Faolan scanned the ceiling. She could already tell him there was no secret hidden ominous attic full of more poorly-carved ducks. He wouldn’t believe her, so she didn’t. “Do you think he is?” Faolan said.

Splodge nosed at her ankles, butting its head hard against her feet. Orfeus reached down and gave it a reassuring head pat, then looked through into Linden’s workshop.

“No,” she said.

The lantern was broken on the ground, splinters of glass amongst the sawdust. Planks lay on the table. Everything looked mostly like it had the last time she’d been here. Linden tried to make at least one project a week. It seemed impossible he wouldn’t have made anything for four weeks.

Four weeks? The very night she’d gone, Splodge had come pressing plaintively at her ankles, when of course it wasn’t normally an outside cat, Linden was careful.

Had he been missing even then?

Faolan looked at her, and nodded. He stepped around the glass, leaving footprints in the sawdust. Orfeus wished they weren’t in here, as if leaving it undisturbed could make time not have passed. She wanted Linden to still be here, opening the door to her, a cup of tea and company when she’d pushed herself too far.

Orfeus wrapped her arms around herself. Faolan walked past her, and Orfeus let out a glad exhale and followed him out.

It was cloudy outside, grey. Orfeus leaned against the wall and devoutly didn’t look at her small house. She’d already taken everything she needed from there.

She’d left this town gutted and empty.

“So what now?” Orfeus said carefully. Faolan came and stood beside her. With an effort, she didn’t step away.

Splodge pushed again at her legs, miaowing, pitiful and sad. The cat’s human disappearing would have been terrifying to it, a deprival of the easy food source and comfort it was used to, but depriving it of companionship as well. Orfeus scratched Splodge’s chin, then gave up and bent down and picked the cat up, hugging it close to her chest. Splodge didn’t like being picked up, normally. It pushed against Orfeus’s chest frantically and purred and purred and purred.

“If they’re not in any of their haunts,” Faolan said slowly, “the hunt is sometimes given up.”

That didn’t seem all that likely for the Order. Orfeus supposed the moral imperative of having to catch their prey and so on had to be balanced against having one of the limited number of hunters out in the wilderness for months at a time, chasing down someone who might’ve just fallen into a well a week ago anyway. Resource management for vigilantes.

Orfeus didn’t like how Faol’s eyes weighed on her. She looked away and shook her head. “We were just neighbours. If he’s not here, I doubt I could find him.”