“Who is out there!?” I called from the back room where I sat.

  “It’s the man from before!” Alvar shouted. “He found us!”

  I was desperate to go out there. The thing I was holding almost looked like me already. It would probably fool most people. I also didn’t like being alone in a room with the thing that looked more and more like me every passing second.

  The guttural scream started again. Then there was the cng of swords, and the sound of breaking wood.

  “Please, let me come out!” I called again.

  Adora ran back into the room with me.

  “Your man’s got it handled,” she told me. “We would only get in the way. Do not let go of that hand.”

  There were more sounds, the man’s terrible scream, then Alvar yelled. Instinctively I let go of the hand. I was still stuck to it! I pulled my hand to me and sprung up. I felt a searing pain as my hand was severed from the thing. I looked down and saw a vein leading into the homunculus’s body, which had been connected to me. It was repulsive, but there was no time to think about it, I ran to the front shop where Alvar was.

  “Damn it,” I could hear Adora mutter, as she ran out with me.

  In the shop I saw the man, it was Titius! He and Alvar face to face, each holding a sword. A dagger was sticking out of Alvar’s right shoulder. Titius had taken the scarves off his head, and now I could see his face, and the reason why his voice was so garbled. Wrapped around his head was a big long bandage, which had been bled through. He had a wound under the chin, as though someone had stabbed him.

  Titius struck at Alvar, who barely managed to dodge. I picked up the nearest thing at hand, one of Adora’s mugs and I chucked it in Titius’s direction. I only hit his shoulder, but it startled him. In his moment of surprise, Titius turned to look at me. Alvar seized the opportunity and sshed his back with the side of his sword. Titius shouted, and ran out the front door.

  Alvar turned to me.

  “I think he’ll be back. We have to hurry!”

  He pulled me into the back room.

  “Adora is the thing –” he looked at the homunculus. “God, it looks just like Talia. He looked both repulsed and intrigued.”

  I stood there, stunned, blood was dripping down from the hand that had held the homunculus.

  “Why does Titius want to hurt us?” I asked, perplexed.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Alvar replied. “We need to go!”

  Adora came up to me and started to wrap a light bandage around my hand.

  “Tell her the truth, Alvar,” Adora said, and looked him steadfast in the eyes.

  What truth?

  “He just doesn’t like me, come on let’s go! We need to go!”

  Alvar tried to grab the homunculus under it’s armpits. Even though he was very strong he struggled to pick it up from the table, because it only y limp like a sack of flour.

  “Tell her the truth!” Adora said, even more determined as she finished tying up the bandage.

  “Fine! I was the one who killed Prince Plinius! Let’s talk about it ter.”

  “You were the one who killed Plinius?” I asked, horrified.

  “Yes,” Alvar said. “We can talk about it ter we must hurry.”

  “You ripped his body open like a pillowcase! Why did you do that?”

  A vision of Plinius’s guts spilling over his bed danced before my eyes. His mangled body, the pools of blood.

  “He was going to extort you!”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t just killed, he was butchered! Why did you do that, Alvar?” I insisted.

  He looked down.

  “There’s something I’ve been keeping from you,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “You remember how I got my scar?”

  “The one through your chest? Yes, you were attacked by an enemy soldier on a visit home,” I told him.

  “I told you how I saw my sister lying dead on the road.”

  “Yes.”

  “That wasn’t the full truth. I saw her lying dying on the ground, her throat slit. That animal Titius bleeding from his face all over her. Plinius was standing next to him. Her skirts were hiked up over her body and her underwear was torn apart.”

  There was a terrible fury in his eyes. The hatred shone out of his face. It terrified me.

  “Now let’s go,” he growled. “We need to take that thing back to the castle and shake Titius off before he does something terrible.”

  That was when I started to smell the smoke.

  “He’s lighting a fire!” I shouted.

  We ran out, Alvar letting the flour sack version of me plop down on the ground. The front of the store was already burning brightly, the terrifying orange light filled the room.

  “Izzy!” Adora shouted. “She’s sleeping upstairs!”

  She ran up to get her. Alvar lunged out to attack Titius, whose outline we could see through the rising fmes. I looked around in panic, trying to find something that could be used to quell the fire. There was nothing, not even a bucket of water. The fmes were rising, soon they would be too high to run past.

  I ran out as fast as I could, only hoping that Adora and Izzy would be able to find their way out quickly enough ter. People were starting to gather in the street.

  “Help!” I yelled. “Help me get water! There’s a fire!”

  A few people were already running to the well with buckets. They knew they would need to get the fire under control to prevent their own houses catching fire next.

  Adora and Izzy burst through the door. What a relief!

  Titius and Alvar were still fighting, their outlines dancing in front of the wall of fmes rising out of Adora’s shop. Then Titius ran away, and Alvar sprinted after Titius. They both disappeared into the dark night.

  A woman handed me a bucket, and ran with me to the well. I followed her. I wanted to help, and there was nothing I could do about Alvar now. At the well there was a queue of people, all waiting to get water in their buckets. It gave me an uncomfortable moment to ponder my situation. What a terrible mess it all was!

  Then I got my bucket filled, and could run back to the house. I spshed it on the fire, it seemed to do very little. I ran back to the well again, in the hubbub I could see Adora and Izzy working on the fire as well.

  I felt something something soft and cool tingling on my cheek. It was a light drizzle, but it felt like tremendous relief. At least one thing was going well in this cursed night. The first light of dawn was already coming up on the horizon when the fire was finally put out.

  The neighbours started to mill home. The woman who handed me the bucket came up to me. She was short and stout, wearing a big woollen night-gown.

  “What is your name?” she asked me.

  “Uhhh… Anna, I’m Izzy’s cousin,” I told her.

  “You know, you’re a dead ringer for the princess Talia,” she said. “That’s a compliment, she’s pretty.”

  I thanked her, and she went back to her home. I hoped that she wouldn't think of this conversation or mention it to anyone. Then I went and found Izzy and Adora. They were sifting through the open shop.

  The front of the shop had been burned pretty badly, but the back was a lot better. The windows had cracked and shattered under the heat of the fire, so the lower front of the shop was completely open to the elements, in addition to the fact that Titius had kicked the door down. The upper floor of the building looked more stable, but one had to wonder about the structural integrity of it.

  I could see that they had hastily covered the homunculus with a big sheet of fabric. I wondered if it had taken any fire damage. They did not allow any of their neighbours to enter. I walked in to where they stood.

  “Adora,” I said. “I’m so sorry about your shop. I want to try to get you the funds to repce it. I hope I can get it out of my dowry before I leave.”

  “Before you leave? Do you pn to go to the Midway Isles without Alvar?”

  “No, I… I mean he’s coming back, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Adora frowned. “He was stabbed when he ran away, and it’s been a while and he hasn’t been back.”

  “You don’t think…”

  My heart sank.

  “I don’t know Talia.”

  I stood still for a few minutes, trying to digest all the information I had learned that night. It felt more like indigestion.

  “And he was the one who killed Plinius?”

  I still couldn’t really believe it.

  “Yes, I helped him hide the body. My god it was a mess. Honestly, I know you love him, but that man scares me. He didn’t want me to tell you. I’m so sorry I should have let you know earlier.”

  We stood still, looking at each other for a moment.

  “You need to get back to the castle before they come to wake you up. Izzy can help you move unseen.”

  “Thank you, Adora.”