Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 5: On The Run

So there I was in the restaurant, already freaking the hell out over the thought of getting dragged back into the Council, when things actually got worse.

I could hear Sophie Booth over the police sirens outside, talking to the restaurant staff. I was about to be arrested. I was considered dangerous, and they were calling for backup. Which meant I had maybe two minutes to figure out what to do. Two minutes that could be spent negotiating a deal with fucking Percy, because let's face it, the Council are loaded and a lot of problems go away when you throw money at them, and he'd probably jump at this chance to get me exactly where he wanted me.

Except the thought of handcuffs and a police cell meant any sensible thoughts like that were being drowned out by one thing. Out. I had to get out. Right now. The room we were in had a window. Not big enough for a person, but big enough for a bird. So I smashed it open with whatever high end tableware I could get my hands on, shifted, and fled.

From above I could see more police outside the Mitchester. DS Gunne was in Fiona's face, while she was trying to grab something off him. I could see Topher slamming two police officers' heads together. I should help, I knew that, but my head was still full of handcuffs and my heart was beating so fast I felt like it was going to burst.

Then Gunne screamed, and Topher made a run for Vanessa, carrying Fiona in one arm and her chair in the other. He's a big guy but it's easy forget just how strong he actually is. They were going to escape. Except from up there I could see more police arriving. The backup Sophie had called for me. I was going to have to do something. Wind, lightning, anything. Except the sky was perfectly clear and the air almost unnaturally still.

Then it came to me, the predator instinct breaking through the blind panic. I stooped, snatched a pigeon out of the air, and slammed it into the window of one of the police cars. Vanessa took a bump as Topher turned her around, and I doubt him and Fiona fared much better inside, but then he was flooring it out of there.

I'd stopped one car, now dealing with a mass of feathers and pigeon guts, but there were others after them, and after seeing Topher narrowly evade a road block I realised there was something else I could do to help. I scanned the road for tailing vehicles, and spotted a route that would get Vanessa out of there without running into any more trouble. I figured he'd have the sense to realise a low flying falcon with peacock blue chest stripes was me, and follow my lead.

I hung back once we were clear. Topher seemed to know where he was going, and it wasn't long before Vanessa was pulling into a garage next to a pub in Hartcliffe. I flew in after them, got in the back, and put on the emergency spare clothes. Which unfortunately are some of Topher's old gym clothes, so they're several sizes too big, but it's not like I had a choice.

I didn't know this pub, but I did know the local community garden well enough for the landlord Pavel to know who I am, and Fiona knew him well enough to know he's be OK with us using his place as a bolt hole. We got a warm welcome, bratwurst, and some drink I can't pronounce that tasted like plums and burning.

Pavel offered us his living room for the night. Fiona patched herself up with more Deep Heat than I thought was possible, then finally broke the silence to tell me the one thing I didn't know: why we were on the run from P Division. It was the Sibyl. They'd been found dead, murdered, in the ruins of St Peter's in Castle Park and we were the prime suspects. Shit. And Fiona had ripped another of those talisman chains of Gunne, who was stinking of bitter ash.

Time to backtrack a little. I told them about my evening, and what the Council had hinted at finding. The vault under the Cornubia is the first thing they thought of as well. They'd spent the evening with Gus, and that had been going pretty well, right up until the point where they'd been about to swear a blood oath and Gus had acted like there was something very wrong with the smell of Topher's blood.

Fiona and me looked at Topher, who was looking almost as shifty as he did right after Celia had that vision about him. I'd always figured, super strength, healing impossibly fast, kind of shifty about running water - he was a dhampir, right? Wolves hate those. But no. He hadn't told us about his father. Changeling, Fiona concluded. Topher described how his father had appeared to him, with his head wreathed in flames.

Then I felt it. It was like icy fingers pushing into my brain, trying to push Topher's words right back out again. I'd felt it before. It was the same thing that happened with Celia's phone, when Damian's photo was being hidden from me. It was much harder to stop it this time. I could feel I was fighting against something incredibly powerful, and just holding onto that memory left me drained.

But that's when things started to come together. Everyone knows pyromancers don't exist and there are no fire-aspect fae. Except..maybe the reason we think they don't exist is because any time someone actually learns something about them, the memory gets pushed out of their brain?

We had two leads. Whatever it was the Council had found near the observatory, and the Sibyl themself. If Fiona could get them to talk, we could probably learn a lot about what was going on. Trouble was, Fiona relies a lot on her magical tools for summoning the dead, all of which were at the Mitchester. Which meant for to her have a reasonable chance of contacting the Sibyl's ghost, given that we don't know their full name either, we'd need to be at the site of the murder, or with the body.

There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to go anywhere near the police station in my current state, which as far as I was concerned ruled out the morgue. So it was going to have to be Castle Park and an active crime scene. Shift change at 8am would be our best shot, but even so it was going to be a challenge. At least we had time for some sleep before that. Fiona set an alarm for 6am and we all drifted off to sleep.

Except we all woke up again at 5.30am when Fiona was jolted awake by her alarm wards going off. She'd taken something out of that vault at the Cornubia and someone - probably someone from P Division - had just found it. And from Fiona's expression, that someone was likely in extreme danger.

We got back in Vanessa and drove to Castle Park. There wasn't a big police presence, but it was enough that we certainly weren't going to be walking in without attracting far too much attention. The three of us were rather physically distinctive, after all. We were going to need a distraction. Topher suggested getting their attention and getting them to chase him, but I had another idea.

By then I didn't have it in me to mess with the weather, or even take wing, but one thing about being a shapeshifter is you have to get very cool very quickly about the fact some of your close friends are going to see you naked. So it was only moderately embarrassing to leave my borrowed gym clothes with the others and streak past the police officers. I swear I could almost hear the Benny Hill music as I sprinted through the park. By the time I got back, disguised in a borrowed coat, there were several more naked people running around the park. Enough to keep the police occupied for a while. I could feel the run had done me good as we raced into the church.

The place had been desecrated. Hairline cracks in the altar, charred streaks on the walls, and every trace of plant life scoured from the cracks in the floor. It stank of burning. Fiona called on the Sibyl, and asked who killed them. They said it was us - or rather something that wore our faces. A prince of the seven, the lord of a thousand faces, Maymun. A djinn.

How could we prove our innocence? The djinn was backed by an oathbreaker. Malcolm Roberts. We all knew that name. One of the people on the pub licensing committee. DSI Roberts.

Fiona had one more question. Djinns aren't British fae. What was this one doing so far from its native lands? They come where they are bound, to serve their sovereign.

That was a whole other question in itself, but right then we had to get out of there before the police got back. I got back into my clothes, and dropped the borrowed coat on the edge of the park where its owner could find it. Then it was back into Vanessa. Fiona called a contact at the hospital to check on Gunne, but it seemed he was still unconscious. That talisman had burned him badly.

We needed to find DSI Roberts, and P Division weren't going to be any use at this point. Clan Kielsyn had gone off us a bit after getting a sniff of Topher, it seemed. We were running out of places to turn. Except that nasty little shithead of a fae, Firs, still owed me one. The coin he'd given me...well I knew damn well I'd left it in a drawer at the Mitchester, not in Topher's old sweatpants, but here it was. I didn't know how I was supposed to use it, so I just let loose with every insult for the slimy bastard I could think of, until we rounded a corner and there he was at the side of the road.

He got in the back, insulted my clothes and suggested I needed some lipstick, but he did know where to find Roberts. Except he wanted something else in return, and while normally I'd take time to argue a better deal rather than give him anything, time wasn't on our side. What he wanted was my phone number. I didn't like the idea of him phoning me, but at least for the moment my phone wasn't on me. I gave him the number and he scratched it onto his arm. It wasn't for him, he said. And I had a horrible feeling I knew exactly was making deals with Firs to get hold of my number. Lucien.

We had bigger things to deal with right then though. Firs gave us the address and left the car. We drove to a much swankier part of the city and a house that looked far too expensive even for a DSI's salary, with a Tesla parked outside. While Fiona and me wondered about the best way to get inside, Topher went straight up to the front door and knocked.

A small Filipina woman in a cleaning overall opened the door, and once Topher made it clear he was going in whether she liked it or not, let us all in. The house was unsettling. It was too dark, with too much shadow in between the vases of withered flowers.

We found Roberts at his desk, lounging with a glass of whisky in one hand and the other down his trousers. He turned to face us as we approached, asking if we were going to threaten to break his knees. Fiona asked him about being an oathbreaker. He didn't have much to say. Topher brought up the subject of that nice car he had outside, and I pointed out how those things catch fire really easily. But it was Fiona who finally managed to get a rise out of him, even if it did mostly just seem to wind him up. He pulled out yet another talisman, but all the same, he winced when Fiona mentioned Maymun. He got the point about her being a necromancer, but pointed out that ghosts don't count as witness. He told us they'd infiltrated every possible level, and there was no magic that could stop him testifying that he'd seen us leaving the scene of the crime. Because it was the truth.

The cleaner knocked on the door. Roberts told her to come back tomorrow. Then the door opened, and in the doorway was no cleaner but a creature with its head wreathed in flames. It opened its mouth and a jet of flame shot across the room.

Even as I could feel my skin burning, I was reflexively shifting. If my opponent had been human, I would have blinded it, the way my talons raked through its face. Topher picked up Roberts and threw him at the djinn. He missed, but at least Roberts was out of action for a bit. Fiona was sure that despite its supernatural powers, it wasn't going to be much tougher than a human, but I couldn't pay too much attention to that as I was dropping out of its grasp as it reached up to grab me, and going for its chest. All I got was a beak full of ash, but Topher's punch landed, and the creature somehow dissolved into ash.

We needed some serious words with the now seriously injured Roberts, but we certainly weren't going to be staying at his house any longer. We all bundled into Vanessa. A plume of smoke was already coming from the house as we left.

Oh, and we set fire to the Tesla on the way out. Just, you know, on principle.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 4: Who is Nigel?

I woke up at 9am when the alarm I'd been unkind enough to set for myself went off. I dragged myself out of bed, threw some clothes on, and remembered Celia.

Celia was fine. Awake and dressed. She'd had a text from Gus to tell her Damian was at Southmead Hospital. I assured her I hadn't given him her number. Then she had a momentary vision. She saw me with stag horns on my head. I don't know what it means but I've got a bad feeling it's tied to that coin Firs gave me somehow.

I walked Celia to the door, talking music on the way, then went to make breakfast for the others. Which I wouldn't normally do, but Fiona was in no condition to be doing it and Topher was too busy helping her out. Over scrambled eggs and tea we made our plan. Of the names the Sibyl had given us, only one was familiar. What's more, we knew exactly where he was, and he was probably feeling positive about us right now given that we'd just saved his life.

We got in Vanessa the Land Rover and Topher drove us to Southmead accompanied by Portishead. For such an interesting guy he sure has a boring CD collection. I could barely keep my eyes open. Damian was in ICU but he was awake and had Celia sitting with him. He was still putting on that fake Jamaican accent that's not fooling any of us, even in his current state, and was pretty happy to see us. Happy enough to answer our questions about Nigel, anyway. Nigel is a massive bellend, and also his dad. And he's a big man in the Mercury Collegium. He operates out of a pub called the Chelsea and has a Glaswegian attack dog called Colin.

He had less to say on the name Klaus, but at least he could tell us that he was Damian's sponsor in the Clan. It was obvious he needed some rest, so we went on our way. Our next move was going to have to be talking to either Klaus or Nigel, and right now the werewolves we'd just helped out seemed like a better bet than the Mercury Collegium. Topher gave Gus a called and arranged a meeting for Sunday Lunch at the Mitchester.

It rapidly became apparent that the Bristol traffic was not going to allow us to get back in time to get the lunch service going. And Vanessa's pretty roomy but I could feel myself getting increasingly antsy, stuck in the car in what felt like an endless traffic jam. In the end I couldn't take it any longer. I opened up the sunroof, shifted, and launched myself into the air, leaving a pile of clothes and a brief burst of ozone and daisies. With hindsight I should probably have warned the others first.

I had some pretty standard beef and turkey laid on for lunch service but we were about to have special guests so I decided to pick something up on the way back. There are pheasants in the city if you know where to look, and I soon had an alternate menu option to take home. I tapped on the window to alert Cassie when I got back - I swear that girl still thinks I have an unusually smart pet falcon - and she let me in.

The others arrived half an hour after we started serving, moments before Gus and Klaus, by which time I'd eaten the parts of the pheasant not considered fit for table and reverted to human form. Cassie called in the request for the chef's special, telling me one of the customers was really good looking. After getting a look at Klaus, whose gait was the only thing about him that didn't scream accountant, I really hoped she was talking about Gus.

The werewolves were pretty cagey about everything. According to them, Damian had been taken into the clan on his own merits and had proved himself. I asked about Nigel, but they denied any knowledge of that name. As they went on their way, Fiona assured us they were lying, but we weren't going to be able to get any more out of them without something to offer.

Then my phone went. Amelia. She'd set up a meeting for 7pm in a nearby tapas restaurant. Hardly ideal since we were still on a time limit for solving this problem for the Sibyl, but high end restaurant reservations aren't the kind of thing that can easily be changed and we needed this information.

With no further leads it was obvious we were going to have to talk to Nigel. Topher was concerned his showing up while Colin was around was likely to start a fight, but the alternative was me and Fiona going in on our own, and while I can look after myself, I can't look after Fiona too. We wanted him with us, and we wanted him armed.

It was obvious from the outside what kind of pub the Chelsea was. People sitting around with poorly concealed weapons, the stench of weed, the kind of cracked windows you get from people being thrown at them, and nitrous oxide canisters littering the ground. We parked nearby, not wanting to put Vanessa in the car park, and headed for the door. We were intercepted by what I assume was the landlady. She obviously didn't like the look of us, and told us to get in our Chelsea tractor and go home.

We asked about Nigel, but once again we were stonewalled. Topher brought up Colin without much effect. She told us to leave again and we could see weapons were being drawn. So it was going to have to be a show of power, and my power is the weather. I called the wind into a swirling vortex around us, picking up litter, nitrous canisters and bullet casings. How dare she talk about Vanessa like that? Fiona reached into it and picked out a bullet casing, getting stares from some of those around. Stares, and weapons sheathed. It seemed we'd made our point.

The pub was nasty. A grimy little place with one of those squishy carpets that have had far too much beer spilt and never cleaned up. Nigel was seated at the back, behind a bead curtain. He bore enough resemblance to Damian that we knew we had the right person. On with the show of strength. He demanded Topher and me sit down. We looked to Fiona for instructions, making it clear she was in charge. She stood her ground and we stayed standing. Again we'd made our point.

Then he did something none of us expected. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a snap of his fingers. And the air was suddenly full of the smell of bitter ash.

I would have liked to ask him how exactly he learned how to do that, but I was on a time limit, so went straight for the obvious. What was going on involving Klaus and his boy? Nigel's response confirmed Damian's description of him as a bellend. Seems he's one of those parents who don't believe in kindness. No wonder Damian wanted nothing to do with his dad, or his business.

I was starting to hope we might get somewhere when Colin walked in, threw a folder on the table, and immediately abandoned what he was saying to get in Topher's face. Fiona took the opportunity to ask Nigel why the bitter ash smell had shown up somewhere associated with his son, which I think actually surprised him. For a moment I thought I was about to have to do a runner with Fiona, but holy shit, Topher actually challenged Colin to a game of darts, and in the resulting confusion I managed to get a look at that folder.

There were photos inside. One was that vault underneath the Cornubia, and from the state of it, it was definitely after we'd made our visit. The other was the Mitchester Arms, with an arrow drawn on pointing at Fiona's window.

We didn't stick around much longer. Back in Vanessa, Topher told us Colin was wearing a silver chain that didn't look like the kind of jewellery a man like that would want to be seen wearing. I knew what it was. A talisman. Similar to one Fiona had seen DS Gunne with, it turned out. With Gunne apparently too sick to take a call, she called one of his people, who said it was from some stuff belonging to DCI Choudhury, Myers' predecessor.

Then Topher spotted we were being followed. Some old Ford. Vanessa can shift when we want her to, and Topher shook them off. But why would anyone follow us? Everyone knows where we live. Especially people with photos showing Fiona's bedroom.

I was going to have to hustle if I was going to make my dinner date, and the others were going to have to get back to Clan Kielsyn for a trade of information if we were going to get the Sibyl's job done in time. So I got dropped off near the Mitchester and went to get ready. I don't have much in the way of clothes suitable for anything fancier than my own kitchen, but I've got one decent pair of shoes and a nice dress from Primark. Along with some makeup and tidying up my hair I felt I looked quite respectable.

Or at least, I did until I got to the door of the restaurant and remembered that places with Michelin stars are on a whole different level. I guess the fact I had sunglasses on probably didn't help, but it's either that or go flashing my freak eyes to the normies and I felt out of place enough already. Fortunately the staff were expecting me.

I saw Amelia first. Straight away I took in the designer dress and the red soled shoes. It took a moment longer to spot her earrings. Silver studs, mostly hidden by her hair. The ones I gave her when we were still sixth-formers. God I miss her.

And then there he was. Percival Fitz-Percy. Fucking Percy. That place pretty much trained the swearing out of us, but that one stuck. He wanted me to take the sunglasses off but I refused. He had to know why I hide my eyes but still. No reason he needed the specifics.

He got straight down to business, calling me his biggest failure. Yes, I'd heard it all before. So much promise. So much potential. Amelia pushed a ring box across the table to me. I tried to make a joke about how this didn't seem like the right time for a proposal, but my heart wasn't in it. It was a ring, of course. A Council of Merlin signet ring, just like the ones they were both wearing. He didn't have to say a word but he said it anyway. He wanted me to take it, become an associate member of the Council, and started digging up my so-called arcane lineage. So he could stitch me up with some kind of noble heritage and have me inherit land and money and shit.

How dare he? The absolute bastard, trying to lure me in with money, like I'd have given up my college scholarship to go and work in a pub if it had been about money. Because if they'd actually given a shit about my so-called lost noble heritage they'd have done something for my parents instead of doing nothing until my talent manifested.

But I needed info. So I was going to have to at least take the ring box and think about it for a while. And he'd listened to Amelia over the bitter ash smell. He agreed it sounded fae, and took the opportunity to remind me of a few things I already knew from classes, like boggarts being associated with earth and larceny. Honestly, being reminded of those cute little dickheads was probably the best part of the evening. But fire had never come up, and of course there are no real pyromancers despite what some people would like to claim.

I was starting to wonder if he was just going to tell me things I already knew, but then he started talking about something else. Something they'd found near the observatory. Amelia said that it was beautiful, and I needed to see if for myself. I thought of the vault under the Cornubia. Could there be more than one? And it sounded like I could get all the answers there, but of course I couldn't be allowed to visit, or even be told any more about it. Because I wasn't a member of the Council.

I said I needed time to think about it. I needed to know more but the thought of getting back in their gilded cage was making me feel sick. I was glad of my sunglasses because I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, and all I was actually thinking about was how I hoped Fiona and Topher were back at the Mitchester because if I was going to cry in front of someone I wanted it to be them and not Amelia and especially not fucking Percy.

Then his phone went. He looked at it, showed it to Amelia, and both of them went white. Then I heard the police sirens outside.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 3: Visions

Back at the bus stop I took the time to check my phone. I'd delivered the best bread and honey the Co-op could provide into the fairy ring, and now there was a message with a thumbs-up and an extreme close up of a boggart's face. How they did that without a phone of their own I don't know. Probably best not to think about it.

There were a few messages on the Whatsapp group, most importantly Topher confirming that he hadn't been eaten by werewolves, although in slightly more guarded language. I've told them they don't need to worry what they say in the Mitchester Arms RPG Club group chat, but I guess we're all still getting used to that. Fiona had a lead on what was going on with the licensing situation, so I let them know I'd dealt with the fairy ring problem and would join them there.

There turned out to be Holly Court, one of those hideous brutalist flatblocks that seem to have grown on this city like a rash. I was the last to arrive, and explained that I'd made a deal with three boggarts. They were sceptical, but appreciated that it was a better option than unleashing a rawhead on the city.

Inside, Fiona headed for the lift. I looked at how cramped it was, especially with Topher and Fiona already inside, and decided to take the stairs. I arrived out of breath, just in time for Fiona to fail to get the lock open. I took over, and next thing I knew the pick had snapped. Of course Topher managed to punch it open with damn near surgical precision. Not that I was complaining.

I don't know what Fiona was expecting to find in this flat, but none of us were expecting nothing. The place was completely cleaned out. Except it wasn't completely empty. There was a lingering scent of bitter ash. The same thing I could smell when visiting the boggarts. Shit.

I was reluctant to believe there was absolutely nothing left here so went for a more thorough look around. Behind a curtain there was a far more mundane ash smell. Picking through the burned fragments in an ashtray I found a photo. East Asian woman, maybe Chinese. A note on the back called her a target and an easy mark. Fiona recognised the picture. Lin Xia, a city council clerk. Seems someone used her to cause our licensing problems. Fiona took the photo to give to DS Gunne as evidence. Strange it was still here though. Careless. That didn't fit with everything else we'd seen here.

We were just about to leave when we heard the door swing open and some kid walked in. I say kid. Didn't take long to clock a fledgling vamp, especially when he clearly wanted us to know. He called himself Steve and said we were on his turf. Thank god for Fiona's ability to bullshit her way out of damn near anything. There was some talk of him doing a better job with his sigils in future and we made another attempt to leave.

Except as I was following the others out, Steve said he recognised me, and that's not a good thing coming from a vampire. I hung back a bit and suggested maybe he'd seen me in the pub, but no. It was as bad as I feared. Lucien. I stopped entirely. Not smart, but at that moment being alone with a fledgling vampire sounded better than having to explain to the others about Lucien. Apparently he still talked about me as 'the one that got away'. And Steve was reminding me that while he was only a fledgling he was still a predator, and it was all I could do to remind myself that so am I. I might have left a little faster than was entirely dignified.

Fortunately there was plenty to distract me back at the pub. Cassie was looking frazzled and the agency staff we'd got for the day weren't inspiring much confidence. Plus there was the impending meeting with Clan Kielsyn that Topher had set up. What really worried me though was that bitter ash smell. It felt like fairy magic, but no kind of fae that either Fiona or I had ever heard of. I needed help, and who better than an actual associate member of the Council of Merlin?

Amelia answered the phone pretty quick, and it did feel good to hear her voice again. Asking for help didn't feel so good. She agreed, but of course it came with a price. And the price was having dinner with possibly the only person on Earth I like even less than Firs or Lucien. My old Dee College tutor, Percival Fitz-Percy.

I was thinking of checking what kind of mess the tweaker that the agency had apparently mistaken for a chef was making of my kitchen when I heard screams from downstairs. Seems Celia had been attempting some divination and it had gone...not well. Topher said she'd had frost coming out of her mouth, which certainly explained why he'd thought it was a good idea to throw a kettle of boiling water over her. Fiona was applying first aid, so all I really saw was the triskele she'd drawn on the floor. Apart from where the water had washed it away, it was identical to the one on the coin Firs gave me.

There was nothing else we could do for her at this point, and we couldn't miss our appointment with Clan Kielsyn. So I packed my trowel, and a surprisingly charming guy called Gus picked us up in some fancy car and took us to the Cornubia. A hole underneath a pub wasn't exactly what I'd been expecting - but then, what had I been expecting? It was a challenge getting Fiona and her chair down there and I suspect it hurt more than she was letting on. But it was worth it.

The room was beautiful. It had everything. Vaulted ceilings, carved walls, designs picked out in gold and gems showing a mix of native wildlife and pretty much any occult symbol I could think of. But the important thing was the three people covered in frost, floating above an empty pool in the middle of the room. Even under the frost I could see one of them was Damian.

After some careful examination we had a fair idea what we were looking at. A ward, and a big one too. If we were going to get those people out, we were going to have to destroy it, and that probably meant destroying this room with it. Which I'd do in a heartbeat, but I wasn't so sure about Gus. I guess I shouldn't have underestimated pack mentality.

It took all three of us plus Gus to do it once we'd got everyone else clear. At least if this all went wrong there'd be none of us left to blame. As we hit the four corners, the carvings melted and flowed onto the floor. I kept my eyes on Damian, and saw him and the others sink slowly to the ground as the frost retreated. They were obviously in need of urgent medical attention and Gus and Topher carried two of them to the ladder. I'm not that quite that strong but found it in me to drag the third all the same.

Gus was pretty hard to read when we got out ourselves, but he gave Fiona and me business cards which seemed to be some kind of token of respect and took us back to the Mitchester. Poor Cassie. We're definitely not going to use that agency again. And if that wasn't bad enough, we all spotted a familiar pair of six inch Louboutin heels. Fiona knows how to handle Carolina Fortunato though, whether she's acting on behalf of the Mayor or the Sodality.

My kitchen was a wreck, but before I could get started on fixing that I had to check on Celia. Seems Topher felt the same. We'd put her to bed in a spare room, but she was awake now and looking much better. And we had good news for her. We'd found Damian and he was going to be OK. She started tearing up at that, so I hugged her, and then the floodgates opened.

She'd just about managed to calm down and start asking why we were looking so gloomy when we'd just saved someone's life when suddenly she dropped the mug of cocoa she'd been holding, threw back her head, and started speaking in a voice I didn't recognise.

"A figure made from fire, ash and smoke laid in repose on a black stone table with a broken crown at its head. Flowers of pink, blue and yellow sprouted from its body and were burnt away only for new blossoms to erupt from under its skin."

Then she was back with us, and in her own voice asked Topher why she'd just seen him burning.

She was clearly exhausted, and we left her to sleep, but Topher was acting shifty. I knew what the flowers meant. Discipline, self-control, honour and bravery. Was that how Topher saw himself? He didn't seem sure about the brave part. And he was definitely hiding something. Celia's vision had clearly shaken him up, and it seemed to be something personal. But he obviously didn't want to talk, and I had a kitchen to clean. We could discuss it in the morning.

I was thinking it might be nice to get up a bit early and take wing for a while, but at something like half three in the morning I was woken up by someone hammering on the door. I legged it downstairs and found the most nondescript man I've ever seen demanding Topher tell him how many of us were here. Then he called over someone I never expected to see at the Mitchester. The Avonian Sibyl.

We did all the right stuff, inviting them in, offering hospitality. Turns out the Sibyl likes draught beer and pork scratchings. Mr Average turned out to be not quite so average in the teeth department. At least he turned down the offer. That could have been nasty.

The Sibyl had a request for us. "The clan found Damian’s odour too strong for their delicate noses, yet took him in anyway. It was only when Nigel’s name came up that paranoid Klaus relented and called him brother. Why?" We had twenty-four hours to get them an answer. We could hardly refuse. I watched the Sibyl go. I'd never seen anyone quite so powerful before. So why did they look melancholy and defeated?