you.”

“It is. And now you know why I hate it.”

“Pick me up, Jackie.” The voice was softer now, understanding.

“It’s Jax.”

“Pick me up, Jax.”

She reached out, letting her fingers graze the wood, expecting a great shock or a wave of power to wash over her. Nothing happened.

“Of course nothing happened. I already explained, come on.” It sounded annoyed.

Jax grasped the wand in annoyance herself and lifted it straight to her eyeline. “There! Are you happy?”

“My happiness is irrelevant. Now. Grab one of the junk wands out of the bag.”

“Junk wands?”

“They are meant to be decoys. To hide me from anyone looking without knowing what to look for.”

“Ok. This one?” Jax had pulled out a smaller, thicker, lighter colored wand with a single scratched jewel crowning a false hilt.

“It doesn’t matter. Now focus on what I look like. What the wood feels like. The weight of it in your hand. Think about how you feel the interaction of it through your skin, your fingers, your sight, your smell. Take a few minutes and create a representation in your mind. Include the most detail you can think of. Most important of all… think of what makes me ‘real’. Whatever that means to you.”

“Ok, then use a magic word or an incantation?”

“Of course not, I can explain why those exist later,” the wand was sighing even though it lacked lungs, air, and throat to sigh through. “Magic is old. As I said, is a part of reality, just as the interactions between things very large and very small are relatively the same throughout nature. It is only at the extremes where things are strange and incongruent. But the vast majority of the universe is made up of a single great fabric. Magic permeates that fabric. All you have to do is find a thread of it and grab on.”

“But how?”

“And that is why I am here. To show the way.”

“Wait. You are a dowsing rod?” Jackie wanted to laugh. “But for magic. Not water.”

“I AM NOT A DOWSING ROD,” the voice was borderline hysterical in denial.

“Says the dowsing rod.”

“Stop it. Now use your imagination. And close your eyes.” The voice had returned to the teacher voice.

Jax closed her eyes, and made an image in her head of the wand. Similarly to how she had imagined the bag earlier in the day. She ran her mental fingers over the wand as she actually ran her fingers over the wood, feeling the grain, the texture. She smelled the deep oldness of the wood, an aged wax, something far off like a campfire and baking bread coming from deep in a forest full of light. Birds were in the trees, singing songs that were wound of magic, the vines vibrated as they climbed the trees, seeking the warmth of light above. The mists of the morning wound among the roots of the old ones, touching their bark hesitantly, sharing messages from the sky and the wind. Everything was alive.

She felt it in her heart, the tug, the pull, and the connection to the world around her. Her breath slowed, the pulse in her fingertips faded from her consciousness, and she understood the wand in her right as she held what the wand that wanted to become in her left. She understood all she had to do was make the movement.

She had to move with intent, like one would take a step forward with their body. It is just a moment of thought, and then a moment of action. The brain interpreted for the body, and the body made motion through a complex series of chemical reactions and coordination that the brain knew nothing about. Likewise, she felt the magic, the feel of what she wanted, and she just… moved forward.

“And you are done,” the voice came along as if in a dream.

Jax opened her eyes and her left hand held exactly what was in her right. It was indistinguishable.

“Mostly. If you know what to look for. But for your first attempt, that is a great result.”

Jax set them both down and rolled them back and forth on the carpet without looking, trying to mix them up. She stood and looked down at both of them.

“The real one is on the right,” she said with no hesitation or delay.

“Yes.”

“How did I know?” Jax tugged on her braid as she did done since a child, considering what needed to be considered. Her mother called it her ‘thinking face’.

“Because you know what is real. Intuitively. Any person that understood the basic nature of things would know. But the trick is that you will put the fake one in the bag, and no one will be able to have a basis to compare. No one will consider that a duplicate will have been made in such a short time, and no one will suspect the thief of pulling one over using magic. It is… ahem… the perfect crime.”

“Funny.”

“See you just communicated without saying anything out loud. You are a fast learner.”

“I did?” Jax said aloud.

“And you ruined it. Just practice, it will come naturally… eventually.”

Jax stood on the chair and shoved the closed bag back into its hiding place, carefully shifting the false top back into place. She pushed the chair back into place, and sat on the edge of her bed, with the wand spanning her two hands.

“What are you?” Jax tried again, focusing on saying her mind without vocalizing.

“I am a wand.”

“You are not just a wand. Just like my necklace is not just a necklace.”

“I don’t know what I am. There was a day that I knew what I was, and I was a wand. I have always been a wand. When did you become everything that makes you up who you are now?”

Jax shrugged. “Along the way, I suppose.”

“You feel that you came to be who you are sometime as a child, and then you had some experiences, and then someone died or someone left, and then you had more, but different experiences, and then one day you are in your bedroom having a conversation with a wand. I am like that too. Except much more static. I am a wand. My experiences don’t matter. One day I wasn’t, then the next I was. I have been the same since.”

“But someone created you?”

“No.”

“Bullshit!”

“That is not language becoming a lady of station, Jax.”

“So one day, you were just a wand. Where? Growing from the smart ass wand tree?”

“My first owner laid his hands on me, and I saw through his eyes that I was lying in the bottom of a crater on a pillar made of melted glass, and the trees all around the crater were on fire, as the stars wheeled overhead, leaving streaks in the sky.”

“Pillar? Fire? Crater? What about that sounds like he didn’t create you?”

“He did not. If he had, I would know. When I came to be, I knew everything that I know. That including the knowledge that he did not create me.”

“Circular reasoning, as my tutors had ever heard it.”

“I am what I am meant to be for the purposes I am meant to serve. I am an intelligence, but I am finite. I am a wand.”

Jax felt like she had a million more questions.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“You want to know. Everything. You want to be more than you were lead to believe was possible. You want to have power, but not for power’s sake, instead to make your life exciting. You want to live a life worth living. And the answer is yes.”

“What was the question, then?” Jax tried.

“Will I teach you?”

“Huh.” Jax sat back and laid the wand across her lap. Her eyes looked inwards, thinking about what she truly wanted. She swallowed heavily. “I guess I have a lot to learn.”

This portion follows The Mercadian Heist.

Jax wandered home, taking a surreptitious route, winding from where the cab had dropped her, through the bright market squares and flower-lined wealthy home rows of Holmton, walking leisurely with one hand draped over her newly acquired bag. All the while, she maintained a facade of calm composure outwardly, although her insides were a raging fury of adrenaline and shock.

She had just robbed a bank.

Everyone on the crew had a part, yes. Armond did his thing with the bank manager, Garbles and Frick managed the street and the bank entrances, while Nocke had parked in the back so that Wick could hack the bank’s systems from his oversized laptop. But in the end, it was Jacqueline Deanna Armas that had robbed the most secure bank in Mercadia. The bank had investors and clients in every single upper crust of the city, if not all the other major cities of the nation.

Jax smiled lightly. It was not every day a common pickpocket had the opportunity to rob a bank. She pulled the crystalline earwig from her ear knowing it was well out of range from the sistered commbugs. She briefly studied the jeweled facets of the magical totem, before pushing into the depths of her braided hair.

Now, all she had to do was wait. Three days. Maybe more. Three days with a simple leather bag, with it’s brass buckles, weighing near to nothing, and for some reason that she had yet to figure out, the sole target the bank was robbed in the first place.

Armond had said what was in the bag was worth more money than she could imagine. Being the daughter of a former Consul of Mercadia meant she could imagine quite a large sum. Wait. Had she just robbed the bank that her family was a customer of? Did that mean she had robbed herself? Her mother would die if she ever found out.

The smile turned into a grin. The chemicals coursing through her bloodstream were shifting to euphoria.

Jax turned up her street in Hallrton, one of the wealthiest districts of the ‘Cade. She had not told anyone where she lived, but the crew knew that she was not a street rat. Armond could smell money, so he knew that she came from somewhere above the three rivers. He had guessed a couple mid-town districts, but Jax kept a straight face and ever only shrugged noncommittally. Armond would probably die if he ever found out she hailed from Hallrton.

Hallrton was perched on top of the hills that faced the capital buildings, just far enough to be on their own estates, but close enough that the commute was short for the people that ruled Mercadia either through policy, power, money, or fame. The cream of society called Hallrton home, and those that didn’t, wished they did. Armond had no idea that his pickpocket protege was from the highest layer of the cake.

Jax walked quietly along the fence line of her family estate, twisting her family charm on it’s silver chain against her chest. She muttered the activation word, and felt the noise of the world fade away. Anyone that looked her direction would see only the wind, a dream, and the mists of a forgotten memory. She reached her favorite spot to jump the fence, climbed the roguish elm tree lightly, stepped across the branches and dropped to the grass on the other side of the iron fencing. The fence wards would not have triggered, because the charm she wore made her invisible not only to the world, but to the magic that so many people blindly trusted.

She remembered being a small child, nestled in her grandmother’s lap and fingering the necklace laying against her Mammin’s chest gently, twisting it back and forth out of curiosity.

“What is this, Mammin?” The young Jacqueline had asked.

Her grandmother had held it out for her to look at carefully. “This is your family crest, my little one. A symbol of your family that stretches from you, the youngest, through your mother, through me, through my mother and grandmother, all the way back before this city was ever built. This heirloom was created by one of our mothers back when magic was new, and the world had not opened it’s eyes yet. A dark time that lead people like her to create power that she could use to protect her family.”

“How does it protect us?” Jacqueline asked timidly. She held the sides of the ornate ring of rings gently, in awe of her Mammin’s storytelling voice.

“Within this necklace lies the heart of an old friend that our foremother saved from a dark enemy. In saving this old friend, she pledged to be of service to our foremother, and her descendants for all time. She gave herself willingly to this necklace, and bound herself to it. See, this friend was not some common person like you or me, it was one of the First Ones, a being of incredible strength and beauty. She was this symbol here in the center. Do you know that is, honey?”

“It looks like a bird, but the bird is on fire? Oh, that is a Heofon?”

“That’s right. Heofons were spirits of the sky, majestic and powerful. This Heofon was called Skuggwa, and she was the master of both light and shadows. When the wearer calls out her name and invokes the necklace, our friend hides the person wearing it, but only if they carry the blood of our foremother.”

“So she hides you in a shadow?”

“Kind of. It is like everyone else forgets you are there. Even magic forgets who you are.”

“Wow.”

Jacqueline’s mother called from the doorway of the parlor. “Stop bothering Mammin, Jaqueline dear. Come get ready to see your father. We are having company tonight from the Council.”

In a whisper Jacqueline asked her final question, “Mammin, will you show me someday?”

Grandmother winked, and Jacqueline knew that her Mammin would.

Many years later, after Mammin had passed away, Jacqueline knew it was hers. So she took it from her grandmother’s things and had hidden it away. No one ever knew and no one had ever asked about it’s whereabouts. Mammin had mentioned that her mommy did not care for such things, so Jax guessed that it was hers through implication.

Simply put, it was hers to inherit because no one else gave a shit.

It was a beautiful work on it’s own, whether it was a magical artifact or not. A silver chain terminated at pendant of rings of gold, dangling flat against the chest, nestled gently against each other, silent and shimmering. The ring of rings never made a sound. Jax loved it as much as she had loved her Mammin. In her mind, they were one and the same. The necklace was a part of her grandmother, and now it was a part of her.

All of her foremothers were with her, and that was a comforting thought.

Jax entered through the servant’s entrance of the Great House, climbing the back stairs from the kitchens, unnoticed and unseen. A couple of the hands bustled past her on the stairs, but they knew to stay to the inside rail as not to have a collision with one of the staff hustling upwards to serve the house. Jax exited on to the second floor of the family rooms, and silently made her way to her own. She was not going to be missed, as her mother was off on business in the City Center, and the help knew better than try to pry Ms. Jacqueline from her rooms before she was ready to exit them. Terror awaited any servant bullish enough to rouse the teenager before she was ready.

She closed the door, and lowered her charm using the safe word, sighing heavily in her darkened room. No one had come and opened the drapery, so as far as the staff knew, she was asleep still. Jax glanced at the door and nearly fainted. It was two in the afternoon! The clock face did not lie. Yeah, that was going to make her mother angry. Her euphoria shifted towards a mild amount of dread.

She quickly changed back into her nightgown, shoved her re-worn clothing back into the laundry, and hid the purloined bag on top of her armoire, ensuring the trestling that formed the false top was shifted back in place to cover it. Curiosity was killing her to find out what was in the bag, and Armond had not said anything about not looking… but right now, time was not on her side.

Jax jumped back into bed and rang the bell. Five minutes later her lady’s maid and one of the housemaids entered ready to prepare Lady Jacqueline for her day.

“Good morning, my lady,” Harrisa, her lady’s maid, ducked formally.

“Good morning, my lady,” Mekka echoed as she moved to push the drapes back. Light flooded the room and the three of them squinted briefly.

Jax adopted her regal persona, the one that she copied rigorously from her mother’s behavior with the staff.

“Good morning, Harrisa. Mekka, how is William?” Jax smiled, noting that neither of the ladies noted the fact it was not actually morning.

“Very well, my lady, and thank you for asking after him. The horse kick turned out to be a minor injury. Doctor says he will be up and back to his ways in a day or two.”

“Fortunate,” Jax smiled graciously. “I had heard from Mr. Garret that he had taken a full blow, and those never bode well. It seems our prayers helped avert disaster. Praise the Lord Within.”

“Indeed, Miss. Praise him indeed!”

“Ms. Jacqueline, why is your hair damp?” Harrisa frowned, waving Mekka towards the empty fire grate. Mekka started to clear the ash without another word.

“I think I had a fever, Harrisa. Hence the late wake time, my apologies,” Jax glanced over at the clocked and feigned surprise. “Oh, my! It is after two!”

“Oh, I wish you had rang. Your mother will be cross to learn you were ill and no one checked in on you,” Harrisa’s eyes turned downward.

Jax knew Harrisa was imagining the verbal lashing from mother. “Nonsense. You are checking on me now, and I feel quite well. Sleep is what I needed to recover.”

“Should I send for the doctor?” Harrisa’s frown did not mellow. She was deeply worried.

Jax knew she had to nip it in the bud. “Come feel my head, I assure you I am quite well.”

Harrisa crossed to the bed and pulled the blankets back, looking over Jacqueline’s thin lithe form with a critical eye. Harrisa was only a handful of years older but you would think she acted like a mother more often than not. She raised her wrist to Jackie’s forehead and held it for a minute.

“You seem to be normal enough. Go, undress and I will have Mekka take the laundry down.”

Jax climbed out of bed, went behind the changing blind and stripped down, going through the motions of letting another person help her get dressed. It irked her to have to submit to the social structures that seemed to be designed to keep young ladies under lock and key.

“Would you like us to draw you a bath?” Harrisa fished lightly.

“No, no. I am famished.”

“We can fetch some luncheon from the Kitchens. Mrs. Patsy shouldn’t mind.” Harrisa said.

Mekka made a sad sound. “Look Ms. Harrisa, the dress my Lady wore yesterday has a tear in it.”

“Oh that is a shame. We will have to send it off for mending, I think that is beyond my abilities. There is a whole strip missing.”

Jax winced in her solace behind the screen. When had she torn her dress? She screamed internally. She was glad no one could see her face, because a small measure of panic was hauling hell across her features. She spoke up, trying to steady her voice, “Oh it is torn? I do not recall tearing it yesterday.”

“No worries, Miss. We will have it repaired. Here, pull this on.” Harrisa called out as she slung an arm around the divider, it was the ruby a-line with the high waist. If it was paired with the gold belt, that meant a suitor was coming over later.

Sure enough, a gold belt was draped over the partition wall.

Jax sighed, “Who is it this time?”

“Master Reginal,” Harrisa replied calmly.

“Master Boring is what you meant to call him.”

“Miss Jacqueline.” Admonishment and a hint of smile.

“Miss Harrisa. You know it. I know it. He is dreadful.” Jax pulled on the dress, and stepped around the partition.

Mekka supressed a smile as she bustled off with the laundry. Harrisa looked after the maid with a critical eye. “She better learn to control her impulses or she will never be a Lady’s Maid.”

“Stop it, Harrisa. You are my Lady’s Maid only because my mother fancies us friends.”

“Are we not friends?” Harrisa asked cautiously. Her face was strange for a moment.

Jax smiled kindly. “Of course we are. A trustworthy Lady’s Maid is cherished one.”

Harrisa’s face relaxed and she looked relieved. “I thought you were about to dismiss me.”

“Nonsense. I have few that I trust, Harrisa. You are high among them.”

Jax pulled the belt around her waist and Harrisa clasped it at the back, as she tied off the corset backing, pulling at Jax’s ribs like a hug from death itself.

“Well maybe I should dismiss you as it seems you are trying to kill me through suffocation. Not so tight!”

Harrisa shook her head. “If I don’t have what little God Within You provided your chest on full display, your mother will be after me for misdressing you. And that means this corset has to be as tight as it can be. The last thing I need is a dressing down from your mother.”

“All this for Master Boring?”

“Your mother will be back for Master Reginald’s visit. She hopes for a proposal soon.”

“She hopes for nothing. I rather find a tall place and jump from it.”

“Maybe the impact would help your curves be more accentuated,” Harrisa grinned pulling the cords tighter.

“I think this is it, fortunately. My mother’s prodigious gifts were not passed down. Master Boring should go find a girl with, uh, more to offer.” Jackie was athletic and thin, not the softer curvaceous types that were in fashion at the moment. Her mother often complained that her daughter spent more time being active than some of the tenant farmers. Jackie sighed, “I think I would prefer a life of art, books, and if God Within wills it, severe solitude.”

“Well, you will just have to grin and bear his company until your mother can find a better suitor. She is trying. Rumor has it that she is in City Center for exactly that reason today, so you should be kind to the poor fellow. He thinks he is welcome here.”

“He is most definitely not.” Jax made a face. “Seriously, so boring. Dull. What’s more boring than dull? Dead? Corpse-ish? He would erode a mountain into a plain with his dullness.”

Harrisa barked a laugh.

“No seriously, I think he is so boring that the Lord Within may erupt from my chest and tell him to shut up in hopes the universe he created would be less dull.”

“At least your funny,” Harrisa commented.

“And pretty. And smart. And absolutely not, in any way, dull.” Jax added.

“You are not that. For certain,” Harrisa paused cautiously. “Are you certain that you are well? We could just claim that you were ill.”

“Thanks for trying to save me, Harrisa. But my mother is my mother, and we must meet her expectations, right? That is the only thing that explains why you have lashed me into this dress so tightly I am more of a marionette than a human being.”

Jax turned and looked at herself in the mirror. Her elfin features were brightly lit by the afternoon sun, her blue eyes looked over her shape from top to bottom, noting that she did had a figure thanks to the corset, even if it was a diminutive one. Her silver necklace dropped down to her neckline, the golden rings hidden below her vanishingly small amount of cleavage, but it was enough to make her mother happy. Her long dark hair was still braided and looked clean and managed to survive under her mother’s critical gaze.

“This is well enough,” Jax nodded. “Let’s head to the Kitchens before my mother gets home.”

“The staff won’t appreciate that.”

“I will be like I am invisible, Harrisa. I will eat swiftly. No need to make a muss in the sunroom or the study just for me. Make an excuse, say I had a quick fever, just need enough to recover my strength before I am subjugated to the evils of severe capital boredom all to improve the position of the family.” Jax faked a gagging sound.

Harrisa shrugged, accepting the suggestion. “No time to dawdle, Miss.”

It was only an hour later when Jackie’s mother, the venerable Mayzeri Deanna Armas, one of the few women solicitors, and the only presiding district judge that was a woman, bustled into the household like a hurricane. The staff was swept up in her presence, as if all the activity in the house was electric, bouncing between each interaction. But Jackie knew that is just who her mother was. She was a force of nature, not a person. Jackie barely made it to the sitting room at the garden entrance, had just taken her seat, pretending to hold a book as if she had been there all day.

“Oh stop pretending you are reading that book, Jaqueline. You have the bloody thing upside down,” her mother rolled her eyes, blowing into the parlor with a wake of poor confused, harried, and disheveled staff behind her.

There was no point making up a story, and the truth about the last hour was better than the other thing earlier in the day. “I was eating with Harrisa. Apologies.”

“Apology accepted. Thank you for looking your best, Jacqueline,” Mayzeri noted in a rare show of appreciation. “I have had a morning, to say the least.”

“Oh?” Jax asked, putting the book down hastily.

“I was downtown, on business for you and the Council, and the Mercadian Central Bank!-,” she huffed as if she was fit to burst from her clothing in a rage, but lowered her voice in another example of her fierce control. “The bank was robbed!”

Jax put her hand to her chest in what hopefully looked like natural shock at such a revelation. “No?! That is the safest, most secure bank in all of Mercadia!”

“Obviously, not any more.” Mayzeri at down across from Jax, throwing her accoutrements in a small circle about her like rubble scattering out from the eye of a hurricane.  

“How much was stolen?”

“That is the insane thing in this entire event! NOTHING. The thieves accessed the vault and walked away with nothing. I suppose that is a saving grace in all this, I mean honestly, if my constituents knew that our bastions of government and societal health were at risk, who knows what could result!”

“But how did they know it was a robbery? If nothing was stolen, couldn’t it be just a mistake?”

“Oh I said the same, to the bank manager. But the he insists they lost all of their security systems for the duration of a suspect fire alarm today. The fool claims that a new investor did something to him, but won’t say much more, but given the fact that we was found unconscious and covered in ice, it is obvious that he is correct. They were robbed. The entire thing resembles a sick joke.”

“But is it a robbery if nothing was stolen?” Jax tried again, innocently.

“Indeed? They need to double check their systems and improve their security. The old dwarf that was in charge of their security has already been released. Awful gentleman, had a mechanical eye which gave me the creeps,” Mayzeri said with a shiver. “The Chief Inspector told me the only evidence they have is a fake name of a supposed investor, a description of him, and nothing else. And of course, the gargoyles saw nothing. The one thing they are supposed to do…”

“That doesn’t sound like much to go on.” Jackie inwardly sighed. Armond would never be caught based on a description. Laughable. It was indeed the perfect heist.

“They will be draining the sluice tanks of the vault and see if anything was captured by the deluge.”

Jackie remembered the tear in her dress and the strip of missing cloth. She felt a small panic arise in her chest, sending her heart aflutter.

Mayzeri squinted at her daughter noting the change, “What’s wrong?”

“It is just so exciting! A bank robbery!”

Mayzeri scoffed. “Yes, too exciting for my blood as well. Well, at least I have something good of it. I know you are not overly fond of Master Reginal, and I may have found another potential match. He is of good family, not as wealthy as us, but a good potential trade match with a couple provinces to the south. His mother is putting together some details for me to review.”

Jackie huffed. “Two questions then.”

“No.”

“Why not?” Jackie started, but her mother cut her short.

“Playing the field, my dear. Reginal is from an absurdly wealthy family, and would open up lines of commerce for us that would immediately impact the family businesses. You must tolerate it, because when others know that the inheriting scion of the Briari family is sniffing around my daughter, they realize they must move faster to secure their place in line. Your father made us powerful in Mercadia, and in his terrible absence, I seek to make our family indispensable. Your father came from money, not I. My position is special, yes, but it only affords me flexibility. Your marriage affords us security.”

“So it’s not done, then?”

“Oh you should make it seem that way if it progresses. But no, nothing is done. It seems his parents have had some, uh, difficultly getting him to even think about marriage.”

“Mother, have you met him?” Jax asked sarcastically.

“He is a bit dry.”

“Understatement of the year,” Jax whispered.

The footman announced, “Master Reginal for the Lady Jacqueline.”

In a surprise moment of levity, they simultaneously giggled at the fortuitous timing.

“Promise?” Jax tried.

Mayzeri nodded. “Promise for now. There is always a chance…”

“No.”

“He might be lovely, deep down. Give it a chance, Jacqueline,” Mayzeri turned her head to the footman. “Show him in, Miles. Fetch a service for us from Mrs. Patsy if you would be so kind.”

“Yes, my Lady.” The willowy Sylvian footman ducked his small antlers in a formal bow and turned back through the doorway.

Master Reginal wandered in a moment later, a bouquet in one hand and the other held out for a formal bow. “Lady Deanna Armas and Lady Jacqueline, how splendid that I was allowed to call upon you both this afternoon.”

Jacqueline recoiled inwardly at the flat monotone voice, and for a split moment realized that is what made her boss Armand attractive. It was his voice. It was like butter made of heavy breathing. As if the God Within wanted to test her, she heard a light chittering noise from her braid.

It was the commbug. She had forgotten all about it. Someone was in range and calling. Her stomach dropped.

“Master Reginal, how lovely to see you again,” Mayzeri smiled widely with her closed-lipped politician mask firmly in place. “Jacqueline, welcome our guest and escort him to our garden view.”

The light chittering noise came again. Jackie smiled forcibly and stood a little to quickly.

“Of course, Mother. How are you today, Master Reginal?”

“Reginal, please, Miss Jacqueline,” He bowed lightly, and raised the bouquet. “These are for you. I hope you like ghost lilies. My grandmother raises them and the local hobs hate it.”

“Why is that?” Jackie replied, taking the flowers, pretending to examine the delicate petals.

“Ah, ha, it is known that Hobs love ghost lilies. They use them like a cat uses catnip. They dry them out, crush them up, and, if you can believe it, snort them.”

Jackie made a face before leading the young man to the garden enclosure outside the sitting parlor. “Snort them? Like snuff? How strange.”

Reginal followed behind and he sounded a little less boring for once. “More like how alcohol affects us. They get drunk. And let me tell you that they are obnoxious dead sober, so drunk hobs are the worst version of themselves. They carry on, hurl insults, and act as the depraved little creatures that they are. They fornicate right in plain view.”

“Don’t hobs bring good luck?”

“That is nonsense. All the hobs that live in our gardens are nasty little things. They hate our patch of Ghost Lilies, because if any of them get close, they are electrocuted. My mother electrified the whole pond. The lilies of course are floating in the water, so they are well protected.”

Another footman appeared, approaching with a tray of tea and biscuits. He laid the tray carefully on the table, nodded in respect, and left without a word.

Reginal continued, “Do you have a hob problem here in your own gardens?”

“These are my mother’s gardens, and she would never tolerate a hob infestation,” Jax smiled tightly as the distracting chittering continued from her braid. “I apologize for the interruption, but will you excuse me for but a moment?”

“Of course, Miss Jacqueline. I shall wait here enjoying your mother’s good taste.”

Jax turned back, and the moment she crossed the threshold her mother descended. “And where you going? You have a guest.”

“I need to relieve myself, Mother. Don’t fret, I shall be fast.” Jackie bustled through the door, and in the hallway she plied the enchanted jewel of a commbug from hair and pushed it into her ear impatiently.

“Enjoying the beautiful weather, Jax?” Armond sounded like a kid in a candy store. Joyful and excited, even though his words seemed mundane.

Jackie looked down both ends of the hallway and then whispered hastily, “I can’t talk right now, boss.”

“I am making sure you are safe and sound.”

“I am,” Jackie felt unease well up within. “How are you in range? I am nowhere near your part of town.”

“Oh, that’s my little secret for now, Jax. Can’t let all my employees know just how resourceful I am, that’s when the problems start. See you in three days?” Armond asked, his voice bright as ever.  

“Yes. Now, I need to go!”

“Hasty, hasty.” The earwig fell silent.  Jackie yanked it out again and pushed it safely into the weave of her braids, absentmindedly giving it a light squeeze. Apprehension? Was that what she was feeling? Something was itching.

She had to look inside the bag tonight.

With her mind set, she turned on her heel to deal with Master Boring. She could be expected to be regaled with tales of absolutely nothing, followed by stories of even less, and then all finished off with an expectation of a future that would make her want to weep for the whirlpool of dull she was caught within. All while her mother watched.

With expectations. Gag.

Deep down, she knew that escaping the future intended for her was the only option she could live with.

“I seem to be dealing with ever-escalating existential dread.”

The thought given utterance careened through the room, knocking gently on the UV filmed window and the galvanized radiator below it. Next to the radiator, framed by a wall of tacky yellow and white birds upon Einsteinian shapes that never seemed to coalesce, the therapist nodded dutifully from his oversized corduroy chair, scratching his secret notes with a well-chewed pencil on ivory paper.

“Have you tried being in the moment? Focusing on the now.” The therapist, Donnelly, asked. He was a stereotype given life, animated by an ironist of a god, and gifted the sense of humor of a week-old cod. Flies should have been buzzing about him if he had lived a hundred years prior, but these days, even dry boring people seemed to have successful careers.

“The moment is dread. How can one avoid the dark when one is literally wedged inside of it?” The Client shot back. The therapist knew his name of course, but did not invoke it, because there were consequences to using a name like that. Dire ones. The client was just The Client, declarative.

Donnelly would have frowned if he had the capability to grimace in The Client’s presence, but instead nodded thoughtfully. The Client saw through the ruse, but let it slide.  It had been quite a stretch between sessions, after all.

“So what should I do, Doctor?” The Client followed.

“Talking about it is a good start… but I should note that working through the emotion, while it is occurring, is always the healthier approach. I am curious why you feel such dread.”

“You don’t?” The Client leaned up from his position on the taupe couch, the cushions just as dreary and conflicting as the wallpaper.

“Should I?” Donnelly frowned this time, and deep down The Client appreciated the candor.

“You should. The world is shit, Dr. Donnelly. Filled with misery, death, and despair. People are born to slavery, wage slaves all their lives, fighting others over what should be well accepted basic principles, and are so closeted in their fears and dread, they think the only way to get ahead is to fuck over anyone that even tangentially gets in their way.”

“Oh, I don’t think it is quite that bad…” Donnelly started to protest.

“Oh, but it is! You show a man an empty bowl, and tell him that if it is filled he will be able to eat. The man will agree. But if you add that his neighbor will also eat, he argues that only he should have the food, his neighbor is responsible for his own. YET, YET, it is not the man that is filling the bowl, but someone else! If I fill the bowl, it is his own achievement and it belongs to him!?” The Client waved his arms from his prone position as if directly a choir hanging from the ceiling, which itself was again both taupe and terrible.

“I would posit that most men would not make such an argument.”

“But they would. Ask them if they should starve, they say no. Ask them if they should be unhoused, they say no. Ask them if they should be uncared for when ill, they say no. But introduce one other into consideration, and they will claim it depends on the situation. They do not believe that the society that very much enables an individual to survive should allow them all to survive. It is a wonder that the human race ever survived getting out of Africa. It is a miracle. Honestly, the fact they even managed to thrive was a huge mistake from the start.”

“Ok, so people are terrible. Let’s set that aside. People themselves would not be the cause of your existential dread, as you put it. So what is causing your dread?”

“The world is dying. All the splendor of the early days of man have all but exhausted themselves. Species disappearing faster than they can be discovered. Entire ecosystems collapse because some fat fuck out there wants another hamburger.”

“Now you are just getting preachy,” Donnelly sniffed haughtily.

“And you are being obtuse.”

Donnelly ignored the insult and continued, “The world is a vastly complex system of intertwining and contrary forces, greater than one single person’s understanding of it. The individual buying the hamburger does not think about the rest of world, he is thinking on his hunger.”

“He should be thinking about the size of his gut and if he will ever see his dick again,” The Client groused.

“And the world is fine. Ecosystems bounce back, species evolve into new niches… give it a few hundred thousand years after the human race is gone, and the world will be an amazing place again,” Donnelly said. He sniffed and rubbed a mindless fingertip below his nose, brushing against his wiry gray mustache absentmindedly trying his best not to think about his own mortality.

“You know, I don’t know why I come here, it’s not like you help me.”

“I do help you,” Donnelly countered. “When was the last time you had a panic attack?”

“You know the answer,” The Client waved it away.

“Answer the question.”

“Fine. 1991.”

“And what happened?” Donnelly pressed.

“I rather not talk about it.” The Client’s face soured and he leaned his head back, covering his eyes with his thick muscular forearms.

“Mt. Pinatubo exploded.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fire, destruction, cooling of the earth by a degree…”

“And… nearly nine hundred people died, and another twenty to thirty thousand displaced, millions of animals killed, agriculture disrupted… a cascading effect on the world for another decade afterwards.”

“It was a bad panic attack, ok?” The Client said defensively.

“And the reason that you have been my client since then, right?” Donnelly pushed.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. My mother made me do it.”

“Should we talk about your mother?”

“If you as so much as whisper her name in here, I might have another panic attack. Don’t get all Freudian on me, as I know it is total bullshit.”

“Well, I won’t invoke your mother. Last thing I need is a visit. But I do help you. Even if you may not realize it at the time.”

There was only silence from the large man reclining on the couch. Donnelly took the lack of continued argument as a subtle compliment.

“Let’s take a different tack. Why do you think humans are so terrible?” Donnelly tried.

“That’s a tough one,” another protracted silence, followed by a heavy sigh. “Because they were made to be terrible, but it was the best attempt compared to everything that came before, so… kind of a win, I suppose.”

Donnelly looked over his notes. “You are concerned for the planet, for the animals and their ecosystems, you think humans are uncaring menaces and that they hate each other as much as they hate themselves, but that does not explain your dread. Why do you feel responsible for it?”

The Client sat up forcibly as if yanked by invisible marionette strings. “I never EVER said that I felt responsible!”

Donnelly tented his fingers over his notebook, chewed pencil between two of them. “That is the most forceful response we have had today. I think you may feel responsible. Think about it. Why would that be?”

Waves of emotions crossed The Client’s face, like shadows of cloud between his face and the sun. Doubt, concern, belief, fear, anger, grief, then acceptance raged across his features individually, each distinct and of its own. “By the Father, I think you are right.”

“Go on,” Donnelly waved.

“I never… I mean the Owled-One said something like that once, but I thought she was being petty. Maybe she was right? Maybe she was trying to tell me something important, but I was so offended by her rejection, riled and angry, I failed to see it?” The Client put his sandaled feet on the faded carpet, and ran his hands through his hair as he processed the discovery. “Then, the anger, the rage, was it displaced? It’s my fault? By the Father, it’s my fault! Shit! I can’t believe I have never seen this before.”

“Be careful with shouldering blame, it may not be all yours to carry. You can still feel grief, even a sense of accountability, but you are in no way culpable for the world as it is today. As I said, the world is a complex, interwound, highly volatile intersection of forces greater than any individual, even for those like you.”

“I gave them the skills, the training, the desire to push forward… I mean the Owled-one helped, as others did here and there. But the inevitable outcome of the forge is the machinations of man at a grand scale. That is it! I am filled with dread because the fucking humans are using the things I taught them to destroy everything around them. I feel responsible, and that is the dread… and the panic attacks to boot.”

“This is a marvelous breakthrough,” Donnelly waved a hand towards The Client. “But you are not to blame. A parent cannot blame themselves when their child dies of their own accord? Does the mother blame herself when her son dies on a foreign shore? Should she? He made his own choices, took his own path, right?”

“I suppose. But the sense of it… Doctor. I gave them the tools! I gave them the training, and put them to work all that time ago, and I have been standing by, just watching in horror ever since…” The Client nodded to himself, his mind working through the complexities and implications. “I am going to have to think about this a little. Maybe from home.”

“That is a brilliant idea. Your mother has been looking forward to you spending some time back on The Mountain. At least that is what she said to me last time we saw each other, which was years ago…” Again it wasn’t just any mountain, it was The Mountain, declarative. “And we are about of out of time, anyway.”

The Client wiped at his eyes, and Donnelly noted a sense of relief in the sunken hollows of The Client’s face.

“Yes,” The Client slapped his knees as he stood up. His muscular frame rose of the couch gracefully, preternaturally as a dragon rising through wisps of clouds. “When should we visit again?”

“It seems time works differently between us, but when you are ready, just reach out like you have in the past. Don’t wait so long next time, eh?” Donnelly joked. “I may not be alive.”

The Client narrowed his eyes as if taking the Therapist for the first time. “Ah, you are older. How long has it been for you?”  

“Eleven or twelve years now, I think.”

“Blink of an eye, eh?” The Client smiled.

“For some more than others.”

“Goodbye Dr. Donnelly, and you can use my name, it is… acceptable this time. Thank you.”

“Of course, you are welcome… Hephaestus. Give your mother my best.”

The God turned and the world shifted subtly, one moment there was a massive brute of a man standing in front of the door, and the next, nothing but the smell of hot ash and smelting iron in an empty room. The Therapist leaned back into his chair and glanced at his watch. He had at least an hour before the next clients were going to show up, but at least they always brought some treats to discuss their marriage over… and they typically used the door.

Donnelly glanced at his door, and lightly grinned at the reversed lettering on the glass of his office door.

Dr. Ephram Donnelly, Psy.D. Therapist to All

“Put this in your ear, Jackie.” Armond held out his hand expectantly, palm up, inviting Jax to take one. The comm earwigs were made of a blue shimmery crystal, and even the finely wrought miniscule pincers reflected the dim light within the van from every possible angle.

Jax took one carefully, looking over the magical object with a measure of fear, disgust, and reverence. Magic never sat well with her, and as a non-magical being, it felt… well, unnatural.

“Oh, don’t be a wuss. You stick it in your ear, it will blend in, no one will be the wiser. Once we are done, you pull it out and chuck it back my way. They’re completely harmless,” Armond added with a sly grin. He handed the remainder of the earwigs out to the others.

Garbles took one with a grunt, shoving it in his ear without a thought, and racking his oversized railgun like it was providing real world punctuation, then stowing it in it’s oversize instrument case. After the halfling troll made such a brusque example, the rest of the crew hastily pushed the commbugs into their ears, and Jax lagged behind, feeling inwardly guilty to be the last one to commit.

“So let’s review the plan one more time, everyone should know their parts,” Armond lifted his lip, his uberogre bloodline evident in the size of the lower incisors nestled behind the stereotypically handsome human face. “I will go in as a client seeking the manager. Once I have him secluded, I will frost him and take his rune deck. Got it?”

Everyone nodded or grunted assent in time.

Armond continued, “I will give the go-ahead over comms, then… Garbles, Frick?”

Garbles growled, of course, while Frick grinned widely, allowing his forked tongue to flick across his lips. “The troll and I station up near the doors, covering the streets, both the market-side and the main avenue. If it gets messy inside, Garbles goes in and takes the guards down while I keep the doors secured.”

“Right. Jackie?”

“I slip in behind you, stick to the edges and be as unremarkable and unnoticeable as I can be until the diversion starts.”

“Great,” Armond nodded at the newbie, trying to encourage her as best he could without letting the crew pick up on it. He knew of her hidden talent, of course. “And our diversion, Wick?”

Wick leaned his goggled head over the front seat, still tapping furiously at his oversized cobbled together laptop as he spoke. “I send the spike to the alarms, then I shunt the waterworks and flood the building. That leaves the runes for Jackie.”

“With the water flooding the bank, the water should distract the guards, and being the little pussies that they are, they will head under cover to avoid getting wet,” Armond flicked a hand along his suit sleeve, picking off a bit of white lint. “I drop the rune deck to Jackie from the upper floor, she wipes the runes at the vault level, and hopefully slips in undetected. The vault phasing should envelop her wholly, and she will be in and out, with the guards none the wiser.”

Jax felt her confidence escalate as she imagined entering the vault, purloining the riches within. “And I grab anything and everything I carry out the back to the van.”

Armond corrected her, “Ah, ah, ah – the first thing you grab?”

“The leather messenger bag with the gilded brass buckles that should be laying on the center table,” Jax sighed. “Why we need a silly bag of all things…”

“Good girl. The rest is gravy. That bag is what we were hired for, and that is our payday. Get the bag, get what else you can, and get out. And you should probably avoid any gold bars, a bit heavy,” Armond turned to the rest of the team. “Stay on comms, when you hear the all clear, go your separate ways. We meet up at the safehouse in three days’ time. Look for the signal in the window, if its not there, randomly circle back every other day until it is. Everyone good on their parts?”

Another wave of assent swept the back of the van.

“Great. Alright Nocke, let’s go.”

Nocke started the van, and the tires squealed briefly as they pulled out into traffic, headed towards the stout fortress of the Mercadian Central Bank three blocks away. The ‘goyle stuck his middle finger out the window to let the honking drivers what to do with their opinions.

Jackie, or Jax, as she preferred, did not necessarily want to live a life a crime. It was probably just a phase, she told herself often. Deep down she wondered.

Jacqueline Deanna Armas was born as a terribly normal human, to an abysmally normal family, and experienced a dreadfully boring childhood until her father had the audacity to shuffle off the mortal coil when she was twelve. Her father was a local political figure of some consequence, an admired Consul that moved within the circles of power that kept the capitol city of Mercadia functioning smoothly. No one had ever informed her of what happened to her dad, but it was then that she stopped calling herself Jacqueline, and insisted on being called Jackie. Because it was “Miss Jacqueline” or “Miss Armas” from the staff or “JACQUELINE DEANNA ARMAS” when she was in trouble with the nanny or mother. It wasn’t until she met her best friend Tulsi that she had finally encountered the name she loved. Maybe it was Tulsi, maybe it wasn’t.

And now, Jax was standing on the corner of the financial district, glancing upwards on the grand marble façade of the Mercadian Central Bank, where even the gargoyles that lived on the eaves looked fancy, their flapping golden wings shimmering in the morning light. Armond was a few paces ahead of her, and she clutched the slip charm tightly against her chest, muttering the activation word that only two people on the whole of existence had ever known, and no one on the street witnessed as the lithe human woman shimmered beyond their notice. She was nothing but an afterthought, a forgotten dream, a fragment of a lost conversation floating away into the air.

Armond must have really trusted her, she realized, as he held the door open a split second longer than he had to, just to allow her entrance without tripping the hex barrier at the front doors. She effortlessly crossed the threshold, the ancient power of the family charm was just as invisible as she was.

Jax laughed aloud, marveling at the power that laid against her skin, but the charm stole that away as well, whittling her voice to nothing more than squeak of a heel or a rustle of a pant leg of the other customers that crisscrossed the floor of the cathedral-like bank. A few gargoyles lined the upper architraves far above, taking their break, blowing over hot cups of coffee and taking delicate bites of their cinnamon pastries.

Armond gracefully lifted his hand, waving at the wiry thin bank manager with the wispy mustache perched unsteadily on his top lip, his nametag catching the light. Jax peeled off to the left, finding the wall as quickly as she could so could focus on the exchange, keeping an eye on her boss, as he did what he did best.

Schmooze.

Was it his blood line? Some trickle of crossbreed magic in his blood? Maybe he was like Jax, hiding an ancient family charm somewhere on his person, one that was crafted by sirens, encapsulating their enchanting song? A thing to beguile others, make their eyes linger, their blood warm, and their pleasure centers tingle? Probably nothing like that. He was just exceptionally handsome and he knew how to expertly swing his charm around like a battle axe of his green-skinned kin.

“Ah, Mr. Armond! So glad you made it!” The bank manager smiled warmly.

Armond lowered his arm, taking the bank manager’s offered hand and shaking it warmly. Jax noticed he had put his other hand over the top, gently squeezing the bank manager’s clasp with both of his palms. The bank manager made note of it as well, and Jax grinned. The poor man had it bad. He was smitten.

“And I am so glad to have made it as well, Mr. Ducal. After receiving your call last week, I was most impressed that you had an investment opportunity already prepared so soon after our first meeting.”

The manager smiled graciously, “I would love to discuss it, ah, up in my office?”

Jax felt her eyes go wide. Was he serious? Was it really this easy? How did Armond just wander through his life having people just trip all over themselves to give him what he really wanted?

Armond smiled widely in return. “Of course. Show the way.”

Jax wondered briefly if Armond had that same power of persuasion over her. She had indirectly met him two years ago, as she and her friends had barhopped through the riverside district. It was supposed to be for her eighteenth birthday, but with liquid bravery being ingested amongst squealing inebriated women dressed in scantily arranged clothing, she couldn’t resist attempting to break her personal pickpocketing record. Armond had been surrounded by distractions, and lifting his pocketbook had been effortless. Even after all this time, she had yet to figure out how he had tracked her down, hours later, on a completely different quarter of the district.

Armond had confronted her kindly on the dance floor, throbbing music afloat in the air, as he pulled her aside, complemented her skills, and firmly rescued his wallet from her purse. Noticing the wealth of wallets within, he handed her a card, and offered her a job with a impressed smirk.

She wasn’t attracted to him, so that wasn’t it… but she was attracted to the freedom of what he had offered. But it was still her own choice, right? It was a way to break from the mold that had been set for her, the expectations that confined her, that worked to pin her under obligation and duty. Armond had offered her an escape. Maybe he was just good at giving people what they wanted.

Armond followed the bank manager with confidence, gliding among the thin crowds of both employees and customers, everyone seemingly busy in their own way. Jax circled away from the teller wall, rushing through shadows, doing her best to keep her feet on rugs and carpet, avoiding the marble floor. The charm covered everything, but best to maintain good habits. She positioned herself in the nook of where the expansive spiral staircase curled back on itself, nearly reaching the wall. She kneeled behind it, and looked upwards at the glass of the manager’s office.

Outside, Garbles and Frick should have setup near the main door, each watching a different street that lead to the bank, while Nocke idled the van out back, where Wick was probably pounding his keyboard with glee. As if their ears were burning, she heard the comms check far away in her ear, knowing the charm was doing its strange work to quiet the commbug.

“Avenue clear,” Garbles muttered.

“Market clear,” Frick added quickly.

“In position,” Nocke replied.

“Wick?” Frick followed up.

“Here, here. Uh, two minutes. Standby. I see Armond in the manager’s office through the interior windows, and I am assuming Jackie is at the stairs?”

Jax gently pushed one of the planters on the balustrade near her elbow.

“Ah, clever girl. Jackie is in position,” Wick added. “I see two guards as planned. Its the ugly troll…”

“Hey,” Garbles snarled lightly.

“Sorry mate, but trolls are ugly. Be proud of it. Unfortunately, the other is the old dwarf, the one with the metal eye.”

Frick sighed, “Jackie, just to be safe, stay out of eyeline of the dwarf. We don’t know if his smithed eye can pick you up or not. He may only see what the camera’s see, but better safe than sorry.”

Jax scanned the crowd and saw the older dwarf sitting on a stool near the teller windows. He was more interested in the magazine in his lap than the crowd around him. But why should he be worried? The last time the Mercadian Central Bank had a crime occur, he had not been born yet. She made a mental note of where he lounged and fully ducked behind the balustrade to ensure she stayed hidden.

Jax sighed as she remembered herself as a fourteen year old that only felt alive when she was making away with small paltry thefts under the careful watch of her caretakers. It was the one thing that infused her soul, the sole activity that she craved above all things. When she went counter to the expectations that had been set for her, she was finally made real, and not some cardboard cutout that her mother insisted attend the senseless functions full of boredom and populated by dull, unremarkable people. On one of her early thievery jaunts to the undercity, Jackie and her best friend Tulsi had stolen a particularly expensive set of watches, but somehow one of them had tripped over a sleeping guard dog in the process. The dog had alerted the owner, one thing led to another, and after a heated pursuit in which they lost their pursuers, the two had collapsed into a pile of giggles behind a garden wall. The laughter was deep and relentless, fueled by both raw adrenaline and exhausted leg muscles. Tulsi had slugged her in the shoulder, looking over their their pile of oversized watches, and had said, “I wouldn’t do this with anyone else, Jax.”

Jax smiled at the memory. She glanced up above and it appeared that the blinds had been drawn while she was lost in thought. Armond was either cleverer than half, or lucky as hell. How does one get the bank manager in his office and close the blinds for privacy? Did that wispy man, what was his name again? Duscald? Duckle? Ducall? Something like that. Ducall was up there trying to seduce her boss. She stuck her tongue out and play-gagged at the thought.

“Alright, no cameras in the manager’s office. You are clear, Armond. Let us know when to pop the distractions.”

“Finally. I was wondering how long it was going to take you,” Armond replied, as if he had been impatiently waiting for hours. “Jackie?”

Jax looked up and saw Armond’s face, and she knew he was looking at an empty space. She tugged a frond of the nearby plant back and forth as an impromptu signal.

“Ah, there you are. Heads up.” Armond dropped the rune deck from the second floor balcony. “Alright, Wick, spike the alarms and punch the water.”

“In three, two, one—“

The comms were overtaken by the peal of thunder as the water rune was activated at the dome of the bank ceiling. Hundreds of gallons would cascade downwards in the next few minutes, with both atmospheric and water magic at play, the storage tanks on the roof dumping their contents through the enchanted seal, drenching the customers and employees alike.

“Front door is locked.” Garbles came back through on comms.

“Streets are still clear, no audible alarms out here,” Frick added calmly.

“Sorry, Ma’am, the bank is temporarily closed, fire alarm testing.” Garbles voice came up again and was followed by the far off sound of a disturbed customer. Jax couldn’t make out whatever she had to say. “No Ma’am. We are definitely testing. Right now, in fact.”

Frick laughed over the channel as Jax rushed through the downpour. Her form may have been invisible, but the rain bouncing off of her was very much visible, but thankfully, both of the guards were at the main door, attempting to figure out how the doors had locked on themselves.

Jax made it to the vault enclave without issue and spun in place to face the central floor where the customers and employees were all huddled tightly against the teller windows, attempting to stay out of the torrential downpour. The water bounced off of desks, stone, and furniture alike, spiraling in a great shallow whirlpool around the central drain positioned at the middle of the expansive floor.

She flipped the rune book open, turning the slate pages as if it was a deck of cards in the hands of an expert gambler. The last sheet was the rune for the vault enclave, it’s mark matching the oversized one below her feet. Jax took her wet forearm, swiping across it. The chalk came right off on her sleeve, and before her, where before she was facing the main floor of the bank, now the enclave faced a sizeable vault room, a number of small tables near the center, with safety deposit boxes on every wall.

The transition had made her lightheaded. Phaseportal magic was complex, and to traverse into the vault, which technically, was in the same place as the main bank floor, took a fair amount of energy. Whatever batteries had powered her transition, she was glad that the energy they leveraged hadn’t disrupted her charm. To the employees and customers of the bank, they still only saw the floor of the bank getting soaked by the cascading water falling from overhead.

She dropped the rune book on the table next to the simple leather bag with brass buckles. Nothing else was on the tables. She grabbed the bag, hitching the strap over her head, and releasing the Slip charm with the safe word. As if she had been dressed in pillows covering every square inch of her body, she suddenly felt unleashed. Her voice was free again.

“I have the bag,” she exhaled. “Nothing else in here except the deposit boxes.”

“Good girl, that’s all we need. Get out of there. I am headed to the van to leave with the others. Garbles, Frick, as soon as Jackie is clear, get gone.”

Jax ran back to the enclave, picking up the rune deck from where she had dropped it. She swiped over the rune deck again, and the chalk returned to its place. In a half a breath, the central floor was back in front of her with nary a sound or flicker of energy. She surreptitiously slid the rune deck in-between a planter and the plant within it, ditching it as quickly as she could. She huddled her shoulders and ran through the dwindling downpour.

“Ah, love, this way,” one of the tellers called out. She was an elderly human, and to her eyes, Jax probably looked like a drowned rat. “Oh you poor dear, you are absolutely soaked. Where were you?”

“I, uh-huh, was in the bathroom,” Jax made her voice crack as if she was on the verge of ugly tears. She turned her shivering up a couple notches.

“That is terrible. Terrible. You poor thing.”

The troll guard finally managed to get the doors opened, and sunlight flooded into the wide bank chamber, illuminating the fog that was forming from the massive humidity change.

The old teller patted Jax lightly on the back, walking her towards the light.

“No one leaves, Mrs. Rowlson,” the troll guard sniffed haughtily. “We have to take names and information of everyone in here.”

“Nonsense, Mr. Brgx. This poor child was in the BATHROOM! THE BATHROOM! When the fire alarm went off. Do you think any woman should be subject to that abject humiliation!? And then BE SUBJECTED TO QUESTIONING as if they are a common criminal? Look at her! She is a highborn, and she was in the wrong place at absolutely the wrong time, and you are going to be a sensible clod-brain and let her into the sunshine. And if there are any problems, all of them can come to me for addressing. Do YOU understand?”

“Um, yes, um, yes ma’am.” The troll looked as if he had just been slapped.

Mrs. Rowlson gently guided Jax out the front doors and into the sunshine. The street looked completely as it had, not an enforcer or badge in sight. “You head home, dear. Dry off, and we will see you next time, right? Let me flag you a cab.”

The old teller ushered Jax to the street, and out of the corner of her eye, Jax caught Frick smiling devilishly in the market crowd, shaking his head in disbelief.

“You should see this guys, Jackie is being escorted onwards to her escape,” Frick laughed.

“You are a natural, Jackie,” Wick added.

“She is a highborn natural, and I think she has earned to be called Jax now,” Armond appended. “See you all in three days.”

A cab rolled up, its team of domesticated Griffins snapping at their leads. The driver nodded at the teller, and Mrs. Rowlson gently helped Jax into the cab. “Take her wherever she wants. Here is a handful, keep the change.”

“Thank you,” Jax whimpered.

“Be safe, dear.”

“Oh my gods,” Frick was gasping for air, he was laughing so hard.

“You stupid Sylvan, get out of there,” Armond admonished, sounding like a disappointed father.

“I am, I am. Too good to miss. On my way.”

The cab rolled forward, and Jax picked a random location from her memory, calling it through the driver window. “Crusher and Tully Street, please.”

She leaned back in the seat, feeling the fabric under her hands, her clothing feeling clammy and tight across her back. The bag was nestled in her lap, the buckles gleaming brightly against the dark leather. She ran her hand across the leather, resisting the urge open the bag here, in the cab, to see what had was the impetus for the greatest bank robbery that Mercadian Central Bank had yet to fathom.

But she resisted. It could wait until she was off the street. And first, she could pull the damn earwig out, then maybe get into some warm clothes. After that…

What to do for three days? She felt a tingle under her fingers, but thought nothing of it.

It was probably just nerves.