Nairo’s heart raced. Her mouth went dry. Instinctively, she squeezed her eyes shut. Too late. She saw the streets below. Tiny figures darting about. Horses the size of beetles. The whole city laid out at her feet. Then they were gone. Nairo swung herself around so her back was to the drop. She felt the few inches of window sill under her toes. She froze perfectly still. The wind tugged at her like a morose child wanting attention. She forced her body to start moving, reaching out one shaking foot to find the ledge. Agonising seconds passed and she could feel nothing. Finally, after probing in the nothingness, her toe pressed against the ledge.

“Found the ledge!” she shouted back to them.

“You’re not tall enough to step across!” Jimmy called back to her. “You’re gonna have to hop a bit!”

“Great,” Nairo muttered to herself.

She already felt out of breath. Fear and adrenaline robbed her of air even as the wind whipped her hair into her face. Forcing air into her panicked lungs, Nairo tried to calm herself, but she could already feel her extremities quivering with fear. She tried to slide as much of her foot to the ledge, as she did she could her other foot slowly sliding off the window sill.

Now or never, she thought. With gritted teeth, Nairo hopped from the window sill and for the briefest moment she hung in the air, hundreds of feet above the ground. The ledge was underneath her. Both of her feet scrambled to secure her. Her fingers clawed for any imperfections in the masonry for purchase. Her toes clenched and she pressed herself flat against the brickwork. Nairo stopped moving and let herself settle on the ledge breathing like she had just ran a marathon.

“You alright, Sarge?” she heard Ridley shouting from the window.

“Yeah!” Nairo called back breathlessly. “I’m on!”

“Ok, just start shuffling! No need to rush,” Jimmy called out to her.

“Easier said than done,” Nairo said, her jaw clenched and her knuckles white.

She slid her right foot along the ledge and then her left foot. She felt the brickwork of the building scrape across her cheek and her eyes watered from the whistling wind. Even though her heart was thumping and sweat dripped down her face, she felt cold. The icy claws of the wind this high up tore at any exposed flesh, making her fingers numb and clumsy. One shuffle after the other, she made slow but steady progress across the ledge.

By the midway point she stopped for a breath and looked back at the way she had come. Ridley had begun to make his way out of the window. With a steady stream of curses, Ridley swung himself round the windowsill. He swung too fast. The foot he was trying to plant on the ledge, slipped and came off.

“Ridley!” Nairo screamed, unable to reach him.

She saw Jimmy almost halfway out of the window as he grabbed with both hands at Ridley’s coat.

“Grab me Barney!” Jimmy cried as he was pulled further out of the window.

Ridley clawed at the windowsill. There was a moment, a breath, where they all hung frozen in the air. Ridley’s hand latched on to the ledge at the same time as Jimmy grabbed hold of his coat. Together they heaved and dragged Ridley back to the windowsill. White faced, Ridley clung there, his cap had flown loose, and his dirty blonde hair was drenched with sweat. They all stayed frozen where they were, gasping for breath.

“Ridley!” Nairo called. “Are you okay?”

Ridley nodded as he panted for breath. He sat there hunched over and miserable on the windowsill, clinging to the window frame with one hand wiping the sweat from his eyes with the other as he watched his cap drift away.

“I’m okay,” he said finally.

“Just take it slow,” Nairo shouted back to him.

Ridley, with Jimmy holding on to his coat tightly, stood up and tried again. With tentative prods, his foot found the ledge and he slowly shifted his weight across the gap between ledge and windowsill. Ridley began to make his way across the ledge with his eyes firmly set in front of him. Nairo continued, her hand and legs shaking, the wind cackling in her ears.

“Couple more feet,” she muttered to herself through clenched teeth.

The pipe was just in front of her within arm’s reach. After a few steadying breaths, she gripped the pipe with her remaining resolve and clambered onto it. Thankfully, the pipe seemed to have been designed for someone to climb. It had thick metal rivets that made good hand and footholds. The metal cut into her hands but she did not notice, all she was focused on was pulling herself up to the window. Still refusing to look down, Nairo clambered up the pipe and grabbed onto the window ledge to pull herself the final distance. Breathing heavily and with frozen hands, Nairo fumbled in her coat for the prying tool. She slipped her arm around the pipe and rested her feet firmly. She jammed the tool into the crack of the window ledge and began to wiggle it up and down. The window didn’t budge and even worse she could feel the pipe shifting underneath her feet as the ancient screws keeping the brackets in place bit through the mortar of the brickwork.

“Anytime Sarge!” came the strained voice of Ridley.

Nairo wiped her sweat damp hair out of her face with her forearm and stabbed the tool into the window again. The was a jarring metal clang and Nairo almost lost grip on the tool. In a panicked moment she scrabbled for the tool in her frozen hands. She snatched it up and clung to the pipe trying to control the rising fear in her chest. The pipe shifted again, threatening to come away from the wall.

“You can do it Sarge, just breathe!” Jimmy, who had joined Ridley on the ledge, shouted up to her.

Nairo’s hands shook as she took careful aim and jammed the tool back into the latch of the window. Working and pumping the tool up and down she felt the clunk of the window mechanism and the window popped open. With a deep sigh of relief, Nairo clung to the pipe and now the tears in her eyes were not due to the freezing wind. She scrambled onto the ledge and threw herself through the window. Half sobbing and half laughing, Nairo lay there breathless and dizzy. After a few seconds she heard the scrape of the pipe. Dragging herself back to the window, she looked down and saw Ridley making his way up. Whether it was experience or fear, Nairo was unsure, Ridley scampered up the pipe with speedy surefootedness. Nairo reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him into the office. He collapsed on the floor breathing heavily, before retching and heaving himself to a small metal bin. He emptied his guts into the trash can before slumping against the wall.

“You alright?” Nairo asked him.

“Yeah… must have been something I ate,” Ridley groaned.

There was a creak then a snapping sound as Jimmy fell through the window.

“Jimmy!” Nairo rushed to the window and helped him through. She looked out of the window and saw the pipe badly bent and falling away from the wall.

“Shit!” Jimmy said as he leapt back to the window next to Nairo.

Barney was still in his office, his head sticking out of the window, looking aghast.

“James! I say old lad, are you alright?” Barney hollered from his office.

“I’m alright, but the pipe ain’t!” Jimmy shouted back pointing at the ruined pipe. “You’re gonna have to make your own way back, Barney!”

“Right-o! You chaps finish up and we shall rendezvous in the kitchens! Good luck!” Barney waved and he vanished from the window.

“Will he be alright?” Nairo asked.

“Barney knows what he’s doing,” Jimmy said with a certain nod and then he turned to look at Ridley. “Is he alright?”

“Something I ate,” Ridley said as he pulled himself to his feet, his skin grey and pallid. He looked around the dark office and back to Jimmy.“Is this it? Is it here?”

Nairo looked around the dark dusty little office. It seemed to be for storage only and was almost completely filled with towering filing cabinets.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Yep. Transport & Entry office. Anyone coming into the city and anything they’re carrying is logged and filed here.”

“All of it?” Nairo asked incredulously.

“Well this is all just this month, the rest get shifted to storage,” Jimmy explained.

“So where do we begin?” Ridley asked, looking at the dozens of filing cabinets.

“I dunno,” Jimmy said with a shrug. “Grab a candle and start looking.”

Ridley lit three candles and passed them around. They began wandering around the dusty office peering at the filing cabinets.

“They’re filed by month, but not in any particular order,” Nairo said as she read the peeling labels on the front of the filing cabinets.

As they searched, the rain began again, pelting down on the windows. The darkening skies made the room even gloomier. With only the weak glow of her candle, Nairo looked closely at the filing cabinets.

“Is this it?” Ridley called from the other side of the room.

Nairo and Jimmy weaved their way through the cabinets to him. Ridley was standing next to the cleanest filing cabinet in the room.

“That’s it!” Nairo exclaimed excitedly as she read the dates on the front of the cabinet. Ridley pulled open the cabinet and they began flicking through the files. “Here!” Nairo pulled out a file with that week’s date.

She laid it down on top of the filing cabinet and they crowded around. They scanned the pages frantically. Nairo felt excitement building in her chest.

“That one, look at the time!” Ridley jabbed a finger excitedly at one of the documents.

Nairo began to skim read the document.

“Party of four Elves… special documents… travelling from the North… Special property exemption… that has to be the Diamond.” Nairo sped through the document. “No pets… no foreign foods… three servants and sentient property…”

“Sentient property?” Ridley asked, confused.

“Hold on.” Nairo flicked through to the second page of the document looking for the section on their inventory. “There’s the Diamond and there again sentient property… class 2 sentient property.”

“What’s that?”

Jimmy shrugged his shoulders at them.

“There’s a legend. One moment.” Nairo flipped through four more pages until she found a legend with all the classifications and codes: the document itself was two double sided pages. The storm continued to rage as Nairo scanned through with her finger on the page until she found the section on sentient property.

“Class 1… Class 2! It's a… Pixie?” she read.

“A Pixie?” Jimmy said.

“They never said anything about travelling with a Pixie.” Nairo said.

The heavy metallic thunk of the puzzle audibly fell in to place in Ridley’s mind. His eyes widened as his mind raced.

“Son of a bitch…” he breathed.

“What?” Nairo said.

“Hold on,” Ridley had unconsciously began pacing with his brows creased. “That can’t be it.”

“What can’t be?” Nairo asked, on the edge with anticipation.

Ridley magicked a smoke and lit it, his eyes dancing back and forth as he tried to make sense of the picture the puzzle had made.

“It was the Pixie!”

“What?”

“It was a fucking Pixie all along!”

“What?”

“The class 2 sentient property,” he said. “The Pixie wasn’t there to serve the Elves…”

“Oh!” Nairo said, her eyes widening. “The Pixie was there to maintain the Diamond like BilBil said!”

“Yep.”

“And the Elvish charms in the bank vault aren’t calibrated for Pixies since they clean the bank at night!” Excitement flooded through Nairo’s chest, her aches and pains forgotten in the thrill of watching the pieces finally come together. “And if it is a Pixie who has been trained to maintain the Diamond, that’s why it hasn’t blown up yet!”

“Yes!” Ridley agreed. “There was no break in! The damned Pixie must have just walked right out of the vault with the Diamond!”

“And if the Pixie can maintain it, there’s a strong chance that it could use the Diamond! Wait… wait…” Nairo furrowed her brow as she tried to dredge up one of the hundreds of bits of information they had learned since beginning the case. “Sarita… Sarita the prostitute from the RatHoles, she said something about Benny having a little friend with him who was terrified! Do you think that was the Pixie?”

Ridley nodded in agreement.

“Yes! So the Pixie had the Diamond and the Pixie was at Benny’s!” The excited smile stretching across Nairo’s face suddenly froze. “But wait, why would a Pixie kill Benny? And why would it have killed those men in the foundries? Or blown up the bridge?”

“A Pixie nicking something? Killing people?” Jimmy said incredulously. “What would a Pixie need with a Diamond… or gold? And why would this Diamond be blowing up? And who’s Benny? What’s a BilBil? And how has a Pixie been wandering around the city with a Diamond for days with no one finding it?”

“That’s where I'm not sure…” Ridley said, ignoring his questions.

“The motive doesn’t work,” Nairo said, staring at the document in her hands. “In all of recorded history Pixie’s have never stolen or broken any laws. They’ve got no need for possessions or wealth.”

“What if someone commissioned the Pixie to do it?” Jimmy asked.

“How?” Ridley said. “No one knew the Diamond was in the city, nor what it could do, and no one knew about the Pixie. Whoever stole it would have had to have intercepted the Diamond and the Pixie before they got to the city, somehow got it to agree and remember to steal it. And Pixies have proven throughout criminal history to be next to useless tools in a crime since they can beam their whole reality to their entire species.”

“It could have been Elves,” Nairo said after a pensive pause.

“Now you sound like me,” Ridley snorted.

“No… not those Elves, but it could have been… oh I don’t know! Another gang of Elves?” Nairo said, flapping her arms in exhaustion.

“It doesn’t fit,” Ridley replied. “If this was all Elves, then how did Benny get involved? And why is the Diamond still in the city? Not to mention those boys that were left splattered across the cobbles and then the bang at Toliver’s bridge. No, there’s something we’re not seeing…” Ridley’s mind tiptoed backwards to his earlier conversation with Barney. “The Elves… did something.”

“What?”

“They were fleeing back from the North. Just after that earthquake.”

“What are you saying? They caused the earthquake?”

“Bit of coincidence, them walking around with a Diamond powerful enough to blow a whole city up just days after a sudden earthquake.”

“Blow a whole city up?” Jimmy said. “Like this whole city?”

“You reckon the Elves used the Diamond to cause the earthquake,” Nairo said.

“Makes sense why everything was so hush hush. Why they had no guards and minimal personnel. Why there wasn’t a massive investigation straight away. You never found it odd that something that precious goes missing and you’re the only one put on the case?”

“Well…”

“It was all a cover up. And I’m betting that Pixie saw something or maybe even did something…”

“And that’s why it took the Diamond!”

Ridley nodded again. They stood and pondered in thought as Jimmy helped himself to a smoke.

“Well… at least it’ll be easy to find, right?” Jimmy said.

“How so?” Nairo asked.

“We just grab a Pixie and ask it to locate which one of its brethren nicked a giant Diamond. Surely even Pixies would take notice of that.”

“That could work,” Ridley said, his face brightening.

“No it won’t,” Nairo said.

“It won’t?” Ridley’s face darkened again.

“Remember what BilBil said?” Nairo asked him.

“Ermm… which bit?”

“He said Elves Cut the Pixies when they use them for Diamond work. This Pixie would be completely disconnected from its species.”

“Shit,” Ridley said dejectedly. “So we’re looking for one tiny untraceable Pixie in a city of millions?”

Nairo, looking at the file as if it still held some secrets, nodded glumly.

“We don’t know why it killed Benny… or how Benny even got involved in all this,” Ridley continued. “Or why it blew those men to pieces. We don’t know if it’s working alone or in league with someone. We don’t even know if the Pixie still has the Diamond!”

“We do know that,” Nairo said. “Remember those two Trolls saw a small, manic creature before the bridge went bang.”

“Oh great. So it’s a demented Pixie on top of that,” Ridley said, scrubbing at his face.

“Yes,” Nairo said, remembering Jimmy’s words about Cut Pixies. “They slowly lose their minds in isolation and being a part of something so heinous might just have pushed the poor creature over the edge.”

“And we have no idea how to find it,” Ridley said, stamping out his smoke in frustration.

“I really thought we might have solved this case and after everything we went through to get here,” Nairo said, snapping the file shut.

“Well at least you know who did it,” Jimmy offered placatingly.

“We have a theory with very little proof,” Nairo said.

“And even if we’re right,” Ridley continued. “We don't know where the Pixie is now, let alone where the Diamond is.”

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said. “I really wanted you guys to crack this one.”

They stood in a defeated circle as the light of their candles dwindled in the rainy gloom of the afternoon. A noise of a door opening and closing somewhere near them snapped them out of their dark reverie.

“We need to put these files back and get out of here,” Jimmy said as he checked his pocket watch. “They’ll start coming back from lunch any time now.”

Taking a deep breath and washing away her disappointment, Nairo quickly put the papers and files back into their place within the filing cabinet. Ridley, now on his second smoke, was still pondering morosely in a dark corner of the room. Once their candles were extinguished, Jimmy turned the handle to the office and, thankfully, it was unlocked. He took a breath and nodded to them. They were finally ready to escape this treacherous building.