Chapter 3: The Crimson Quill

Chapter 3: The Crimson Quill

Senior Warden Kaelen’s warning echoed in my head, a low rumble like distant thunder. Drop it. The problem with telling me not to do something was that it immediately became the only thing I wanted to do. He wasn't just enforcing the law; he was hiding something. The Concordat wasn't closing the Valerius case because it was a dead end; they were burying it under a mountain of official stone. And that made me want to start digging.

The key was the vision. The violent, soul-shredding blast of violet-black magic had seared a single, cryptic image into my mind: a quill dripping a single drop of crimson. It wasn't just a symbol; it was a name. I’d heard whispers of it before, in the back rooms of dimly lit bars where out-of-work mages and down-on-their-luck Fae traded rumors like currency. The Crimson Quill wasn’t a thing; it was a place.

Aethelgard’s underbelly had a name: the Weeps. It was a warren of cramped streets and sagging tenements huddled in the perpetual shadow of the city's grander districts. The rain here seemed heavier, mixed with soot and desperation. Finding the entrance to the Crimson Quill required navigating a maze of alleys that smelled of damp wool and discarded alchemy reagents. The door was unmarked, set into a grimy brick wall behind a noodle shop, distinguishable only by the faint, almost subliminal hum of overlapping privacy wards.

I pushed it open and stepped inside. The air hit me first—a thick, heady cocktail of dried herbs, sulfur, spiced ink, and something metallic that might have been blood. The Crimson Quill was a sprawling, subterranean market housed in what looked like an old cistern. The arched stone ceiling was lost in shadow, and the only light came from enchanted lanterns that cast a flickering, untrustworthy glow over dozens of stalls.

This was where you came for forbidden grimoires, untraceable potions, and information that could get you killed. Goblins haggled with cloaked figures over shimmering spell components. A pixie, trapped in a glowing jar, glared balefully at potential buyers. The place was a den of thieves, spies, and information brokers, and navigating it required a delicate touch.

My goal was a man named Silas the Stitcher. They called him that because he could take disparate threads of information and weave them into a coherent tapestry—for a price. I found him in a secluded alcove, hunched over a table meticulously repairing the spine of an ancient, leather-bound book with a needle and gut-thread. He was a small, weaselly man, with eyes that were far too old and sharp for his face.

"Aggie McPherson," he murmured without looking up, his voice a dry rustle of parchment. "To what do I owe the displeasure? Short on rent again?"

"Just keeping busy, Silas," I said, leaning against the cold stone wall of his stall. "I need information."

"Everyone needs information. It is the only truly valuable commodity." He finally looked up, his gaze piercing. "My prices, as you know, are steep."

"I need to know about a book," I began, describing the grimoire from Valerius's study. Heavy, bound in what looked like shifter-hide, with a silver clasp in the shape of a serpent eating its own tail.

Silas's nimble fingers paused their stitching. A flicker of something—recognition, and perhaps fear—danced in his sharp eyes. He set his tools down with deliberate care.

"That is not a book for casual reading," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "That is the Opus Animarum. The Work of Souls. More of a prison than a book. It details the ritual for… soul-shattering."

The words sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the dampness of the cistern. "Soul-shattering? For what purpose?"

"To bind a powerful entity," Silas explained, his eyes darting around as if the very walls were listening. "You shatter a mortal soul into fragments and use the raw, chaotic energy of its unmaking to forge a cage around something… else. Something much older and more dangerous. A foolish, desperate gambit. The ritual almost never works as intended."

This confirmed it. Valerius hadn't been murdered. He'd performed a forbidden ritual, likely trying to trap some entity for his own gain, and it had backfired spectacularly, devouring him in the process. My ghostly client was a liar and a fool.

"Who else would be looking for a book like that?" I pressed. "Who sells this kind of thing?"

Silas gave a thin, humorless smile. "Information of that caliber cannot be bought with crowns, Aggie. Not from me."

My stomach tightened. "What's the price, Silas?"

"A favor," he said, leaning forward. "A simple retrieval. A courier was to deliver a small package to me this evening. He has… gone silent. The package is in his satchel at the old clock tower in the Alchemist's Quarter. He'll be waiting at the top. Bring it to me, unopened, and I will tell you who in this city deals in soul-cages."

It was a trap. It screamed of being a trap. The Alchemist's Quarter was a contested territory, and a 'silent' courier was a dead courier. But I was in too deep to back out. The truth of Valerius's disappearance was tangled up in this, and Kaelen's stony face flashed in my mind, daring me to quit.

"Fine," I bit out. "One package."

Leaving the oppressive atmosphere of the Quill, I felt a dozen unseen eyes on my back. My questions had stirred the pot. Someone now knew I was asking about the Opus Animarum.

The clock tower was a skeletal finger of rusted iron and crumbling masonry pointing toward the perpetually overcast sky. I took the winding stairs two at a time, my hand resting on the butt of the pistol tucked into my coat. The air grew colder as I ascended, the silence broken only by the drip of water and the scuttling of unseen things.

At the top, on the open platform behind the giant clock face, I found the courier. He was slumped against the balustrade, his eyes wide and vacant, a single, dark hole in the chest of his jacket. His satchel lay beside him.

I knelt, my senses on high alert. This was too easy. As my gloved fingers touched the leather of the satchel, I heard the scrape of a boot on stone behind me.

I didn't hesitate. I threw myself sideways, rolling behind a massive, corroded gear mechanism as a bolt of green energy hissed through the air where my head had been, slamming into the stone and showering the platform with sparks.

Two figures emerged from the stairwell door, clad in dark, form-fitting leather armor, their faces obscured by shadows. Syndicate enforcers. Their movements were fluid and professional. This wasn't a random mugging. They were here for me.

"The woman was asking about the Opus," one of them said, his voice flat and metallic. "The master wants her. Alive."

I fired two shots from my pistol, the bangs deafening in the enclosed space. They weren't aiming to kill, which put me at a serious disadvantage. One of them raised a hand, and a shimmering shield of force absorbed the bullets, the slugs dropping to the floor, flattened and useless. This was bad. I was out-magicked and out-gunned.

I scrambled back, using the labyrinth of clockwork gears for cover, my mind racing. One enforcer sent another bolt of energy that slagged a gear near my face, showering me with hot metal. The other was circling around, cutting off my escape. They were penning me in.

Just as the second enforcer rounded the gear, his hand glowing with green light, a shadow fell over the entire platform. A new sound filled the air—the grinding, cracking sound of immense pressure.

The enforcer looked up, his masked face showing the first hint of alarm, as a massive stone hand clamped down on his shoulder. With a sound like a landslide, Kaelen dropped onto the platform from the roof above, his landing cracking the flagstones. He wasn't wearing his formal Warden uniform, but a simpler, darker tunic that did little to hide his mountainous physique.

The enforcer’s spell dissolved. Kaelen didn't even look at him; he simply squeezed. There was a sickening crunch of bone and armor, and the man crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

The other enforcer, seeing the Gargoyle, panicked. He launched a desperate, powerful blast of energy at Kaelen’s chest. It hit him like a physical blow, staggering him back a single step. He looked down at the smoldering patch on his tunic, then looked up at the attacker, his golden eyes burning with cold fury.

With a speed that defied his size, Kaelen crossed the platform and backhanded the man. The sound was like a wrecking ball hitting a side of beef. The enforcer flew across the platform and slammed into the far wall, sliding to the ground in a heap.

Silence descended, broken only by the wind whistling through the clock tower.

I slowly got to my feet, my pistol still in my hand, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. Kaelen stood over the two unconscious men, a monolith of silent judgment. Then, he turned his glowing golden eyes to me.

"I warned you, McPherson," he rumbled, his voice dangerously low. "I told you to drop it."

"And I told you I had a client," I shot back, my voice shakier than I liked. I gestured with my gun toward the bodies. "Looks like you have your own off-the-books interest in this case, Warden. Fancy seeing you here."

His stony expression was unreadable, but his eyes held a new, grudging light. He wasn't here to arrest me. He was following the same trail.

"You are a magnet for chaos," he said, the words less an accusation and more a statement of fact. "And you have just alerted the Alastor Syndicate that you are a threat. What, precisely, have you stumbled into?"