The night passed. Oz dozed off against the wall in the tavern, and woke up in the library. Jumping to his feet, he took a moment to drink water, take an antidote, and swallow a fasting pill, then curled up in one of the nooks and cast the possession spell again. Let’s find out if I can still possess Fflyn from here.

He opened his eyes in the tavern, blinking awake. In the back of his mind, Fflyn yawned, just waking up. Welcome back.

“Good morning,” Oz greeted him. He stood and stretched, then approached the door once more. He knocked on the wardrobe.

No sound answered from the door. Oz paused, then pressed his shoulder against the wardrobe and began to push. Mentally, he searched for sealing spells. I need something to stop the puppet dead, if the boy’s still a puppet, but I don’t want to destroy the puppet. I need to preserve the evidence if I’m going to fully distract from myself.

Whoa, whoa! We’re letting that thing out?

“The puppets didn’t start following us until sunset. It’s probably dormant right now, whatever that means. I want to know what these creatures look like when they aren’t dangerous. To me, those tavernkeepers looked perfectly like ordinary mortals, even when I glanced at their qi, but there has to be some kind of hint, some indication that something wasn’t right. Like Maisel’s ruby.

“If we inspect the boy’s body, we might be able to figure out the difference between the puppets and ordinary people, before they turn at sundown. At worst, we’ll get to see what they look like when they’re dormant,” Oz reasoned. He thumped the door. Nothing responded.

Fflyn crossed his arms. At worst, we get attacked by a homicidal child puppet.

“We beat the tavernkeepers, and we’re well rested now. I’m sure we’ll be fine. If he’s even active.”

I’d say it’s your funeral, but it’s mine! Be more careful!

“Calm down. If he’s active, I’ll slam the door shut again.” He paused, returning to his search of the books. Hmm. Nothing in the ordinary manuals. The fey manuals… ugh. I need to figure out the right way to read them. I can’t keep relying on one manual.

Am I searching too narrowly? Ah! I’m searching for techniques, but at the first level, most manuals only cover the basics. Maybe there’s a manual on sealing basics, and I can use that to formulate a simple sealing technique for the puppet boy.

It’s not as if he’s a powerful jotunn who can be used to power an entire sect’s barrier. He’s a mortal cursed to turn into a puppet at nighttime. He should be relatively easy to seal.

Three books appeared in his mind. Oz put his back against the wall and pinched his chin, taking a few minutes to read all three of them. He nodded decisively.

One manual covered the basics of acupuncture, and using the pressure points to physically stop the flow of qi. Oz nodded. I’ve used that before on myself, with the poison. Still, I’m not sure how long it will function before I need to reapply it. Most descriptions mention the seal only lasting a few hours.

The next manual covered sealing pills and which herbs made qi run sluggishly. That one, Oz temporarily discarded. I lack herbs and a pill furnace. Now isn’t the time.

The third one involved inscribing magic circles on the target. Although it didn’t describe the circles themselves, it laid out the basic foundation of how to shackle qi with a magic circle.

Oz nodded. Across all three, seals are based on the principles of using your qi to stop another’s qi. If I create a spell that stops the flow of his qi, it should function as a seal. Putting it all together, why don’t I make a spell that applies pressure to his pressure points at regular intervals, to keep him asleep? It’s not an ideal situation for the boy, but… he’s already a puppet. The ideal situation has left the building.

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He crouched down, drawing a dagger from Fflyn’s sheaths. He scribbled on the floor, recalling words from the fey dictionary and writing them down. Magic circles probably aren’t that dissimilar to enchantments. From what I read, the big difference is that magic circles aren’t expected to last for a long time; a week at the most, if not instant. Since I don’t plan on carrying this kid around for weeks, it should be fine.

Oz sat back. Four words circled in a vague shape. Bind, pressure, stop, and press. He drew a circle through the words, then frowned. That’s not all the information I need encoded in this spell. I need to specify the pressure points I want pressed.

He consulted the pressure point book, then added a quick diagram of the pressure points he wanted pressed, and worked it around the circle. Setting the spine as a bisection of the circle, he put the head at the top, then wrapped the arms and legs around the side of the circle, drawing each pressure point as a dot at the end of a line, which indicated the flow of qi passages.

Sitting back, he pressed his lips together, a little reluctant. I’d like to try it on something, but I don’t have anyone—or anything—to try it on. He shrugged. Nothing I can do about that. I’ll have to test it as I attempt to seal the boy.

Oz stood, dusting himself off. He walked over and gave the door a shake. Hearing no reaction, he threw it open, holding tight to the knob in preparation to slam it shut again.

The boy slept peacefully beside the corpses of his parents. At the creak of the door’s hinges, he blinked sleepily and looked up at Oz. “Wha’?”

Bizarre. How totally bizarre, Fflyn murmured, shuddering with disgust.

Oz stood at the door, blocking the exit. He circulated his qi at a low level, prepared to call on it at any moment. Giving the boy a gentle smile, he asked, “Do you remember what happened last night?”

The boy looked at him numbly. He shook his head. His hand reached back and landed in a puddle of his mother’s blood. The boy startled and went to look.

“Don’t—don’t look,” Oz said sharply.

The boy froze. He looked back at Oz. “Why not?”

“Don’t worry about that. Just come to me.”

Biting his lip, the boy hesitated. He started to turn his head down, then twitched away.

“Please. Come to me,” Oz pleaded, holding his hands out.

The boy glanced down. He jolted, and his eyes flew wide. Without a word, his chest started heaving. “Mom…? Dad?”

Oz tensed. Shit. “Come on. Come to me.”

Screaming, the boy charged at Oz. As he ran, his body transformed. Wood covered flesh, his hands and feet transforming into flat, simple paddles, his face transforming into a simple emotionless mask. Fire flickered in the blackened pits of his eyes, his jaw gaping wide.

Oz swept the boy’s feet out from under him. The puppet clattered against the wood floor. Before it could climb back to its feet, Oz slammed his foot down on its chest, pinning it. He drew his knife and scratched the sealing spell onto its stomach. Circulating qi in his palm, he pushed down on the scratched spell, imbuing his qi into the formation.

In his vision, his qi surged up the center of the puppet. Where it passed, the boy’s qi went still. The puppet went limp, completely unconscious. The dim fires in his eyes went dark.

Stepping back, Oz let out a breath. He lifted the puppet and looked around. A backpack laid on the floor nearby. Emptying the backpack, he set the small puppet inside, then closed it up.

We’re taking that with us?

“He’s our precious evidence,” Oz replied. He lifted the bag and slung it over his shoulder. “If we find something simpler, we’ll ditch the puppet and bring it instead, but for now, this is the clearest evidence we’ve found for mages committing evil in the mortal world.”

It is?

Oz snorted. “It’s not like the kid cursed himself, right?”

But they said he had a disease. Isn’t that what caused this?

“A disease doesn’t turn people into homicidal wooden puppets. If the disease is actually related to the puppet curse, that would be a hell of a find. Might even be what we’re out here looking for,” Oz reasoned, spreading his hands.

Fflyn nodded slowly. You do have a point.

“Of course, we have no proof that the puppet curse and the disease are related. Kid could have gotten a cold, then gotten cursed by something totally unrelated. For example, the bodies we found in the kitchen.”

I don’t think that’s how curses work.

“Seems counter to how they work in the books I’ve read, but I haven’t read many curse books yet, so who knows?”

Yeah. I’m an assassin, not a dark mage.

“Crazy how that’s less bad than being a dark mage,” Oz muttered.

All I do is kill people. Dark mages do much worse.

Oz glanced at the man and woman with their heads smashed in, then shut the door to the room. “Yeah. I’m getting that.”

On his way out, he paused at the fire. He lifted his hand to the flames, then lowered it. The only way to give these people a proper rest would be to burn it all, but that also means burning the evidence. For now, it’s better to leave the tavern alone.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. At the door, he turned back and put his hand against the wood, sealing the door shut with a simple seal.

“Sorry about what?”

Oz startled. He spun.

Aisling stood behind him, one brow raised. “Hello, Fflyn. How did you get out?”