Three ether runes formed a simple protection spell. I had written them on a small card, charged it with magic, and for the third day in a row, I was trying to extract the spell from the paper. No luck. I wasn’t expecting to become a great wizard overnight, of course, but the complete lack of progress was frustrating. Every time, I repeated the same algorithm: charge, touch with will, pull. The result of each attempt was identical to the last: the spell refused to budge and instead activated right there on the card. I deactivated it, and the cycle began anew.

There was no shortage of ether in the manor, but out here, I had to bring along several large citrines, as my own reserves only allowed for two recharges. The ether leaked out through my third eye in the process, and I would lose my magical vision for a good half-hour while it replenished itself.

“Duncan!” Harry barked angrily. “Tear yourself away from that bloody card and tell me what you think!”

I looked up at the wizard. His Worship Lionel de Camp, the Mayor of Farnell, was hosting a grand reception at the town hall. The guest list included prominent politicians, officials, businessmen, performers, and all of the local nobility, including the duke himself – and, of course, the Fairburns. Lionel clearly understood that conflict was inevitable; sooner or later, the wizards would be compared. So he decided to polish Harry’s rough image, starting with insisting he dress appropriately. That was why we were back at the clothing store I already knew quite well.

The silver-haired store manager, who had helped me with my suit last time, was now focused on Harry.

“Well?” Smith asked, spreading his arms wide.

The warlock was dressed in shiny, mirror-like shoes and an impeccable gray three-piece suit made of fine wool. The only flaw in the look was his head – specifically, the shaggy beard that completely obscured his tie and the wild hair sticking out around his bald spot.

“What do you think?” he repeated.

“I think we should’ve stopped by a barber. You look like a scarecrow in an expensive suit.”

“Hey, show some respect for your teacher!” the wizard snapped indignantly.

“Yes, teacher. My apologies, teacher,” I said sarcastically. “Do you want the truth or flattery?”

“The truth, but without rudeness. And you’ll be punished for your tone. Two days – no trying to extract spells from that card.”

“Hey!” Now it was my turn to protest.

“I said what I said!” Harry declared firmly. “You’ve hit a wall and keep bashing your head against it. Switch gears. Work on compiling a list of spells for your book instead.”

“Why can’t I just copy yours?”

“Because spells are meant to be used! For example, why would you need earth-scrying or smell-enhancement spells?”

“Why did you need them?”

“I used them plenty in my time. That’s not the point. Those are complex matrices with dozens of runes from multiple elements. It’ll take you ages to copy them, even longer to charge them, and the earliest you’ll be able to use them is in a couple of years – if they’re ever useful at all. By evening, I want a list of ten simple spells. And not a single offensive one!”

“Why not offensive spells?”

“What do you think would happen if you tried to extract a firebolt spell off the paper right now?”

Oh… Best case, the paper would burn up. Worst case? It might hit me in the face.

“Got it. Ten spells by evening.”

“You too,” Harry said, pointing a finger at Cap, who was lounging in a chair nearby.

The boy let out a heavy sigh. As far as I knew, he still hadn’t finished his algebra and geometry homework, and Harry had promised him a runic glyph test in the evening.

Satisfied that his “teaching moment” had been effective, the wizard returned to the topic at hand.

“So, what do you think of the suit?”

"Nice suit," I said. "But you really need to sort out your hair and shave that beard."

Before Harry could argue, I turned to the manager, who had just returned with my order. "What do you think, sir? Share your professional opinion."

"If I may, sir," the man replied with a dignified bow toward Harry. The wizard puffed up and braced himself to resist.

"Well?"

"The suit needs some tailoring to fit properly. It was made for a man of larger build. As for the hair, it absolutely must be cut. But the beard... I wouldn’t advise shaving it. A well-groomed beard can add a touch of gravitas to a man. My verdict: trim it and shape it. But leave it to a professional – otherwise, the effect might be the opposite of what you're hoping for."

"Trim it... I can agree to a trim," Harry conceded. "Can you recommend someone?"

"Of course. I can make a call and arrange an appointment."

"Please do, good man," I said, accepting the hangers holding the blue three-piece suit from his hands.

The manager bowed to me and nodded to the tailor, who hurried over to Harry armed with a set of pins and chalk. While I dressed, the wizard was practically pinned into place. Soon, it was my turn. I wasn’t quite as skinny as Harry, so fewer pins were needed for my adjustments. Hopefully, this suit would last longer than my last one.

“Gentlemen,” the manager said, returning to us. “I’ve taken the liberty of arranging an appointment with the barber for a quarter past two. Here’s his card.” He handed Harry a business card. “Also, we received a call from the police station. Detective Inspector Sunset was looking for you. He knew you were here and asked that you wait for him.”

Harry and I exchanged glances. Lately, John Sunset had been speaking to both of us through clenched teeth. He was holding a grudge against both me and Harry, despite the fact that he and Harry had once been on friendly terms. To be fair, he had every reason to be upset. A lot had gone down in his jurisdiction, and he hadn’t managed to get to the bottom of any of it. What’s more, Harry had used his connections in His Worship’s administration, and Uncle Bryce had paid a visit to the Duke. As a result, Sunset’s department had been handed a neatly prepackaged version of events, which didn’t sit well with the meticulous and occasionally overly principled detective.

“Wait for him? Fine.” Harry turned to the manager. “Find a proper outfit for the boy,” he said, before turning back to me. “Go fetch Knuckles. Fancy car, scruffy driver – it won’t do.”

Harry was exaggerating. Knuckles was dressed decently, far better than during our first meeting. He’d also taken to the straight and narrow with some determination. When I went to call him, the lad was sitting in the driver’s seat with a notebook on the steering wheel, gnawing on a pencil and puzzling over algebra. Harry had taken the Sparrow brothers’ education seriously, hiring them a tutor from among the city’s poor students. He motivated the younger one with stories from his own life, while Knuckles was blackmailed with his salary and access to the car keys. The latter was much more effective – Knuckles was practically worshipping Harry’s new Royal, drooling over it like it was sacred. Clint Sparrow was a true motor enthusiast, and Harry was slowly working the idea of engineering into the boy’s head.

We hadn’t even finished dressing the younger brother or bought him a new cap – he always wore one to hide the silver streak in his hair left by his encounter with his father’s ghost – when Detective Inspector Sunset arrived.

“Inspector,” I greeted him with a nod.

“Hello, John,” Harry said. “How did you know we were here?”

“Am I a detective, or did I just step out for a stroll?” Sunset shot back. “De Camp’s throwing a reception to mark the new Place of Power, and you’ve neither proper attire nor taste. This is where the girls brought Lord Loxlin before taking him to Golden Tear.”

“You seem to know my life quite well, Inspector. I thought the case was closed?” I asked.

“It is. But interesting facts keep coming to light. Will you be here much longer?”

“Once Clint tries on his suit, we’ll be free,” Harry said. “Our next appointment is at 2:15, so we’ve got a bit of time.”

“Good. Finish up. I’ll make a call, and then we’ll head out together.”

“Where to?” Harry asked.

“I need your professional opinion.”

“You know, John, that’s not how you ask for help.”

“You owe me, Harry. Both you and your new apprentice – for the mess you made in my district and all the grief your little escapades brought me from my superiors. So you’ll finish here... and we’re going.”

“And?” I cut in. “Will those interesting facts about my life suddenly stop coming to light?”

"I was tortured because of you, boy," Sunset said, narrowing his eyes at me.

"I remember that evening," I replied calmly. "The vampires started with me, and then my friend saved your life."

Sunset puffed up worse than Harry had when I suggested he visit a barber, but the wizard stepped in to calm him down.

"He's right, John. Helping a friend is the least you can do… A friend, John. You’re still our friend, aren’t you?"

"Oh, for heaven’s sake!" Sunset grumbled. "Help me with this case, and we’ll call it even."

I raised an intrigued eyebrow. "And those facts about my life? Will they stop surfacing?"

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"They won’t surface. They won’t!" Sunset barked in exasperation.

"Fine. Knuckles, how much longer in there?" Harry called.

"Just a minute," Knuckles answered.

Harry had bought him a black suit, which also needed some tailoring.

Half an hour later, we rolled into the slums of Smuggler’s Bay.

You know, I could clean this place up now," Harry said, glancing around.

"Seriously? Wait, are you saying this place is actually poisoned? I always thought that was just an urban legend."

"The gas used here during the Big War wasn’t an ordinary chemical compound," Harry explained. "It had an ether base, which allowed it to seep into everything around it. Fabrics and wood absorbed it the most easily, while bricks and stone resisted better. Metal was practically unaffected. It was designed to penetrate through defenses. Now the local buildings are slowly decaying, and the gas is being released. The doses are so small they barely affect people’s health, but..."

"But ether penetrates matter best," I finished for him.

"Exactly. And now, I have enough of it, even with the shipments to Bremor that your uncle and I arranged."

Bryce had been quick to act, signing a long-term deal with Harry to exchange reservoir stones. Harry now had access to all five elemental sources of Bremor Forest in exchange for ether. Bryce also took on the role of intermediary for trading other elemental stones with his partners. The two of them had discussed much more than that. I knew Harry was after certain potions, while Bryce needed artifacts, but they hadn’t shared those details with me.

"Well, not all of them," Harry continued, casting a glance at the half-collapsed buildings steeped in invisible contamination. "Or at least, not right away. But in six months to a year… it’s doable."

"Then count me in," I said.

"For what?"

"The land. We need to buy it while it’s still cheap."

"Duncan, don’t think you’re the cleverest one in the room. The land already belongs to de Camp, the Duke, and a handful of other big shots who are out of your league. Do you think I brought up cleansing this place for no reason? The Mayor has already cast his line. Elections are coming up, and this will score him some serious points with the common folk."

"Then I hope he at least pays you well," I muttered.

"He had covered for me against the Fairburns."

"Not very effectively," I pointed out.

"Agreed," Harry said with a shrug. "But to be fair, he couldn’t do much more than that. His protection allowed me to live in relative peace for nearly a year. Poorly fed, yes, but in peace. The chaos only came when you showed up and brought it to the Anvil. If you hadn’t crossed paths with Lindemann…" Harry trailed off, his tone growing darker. "Maybe the Fairburns and Valentine wouldn’t have made their move."

Sunset’s car screeched to a halt in front of a three-story building with a collapsed roof and shattered windows. A couple of police cars and a morgue van were already parked near the doorless entrance. Two constables stood guard by the doorway. Sunset stepped out first, flashing his badge at the officers. They summoned their superior, and the detective waved for Harry and me to get out of the car. I followed reluctantly.

From the ruins emerged a short, stout man with walrus-like ginger mustaches and a bald head that rivaled Harry’s. His hair was even sparser, nearly shaved to the scalp.

"Daniel Pumpkin, Chief Inspector of the Second Precinct," Sunset introduced him. Then he gestured toward us. "Sir Harry Smith and his apprentice, Duncan Kinkaid, Lord Loxlin."

"A pleasure, gentlemen," Chief Inspector Pumpkin said, shaking our hands. "This way, please."

Inside, the building resembled an empty shell. Massive beams still held the walls together, but the tiles from the roof had collapsed, the floorboards had rotted through, and thick layers of debris covered the ground. Empty window frames and the gaping holes in the roof allowed plenty of light to flood in, enough to illuminate the grisly sight in the center of the room.

A woman’s body was nailed to the wall, crucified. Seven rows of runic formulas, drawn in chalk, arched around her like a halo. She hung limply from the nails driven into the wall, her curly head bowed over a patch of floor that was unnervingly pristine compared to the surrounding wreckage.

"What do you think?" Sunset asked Smith.

"I need to take a closer look," Harry replied. "What do your staff wizards say?"

"They’re spouting nonsense. They claim the arch is a portal to the afterlife."

Harry frowned skeptically.

"Oh, believe me, they don’t buy it themselves. They say the formulas have at least a dozen errors. This thing can’t work – not to mention it’s written in chalk on ordinary bricks."

Harry extended his hand, and from the void, a magical book appeared in his grasp.

"May I?" he asked.

"By all means," said Pumpkin.

Harry opened the book and cast a large etheric formula into the air, speckled with traces of other elements.

"It’s already been used," the wizard said after a brief examination.

"Are you sure?" Sunset asked. "This isn’t the first arch we’ve come across. But before, it showed up in cases involving missing persons. Instead of intact symbols, we’d find walls crumbling into ash."

"Then why are you so sure it’s the same arch?"

"The nail holes. They’ve been on all of them."

"There’s not enough here to turn someone to ash," Harry pointed at the writings.

"Another oddity," John added. "There was always very little ash at the crime scenes."

"He could’ve taken it with him," Pumpkin suggested.

"Could have," Sunset agreed. "It’s a decent way to cover your tracks."

"Hmm…" Harry mused, then pulled another spell from the book. He clenched it in his hand and directed it at the floor. White streaks of crooked lines shimmered into view, like a faint reflection of the arch drawn on the wall. "This is only half of the ritual. The other half, the culprit took with him."

"And in a hurry, judging by the mess he left behind," I added. "Do we know who this is?" I gestured toward the woman.

John approached the corpse, grabbed her by the hair, and lifted her head.

"Damn," I muttered, a curse escaping before I could stop myself. Harry and Pumpkin turned to me with interest, but John seemed to have been expecting my reaction. "Lindemann’s daughter, right?"

"Valerie Lindemann," Sunset confirmed. "One of the youngest. Did you know her?"

I shook my head grimly, recalling one of the bloodsuckers tied and tossed into a dumpster by Valentine’s men.

"I saw her only once."

"Chief," Harry said to Pumpkin, "would you mind giving us a moment?"

The stout man exchanged a look with John, who nodded.

"I’ll wait for you outside," Pumpkin said, stepping away.

"John, what the hell is going on here?" Harry demanded as soon as the inspector left.

"You tell me."

"You think Duncan and I are involved?"

"Who the hell knows? Honestly, I can’t completely rule it out. But this doesn’t look like your work. You’d be more likely to blow the building to pieces, and as for our young lord here – he doesn’t exactly do ‘subtle.’" Sunset shot me a pointed look, clearly aiming a jab in my direction. "You asked if we’re still friends? There’s your answer. The ‘Archmaker’ has been at it for two years now. Eight people have gone missing, all of them nobodies no one cared about. Before this, he screwed up only once. His victim turned out to be the illegitimate son of Clive Chapman, not some nameless punk.”

"The Clive Chapman?" Harry clarified.

"No, a different one with the same name," Sunset replied with biting sarcasm.

"Uh, excuse me," I interjected. "Who’s Clive Chapman?"

"The Chief Justice. You’ll probably meet him at the reception. And yes, he’s well aware of your… disputes with the vampires."

"And?" Harry asked, not following.

"If I find this situation suspicious, others will too," Sunset said, narrowing his eyes. "What do you think, Harry? Could the Fairburns make you out to be the Archmaker?"

"John, that’s such a stretch it’s about to snap," Harry replied dryly.

"Is it? Doesn’t seem that way to me. Either way, we need to find him. I’ll send you the photographs – maybe you’ll spot something new."

"Fine," Harry agreed. "I’ll take a look."

The wizard tucked his book back into dimensional pocket and pulled a pocket watch from his vest.

"It’s time."

"Not for me," I said, turning to Sunset. "Could you drop me off at the city archive?"

"What are you up to?"

"I want to dig into the history of the slums."

"And what’s that got to do with anything?"

"Nothing," I admitted honestly, though John didn’t believe me. Still, he dropped me off at the archive and even helped me gain access to some information.

When I first arrived in the city, I’d burned through a mountain of cash. Now it was time to recoup some of it. I wanted to check if the slums were really split between de Camp and Duke Farnell, or if there was still any free land left.

I sifted through stacks of papers and eventually found some interesting information. Most of the land did indeed belong to de Camp – not personally, but as city property. Numerous smaller plots were owned by a mix of large and small business owners, companies, and ordinary citizens. Judging by the map, each private holding was surrounded by city land.

The Duke, on the other hand, wasn’t playing such games. His slice, though smaller, was entirely his. No interspersed patches of others’ property. It bordered directly on the docks and Heavy Bay, where the working class lived. Essentially, it was the prime spot.

They kicked me out of the archive late in the evening. By the time I got home, night had fallen. The day had worn me out completely. I skipped dinner and headed straight to my room. I hadn’t even started my list of spells yet – and thinking about work before bed didn’t seem like a good idea.

Still, I had a start: I needed a variation of a searching spell specifically for working with documents. Not a basic one, but an advanced form.

I hung my jacket on the back of the chair, removed the holstered pistol from my belt, and set it on the desk beside the card I’d been practicing with.

Three runes wouldn’t be enough… The formula itself needed to be enclosed in a circle – not just one, but at least three. Then I’d have to divide it into segments based on the cardinal directions. At least all the elements could be drawn with ether – that made things simpler…

"Duncan," a voice hissed angrily behind me.

I spun around in an instant, drawing the pistol. The barrel passed straight through the transparent head of a ghost. Through the part that was still intact, anyway – his left eye was a gaping hole, revealing the pulpy remains of his brain.

"Simon!? Are you kidding me?!"

"Kinkaid!" the ghost growled and lunged, wrapping his translucent hands around my throat.

I felt pressure squeeze my neck. I tried to fight him off, but my hands passed right through his spectral body. I clawed at his fingers, trying to pry them loose, but only managed to scratch my own skin.

The bloody bastard! Didn’t he have anything better to do in the afterlife than make my life hell?

I turned around, dragging him with me. Though Simon clung to my throat like a bulldog, he had no weight, and when I moved, his legs vanished into the floor beneath the desk. I grabbed the card with the spell, channeled a bit of ether into the runes, and watched as Simon snarled, his grip breaking as he recoiled. I gasped for air, relieved to be able to breathe again.

"Kicked out of hell for bad behavior, were you?" I asked, glaring at him.

Simon narrowed his one remaining eye at the glowing runes on the card and hissed, "It’d be boring down there without you."

What?! Sarcasm? He was coherent! Which meant – bloody hell – this wasn’t just a shadow of Simon. This ghost had intelligence.

My realization was interrupted by a scream from Cap’s room next door. Simon seized the opportunity and lunged again. I slammed the card against his bullet-riddled forehead. There was a bright flash, and the ghost dissolved into waves of ether.

I bolted into the hallway and saw Harry breaking down the door to the younger apprentice’s room, a blue flash of ether lighting up the space. By the time I entered, nothing supernatural remained.

Cap was standing on his bed, trembling with fear, while Harry was directing a small etherial light around the room.

"Do we have a ghost problem?" I asked.

"Yeah. Damn spectral rats," the warlock grumbled.

"Rats? Was it a rat ghost? Not one of those we dealt with alongside McLilly, was it?" I paused, suddenly uneasy. "Please tell me Valentine won’t be coming back from the dead too!"

"Hmm…" Harry mused, clearly considering the possibility.