“I don't believe you,” I said as the priest kept rising higher and higher on his hoverboard thing.

“What do you mean?” Hopper frowned.

“I don't believe that you said you weren't here to cause any trouble,” I said. “You telling me that thing about the knife test very much means trouble for me and my friends.”

“If you are here to trick us into admitting something so that you can arrest us then forget it,” Lily added. “We are free people now.”

Hopper shook his head. “This is not a trick. And I'm not looking to arrest anyone. In fact I've signed my resignation.”

I paused. The priest's hoverboard had come to a halt a few feet under the chimney in the pyramid. He began to talk. I pulled Hopper aside, away from the crowd. “What do you want?” I said.

“I can't tell you here,” he said and slipped a card into my hand before muttering, “meet me on this address in the afternoon. And don't talk about any of this with your friend until you leave here.”

I frowned and slid the card into my pocket and walked back to Lily. She was intently listening to the sermon that the priest of steam was giving. I didn't really blame her. It was quite the sermon.

The man with the big glass helmet on the hoverboard talked about progress of mankind, peace among countries and the Steam Elemental's hand in all of it. And how things were only going to get better. This went on for several minutes as people kept cheering and praising. Then the priest on the hoverboard started speaking in a language I didn't understand. But the majority of other people inside the pyramid seemed to since they joined in with him. It was some kind of prayer.

As they spoke along with the priest the walls hummed with their collective voices and the steam rising out of the hole in the ground thickened and billowed around the man. I felt Lily's hand clutching onto my arm.

“M-Miss Elsa…” she said in a labored whimper. “Can we…leave?” Her face looked pale and it looked as if she had to make an effort to keep breathing.

The chanting was growing louder. I frowned but didn't protest against her request. I took her hand and led her out of the pyramid while the weird prayer continued behind us.

Lily held onto my arm until we had left the Eternity Square. I stopped by on the side of the road to let the girl catch her breath. “Are you alright?” I asked, putting a hand on her back as she leaned against the wall, her shoulders shivering a bit.

“I'm feeling much better.” She nodded. “I don't know what happened there. I think I inhaled some of that steam and it was…draining…its scent, its heat. Its very presence was sickening.”

I felt my face creasing with remorse. “I'm sorry for dragging you with me,” I said.

Lily quickly straightened up and gave me a brave look. “No, I'm completely fine now,” she said. “I just acted like an idiot and leaned too far out to let the steam affect me. It wasn't your fault, Miss Elsa.”

I gave her a wistful smile. “I'll still pay more attention when we go somewhere like that again.”

Lily returned a much more cheery smile. “I trust you.” Then with a curious look on her face she said, “what did Hopper want?”

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A frown creased my features as she reminded me of the man. “He said he wanted to meet up.” I showed her the card he had given me.

Now that we were out in the daylight, I got to take a better look at it. The front of the card had the design of a pin-up mask wearing a top hat. The back of it had an address: Rosa's public house. 1521 Ursus Lane.

Old Elsa's memories didn't help much with what was written on the card. Neither did Lily know anything about it. So we asked around where this place was.

The citizens of Orowen were just as confused about the existence of such a place. Most of them couldn't remember any such lane. Or any public house that must've been owned by some Rosa.

The one who gave us the address was an old man who was probably blind and homeless. But that wasn't even the weirdest thing about it. The thing that stumped both Lily and I was the act of this man walking up to us unprompted and telling us to take the downtown tram. “She used to run that place,” he said, “ran it until it burned and she burned inside it.” And he walked off.

Lily's forehead creased and her eyebrows came together. We watched the man as he disappeared around the corner.

“I don't get a good feeling about this, Miss Elsa.” She pushed her glasses higher on her nose.

She wasn't the only one who felt that way. “We should talk to Madam Smokwell,” I said.

****

The cat’s face was as deadpan as ever. “No,” she said. “You aren't going there.”

“I can't find any traces of enchantments but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a bit curious to see the mentioned place,” Asmod said as he examined the card, running his keen eye over every edge, surface and corner and spending even longer on the ink that was used to print on the card.

“You know how the saying goes, Asmod,” Smokewell said. “The old adage about death.”

“Curiosity killed the cat?” Lily said.

“No. The one about listening to mumbling blind men and getting ambushed and executed by the Internal Police,” Smokewell said.

“Can't say I've heard that one.” Asmod scratched his bald head.

The cat shook her head. “It doesn't matter if you've heard it. That card has death written all over it. And you.” She pointed a paw at Lily and I. “You two have ‘suicidal idiots’ written all over your faces. Why would you even suggest going to a place like that?”

“Because the blind man said that thing about burning,” I said. “And we still haven't encountered the fire omen that you showed. Neither have we encountered the hammer omen.”

“Except we did,” Smokewell said. “Hopper used the candle in his apartment to burn the sealing wax he put on his report. The hammer omen was the judge's mallet that came down when you both were put in the clear.”

“But what if those weren't the things that the omens were pointing towards?” I asked. “We thought the urn was a symbol of death while it was literally pointing towards another urn. What if this time the candle wasn't leading us towards a literal candle but–?”

“Execution?” Asmod said. All eyes turned to the short man. He shrugged. “This might very well be a trap. Maybe Hopper is trying to lure you into a sensitive situation to arrest you at the right moment. He is still the witch hunter general.”

“He isn't,” Lily said. “He said he resigned.”

“And you believe him?” Smokewell said.

“I don't. But I want to see what this is all about,” I said. “Maybe he wants to make some kind of arrangement? All I know is that he is aware of the knife test being idiotic. And I don't want him to use that to get our names back on the list.”

“If that ends up happening then the Inquisition will be after us again,” Lily said. “And then the candle omen will turn out to be a symbol for fire they will burn us in.”

“If we can change the cause and effect then why not do it now rather than wait for the future to become something bleak?” I said.

The cat glared at me. Asmod looked hesitant. Then Smokewell shook her head and brought her paw up to her nose, rubbing it anxiously. “I can't believe I'm agreeing to this,” she muttered. “I swear, if you two get caught I'm not going to rescue you.”