"Name."
"Thea Sorelle."
"Age."
"Eighteen."
"Sex."
In the parlor, the fireplace had been sealed shut. No firelight flickered behind its brickwork.
Thea sat in the high-backed armchair, dressed in a tawny long skirt and white blouse, her black hair falling loose around her shoulders. She fixed the young officer across from her with a flat stare.
"Can't you tell just by looking?"
Thea Sorelle. A transmigrator from Earth — once a university student pursuing a double degree in ancient linguistics and archaeology. A scholar to her bones, she had devoted herself to deciphering a particular volume written in a forgotten script, and she had succeeded.
She had been so proud. She had been preparing to publish her findings, present them to the academic world.
Then the Arcane had answered.
The sigil inscribed on the book's cover had flared to life and dragged her here — to this other world. A world of steam and smoke and gaslight.
Now she lived in Nuremport, the second-largest industrial city of the Kingdom of Avengarde. Number 405, White Oak Street, in the North Harbor District. Her parents in this world were dead. The only family she had left was an elder sister who taught at the National University in the capital of Silverkeep, and who occasionally sent money to keep her afloat.
Not that Thea relied entirely on her sister. Thanks to the herbalist knowledge she had taken from that ancient book, she brewed tinctures and elixirs on the side, selling them through the black market for a modest supplement. Life wasn't lavish, but it was peaceful. Quiet.
Thea had been content.
Until two months ago, when the police began knocking on her door.
The trainee officer in front of her — a Miss Scarlett, by her introduction — wore the standard blue-and-white uniform of the constabulary. She couldn't have been on the job for long. Flaxen hair pulled into a ponytail, her wide-brimmed cap clutched in her lap like a frightened animal, she sat hunched and nervous.
"I'm — I'm terribly sorry!" she stammered. "But until we've received official confirmation, we aren't permitted to assume anyone's gender!"
"...Female."
"Right. So, according to the underground railway records, on July twenty-third you boarded the steam-metro from North Harbor heading toward the outskirts — to Deepwater Village. May I ask what business you had there?"
Thea regarded her without expression, her voice perfectly level. "I went to Deepwater to procure a small quantity of St. John's wort. As I'm sure you're aware, I brew tinctures to supplement my income. The legal kind."
In the Kingdom of Avengarde, private apothecary practice was regulated by statute, and the permissible ingredients for home-brewed elixirs were spelled out in exacting detail. The authorities had means — peculiar, alchemical means — of identifying every component in a given draught. The presence of even a single proscribed ingredient was sufficient to brand the brewer a criminal.
Scarlett nodded slowly, jotting something down with her quill. "Yes. Well — over the past three months, the North Harbor District has seen more than a dozen cult ritual incidents. Forensic analysis revealed that every participant had ingested a calming tincture containing sulfur and one other unidentified component. Four months ago, you purchased two sacks of sulfur. Could you explain—"
"Standard medicinal use. I've answered this exact question more than a dozen times now."
"I'm sorry. I have to confirm it again."
"Miss Scarlett." Thea sighed, leaning forward slightly. "You can't presume someone guilty and then go searching for evidence to confirm it. Sulfur is a perfectly common ingredient. Hospitals, licensed pharmacists, occult hobbyists — they all purchase it in quantity. Hospitals buy far more than I ever have. Shouldn't you be investigating them?"
"I — ohh — I'm so sorry—"
Scarlett had passed the judicial examination to earn her place at the precinct. Of course she understood that presumption of guilt was philosophically absurd. But as a trainee, with painfully little field experience, all she could manage in the face of pushback was another apology.
"You can spare me the apologies. Anything else? I have to leave for school shortly."
"Y-yes! Of course!"
Scarlett pressed her cap firmly down onto her knees and resumed scribbling. "You mentioned selling tinctures — could you provide documentation of those sales?"
"Right here. Every transaction reported and taxed."
Thea produced a thick bundle of correspondence — her declared tax filings. Of course, the unreported sales went elsewhere; those taxes were paid quietly to her broker in the black market.
Scarlett flipped through several pages and her brow furrowed.
"Your distribution is... surprisingly wide."
She had even spotted orders from the University at Silverkeep.
A mischievous smile tugged at the corner of Thea's lips. "For male clients, I tell them it enhances virility. For female clients, I say it preserves the bloom of youth. Naturally, business grows."
"E-eh?! Does it actually work?"
Thea waved a hand dismissively. "Of course not. It's just calming tincture diluted with more water."
"Then — that's just selling counterfeit medicine!"
"No side effects, though. And if someone sleeps better, their... vigor and their complexion will improve, more or less."
Scarlett considered this for a moment and, finding she couldn't entirely refute it, sheepishly handed the tax records back.
She hadn't accomplished anything. The information she'd gathered was identical to what they'd extracted in each of the previous interviews. At this rate she would never make full constable.
She rose and bowed deeply. "I'm truly sorry to have disturbed you."
After Scarlett's departure, Thea pressed the door shut, leaned against it, and exhaled — a long, slow breath. Her shoulders eased. That airheaded little trainee was, mercifully, easy enough to handle.
The police were applying their crude presumption-of-guilt sweep to every plausible suspect, which was unprofessional in the extreme — but their instincts weren't wrong. The supplier of those particular calming tinctures, the ones laced with sulfur and rhinoceros horn, was indeed Thea Sorelle.
Three months ago, a letter had bypassed her usual broker and arrived directly at her door. The sender called himself "Canaan Ogre" — a stowaway, by his own description. He had requested 3,000 milliliters of a powerful calming tincture mixed with sulfur and rhinoceros horn, to be delivered to the Abandoned Chapel between Nuremport and Deepwater Village. He had offered three hundred gold pounds for the order.
It was the single largest transaction Thea had ever brokered — larger than every previous sale combined.
The "calming tincture" itself was, in practical terms, a stronger sleeping draught. The slightly more potent cousin of melatonin.
But when she delivered the goods to the agreed-upon location, the man had refused to pay. And then he had threatened her.
I'm a wanted criminal listed in the constabulary's bulletins. I'm also a Sequence Eight Transcendent. Welching is what I do. And rather than worrying about your money, you ought to be worrying about your life.
So the tincture was gone. The three hundred gold pounds, gone. And now the police were sniffing at her door.
Worst of all, the man who had cheated her still held the evidence of their transaction.
She needed to retrieve everything — the records, the money — before the constabulary cracked the case.
Thea's reasoning was simple. Violence might not solve every problem, but it would certainly solve that man.
So she had bought a gun. And explosives.
But in Avengarde, a commoner's private purchase of such weapons was a far more serious crime than illegal alchemy. To make the acquisition lawful, one required a handwritten attestation from a member of the nobility — a signed warrant confirming the buyer's legitimate use.
Her wide and varied clientele had, fortunately, opened doors. One particular noble lady had heard of her tinctures by reputation and come seeking the calming draught herself. To both their surprise, they had taken to each other almost immediately. Within days they were close friends.
Three months ago — when the three hundred gold pounds vanished and Thea was reduced to eating sour pickles with stale bread — she had not hesitated to request her friend's paid assistance.
The form of payment the noble lady had demanded—
—was Thea herself.
October 23rd. Late afternoon. The industrial port of Nuremport.
Thea stepped out of her classroom, opened her umbrella against the drizzle, and began the walk toward the school gates.
Before she reached them, an ornately decorated carriage drew up alongside her — two matched horses, lacquered wood, brass fittings that gleamed even in the gray light. A blonde girl pushed the curtain aside and, with shy urgency, gestured for her to climb in.
The moment Thea settled into the seat, the carriage lurched forward again, rolling slowly until it came to a stop in a quiet, empty street.
The blonde girl studied her, suddenly nervous.
"The same as last time. If — if that's all right."
She was a remarkably pretty thing — a noble girl in an exquisite rococo gown. A little shorter than Thea, perhaps just over five-foot-three, with skin like fresh cream and a thick cascade of golden waves spilling down her back.
Thea inclined her head slightly. "I bought a few things. Some of them may be classified as contraband — gunpowder, that sort of thing, and a large-caliber elephant gun. So I'll need an attestation from you."
"Whatever you need, I'll help. So long as you cooperate. And so long as you keep our secret. Always."
"Then let's begin. Miss Annelise."
Thea took the seat across from her, untied the ribbon binding her hair, and let the long black river of it pour down her back to her waist. The blunt-cut fringe across her forehead, the unsmiling face beneath it, gave her an air of cold, untouchable distance. The corseted bodice of her dress and the trench coat draped over her shoulders set her dramatically apart from the soft, perfumed girls Annelise usually kept company with.
Thea slipped off one tall boot, revealing a slender foot sheathed in fine black stocking that climbed past the knee.
Annelise had done this before, but her heart still hammered. Her cheeks flushed deep, and with trembling care, she reached out and cradled Thea's foot in both hands as though it were something sacred.
Thea raised the toe of her foot and lightly hooked it beneath Annelise's chin, tilting that exquisite, blushing face upward until their eyes nearly met. Annelise startled at the motion and couldn't stop the small, helpless sound that escaped her lips.
She couldn't bear to meet Thea's gaze. She closed her eyes, and slowly — almost reverently — brought her nose to the foot she held.
Thea's faint perfume, the leather of her boot, the soft warmth of her sole — every scent of her flowed in with each breath. Annelise lost herself. She pressed her face fully into the curve of Thea's foot, lips against skin.
Warm breath ghosted across Thea's arch, and a tingling current rippled up through her whole body. She shivered.
Encouraged by the response, Annelise let her knees drift slowly apart. One trembling hand slid down between her own thighs, and she began, very slowly, to move.
It lasted perhaps fifteen minutes.
When it was over, they straightened their clothing as though nothing had happened. Annelise had returned to being the demure, well-mannered young noblewoman, and she had the driver deposit Thea at White Oak Street in the North Harbor District.
Thea found Annelise's particular need rather strange — though she didn't object, and even, in honesty, enjoyed it. Still — never mind. As long as the money was good.
Over the past two months, Annelise had paid her a full three hundred gold pounds. Roughly two years' wages for a dockworker.
And now she had her attestation for the firearms and explosives — a document worth five hundred pounds on its own.
Everything was in hand. The next step could begin.
Three hundred gold pounds owed by Canaan Ogre. That alone had crossed her line. Drawing the police down on her made it unforgivable.
This was no ordinary deadbeat. This one had to pay.
A cautious woman by nature, Thea had made her preparations. She pulled the brim of her hat lower over her eyes and walked along the cobblestones of White Oak Street, slipping past the docks and the market.
Behind the market stretched rows of cramped, three- and five-story tenement buildings. The dark red brickwork at their bases was furred with moss, and the wind off the harbor carried the thick, briny stink of the sea.
Number 405. Her home.
The heavy wooden door creaked open under her hand.
The first thing visible was the modest parlor. The oak table and chairs had seen better years. The fireplace had long since been sealed shut and abandoned, its hearth packed with brick and ash. The only light source was the oil lamp on a small cabinet beside the bedroom door. Beyond the parlor lay two rooms — one of which had been converted into a kitchen.
Thea rolled up her sleeves, pulled on a pair of gloves, and began carefully removing the bricks that sealed the fireplace, one by one.
Inside, tucked deep within the hearth, was a wooden crate wrapped tightly in old newspaper.
Beside it lay two heavy revolvers, their cylinders emptied, and exactly thirty-six rounds of ammunition. The revolvers were 11.2 millimeter, with muzzle energies exceeding seven thousand joules. A single shot could fell not just a lion or a tiger, but a charging mammoth.
Elephant revolvers like these were issued primarily to the noble houses of the north — the ones with giant's blood somewhere in their lineage — for hunting the great beasts of the ice plains.
If Thea were to fire one herself, the recoil would dislocate her wrist.
So she had other arrangements.
She lifted the wooden lid. The crate was divided into upper and lower compartments. In the upper rested a compact, elegant rapid-fire pistol — a model called "Angel" — capable of unleashing several rounds with the lightest pull of the trigger. The recoil was gentle enough that a child could manage it.
Beside it lay two clockwork detonators, their timers fashioned by a watchmaker from a music box, fitted with a small reduction gear train and an eccentric cam.
And in the lower compartment — the heart of her preparations — stacked neatly side by side, lay twenty kilograms of high-grade explosives.