6

When I woke up, I didn’t feel rested at all. I was in my bed, my skin was covered in sweat, and my eyes felt all crusty and gross. Something was on my chest, some weight I didn’t recognize, but when I tried to open my eyes to see what it was, all I learned was that my eyes was too sleepy to open.

So I lay there, and for a minute or two I felt like I just might fall back to sleep. But then whatever was on my chest moved, and I realized that my mystery weight was alive.

Well I forced myself to lift my head up and open my eyes. My upper and lower eyelids tore themselves off each other, and there I was, blinking in the morning light and staring at a big black shape that was looking back at me with three bright emerald eyes.

My brain was still foggy from my sleep and the weird dreams, so it took me longer than it rightly should’ve to figure out that I was looking at a cat. More specifically, I looking at the very same cat I’d seen in Lady Lugh’s solarium, which was a bit of a worrisome thing to realize.

Before I could search my brain for a suitable way to react to this information, someone knocked on my door, and the cat hopped off my chest. It—she, but I had no idea how I knew that—looked annoyed at the interruption.

“Jackson?” came Lilly’s voice, soft and cautious from the other side of the door. “There’re some people here asking for you.”

At first I didn’t really process her words. The three-eyed cat was on the floor bathing herself, licking her own back in that twisty way cats do. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out how she’d gotten into my apartment.

Then Lilly’s words sank in, and I started wondering if maybe the cat’d accompanied her owner here. A deep and terrible dread started spreading over me—the certainty that I’d been caught, and that some wealthy Wild cultists had come to do unspeakable things to me—and I started plotting an escape route out the window and across the rooftops.

Almost like she knew what I was thinking, the cat stood up, stretched, and hopped up on the window sill. She looked at me with the sort of contempt I reckon only a cat can muster, like she was daring me to try and get past her.

Well, me running wouldn’t’ve been fair to Lilly and the other girls anyway. Who knows what a crazy noblewoman and her cultist friends would do to them if I disappeared? Miss Nora’s knuckles could only do so much, and she deserved better than to end up suffering at the hands of some Ferengris-worshiper.

Resigning myself, I opened up the door to find Lilly standing there, hair down and glasses and morning clothes donned.

“There’s a rich lady here,” she said quickly. Her face was fearful, and her glasses was making her eyes look bigger than they were. “She doesn’t seem happy. Did you do something?”

“If it’s who I think it is, then yeah. I stole a mask from her house a few nights ago.”

Lilly’s mouth dropped open. To her credit though she closed it up right quick. “How did she find you?”

“No idea,” I said, but I had my suspicions. Ferengris had not vanished with my slumber. I could see him standing in the hallway behind Lilly, leaning against the opposite wall with his furry arms crossed over his mossy chest. He noticed me looking at him and gave me a wink and a wave.

“Do you want me to help you sneak out?” Lilly asked, leaning forward and speaking in a low voice.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Ferengris noted. “At least not if you care about those women down there. How long has Nora Promise been looking out for you? My followers ain’t exactly known for their restraint, are they?”

That earned him a glare from me. Unfortunately, Lilly noticed and turned her head to see who I was glaring at. She looked back at me in confusion, which I expected. It was clear to me by now that I was the only one who could see and hear the Wild God.

But that made sense, right? He was a hallucination, after all. ’Course I was the only one who knew he was there. But to tell the truth, I was starting to have some doubts about that. Something about the Wild God put me on edge in a way I don’t think a simple mess-up in the brain would have. That awful explanation I’d refused to consider the night before was starting to rear its head again.

“Jackson?” Lilly asked.

“Sorry, Lil. Still waking up.” I wanted nothing more than to take her up on her offer to help me sneak out, but the problem was that, far as I knew, Ferengris had the right of it. A crazy Wild God cult was liable to get violent if they didn’t get what they wanted. Everyone knows what cultists like that are like, after all. If I ran off, I’d be leaving Miss Nora and all the rest of them in danger. But if I headed downstairs and talked to Miss Lugh and whatever goons she’d brung with her, there was at least a small chance I could settle this all peaceable like.

I glanced back into my apartment. The cat had repositioned herself onto my mattress, and lounged there like she owned the place. She was looking at me like she was waiting for my decision.

“Give me a minute,” I told Lilly. “Let me get dressed and I’ll be right down.”

She bit her lip and looked doubtful. “Jackson, if you’re gonna run—”

“I ain’t gonna run, Lil. Just head on downstairs and tell our guests I’ll be there shortly, alright?”

Well, Lilly didn’t look like she thought that was a good idea, or a smart idea, or even an idea that began to make much sense at all. But she nodded and let me close the door, and I stood there listening to her footsteps as she headed down the hall and down the stairs. Then I set about making myself presentable, all the while being watched by that damn cat.

“How’d you even get in here, anyway?” I asked her as I pulled on a shirt. If I expected to get an answer, I was disappointed. All the cat did was cock her head a bit and swish her tail back and forth.

“Her kind has a talent for getting into places they don’t belong,” said Ferengris. He was right behind me, even though the last time I saw him he was out in the hall watching my conversation with Lilly. “The two of you are kindred spirits in that sense.”

“I don’t recall asking you,” I told the god. He laughed and let me finish getting dressed in peace.

When I got down to the bottom of the stairs, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet the house had become. There weren’t none of the usual breakfast conversation, or the clink of silverware on dishes, or Miss Nora lording over her kingdom like she does most mornings. No, everything was quiet like the building itself was holding its breath. When I walked into the dining room, I found Miss Nora sitting in her place with Lilly and Rita standing anxiously behind her, and sitting across the table from her was a finely dressed young woman who I took to be Lady Imogen Lugh herself.

She wore a green gown, and she had dark skin like the kind you see on a D’raian or a Belothi. That sort of coloration ain’t common in Rota, though I guess it’s been getting more common in this here city what with all the trade we got going on. Hanna—one of the girls not present—was Belothi, though her skin was a lighter shade than Lady Lugh’s. I reckoned the noble didn’t leave her home much, because if she did then her Westerly skintone would’ve invited quite a bit of gossip in the otherwise pale White Quarter.

She weren’t the only one neither. There was five others with her, all standing behind her chair. Two of them, including the only other woman in her retinue, shared her dark skin color. The others looked to be Rotans like y’all or me. Regardless of their individual origins though, not a one of them looked particularly friendly, and my arrival in the dining room invited some of the meanest glares I ever did see coming from wealthy folk.

“Howdy,” I said, and I took a seat next to Miss Nora.

“You’re the thief,” said Lady Lugh. Her accent definitely marked her as not being from Rota, but I weren’t versed enough in the Westerly peoples to identify if she was from D’rai or Beloth or somewhere else.

No use denying it. “I am,” I confirmed. “How can I help you, miss...?”

“You know perfectly well who she is!” snapped the other woman with her. She and the other Westerly fella were wearing the least-expensive clothes of the bunch, though their outfits were still nicer than anything myself, Miss Nora, or her girls were wearing. That meant it was probably a safe bet to assume they were Lady Lugh’s servants. “Don’t you play dumb with us, thief. We’ve come for what you took!”

Lady Lugh’s face twitched with clear displeasure. I had the sudden and strange feeling that she didn’t actually want to be there, and that all the people she’d brought with her cared far more about this issue than she did. Curious.

“Jackson,” Miss Nora said calmly—except it was that sort of calm that holds a knife and you know is just looking for an excuse to gut you with it. “Would you mind telling us what these fine people are doing in my home?”

Well, I was with Lady Lugh, assuming I read her right. I also did not want to be there. Still, I did my best to sound confident and unworried, even though in truth I was shaking in my britches. “Well, I assume it’s about the job I was hired to do a few nights back. Took a mask from the Lugh estate. Sad to say, I already delivered it to the client.”

Ferengris stood behind Lady Lugh’s entourage, and he looked like he was struggling to hold in laughter. I did my best to keep my eyes fixed on the humans and not on the god only I could see.

“That... is disappointing,” said Lady Lugh. Her voice was measured, and her face mildly annoyed, while behind her the other folks she’d brought seethed. “That mask was a very important and valuable piece.”

“If I recall, you assured me that you’d never be followed home,” Miss Nora noted. Her voice was dripping with that venomous politeness that only a truly enraged woman can conjure up. “I don’t want no trouble with the law, Jackson.”

One of the white Rotans looked like he wanted to make a snide comment about that, but my eyes slipped past him and focused on Ferengris. He was looking mighty pleased with the show us mortals was putting on for him. I looked back at Lady Imogen Lugh, and some of the machinery up my old noggin clicked into place, and I realized that this situation wasn’t nearly as bad as Miss Nora thought.

“Nah,” I said. “There ain’t gonna be no lawmen coming here.” For the first time that morning, I smiled a genuine smile. Lady Lugh frowned, and even her pissed off friends was smart enough to pick up on what I’d figured out, and they all frowned too. “Cuz the thing is, I saw where that mask was kept, and it sure wasn’t something I’d want anyone knowing about if I was Lady Lugh here—especially not the cops.” Or the Cerenites, I left unsaid. But I didn’t want to scare Miss Nora or the girls too much.

And considering who’d hired me for the job in the first place, the Cerenites obviously already knew all about it.

For a moment, we all sat at that table in silence. Miss Nora, Lilly, and Rita all looked mighty confused by my words, while Lady Lugh and her people looked mighty upset that I’d called their bluff. Thing was, just because they couldn’t risk using the law to hurt us didn’t mean the Wild cult had no other means at their disposal. That meant I needed to press on with my offensive and keep them off-balance, so I stood up.

“Now I’ve had enough of this,” I declared. “Y’all come in here accusing me of all sorts of things when you got no proof.” Nevermind that I’d admitted to it and it’d be a noble’s word against mine—Lady Lugh knew as well as I did what would happen if the cops saw that shrine in her house. “So I would ask you to leave this here fine establishment, and I won’t hear any more talk of thefts or masks or vessels or any other such nonsense.”

I realized I’d said too much the instant the word “vessel” left my lips and I saw the eyes of the other dark-skinned man go wide. He nudged the woman beside him, who looked like she wanted nothing more than to leap across the table and strangle me, and whispered something her ear. Her eyes went wide too.

That wasn’t a great sign. My only course of action was to soldier on and pretend like I hadn’t just let slip that apparently significant word and hope they’d think they misheard me.

Well, Lady Imogen Lugh herself evidently hadn’t noticed my little slip of tongue, anyhow. She was too busy bristling at what I’d just said. “Fine establishment?” she demanded. “I’ve been to finer establishments than you can dream, and if you think I’ll be intimidated by a house of whores, then you have another thing coming!”

“As the owner of this establishment, I also ask that you leave,” Miss Nora said, and from her tone I was quite certain that Lady Lugh’s nobility was the only reason she hadn’t brought out the knuckles.

“Someone like you has no right to ask anything of me!” Lady Lugh spat. She glared at me. “And as for you, thief...” She trailed off as her manservant or whatever he was leaned over and whispered in her ear. Once she heard what he had to say, her eyes went wide too. “How do you know about the vessel?”

“The what?” I asked. “Can’t say I know what y’all’re on about.”

Now one of her paler folks stepped forward. He stared at me with eyes as green as summer leaves. “Who hired you?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

He scowled. “Whoever hired you must’ve told you what the mask was! Now who hired you!?”

“I’ll say it again, I have no idea what y’all’re—”

Lady Lugh stood up abruptly. “We need to have a private discussion, Mr. Balor,” she said. “Talk to me, and I promise I won’t get the law involved, and you’ll be free to go afterward. I believe I may know a way for us to settle our dispute amicably.”

Well everyone in the room just stared agog at her. Even her servants were openly shocked by her sudden change in demeanor. I exchanged a confused look with Lilly and Miss Nora—Rita seemed like she was getting bored.

“Lady Lugh, I’m not sure...” I started, but then stopped. Ferengris was grinning wide, and there was something in that big sharp grin of his that told me I’d be smart to hear whatever it was that Lady Lugh wanted to say.

There really wasn’t anything about this situation I much liked. Part of me wanted to decline Lady Lugh’s offer, kick her out, and go on about my life. But I was starting to doubt that the Wild God was really a hallucination after all, and with that growing doubt was also a growing fear that’d been slowly building in me ever since I laid eyes on him. That fear was starting to approach its peak, I reckon, and when it reached that point I’d probably be due for a full-blown panic.

So, in that moment, I came to a decision that I thought must’ve been a pretty damn foolish one. But while I thought that, I sure as Perdition didn’t feel it.

“Alright then,” I told her, ignoring the shock and worry on Miss Nora’s face. “We’ll talk.”

Lady Lugh smiled at me, and I was surprised to see how relieved she looked. She motioned for her entourage to come with her, and started heading for the door.

I moved to follow, but Miss Nora reached out her hand and took gentle but firm hold of my wrist. “Jackson,” she said, “are you sure about this?”

“Not really,” I told her, and gave her what I hoped was a dashing sort of a smile. “But I got questions about that mask that I’m hoping this lady can answer. And besides, if there’s a way to calm her, all the better for you, right?”

The look she gave me was stern. “You weren’t careful.”

I’d thought I was, but there was no use arguing. “No. I fucked up.”

“Most of my girls ain’t got nowhere else to go,” Miss Nora said. “Something happens to this place, they end up in the hands of some nasty men. I worked hard to get out from under men like those, and I’ll be damned if I let my girls suffer that. I love you, Jackson—you’re like a son to me, and I’ve done what I could to keep you safe. But don’t make me choose between you and my girls, you hear? If I see the hammer coming down on us, you ain’t gonna like the choice I make.”

My throat felt dry, and I swallowed. “I know,” I said. “I’ll do what I can, Miss Nora.”

“I don’t trust that noblewoman,” said Lilly.

“Probably wise.” I pulled out of Miss Nora’s grip and followed after Lady Lugh’s crew. They was already out in the front hallway, looking impatient. The woman with them opened up the front door.

The sky was gray outside, and the air was deeply humid in that way that promised a rainstorm coming soon. Y’all know what I mean, right? The humidity carries a sort of energy in it, and the wind blows like it’s restless, or like it’s psyching itself up for a big show. Beneath the gray sky I saw a line of three carriages, each attached to a pair of horses who looked like they’d rather be home in their stables than out here under that sky.

One of the pale fellas accompanying Lady Lugh stepped up to the lead carriage alongside the other dark lady. They opened up the doors and looked at the noblewoman expectantly. For her part, Lady Lugh climbed into the carriage with a nod, but paused halfway up so she could address them both.

“Stuart, Penelope, I would like to speak with Mr. Balor in private,” she said.

“But Lady Lugh—” the woman began, before her presumed employer cut her off.

“That is an order, Penelope. The matter I wish to discuss with him... well, we wouldn’t want to overwhelm the boy, would we?” She gave her woman a gentle smile, but that didn’t seem to assuage Penelope none. She just glared at me in silence as I followed Lady Lugh up into the carriage.

“Harm her and you will suffer,” the pale fellow whispered softly behind me. I raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. I doubt there was anything constructive I could’ve said in reply to that anyway.

I settled into the carriage—the seats was velvet and quite comfortable—and they made to close the door. Just before they could, a black furball shot up between them and hopped into the vehicle.

“There you are, Syl,” said Lady Lugh, speaking to the cat as her people finished shutting us in. “I was wondering where you’d gone off to.”

The cat in question hopped up onto the seat beside her, then turned her three green eyes toward me. She watched me for a moment like I was the most interesting sight in the world, and then she climbed up onto Lady Lugh’s lap and curled up there, so I guess it turns out I weren’t that interesting after all.

“Why does she have three eyes?” I asked.

Lady Lugh smiled like I just told a joke. “All cats have three eyes,” she explained. “It’s just that most don’t remember how to open them all.”

Not sure what a man’s supposed to say to a claim like that. I glanced at Ferengris, who’d sat down beside me with his legs crossed and his hands folded in his furry lap, and he just smiled placidly at me like he was waiting for a polite dinner party to start.

We sat there in silence for a moment or two while the driver did his thing and got the horses moving. As the carriage rolled on down the street, Lady Lugh leaned forward and looked me right in the eye.

“Did your client tell you what the mask really was, or did you figure it out on your own?”

“That depends,” I said, not quite sure what she was getting at. “What’s the mask, really?”

She bit her lip and looked annoyed. “My parents always told me it housed the Wild God himself,” she said. “I never really believed it, but they said it was what Cerenis imprisoned him in after they fought.”

Ferengris burst out laughing. It was so sudden, I spun my head to look at him and asked “What’s so funny?”

“What?” asked Lady Lugh.

“Oh, uh...” My face heated up, and Ferengris chuckled some more. This time it was obvious that I was the thing he found amusing. “Nothing. I, um... Just thought I heard something.” It was an awful excuse, but my brain didn’t seem to working too good at the moment.

Lady Lugh looked at me intently, but now her expression was worried—worried and scared. “Is it true?” she asked. “Have you become the new vessel for the Wild God?”

Ferengris gave me a nod, but I still wasn’t clear on what all this “vessel” business was all about. So instead of giving her a straight yes or no, I told her plainly: “I can’t say I know what that means.”

Y’all know that look folks sometimes give you when they can’t decide if you’re actually that dense or just playing dumb? That’s the look Lady Lugh was giving me then. “It means that the god is inside you,” she said, then leaned back, sighing in what sounded like relief. “But I suppose if you don’t understand, then it means it’s not true.”

“Wait, inside me?” I asked. I hadn’t considered that. Sure, Ferengris was following me around, and sure I seemed to be the only one who could see or hear him, but the idea that the god might actually be inside me, possessing me? Maybe part of me had considered it, but the notion was too awful for me to consciously entertain.

“Inside you,” Ferengris confirmed. “And I’ve been inside you ever since you first picked up the mask.”

“So, the mask was the first vessel?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around this. “And he... he what? Jumped into me? When I nicked it?”

Lady Lugh frowned. The relief on her face was gone in a flash. “You’re saying you are the vessel? I find that hard to believe.”

Well she may have had trouble believing it, but at the moment I was finding the notion far too easy to believe. Things were starting to make sense in ways I did not like. Still, I couldn’t fault her for not believing. She hadn’t gone through what I had, and the word of some criminal probably didn’t count as decent evidence of much of anything in her eyes. But I was suddenly aware that getting her to believe me might be in my best interest.

Sensing my predicament, Ferengris pointed to the front of the carriage. “Those horses,” he told me. “Their both geldings. Their names are...”

“Moonlight and Hopeful,” I finished for him, and then I found myself wondering how I could possibly have known that.

Lady Lugh blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“The horses pulling the carriage,” I said. Some of the information was getting whispered to me by Ferengris. Some of it I just seemed to know. “Their names are Moonlight and Hopeful. Hopeful’s real picky about his food. Moonlight was injured last year, and he moves kind of stiff because of it.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Ferengris told me some of it, but the rest...”

“Ferengris?”

I met her eyes. “He’s sitting right next to me,” I said as evenly as I could manage.

The noblewoman gave me a long look. She closed her eyes, ran her fingers through her hair—curly and black and looking mighty soft—and shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, he is not. He’s... he’s really inside you. You’ve become the vessel of the Wild God. It’s all true.” She said that last part like she was talking to herself. Then she opened her eyes. “The Master of Chaos now resides within your mind.”

I tried to process that. I really did. I don’t think I succeeded much though—given the situation I should’ve been panicking and shouting all crazy-like. Instead I just sort of took the information and nodded along, feeling numb and accepting the absurdity of it all like I was just listening to some made-up tall tale. Maybe I was still holding out hope that’s all it was. Or maybe I was just intending to freak out later.

“Mr. Balor,” Lady Lugh said, “you need to listen very closely to what I’m about to tell you. Ferengris is possessing you now, and his power is going to grow within you going forward. As time goes on, he’ll wake to more and more of his domain over this world, and as that happens he’ll encompass more and more of your soul and your mind. I don’t know how long it’ll be—could be days, or it could be years—but eventually he’ll swallow the whole of you, and then only the Wild God will remain. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“What are you saying?” I asked, because I was hoping with all my heart that I did not understand.

“Your being and his are merging, and you’re going to disappear within him,” Lady Lugh told me. “In time, you’ll fade away completely, and your body will belong to Ferengris only. You’ll be dead, and the Wild God will walk the earth once more.”

This was also something I don’t think I could process. What man can truly appreciate the certain knowledge of his own doom? But even so I felt some horrible dread settling over me as she spoke, and her words rang terrible and true in my ears. I looked over at Ferengris, and he gave me an apologetic smile and nodded.

“It’s why it took me a day or so to introduce myself,” he explained. “I’m still in the process of awakening. Once I’ve awakened fully, well, you’ll become a part of me. Completely. It’s not technically death but... you, the individual you, will stop existing.”

Now I’m sure y’all can appreciate that none of this was what I wanted to hear. That dread that’d settled over me suddenly became a whole lot heavier.

I have no idea what my face must’ve looked like in that moment, but whatever it did, Lady Lugh found it pitiable enough to comment on: “I see you’re starting to understand how dire your situation actually is.”

“He’s gonna replace me?” I asked. “And just... puppet my body around?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “Over time, you’ll fade, and Ferengris will assume more and more control. Unless...”

“Unless what?” I asked, eager for some way to get myself out of this mess.

She looked me in the eye, and a small smile danced across her lips. I realized that she had me exactly where she wanted me. “Unless you steal back the mask,” she told me. “Then we can bind Ferengris to it again. He’ll go back to sleep, civilization will carry on, and you’ll be safe to return to your normal life.”

We sat there, across from one another, maintaining eye contact in silence while New Alms passed us by outside the carriage. Y’all might think I’d be relieved to know there was a solution to my predicament after all, but truth was it was hard to feel any such relief. There was a whole host of problems her proposed solution brought with it, along with a whole host of questions. But one or two in particular were at the forefront of my mind.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?”

“Why would you want that? Ain’t y’all part of a Wild cult? Shouldn’t you want the Wild God to be unleashed and bring ruin to the realm of Cerenis?”

Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed. It was like all the authority fled from her in that instant, and for the first time that morning I saw Lady Imogen Lugh not as an imposing noblewoman, but as, well, a person, like you or me.

“Some of the others would want that, I’m sure,” she admitted. “But my family has protected the mask for generations, Mr. Balor. We are an old family, and once we were powerful. You think I wanted to inherit this? We’ve spent centuries keeping the mask hidden until a suitable vessel could be found. Rumors of our allegiance to the Wild God forced us to flee from D’rai, and we have lived in Rota ever since.

“If I could, I would wash my hands of the mask, of Ferengris, of everything. And the others? Most of them are just bored. They think gathering to worship a dangerous god is exciting. But some are true believers. Some are faithful. And they frighten me. So I play the part of their shepherdess, even though it is not a position I have ever wanted. But for the Wild God to actually walk the world again, to bring down Civilization? What good would my family’s status be then? I can’t imagine anything more horrible than for Ferengris to return to the world.”

On that last part, at least, I reckoned we agreed. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the chaos the Enemy of Civilization might create, just by his presence alone. The Cerenites teach that one day a final clash between Civilization and the Wild will come, and that it’ll bring untold destruction to the world. And sure, they claim Cerenis’ll win in the end and bring about a paradise of perfect Order, but I sure never wanted to live through what comes before that!

Besides, of course the priests would claim their god would triumph. Hardly an unbiased source there. Lady Lugh was leaving a lot unsaid, I thought, but I could see her dilemma. If Ferengris ever walked the world again, then that final clash would come, and one of the gods would strike the other down. Then either Cerenis would win, in which case all the followers of the Wild God, herself included, would be wiped out; or Ferengris would win, and we could all kiss Civilized society goodbye and go back to living in the dirt.

Neither option must’ve looked good from where she was sitting. I could sympathize.

“So, you want me to steal the mask back from my client, so we can put Ferengris back into it, and stop everything from going to Perdition?”

“That would be the plan, yes.”

“And as an added bonus, I don’t get my soul consumed by the Master of Chaos?”

“Yes.”

It was my turn to sigh. “Well, we have something of a problem there.”

Lady Lugh frowned. “And what is that?”

“My client? He was a Cerenite priest,” I explained. “The Church has the mask.”

Everything went dead quiet in that little carriage, and the words I just spoke hung in the air between us. The only sounds was the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves, and the clattering roll of the carriage wheels. But on the actual inside of the vehicle? Silence.

Finally, Lady Lugh broke that silence by uttering a single syllable, which I think summed up the situation quite well: “Shit.”

I nodded. “Agreed.”

“Why did the Cerenites want the mask?” she asked. “How did they even know about it?”

“No clue about the second one, but my assumption would be that they want it so they can destroy it.”

“Then why wouldn’t they just raid my manor? Why ignore the law when they could’ve just used it against me?” She shook her head. “And destroying it would run the risk of unleashing Ferengris, or at the very least forcing him to switch vessels, and they’d have no way of knowing where he went.”

I looked at the god in question. He’d been oddly quiet throughout this conversation, considering we was talking about him. The Enemy of Civilization sat in his seat with an amused twinkle in his eye, smiling pleasantly. “You got any ideas?” I asked him.

He shrugged, which was a strange gesture to see coming from someone that was an amalgamation of human, plant, and animal parts. “They probably need a fragment of my power for something,” he said. “Even an empty mask would still hold some, or a pathway they could use to connect with some aspect of the Wild. That’s the most likely explanation.”

“Well, what would they need any of that for?” I pressed.

“Who can say?”

I scowled and shook my head, then noticed Lady Lugh staring at me with a perplexed frown. “Ferengris says they probably want to tap his power for something,” I explained. “He don’t know what.”

“That is... not encouraging.”

“Don’t I know it.”

We went silent again. This time, it was me that ended up breaking it: “I should still get that mask back though. If I don’t...”

Lady Lugh nodded. She actually looked like she was feeling a bit sympathetic to me. “If you don’t, you’ll disappear.”

I looked out the window, watched the streets of New Alms rolling by, and tried to figure out just how in the world I was gonna steal that mask back from the Cerenites.