NEW CHAPTER: The Aldonn Chronicles 1x07 "...in Love and Wharf" Presented by 99geek.ca

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Previously on The Aldonn Chronicles:

Frankie was a simple orphan thief who never even had a last name, a member of a guild that often preyed on people like her, vulnerable people without anyone to look after them. They took her in, and trained her to be amazing at what she does, but they then betrayed her to the guards and had her locked away. It was in prison that she met a blonde man by the name of Aldonn, a man without any memory of his past. Together they escaped and snuck their way back into the capitol city of Capsin, where they’ve teamed up with a disgraced guard named Edward who they’ve been working with to slowly bring down the guild that betrayed Frankie.

Meanwhile King George, ruler of Capsin and the surrounding country of Memroxia , has been getting increasingly frustrated as his kingdom has continued to stagnate. Diplomatic relations have been falling apart, and with little other choices apparent to him, he’s decided to turn to the wisdom and guidance of the Mage Council. However his adventurous daughter Princess Penelope believes the mages have a secret agenda of their own, and that they might not have her father’s best interests at heart. She regularly sneaks from the castle, disguising herself as a cloaked vigilante to seek out evidence to prove herself to her father. Both her and Frankie’s goals aligned when Frankie realized the leader of her old guild Lee was turning his attentions to the Mage Council, and both Frankie and Penelope entered the Mage tower (One of two large towers on either side of Capsin, the other being Penelope’s home Capsin Keep) to warn them. A warning not taken seriously except, perhaps, by an apprentice named Calvin.

1x07 “…in Love and Wharf”

Released on www.patreon.com/99geek on February 2019

Leah always had the prettiest handwriting. The kind of strange flowing cursive writing only priests and mages wrote with. Far more legible than the chicken scratch Holly could produce. Holly wondered where the girl went to school, and wanted to ask her friend that very question, but she had to focus first. They had a job to do.

“Green sails seem to be merchant vessels,” she told Leah who wrote it down on her parchment. “They seem to stick to docks one to four.” The smell of the salt water assaulted her nostrils, a constant affliction to those willing to brave the docks. Taking up almost half of district one, stretching across Capsin’s entire western shore, the docks consisted of the largest port in all of Capsin, as well as rows and rows of warehouses and storehouses.

The blue sails of the boats carrying supplies for the Mage tower would come in next. Holly and Leah had found a pile of empty boxes in the shade of one of the warehouses overlooking the entire dock, and they’d been taking notes of everything they could observe propped up on top the pile of recycle.

The routine was always the same. Men would scramble to secure the boat. The ship would drop a ramp, and then they would proceed to unload boxes just like the ones the two girls were sitting on, but presumably far heavier. Those boxes were then either piled onto carts and taken away to be stored into a warehouse, or else loaded on a wagon, or even at times a train of multiple wagons or carriages, all hooked up to one another and pulled by four horses to be distributed throughout the city.

It seemed, from what they could tell, the supplies for the Mage tower were never stored in the warehouses, always loaded directly onto trains of hollowed out carriages and whisked away to the Mage District.

They’d also observed the people around the dock. The dock master, a large and tough man seemed to be understaffed and pushing what workers he did have far past a reasonable man’s breaking point. As she watched, one dock worker dropped a crate, and the dock master screamed at him and cracked a whip in the air over his head. “That’s coming out of your salary. You ungrateful shit.”

“Please sir,” the man pleaded, Holly only just able to make out their argument in the wind. “It’s too heavy. I can’t lift it on my own.”

The dockmaster cracked his whip again, clearly getting sweaty at his own exertion. “Does it look like there’s anyone around who can help?” he said in his screechy weasel voice. “Dan’s busy at Dock 7. Now if you don’t get this all loaded within the hour I’m docking your pay for the hour.”

“I’ve got two overdue bills,” the dockworker complained. “and I already barely make enough for my rent and food. Please stop docking my pay. I haven’t eaten in two days.”

“Go write that in your diary,” the dockmaster barked as he left the dockworker alone at dock three. “I dun wanna hear it.”

Leah tsked, as she saw what Holly had been focusing on. “Who would willingly work for a man like that?” she asked Holly in her naivety. Though she was older, and taller, than Holly by a few months and inches, she wasn’t more experienced. Not, it seemed, in the real world at least.

“Some people don’t have a choice,” Holly explained to her, her mood souring. “Some people live pay cheque to pay cheque, or not even that. There’s so many people and so few jobs out there. Not everyone gets the same opportunities. Sometimes this is the only option a person has left that isn’t crime or death.”

“How do you know so much?” Leah asked her, putting down the pencil and resting her head on her friend’s shoulder. Of course Holly remembered the kiss her friend had planted on her in the basement of her house a week ago. Neither girl had brought it up since.

Holly just shrugged gently, so as not to disturb Leah.

“You know it’s kinda nice here,” Leah said, staring out at the water. “If you’re not working yourself to death for some lecherous man.” Holly wasn’t sure what lecherous meant, but it sounded like an apt word to describe the dockmaster. “The view, the sounds of the birds, and the bells of the ships as they come in to dock. It’s all sort of romantic.”

“Let me sign this,” Leah said, looking down at her notes from her place on Holly’s shoulder. She wrote Holly Napier + Leah Ducard and then drew a heart around it.

Holly rolled her eyes, not that Leah saw.

They’d gotten all the information they were going to get from their spot out of the way. And Frankie had warned Holly not to get too close. “We should head back,” she suggested to her friend.

Leah grasped Holly’s hand in her own. “Couldn’t we just enjoy this for a little while.” Holly knew what Leah wanted. Leah wanted them to be more than friends. To be in a relationship, to fall in love. But Holly knew better. She’d seen love for what it really was. Violent, vengeful, toxic and cruel.

She knew love. Knew it, and wanted no part.

She’d spotted the man approaching before he ever even got close, a man in his thirties with a prickly uneven beard and a smell that got stronger as he drew close. “You two girls look mighty hungry.”

Both girls looked up at him with disinterest. The man had strange chains and metal dongles hanging from his garments that all clinked as he moved.

“Aye know a place just nearby with candy and brownies and hot chocolate. Or if you girls want a little wine,” he chuckled, “well no one there would mind too much. It’s completely free. The place is meant just for little girls like you.”

Holly had seen places she’d been told were ‘just for little girls’ like her. They weren’t the kind of places she wanted to go to.

“We were just leaving,” Holly told them, hopping off the box with Leah’s hand still grasped in her own.

“Are you sure?” Leah asked as she was dragged down after Holly almost against her will.

“Come on,” Holly said taking off through the docks. She burst into a run, leaving the man in their dust as they weaved their way through people and across the street only just avoiding getting run over by a horse drawn carriage.

“Who says no to free brownies?” Leah asked, struggling to keep up in her dress. Holly thought the girl’s dress was ridiculous, much preferring simple pants or shorts. Something you could move in.

“In my experience,” Holly said with a grim smile at Leah. “Free always comes with a price.” They ducked through an alley, almost to their destination. They didn’t even have to leave the district, with Edward’s place being close to the bridge between District One and Three.

*     *

“Who ate all my jerky?” Edward asked, peering into his once more empty cupboards. Frankie, whistled to herself as she snuck into the next room, shoving the last piece in her mouth before he could take it from her. Sure enough he noticed her movement.

“Frankie!” he accused, storming into the living room after her as she quickly swallowed. “I was saving that! Do you think food is free? Nothing is free!”

Frankie shrugged. “How do you know I did it?” she said, her mouth finally clear of food. Edward crossed his arms. “Relax,” she added, spreading her arms wide, “You know you love me.”

She tried to draw Edward into a hug but Edward pushed her away. “I could never love someone as selfish and broken as you.” She’d be offended, but frankly Frankie felt the same way about him. He was about as not her type as a person could get. Stuck up, ignorant, lawful. Self-righteous.

There was a knock at the door.

“Are one of you going to get that?” Aldonn asked, “Or are you both too busy fighting it out?” He was a real man. Strong moral core, sure, but non-judgemental, open minded, compassionate, and constantly self-sacrificing. Edward could probably learn something from Aldonn but he was too busy thinking he was perfect.

Aldonn opened the door and two kids rushed past him. “Holly. Leah.”

“Hey kiddo,” Frankie said as Holly rushed to her and gave her a hug. Over Holly’s shoulder, as Frankie bent down for the hug, she could see Holly’s friend give her a dirty look. Whatever that was about. “Did you get all the information I asked for?”

“Your informant was a child?” Edward asked, apparently rhetorically. “Of course your informant is a child.”

“What do you expect?” Frankie said with a shrug. “All my friends are kids.”

“Do they always fight?” Leah asked Aldonn.

“Seems like,” the man said beneath his long blonde hair.

“We got everything you wanted and more,” Holly said, handing Frankie all of her notes.

“Nice handwriting,” Frankie said, squinting. “Almost too nice. Ed, you wanna browse through that?”

Edward took the papers from her grumpily. “You’ll take everything from me but reading lessons.”

“I can read fine,” Frankie insisted. “As long as the type is large and they use simple words.”

“You have one of the largest vocabularies I know,” Aldonn told her, always willing to throw out a compliment when someone was being self-deprecating.

“Sure I know all the best words,” Frankie admitted, approaching the wall of Edward’s house that she’d claimed for her mind web. “I just don’t know how to spell em.” She gestured to Edward. “What does it say in there about shipments from the Mage Council. Are they like clockwork?”

“It’s the Mage Council,” Edward said to her, looking over the notes. “Of course it’s clockwork. There’s two deliveries. One at midday on the third, fifth and seventh days of the week, and then one in the evening on the second, fifth, and seventh.”

“That’s a lot of deliveries,” Frankie admitted, whistling to herself.

“There’s a third delivery,” Holly said, in awe of Frankie’s vision board. “Dock eight, in the middle of the fifth night. It doesn’t get all unloaded until morning, though I’ve seen people come and go.”

“You stayed all night?” Leah said from beside Aldonn. “You told me you were going home!”

“On a fifth night?” Holly said, with a funny look at Leah. “With my father at his drunkest? I was better off in the cold.”

“Strong kid,” Frankie said absentmindedly, patting Holly on the head.

“The dock is pretty big,” Aldonn said, looking at Frankie’s map on the wall.

“Big enough to be its own district,” Frankie told him.

“So why isn’t it?”

“Representation,” Frankie explained, putting her hands on her hips. “If the Dock were its own district, separate from the Royal District, it would get its own representative in the royal courts of Capsin Keep. Instead they’re represented by a lord in the richer part of the district.”

“So it’s just another way for the rich to keep the poor down,” Holly said. “Seems like the world is full of that.”

“Smart kid too,” Frankie muttered, with a surprised look at her.

“So what do you want to do?” Edward asked mockingly. “Steal ALL the shipments.”

“Alright,” Frankie admitted. “I mighta been gettin’ ahead of myself. Relax. We just need a new plan.” She put a red peg into Edwards wall, with a grimace from him. Her red peg was through a map of Capsin, right in the center of the Docks.

“What if we get a job there?” Aldonn asked. “Then we’d be able to keep an eye on things without attracting any attention, and if we have to engage anyone trying to steal, we’d simply be doing our jobs.”

“That would never work,” Edward dismissed his idea almost too quickly.

“What makes you so sure,” Frankie asked with attitude.

“You’re a thief,” Edward reminded her. “I’m an ex-guard. We’d be turned down moments after the background check.”

“I’d be okay,” Aldonn pointed out.

“Pretty sure you don’t even exist,” Frankie muttered. Then she tapped the wall as her brain lit up with an idea. “Unless we had a good character witness. They might even forgo the background check.”

“You already said your only friends are kids,” Edward told Frankie. “And I don’t have any friends.”

Leah touched Edward’s leg. “That’s so sad,” she empathized with the older man.

“What are you even still doing here?” Edward asked her coldly, jerking away from her hand. “Get out of here. Go home to your families where it’s safe.”

“Hey!” Frankie said to Ed. “Leave her alone.”

“So who’s your character witness?” Edward asked, ignoring her. “Sister Christine?”

Frankie grabbed the side of Edward’s couch absentmindedly. “I was thinking someone with a little more cred.”

Edward realized who Frankie meant, and he shook his head. “No. Not a chance.”

“It’s already happening,” Frankie said, crossing her arms.

*

Leah thought she’d successfully snuck out of Edward’s place without anyone noticing, but it seemed nothing got past Holly’s attention.

“He didn’t mean it,” Holly told Leah, joining her outside Edward’s small townhouse in the poorer section of the Royal district. “Trust me, nobody likes Edward.”

“He’s right though,” Leah said. “I should be getting home. My dad doesn’t like it when I miss dinner.”

“Why don’t you ever tell me about your family?” Holly asked her, following after her as they made their way to the Market Bridge. “I mean, you’ve met my dad, and he’s a piece of shit.”

What was with Holly’s sudden interest in her family? “Do you want to come for dinner?” Leah asked hopefully. It would be a pretty big step. But maybe it was time.

“Not tonight,” Holly said with a shake of her head. Her brown hair fell all over her face in just such a way Leah thought was cute. They separated for a moment as a large women pushed between them. Forming together, they stepped onto the bridge holding hands. “My dad apparently pulled in a big percentage from this week’s collection. That means we get to eat like kings for a night before he blows the rest on booze.”

Leah was glad she didn’t have the kind of home Holly had to go back to. As much as her father irritated her, and she loved rebelling against him, he’d always given her everything she ever wanted. Always made sure she had the best clothes and food. Always protected her, and made her feel safe. Sometimes she felt a little guilty for being such a trouble maker in return.

But only sometimes.

Holly squeezed Leah’s hand as they made it to the other side of the bridge. “Can you make it home okay alone?” Holly asked her. For a moment, as their eyes met, it was as if the crowds around them didn’t exist and it was just her and Holly. There was something about the thief’s daughter that made her the most interesting person Leah had ever met. She was often all Leah could think about.

“Meet up tomorrow?” Holly asked her, and her answer was an immediate yes -- or would have been.

“I can’t until the afternoon,” Leah said, surprising even herself. “I have studies all day.”

Holly frowned. “Where do you go to school?”

Leah shrugged. She wasn’t exactly in the mood to say. “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said, and it was a conversation she wasn’t looking forward to.

Holly gave her a look, but didn’t complain. “Till tomorrow afternoon then? At the Docks?”

Leah smiled. “At our usual spot?” she said hopefully. It was kinda romantic, they had a spot. It was all theirs.

They parted ways, Holly heading off for Beggars Road while Leah kept going towards the fourth district.

She felt funny. Not in a bad way, though she could tell her emotions and feelings were all out of wack. She felt funny in an empowered way. She felt connected with the city, like she was starting to understand how it worked. Her father had told her she would feel like this as she got older.

She was so glad to have a friend like Holly. Of course she really liked Holly, and had really complicated feelings for Holly she couldn’t quite explain, but Holly was younger, even just by a bit. Maybe the thief’s daughter just needed more time. They had plenty of that, Leah wasn’t planning to go anywhere.

She stretched out her arms as she trudged down the street, letting the drifting breeze lightly waft through her fingers. She closed her eyes, sensing the elements against her skin and with a silly little twiddle she spun an air current around her finger.

She was so caught up in her thoughts, distracted by the elements around her that made up her world while pedestrians dodged aside to let her pass, that she didn’t notice one pedestrian, despite the clinking of metal hanging from his robes, who jumped out from the crowd and covered her head in a black sack.

“Hey!” She tried to yell but the bag tightened over her mouth, and she could taste the unwashed felt on her tongue. Yuck. To make things worse, hands tightened around her throat as she could feel herself get dragged off the road and into an alley.

*     *     *

“I told you I was not to be disturbed,” Master Elmeiser mused grumpily, and Calvin could tell he was irritated. But then again, that was about the only way Apprentice Calvin ever found him.

“My apologies,” Calvin granted him with a flourish of his robes. “You haven’t said a word to me since Master Salem appointed me as your apprentice.”

Elmeiser didn’t look up from the pile of books he was angrily flipping through. “So you thought that gave you permission to magic the lock and storm into my lab uninvited.” His lab was hardly true to its name. Calvin could spot the tops of beakers and all kinds of alchemist tools, but they were going unused, and buried beneath papers and boxes and books. It seemed the Master mage was doing research.

“Master Trelawny gave me a key. I was allowed in her lab, or even quarters, any time I pleased.”

“She trusted you, did she?” Elmeiser asked him, glancing from his desk only long enough to raise a judgemental eyebrow at the apprentice.

“Implicitly.”

“And look where that got her,”

Calvin balled his fists, but kept his mouth shut. It would serve him nothing to react to Elmeiser’s obvious attempts at insult. “So are you going to give me something to do? Instructions or something?”

“Are you an infant?” Elmeiser mused from his desk, lifting a book and tossing it over his shoulder. Calvin thought it might have been thrown at him, but it missed by a large measure and joined a pile of other books carelessly littering the ground. “Do you also need instruction to get dressed in the morning?”

Clearly this had been a mistake. Calvin released a sigh. “I’ll go let Master Salem know this isn’t going to work,” he muttered, turning to leave. He was half out the door when Elmeiser, predictably, stopped him.

“Wait,” Elmeiser said, turned around now. “Maybe there’s something you can do.”

“That’s what I thought,” Calvin said, turning back from the door. “You could start by telling me what you’re working o--.”

“I want you,” Elmeiser interrupted him, “to keep an eye on the people who broke into our tower last week.”

“First of all, they didn’t break in,” Calvin corrected him. “I let them in.”

“And?”

“And,” Calvin repeated. “My time would be better spent helping you with whatever it is you’re working on.”

Calvin picked up a folded parchment closest to him. It was a letter of some kind, a communication the master mage had been sharing with another magic user across the world. The charred edges implied they were forgoing traditional mail delivery to send each other letters by fire.

“Elmeiser Ducard,” Calvin read the name the letter was addressed to. “I always thought Elmeiser was your last name.” A mage generally took on a single name, dropping their other name for all but their most closest friends and family. A mage’s full name was often well guarded, and as soon as Calvin read it aloud, he regretted it.

Elmeiser got off his chair and took the parchment from Calvin’s hands. “What I’m working on is private,” he insisted, tossing the letter onto his desk. “And I don’t need you snooping around in it.”

“Did you give your last apprentice Manejo the same sort of meaningless tasks when he was in my place?”

Elmeiser sat back at his desk, and went back to pretending, at least in posture, that Calvin wasn’t there.

“I trusted Manejo a lot more than I trust you,” he muttered at his desk. He gave a slow sigh. “But I’m trying here. The task I ask of you is far from meaningless.”

“They’re not a danger to you,” Calvin insisted. He’d talked to the princess and her friends. They seemed like a kind-hearted sort.

“And when your task is complete,” Elmeiser argued, “We’ll know that for sure.” He turned one final time from his research. “Seems pretty meaningful now, doesn’t it.”

And Elmeiser would just take his word for it? Calvin found that rather unlikely. But what choice did he have. “I will do as you command, sir,” Calvin muttered, turning to leave. It seemed, for the first time since his last master died, Calvin had a mission. And how he accomplished that mission, it seemed, was up to him.

*     *     *

“Ninety two,” Penelope said, straining to push herself up off the ground with her arms, her face drenched in sweat as she reached nearly double her old record.

“You’ll never make it,” Ser Christopherson taunted from behind her, smacking her on the back with a wooden stick not for the first time. They were working out on the roof of Capsin keep. Or at least she was, and he was pushing her harder and harder.

Just like she’d asked him to do, and was quickly regretting it.

“Ow,” Penelope groaned, her arm and ribs still smarting from her secret night time proclivities. “I’m already almost there,” she refuted, letting herself fall and pushing herself up for a ninety third time off of pure spitefulness. “Ninety Three!” She roared triumphantly, letting herself fall again.

“Look at you,” Christopherson said, manhandling that blasted stick he was carrying. “Gasping for air, covered in sweat. I was considering taking you out on guard patrol with me one night, but maybe you’re not ready.”

“NINETY FOUR,” Penelope insisted, forcing herself up again. “Won’t people talk if they see you patrolling with the Princess of Capsin Keep?” the princess asked the head of the King’s Guard in between breaths as she let herself fall again.

“We could dress you up in a guard’s uniform that covers your face,” He suggested to her. “We have women in the guard. And uniforms that should fit your physique.”

“Ninety-five,” Penelope said, rising and falling again. She was almost there. Her arms felt like rubber but she was almost there. She looked up at the much older man. “Have you been eying my physique from up there.”

He thwatted her in the butt with his stick and she lifted herself up. “So that’s a yes. Ninety Six.” She exhaled loudly as she fell. “I think you’re enjoying that stick a little too much.”

“Your highness,” Christopherson pleaded, “at least try to stay appropriate.”

“Is it hard to train me when I flirt with you?” The princess asked in mock sympathy. “Ninety Seven!”

She dropped. She only had three left. “Ninety Nine,” she said forcing out two more, and only grunting for Ninety Eight.

She collapsed.

“You’re just gonna stop there?” Christopherson chided her. “I thought you were serious about this.”

Penelope pushed her tired noodle arms past their limits, rising one last time. “One hundred” she said, dropping again, and then curling into a ball on the roof of the keep.

“Oh man,” she complained. “I feel so weak. I’m gonna need to rest for days.”

Ser Christopherson offered her a hand.

“I’m gonna need a moment,” Penelope told him, ignoring his offer of assistance.

“If you get up now,” Christopherspn said with a grim frown, “I won’t make you do another hundred.”

Penelope screwed her face in disbelief, but reluctantly got to her feet. “Pretty sure no force in the world could make that happen.”

“Defend yourself!” Christopherson yelled, attacking her suddenly with his wooden stick.

“Ah!” Penelope exerted loudly, raising her fists weakly to block the weapon with her forearm.

“This isn’t fair,” she complained. “I don’t have a stick.”

He came at her again, hard and viciously fast. His weapon struck at her side, cutting though her shirt and leaving a bloody welt on her abdomen.

“Your enemies won’t wait for you to be ready for them,” Christopherson warned her. “They won’t wait for you to catch your breath. They won’t fight fair, they’ll attack you when you’re unarmed.”  He came in with a flurry of attacks. She blocked with one arm, then blocked on her other side with the other arm, sliding backwards a little and tightening her stance. “You have to be ready for any encounter.”

“You’re right about all but one thing,” Penelope said, drawing her weapons from her waistline. “I’m not unarmed.” She slashed out horizontally with her right hand, glancing her metal stick off his wooden one. Bringing her left hand down with her second weapon, she broke his stick in half.

“These are your weapons of choice?” Christopherson asked her, swinging the two halves of his stick to impact against hers.

Penelope nodded, their weapons striking one another in the air between them, doing a deadly dance around the room. “I found them in the Thieves Guild Headquarters,” she explained to him. “Apparently they are called Kusarigama. An ancient druidic weapon.”

She twisted her hilt and the head of her right kusarigama dropped on the end of a chain. Swinging her weapon, she wrapped it around Christopherson’s leg, yanking his feet out from under him and dropping him to the ground with a loud thud in his heavy armour.

“You’re pretty good with those,” he told her, wheezing up at her from the floor.

“I’ve been practicing,” Penelope promised him with a smile.

“Confidence like yours usually comes just before your biggest fall,” Christopherson said, accepting her hand and letting her help him to his feet. “Shall we go one more time?”

“I don’t suppose I could say no?” Penelope asked.

“Can I help?” a deep smooth voice said from the stairs, and Penelope turned to see a familiar face.

Aldonn joined them on the roof, his flowing blonde hair almost glowing in the moonlight. He was wearing the tightest of white shirts over his bulging muscles. Penelope wondered if Aldonn could tell if she’d noticed.

“I could use your help,” Aldonn told her, flashing the whitest smile she had ever seen. He had beautiful blue eyes too. How did Edward make such an attractive friend?

“How did you get up here?” Penelope asked him, and he tossed her a towel from the door handle where they’d left them. She took off her shirt, toweling herself off in her sports bra underneath. She didn’t mind if Aldonn got a little peek, though from what she could tell he didn’t take his eyes off her face. She did however catch an interesting glance from Christopherson. Not creepy, so much as accusatory.

He knew what she was up to.

“I just told the guard at the gate I wanted to talk to you,” Aldonn said innocently enough. “He sent me to your bedroom.”

Penelope shrugged. “Yeah, that checks out,” she told him with a shrug.

“I met Roric on the way, and he told me you were training up here on the roof.”

“And who is this?” Christopherson asked, clearly unimpressed by the keep’s security.

“Edward’s friend,” Penelope explained. “Aldonn. I don’t know how it’s spelt.”

“Two Ns,” he clarified for her.

“Roric would have recognized him,” she told the head of the guard in assurance. “They became acquainted last week.” It was an understatement for nursing the man back to health after he’d died from being cut across the throat.

“I’d hate to ask the circumstances,” Christopherson muttered, but she ignored him.

“You need my help?” she asked.

“You can tell her while she does ten more laps,” Christopherson said harshly.

Penelope rolled her eyes. “You heard the man,” she said, already feeling like she was ready to drop dead. She started sprinting off.

“I’ll join you,” Aldonn said, and Penelope smiled.

“I welcome the company,” she said as he joined her in a jog around the rooftop. “Is this about the Thieves Guild or the Mage Council?” she asked him.

“Both,” he told her. “Frankie is convinced the Thieves Guild wants to steal a shipment right out from under the the watch of the Mage Council.”

“They’d be foolish to move against the mages,” Christopherson said, apparently paying attention from within the circle they were making around the roof. “We all live by a fragile truce.”

Aldonn shook his head, and Penelope was envious of how steady his breathing was. She was gasping like a dying pig. “I think the truce has already been broken. Repeatedly. On both sides. All sides even,” He looked from the head of the guard to the princess.

They turned a corner as Christopherson shook his head. “That’s impossible,” Christopherson insisted. “We would know. There would be bloodshed in the streets.”

Aldonn stopped, and Penelope stopped with him, reaching out to lean on his broad muscular shoulders. “Is that the current theory?” he asked, confused. “What if you’re wrong? What if that’s not how it would go down?”

“I have plenty of analysts working for me who would jump at the opportunity of arguing that theory with you,” Christopherson told him. “I am not one of them.”

“I’m saying,” Aldonn pushed forward, “what if self-preservation is holding them back. Nobody wants that. Open bloodshed. So it’s all in the shadows. A cold war. But make no mistake. The war has begun.”

Christopherson crossed his arms. “I’m not quite sure where in there your theory became a fact. The war has begun has it, son? What do you know about war? One a Edward’s friends are you?”

“Christopherson,” Penelope said harshly, getting between them. The last thing she wanted was for his attitude to scare the man away. “They’ve been working with me. They helped me when I went undercover into the Thieves Guild. Their my agents and I’ll have you treat them with respect.”

Christopherson frowned under his moustache. “Even Edward?”

“Especially Edward,” Penelope insisted. “His cause for dismissal was my fault, not his own.”

“Your highness,” Christopherson interceded. “I do believe he had some part to play in the whole thing.”

“Why,” She argued. “I seduced him. I can assure you there was little effort on his end. And as his boss he had every right to believe that being with me would excuse him from his duties.”

“Well if you’re going to lay things out just such,” Christopherson told her, with a dismissive shrug belying that he didn’t really care, “then sure. It was all your fault. But that sounded like a lot of affirmation bias to me.”

“Okay,” Penelope said, wanting to turn the topic back to her friend’s problem. “Affirmation Bias. You don’t want to believe Aldonn’s theory. How would we convince you?”

“Princess--” Christopherson said.

“There’s always one way to prove your theory Master Aldonn,” Penelope said, with a smile at him. “Catch the Thieves Guild in the act at the docks. How can I help you with that?”

Aldonn crossed his arms. “You don’t want to finish your laps?” he chided her.

“Traitor,” she mouthed at him.

“You don’t need to run any laps,” Chrisopherson told Penelope. He turned to Aldonn. “Just speak your piece and return to your fellow ‘Agents’.”

“Wanna say that with a little more sincerity?” Penelope asked him. “Maybe without the finger quotations.”

“We want to pose as dock workers,” Aldonn told them, and Penelope was glad he was finally getting to the point. “We were hoping you could talk us in.”

“You mean throw my clout around,” Penelope suggested. “I like it. Wouldn’t mind an excuse to take a look around the docks myself. The Dockmaster was just here with a request not too long ago, am I right?”

“It was a request for more labour,” Ser Christopherson told her.

“Well look at that,” Penelope said with a smile at Aldonn. “We all get to be happy.” She eyed him hungrily. “Where are you staying tonight?”

“I’ll be sleeping on Ed’s couch tonight,” Aldonn said with a slight smile to Penelope. “We’re to meet at the docks at five tomorrow morning.”

Penelope shook her head, walking the length of the roof to pick up her towel. “You’ll be doing no such thing.”

“Your highness,” Christopherson said in a weary sort of warning. “You can’t set him up in one of the guest rooms without your father hearing of it. And the last thing your father needs to know is that his daughter is living a double life.” As he finished voicing his disapproval, his tone implied he’d realized that was in fact her plan.

“He can spend the night in my quarters,” Penelope said. “And that’ll be all I’ll hear of that.”

“Your Highness,” Christopherson said.

“Princess,” Aldonn said as well, grinning despite himself. “That’s a kind offer but I must decline.”

“I have a massive bed,” Penelope explained. “That’s made with the softest down you’ve ever felt.” She crossed her arms. “The mattress literally conforms to your body. There’s more than enough room for the two of us. I can even build a wall of pillows between us if that’ll make you feel more comfortable.” She hoped she wasn’t coming off as too hungry. “It simply makes sense.”

Aldonn apparently ran out of arguments, because he allowed her to lead him from the roof and through the hallways. They hid around a corner and silently waited for a patrol to pass, then snuck across the hall to the large double doors of her bedroom.

She let him inside.

Her bedroom was beautiful in its hanging tapestries and ornate wooden bed posts.

“Is that not the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen,” Penelope told him, collapsing onto her bed with exhaustion, her entire body feeling like lead. “Can you imagine having to wait another hour before passing out.”

Aldonn watched her. “I thought you were going to make a wall with your pillows.” He suggested, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“I might have lied a little to get you here,” She said, stripping offer her bra and sweaty track pants. And like that she was in her underwear. Reaching over she pulled him back into the bed with her. “Just relax. Have you ever been in a bed with a woman before?”

She reached her hand under his shirt, but he grabbed it.

“Does it scare you?” she asked him.

“I don’t wish to do anything that would upset Edward,” Aldonn told her.

She frowned. “Edward isn’t my boyfriend.” She confirmed for him. Why were women always defined by the men they slept with?

Aldonn still didn’t seem too keen at her touch. He smiled awkwardly. “Do you not find me attractive?” she asked, at least a little offended. Usually men jumped at any chance to get close to her, now here was a supermodel of a man, perfect specimen, and all he wanted to do was sleep?

“I try not to think of my friends like that,” he told her, and she rested her head on his chest.

“Is this okay?” she asked him, his large muscular peck a softer pillow than even her down luxuries. “Gods, you’re so warm.” She straddled him under the covers, squeezing herself tightly against him. Her naked breasts pressed teasingly against his form.

“This is how Frankie prefers to sleep as well,” Aldonn told her.

“She’s a lucky girl,” Penelope muttered. Reaching up , she gently kissed his lips.

“She doesn’t generally do this though.” Aldonn said.

“Oops,” Penelope muttered, his lips tasting sweet in hers. “I guess I’m just a slow learner.” To her pleasant surprise, he kissed back, his hand gently touching her chin.

*     *     *

“He’ll be here,” Frankie insisted, to the three men she brought with her. Both Sean and Richter had agreed, perhaps too hastily, that they would help her hurt the Thieves Guild once more. But neither of them seemed too excited once she explained about the manual labour that would be involved. They were all at the docks, trying best they could to look as inconspicuous as possible.

“He never came home last night,” Edward said. “What if something happened?” Frankie wondered what exactly it was Edward meant by something.

“You folks there,” the dockmaster yelled at them, as apparently they had not been inconspicuous enough. She imagined they probably looked like they were up to no good. That three of them were ex-thieves guild members likely didn’t help.

“Let me do the talking,” she told the boys, and Richter beckoned for her to lead. “Hello!” she told the fat dockmaster as he lumbered towards them. “We were looking for work.” Frankie called out to him.

“Dockmaster,” came another woman’s voice in the air, and everyone turned to see Aldonn and Princess Penelope joining them from the keep. “You were at Capsin Keep earlier this week asking for assistance?” The princess was dressed in a long flowing skirt under a fancy blue vest and tunic. She looked more like a Princess than Frankie had ever seen close up.

“Your highness,” the dockmaster sputtered, attempting to bow but not getting very far. “Your father didn’t seem to take my request very seriously. I tried to tell him, Ma’am, that the docks are one of the primary ports of entry to his city and we need the proper personnel. Instead we’re underfunded, under staffed, and dealing with increased traffic.”

“Well my father may have ignored your desperate cries, but I did not,” she told him. “I have brought some of my best workers to fill out your workforce. This is Aldonn, Frankie, Edward, Richter, and Sean. They’re all willing to work the day for you for free.”

“We’re what?” Frankie said, her mind processing what the princess had just said.

The dockmaster looked them over, fondling a whip at his waist with a little too much enthusiasm.

“This is largely irregular , your highness. They criminals or something?” he asked her, and Frankie didn’t like the tone he used. Not one bit. “You want me to go extra hard on them? Double lashes with the whip?”

Penelope looked at her, and Frankie shook her head furiously behind the dockmaster’s back.

“No!” Penelope said. “They’re not criminals. And there will be no whipping my workers, please.” She put her hands on her hips and gave the dockmaster a quizzical look. “You whip your employees? Your paid employees?”

The dockmaster shifted his, admittedly considerable, weight uncomfortably. “I find sometimes these lowlifes require certain special motivation.” Frankie was really not liking the way this man talked. She wondered if she could just kill him? It would be only too easy. She was still wearing her leather jacket of infinite daggers. They had all dressed incognito for the mission, but none of them had tried all that hard to hide their admittedly distinctive looks.

“Can you show me your books?” the Princess asked.

“The wut?” the dockmaster said with surprise. “You want to see our library?” Frankie didn’t think those were the books Penelope had in mind.

“I want to see your records,” the princess said. “All your paperwork. You do have an office don’t you?”

“You’re,” the dockmaster looked really confused, “auditing me?” He stomped his foot. “Look lady, we still have an entire shipment we gotsta unload, I dontcha got time for this. If you don’t wish to help--” Did he just call her lady?

“Dockmaster,” Penelope said, her voice at its most authoritative. “As a member of the royal family, the king’s blood running through my bloodlines, I have a right to my request. On top of that, I have brought you a sharp increase in your workforce, surely you can delegate the job of dockmaster to one of your underlings while you humour me.”

The dockmaster was clearly unfamiliar in dealing with a woman quite like her. He stammered and shifted around most uncomfortably. Frankie was enjoying every second of it.

“Sir,” a dockworker said, joining them. “Do we begin unloading the ship? Dan is getting impatient, and I can’t afford to have any more of my pay docked.”

Penelope looked at the dockmaster expectantly, and the large sweaty man shoved the whip into his dockworker’s hands. “You’re the dockmaster today. You make the call,” he said gruffly.

“And he’ll be compensated, for his increase in responsibility I’m sure,” Penelope spoke for the large dockmaster.

“Of course,” the dockmaster said reluctantly.

The dockworker looked at them all in turn, very confused as to what was going on.

“Come on,” Frankie told the worker, steering him away. “Which one of these boats did you say needed unloading?” She looked out at the dock, to find there was only one ship moored and anchored. “Don’t answer that. What’s your name, son?” Frankie took the whip from the man’s hands. “You’re not gonna need that.”

“The name’s Hawkins,” the man said. ”And who are you guys?”

“I’m a girl actually,” Frankie told him. “But it’s okay. The hair, you’re overwhelmed. Hey. I get it.” She draped her arm around Hawkins. “All you need ta know, is that we’re a team of superheroes and we’re here to save you from your shitty job.”

She slapped his ass. “Now where do you want us, boss?”

“This boat has to be unloaded before the sun rises,” Hawkins said with a blush as the sun crossed over the horizon. “We’re already a little late.”

“No kidding,” Frankie said with a look at the sky. “Well let’s get started then.”

*     *     *

It was as Penelope expected. The man had no filing system, his office a mess of unfiled reports and incomplete financial logs. It was all so conveniently disorganized. As she worked her way through it, however, something became all too clear. The dockmaster had been siphoning funds to fatten his own paycheque while laying off employees and paying those that remained the bare minimum.

“I’ll be honest,” a voice said from the doorway, “this is the last place I expected to find you.” The speaker was still in the shadows of the dark windowless room, but Penelope didn’t need the light of her lone candle to make out the figure’s long robes and know who he was.

“Calvin,” Penelope said the mage’s name in surprise. “Have you been stalking me?” she joked. Her life was always full of the most interesting attractive young boys.

“Yes,” Calvin admitted, to Penelope’s surprise. “My new master has commanded that I keep an eye on you,” he explained. “He didn’t however tell me I had to do so in secret.” Penelope frowned, not too enthused that the Mage Council was spying on HER now too, and not just her father. “Might I assume you’re here in regards to our shipment your friend thinks the Thieves Guild intends to steal.”

“I don’t even really get it,” Penelope told him, continuing to shift through the dockmaster’s papers, organizing them categorically. “You’ve got all these shipments coming in every week,” she told him, slowly getting a picture as she went through everything as to the kind of traffic the docks saw on the regular. “But can’t you guys just magic whatever you need directly into the tower?”

She looked up from her papers. “What do you need boats for? Or carriages?”

“Some ingredients,” Calvin explained, “Especially those used in alchemy, are especially valuable in their purest form. A form that becomes tainted when it is directly touched by magic, and useless for many of the things one might use it for.”

Penelope thought she got it. “So certain magical things you guys use change when they get in contact with magic, so you need us non-magic plebs to lug them around for you.”

“We tend to transport all alchemical reagents and other manufactured magical goods through general shipping just to be on the safe side, as well as give back to the economy.” Calvin shrugged and said, “Unless there was an emergency, we could speed things along, but mages are generally known for their patience. So I’ve been told.”

“And our experience shipping goods through the docks has been largely beneficial,” Calvin told the princess. “Unless you’ve found evidence to the contrary.”

“I found these,” Penelope said, grabbing a number of notices and passing them to the apprentice mage. “They’re notices from the Mage Council. Claiming that shipments have had small quantities of ingredients go missing.” She found another pile of more of the same. “Grievances that have been going back a while.”

Calvin seemed to be trying to follow along as she handed him still more papers. It seemed this had been going on for years. “You think the Thieves Guild is behind this?” He didn’t seem convinced. “For all this time?”

“Maybe not,” Penelope said. “But you don’t find it weird?”

*     *     *

“What did she do to you?” Frankie said, definitely noticing something off about Aldonn. “My poor virgin man. Did she touch you?”

Edward crossed his arms. “Why didn’t you come home last night?”

“We slept in the same bed,” Aldonn told his friend, and Frankie squealed.

“Okay,” Edward said. “Calm down.”

“Despite her pushing, I did not let things get past--” Aldonn started to promise Edward, stopping for a moment. “She called it over the clothes.”

“Go Aldonn,” Sean said, passing by with a crate from the deck of the boat that he slid carefully into the carriage Frankie was leaning against. “Finally got to first base. With royalty no less. What was it like?”

Aldonn shrugged. “I have nothing to compare it to.”

“Just promise me you’re still my little goldibear,” Frankie said, reaching under Aldonn’s shirt and pinching his nipple.

“Okay,” Aldonn said with a nervous laugh, pushing her hand away. He was the only person she knew who could step through a walk of shame in last night’s clothes and still smell like Old Man Stamp’s rose garden.

Richter watched the three of them bickering and seemed to frown. “You guys wanna help out?" He asked them grumpily. “There’s one more box on the deck, and it’s heavy as shit. The other crates are below deck.”

“Alright,” Frankie said, smacking Aldonn in the left peck. “You help with that crate on deck, Edward and I will see how much they still have to move in the hold.”

She beckoned for Edward to follow her, and it seemed like he wanted to stubbornly refuse. But reluctantly he followed her up the ramp.

“You just didn’t wan everyone to think I did more work than you,” Frankie chided him.

“Have I ever told you how annoying you are?” Edward asked her with a sigh.

Frankie walked backwards along the deck of the ship to laugh at him. “Have I ever told you how stupid your face is?” she asked.

“Only every day,” he muttered. “You really think you know me?”

They entered the stairs leading into the lower decks of the ship. “I know you’re bothered by the idea something happened between Aldonn and Penelope.”

Edward punched the wall of the stairwell. “And I know I don’t wanna talk about that,” he said stubbornly.

“And I know I’m gonna talk about it anyway,” Frankie told him as they reached the bottom of the stairwell and stopped. “So you might wanna keep all hands and feet inside the mine cart until we’ve reached the conclusion of this conversation.”

He tried to move past her, but she raised a hand.

“What?” he asked. “I know it’s not the first time she’s slept with someone who isn’t me. I know it won’t be the last.”

“She’s probably with someone new as we speak,” Frankie said tauntingly, despite her efforts at keeping things one hundred percent. She just couldn’t help herself.

“Ha ha ha,” Edward said, feigning laughter. “Ain’t it funny. My ex-girlfriend’s a slut.”

Frankie raised a finger. “Or,” she said. “Consider this. Maybe she lives a really different life than yours,” Frankie suggested, “maybe you’ll never understand what she’s going through. Could never.”

“What are you trying to say?” Edward asked Frankie. “That it’s a good thing the girl I like happens to enjoy having sex with lots of guys?”

“A farmer,” Frankie said, seemingly randomly but she knew where she was going. “meets the love of his life at twelve years old. He’ll never meet a girl quite like her again, she’ll never meet another man. They get married, have kids, grow old, only ever know the love of one another.”

“Then you have a princess,” Frankie said. “Born in a castle just like Capsin Keep, raised in a city just like Capsin. Impossibly intelligent and compassionate. The weight of the world on her shoulders. And everyone she meets can’t keep up with her. She’s got too much going on at once. She’s moving too fast. Her entire life is chaos, like a rollercoaster spiralling out of control.”

“Doesn’t sound like much fun,” Edward said, as they stepped out from the stairs.

“A princess like that doesn’t have some big plan, like the farmer, for her life. She doesn’t really have all that much control at all. She reacts to whatever is in front of her, and then barrels forward into the next crisis.”

“She might have a thousand bedfellows where as the farmer spends his whole life only knowing the one,” Frankie turned to Edward as they entered the cargo hold. “Does that make his life somehow more moral, or better in anyway? Is her life more fulfilling than his? Or do they just live in completely different worlds, playing the roles of completely different lives, with different wants and experiences, and the accomplishments they each achieve for themselves are equally valid because their achievements are theirs alone.”

Edward crossed his arms. “So you’re saying the farmer should be as proud that he spent his entire life in love with the same woman as the princess should be proud that she slept with so many different people and had so many varied experiences--”

“Because they were both living their own truth,” Frankie told him with a nod. “They were being true to themselves.”

“Okay,” Edward said. “But what about the people who aren’t living true to themselves?”

“You mean the rest of us?” Frankie asked him, shaking her head. “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“Hey do you mind?” came a voice from the middle of the hold. There were two in the hold with Frankie and Edward. The other dockworker, Dan, and a man in black leather who seemed to be browsing through the contents of the remaining crates.

“We were actually having a tender moment,” Frankie told them, quickly analysing the scene in her head. “What is going on here exactly?”

Edward drew his sword from his waist.

“They’re new hands brought in by the dockmaster,” Dan tried to explain to the man in black leather. He was slender, the man in leather, with a thin black moustache and a big misshapen nose. Dan was a larger man like the dockmaster, but with a prickly beard. The dockworker turned to Frankie and Edward. “You’d better get right outta here and pretend you didn’t see nothin.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Edward told them.

“I dunno,” Frankie said. “He used a double negative. I think that means we DID see something.”

“No,” Dan said, his face twisting in confusion. “that’s not what I meant.”

“Shut up,” the man in black said, dropping the lid of the crate and pulling what seemed like a beaker from his long flowing jacket. “They’re just messing with you.”

“Ooo,” Frankie cooed sarcastically. “Looks like we have a smarty pants in the house.” The beaker in his hand seemed to be glowing red. “What’s that? Juice to quench your thirst after you kick our ass?”

“Actually,” the man said with a smile. “This is for you.” He tossed the beaker into the air at them, turning to run as he did so. Instinctively, Frankie dropped a dagger into her hand and threw it into the air to shatter the beaker before it got close to them. The glass tore apart on impact, shards raining down as the contents splashed out and hit both Frankie and Edward in the face.

Some of it got in Frankie’s mouth. She could taste it. “Yuck!” She exclaimed, the brew tasting like garbage juice. She looked at Edward. “Don’t swallow any.”

“It’s too late” Edward said, looking back at her as he dry heaved.

Frankie grasped his arm to hold him steady as he coughed and retched. “Are you okay?” she asked him with concern. She looked up and around the room but they were alone. She knew that should have concerned her, but all she was worried about then was Edward. “That might have been some kind of poison.”

Edward shook his head. “I feel okay,” he said, touching her face. “What about you? You got a big gloop of it.”

“I’m fine,” Frankie said, giggling despite herself. “I didn’t know you cared so much about a scoundrel like me.”

“Hey,” Edward said, touching her face. “You may look like a boy, but it’s in a cute sort of way where I can still tell you’re a girl.”

“That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Frankie said dropping her pants. “It’s the boobs isn’t it?” she said, smooshing them together within her top. “They’re small, but they’re boobs. Boobs.”

Edward lifted her up off her feet and sat her on a crate. “I’m going to make you the happiest woman in Capsin.”

“Without drugs? How inconceivable.” He kissed her. “I’ve never had consensual sex with a man before,” Frankie said, giving him a nervous smile. What was she doing? Why couldn’t she stop? “Go gentle with me?”

*     *

“It’s always the same two ingredients,” Calvin said, following after Penelope as he continued leafing through the dockmaster’s books. “Penedyciate, and Bedrozene.”

“I don’t know what either of those two words mean,” Penelope told him as she rushed along the docks towards the wharf in question. The one where those two same ingredients keep going missing. “Are they used for something?”

“They are used for all kinds of things,” Calvin told her. “They are surprisingly common chemical compounds,” he scratched his head. “But together they make one very specific concoction.”

The princess and the mage climbed the ramp to the boat with a quickened pace. Penelope looked around, seeing Richter, Sean, and Aldonn. “Where’s Edward and Frankie?”

Richter pointed below. “They’re in the hold.”

Penelope made straight for the stairs, Calvin and Aldonn tight on her heals.

“You said all the chemicals that keep going missing, when combined together they form one specific concoction?” Penelope asked as she got to the bottom of the stairs. “What have these thieves been brewing?”

“Love potion,” Calvin said as Penelope opened the door to the hold. “Or at least something most akin. An infatuation potion if you want to be technical about it.”

What they found in that hold was the last thing Penelope could have been prepared for. Edward had Frankie lifted up onto a box, and they were heavily making out, their tongues seemingly shoved down one another’s throats.

“Edward!” Penelope said in surprise.

Aldonn just seemed confused. “I thought you two hated each other.”

Frankie slid off the box and the two of them dropped out of view. “Hate,” Frankie said, her head rising into view over the crate. “It’s a fine line between love and hate, they say.”

“Is that what they say?” Calvin asked with a bemused smirk on his face.

“Did you happen to see anything?” Penelope asked, only slightly annoyed. “Did anyone come and go.”

Frankie laughed. “That’s funny,” Frankie said, though Penelope wasn’t sure what she was laughing at. “You’d think we didn’t see them. But we did see them. There were two of them. That fakker Dan. And another guy in black. We saw them, all right.”

“You just let them escape?” Aldonn asked, and Edward shared a glance with Frankie.

“Well I mean,” Frankie said, pointing at Edward. “They could have hurt him or something.”

They seemed to be very specifically not moving from behind their crate. “Are you putting your pants on behind there?” Penelope asked impatiently.

“No,” Frankie insisted.

“Then prove it,” Penelope said. “Step out here.” She smirked.

“I will step out there,” Frankie said, clearly stalling for time. “I will stand there right after I’m done standing here.”

“Are they usually like that?” Calvin asked the princess.

“No,” Penelope said, as Aldonn gave a sort of nod and a shrug. It was clear to her, at least, that they’d been dosed by the love potion. “How long before a love potion wears off?”

“It doesn’t usually,” Calvin told her, not saying what she wanted to hear. “Not without the antidote.”

Penelope waited for him to go on. “And,” she said at last. “Do you have some? Can you get some?”

“I can brew some,” Calvin told her. “But it’s going to take twenty four hours of being left to boil before the ingredients will bind just right.”

“Wait,” Frankie said, stepping out from behind the crate. Her pants were apparently finally on. She looked down. “Hey these aren’t my pants! Edward!”

Edward looked up from his hiding spot. “That would explain why these are so tight.”

“So we’re under some kind of love spell?” Frankie said as she tore off the too large for her pants and threw them to Edward and he threw her’s back at her.

“I think we’re gonna have to cancel the mission,” Aldonn told her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frankie told Aldonn. “I feel fine. I’m perfectly fine. Completely normal.” She looked to Edward. “What about you, sexy stud? Got your pants on yet?”

Edward stumbled out from behind the crate. “My heart has never felt more free--“

Frankie quickly covered his mouth with her hand. “He’s fine. We’re both fine here. Ready to continue the mission.” She seemed anxious as everyone watched her. “We’re really fine. I’m like the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.” She must have realized that was the potion talking cause she quickly added, “I mean, I’m fine.”

“I’m convinced,” Edward told the rest of them. Penelope rolled her eyes, as Edward leaned in and began sucking on Frankie’s neck.

“Hey now,” Frankie slapped at Edward. “That tickles.”

Calvin put a hand on Penelope’s shoulder and offered her something with his other. It was some kind of translucent white rock. “I should be off,” he told her. “Take this.”

“You got me something?” Penelope asked, taking the stone from him. “Boys don’t usually try to give me big honking rocks until the third date.” It was about the size of her fist, smooth and cold to the touch.

“That’s a communication stone,” Calvin told her. “Those things are very valuable. Remember what I said about some materials needing to be pure in certain castings and incantations?” he asked in a whisper. “Well a Sapphix stone untainted is worth close to ten thousand gold. Usable in some of the most powerful spells a mage can attempt.”

“Like making a communication stone?” Penelope asked, impressed.

“No,” Calvin corrected her. “When the stone is tainted before it can be used, it is practically useless, except to be turned into a communication stone. They’re not rare, exactly, but not too common either. And generally go for thousands of dollars from mages trying to get at least some of their money back.

“And you’re just giving one to me?” Penelope asked, fondling her new pet rock. “I’m gonna call it Petey.”

“You should call it Calvin,” the mage said.

Penelope hugged her rock close to her. “Well that would just get confusing.”

“It’s how you contact me,” Calvin explained. “Just hold it in your hand and say my name. If I’m not otherwise preoccupied, I’ll answer and you’ll be able to talk to me.”

“Through this rock,” Penelope said, trying to make sure she understood.

“And if I need you,” Calvin continued, “it will become warm to the touch. And glow. And maybe even vibrate.”

Penelope’s eyebrow raised. “I think I know where I’m keeping this.”

Calvin blushed.

“Love potions are banned right?” Penelope asked, sliding the rock into her skirt and trying to ask every question she could think of before the mage disappeared in a flash of light or whatever.

Calvin nodded. “The Mage Council banned the brewing of love potions centuries ago, in accordance with Capsin Executive Order four fifty two outlawing the use of all mind controlling substances,” he confirmed what she thought she already knew. “If someone has been brewing potions like that for the black market, it must be a disgraced mage booted from the tower.”

Penelope had heard of them, mostly the ones making a living wage turning water into ice in the market district. She’d heard life could be difficult for an ex-communicated mage, but resorting to helping the black market distribute mind controlling substances? The mage would have to be pretty twisted.

“You figure out what you can learn here,” Calvin said, heading for the stairs. “I’ll begin brewing the antidote. Once the process has begun, it’ll be largely autonomous. So if you need me.” He raised his own communication stone to make his point.

Penelope nodded in understanding. “I’ll vibrate your rock.” she told him. And with that he was gone… up the stairs of the ship. Not the most dramatic exit she’d ever seen from a mage.

“’Well we better get the rest of this cargo upstairs,” Frankie told the group of them, Edward stopping her in her tracks.

“Let me do it, my love,” Edward said, most sickeningly. “I wouldn’t want you to callous your hands on this sort of busywork.”

Penelope could understand why Dan might be taking part. She could only assume he’d been getting paid this whole time now to look the other way. How else could this man in black have been getting away with it for so long. “What did the man in black look like?” she asked Frankie, who had taken to watch Edward carry a crate to the loading ramp up to the surface. “Was he a member of the Thieves Guild?” Penelope asked the ex-thief.

Frankie shook her head. “No one that I recognized,” she said. “Nor did I recognize his outfit. It was like black on black chic.”

“So he wasn’t from any guild that you know of?” Penelope asked, glad to have Frankie distracted while Edward was out of view.

“Unless there’s a guild for creepy guys you wouldn’t leave your drink alone with at a bar,” Frankie told Penelope off hand.

“I thought that was the Thieves Guild,” Edward said, returning to the hold with Sean to carry another crate. “Until I met you!” He added hastily, as the two of them lifted together.

“Isn’t he so sweet?” Frankie said to Penelope. “I can’t believe I thought he was so self-absorbed before.”

“Yeah,” Penelope said absentmindedly, trying to keep herself distracted. “He’s the nicest.”

Penelope picked up the dockmaster’s books, Calvin having left them on a crate near her. Leafing through the notes, she frowned. “This has been going on for so long,” she said as her gears turned in her head. “To be this consistent for so long, they must have set up somewhere close by.”

Frankie leaned in. “You know, there’s not a whole lot around here that’s not warehouses.”

“And if they paid off the dockworkers to look the other way,” Penelope followed Frankie’s reasoning, “then they could also be paying them to avoid one of the warehouses.”

“If you could just figure out which warehouse has gone unused in the years since the theft started,” Frankie continued her train of thought. “That’s likely where the man in black is hiding out right now.”

Penelope shifted through her papers. “I didn’t bring everything with me,” she said, cursing. “I need to go back to the office.” She gathered everything to her. “Like right now.”

Frankie watched her go. “Want me to come with you?” she asked the princess. “You shouldn’t go to that warehouse alone.”

“I can take care of myself,” Penelope assured Frankie. She was almost up the ramp when she stopped. “You just promise me you won’t do anything with Edward you might regret.”

“You mean like butt stuff?” Frankie called up to her.

Penelope rolled her eyes. “Sure,” she muttered under her breath. “That’s what I meant.”

*     *     *

Holly got to the docks shortly after lunch, having skipped the meal with her father. It was just leftovers from the night before, left out and gone rancid. Instead she stole an apple on the way to their usual spot, and plunked her butt down on the empty crates outside of warehouse twelve to wait for Leah.

She knew her friend might still be a while, but she had time to wait. Also she could watch Frankie and her friends go about their day struggling with all the manual labour. Holly took a bite out of her apple gleefully as Frankie made some comment Holly couldn’t hear but it made the others laugh. And then Edward kissed her, and Holly almost spit out her apple.

What happened there? Holly swallowed reluctantly. And frowned. It was just like adults. Hating on each other one second, and loving each other the next. Love was dumb, but it seemed everyone succumbed to it eventually.

Everyone but Holly. She’d be immune. That would be her superpower.

*     *     *

There. Penelope had finally done it. It had taken her all day but she’d gone through every storage confirmation form, every cargo transfer. She organized it all out on the floor, in piles relating to the warehouses they were referring to. There was warehouses one two three four five. All accounted for, and used quite regularly. Then six seven eight nine ten all had piles just as thick. Eleven and twelve were all good. Thirteen. Fifteen.

Where was fourteen?

She scrounged through all the piles, confirming her findings. Sure enough it was as if warehouse fourteen didn’t exist.

Getting up from the dusty floor, she stepped over her piles and stormed out the door into the cool winter sunlight. She didn’t even wait for her eyes to adjust, picking out the largest man on the dock and rushing towards him.

“You have keys to every warehouse on this lot is that right?” Penelope asked the dockmaster.

He jostled his waist, jangling the large keychain that hung there. “Every single one.”

“Then you can take me to warehouse fourteen,” Penelope told him, faking excitement.

The dockmaster frowned. “Trust me,” he told her. “You don’t want to see what’s in there.”

“Nothing is in there,” Penelope told him. “Based on your records nothing has been in that warehouse for years.” She crossed her arms, her suspicions already practically confirmed. “If you don’t take me to that warehouse right now, I’ll have you arrested and the keys pried from your cuffed hands.”

The dockmaster unhooked the keys from his belt. “As you wish,” he said with a gruff laugh. “Your Highness. I tried ta warn ya.”

They passed warehouse twelve, and Penelope nodded to a girl sitting on empty crates eating an apple. The girl got off her box and bowed. It was enough to make Penelope smile, but her smile didn’t last long.

“Warehouse fourteen,” the dockamaster said, banging on the door three times. Three specific and clear times.

“What are you doing?” Penelope said, realizing the dockmaster was in on it. “Open that door now.”

“I’m trying,” the dockmaster said, fumbling with his keys and purposely trying the wrong one. “I just have so many keys.” He tried one that couldn’t possibly fit the hole.

“You’re delaying for them,” Penelope reasoned out loud, snatching the keys from him. “Give me that.” She found a silver one. “This is the key. You touched it when you told me there was nothing in here.” She tried the key and sure enough it worked. She was pretty good at this detective stuff.

“After you,” the dockmaster said as she hastily opened the door. Inside was darkness, except for a slit of light from a small window high up on the wall. The rest of the illumination was from firelight, both from candles burning in the corners of the room as well as oil burners underneath what looked like a complex alchemical set. With beakers boiling and dripping into other beakers.

But Penelope’s attention drifted passed the man brewing whatever at the table in the center of the room and landed on a very young girl in a two piece bikini surrounded by two guys who seemed to be trying to prepare her for something. Or someone. Her face was cold. Not resisting but… something else.

“What are you doing to her?” She called at them. One of the men attending to the girl wore all black like Frankie described and the other had baggy robes with metal hanging off and clinking together noisily. They turned to look at her with surprise.

“Get out of here if you know what’s good for ya,” the man in black said, dismissing her with a wave of his arm.

“That’s not going to happen,” Penelope said, and she heard the door close behind her. And lock.

“I tried ta warn her,” the dockmaster said, picking up a wrench from the table.

*

Holly heard the click, and her head turned with surprise. The princess had just gone in there, hadn’t she? And that horrible man had locked the door behind her! There was no way he wasn’t up to no good!

Holly looked around the dock. Leah still hadn’t shown up. Holly supposed she’d only be two warehouses down, her friend would find her. If she showed at all. Holly was worried but now she had multiple things to worry about. Sure enough, the door was locked, but Holly spotted a window far above. If she piled her empty crates from warehouse twelve just right, she bet she could reach it. Enough at least to see what was happening inside.

*

“She knows everything!” the dockmaster yelled from the door. “She’s seen too much.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man in black said over Penelope’s shoulder. “We’ll take care of her.”

“Oh will you now?” Penelope asked in disbelief.

“You know what the problem is with royalty?” the man in black said, approaching Penelope with a creeping sort of side step slide. He was every bit as disturbing as Frankie made him out to be.

“People constantly telling them what their problem is?” Penelope suggested. She looked past the man at the little six year old child. “Go hide!” she yelled to the girl, who nodded and ran out from under the grey cloaked man with the clinking metal accessories.

The man in black pulled a long knife from his cloak. “That’s funny,” he said licking his lips. “No. It’s that you always think you’re in control.” He laughed. “But control is an illusion. It doesn’t exist. It’s a perception of the eye.” He tapped his dagger against her cheek and her hand shot out to catch his arm.

He just laughed again. “You had control,” he continued to say, effortlessly holding his dagger to her face despite all her strength to move his arm. He was far stronger than he looked. “When you were out there, you had control. But now you’re in here. And now I have the control.”

She grabbed his arm with both hands, desperately trying to move him.

“Don’t struggle,” the creepy man said with a perverse lick of his lips. “If you don’t struggle I’ll make it more fun for you. But if you do struggle, well then it’ll just be more fun for me.”

She jerked her head past his knife and headbutted him, connecting her forehead with his oversized nose.

“Ahh! Damn it,” the man in black exclaimed, shying away from her and grabbing at his nose.

“You having fun yet?” Penelope asked, sliding her two kusarigama from her belt.

“You bitch,” the man in black hooted almost with excitement, backing away from her and dancing in the circle. “You’ve really do got some fight in ya. I think you’ve broke my nose.”

The man in a grey cloak pulled a sword from underneath his jacket. The man in a white coat previously working at the chemistry set backed away seeming to want no part in any of what was going on.

“What are those toys, your highness?” he asked her, still prancing around. “They’re cute. Were ya planning to kung fu your way outta here, princess?”

 She judged the four men in the room. “The thought had crossed my mind.” This was going to be a tough one.

He jumped forward, slashing his little knife at her. She blocked it with her left weapon, striking him across the face with her right one. He grabbed her left one before she could pull it away.

Spitting out blood he said, “That’s cool. What else ya got?”

Penelope swung her leg around from the right with a three hit combo. First she struck his leg, dropping him to his knees. Then she connected with his chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs as he fell. Then her final kick struck him with all her strength to the side of his head, and he dropped like a sack of bricks.

“Catch!” the dockmaster yelled to the alchemist, tossing him the large wrench. The dockmaster wrapped his large hairy arms around her chest and neck, squeezing her so she couldn’t breath. “Now’s your chance.” He told the alchemist. “Get a few good blows on her.”

She tried to match the scared man’s eyes. “You don’t have to do this,” she pleaded to him. His hands shook on the large metal wrench.

“Use it on her,” the man in a grey cloak said in a peculiar accent. “Or I’ll use it on you.”

She could feel the dockmaster’s grip tighten on her, and she wheezed desperately for air, her vision blurring as she felt herself foaming at the mouth. She felt him crushing her windpipe. And then the alchemist reared back and struck her in the ribs. She could feel it dent, feel the impact against her lungs force what little air she had out. Her vision blackened. And then it pulsed back. She was barely holding on. It would only be another second now.

“Do it harder!” the man in grey roared.

Penelope’s grip on her left Kusarigama loosened, but she clicked a notch and the sickle like blade slid out. Turning the handle, the blade dropped to hang from a chain, and she swung the weapon as hard as she could behind her back. It swung up and dug into the dockmaster’s spine.

The dockmaster screamed and loosened his grip on her throat. She drank deeply from the air, desperately trying to fill her lungs as the alchemist came in for another hit with his wrench. Yanking on her left kusarigama, she pulled the dockmaster off his feet by his back, dropping him backwards to the ground and taking her with him. Elbowing him in the gut as they both landed, she rolled off him, and yanked her kusarigama in just such a way to have it rip free of the man’s flesh and return to her. The noise it made as it did so was a satisfying splorch, and his indecipherable cries for mercy were only more satisfying still.

The alchemist came at her with the wrench, swinging it at her but she smacked at it with her right kusarigama and then her left one as well to slow its momentum. He tried to swing it again but she hooked the heavy wrench in the sickle of her left weapon, and slapped him in the face with her right kusarigama.

Rescinding the blade into her left weapon, she slid it along his wrench and smacked him in the face with it, then even harder with her right. She was going to hit him with a few more blows but had to dodge back suddenly to only just avoid the other man’s sword.  The grey cloaked man slashed at her again, seeming to be probing her defenses. This time she blocked it with one of her kusarigama, but he quickly swept his sword in an S, slashing up as to sever her arm. Dodging to the side, she barely avoided his impromptu slash still receiving a rather deep cut on her bicep.

She stepped back but he came at her again. He swung down with his sword and she blocked it with one weapon, but he brought the sword down again so fast, she was barely able to block it with the other. Twisting the handle of one of her kusarigama, the head dropped as he swung in for a third attack. She caught the blade of his weapon in the chain of hers, and yanked it from his hand, throwing it across the room to thud into the wall.

The man in grey came at her with his fists as she retracted her kusarigama into its handle. She smacked his first fist away with her right kusarigama, striking at him with her left but he blocked high defending his head with his arms. Shooting out with a jab, he managed to get her across the jaw, and she almost lost her footing. Spinning around and using his momentum, she struck at his head with both her kusarigama, hitting hard enough to reverberate through his defence and shake him. As he stumbled back the man in black finally got back to his feet, albeit shakily, and tackled her into the alchemist’s table.

He pressed her head against the table as she struggled, and looked up gleefully at the alchemist. “Bash her brains in,” the man called to the alchemist. “Come on now. Do it!”

Penelope reached out with her hand, grasping a gas lamp used for boiling potions. Lifting it, she stabbed it into the right side of the man’s face. She scraped it along his cheek and he grabbed at his melting face in pain, falling back and away from her. The alchemist swung his wrench down on her but she hopped off the table where it thudded harmlessly.

Kicking a stool across the floor to topple the alchemist over, she turned in time for the man in grey to get noisily to his feet. Twisting the handle on her left kusarigama, she let the head fall and swung it out to wrap it around the man’s leg. Pulling his leg out from under him, the man in the grey cloak fell backward striking his head off a workbench.

At her feet the alchemist tried to pick himself off the floor, but Penelope struck him across the face with her right kusarigama and downed him again hard in one blow.

She placed one of her weapons on the table in the center of the room and pulled her communication stone from her waistline. Grasping it in her free hand she thought of the mage she wanted to talk to. “Calvin,” she said the mage’s name and the stone seemed to warm in her hand.

“Penelope,” Calvin’s voice spoke clearly through the stone. It glowed an amber red. She supposed it worked after all. She was maybe a little surprised.

“I’ve found the center of their operation,” she told him, leaning against the table to catch her breath.

“Do you see a mirror nearby?” Calvin asked her, and she looked around. There was one by where the creepy men she’d just beat up had been preparing the little girl.

“Yeah,” she told the rock.

“Touch the stone to the mirror and I’ll be able to join you,” Calvin explained to her.

She was about to move towards the mirror when she felt something catch her leg. Looking down she realized it was the man in black, still clutching his face with one hand.

“How long does it have to touch for?” she asked the rock in her hand.

“Just a moment,” Calvin said through the stone. “Even a momentary contact will be enough for me to channel your location.”

Penelope tossed the stone through the air to bounce harmlessly off the mirror. Pulling himself up with her clothes, the man in black punched her in the gut as hard as he could and tried to bring her down.

“Oof,” she wheezed involuntarily as she stumbled into the table and grabbed her second kusarigama. Striking him repeatedly on the back as he bent over trying to tackle her, she flipped him over onto the floor and was about to smack him in his already disfigured face when the young six year old girl ran out from her hiding spot to grab Penelope’s weapon in her hand.

“Please don’t” the girl pleaded to the princess. “Please don’t hurt him anymore. I know he’s a bad man but I love him.”

Penelope felt simultaneously saddened by the girl, clearly under the black cloaked man’s spell, but also furious at the man in black for all the twisted things he’d done and was going to do to her had Penelope not shown up.

The princess let the child pull her right arm away, but struck out with her left, knocking the man in black to the floor.

“No!” the child screamed as Penelope holstered her left kusarigama and grabbed the girl’s hand.

“Come on,” Penelope said, dragging the girl from the man in black kicking and screaming. Penelope pulled her all the way to the door, unlocking it and throwing the girl outside. She screamed at the princess and tried to force her way back in, but Penelope shut the door and locked it again as the mirror across the warehouse shimmered to life and Calvin stepped through.

“Eew,” Calvin said, taking a look around the place and tutting to himself. “This place is a bit of a mess isn’t it?”

“I think they’ve been using their love potions on children,” Penelope said, quickly filling Calvin in on the situation. Grabbing the alchemist from off the floor she slammed him into the table and clicked the notch on her right kusarigama to release the blade. She pressed the sickle close to his neck. “You’re the alchemist,” she told him accusatorily. “You’ve been brewing the potions for these people.”

“No!” he insisted, crying. “It wasn’t me I swear! I’m just his assistant.” The alchemist, or apparently his assistant, looked to another door at the far end of the warehouse.

“Can’t a mage get even a lick of sleep in this place,” a new man’s voice said, as the door opened. “What was all that commotion?”

A thinly middle aged man with an almost completely receded hairline and grey robes that were dirty and patched stepped through the door to survey the carnage. Seeing Penelope, his fingers began to cackle with electricity.

“Get behind me,” Calvin yelled to the princess, rushing to get between her and the hostile mage. Penelope cowered behind Calvin as the rogue mage released a barrage of cackling arcing electrical bolts. Raising his left hand, Calvin concentrated for a moment and white energy seemed to flow from his hand in waves, creating a small shield in front of his hand to absorb the oncoming attack.

The arcs of electricity impacted heavily against Calvin’s shield, arcing off to explode against the furniture around the room. Penelope could do little more than cover her head with her arms while the two mages battled with powers far beyond her comprehension.

The rogue mage lowered his arm, and Calvin dropped his shield. Penelope could see he was drained from the barrage, but as the hostile mage began to swing his hands to cast another spell, Calvin brought up his hand again to form another shield.

This was Penelope’s chance. Twisting the handle on her right kusarigama, she threw it out at the mage, wrapping it around his arm and holding it in place before he could finish his spell.

Giving the Princess a grateful look, Calvin absorbed the energy of his shield back into his hand and whispered “Repel.” Suddenly all the white energy erupted from his hand like a kinetic beam of light, streaking across the warehouse and colliding with the enemy mage to launch him across the large expanse of a room and shatter into the mirror Calvin had entered through earlier.

“Who are you?” Calvin called across the room at the mage. “Identify yourself. This fight is over.”

“No,” the mage spat angrily, picking himself up and breathing in heavily. “I’ve worked too hard for this.” The hostile mage balled his hands into fists and brought them together. “Let’s see how you contend with my FIRE FISTS!” As the mage brought his fists together they burst into bright red flames, angrily licking out at the air before him. The mage swung his fists like boxing gloves of fire and stepped towards them.

“Take this!” the mage yelled, putting his flaming fists together and launching a stream fire in their direction.

Penelope could already tell Calvin was tiring, but instead of creating a shield with his hand, he gestured at a large bucket of water and the liquid within seemed to soar from the bucket as if it had a mind of its own. Wrapping around Calvin and Penelope in a thin bubble, the water protected them as the flames seared over their heads. Inside the bubble, Penelope could hear the roar of the flames distorted through the water. And as the heat of the flames licked at their shield, the princess could see sections of the shield evaporating before her eyes. Just as the remaining shield shattered around them, the enemy mage pulled back on his flamethrower.

He came at them, his fists swinging like a maniac. Penelope and Calvin split up, Penelope dodging one fist and glancing her kusarigama off his other with red hot sparks.

He swung at Calvin who was less nimble than the princess, and was barely able to conjure a shield in his hand fast enough to block his opponent’s fist. The rogue mage swung another fist at him and again he blocked it with a pulsating white shield from his hand. He didn’t, however, see the hostile mage’s other fist go in low, and it collided with Calvin’s stomach launching him across the warehouse to smack hard into the wall.

“Calvin!” Penelope screamed, blocking one of the man’s flaming fists with her kusarigama and cartwheeling back as he punched one of his fists into the floor. Clicking the notch on her handle, she dropped her weapon like a whip and swiped it at him. The rogue mage slapped away her chained weapon with his fist, and then again. Each strike of her weapon against his glove released sparks of red hot energy.

Bringing his two fists together, he sent another jet of flame in her direction, and this time she didn’t have a mage to shield her. Kicking the alchemist’s table over, she dived behind it as the flamethrower licked over her head. As the flames died back, she peered over the top of the table. The rogue mage was surveying the room before him and trembling with what seemed like rage. “You ruined everything!”

“Yeah,” Penelope yelled out from behind her cover. “I tend to do that.”

The mage looked a little pale as he backed up. Raising his flaming fists above his head, the mage engulfed himself with fire, the flames jetting out from his hands to engulf his body with flame. As his body roared with fire, Penelope could hear his agonizing screams of pain. Suddenly there was a flash of light and the mage blinked out of existence, taking all his fire with him.

“What the hell was that,” Penelope managed to utter, struck speechless.

“He teleported,” Calvin said weakily, unsteadily getting to his feet. “Used the fire in the same way I use a mirror.”

“Does it always hurt that much?” Penelope asked him, the man’s screams still resonating in her skull.

“Only when attempted by an amateur,” Calvin said to her with a thin smile. “He was desperate. As tired as I was after trading spells. His fire fists was all he had left in him. But I assure you he’s alive. And likely angrier than ever.”

Penelope unlocked the exit, and stepped through it into the sun. The six year old girl tried to run past her, but the princess caught the little tyke with one hand.

“At least we stopped their operation,” Penelope said to Calvin, touching her forehead where it seemed she was bleeding.

“That was amazing,” a girl said, joining them from around the side of the warehouse. It was the same one Penelope had seen earlier. “You really kicked their ass.”

“Yeah,” Penelope agreed, “but they kicked mine just as hard.”

She glanced to Calvin who gave her a supportive smile in return.

Then his smile faded, as she could see a thought occur to him in real time. “That wasn’t their headquarters,” he told her. “Clearly it’s where they’ve been making the potions,” he told her, “but there’s got to be another site where they are holding their victims.”

“They’re preying on kids?” the older child asked, grabbing the younger child by her shoulders and giving them a reassuring squeeze. “I think I need your help, your highness. My friend hasn’t shown up all day. And she said she’d be here. I’m worried.”

“I’m sure your friend is fine,” Calvin told her. “What’s your friend’s name. I can probably track her.”

“Her name is Leah Ducard,” the child said confidently.

“Ducard?” Calvin repeated. “Are you sure?”

The twelve year old girl nodded. “And I’m Holly Napier.”

Calvin’s look at Penelope this time was one of worry. That was until he started to laugh.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Penelope said.

“It’s just,” he said, trying to breathe. “I just found out my master’s family name is Ducard.” He said, and even still they didn’t share his mirth.

“If they’ve gone and kidnapped the child of a mage,” Calvin explained to Penelope and Holly. “then they have no idea the trouble they’re in for.”

*     *     *

Somewhere else in the city of Capsin, in a house that looked completely unassuming from the outside, a young girl with blonde hair and blue eyes woke up to find herself locked in a cage with her hands tied. Behind her back, her hands cackled with magical energy, and her bindings melted off her wrists. The blonde girl, Leah Ducard, smiled, and her blue eyes glowed with magical energy.

Next Time on The Aldonn Chronicles at www.patreon.com/99geek in July 2019
Chapter 8: Frankie, Edward and Aldonn try to carry forward with their mission even as the blonde man’s two friends are under the effects of a strong love potion. While they work to stop whatever the thieves guild has planned, Penelope and Calvin help Holly find and rescue her friend from the clutches of evil child exploiters.

Next Month on Isabol Tseung Voice News at www.patreon.com/99geek March 2019
Chapter 2: In a hostile land, Isabol Tseung Voice News Reporter must use all her cunning, and all of Greg’s foreign street smarts, to keep her wits about her, and keep her head on her shoulders. She will not be bullied, intimidated or turned away. She’s dedicated to find the truth and tell the stories of all the people who have suffered. And through it all, might she perhaps grow to have feelings for her Australian co-worker Greg Becket?