When Maecidion’s familiar was read off to anyone other than an Ordrid, the only thing that brought me to a fuller froth was that it went to Denoreyph Belot. Belot!—a self-important narcissist who cared about such frivolities as charm spells. For pursuing a discipline outside necromancy, he was especially hated. His dimmer critics obsessed over this feat, and obsessed all the dimmer that those who didn’t join them in their disgust had been in fact charmed themselves. I joined them, that and then some. Arrogant, Belot’s silk swayed as he strutted up and seized the imp in its cage.

Belot! That prancing girl, I thought, reeling back to spit. Imp belongs in the family. I watched him until he sat back down to preen his sash and cross his legs like an actor.

Bickering soon gave way to the normalcy of hissing. More of Maecidion’s chambers were cleared out and soon snatched by their corresponding names.

I hadn’t received so much as a wall sconce. One more carbuncled witch from the hills being called up to lust over my family’s possessions and a stink bomb may have to be the first in an arsenal of unhinged aggressions. Yes, a lover of caustic tricks am I. My pockets can range from such simplicities as a spool of yarn or a malodorous vial to more severe components that help build spells able to make one wish to see their own mother couple with mountain trolls. A quick inventory proved I’d brought a few rather useful—

The den was pure noise. It was as if that Scepter’s headless body had pushed up the doors of his tomb, stumbled through the streets, and then led a pod of the Metropolitan Ward to hack up us patrons. The uproar became awe, then it became envy. A statue had been placed on the barrister’s desk.

Seen in the clasped hands of every portrait of Maecidion to ever cover a sullen wall, the statue, a hand itself, was made of pure lapis lazuli. The size of your average man’s, strains of gold feathered and swirled in the deep blue of its outstretched fingers. In its palm, three faces made a row. The outer two left trails at its base near the wrist, thus completing a long-agreed-upon murmur that they resembled haunted tadpoles. And these both seemed poised to circle the central visage; caught in an eternal, devilish sneer.

Astonished grumbles carried “Morfil” and “…for who then?” Chair legs squeaked. Hopefuls rushed the desk. A fistfight erupted.

I didn’t need to tear down the aisle or crawl over any cursed heads. I knew it well. This peculiar ornament had been in Maecidion’s possession long before a single Suelan slave had been brought to Rehleian shores. It had also been previously owned by other powerful Ordrid leaders, long returned to oblivion.