CHAPTER TEN

The beep meant an email in-game, which I knew because a little black bird flittered at the corner of a screen with an envelope in its beak. Despite elves, dragons, and a preponderance of mystic portals, there is nothing in Zoth so magical as a smartphone, and when one receives mail, you have to walk it to a mailbox to pick it up.

It wasn’t that I expected the mail I got to be that interesting—very few people at this point knew my username. I suppose my expectation was that it was going to be an advertisement—“Enjoying your first two days in Zoth? Sign up for your next month now and get an extra week free!” Or something of its ilk.

And I had been enjoying my first two days in Zoth. I was feeling downright chipper, actually—it was a strange thing to say about visiting a fantasy world, but the otherworldly climes of Zoth somehow made me feel more like myself. This probably says less about Zoth and more about the sad state of my personal life, but even so. With so much focus on one thing, I had allowed myself to become a Person Who Did Nothing but Fail at Job Interviews, which was no good. Now I was person who was failing at all sorts of things, which was much easier to take. I had diversified my portfolio of failure. Missed clues, a murdered client, and I had been killed in-game by a camel. If nothing else, it’ll give you perspective.

The email was not an advertisement. It was from Atheun—aka Erik, my damned ex-boyfriend. I would have preferred an email filled with wasps. Or that girl from The Ring—I wonder what she’s doing these days? I had entire subsystems dedicated to not dealing with Erik, and this was going to disrupt all of them. I just stared at the letter, refusing to open it but unable to back away. Another new thing to fail at.

The subject heading was “hey,” just like that, with nary a capital letter. He probably put that there just to placate me—with Erik you were likely to get no subject heading at all.

I opened the email, wincing through one eye as I read it. It didn’t take long.

just wanted you to know i wasnt involved. erik

No caps, no apostrophe, and it was missing a “that.” And yet, the damned thing was making me tear up, stupidly. Can you be rational and irrational about something at the same time? It was all so stupid—I knew it was stupid, and yet there was still this part of me, most of me, actually—that felt like it was being crushed. What the hell, right? It wasn’t just Erik that I needed to get over, apparently. I needed to get over myself.

I logged out of Zoth and consoled myself by playing a different video game, one that I actually liked. When enough rude Internet boys had been Walrus Punched—this took about an hour of punching, mind you—I came back to the email.

Fortified by Dota, I now had a few questions. Like: How did Erik know RedRasish was me? A lucky guess, possibly, but Erik was not a great intuitionist. And not involved with what? Certainly not that dental hygienist, because he was decidedly involved with her. I was eagerly awaiting their engagement announcement so that I could set it on fire and laugh at the flames.

Still, what was he talking about? Not involved with the spear theft? Well, duh. He wasn’t part of the guild, and as a necromancer, he couldn’t use the spear anyway. Yes, I dated a necromancer for three years. He was good in bed. Sometimes.

Or was Erik saying that he wasn’t involved in Jonah’s death? Did he know Jonah? The message begged for clarification, but I wasn’t willing to reinvolve myself. Besides—and I know that this sounds naive given that he cheated on me for three months while I was living with him—but Erik was nothing if not honest. He never lied to me about the cheating—he just assiduously didn’t mention it. If I had ever asked: “Say, you’re not cheating me, are you?,” he would have folded like a paper umbrella. But I never asked, and he didn’t volunteer. If it hadn’t been for an email from the hygienist, God knows how long that might have gone on.

Redrasish was outside the bar, now sitting cross-legged in front of the mailbox, as I had gone idle. She looked appropriately overwhelmed, which I drew some consolation from. I was still deciding what to do about Operation Erik when Tambras showed up, juggling those knives and looking as snarky as ever.

“Who are you, really?” she asked. “You’re not a funeral planner.”

I’ve glossed over some of the technical details about vent server channels, but I should mention that I quickly moved Ophelia to a private channel. She had caught me deeply unawares, but I was not so lost that I was willing to let other guild mates hear me stammer around.

“What gives you that idea?” I asked once I’d put a password on the channel just to make extra sure no one walked in on us. Told you I was paranoid.

“Hmph,” said Ophelia. I had thought it goofy when she had typed it, but to hear her say it seemed utterly right. Honestly, everything about Ophelia’s character seemed right. With Clemency, there had been a kind of disconnect between her smoky voice and Pre-Raphaelite digs, and one might expect that here. But something about Ophelia’s stately little voice—I could just see her at home, dressed in pearls and a classy black dress—that felt perfectly placed coming out of this lanky goth troubadour.

“That’s your answer, hmph? I’m glad to know you’re comfortable accusing total strangers of wrongdoing.”

“Someone spoke to me a couple of days ago, said Jonah had mentioned joining our guild. A level-one character?” Ophelia made this question sound uncomfortably accusatory.

“I’m level two,” I said, like an idiot.

“Why would Jonah invite a level-one character into the guild? And an archer? We don’t need archers. Whoever that person was—she was lying. And she knew about Jonah’s spear being stolen.”

I did not like her choice of personal pronoun, given that I had been masquerading as a guy. I felt like protesting, meekly, that this had nothing to do with the funeral I was planning, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. The last thing I wanted was to invite funereal etiquette questions. I kept mum and let Ophelia have her say.

“And now you show up, supposedly planning a funeral, but then you go around harassing people about the spear. And only the people who could use it. What kind of funeral planner does that?”

“All right, fine,” I said. “You got me.”

“You’re just after the spear for yourself.”

The conversation had been slightly humiliating up to this point—not Silas at the Windmill humiliating, but humiliating—but when Ophelia hit this wrong note, I instantly cheered up. She was just as bad a detective as I was. Maybe worse. I turned her own emoticons against her and /guffawed at her.

“Wait, what? I don’t want the spear. That’s ridiculous,” I said.

So attuned was Ophelia to her avatar’s emotions that she /scowled at me again. Probably she typed these things without even realizing it.

“Why should I believe you? Who are you really?”

“I’m a detective,” I said evenly. “I was hired by Jonah’s parents to get the spear back. And yes, I’m planning his funeral as a sort of cover operation to investigate.”

Ophelia’s avatar /crossed his arms at me. “I don’t believe you,” Ophelia said. “What are Jonah’s parents’ names?”

I admired Ophelia’s stubbornness, fending me off as if I were some sort of online infidel. I told her Jonah’s parents’ names, which she /scoffed at. Then, amazed at the serendipity of being able to do it, I gave her a parlor trick of my own.

“Believe me, or don’t. But I’m looking at all the angles. I know about you, for example.”

Ophelia said nothing, but she/narrowed her eyes at me.

“Your name is Ophelia Odom; you live outside of Boston and occasionally play viola for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Pops. You’re involved in a long-distance romantic relationship with Kurt Campbell, and…” I felt like there should be a fourth thing, because these kinds of things go in threes, but I was out of ammo. But it didn’t matter, because Ophelia gasped. Not /gasped, but a straight-up real-world gasp, the kind you would get in a Victorian novel.

“Who told you that?” she asked, sounding less impressed than I would have hoped but definitely irritated. “That’s a secret.”

“Secrets are my trade,” I said. This was such a whopper that I half expected God to come down from the sky and smite me and RedRasish both, but nothing happened.

Ophelia sighed. “I guess you’re legit,” she said grudgingly. “Don’t tell anyone about me and Kurt. We’re kind of in a wait-and-see-what-happens phase.”

Less embarrassing if things fall apart? I could hear that. “Fine,” I said smartly. “Don’t tell anyone about me being a detective.”

“And the viola,” added Ophelia with an edge of conspiracy in her voice. “Don’t mention the viola to anyone.”

This was not the turn I was expecting the conversation to take.

“Why can’t I mention the viola?”

“Viola jokes,” said Ophelia. “When people find out you play the viola they like to make viola jokes at you.”

“What are viola jokes?” I asked, but I was already alt-tabbed to google them.

“I can hear you typing,” said Ophelia. “Tell me you are not googling viola jokes in front of me.”

She did have a preternatural ability to guess what I was doing, that Ophelia. That didn’t stop me from reading a joke to her anyway.

“You mean like: How do you keep someone from stealing your violin?”

Ophelia /clucked at me and said, “Listen, RedRashish, whoever you are. I know like thirty violists. I don’t care how far away you live, or clever you think you are, but if you start with the viola jokes, I will gather all thirty violists up and we will come to your house and FUCK YOU UP.”

Technically, the correct answer was “you put it in a viola case,” but Ophelia’s answer was compelling too.