Just past midnight, Matthew opened the door to Gran’s office. For the last few weeks, he’d found that this time of night was a perfect opportunity to catch up on paperwork; the house was quiet, there were no interruptions, he almost couldn’t believe that he used to waste these hours sleeping. He sighed as he shuffled forwards, almost willing his feet to move, then paused as he noticed a light shining through the open vault door.
He put the files he carried down on the desk, then crept to the door, his tiredness momentarily forgotten. Voices were echoing up from the stairway, several voices. Whomever was down there, wasn’t alone. He hesitated a moment, thinking. The only people who should’ve been awake at this time of night were the Factory late shift, and surely they wouldn’t be downstairs. But who else could it be, he asked himself. The Firstborn were long gone, and If they were more thieves, well, what was there left to steal? Still, he reasoned, there was no need to be foolish.
He crept over to the bookcase behind Gran’s desk and pulled down the biggest, heaviest book that he could find, something that could really do damage if swung in a hurry. He turned over the cover and saw it was last year’s balance ledger; good, hopefully it would frighten them as badly as it had frightened him.
Hefting the ledger, he started to creep down the stairs as quietly as he was able. He hardly dared to breathe. The voices were beginning to grow clearer now as he got nearer, and was starting to make them out.
“--Shelf eighteen, row fire, Items twelve through…”
“Fifty three, sir!”
“That many? Yes, fifty three… Status: stolen.” There was the scratch of a pen on paper. “There should be three more items though, what about them?”
Matthew frowned. That sounded like Seward’s voice. He crept closer to the bottom. There was a group of people gathered around the shelves to his left, poking around at the ashes. They’re backs were all to him, but he could hear them much more clearly now.
“Yes, sir,” a lighter voice piped up. “They’re in the back of the shelf here, by the, ah… fire damage. I’m afraid they’re lost.”
“Completely?”
“Yes sir. Unrecoverable.”
He heard a great sigh. It was definitely Seward, the faint rattle gave it away. “Very well. I’ll update the list,” he said, with more pen scratching. “Status: destroyed by fire. Thank you, Woggle. Let’s move onto shelf nineteen now.” There was a general grumbling and he heard Seward speak up. “Come on now, we’ve only got five more shelves to go. Let’s hurry up and be done before Matthew finds a reason to–”
Matthew stepped out from the staircase, clearing his throat loudly. He saw the group flinch as one, and as they turned, he recognized them. Three of them were Seward’s clerks, a pair of skinny Elves and a gnome, all in dull, blue suits. They always seemed to be standing behind Seward, nodding silently whenever he spoke, and frowning whenever Matthew opened his mouth. They stared guilty at him, their eyes flicking to Seward, who stood with a ledger in his hands.
“Ah, good evening, Matthew, I didn’t expect you to be–”
“No, I don’t imagine you did,” Matthew said sharply. He looked around the ruined Vault, there were still piles of ashes yet to be swept up, and some of the shelves were still in need of repair. “Little late to be working, isn't it?”
As soon as he said it, Matthew knew how ridiculous it sounded, they were both up after all, but there was no taking it back now. Seward seemed to realize it too. Instead of responding, he simply closed his ledger and looked at him cooly, waiting.
After a moment, trying to sound casual, Matthew asked, “So, what are you working on?”
The clerks froze, their eyes going to Seward, but he hardly seemed to twitch. “Inventory. I wanted to catalog all the items that were either lost or stolen as soon as possible. Just so we have a complete record of what’s missing.”
“That’s a good idea,” Matthew said, nodding. “It would’ve been really helpful to have that before the Auction!” He hadn’t meant to shout the last few words, but they’d come out in a tumble all at once. The clerks flinched back from him, looking nervously towards the stairs.
Seward, on the other hand, hardly raised a scale. He made a languid gesture to the clerks. “Why don’t you give Matthew and I a moment, please?” Before the words were out of his mouth, they were rushing up the stairs, pushing past each other in haste. Matthew hardly noticed them go.
When the door upstairs had slammed shut, Seward tucked the ledger behind his back. Matthew’s eyes flickered down to it.
“You’re angry,” Seward said evenly. “You’re wondering why I didn’t tell you about the Vault. Why no one did.”
“Of course I’m angry!” Matthew shouted. “I’ve been working for months to keep the Factory afloat, spending God knows how many hours running around, finding anything in the house that could be worth a damn and all this time you–”
“And none of the artifacts down here could have helped with that,” Seward said evenly.
Matthew stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
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“Walk with me,” he said, turning around. Matthew hesitated for a moment, then swiftly followed after him down one of the aisles.
“What do you mean?” he asked impatiently. “Even if we couldn’t have sold everything down here, it wasn’t your decision to make! I’m the one who’s supposed to be in charge, you need to start respecting–”
He stopped abruptly as Seward turned. They were now in front of a collapsed shelf, partly consumed by fire. One area in particular had been roped off by the workers, encircling a large red and orange puddle on the floor. The liquid lay shimmering on the stone floor, strange patterns rippling across its surface as a bit of it slowly dripped from the shelf.
Broken bits of glass vials crunched under Matthew’s feet. “What are you showing me?” he asked.
“Step carefully, please,” Seward asked him, motioning him back. “Some of the items aren’t reacting well to each other.”
Matthew blinked and stepped back quickly. He followed Seward’s pointing finger and saw that when the shelf had collapsed, some of the artifacts it held had fallen into the puddle as well. Several jeweled rings were lying partly submerged, as well as an ornate bracelet that winked back at him with the gleam of gold. Frowning, he wondered why no one had bothered to retrieve the jewelry yet.
As Matthew watched, Seward held up his arm and pushed his sleeve back over his elbow. He scratched for a moment at his forearm, until he pried up a small, golden scale and plucked it free. He dangled the thin, almost translucent scale above the puddle, and then let it drop.
The scale had fallen only a few inches before the liquid leapt up to consume it, snatching it right out of the air. Matthew leapt back with a startled oath as the suddenly animate puddle thrashed around wildly, rocking the shelf and making the ropes around it dance. The scale sizzled and hissed as it dissolved away, vanishing in seconds. When it was gone, the puddle continued to thrash, tendrils poking up from the surface to wave through the air.
“You never know what you’re going to get when you mix magics,” Seward explained. He gestured to the collapsed shelf, pointing at the identification cards that were still affixed to the slats. Many held the telltale black skull and crossbones mark for a cursed item. Matthew swallowed as he watched some of the puddle tendrils begin to creep up the wood, seeking blindly for new prey.
“This shelf held a number of cursed jewelries, along with a generous collection of poisons and venoms, all gathered over the years by your great-great Aunt Morticcia. Fascinating woman; it seems she had a great number of enemies in her time, but sadly none seemed to outlived her.” He watched the tendrils slowly slip back down from the shelf, disappearing back into the surface, until it was a still, unassuming puddle once more.
“Cheerwood thinks the combination of items may have created an entirely new being; that it may even be intelligent. As exciting as that may be,” he sighed, “it’s not exactly something we can package and sell, now is it?”
“Among other things, this Vault held a number of very dangerous items,” Seward explained carefully. “Things that could raise questions if the public were to find out about them.”
Matthew swallowed, taking another prudent step back from the puddle as he did so. “Still, there must have been some things that we could’ve sold. Something not cursed, or deadly, or alive maybe?”
Seward shook his head. “You’re not understanding my point. Do you remember what I told you about your Aunt Morticcia? Do you think she advertised that she had all of these things in her possession, especially when people started dying around her? What about her father, your great Uncle Maddock, who served as chief wizard for the pirate Henry Every? Do you think that everything he brought back home was bought and paid for?” He shook his head scornfully.
“There is a dark side to the history of your family, one that I’m not sure that you fully appreciate. I deliberately kept this Vault, and its contents, from the Auction for this very reason. Even if they could be sold safely, their very presence would have raised any number of uncomfortable questions for us, questions that I wasn’t sure you were able to handle. Don’t you understand,” he asked Matthew, almost sounding like he was pleading with him, “I have been protecting you!”
Matthew struggled to speak, his mouth suddenly dry. “You-you should’ve talked to me! Explained it! I would’ve listened–”
“Listen!?” Seward repeated, shouting now. “Listen? All you do is listen, Matthew! That’s your problem!”
Matthew watched as he started to pace back and forth in agitation, his nostrils flaring, his tongue darting out between his fangs. He’d never seen Seward like this before, and it was actually a bit disturbing.
“Since your Grandmother died, all you’ve done is run from one end of the property to the other, listening to anyone you could and agreeing with whatever it is they told you! Dwyer wants to increase shift hours, so we do! Kelphin wants to hire more staff, so we do! Albert wants to rebuild some of the production lines, so we do!”
At this, Matthew quickly shook his head, objecting. “No! I told him that we can’t pay for that yet–”
“Then why has he already ordered the parts?” Seward asked him. “Why is it all he can talk about?”
At this, Matthew had no answer.
Seward jabbed him in his chest with a finger. “You can’t say no to them, and they know it. They walk all over you, making any decision they want, and you can’t do a thing about it. If I’d told you there was a treasure trove of items right under the floorboards, how long would it have taken Albert to beg to sell them? Or Kelphin? Do you think they’d have worried for a minute about the damage any of these items could’ve done in unknowing hands? Or even the wrong hands, like that fool Trimble?”
“You were the one ready to sell to him–”
Seward waved his hands in the air. “I sold him harmless trinkets at four times their actual value! What’s the harm in that?”
He stopped suddenly, his voice lowered, as if debating himself. “If a fool wants to give me his money, I’m certainly not going to stop him. What’s the harm? What’s the harm? We certainly needed the money after all.”
He pointed a trembling finger then at Matthew. “And don’t think for a moment that I held back anything from the Auction. I was not trying to sabotage you! I went through the mansion from top to bottom, hours after you were already in bed, finding anything that wasn’t cursed or collateral. I checked everything! Everything!” he swore. “I have been the one holding this business together and it is time that you started listening to me!”
Matthew stared at him, completely speechless.
With effort, Seward seemed to collect himself. He smoothed down the front of his shirt and then brushed back the scales on top of his head. “And you can rest assured, Matthew, I will continue saving this company. It is the task your Grandmother has left for me and I will continue to carry it out as I see fit.” He started to leave the room then, pausing at the stairs. “Sleep well, Matthew. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”
With that, he turned and started to climb the stairs, leaving Matthew behind in the Vault, staring into the darkness.