When Diya and Rohan sauntered back into her house—samples collected and missions accomplished—they were feeling thick as thieves, but there are certain sights that will sour any mood, no matter how fine.

  A fully naked elderly woman standing on your dining table is without a doubt one of those sights.

  “What the—” muttered Diya, while Rohan spun around so quickly, he might have himself a future as a whirling dervish.

  “Should have left me in the dungeons!” He shouted, shaking his head forcefully, as if he might just be able to shake the memory loose.

  Voralia spun around grinning like she didn’t have a care in the world. In one hand she held a dead rat and in the other hand was a bundle of stonemoss. Hanging from the chandelier above the table was four more dead rats. It appeared that the old witch had found every last candle in the place, set them in a circle around the table and lit them. An ornate geometric rune of salt had been formed inside the circle.

  The old witch tied the last dead rat up by its tail then peeked over at the pair. “I helped myself to some stonemoss from your garden, rather fortunate you had it growing, it’s one of the core reagents necessary to attempt this ritual.”

  Diya kept her eyes glued to the floor. “Well, I’d tell you to make yourself at home, but it appears you’ve already done so.”

  “Oh, the candles? Sorry about that, I know it’s wasteful to light them all, but these things really do work better when the right mood is set.”

  “The candles are really no bother at all, but do you have to be so…naked?” Diya asked.

  Zoralia looked down at herself, then back at the utterly uncomfortable pair as if just now connecting the dots for the first time since they entered. Her brow furrowed and she shook her head at them. “What are you two, ten years old?”

  Suddenly Diya found herself questioning if she was the one out of line. “I apologize, mam. It must be a cultural thing. You see, in Township Ghanesha we traditionally don’t expose ourselves like this.”

  “Well in my homeland, rituals are performed by witches exactly as they were born,” scoffed Zoralia. “But, if you do not wish to proceed with the ritual, we do not need to perform it—”

  “Alright, alright. Your ritual, your rules.” Conceded Diya.

  The old woman grinned wide, it was mildly unsettling, not only on account of her lack of clothing, but on account of her wrinkled mouth looking like it had far too many teeth crammed in it.

  Diya decided this wasn’t the hill she would be dying on, if she had to accept that an unclothed old woman had invaded her living room, so be it. She began recounting the night’s activities, starting with her break in at the ironworks and winding around to rescuing Rohan from the bathhouse.

  It took Rohan awhile to come around, but eventually he accepted that if they truly wanted the answers the citizens of Ghanesha so desperately needed, this was just how it had to be. He tilted his head back the way one might do when they have a nosebleed and simply refused to look down.

  The absurd behavior of her childhood friend, brough a smile to Diya’s face. In those strange moments, it was the little things that tended to keep her grounded.

  “Were the dead rats really necessary for the ritual?” Rohan asked.

  “Oh, heavens no,” Zoralia laughed. “The little buggers were devouring your blueberries, figured I would do you a small kindness.”

  Rohan snorted, “yep, and hanging them from the chandelier was certainly a choice.”

  “Pest control and blood magic. You sure are a woman of many talents.” Diya said.

  “You have no idea, child. Now bring me the samples you collected from our two model politicians so we can get this ritual under way.”

  Diya uttered a soft gasp of discovery as she pulled the sealed letter from her knapsack. “Oh yeah, I found this in Peacock Prisha’s office!”

  “Is that sealed with the sigil of the Crimson Mast Syndicate?” Asked Rohan. “Open that baby up! We might not even need this creepy ritual!”

  Zoralia shot Rohan a dirty look, then watched with wide eyes as Diya opened the letter and began reading it aloud,

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  “Greetings Prisha,

  I’ve no time to waste, so I will get straight to the business at hand. Our current arrangement leaves much to be desired. If we cannot come to an agreement soon, the syndicate will have no choice but to make your life painfully difficult. I think by now, you must understand full well how I operate. I expect a favorable response within a fortnight.

  Regards, Tessara, the Cutlass Widow.”

  The three stood in silence a moment, minds working to digest the concerning and cryptic correspondence.

  “That weasel! She appears to have some sort of arrangement with Tessara!” Exclaimed Diya.

  “The woman running an empire fueled by child labor appears to be working with the pirates. What a shock.” Zoralia said.

  Rohan’s eyes darted from side to side, “but—it almost sounded like Prisha was refusing to work with the syndicate.”

  “I don’t know, Rohan. It implied they already had an arrangement in place. What could be more damning than that?”

  “Perhaps—I just can’t help but question the tone of the letter.” Rohan said. “It didn’t quite have the feel of allies.”

  “It looks like an indictment if I ever saw one.” Diya said, then she pointed to Zoralia. “But fortunate for us, we have a certain blood mage who can let us know for certain!”

  Zoralia nodded doggedly. The next minutes saw the witch dancing all around the circle, her movements a blur of well-rehearsed ritual preparation. Diya and Rohan shared nervous glances, and she pondered whether her childhood friend had the same nervous butterflies fluttering around his stomach. For the past months, she wanted nothing more than to know the answer to this question, but suddenly Diya wasn’t so sure that the ends justified the means.

  Her hesitation was interrupted when Zoralia held out her palm to the pair. “It is time.”

  Rohan and Diya shared one last uneasy glance, then each stepped forth and dropped their collections in the witch’s palm.

  Well, here goes nothing.

  Zoralia placed the offerings in the center of the table: Arjun the Clean’s beard trimmings and Peacock Prisha’s nail clippings; then picked up a candle and lit the bundle of freshly plucked stonemoss. The curling smoke quickly filled the room with an earthy and medicinal camphor aroma. The witch closed her eyes and began chanting, slowly and quietly at first but the cadence hastened until it reached a maddening climax.

  Grabbing a small knife from the table, Zoralia still reciting the incantation, sliced her palm. A light trickle of crimson blood leaked down from her hand and onto the offerings that lay atop the table.

  Without warning her chanting stopped. Every one of the countless candles in the home were suddenly extinguished, bathing the room in inky darkness.

  Diya’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden shift, and the butterflies in her stomach had turned into buzzing hornets, her heart beating like a hammer. Her eyes jumped to the door, but it was too late to turn back, the only way out was through.

  A faint spear of emerald lantern light trickled in through the window while the flickering embers slowly consuming the stonemoss glowed softly.

  Diya gasped. Before her was a sight that would forever haunt her.

  Levitating above the table was Zoralia. Eyes rolled back in her head. Long pale hair flowing up towards the ceiling. Her intricate black geometric tattoos appeared to shift and rearrange in impossible and perplexing ways.

  Rohan and Diya had each shifted back, both horrified at the nightmarish scenario playing out before them. They watched helplessly.

  Trust is a most dangerous game. And in that moment, Diya felt the icy stab of self-doubt, it paralyzed her.

  Is this what it feels like to be trapped under ice? She wondered

  Faced with the uncomfortable idea that perhaps she had been a total fool for inviting this woman she hardly knew into her home.

  The stonemoss smoke churned unnaturally around the old witch, buzzing then taking the form of writhing serpents. Zoralia gasped, and the serpents flooded into her open mouth.

  In the blink of an eye the buzzing ceased, and she collapsed onto the table, convulsing violently.

  Diya and Rohan, both beyond rattled, felt time unfreeze and rushed to her aid. Unscrewing the lid from her canteen, Diya poured some water into the catatonic witch’s mouth.

  For a dreadful moment nothing happened, then very much like resuscitating someone who was just drowning, Zoralia coughed up a great deal of dark, viscous fluid.

  Rohan, though Diya was almost entirely sure wasn’t religious, mouthed a quick prayer.

  The witch’s eyes opened, and she looked to Diya with the ghost of a grin. “The all mother granted me a vision…”

  “The hell with the vision. Are you alright? That was terrible, why didn’t you warn us it would be like that?” Diya asked, her head shaking, and still clearly struggling to process the supernatural nightmare that had just transpired.

  Zoralia placed a wrinkled hand on Diya’s shoulder and whispered as if the ritual had drained what little life force remained inside of her. “Peacock Prisha is the rat. That clown of a woman is meeting with Tessara and the syndicate in the Ribcage to plan a coup in seven days’ time.”

  Jaw dropping nearly to the floor, Diya leaned in closer. “Where are they meeting?”

  The old woman rubbed bony fingertips in circular motions against her closed eyelids. “It was not revealed to me by the all mother.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. Will you be coming with us?.” Rohan muttered.

  “This ritual took a far greater toll on me than I anticipated.” Zoralia said, softly shaking her head. “I will need to stay behind to rest. But being here will allow me to keep an eye on the Council while you are away.”

  Fetching a wool blanket from a cabinet, Diya draped it over the weary old woman. “Thank you so much for your assistance. Without you, who knows what might have happened.”

  Rohan, deeply considering the revelation, seemed reluctant to accept the witch’s words. Scrunching his nose and exhaling deeply, he looked over at the two women. “I just don’t know…I’ve never seen anything like this...”

  Diya shot Rohan a dirty look, eyes rolling down towards the weary old witch who had now drifted to sleep.

  He exhaled deeply, head shaking slowly and palm raising up to cover his face. “It just had to be the bloody Ribcage…”