I snapped my fingers. Twenty arm-sized mechanical mosquitoes lifted from their limp, resting pile in my wagon and rose into the air, wings snapping out around them with loud clicks! As the townsfolk all stumbled back in surprise, high-pitched buzzing burst out from my inventions to fill the air with humming menace.

Each mech-squito held a sharp metal rock in its skinny, multi-legged grasp. Each of their long, metal snouts dripped with the water I’d pumped into them, just waiting to be deployed now.

“Luckily,” I said, “my creatures are more than capable of dealing with a bit of fire.”

“But that’s—that’s—!” Mayor Hall was stammering too much to even create a full sentence. Behind him, though, more and more cries flew out.

“Witchcraft!”

“Unnatural!”

“Spellcraft!”

“Abomination!”

I lifted my right hand. The mech-squitoes followed its lead and flew into a V-formation, visibly preparing.

“One,” I said, loudly and clearly, “two…”

That did it. The crowd turned and ran, their torches streaming trails of hot smoke in their wake.

Only their leader turned back, twenty feet away, to point one shaking finger at me. “You’re next,” the mayor snarled. “You may have fooled us before, but now that we know what you really are, you can’t stay awake to guide these things forever. So—”

A man’s voice spoke calmly from a window high above me. “Isn’t it fortunate, then, that my creatures do stay awake all night? And they believe in looking after our neighbors, too.”

As I spun around to stare up at him, the famous necromancer nodded politely down at me.

He was just unfairly handsome for someone wearing a rumpled and ragged old crimson bathrobe, with sleep-stubble covering his pale cheeks and his black hair standing up in all directions.

…And he had absolutely, definitely been eavesdropping. “You’ve had that window open the whole time, listening in on us?” I demanded.

“I find it safer to leave my windows open, nowadays.” His lips quirked as he looked down at me, an unsettling warmth in his dark eyes. “I have to protect my precious glass from my new neighbor, you see.”

“Ugh!” The mayor let out a frustrated groan, turned, and ran the rest of the way, following his own followers back towards the respectability of those high town walls.

I didn’t look after him for long. My attention was firmly focused on my own outrageous neighbor, who had propped his elbows on his windowsill and was sending down a lazy smile that sent all sorts of suspicious reactions tingling through my skin.

“May I invite you in for tea?” he asked idly. “Or will you attack my home again if I dare?”

“I just saved your home,” I reminded him.

“In that case…”

He gestured elegantly, the crimson bathrobe falling away to reveal one pale, lean wrist. The great black door to the castle swung open before me with a long, ominous creak. Darkness awaited me within.