Chappy knelt by the twisted old stump and pried open the silver chest inside. The note was short. Goat Head Rock. Sun at its lowest before sunset. He grinned and pocketed the paper. The spyglass was still out there, and so was the woman he'd pinned his forgeries on. He needed his crew before she needed him dead. At dusk, the ivy-cloaked boulder glared down with burning eyes. Three figures waited beneath it. Edger R. Hatchet, polished and pale, tapping a clean blade. Vix the Crimson, fingers stained with chalk and old curses. Slade Savage, the Panthera mercenary, flanked by two silent Gravediggers. Each carried a bounty bigger than the last. Chappy bowed like a host welcoming guests to dinner. They walked the plan down to the bone. Hit the Scriptorium first. Get the spyglass's last known sighting. Get the secret to its power. Then ride out and cash in the prize. Hatchet wanted blood. Vix wanted locks to crack. Slade wanted gold. Chappy let them all believe they were getting it. The meadery sat hunched in stone, lanterns burning gold over its carved arch. Inside, behind the casks and the laughing drunks, the back rooms opened up. They picked through blades, powders, rope, and rolled maps. Chappy slipped an extra vial into his coat when no one was watching. Old habits. Load-bearing ones. Morning came hard and bright at the stables. Grooms led out horses, a dire-lizard for Slade, and a black-lacquered stagecoach plated in iron. Vix chalked wards along its wheels. Hatchet climbed up top with a long rifle. Chappy took the reins himself. He trusted no one to drive his future. The stagecoach rolled out toward the sandstone cliffs of the Scriptorium, its blue windows glowing in the distance. Chappy snapped the reins and smiled. Step one was moving. Somewhere behind him, he knew, a cell door was rattling. He just had to be faster than the woman trying to break out of it.

The iron carriage rolled to a stop in the shadow of the Scriptorium. Chappy hopped down, smoothed his coat, and waved his crew forward like they were guests at a gala. Hatchet stayed near the bullet beetles with two Gravediggers. Chappy, Vix, Slade, and Monolith stepped through the blue-lit arch like scholars with overdue questions. Inside, robed clerks scratched at long desks. Chappy smiled at every one of them. He nudged Vix toward a side corridor while Slade trailed behind, eyes hunting the room. Monolith's stone replacements ticked in their sockets, scanning the air for hexes only he could see. He grunted once. Clear. For now. The corridor ended at the sealed guard post. Two tome-stacked sentinels stood watch, eyes burning pink, hands chained to massive books. The carved sign above warned them off. Chappy whispered the obvious. "Finesse over fight, witch." Vix knelt and chalked a curl of red across the floor. Her fingers shook. Hex magic wasn't quiet work. The sigil pulsed. The sentinels' pink eyes dimmed to a dull gray. They didn't sleep — they simply forgot to see. Chappy slipped between them, lifted two axe-shaped keys from their chained hands, and grinned. Iceberg's. Cutstripe's. He turned the keys in the sealed door of the restricted annex. The lock groaned open. Forbidden shelves glowed inside, every spine humming. Outside, things were going worse. A burly cluster of country elves and orc gypsies had circled Hatchet at the carriage. Hatchet's blade was already out. A Gravedigger was already down. The first shot from the carriage's gatling cracked the quiet street wide open. Clerks inside lifted their heads. Bells began to ring through the Scriptorium walls. Chappy heard the bells and swore softly. He shoved Vix through the door, dragged Slade in behind him, and pulled it shut. They were inside the forbidden wing with the keys in his pocket and a riot starting at his back. He'd gotten what he came for. Now he just had to live long enough to read it.

The forbidden wing burned with quiet light. Chappy worked the shelves with Vix and Slade while bells rang somewhere above them. Monolith — Rune-Eye to his crew — stood at the door and watched for sentinels with his stone eyes. One of the carved sockets cracked when a hex pulse rolled through the wall. He grunted and pressed a palm over the ruined eye. Pink dust ran between his fingers. He kept the door shut anyway. Chappy found what he came for inside a barnacled metal case at the back of the annex. He flipped the lid. A glowing card named the maker of the spyglass and pointed past the River Styx. Beside it sat a small green eye-compass and a tarnished monocle in a nest of fossilized shells. Chappy palmed the card and dropped the case into Slade's pack. Vix grabbed two stitched books off the shelf. Slade ripped a third from its chain. They had what they needed. They would never walk these halls again. The back hatch they'd scouted led down through a cold stair and out into the alley behind the building's stone guardhouse — the rune-faced arch with its DO NOT DISTURB warning still humming above them. Hatchet had the carriage waiting, axle scarred, one beetle limping. He didn't ask about Rune-Eye's face. Slade swung the loot case into the coach floor and kicked a blanket over it. Hatchet climbed up beside Chappy, calm as a butler. "These fellows seem to have a quarrel with us, Mr. Chapman." Chappy looked up. Seven of them stood across the lane — country elves and orc gypsies, a small girl among them holding a fistful of charms. A staff. A spiked club. The whole crew turned to watch Chappy answer. He smiled the smile he kept for collectors and jilted lovers. "Friends. There's been a misunderstanding." The staff cracked into the carriage door. The misunderstanding was over. It got ugly fast and stayed short. Slade put the club-bearer on his back. Vix hexed the staff into splinters. Hatchet broke a nose and a wrist in the same motion. The small girl screamed something about a brother and a debt. Chappy pulled a folded writ from his coat — the bounty paper that named his ex-fiancee, sealed by Mudslide authority — waved it like a passport, and shouted that he was a lawful agent on lawful business. The brawl ended with three of them limping off and four of them deciding the bounty office was the better destination. Let them ride. Let them claim whatever scrap they thought was theirs at the green tower where bounties paid out. The carriage rolled. Chappy unfolded the writ on his knee and read his ex-fiancee's name. Eight days ago, in a cell. The ink was sure. He did not know the tunnel had already been dug. He did not know she was already walking toward him. He folded the writ and smiled, because the smile was the only thing he had ready.