The transition was instantaneous and entirely devoid of fanfare. There was no rush of wind, no flash of light, and no sickening lurch of vertigo to warn them of the shift in reality.

  One moment, they were sitting in the plush, cedar-scented warmth of the Cellar’s VIP lounge, the next, the world snapped into a different configuration of gray brick, damp cobblestones, and biting wind.

  William hit the ground hard.

  "Oof!"

  He had been leaning back against a tufted leather booth that no longer existed, and gravity, unforgiving and immediate, introduced his tailbone to the wet pavement of a Dunwick alley. The impact drove the air from his lungs in a sharp wheeze. He scrambled to his feet, slipping slightly on a patch of slick, green moss, his eyes darting around the sudden gloom.

  Eliza fared better. Much better.

  She was hovering in mid-air, her legs still crossed at the knee, suspended comfortably two feet off the ground by a flat, invisible plane of solidified air. It was a reflex spell, cast purely on instinct the moment the environment shifted, but it held her with the stability of a marble plinth.

  She took a moment to inspect her fingernails before she uncrossed her legs and stood up gracefully, dismissing the barrier beneath her with a faint, glass-like shimmer. Her heels clicked softly against the stone as she smoothed the front of her trench coat, looking as though she had merely stepped out of a luxury carriage rather than been ejected from a pocket dimension.

  "Where..." William stammered, spinning in a circle. He patted his chest, checking his ribs, then his limbs, ensuring they hadn't been rearranged during the transit. "Where are we!? Did he banish us to a dungeon? Is this the Abyss?"

  "Hardly," Eliza said, reaching up to untie the silk ribbons of her porcelain mask. She took a deep, deliberate breath. "Smell that? Stale pipe tobacco, wet horse hair, and the distinct, metallic taste of the municipal drains. It’s unmistakable."

  She pulled the mask free, shaking out her dark blonde hair which had been somewhat flattened by the straps.

  "We’re in an alley off Chancellor’s Lane," she noted, looking up at the slice of gray sky visible between the looming granite facades. A pigeon watched them judgmentally from a rusted gutter. "About two blocks from Headquarters. Awfully kind of him to drop us off within walking distance. Celo is nothing if not a gentleman about his evictions."

  "A gentleman?" William hissed. He brushed a streak of alley grime off his sleeve, grimacing at the smear it left behind. "Sheltie, he just warped reality to throw us out of a basement! I thought my heart stopped! Do you have any idea what that kind of displacement does to the inner ear?"

  "Breathe, William," Eliza commanded, coolly tucking the mask into the deep inner pocket of her coat. "And you can stop with the 'Sheltie' nonsense now. We’re out of the Cellar. Call me Eliza."

  William slumped against the damp brick wall, letting out a long, shuddering sigh. "Right. Eliza. Okay. We're safe. We're in Dunwick."

  He took a moment to compose himself, patting his coat to check for his wallet, his weapon, and his badge. Everything seemed to be in place.

  Then he froze.

  His hands patted his pockets frantically, slapping against the fabric. He checked the inside breast pocket. The side pockets. The small hidden pocket for emergencies. Nothing.

  His eyes widened, darting to the empty space on the ground where he had fallen.

  "Wait," William gasped, his face draining of color. "The box. The Music Box."

  "What about it?" Eliza asked, examining a scuff on her heel.

  "It's gone! We left it on the table!" William looked at her, horror dawning in his eyes. "Eliza, that was a Class-B restricted artifact. We signed that out from Artifact Containment."

  "So?"

  "So!?" William’s voice pitched up an octave. "If we don't return it, Containment is going to flag us. Do you know what the paperwork for a lost Class-B looks like? It’s thirty pages, Eliza! Thirty pages of explaining why we handed a Class-B artifact to the Gatekeeper! I have to get it notarized by the Commissioner!"

  "Forget it," Eliza said, waving a hand dismissively as she began walking toward the mouth of the alley. "The Cellar has it now. And considering we are currently persona non grata, I doubt they will be processing our lost-and-found claim anytime soon."

  "But the Chief..." William groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "Rourke is going to flay me. He’s going to use my skin to bind the report."

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  "Let the Department send the bill to Sorto Manor," Eliza said, unbothered. "I’m sure Celo can afford it."

  William scrambled to catch up with her, his boots splashing in a puddle of questionable depth. "You are surprisingly calm for someone who just lost a classified artifact, got banned from the city's premier intelligence hub, and... well, got cursed."

  He glanced at her warily. "The 'bad dates' thing. Do you feel... unlucky?"

  Eliza paused. She stood perfectly still for a moment, waiting for a chill, a tremor, or a shift in the wind.

  "No," she said finally, resuming her pace. "I don't feel any difference."

  "Maybe it takes time to set in," William muttered, hurrying to keep up.

  "Overall," Eliza continued, ignoring him, "despite the ban and the petty hex, I would count this as a fruitful venture."

  "Fruitful?" William sputtered, incredulous. He gestured wildly at the trash-strewn alley. "In what universe? We lost an artifact, we angered the Cellar, and we didn't get a single answer out of that Dragonslayer girl. She stonewalled us completely."

  "Don't be such a downer, William," Eliza chided without looking back. "We got the most important answer of all."

  "Which is?"

  "Guilt," Eliza stated simply. "Did you see her face when I asked about the King's Road? She flinched. The mask hides a lot but it doesn't hide the tension in the shoulders. She knows something."

  "Okay, so she's guilty," William argued, throwing his hands up in exacerbation. "So? We still don't know who she is! We have a general description: female, roughly five-foot-two, dark hair. Do you know how many people fit that description in Dunwick? We live in a city of four million people! We can't arrest half the female population on a hunch!"

  "I know, I know," Eliza sighed. She stopped near the end of the alley, where the dim light of the streetlamps began to bleed into the shadows. She turned to face him, a sharp, predatory glint in her eyes. "It is a needle in a haystack. Or it would be, if I hadn't been thorough."

  She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice.

  "I didn't just grab her wrist to intimidate her, William. I grabbed her to read her."

  William blinked. He stared at her, his mouth slightly open, looking utterly lost. "Read her? Like... a palm reading?"

  Eliza let out a long, suffering groan, tilting her head back toward the sky as if asking the heavens for a partner who understood the basics of mana theory.

  "No, William. Not palmistry," she snapped, looking back down at him. "Mana resonance. Every mage has a signature, like a fingerprint pressed into the ether. When I touched her skin, I wasn't checking her pulse. I was memorizing her frequency."

  She tapped her temple with a gloved finger.

  "Down to the decimal," Eliza grinned, and the expression was sharp enough to cut glass. "It’s a unique vibration. Condensed, volatile pyromancy with a specific oscillating rhythm. It felt like holding a live coal wrapped in velvet. I have it locked in my head."

  William stared at her, the confusion slowly being replaced by begrudging admiration. "You... you can do that? Just from a touch?"

  "I just need to get back to the base, recreate the resonance in a containment field, and feed it into the Grid," Eliza explained, turning back toward the towering structure of the D.A.A. Headquarters in the distance. "If she casts so much as a spark in this city again, the sensors will light up like a bonfire."

  "That is reckless," William said, his eyes widening as the implication landed. "Eliza, you don't have an affinity for pyromancy. Are you going to force out a mana signature? You'll be drained dry before you even finish the calibration."

  "I’ll manage," Eliza said, though her smile tightened just a fraction. "A migraine and a few hours of exhaustion are a small price to pay for a definitive lead. Once we have a ping, the haystack burns away."

  William fell silent for a moment, his boots scuffing against the damp cobblestones as he processed the sheer scale of her plan. But his mind, ever the catalog of open files, drifted back to the catalyst of this entire mess. Something was bothering him.

  "Eliza," he started, his voice dropping a register. "About the King's Road incident. The reports this morning... they mentioned multiple other strikes. Simultaneous hits on the southern and eastern approaches."

  "I read the brief, William."

  "It doesn't sit right," William pressed, stepping over a puddle of questionable sludge. "I know this city eats people. Dozens vanish into the smog every day and the Constabulary barely blinks; it’s just the cost of living in Dunwick. But this? Multiple targeted kidnappings on the exact same day, at the exact same hour?."

  Eliza stopped. She turned to look at him, storm-blue eyes catching the gray light of the alley. "Go on."

  "Why target the intake?" William asked, gesturing vaguely toward the city gates. "Why go out of their way to hit carriages before they even breach the city limits? It’s high exposure. High risk. If you want to snatch someone, you do it in the slums, not on the King's Highway."

  "Exactly," Eliza murmured, and for the first time, she sounded pleased with him. "Why filter the river when you can poison the spring?"

  "You think they were looking for someone specific?"

  "I think whoever is orchestrating this isn't interested in random grabs," Eliza said, her eyes narrowing behind the mask. "Once a person enters Dunwick, they become a ghost—just another face in a city of millions. If you want a specific prize, you don't wait for it to get lost in the crowd. You catch it at the door."

  "But they took groups," William countered. "Merchants, travelers... students."

  "Perhaps they didn't know which oyster held the pearl," Eliza mused darkly. "So they took the whole bucket."

  William shivered, though the alley wasn't that cold. "Do you have a suspect? A motive?"

  "I have a hunch," Eliza said softly, her gaze drifting toward the distant, smoking chimneys of the industrial district. "A rather nasty one involving variables we haven't considered. But..."

  She shook her head, dismissing the thought before it could fully form.

  "But?"

  "I dislike being wrong out loud, William. Let's get the data first."

  She gestured for him to follow.

  "Come on, William. Let's go do some paperwork. You can start on the apology letter for the Music Box."