Lucas had two full days to recover from the ordeal he’d put his body through, but it didn’t feel like enough time. While his body was still dealing with the fatigue caused by his near assassination, his mind was now equally ravaged by his brush with the divine.
She probably could snuff my soul out without trying, he told himself as he worked his way through a bowl of chicken broth the evening after it happened. The nausea faded quickly, but his hand still shook whenever he thought about that moment, and he was always thinking about it.
He couldn’t stop. The worst part to him, beyond even the tantalizing glimpse that he was almost there, was that he couldn’t prove any of it was true.
It might have just been the ramblings of a deranged mind, he thought. Lord knows I’ve seen crazier shit before when I was high.
Still, it made sense, in principle. He’d come from a different world. His soul and even his ideas might be incompatible with the magic here. Well, partially compatible, he corrected himself. Compatible enough to glitch out and give me crazy ass dreams.
If chemistry was so incompatible with making magical potions, then why was it working so well? He didn’t have the answer, and as he assisted Heisenburgle on autopilot that evening, he was sure the gnome didn’t either. There was nothing in his alchemy tomes about any of this. If there was, he would have already told Lucas about it twice.
Really, it was plain to see that the gnome wouldn’t have given him the time of day if not for the fact that Lucas was obviously on to something. Tonight, though, nothing was working. No matter which toxic ingredients Heisenburgle tried to add to the Blue to make it that much more potent, nothing special showed up.
Oh, Lucas showed him that if they catalyzed only a single toxic substance, it produced something vaguely shimmering and opalescent in most cases. He did, however, neglect to mention that all of those potions that didn’t become toxic waste had one of two labels in his system. All of them became some flavor of Potions of Mana Intoxication, or in a few cases, like with troll blood, they became Potions of Health Intoxication.
None of them were getting them any closer to their goal, though, and according to Heisenburgle’s rantings, they were becoming quite costly. Still, Lucas tuned all that out as he considered the Goddess’s words and tried to figure out what ingredient was almost there. Am I using the wrong kind of Blue Esper Willow Sap? He wondered. That seemed to be the most likely option. There were dozens of tree varieties that the parasitic vine fed off of, and Lucas knew for a fact that the properties varied from variety to variety. Still, the kind he used he’d chosen specifically because it was the bluest and the most poisonous, which seemed about right for what he was making. Would the purplish sap of a Blue Esper Beach Sap or the blackish sap of a Blue Esper Oak Sap be a better choice?
Blue Esper Beach Sap: Agility 1, poison 1, endurance 1
Blue Esper Oak Sap: Strength 2, poison 1, endurance -1, perception -2
When he suggested that to Heisenburgle, the gnome practically jumped at the idea. “These are not all things we stock,” the gnome explained, “So that trial run will have to begin after our upcoming party, but I’ll send for them at once.”
The fact that Heisenburgle seemed so enthusiastic about it counted against the idea as far as Lucas was concerned, and his excitement faded even as Heisenburgle’s enthusiasm increased. He was fairly sure the gnome liked the idea solely because it was cheaper than using Chimera Blood and Troll Bile.
I suppose that I can’t really fault him for that, Lucas decided. He’d certainly used enough cheap filler to cut shit when he was out of the right stuff. What they had now was good enough to keep Skylara happy anyway, so that was all that mattered.
So, by the time Mr. Twee arrived for him with a new suit and all the materials he needed to tailor it to Lucas’s exact measurements, the gnome was once again lost in the apparatus that he was using to try to distill starlight, and Lucas was happy to let him waste all the time in the world on that. It beat feeding poison to condemned addicts to see how they died.
Still, it was only after Mr. Twee arrived, and Lucas saw how agitated he seemed in the presence of guards, that he finally realized something. It turned out that he might have a way to find out if what had happened was real or not. However, he wasn’t sure exactly how to broach that subject with his tailor.
“Hey man, good to see you again,” Lucas said, walking up to the bespeckled milk toast man and shaking his hand as the guards finished inspecting his cases. “I’m really sorry you had to come all this way, but there was a… an accident, and my wardrobe didn’t make it.”
“Oh, my pleasure, Mr. Parrin, My pleasure.” Mr. Twee answered, shaking his hand with a grip that was just a bit too tight for the rest of his mannerisms.
Lucas said nothing at that. He just escorted the man to his room, making idle chit-chat the whole way. When they arrived, the tailor spent a moment laying out his cases on the bed and getting out everything he needed while Lucas asked about his daughter’s health.
“Oh, she hasn’t had a single complaint since she got better,” the older man smiled. “Really, I don’t think there’s a single sick child in all of Meadowin. We’ve got you to thank for that, I think.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Don’t thank me,” Lucas smiled. “Thank my repeat customers. They’re the unsung heroes in all this.”
The tailor laughed nervously, which was typical for him in Lucas’ limited experience but not so much what his vision would lead him to believe about the man’s true nature. I’m going to have to dig a whole lot deeper than small talk to figure this out, Lucas told himself. But how do I do that without scaring him for life if he’s not the man I think he is.
“I’m sorry I only had time to make the one,” he said, showing off the fine dark suit he’d brought with him. “I made it from my notes regarding your previous order. ”
“It looks great,” Lucas said, pretending to admire the sharp lines of the suit. He didn’t really care, though, as long as it was presentable. “exactly what I was looking for.”
During the fitting, Lucas never really found the right way to bring the subject up. He had know idea how one was supposed to ask, ‘Hey man, is it true you’re a retired killer for hire?’ It was only when Mr. Twee was putting in the last few stitches to hem the pants that he said, “You know, those movements of yours are so sharp that you look like a dualist sometimes more than a tailor.”
The old man chuckled at that, but there was a hardness in his eyes when he looked up that hadn’t been there before. “What makes you say that?” Mr. Twee asked. “I come from a long line of tailors, nothing more.”
“Well, I just hear stories that maybe you weren’t always a tailor, you know?” Lucas said. “At first, I paid them no mind, but now I could see it, to be honest.”
“Could you now? How is that exactly?” The tailor asked as he straightened, folded up his spectacles, and put them in his breast pocket. “When I look at you, I see a crime lord trying and failing to blend in as a fop. I wonder what you see in me?”
The soft blue eyes of Mr. Twee were gone. In their place were the hard, icy eyes of a stranger who looked just like him. Lucas felt the overwhelming urge to draw his sword at that look. Fortunately, he wasn’t wearing it. It was hung over the chair not far from him. Still, he was certain if he drew on this man, he would die for it.
So, he didn’t. Instead, he stood there calmly and said, “I see a man with blood on his hands who’s not looking for any more, a man who’s trying to put his particular talents to better use. That’s all.”
The man barely moved, but suddenly, there was a knife in his hand. Lucas recognized that the handle of the blade had been the handle to his small tailoring case a moment ago. That was enough to make him wonder just how many weapons the tailor had gotten by a fortress full of guards, but he said nothing. The only armor he had now was pride and self-assurance.
Mr. Twee doesn’t want to blow his own cover any more than he wants me to blow it for him, Lucas told himself. He’s just trying to put on a show to scare me. That’s all.
“The difference between not wanting more blood on my hands and not needing to is as slender as this blade,” the tailor said, turning the knife slightly so that it all but disappeared from Lucas’ view to demonstrate how slender it really was.
“Well, even though you are a killer, I’m the last person you’d kill, well, the last person besides Danaria,” Lucas answered confidently. “Plus, if you aren’t willing to kill a couple people to buy your daughter extra healing potions, I would say that the odds are slim that you’re willing to kill at all anymore.”
“I promised my wife before she passed that no blood money would ever touch our little girl,” the Tailor countered. “So if I’m not getting paid for this, maybe that’s okay.”
“Maybe it is,” Lucas answered, spreading his arms a little wider in an inadvisable dare. “I’m just trying to get to know my people. That's all.”
“You still didn’t tell me who you heard those rumors from,” the tailor spat, holding his stiletto with the grace of a viper.
“I made it up,” Lucas said quickly, certain that the man in front of him would kill anyone he had to, to cover his tracks.
For just a moment he thought about throwing his least favorite junkie under the bus there. It would be a convenient way to make the man disappear, but Lucas decided against it. If Adin needed to die, Lucas would do it himself, letting other people do it was the coward’s way out.
“Made it up?” the man asked, confused by the answer.
“I… there was something off about you, and I was testing a theory,” Lucas answered quickly, trying to decide what he would do if the man in front of him really went in for the kill.
“Sharp instincts,” the man mused, sheathing his weapon back into the handle of the case, making it disappear completely. “I shall have to be more careful. What gave me away?”
“The look in your eyes when you’re pretending to believe my lies,” Lucas answered quickly. It was complete bullshit, of course, but it was bullshit that he would have believed himself.
“I shall work more on my patience then,” Mr. Twee said with a small mocking bow. “Allow me to make myself clear. Those days are far behind me. I want no part in your organization, nor will I be drawn back into my old line of work again. All I wish to do is make clothing and raise my daughter. If you attempt to change that or draw too much attention down upon my new home, I will see to it that you suffer more than me.”
“I’m not looking for a killer,” Lucas answered with a shake of his head. “I’m actually slowly easing out of the drug business. I'm working on perfumes and cosmetics these days.”
“You came to Blackgate to work on cosmetics?” the tailor asked with a smirk. “I find that unlikely.”
“Well, this is a side trip. All of this is politics,” Lucas responded quickly. “You can tell from the suit and all the dancing. Trust me, the sooner I get this behind me, the better. Back in Parin Manor, though, trust me, we’re trying to go straight.”
“We shall see…” the man said, acting as if he could stare right through him now that his spectacles were off. “For now, though…”
Mr. Twee waved his hand, and a small swarm of needles flew through the air, going right in front of Lucas’s face before embedding in the door he was standing next to. “You will never speak of this to anyone. Not even your lieutenants, and certainly not to Miss Parin, is that understood?” he said as he picked up his glasses and started to polish them on his shirt. “This has been a significant enough interruption to my privacy. You are the first person to discover my secret in a long time and remain breathing, do you understand?”
“I do,” Lucas said, unable to keep his eyes away from the cluster of needles embedded into the door frame not so far from his eye. It went unsaid, but if any or all of those had been poisoned, he’d be in a world of hurt. “I won’t tell anyone on my life.”
The man nodded, seemingly satisfied by that answer, and then once that was done, he made a gesture and the needles flew back to him. They appeared in the palm of his hand once more before he tucked them back into an envelope. Then he finished putting that away along with all of his other tapes and thread.
When he was done, and the glasses were back on his face, Mr. Twee was like a different man. The killer was gone, and the tailor was back. He shook Lucas’s hand with a wide smile. It was like the assassin that Lucas had glimpsed had never really been there. There was no trace of him. All that lingered was a fresh new suit lying on the bed.