The Thief of Silverwood

The content of this page is relevant to the Beta Timeline.

Brack was not a particularly well-liked citizen of Silverwood. His gruff demeanor and infrequent public appearances made him quite difficult to befriend to the common worker. Still, he was not entirely disliked, and at least three loyal parishioners in his meager congregation of five could vouch for his upstanding qualities. It was not so much a shock to the town that he had been the target of such a crime, but that the crime had been committed in the first place.

The elder's worst run-in before that morning (and his only run-in during his thirty-six years of ministry) had occurred twelve years ago. Brack's foyer had always been the most lavish part of his already-sizeable home—understandably, as his abode doubled as a place of worship for the deity Alísceia, the Light of Truth. Tapestries of the goddess' encounters with her faithful servants were fixed neatly on aureate walls, an homage to the great ministers and apostles of years past. Though, to shed light on his own truth, Elder Brack would spend his restful hours meditating in the center of the room, eyes drifting from wall to wall, hoping that he would one day be remembered for his work. Perhaps he had not shared the Light with many others in his lifetime, but to build up a place of devotion in such a judicious, law-upholding town? Surely it should count for something in his old age.

One could only imagine his shock and subsequent fury when meeting the eyes of a young girl, halfway through his windowsill, tugging on the frayed ends of his holy tapestries. He was grateful that a justicekeeper, Pelinne Belomy, happened to be passing by at the time. She tugged at the child's waist and flipped her over her own shoulders into a carry, apologizing audibly to the elder despite the wails of the delinquent. He was grateful for the justicekeeper then.

But today, he was not. Pelinne—now remarried to one Tesmarck Porthos, and now the chief justicekeeper of the town—surveyed his foyer in search of clues that were not there, reaching no conclusions. Brack watched her swipe a finger across his dusted mantelpiece, staring at the spot where his candelabrum sat just yesterday.

"Is there anything else you could tell us that might help us find out who did this?" she called from the fireplace, turning around to face him. Her voice was stern and formal, a trait the elder usually admired, though it seemed now to be alien and distant.

"Now, Pelinne, I've lived in Silverwood almost forty years now, and I've known this community to be respectful, but never, *never* in my years could I have expected something so callous..."

"Sir."

"... an affront to the Light of Truth that I have spent years in grateful servitude for, all to be made the laughingstock of this town..."

"Elder. Sir."

"... but also a sleight against me, the faithful servant of Alísceia, that I haven't suffered since-"

"Geyser!" The elder stopped himself. Pelinne took a short breath. "Anything... helpful you can tell us? Anything at all?"

"- nothing since that girl," Brack finished. Pelinne shifted her jaw slightly.

"Of course." She turned to the mantel again and peered down, squinting at the burnt logs. She bent down and started rummaging through.

"Oh, that," the elder spoke, "I haven't used the fire in weeks. Haven't swapped out the wood in a long time. It's been so warm out lately, I wouldn't-"

"*Kao*," Pelinne muttered under her breath. In her hands, other than soot and a meek splinter, were three cyan fibers. All seemed undamaged by any fire and shimmered like strands of hair, though she had never met someone with cyan hair before. Impatiently, she dusted her hands above the logs, wiped her palms against her slacks, and stood up.

"Have you found anything?" Brack called out.

"No. Not what I'm looking for," the chief answered, turning to face him. "It's a shame about your candlestick, Elder Geyser. It really is. But I promise you that we'll find who did this."

"Yes, yes, of course," he murmured, evidently upset with the mundane description of his stolen artifact. "The pursuit of truth leads you on." Surveying the room one last time, Pelinne left in silence.

Her long walk back to her home doubled as an exercise routine for her—sometimes she would have a brisk jog, though today didn't seem to call for it. The elder was right that it had been quite warm the past few days, which meant it wasn't quite the best weather to tire herself out in on a routine trip home.

It also meant that the fireplace wouldn't have been lit, which meant that whoever had left those fibers did so carelessly.

Or, it meant that they were left deliberately.

The haze of midday only worsened Pelinne's bitter mood as she trekked home, where her daughter would surely be in her room, occupying herself with something innocuous.

"Mom," she imagine she would be greeted on arrival.

"Nina," she expect she would reply.

"Anything fun today?"

"Elder Geyser Brack's 'candelabrum' was stolen."

"Mm! Exhilarating."

"I'm sure you remember him," she'd want to pry, if she didn't know better. "You were just a small girl back then when you tried to break into his house."

"Uh-huh," Nina might answer, curling her silvery hair around her finger. "Old dude lost a candle. Real shame."

Despite the heat, Pelinne found herself jogging home anyway.

## The Thief of Silverwood

### 1

Nina Ann Belomy sat at the foot of her bed, picking at a handsome steel device in her hands. It was mid-afternoon on a mildly hot day, her checkered undershirt unpleasantly sticking to her back. Her house—rather, her mother's house—was empty for the time being, as Pelinne had gone off to visit her husband for the day. Tesmarck's micro-mansion was eye candy, for sure, but only the small building in Silverwood was home to Nina. She made a face at the thing in her palm and itched at her leg with her free arm, struggling to fight against the protection her black pants offered.

The familiar sound of two knuckles rapped against Nina's bedroom door.

"Knock knock," a deadpan voice spoke.

Nina called back in a singsong pitch, "Who is it?~"

The knob turned, and the door swung open. The figure was a rather large gridmask, gray skin seeming darker than usual by the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat. His shirt could've been mistaken for a raggedy tee from a distance, but was a different brand of gaudy up close, featuring a catalogue of button-sealed pockets. His pants were thick and patchy, definitely designed for fieldwork, but were brushed clean all the same. *Same old Wodwick,* Nina would have thought, had she actually bothered to look up at him.

"Special delivery," he answered. "I'm here to cram some vegetables down your gullet."

Nina swooned dramatically, fluffing her cyan hair behind and collapsing backwards on the mattress. The metal contraption hit the ground with a dull 'thud' and rolled under a desk. "Oh, dear me, but I don't have any *money*!" she joked. The other fellow let out a chuckle, pantomiming some difficulty fitting through the doorframe. "Careful, Wick. My room only comes in one size, and it ain't 'Mountain'."

Wodwick nudged the door closed behind him, then hung his hat on the knob. "Well. Maybe you should've thought about that before inviting me over?" He pulled over a chair from the desk and plopped himself down. His smile faded slightly as he glanced over at his friend.

"Uh. Nina."

"Hm?"

Wodwick pointed at her hair. Nina's eyes widened a bit, realizing what he meant. She sat up on her bed, stretched, and let out a loud yawn. Just as it ended, she snapped the fingers on both her hands. Her hair shimmered for a bit like a desert mirage, then shifted seamlessly to a silvery tone, matching Wodwick's skin almost perfectly. The pixie cut unfurled into a longer, silky hairstyle.

"Still can't believe you get two different types of hair when I can't even grow one," Wodwick teased, patting his bald dome.

"Just plant some seeds up there. I'm sure you'll be fine."

Wodwick kicked his legs around idly, running a shoe over the mechanical object from earlier. He leaned over and picked it up, twisting it in his palms. It was spherical, mostly uniform save for a crease bisecting it, and had no distinguishing marks on it whatsoever.

"Gee," the same deadpan voice spoke. "Wonder what this could be." Nina leaned over and snatched it effortlessly from Wodwick's tight grip, which failed to surprise him.

"Quint's toy," Nina answered, though both of them already knew. "Not sure what I'm gonna do with it yet, but I've still gotta pull it apart first."

Wodwick shook his head. "I can't tell if you're bleeding him dry, or if it's the other way around. You spend so much time with his tech that I think he might be trying to seduce you with it all." Nina gagged audibly, still fiddling with the contraption meticulously.

"*Jia*, I just imagined him trying to ask me out, and now that's not gonna leave my brain for, like, at least another minute. You're a dick, Wick." Wodwick laughed to himself.

"... Seriously, though," he continued. "For as much as you love riffing on Baxter-"

"*Hey there, Nin', it's me! Bastard Ether Squint! I'll let you fuck me, but I'm keeping the bowtie on!*"

"- you've got an obsession with this whole... thing you've got going on. And you know I'm not gonna get on your case about it, because it's a sweet deal, but... don't make this thing your whole life, you know?" Wodwick scratched at his arm a bit. Nina huffed some air at the Quint tech and shined it with her shirt, then lifted it in front of her face.

She hated seeing him get this serious, and she fought hard not to meet his eyes. It *was* a sweet deal, after all—some anonymous correspondence to the infamous middle child of the Quint empire, a sob story about a vanished parent, and she suddenly found herself getting free shipments of illustrious tech from Baxter's first company, even years after its closure. The resources were too great to pass up on, and the applications were limitless. Every new device was a shiny puzzle of maybe-illegal tech, like a forbidden fruit waiting for someone clever enough to bite. She always did, and she always got the better end of the bargain.

"Don't be a rod, Wick-wod. It's not *all* I do." As if to prove her point, she pitched the orb at her wall, which ricocheted and landed back on her pillow. "I can keep my eyes off it for a whole hour. Maybe even *two*."

His eyes widened, and he mouthed her last sentence back for good measure. "You must've really been practicing!" he offered with mock-surprise. Nina stood up and gave a small curtsy.

"Besides, we're already going out tonight, right? That's something."

Wodwick gave a heavy sigh. "And are we *really* going, or am I just your alibi again?" In response, Nina flashed a comical grin at her friend, who stared her down in return. She scowled a bit and sunk back onto her bed.

"Your hobbies can't just be 'steal shit', 'lie to people', and 'lie to people to steal shit'. Can't you mix it up a little? Can't we *actually* go out and do something for once? I'm going nuts out at the farm by myself all the time. I want my friend back."

Nina rolled her eyes, standing up and slipping into her shoes with one fluid motion. "Alright, alright. Don't get sappy with me, veggie-breath. It's not like I'm not goin' anywhere." Wodwick rose from the chair, smiling his thanks back. She stuck her tongue out at him, buttoning up a collared shirt.

"There's a Quint show tonight—the *better* Quint, I mean," he said, grabbing his hat from the door. "Met Canter a few times in New Hub, wrote them to 'catch up' a few days ago, and—voila!—smooth-talked my way to some free tickets."

"Ooh! Wodwick Dee's just as bad as me? Maybe you'll end up seducing them, too. We'll have a double wedding and get hitched to the richest idiots in Steckenberg." She grabbed a gray sweater from a pile on her desk and tied it around her waist.

"Great, now you've got *me* thinking about it... and you know what? I might let that one stay, actually." The two snickered at the thought. Nina playfully shoved Wodwick out of her room and followed him, slamming the door shut behind her. The walls, desk, and bed frame rattled slightly in reply, with the device sitting perfectly still on its cushion.

### 2

"... And don't even get me *started* with the food there. I could be eating a dude!"

"You're probably eating a dragonkin, if anything, you know? Dragonkin, Dragon King..."

"Can't they, like, talk? That's probably even worse than eating-"

The door swung open, Nina and Wodwick lazily stumbling through the frame. The two froze in place upon noticing Brack's candelabrum—lit, and with only sparse trails of wax off the sides—standing proud on the center table. Tesmarck didn't bother looking up from his magazine, but shifted in his seat to announce his presence.

"Hey, Tes," Nina managed. She elbowed Wodwick's side and forced out an involuntary "Evening, Mr. Porthos" from him.

"Welcome back, Nina. Good night, Mr. Dee." Tesmarck turned a page. The other two shared a fearful glance, with Nina giving a single nod to her friend.

"Come stop by tomorrow, if you can. The gourds're coming in nice, so I'll let you get first pick. Have a good night, Mr. Porthos."

"You yourself, Wodwick."

A gesture—presumably a tip of the hat, though Tesmarck admittedly wasn't looking—and the young farmer took his leave. After some moments in silence, Tesmarck folded up his magazine again and placed it aside, crossing his arms at his stepdaughter.

"My employees are suggesting some new monikers, I've heard. 'The Cyan Spectre' is almost as popular as 'the Thief of Silverwood' now."

"Uh-huh?" she smirked, reaching her hands into her sweater's pockets, still worn like a belt across her stomach. She fished out a pink ticket stub and a playbill, then weighed them down on the table with some pocket change. "Show was good, by the way."

"Your mother's running a fever—kind of you to ask about her—and she's asleep at my house. She asked me to make sure you came home alright." His eyes focused on the discrepancy in the room, flames swaying modestly. Nina, out of self-preservation or habit, failed to notice. "You'll sleep here tonight, then we'll leave in the morning so you can look after her while I'm at work."

Nina shrugged, which was as much of an "okay" as he could manage to get out of her. "Gonna shower," she mumbled, heading down the creaking hallway and towards the restroom. Tesmarck sighed to himself. The girl was smart, of course, but she used her brains for all the wrong things. What was her goal? What did she hope to get out of setting up an endless chase for her own mother? Pelinne loved her, despite everything. Tesmarck himself had grown to love her, too, and hoped to one day start her into his business. She didn't need to stop what she was doing, but she just needed a vision. And she needed to stop working his poor Pelinne into insanity, too.

He got up from his chair and gripped the candelabrum, then blew out all but the center candle. It was a nice find, and he knew the story behind it: Nina was never fond of Brack. He had taken a closer look at it earlier that evening, but gave it a gentle turn in his hand again, anyway. Wonderful metalwork, decent material, and easily worth a handsome price to the right buyer. But who could she sell to? Nobody in town, of course, and she wouldn't be able to make it out of town without her mother knowing about it. The vegetable boy? Even if his city-stiff demeanor was just a facade, Tesmarck thought it unlikely, though he wouldn't rule out the possibility of Wodwick merely being the middleman to a larger operation. But none of it felt like it was true. None of it seemed like it was Nina.

It was all wishful thinking, he supposed. His stepdaughter: hoarder of curiosities, irritant of mothers. No end goal in sight. Against the faraway sounds of the running faucet, Tesmarck's footsteps announced his coming presence, with the mild flame guiding his way.

"Nina?" he spoke to the bathroom door.

"Mmhuh?"

"We're a family, you know."

Silence.

"As a family, sometimes it's important to be honest with one another."

More silence. He let out another sigh, then tapped one end of the candelabrum to his forehead.

"... Other times, you need to know when to hide things from the ones you love. To protect them. Do you understand?"

More silence still, though he could've sworn he heard an "uh-huh" back.

"Your mother doesn't have to know about this. Next time—if there *is* a next time—think about your family. We do what we can to look after each other. I hope you'll do the same." He turned from the door, paused a moment, then called back, "And do a better job hiding things, please."

Not waiting for a reply, he borrowed Brack's light once more to Nina's bedroom. He knelt beside the foot of her bed, lifted up an unmarked plank of wood, and puffed out the fire. He didn't need to know what else was under there, as much as his curiosity begged him otherwise. He licked his fingers and put out the wick for good, then placed it on top of the rest of Nina's treasure hoard. The sound of ringing metal was deafened shortly after, and he replaced the floorboard with care.

Tesmarck stood up slowly, then fluffed and smoothed out Nina's pillow. The object resting on it when he first arrived had left a heavy indent.

### 3

*Three.* She could plug the base of the door with her sweater and let the faucet run, pry up the window, and book it to Wodwick's, then they could head north to New Hub. Stop for provisions and hide in with some of his old academy buddies. Or Canter? They wouldn't mess with a Quint, right?

Longshot. Tickets are one thing, letting runaways crash is another.

*Four.* Plug the door, flood the room, get Wick, go for Gredile. They'll have to stop tailing and rethink their plan once the mountains hit.

*Yeah, and then what?* the rest of her brain fired back, which was a good point. She knew Silverwood front-to-back, but she didn't know a thing about the everyday outside of it. Too much danger and she wouldn't be able to adapt fast enough. Too little and she'd stick out like a sore thumb to the authorities. She could finally sell all the goods she's been hoarding and use the money to give herself a head start, but she'd need a lot of luck to make it through—and she liked working with things more tangible than luck.

*Kao.* Nina was wasting water, and flooding the house was a dumb idea anyway. She stepped into the shower.

Her thoughts shifted from escape plan to daydream, and saw herself buying a secluded house with her ill-gotten gains. Warmer weather? Colder weather? It didn't so much matter. The idea of a new home was nice. Find something to do with her skills, earn a living for herself, maybe settle down with someone, too.

She gagged, then broke out into a coughing fit. As if she'd be happy twiddling her thumbs in a house all day, going to work the same job every day. Though what got to her was the "settling down" part, since Wodwick left that stupid image in her head of the Quint boy trying to win his way into her heart.

*Wodwick,* she then thought. *How's he gonna take all this?* She didn't want to consider it at first, but she wasn't sure he'd go with him. She wasn't sure how dangerous it would be for him staying put, or—worse still—she didn't know if he'd snitch on her to save himself. Sunrise Farms was his baby, and for as much flak as she gave him for his modified produce and weird machines and neo-Dwinian sun rituals, they meant everything to him, and he labored hard for it all. Long before she came into his life, Wick already played the settle-down dream.

*Guess it's easy to forget that not everyone's the "Thief of Silverwood." Some of us have lives we can't leave behind, you selfish shit.* Was she even ready to leave behind her home? Would she be ready to leave Wodwick, if it came to that? She wouldn't know who else to turn to. But she might have to take the chance.

*Shut the fuck up,* she had to think back at herself. "Us," "we," "you"—like part of her brain could sit at a guiltless distance while the rest took it all. And Wodwick was ride-or-die, even if "ride" meant she had to tie him up and drag him along screaming. Even if she had to leave him, she'd come back for him, or he'd come find her. *We're the whole package, hun. It's our problem.*

She stretched her arms out and snapped her fingers, feeling the dragging weight from her scalp ease up. The old company hadn't found any use for the faulty nanotech, which was originally intended as an instantaneous, lightweight body armor. When she got ahold of it, she bound it instead to her hair, giving it a deep color that matched her father's, or so she was told. *All that self-defense money spent on expensive hair dye,* she mused, though it was certainly a worthy use of it. She rinsed off her hair—her *real* hair—permanently dyed a bright cyan. She did it the same day she got the first batch of nanotech: in Tesmarck's downstairs-washroom, in secret, right under her mother's nose as she cooked breakfast.

The old company. Baxter's first gig that didn't involve swindling, cheap tricks, and all of his other old trademarks. Getting in contact with him was a jackpot: a caravan full of his old wares ran through Silverwood a few years back. Everything inside wasn't yet ripe for the picking: Nina knew that a simple snag wouldn't do. The only thing she took from the shipment was a note to its destination from Baxter himself—which she tore the return address from before returning the letter where it belonged. And then she wrote him. Not entirely lies, but definitely with some embellishments: her father *had* gone missing, after all, but she wasn't as broken up about it as she pretended, nor did she plan to spend her life trying to find him or his supposed-killers. She was lucky she didn't have to ever face him in person—she's no bad actor, but she can't cry on command. When a courier to Steckenberg came along some time later, she sent along her message, confessing and apologizing for intercepting his note, promising she hadn't read a thing on it, and begging for assistance. *You're the only one who understands!* she wrote. How dramatic.

A few days later came a response from Baxter himself. A cross between a corporate apology and a bumbling faux pas, but it was everything she needed. His company had been shut down for good, as she well knew, and he explained that everything was being shipped to one of his storehouses. He couldn't do anything to help her. And then came the kicker: "My caravans come through your town every three days with defective equipment that NHC's justicekeepers have called 'unsafe and/or unethical'. I don't have the funds to pay for additional escort security or to ensure that all my stock arrives at the location. Whatever you did last time to send this letter, please don't do it again, as nobody will be able to stop you." Couldn't have been any less subtle if he tried, but it got the job done. All the tools of the trade she might need at her fingertips, so long as she could figure out what they were and what they did. Back in the old days, Wodwick would even get in on them, using his blueprint-brain to fix something up or rig something new together. It made getting caught impossible, so much that she had to leave breadcrumbs for her mother just to keep the excitement going.

But she got sloppy, was all. Not with the crime, but with the cleanup. Tesmarck really was family to her, but he was also family to her mother. Trusting him not to squeal tomorrow was a guarantee, but what about the next heist? She needed an out.

Not tonight, though. She had first pick of the gourds waiting for her tomorrow.

### Interlude

*Boss?*

*Speak. I wanna get home soon so I can look after my lady.*
*That orb you gave me to look at. Your daughter's thing.*

*What about it?*
*It's givin' off some bad waves.*

*Waves? Like water?*
*No! Like, ah... remember when we took that job for Garfort, and they had that video-surveillance all set up? The one without all the cords?*

*What are you saying?*
*The cameras. They didn't need wires because it used the waves.*

*Yes. What about it?*
*Well, it's the same kind, boss.*

*...*
*We checked her room here. There's a letter. Right under the floor where you said to look. It's from a Quint. The Problem Quint.*

*...*
*I'm real sorry, boss. I think she knows.*

### 4

Nina drummed along the side of the barn with her fingers, stopping at a precise point. Then, putting her ear to the wall for just a moment, she heard what she was waiting for.

*Score,* she thought, before slamming her palm against the spot, loud as possible. Wodwick yelped from the inside. She let out a loud snicker—not because it was very funny, but more to reassure him that his farm wasn't under attack—then made her way over to the side door. She reached for the handle only to realize that it was gone, and the whole door along with it. Boards of wood were shoddily nailed in its place.

"Hey, uh, Wick? Permission to enter Fort Paranoid, please?"

She heard a quick grunt, then the noises of her friend scrambling over to her location. Metal clangs and wooden thunks reverberated from inside the barn.

"N-Nina?" Wodwick pressed his face against a crack in the planks, eye squinting. His voice sounded raspy, and his breath was erratic. "Dawn shining, it's you!"

"... Yes? Tes made me stay home yesterday to watch after mom... what happened here?"

"Everything. Ludus and Lux becoming, oh, Nina, *everything*. You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

She'd never seen him this urgent before. "This is weird. This is really, really weird, in case you were wondering." Suddenly, Wick's hand shot out from between the boards, grabbing Nina by her shirt collar and yanking her close. She let out a yelp.

"Nina, don't trust anyone. Not Tes, not your mom, not Quint—hell, not even *me*, okay?"

"Wick, what-"

"Listen! You're not listening! You need to get away from here. Far away. As far as you can get. It doesn't matter where. And I'll come find you, okay? Don't go looking for me, don't stop for anything-"

"Let go!" She beat at his wrist until he released her, then stumbled to the floor. Panting, she started to dust herself off, barely noticing the sounds of her friend retreating further back into the barn. She untied her sweater from her waist and started using it to brush off the remaining dirt. She opened her mouth to yell something at him, but ended up screaming instead—at first, in anguish and confusion, though rightfully transitioning into terror as the bag slipped over her head.

Nina thrashed about, but her kidnappers easily overpowered her. Her kicks struggled to sink into the knees of the person holding her, and even a lucky direct blow failed to make them flinch. She felt the familiar fabric of her sweatshirt now being used as makeshift cuffs, binding her wrists together with a tight knot. Her screams seemed to permeate the bag well enough, but nothing seemed to happen in her favor outside of it. She recognized the stench of dried plant fibers and fertilizer, then, defeated, broke out into a coughing fit. She felt herself hoisted up onto someone's broad shoulders.

A shrill voice piped up—one she recognized. Someone who worked for Tesmarck. "Everything the boss did for you, and this is how you pay him back, huh? To think we were rootin' for you, y'backstabber."

*Tes.* It was her own stepfather who did this. But why? After that talk about integrity or family or... whatever it was... that night? Why was now the last straw?

She gasped for breath, finally, realizing that she had been holding it for some time. Tes' lackeys were still on the move on foot, which meant she could trace her way back. The knot was unimpressive—and of *course* she knew her way around her own clothes, no?—so it was just a matter of timing and strength. It'd be all over for her if they brought her on board a cart. *It'll be all over for you pretty soon regardless if you don't do something,* she reminded herself.

"Rich of you to call me that," she enunciated confidently, even though it had been at least a few seconds before the "backstabber" remark. "How do you think my mother's gonna react when she finds out that Tesmarck's taken me away?"

Her tough talk was just met with laughing—three different voices, she identified, and all of them belonging to people she knew worked for Tes. The one carrying her finally tossed her to the ground. What felt like weak sticks poked at her from the floor. These were the grain fields that Wick gave up tending to when he bought the land here. More importantly, it wasn't the floor of a vehicle waiting to take her away, which meant that kidnapping her was never the plan.

Two pairs of hands hoisted Nina to her knees. She felt something like a hollow tube pressing at the tip of her forehead.

"Don't you try pinning this back on him, you hear? *This was your mother's idea.*"

She heard a loud snap—the reloading of a firearm, for sure—and ducked down. She wasn't sure what she would accomplish at the time, and didn't have much time to figure it out shortly after, either: the deafening crack of the gun went off above her, aimed much higher than her head would have been even if she hadn't moved. In one movement unseen to her, she felt the figure gripping her right side loosen all restraint, and a soft patter into the earth where they must've stood. She heard the gun drop in front of her and the footsteps of its wielder pacing off in the other direction. Three more of the soft noises by her sides, like the popping of a straw into and out of a pastry. It became dark overhead instantly.

Then, finally, the arms holding her left side, which had seized up and been meekly shaking, let go, and their owner let out a pitiful scream—cut short by another soft patter, intercepted by the effortless slicing of ribs, and ending with the gargling of blood.

Nina had been holding her breath again, but this time, continued to do so after realizing it. The silence was unbearable. *A monster,* she realized—not that it wasn't a dead ringer for one earlier, but she had been too busy fearing for her life to notice. She wasn't doing much better for herself now, though. *How'd this thing sneak up on us like that? Has it always been here? Is it the only one? Giajya, why is it waiting so long?*

But the waiting ended shortly after. She only heard the first few patters running off—its limbs, she concluded—and cracks of light filtered back into the bag. She wasted no time undoing her crude restraints, and then immediately retched upon seeing the corpses of the people sent for her: the first had been pierced straight through the center by the monster's long, pipe-like foot, while the second suffered similarly through the chest. Judging by his position, he must have tried to run away, and judging by the additional bores in his back, he must've been trampled over a second time when the monster ran off.

She didn't waste another second—Nina darted away in the opposite direction, pushing through the grain effortlessly. Wodwick kept some kind of high-tech steam vehicle in a shed somewhere, and while it was repurposed to sew seeds, it could still reach a high speed, if needed. She hoped. She wasn't sure how to drive it off the top of her head, but she imagined it couldn't be too hard. Then it would just be a matter of heading north to New Hub—she'd stick out like a sore thumb, which might be a good thing if she was to get help. Then again, it might mean the opposite if she went around attracting attention from people in Tesmarck's pocket. *How big was Tes' pocket, anyhow? Did he have influence far beyond Mist Grove?*

She'd have to take chance upon chance. Nina had almost died twice in the past few minutes. She reasoned that if she ran into more of those things on the way out, it was judicious Ukron catching up to her. But if she could get lucky one more time, that'd be just fine with her.

### 5

*Four. Abandon your only friend from your stepfather's murder squad and a giant fucking monster, steal the world's fastest tractor, drive into the armpit of New Hub City, and cry yourself to sleep in the passenger seat.*

Except something was wrong—first, that she miscounted (she was definitely on her fifth plan by this point), but more importantly, that she was now awake, and no longer parked in an alleyway. In fact, she wasn't in her vehicle at all, but loafed out on a plush couch. She bolted upright and scanned the room. It was morning, judging from the light pouring in, and she was on some high-up floor of a skyscraper. The place itself was a large, open chamber, spanning almost half the length of her mother's house in just one room and reaching up almost three times its height. The place had posh furniture all over, but little sense of proper interior design—empty and lifeless, by comparison to Tes' mansion.

Nina shuddered, remembering his name. Now wasn't a good time to process all of yesterday. Not yet. She didn't know where she was yet. She rose and headed towards the massive wall-to-wall window and took a look down. It was still New Hub, and a more technologically advanced part of the area than she'd stopped in last night, though she hadn't spent enough time in the city to know where exactly she was.

"Hey," a voice suddenly called behind her. She turned, hands instinctively balled into fists as she faced her host: a woman around her own age, guessing from her appearance, adorned in some fuzzy, laughable robes. *Rich people,* she would've thought, if she wasn't still running on yesterday's adrenaline.

"Tell me where I am," she demanded.

"Meeting room," the lady replied, unhelpfully. "We found you up last night. He said it was lucky coincidence—you just missed him, by the way—and that he was gonna send for you in a few days anyway."

Realizing she was still in an unconvincing fight stance, she eased up, doing her best to still look stern.

"I just missed him?" *Tesmarck? Wodwick?*

"I'm Terry, by the way." *Didn't ask and I don't care.*

"You said I just missed him, right?" The woman simply nodded her head in the direction of a coffee table, which Nina paced over to. On it, aside from some dust and a loose slip of paper, was a two-part machine with a keypad on its side.

"He'll be back at his office by tonight, so you'll have to stay here for a bit. My older sib's gonna be around later, and they can take you over tomorrow morning. I'll be there too, since my break's over this weekend, and I need to be back-" Nina shot her a fierce glance. She pursed her lips, gave some kind of acknowledgement with her hands, then sunk out of view behind an archway. Nina allowed herself just a few moments to marvel over the tech, then set to work. It was definitely the same kind of high-end stuff she was used to, judging by the material, handwritten symbols, and no other identifying marks. Some sort of espionage device, then? Wodwick had said that he would come find her. Maybe this was how?

"You hit the buttons with the numbers from the card and-"

"*Giajya fucking Kao up the ass.*"

"- actually, I think you got it, I'll just..."

She let out an exasperated sigh. This time, however, her insight was helpful. Whoever wanted her here left her with a means to reach him back. She reached for the tiny piece of paper she had neglected before, then, seeing that it was blank, turned it to its other side, to-

"Actually, no, that's not fair, because I live here—sort of, sometimes—and I don't even know who you are yet."

Nina slammed her arm down on the table, rattling the machine.

"I AM-" she yelled, before breaking into a cough—her hoarse morning voice wasn't yet ready for his much action all at once. This girl was preposterous. Everything about this meeting was preposterous, including Nina's own failed attempt at seeming in control. She sunk to the ground slowly, gripping the table leg for support. As she struggled to regain her breath, the woman—Terry?—left in a hurry, presumably to grab her something to drink.

*Let's get the story straight now. Package deal, remember?* Terry would be back at any second, and her lungs would have to start cooperating sooner or later. Wodwick said to trust nobody, and that included her, as harmless as she seemed. He was right about her mother, and he was right about Tesmarck, and...

*... and the girl said her name was Terry.*

Nina took a look at the other side of the paper to see just two words and a number. She let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper, not knowing what would come next, but hating it to no end. Her luck stopped here, in an underdressed meeting room on the millionth floor of a New Hub City skyscraper.

Terry scrambled back with a box of pills, a breathing mask, and two other unrecognizable contraptions. "Okay, so you can put this one on first, or—wait, no—you can take one of these—we have a lot of them, you don't need to take all of them, and make sure they're all the same kind, whatever you pick—and *then* you put on the mask-"

Nina let out a long wheeze which pattered out into a laugh. "Jia, you're hopeless. *Water.* The answer we were looking for was *water*. And they tell me that *you're* the brainiac-bookworm of the family?"

Terry's face flushed and her shoulders sunk.

"Fine. Water. But only after you tell me who you are—and don't lie to me, because I know acting when I see it."

*Lucky for you, Miss Terry, because it's showtime.* She stood up, stretching her arms.

"Oh, you know exactly who I am—if your brother's told you anything. They call me the All-Taker. Your silent secret weapon. The Vanishing Act. Queen of Quick Grip, Matron of the 'That's Mine', full and open supporter of the ten-digit discount. Permanent Borrower. Gone with the wind. The Cyan Spectre."

She snapped her fingers and smirked, feeling her hair shift.

"I'm the one you've been looking for. I'm-"

"Cobalt."

Nina stared blankly. "... Excuse me?"

"Cobalt. This is a riddle, right? Or are you actually serious about all those? Because, like, 'All-Taker', that's a Dwinian Zealot from sixty-eight years ago, so you take his age at death and apply it into Houberth's Equation—that being from "silent secret weapon," of course—and get three thousand and seventy-three point six-six-six-s-"

"It's Nina," she blurted out. "Giajya, it's just Nina. That was gonna be so cool, and then you just... *Cobalt?* How did you get *Cobalt?*"

"Oh! You could've said so!" Terry trotted to the kitchen, arms still full of whimsical cough-cures, and procured a cup from a cabinet. "Nina. The Thief of Silverwood."

*... Jia.*

"Well, I'm sure you're in for a ride the next few days, ma'am," she remarked coyly while pouring some water. "He's dying for that call, you know."

"I'll bet he is." She accepted the drink.

"I'll leave you to it."

"Mmmhm." *"It,"* she thought. *Maybe "it" might be the next big escape plan. Bash my head against the window 'til it breaks, then become NHC's fattest raindrop.* But she knew better, and she knew she could play the game as well as he could, any day. She might've gotten caught, once or twice, but she's never lost yet. She typed in the number on the device from memory, not needing to check the card left for her:

**LET'S TALK. 55555**