Iris’s eyes obsessed over room number 107—bold, silver numbers, yearning for their counterparts engraved into the scientist’s keys. They passed the first floor’s ten rooms and made for the senescent stairs, Iris, perhaps recklessly, testing its structural integrity with a few bounces of her right foot. Dust, splinters, she got the gist.

She led the way, running the grooves of the key's engravings against her thumb. 203, and quite a walk away from their target.

She looked over the catwalk railings, one half wondering exactly what safety codes they lived up to, and the other half inwardly repining at how open the inn was. Two sets of chambers stacked atop each other, doors facing a large hall like children in a choir or the face of a cuckoo clock. No privacy, no discretion—the innkeeper had a hold on the rooms like a warden to their cells.

203. They arrived, and Iris unlocked the door. Single bed, nightstand, dresser, and bathroom. The layout was so basic it felt axiomatic, it made her forget she ever expected anything different. The patterned wallpaper was preserved, if not yellowing, shifting hues from red to brown.

She held little confidence in the door’s integrity, the hollow moan it whimpered as the edge kissed the doorframe reminiscent of a slab of cork.

“The layout’s a problem,” Iris whispered, back pressed against the door. “Not to mention they can…I don’t know. What was that?”

“Teleport?” Alis added. “I blinked and they were there.”

“I can keep them occupied,” Crestana said. “Move them away from the dining hall, correct?”

“Can you manage that?” Iris asked, unintentionally glancing at the longsword strapped across her friend’s back. “Without using it, I mean.”

Crestana nodded, although with plentiful sideways bobbing. Translation: probably.

“Alis?”

“I’ll stay in the hall, keep a lookout.”

“Right. Let me know if it isn’t safe.”

“Rodger.”

“Okay….”

Delaying, if only to buy her another second or two. She beheld their faces; comrades before a frontline push, although none of their bodies had realised. Nodding her chin up and down, each movement getting longer and longer, she prepared her nerves.

Getting caught. It wasn’t quite getting shot, but having to come home to red locks of hair standing on their ends like a demon’s horns….

She swallowed the inimical thought, at least using it as fuel to fan the fire.

“Let’s go.”

She opened the door and Crestana slipped out, figure synchronising with the sombre hall. High noon meant no direct sunlight to speak of. The windows were bright, doing the already dim interior no favours. Without the aid of artificial incandescence, the inn was now her domain.

Iris followed after, holding the door for Alis before locking it shut. They stood, feigning hushed chatter all while stealing glances at the first floor. The reception desk remained occupied, innkeeper fiddling with the register while ardently counting Iris’s cash.

A beat, and the Spirit’s head perked up like a rabbit’s nose. Beak hands frozen on a five hundred Ixa bill, they gawked at the far-right corner as though they’d seen a spectre.

The frame of a painting swung on its mountings, and Iris imagined the tips of a nebulous finger emerging from the wall.

The two watched Crestana continue, holding their breaths as the ghostly disturbances crept away, goading the innkeeper to follow.

The innkeeper bit, and the moment they did, Iris started.

Keeping her feet light, she rounded the barrister and started down the stairs, keeping her weight where wood joined wood. Using magic would’ve been faster, quieter, superior in every way if their victim had been human. Iris had no gauge of her magic’s obtrusiveness, but even a flash of an Aether pull in the wrong direction could cause an undesirable distraction.

First floor. The plank she treaded on gave a wrenching squeal, grabbing her heart and twisting it as she stood breathless. No reaction. Crestana surely had the innkeeper enthralled. Refusing to waste the opportunity, Iris rushed past the reception desk, taking the innkeeper's place like a scene swap in a stage play, before bolting towards the three bold numbers she had eyed. Rusty candy that worked her saliva glands overtime, or rather something less innocent. The object of her obsession that had her itching the nape of her neck.

Iris grabbed the handle, jamming her other key into the lock and breathing a small sigh of relief as it politely yielded. She opened it and stepped inside, fastening the obedient latch before turning to the rest of the room.

Pristine. At least the room service worked. Potentially too well, considering there was no sign of habitation whatsoever. He had nothing large on his person upon his death. Unless he had lost it on the way to Excala, unless he had chosen to travel extra-lean, Iris could have expected a briefcase, a bag at the very least.

Pristine. Blinking didn’t help this time.

Iris began searching, if not for hard evidence then traces of it—a finger pointing down the correct dirt road.

The mattress sat snugly, gift-wrapped in the brown duvet tucked at the corners. Room service had been in, done the bed, restocked the small bowl of morsels on the nightstand. The dresser, maybe, under the bed, obtuse bricks of luggage tucked away somewhere discreet. She checked and checked, nooks and crannies, possibilities and impossibilities, but gave up halfway through. Forcing guests through an ordeal to find their own luggage was plain bad service, against the very nature of a Spirit of hospitality. It hadn't been the innkeeper's doing.

Iris breathed, focus darting from one end of the room to another—almost identical to her own, the arrangement altered into another expression of the axiomatic hotel room. A simple spin on a tried-and-true formula. The nightstand was busier: a peeved-looking alarm clock shared space with the bowl of paper-wrapped dainties and a proud, decorative beaker. Nothing helpful.

Spirit of Gardens. Unsuited to espionage, but Iris could imagine one writing something out with a hedge maze or creating code out of a bouquet of flowers. The wheat fields outside weren’t flattened, and the room lacked a floral service.

She stood in the room’s centre, bouncing from the end of her right foot to the end of her left. Back and forth, back and forth. Eyes wandering like junkies aching for stimuli, synapses pining for a shot of good news.

Spirit of Gardens. Something more discreet that could fit into a single room. Pot plants, a clue hidden in the dirt. But the room had little colour outside of its narrow hue, and even leaning her entire body out of the window, she found no garden, potted or otherwise. Just untilled, grassy ground uninterrupted until the next paddock.

Iris turned back, and a flash of green caught her eye. She swivelled her head back around, searching for the spectre and praying it wasn’t a figment of her desperation.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Spirit of Gardens. Unsuited to espionage although their creations often held secrets, indiscreet in size, but delicate in their cultivated detail. One of their great achievements—capturing that essence in a bottle.

Iris crouched by the nightstand, closing the blinds beside her to lessen the glare on the beaker’s surface. Through the clear glass, she watched a living microcosm blossom and breathe.

Sheered cliffsides built up by the delicate touch of magic held steady against the glass by roots of Rabbit’s Foot fern and Sheet moss. The leafy flow spilt down the crevices like a waterfall, beckoning her eyes to follow the direction of their leaves.

At its base was a house immersed in nature, vines invading porous, grey brick on all four sides, where only its roof, a yet darker shade of grey, remained untouched. The façade hid coyly behind sprouts of Syngonium, at first glance just another base for roots to take hold. But Iris could hear the glass panes rattle with miniature winds, she could feel the door’s steady wood against the wrap of a knocking hand.

The faint trace of Aether made her waver, but something about the small world was distinctly real. It was a Sidosian building, the more she stared the surer she was. A Sidosian building simply in a different context—nebulous, of little value aside from its beauty and potential meaning as juxtapositional art.

Discreet, but delicate in detail.

As clear as day, the house’s tether to reality and value existed as a small road sign, the house's address written into its wood.

Crestana dropped a frying pan from its hook, letting the steel clang to the floor and the innkeeper’s attention snap her way. She’d drawn them to the kitchen, bypassing the rooms and exiting the dining hall entirely. Her target’s eyes were always an uncomfortable few degrees off from where she stood, masked by dull shadows.

Light fell through a far window behind her back, illuminating a hazy patch of blinding white that burnt her fingers the closer she ventured. Any part of her that crossed the threshold would become visible; it made for a tense game of the floor is lava.

The centre bench restricted her movements, splitting the narrow rectangular room in two. One end was blocked by the haze of prickling light, the other by the encroaching innkeeper. Like near-sightedness, Aether pulls became clearer the closer they were. Shadow magic was a practised skill: some had an affinity for it, and others didn’t. Few may have slipped past the innkeeper, quite literally right under their nose, but Crestana had to improvise. Although, it felt more like brute forcing.

She grabbed the hilt of her sword and twisted the drawing tube horizontally, unsheathing the weapon and holding it in one hand. Carefully, as though not to startle a frightened animal, she reached across the bench’s steel surface and crashed the flat of her blade against the far edge.

The innkeeper started, their attention flashed towards the other side of the bench. Two equal stimuli, two opposing directions. It wasn’t foolproof, but the moment’s hesitation would keep them distracted.

She used the tip of her blade to nudge a stack of plates over the edge, shattering it against the tile. This got the innkeeper to choose a side, Crestana hoping she’d mistaken her sword’s tip for a small rodent.

She rounded the table, taking the innkeeper’s place by the door and most importantly regaining control of the lights. She rested her hand on them, fingers shaking against the switch. The sword in her offhand rested a centimetre above the floorboards—another sound now, and she’d be combining the ghostly disturbances and Aetheric presence into one. A dead giveaway, and the tight walk she treaded was already fraying.

But another beckon called upon the innkeeper. Like the ding of a bell, they perked up from their task on the kitchen floor, and as though staring right through it, needled the wall directly next to her, looking past it and at one of the many rooms beyond.

Crestana cursed Iris in her head. She hadn’t heard or felt anything, but it didn’t matter. The innkeeper stood slowly, and Crestana felt a terrible throb of Aether grab her shoulders and shake her. It was still subtle, but arresting in the way talking normally in a library was.

Crestana covered her voice box, the grip on her sword’s hilt tightening like a muscle spasm—whatever magic the innkeeper had used to close the distance before, she was about to set it off again.

A lunge and a tackle? A strike with her pommel? To where? Spirits didn’t have organs; they couldn’t be concussed. Never mind revealing herself, the charge would be taken from damage to property to outright assault.

The split-second build-up played out at its agonising leisure. The Aether pull toyed with her senses, the prickling at her fingers like fishhooks in her skin. What was the opposite of that feeling? That was what she needed.

No Aether. No Aether pull. That choking void so salient in her memory. The nothingness, the pain that came with it. Whatever that was, whatever the Spirit of Spirits—that awful, ghastly thing she could call the fruits of her suffering—had channelled. That was what she needed.

And so she felt it with her own body, through her throat, in her chest, coursing through her arms that sensation of violent nothing, lurching for something lest it drown, suffocate, starve.

And she selfishly wished it upon another.

The lurch took hold, so strong Crestana could watch it cripple the innkeeper. Convulsing, staggering, the sensation of inescapable, insatiable need. Lethal need that shocked a Spirit's core, for no Spirit was ever short of Aether.

The innkeeper collapsed against the kitchen bench and Crestana, paralysed herself, managed to break free of the self-inflicted mix of awe and trepidation. She remained in the shadows as the innkeeper’s body calmed, their beak-like hands clattering against the steel benchtop.

She’d taken it too far, Crestana was a novice to the bone, but even she could discern that much.

She watched her hands, quaking like the innkeeper’s, the thought of another facet of her body entirely disobedient was terrifying. The grip on her sword loosened; she sheathed it before it could escape her grasp and fall to the floor.

The front door swung open, and a sliver of light grew into a swathe. Two silhouettes stood in the doorway, their shadows protruding forward like ill-defined cardboard cutouts.

Coats that draped to their knees, two-piece work suits underneath. No matter where they hailed from, to what flag they saluted, Alis could sniff a copper out with his eyes closed. One a Beak, noticeably stouter than the lanky human behind them, hollowed-out eyes hidden underneath the shade of a fedora. They strolled to the front desk, indulging in a silent survey, much like Alis had only a few minutes prior.

Alis sank into his shoulders keeping his profile low in the hall's corner as he heard the polite but weary ding of the service bell. A rustle came from the room where the innkeeper had retreated, and soon, their struggling figure limped back the way it came, desperately masking its pain.

The officers rushed to the innkeeper's aid, who promptly brushed them off. Alis couldn’t hear the specifics but could only assume the worst once the pair produced their police badges.

He’d planned on knocking on Iris’s door as warning should the need have arisen, but the officers likely had the same target in mind. Watching someone wrap their knuckles against it before quietly retreating upstairs was beyond suspicious.

Even now, he’d likely been marked as some sort of suspect.

Wrapped up in questioning, he pretended to check his watch before standing up from his table and making for the staircase.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Alis feigned ignorance for a beat before raising his head, one foot on the first step.

It had been the lanky human who’d called on him, face a notch friendlier now that the light on his face was more even. “Are you a guest here today?”

Alis smiled widely, the skill he so despised. “Yes. Just up there,” he said, pointing. “Room two oh three. I’m here with a few friends for the night visiting family."

The officer nodded, that small, unctuous nod of surface understanding. Alis knew it, that officer knew it, but Alis decided it was good enough. He made it up the rest of the stairs while questioning continued. As soon as his feet hit the catwalk, he upped his pace, the gap between each step shorter and shorter until he reached two oh three.

There he bolted, dashing across the room and unlocking the latch that fastened the window. It was a tight fit, but he just about managed to vault over the ledge, the seat of his pants straining its fibres as he did so.

He let himself hang from the second floor, gauging his distance from the ground before letting go. He plummeted, holding his breath for the moment the shock of impact coursed through his shin.

Alis's heels made impact with the soft ground, and he bent his knees, tumbling onto his back and lessening the strain on his legs. Refusing to waste a beat, he picked himself up, brushing the grass off the back of his shirt before making a break for Iris’s room.

One after another, he peered through the glare of the glass. Each room was the same, each one with no sign of the white hair.

“Alis!” A hiss.

He whipped his attention to a masked face leaning out of a window. Crestana was at the other end of the building, halfway through vaulting over the windowsill herself. She pointed at the room two down from her, and Alis made a break for it, throwing open the glass and startling the girl inside.

“Let’s go!” he hissed through the curtains. Iris nodded, and made a break for the opening, vaulting over the sill and landing feet first onto the grass. Crestana shut the window, and the three of them pressed their backs against the wall, shoulder to shoulder, as they listened to the far door open to the sound of heavy footsteps.

Alis felt his heart pounding. Racing, even. He thought he had long since numbed it. Thrill seeker, maybe that’s all he was. He detested the thought, that excitement was all he had been looking for.

“Did you find something out?” he whispered.

“They left us a clue,” Iris reported between pants. “I think we can get to the bottom of this.”

That rush, whatever ‘getting to the bottom of it’ was, that made his heart beat even faster.