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  The four-story brick boarding house was set so far back from the street as to almost completely escape notice. Constructed in the shape of a “U,” the building featured a courtyard protected by a wrought-iron fence with a gate in front. The dwelling had probably once belonged to a wealthy man who had liked his privacy.

  Whoever owned the building now had not kept it up. The courtyard was dark and filled with dead leaves and trash. The wrought-iron gate had no lock, and several children were taking turns swinging on it. The rusted hinges gave off a shrill screeching sound that seemed to go right through Stephano’s teeth.

  “I thought journeymen smiths in the Royal Armory were paid well,” Rodrigo said, eyeing the building with disgust.

  “They’re paid very well,” said Stephano. “Alcazar would have been paid better than most, since he was a valued employee. He wasn’t married. He didn’t have twelve children to feed or an aged mother to support. He could have afforded to live some place better than this.”

  The two waited until a wagon loaded with barrels had rumbled past, then crossed the street. Stephano took careful note of the surroundings, observing who was coming and going. Three women carrying empty baskets emerged from the building. One of the women stopped to speak to the gate-swinging children, then the three matrons, chattering loudly, continued on their way. Four boys in their teens were kicking a ball against the wall at the corner of the building.

  Across the street was the church. A priest stood on the church steps, chatting with an ordinary-looking fellow, dressed like a clerk. A drunk in filthy clothes with a slouch hat pulled over his face was either asleep or had passed out on a bench beneath a statue of Saint Michelle. Several young blades rode past on horseback, talking loudly and ogling a young woman walking toward the church. A man in an apron pushing a handcart loaded with vegetables headed in the opposite direction.

  While Stephano kept watch on the street, Rodrigo went to speak to the children. He pulled a copper coin out of his purse and tossed it into the air, so that it flashed in the sunlight, then deftly caught it with a snap and held it up. The children immediately clustered around him.

  “I’m looking for someone, and I’ll give this bright penny to the smart lad or lass who can help me find him. I’ve been told he lives here.”

  “Who you lookin’ for, Mister?” asked a boy, the tallest and probably the oldest.

  “His name is Pietro Alcazar,” said Rodrigo.

  Stephano glanced around at the people within earshot, to see if the name had any effect. The boys playing ball paid no attention. Neither did the young woman or the priest or the clerk. The drunk lying on the bench stirred, however. The man moved his arm, which had been over his head, lowering it to his chest. Stephano watched him closely, but it seemed the drunk was merely shifting to a more comfortable position. He settled the slouch hat over his face and folded his arms and did not move again.

  “What do you want with Monsieur Alcazar?” the boy was asking. “Does he owe you money?”

  Rodrigo and Stephano exchanged glances.

  “Does he owe a lot of people money?” Rodrigo asked.

  “My papa says he owes the wrong people money,” stated the boy with a worldly-wise air.

  “Monsieur Alcazar plays with rats,” added a little girl, her eyes huge.

  “He does what?” Rodrigo asked, startled.

  “He plays baccarat,” said Stephano, translating.

  “Ah, yes, that would make sense,” said Rodrigo, relieved. “Thank you, my friends.” He handed the boy a coin and another for the little girl. “Now, which is his lodging.”

  “I’ll show you!” said another boy, hoping for a copper of his own. “It’s up the stairs.”

  The children began to pull Rodrigo into the dark and dismal courtyard.

  “He’s not there, though,” added the older boy. “The door’s busted. Someone took him away in the night.”

  “He was carried off by demons,” said the little girl. “Demons took him to the Bad Place because playing with rats is wicked.”

  “What an astonishing imagination that child has,” Rodrigo said in a low voice to Stephano. “She quite frightens me.”

  The children eagerly related the story, which was apparently the talk of the neighborhood. None of the children had actually seen the demons, much to their disappointment. The interesting event had happened well past their bedtimes. But the children all agreed there had been a “terrible fight.” According to the oldest boy, a neighbor down the hall from Monsieur Alcazar had actually seen the demons in the act of carrying off the poor journeyman.

  “I think we should have a talk with this neighbor,” said Rodrigo quietly, and Stephano nodded.

  The courtyard was dark, the stairs were darker. Accompanied by the children, Rodrigo began to grope his way up the stairs. Stephano lingered in the courtyard a moment, seeing if anyone was interested. At first he saw no one and was ready to join his friend. He had set his foot on the lower stair, when he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye. He glanced over his shoulder back out into the street. The drunk with the slouch hat, who had been asleep on the bench, was now very much awake, standing in front of the iron gate and peering intently inside the courtyard.

  The drunk caught sight of Stephano, tugged on his hat, slurred, “ ‘Afternoon, Guvnor,” and lounged off.

  “Go on, Rigo! I’ll catch up with you,” Stephano called and ran back through the wrought-iron gate in pursuit of the drunk.

  Stephano reached Half Moon Street in time to see the drunk in the slouch hat running down the street with a marked and fluid grace that reminded Stephano of a jongleur or an acrobat. Slouch Hat was no longer drunk either, apparently, for he motioned to a hackney cab that might have been waiting for him and hopped into it quite nimbly. The driver whipped the horses, and the cab drove off in haste.

  “Now that’s odd,” muttered Stephano. “Damn odd.”

  He looked up and down the street and saw lots of people, but no one else who appeared to have a particular interest in 127 Street of the Half Moon. He went back through the gate, entered the courtyard, and was proceeding up the stairs, when he was almost swept away by a flood of children coming down. Rodrigo had been generous with his coppers and the children were running off in high glee to the local baker to buy penny buns.

  Alcazar’s lodging consisted of a bedroom and a sitting room. Stephano found Rodrigo examining the lock to the door that had, according to the children, been “busted.” The strike plate, which was lying on the floor, was still affixed to a portion of the wall that had broken off when the door had been violently kicked in. Rodrigo crouched down to examine the plate, regarding it intently.

  “Someone was keeping an eye on us,” said Stephano “That drunk in the slouch hat asleep on the bench. He woke up in a hurry, seemingly. As you were going up the stairs, I caught him nosing around outside the gate.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  Stephano shook his head. “He had a hat pulled over his face. He ran off when he saw me. I went after him, thinking I’d ask him what he found so damn fascinating about this place. But before I could catch him, he hailed a cab and drove away. Looked to me like the cab was waiting for him. So what do you find so interesting about this lock? Looks ordinary to me.”

  “It is an ordinary lock,” said Rodrigo. “Or it would be, if it had not been imbued with magic.”

  God breathed magic into everything in the world, “from mountains to molehills, men to mice” as the catechism states. Some people have the ability to see the magic, control it, guide it, construct it. These people are known as crafters, and Rodrigo was one of the best. Completely lacking in any magical talent, Stephano had always been fascinated and a little envious of Rodrigo’s skill as a crafter and had never been able to understand his friend’s lighthearted, flippant attitude toward his magic.

  “You waste your time on frivolous pursuits,” Stephano had said in exasperation after Rodrigo had been thrown out of the Univer
sity for innumerable sins, among which were smuggling women into his room at night; advancing the theory that the Breath did not come from God’s mouth, but could be produced by mixing together the right chemicals; and, the coup-de-grace, using his magic to cause the bishop’s miter to float off his head during a service to celebrate All Saints’ Day. The miter had gone sailing about the sanctuary, much to the glee of the assembly, and Rodrigo had been expelled.

  “There are men who would kill to have your power,” Stephano had told his friend.

  “That’s just the point, Stephano,” Rodrigo had replied with unusual gravity. “Men would kill.”

  He had refused to elaborate, and had gone on to make some jest of it. But Stephano had remained convinced that for once in his life, his friend had been in earnest.

  Rodrigo passed his hand several times over the strike plate, taking care not to touch it.

  “As you will observe,” he said to Stephano, “the locking apparatus is quite simple, consisting of a metal strike plate affixed to the doorjamb with a hole for the bolt, which is attached to the door. Shut the door, slide the bolt, the door is locked. But Alcazar did not put much trust in his neighbors. See that?”

  Beneath Rodrigo’s hand, the strike plate began to glow faintly.

  “I see light,” said Stephano.

  “You see light. I see sigils,” said Rodrigo. “Burning with the magic. One sigil here and one here and one here, forming a construct, with lines of magical energy connecting them. The magic strengthens the metal. Ah, and look at this.”

  He murmured a word and the glow grew brighter.

  “Another layer of protection underneath,” said Rodrigo with satisfaction. “You could hit this lock with a hammer, my friend, and it would only dent it.”

  “Too bad Alcazar didn’t think to strengthen the wall with magic,” said Stephano, noting the splintered wood on the floor. “A lock is only as strong as the surface to which it is attached. People tend to forget that. A couple of good, hard kicks to the door, and you rip the strike plate right off the wall.”

  The two of them entered the sitting room. Stephano glanced at the peeling paint and the cracks in the walls and shook his head.

  “Alcazar must not be a very good baccarat player. I’ll take the bedroom. You search this room.”

  “What are we looking for?” asked Rodrigo.

  “Some clue as to what Alcazar was working on in the Armory and who snatched him and why-”

  “The children claim it was demons. I see no cloven hoofprints,” said Rodrigo. He sniffed the air. “Though perhaps I detect the faintest whiff of brimstone… Or is it boiled cabbage?”

  “Be serious,” Stephano said irritably.

  He was suddenly sorry he’d taken on this job. He didn’t like prying into the life of another man, especially when it appeared the life of this man had been a sordid and unhappy one.

  “The little girl was right about him being carried off by demons,” Stephano said to himself as he entered the shabby bedroom. “Demons of his own making.”

  The only article of furniture was a bed and a portmanteau on top of which stood a broken porcelain bowl and a water pitcher missing its handle. Alcazar had been smart not to trust his neighbors, who had apparently ransacked the place in his absence. The bed had been stripped of bed linens and blankets. The portmanteau was empty. If there had been a rug, it was gone.

  Stephano stomped his foot on the floorboards, but heard no hollow sound. No loose boards suggesting a secret hiding place. He upended the portmanteau, found no false bottom. Nothing had been hidden under the bed or stuffed inside the straw mattress.

  “No luck,” he said, returning to the sitting room. “Strange that there’s no blood.”

  “Why is that strange?” Rodrigo asked. His voice was muffled. He was on his hands and knees and had his head in the fireplace.

  “Well, let’s say that Alcazar is overly fond of playing baccarat. Unfortunately, he loses more than he wins and ends up owing money to the wrong men, as that astute little boy suggested. These bad men come to the collect the debt or at least to impress upon Alcazar that he should pay up quickly.”

  “The sort of work our friend, Dag, used to do for a living,” said Rodrigo, craning his neck to peer up the flue.

  “They would have beat him up, bloodied his nose, punched him in the gut a few times, maybe cracked a couple of ribs. That’s what these sort of debt collectors do.”

  Rodrigo sat back on his heels. “But instead of collecting a debt, they collected Alcazar. Maybe they’re holding him for ransom.”

  “Not likely. According to my mother, who heard it from Douver, Alcazar has no relations except a brother who is a merchant sailor in Westfirth.”

  Stephano shook his head. “I hate to admit it, but it seems my mother is right. Alcazar was snatched because someone thinks he devised a way to use magic to strengthen metal. What was so fascinating about the fireplace?”

  Rodrigo rose to his feet, brushed off his breeches, and pointed to the grate. “You’ll note that piece of paper. It seems either Alcazar or someone else tried to burn it, but was in too much haste to do the job well.”

  Stephano bent over to take a closer look.

  “The person tossed the letter onto the fire in the grate thinking it would go up in flames,” Rodrigo continued. “But it was nighttime. Alcazar had gone to bed and allowed the fire to die down. The paper landed on coals that were hot enough to sear the center of the sheet, but not hot enough to destroy the paper completely. The person burning the letter either fled or was dragged off before making certain that the fire had done its work.”

  “I don’t see how this helps,” said Stephano. “All that’s left of the paper are the corners and they’re blank. The rest is nothing but ash.”

  “Never underestimate my incredible ability to snoop about where I’m not wanted,” said Rodrigo cheerfully. “I need pen and ink and paper.”

  “If Alcazar ever had such things, they’re not here now,” said Stephano, glancing about.

  “Oh, he had them,” Rodrigo stated. “Note the ink splotches on the table. He was a learned man, our Alcazar. You can see traces in the dust on those shelves where he kept books. And he played baccarat, albeit poorly, since he appears to have lost more than he won. I played baccarat myself in University, as do many students. My guess is that he attended University himself, at least for a short time.”

  Rodrigo took one final look around. “Nothing more here. I think it is time we paid a visit to the neighbor. Are you armed? It might be well to take precautions.”

  Stephano drew a short-barreled pistol from inside his coat. The gun had been a gift from his godfather, Sir Ander Martel, and was one of Stephano’s most prized possessions. The gun was unique in design and had been a present on the occasion of his twelfth birthday. The barrel was cast in the form of a dragon; wings swept back, as though the creature was diving. The clawed hands and feet wrapped around the silver inlaid stock. The dragon’s tail created the spine of the handle. The gun was one of a matched pair; the other belonging to Sir Ander.

  Stephano and Rodrigo walked down the dismal hall, heading toward a door at the far end. The door was opened a crack, allowing a shaft of dusty sunlight to creep out of the room and into the hall. Whoever was inside was watching them. At their approach, the door shut, the sunlight vanished.

  Rodrigo glanced at Stephano, who nodded to indicate he was ready. Rodrigo rapped smartly on the door.

  Silence. Rodrigo rapped again.

  “What do you want?” came a woman’s voice.

  “Just a friendly chat about my poor friend, Pietro Alcazar. He seems to have gone missing,” said Rodrigo in plaintive tones. “I have some questions. Nothing alarming, I assure you, Madame. I will make it worth your while.”

  The door opened an inch. The woman peered out. Rodrigo held up a coin, this one of silver. Her eyes widened. She drew back the door, revealing a broom, which she was clutching in a threatening manner.

 
; “You can put down the weapon, Madame,” said Rodrigo.

  Stephano looked past her. A little girl, a baby in her arms, crouched under a table. He didn’t see anyone else.

  “Is your good man at home?”

  “He’s my man, but there ain’t nothin’ good about him,” said the woman, sniffing. She lowered the broom. “If you want him, you’ll find him in the tavern, drinking with his layabout friends.”

  Stephano returned his gun to his pocket.

  The woman’s eyes were on the silver coin. “He don’t know nothin’ anyway. I was the one who saw ’em.”

  “Saw who?” Rodrigo asked.

  “Them as took your friend away.”

  “If you could tell me about that night…”

  The woman snatched the coin, stuffed it into her bosom, and told her story.

  She had been awakened by a loud bang and a splintering crash, sounds of a scuffle, thumps and bumpings, and what she thought was a muffled cry for help. She had tried to wake her husband, but he had been dead drunk and had only grunted and rolled over.

  Fearing for the safety of her children, the woman had grabbed up the broom in order to fight off whatever villains she might encounter. She opened the door a crack, and saw two men, clad all in black, descending the stairs at a rapid pace. She heard more thumps and bangs from the apartment, and then two more men emerged. One of the men carried a dark lantern and, by its light, she saw him holding another man by the arm, forcing him down the stairs.

  She had waited a moment longer, but, seeing nothing more to alarm her, she had gone back to her bed. Early the next morning, broom in hand, she had ventured down to Alcazar’s apartment “to find out what had become of the poor man.” She had discovered the door open and a scene of destruction.

  “Furniture tipped over, books scattered about, clothes strewn all over the floor…”

  She was relating all this with relish when a thought suddenly occurred to her. She clamped her mouth shut and started to slam the door. Rodrigo blocked it with his foot.

  “You’ve been extremely helpful, Madame,” he said. “I was wondering if I could borrow a sheet of paper, a pen, and some ink.”