Chapter VI (6)

  Water dribbled from the cell’s roof, splattering onto Mitsuko’s face and waking her in a jolt.

  Enchanted iron bars, a stone room, an antimagic bracelet around her wrist. It took little time for her to deduce that she was in prison. Her hand went to her finger and froze. Her ring was gone. In its place was a pale band of skin across her otherwise tanned hand. No fighting her way out then. Not that that would be a great idea, but she always liked having the option open.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  No answer. At least, not from any guard.

  “They went to lunch…or dinner or some other meal,” a nasally, buzzing, voice said from a cell next to her. “Hard to tell the time in here, eh? But they’ll be back in a bit. What are you in for?”

  A stone wall separated them, hiding the speaker from view. From the voice’s cadence, Mitsuko suspected it belonged to a female of the beetle-people she kept seeing across the island.

  “I assume suspicion of robbery,” Mitsuko replied. “But the guy knocked me unconscious before I could explain the situation.”

  “Yeah, they do that.”

  It annoyed her. Mitsuko had been arrested plenty of times in her last half a decade of exploration. But most of the time, the arrests were at least warranted. For at least three quarters of them she’d done something somewhat illegal. Here all she’d done was trespass and pick up a few books her friend forgot. Which…was also probably illegal. But still.

  “What are you here for?” Mitsuko asked.

  Her neighbor chortled, the mandibles adding a unique scraping sound to the laugh.

  “I may have stolen my ex’s underwear. And then set them on fire. In front of his new girlfriend’s front porch.”

  “That seems unnecessarily hostile.”

  “Bitch drugged him with a love potion to cheat on me.”

  “Ah. Okay then. Fair play.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Mitsuko said.

  “Shoot.”

  “I just arrived yesterday. I didn’t do as much research on the archipelago as I should have ahead of time.” She paused. “What exactly is your species? I’ve never seen it before.”

  Another scraping chortle of laughter.

  “We’re bitelas. The original species of Mauve Island. Each island has its own dominant species. But we were smart enough to become the trade center of the archipelago.”

  Mitsuko could hear a note of pride in the bitela’s voice.

  “What are the other races?”

  “Oh. You see some of them around town. Not snowsculpts as much, they need a special enchanted gear to move off their island. And you only ever see halves from Verdant Island. The younger wizards from Amber are common enough though. Even the crusts are here, but they hang out in the harbor.”

  Mitsuko frowned. She assumed wizards must be another name for mages, but the others? Snowsculpts? Crusts? And halves of what? She opened her mouth to ask, but the jail’s front door banged open.

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  “Xeri, stop bothering the other prisoner,” the human guard said, glaring at the cell next to Mitsuko before turning his attention to her. “Sorry about all this misunderstanding. We just received a notice from your benefactor. You’re free to go.”

  He inserted a large iron key into her cell door and twisted. It clanked open. Then he pulled out a smaller key from his belt and undid her antimagic bracelet. Not that having it removed changed much. What was she going to do with magic? Compass them to death with her mighty spell? She still muttered thanks.

  Xeri, the bitelas in the next cell over, lazily waved her goodbye with her upper two arms.

  “Sorry again,” the guard shrugged, handing back her confiscated things. “Zaok has a habit of assuming the worst without asking questions. He’s a very good exterminator. His sand specialization lets him force out even the most stubborn pests like renascence roaches. There’s no one on the archipelago that rivals his specialty. But he’s…got his quirks.”

  Mitsuko rubbed the lump on the back of her head courtesy of the exterminator’s ‘quirk’ and stepped outside to freedom.

  It took several seconds of rapid blinks before her vision cleared. A knee-high purple mist coated the nearby streets. Overhead, the sun continued to beat down through the barrier, unchanged and unmoved.

  “Any news on fixing that?” Mitsuko asked, pointing up at the dome.

  “Oh. Uh, no,” he said sheepishly. “I mean, we’re not supposed to talk about it with civilians. But no. Maybe the information is just above my paygrade though. Captain Hvir might know more. I think she’s in touch with the wizards.”

  Mitsuko thanked him and then slipped back on her ring before continuing on her way. Lucky for her, once the guards realized that Wan had been the one to send her to the embassy, they had already sent him the sacks of stuff she’d gathered. So now she only had her few possessions on her. She wandered the streets until she came to the clocktower in the city center.

  According to the clock, it was the middle of the night. The sun held steady in the sky, but the reliable timekeeper clicked forward. The clockwork moved mechanically, uncaring of the frozen time outside the barrier.

  Children, on the other hand, seemed to believe that if the sun was up, they had a pass for being up far later than their usual bedtimes. Mitsuko watched as a pack of them passed her by while chasing after a juggler, giggling and calling after the woman.

  Her face was white save for an enormous painted frown and she wore a red ball for a nose. A clown. No doubt she was out advertising for that circus Mitsuko had seen a poster for.

  Mitsuko smiled wistfully at the sight. It was nice seeing so many races together. A fire-headed gnome girl, a human boy with a handprint of mud on one cheek, a Kemon boy with the ears of a mouse, and even one of the beetle races, this one with a brilliant emerald back carapace. He struggled to keep up with the others as they chased after the clown. She honked a horn back at them with her free hand while keeping up a steady cycle of balls aloft with the other.

  “One of them yours?” an elderly woman asked, startling Mitsuko.

  It took her a second to process the question. At first she stupidly thought the woman was referring to the clown. Why would she own a circus performer? Then the more obvious subject hit her.

  “No. I don’t have any children.” She didn’t even know if it was possible with her old wound through her gut. She had purposefully avoided asking any healers about the scar. Somethings, it was simply better to stay ignorant of and never think on. “I’m just a traveler passing through. Can you help me? I’ve gotten turned around. Can you point me towards Fairy’s Grotto?”

  “A newcomer?” The woman frowned and nodded sympathetically. “Bad timing. Ill times ahead of us.”

  “Yeah.” Mitsuko sighed. “It’s nothing new for me. I’ve never been known for my astoundingly good luck.”

  “Don’t let the crusts hear you say that,” the old woman warned seriously. “They’re a superstitious lot. There’s no telling what they’ll do if they think you’re some kind of doombringer.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  After some quick directions, Mitsuko started back through the streets towards the inn. Truthfully, she could have found her way with her compass spell, but that would have taken more time navigating than the direct path offered by the woman. Plus, it had let her deflect that earlier conversation about children.

  Once back, the garden gnome greeted her with a bow and the guard inside let her pass undisturbed. In her bedroom again, she started her nightly routine. The ring’s familiar weight comforted her as she moved. The routine calmed her thoughts and gave her room to think. A measure of control returned to her life.

  With that complete, she decided to see if the inn had a library. Wan had brought plenty of books with him, of course, but she wasn’t keen to read about magical theory, a subject she couldn’t engage in. Not that Wan could either. A being constructed of ancient spellcraft, he had an unique relationship with magic. He still enjoyed theorizing and advising others on the topic though.

  The front desk worker sent her into a side room where she found a modest bookshelf. It only took her a minute to choose a novel that sounded interesting and then she headed back to her bed.

  She felt a bit bad about lounging about while her friend was in uncertain danger. But Holly was resourceful and there was nothing Mitsuko could do to help speed up her timetable. The best thing she could do is rest and prepare for the journey ahead.

  Tomorrow, she would cross the sea to find Holly. But in the meantime, she might as well read about a forbidden love destined for an explosive destruction. She did love a good tragedy.