Archive of Our Own

He was unaware of much, and yet keenly aware of some things—his injuries, how much he could move, the salesman’s body language. He had ceased to care about the sun beating down on him—that wasn’t going away. He had excluded some nearby shouts from his notice earlier—he didn’t care what they were, even if they indicated some kind of out-of-control vehicle barreling through the market (that was what his imagination had conjured). If said vehicle barreled over him, he would frankly welcome the release, but would rather not know it was coming.

Fine shoes and trousers filled his vision suddenly, of which he was very much aware. The material was grey, with a bit of sheen to it, expensive and tasteful. The wearer crouched down suddenly, effortlessly, energetic and slim, his jacket matching the pants, his shirt dark. His face was startling—pale, angular, topped with dark curly hair, bold blue eyes that froze on the spot. A face made for sculptures and fashion shows, he thought idly. Yet the eyes—they had something in them, in their depths, that was warmer. He shouldn’t have been staring; but what more could they do to him?

The dark-haired man reached out a hand to him and he flinched, closing his eyes, his innate survival instincts not quite dead yet. Instead of a smack, though, he received a caress on the cheek. “Come on, open your eyes,” encouraged a voice, deep and rich and soothing.

Was it a trap? Everything was a trap. He opened his eyes anyway, or one; the other was swollen shut. The man was kneeling in the dirt now, careless of his expensive suit the way people were who could afford more. “That’s it,” he coaxed, opening the good eye a little wider with gentle fingers. His hands were huge. “Lovely shade of blue,” he murmured, half to himself. “Think I’ll call you Bay. What do you think of that?” There was a curious smirk on his full lips, like he was telling an inside joke.

“Yes, sir,” he answered, voice thick with thirst. This was an appropriate answer. “If you like, sir.” This addition was, somehow, verging on cheeky.

The man smirked more, but his eyes were troubled. Bay—whatever—closed his again, too uninvested in this reality, even with the presence of a beautiful stranger. The name might indicate he was serious about purchasing him, but it was hard to get excited about that anymore. More interesting was the hand that slid from his cheek to the back of his head, cool, strong flesh willingly burying itself in his sweaty, grimy hair. Prelude to a pull or a jerk? Apparently not, as the hand merely drifted around his scalp.

“Aha,” the man replied, as if he’d found what he was looking for. Bay spared little brainpower to figure out what that was. “You’ve suffered a head injury.” Yes, many. “As a very young child,” the man went on. “Someone who was supposed to care for you. A deliberate attack.” Bay only shrugged slightly. He couldn’t remember all the injuries he’d been given as a child. “Well, that explains it,” the man decided, sitting back. The loss of contact between them made him seem less real to Bay, more a fragment of his vivid imagination, through which all manner of delights bobbed.

“Yes, of course I want him. Yes, obviously, this one right here.” He heard the man’s voice dimly, knew the salesman must be answering. “In his condition? Ridiculous. I don’t care about his history. That’s none of your concern, is it? Get him up.”

Hands yanked him up when he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, move on his own. He was pushed, so he walked; he reached the end of his tether and started walking around in a circle at its maximum, conscious only of the pain and the dust and the heat.

And the voice. “Why’s he limping? How long ago was that? Still not healed? How interesting. Get him a cane.” You didn’t give a solid stick to a slave. At least, not right away, not before you’d taken the measure of his temper. “I said, get him a cane. Well, it’s my risk, isn’t it? He’ll be too slow without it. Bay, you can stop walking.”

He stopped walking, not because he inherently recognized his new name, but because he was walking, and someone had said stop. If they hadn’t meant him, he’d be prodded forward again in a moment.

He wasn’t. Instead he felt cool hands on him again, pressing his raw wrists under the restraints, ghosting over his hot neck. Something pulled sharply at his throat and he hissed. “Sorry, sorry,” the man murmured. “Your collar—“ It had rubbed the skin beneath it for so long that it was practically part of his body now.

“You’ve not taken very good care of him,” the man accused; for a moment Bay thought he was talking to him. “Illogical. Minimum maintenance would vastly increase his chances of being sold.” Was he not being sold, then? The salesman wouldn’t like that, not after all this handling. “Oh good. Here.” Something was pressed into his hands, a cane, and he put his weight on it tentatively, feeling a minor relief of his pain that made him want to weep with joy. “Free his hands. Yes, rather hard to use a cane properly when your hands are bound.” His voice could be pure acid when he wanted it to be. “Honestly? In his condition? Send your grandmother to chase him down, then.”

Tugging and pulling at his wrists, and the restraints dropped away. He felt ten pounds lighter. That’s probably what they weighed, anyway. He experimented with walking with the cane, always keeping near the pole he’d been bound to, his good eye able to look up and around now in brief, furtive glances. The world came into focus around him, bright and colorful. The man in the silver-grey suit was tall, held himself with confidence; Bay swept his eye over him then dropped it back down subserviently.

“Better,” the man judged, of his overall appearance. “Are we done here? Tedious!” There might have been some haggling over the paperwork; the man was impatient with details like that. Then a large hand clasped his. “Come on, we’re leaving,” he announced. “Can you walk?”

He could walk slowly, but to the ends of the earth, if it was away from the salesman and the market. Of course, he didn’t know what he was walking to.

“My name is Magnus,” the man told him. “I’ve just bought you. Absurd, really. Interesting idea, to preserve the institution, but quite indefensible on a moral scale. Not that I care about that, really—you’re usually the one who gets worked up about such things.” Did he get worked up about such things? It seemed dangerous. “Well, you don’t remember that, I suppose.” Pause. “Bay? Bay? That’s you. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, sir,” he claimed. “I completely agree, sir.” He could do without slavery, on the whole.

“Yes, I’m sure you do,” his master remarked dryly. “Enough with this ‘sir’ nonsense. No more ‘sir.’ Call me Magnus.” There was an expectant pause.

“If you like.” He had to catch himself from adding the ‘sir’ automatically—it covered so many sins, like an intemperate tone.

“Were you listening to what the salesman said?” Magnus went on, with some amusement. “Bad attitude, that’s what he said about you. Sneaky and intractable!” He laughed suddenly, as if this assessment was hard to believe. “Not a very good seller, is he?”

“Some people like that sort of thing,” Bay dared to respond.

“What?”

He’d already turned his head to follow the kiosk they were passing. “Lemonade, master,” he clarified, as if he’d been talking about that. “May I have a drink, please?”

Magnus hesitated, but kept walking; the lemonade stand faded into the distance. “Don’t call me master.”

“Yes. Sorry.” Appropriate punishment. Swift, too. But he was uncomfortable with it. Inexperienced at owning slaves. Did well enough dispensing imperious attitude to other free people, but managing a slave was different.

“Look, I’ll give you a drink when we get on the transport,” Magnus promised. Weak point. “Only I want to get out of here—“

Bay stopped in his tracks, stumbling only a little as Magnus was yanked back. “I’d rather have a drink now.” He kept his eyes on the ground. Fear entered into it very little these days; there was so little to lose.

Magnus paused. What would he do, when faced with this defiance? What factors were important to him? Witnesses? The openness of the market? Lack of instruments to mete out discipline with? Bay would soon discover this information, and then he would know for the future.

Magnus tipped Bay’s chin up so the slave met his gaze. Surprisingly his eyes were clear and steady. “I will get you a drink, on the transport,” he repeated firmly. “I will make you very comfortable there. Can you trust me?”

What a ridiculous question. Of course he couldn’t trust him. Bay was a slave; a sword hung over his head at all times.

“Of course,” he answered. He gave it a veneer of sincerity, because standing there in the middle of the market was getting him nowhere.

His master saw through that and smirked, but there was something sad in his eyes. Bay pondered that as they resumed walking. Sad that he would have to punish the slave later? Sad that he’d led a life of slavery? It was an odd reaction. Some people had odd reactions, though—odd people, whose actions couldn’t be predicted because something wasn’t right inside their heads. He’d had masters like that before, too. With them you could only endure, or die.

He told himself to stop thinking about that; he was in danger of vanishing in response, and he needed to keep his wits about him with a new master. Vanishing while walking might cause him to stop, or run into something, which would certainly draw his master’s ire.

“You’ll like where we’re going,” Magnus told him, with some enthusiasm. He was like a child with a new pet. “I’ve got a flat in London. Have you been to London? Possibly my favorite city. Here and now, anyway. The energy, the people—you’ll like it, too. History, food, shops. You like that kind of thing.” He sounded very confident on this point, and Bay nodded when he looked at him. “The flat at Baker Street, of course, with Mrs. Hudson. I went a bit more upscale this time, a bit larger. Not ridiculous, but very comfortable. I’ve been looking for you for quite some time, and you know how I start messing about if I have to wait—“

“Sorry, excuse me.” Bay interrupted the stream of random nonsense his master was spouting. “Could you slow down a bit, please?” The man had sped up walking as well as talking.

“Oh. Sorry.” He walked with a more deliberate pace. “Is this better? It’s not far to the gate.”

“Perhaps I could just meet you there.”

Magnus did a double-take, then laughed. Genuine laughter, no undercurrent of menace. “I’ll have your leg fixed up soon, too,” he promised, ridiculously. “Your room’s on the third floor, can’t have you limping up and down the stairs all day. Plus, I need you out with me,” he went on excitedly. “Racing through the streets and alleys of London—oh, I’m a detective, I solve crimes. No committing them this time!” he chuckled madly. “Though of course some people always think I’m on the point of doing so.” He rolled his eyes at this. “Sally, Anderson, Mycroft, Lestrade, all the usual suspects around. But you—you were missing!”

He finally paused. “Was I? I didn’t realize.”

“It makes sense that you’re a slave, though,” Magnus claimed. “Or else, why even have slavery in this world? And then the head injury. Bad luck, that.” He stopped suddenly, making Bay stumble, and turned to the slave with a sober expression. “I suppose you’ve had a rough time of it,” he suggested seriously.

Bay blinked at him. Definitely an odd one. “Oh, now and then,” he dismissed.

“Do you have dreams, though?” Magnus asked him, probingly. “Dreams of other lives, other times and places? Dreams of me?”

“No,” Bay sputtered, intemperate and worse, unconvincingly. Other lives, times, and places, yes; when he vanished into his mind, leaving his body to its fate, he cherished such fantasies, so vivid and detailed, and sometimes surprising to him, literally dreams rather than conscious imaginings, he supposed. He was certain he had never pictured this tall stranger, with his cut-glass cheekbones, piercing eyes, full lips. He could never conjure anyone so striking. But maybe there was sometimes a presence lurking in his dreams, just out of focus, magnetic like this man was magnetic, drawing him in like they were halves of the same whole. “No,” Bay repeated reflexively. One did not give masters information they could use against you later. “Sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

Magnus did not believe him, but Bay clung to his bewilderment stubbornly. “Did you say London?” Bay asked, by way of distraction.

Magnus started walking again. “Yes, London,” he agreed. “It’s a bit dull sometimes, when things are so similar, but I like to find ways to play the game differently. New ways to irritate Mycroft. Always new cases, of course, that’s nice. Sometimes people admit to recognizing me, other times they won’t,” he continued nonsensically. “It’ll be fun to show you to them.”

Passed around a circle of friends? Been there, done that, got the bruises. “I look forward to meeting them.”

“I have missed you, though,” Magnus told him, stopping to gaze at him with utter sincerity. He lifted his hand to caress Bay’s cheek. “I always miss you. It’s been quite a long time, this round. More than ten years.” He seemed very sad all of a sudden, and very serious. “I suppose I sound quite mad to you,” he finally admitted, with a dry quirk of a smile. “I hope you’ll understand in time.”

Lunatic. Absolute lunatic. On par with the raving doomsday prophet he’d spent a few nights with at a master’s behest. He’d returned home with rare relief, because while that master had been cruel, he at least resided on planet Earth. Bay was not sure how to handle a lunatic full-time.

“Is that the gate?” he asked, distraction again.

Magnus turned back the way he’d been going, his blue searchlight eyes finally leaving Bay. “Yes, almost there. Come on.” He dug his mobile out of his coat pocket and, presumably, summoned his transport. “Bother, there’s a lot of people here,” he complained of the crowd already waiting. “It might be a few minutes. Do you want to sit?”

Genuine question, or couched command? Oddswise the latter, though odds went out the window with this fellow. “Alright.” Magnus released his hand and Bay lowered himself to his knees with the aid of the nearby wall.

Magnus frowned at him. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

Oh, only bitter agony shooting through his thigh. “It’s fine.” Magnus shrugged and turned away, as though watching for his transport would make it come faster, and Bay vanished. It was somewhat foolish, here and now, but he had gone without it for so long. A supernatural fantasy, in which he was a werewolf—where did he get these ideas, he didn’t even much care for that genre. Not born a werewolf, a recently-acquired condition, somewhat embarrassing but not unknown in this world. He tried to control it with drugs, but stress brought on an episode—the humiliation of his new flatmate discovering him mingled with the delicious freedom of his limbs stretching, strengthening, past the point where it should have been painful but was instead profoundly satisfying, enough to ignore the footsteps on the stairs, the knock on the door, then a deep, rich, smooth voice saying—

“Bay? Bay, wake up. Are you asleep?” He blinked his eyes, always slightly shocked to find himself back in reality—and slightly shocked at how he’d been awakened this time, with a gentle touch to his cheek and his name softly called. Usually it was a sharp smack that disrupted his dreams, and made him burrow into them all the more.

Magnus was crouched beside him, eyes probing his face as though he could read his mind. “There you are,” he remarked when he saw Bay focus again. “The transport’s here.”

Magnus stood fluidly, Bay less so. His new master watched him struggle to rise, with his cane and the wall, but did not move to help; that was alright with Bay. Sometimes with helping, or hurrying, he ended up in worse shape.

The large vehicle loomed right in front of them and Magnus gestured for him to get on first. The cabin was spacious and Bay sat in one of the seats automatically, reaching for the restraining belt to pull across himself. Magnus tapped at the control panel on the wall and the door slid shut, sealing them off from the heat and the dust of the market. The interior was cool and clean; Bay felt like he was soiling it. Well, it was just a transport. He leaned his head back and closed his dry eyes.

“Don’t—fall asleep,” Magnus warned, throwing himself down beside him as the transport began to rise. “We’ll be cruising soon.” He did not bother with a restraining belt. Careless in some ways, like with the paperwork—a certain arrogance that rules didn’t apply to him, whether bureaucratic or physical. Bay kept his eyes open.

“That’s a neat trick, to fall asleep sitting up,” Magnus commented leadingly. “Your eyes were still open, blinking and everything.” He waited.

“Yes, it’s useful,” Bay responded lightly. He glanced around the cabin. “Nice transport.”

“Oh, there’s a whole other room in the back!” Magnus revealed. “Bathroom, too. Well, traveling is tedious,” he complained. “The transport has so many needs… The body, I mean,” he clarified. “Just transport for the mind. Bloody nuisance sometimes.”

Remarkably Bay found he could agree with this. “Yes.”

They hit a pocket of turbulence and Magnus wobbled in his seat, muttering under his breath. A two-room transport with a bathroom, that was money, if Bay had been in any doubt before. Money did not impress him, though—it just meant certain things were predictable, and others not.

There was a beep and a green light, signaling that they had reached cruising altitude, and Magnus popped up immediately and disappeared through a sliding door. Bay unbuckled himself more slowly, glancing around to see if there was any more he could learn, such as if they were really going to London.

“Bay! Come in here,” Magnus summoned, so he did as he was told. There was a narrow hallway, with a little room for the toilet on one side and some other little room on the other, and then the second cabin, which was more kitchen-like with cabinets and a built-in table and booths. The windows here were uncovered and Bay could see the city rushing away in a tan haze, the fields zipping by below them, the roads with their terrestrial autos.

“How long will it take to get to London?” Bay inquired neutrally.

“Oh, about four hours, I think,” Magnus decided. “Sit down. Here. I promised I would get you a drink.”

Bay perched on the edge of the booth and Magnus handed him a plastic bottle, cold from the mini-fridge. He opened it immediately and took a sip, grimacing slightly at the chalky flavor, then examined the label.

“It has protein, carbs, vitamins,” Magnus listed, sitting down across from him. “I expect you’re malnourished, it’s good for you.”

“Thank you.”

Magnus was quiet for a moment. “The loo’s over there, if you want to use it,” he mentioned, and Bay pushed himself up to take advantage of the offer. “I’m not interested in micromanaging your biological functions,” Magnus went on as Bay limped down the corridor. “If you need to use the loo, or eat or whatever, just do so.”

“Thank you,” Bay responded again, and shut himself into the small room, drink in hand (no way would he leave that behind). There wasn’t much room—just a toilet to one side of the door and a sink to the other—but it was the first place he’d really been alone for what seemed a long time, and he sagged back against the sink. Just the necessity of being so alert was exhausting, hence why his daydreams or whatever they were held such an addictive quality—he wasn’t sure he actually relaxed during them, but they made him feel like he wasn’t under scrutiny, even if he was.

He took his time in the loo, not just doing his business but also washing his hands and face, sipping his drink, examining his face in the mirror. The one eye looked bad, but he’d had worse. He felt back into his hair, trying to find what had intrigued Magnus, but it seemed the usual collection of bumps and scars to him.

Finally he felt he had to leave; he was becoming increasingly nervous about what awaited him beyond the sliding door, imagining his new master to be pacing back and forth in front of it, on the verge of knocking. When Bay slid the door open, however, he saw that Magnus was still seated in his same spot at the table, and he limped back to join him.

Magnus was playing with his phone. Compulsively unable to keep still, to keep going without some stimulation—boredom would be a problem with this one. It would be on Bay to keep him entertained, then, or risk being discarded. Hard to say at this point if that was better or not.

“I’m just telling Mrs. Hudson about you,” Magnus shared as Bay sat back down.

“Who is Mrs. Hudson?” He remembered the name being mentioned before, but not her position.

Magnus glanced up at him with an inscrutable expression—was he surprised Bay somehow didn’t already know the answer to this? High expectations, unreasonable. “My housekeeper,” he finally answered. “As I said, I have a flat on Baker Street in London. She wanders around it irritating me.”

Interesting description of the housekeeper’s duties. “I see.”

Magnus looked pensive. “Mycroft will find out sooner or later,” he predicted, exasperated at this inevitability. “I wonder—“ He broke off and made eye contact with Bay. “Would you rather go to the country?” he asked. “Would you feel better there? More peace and quiet…”

He said those words with a touch of dismay. The country would not offer enough activity for him. “Whatever you would prefer,” Bay remarked, and Magnus rolled his eyes.

“We’ll stay in London, then,” he decided, watching Bay’s reaction. Bay kept things strictly neutral; he’d had a lot of practice at that. “It might get busy, I think Lestrade will have a new case for me soon. It was terribly difficult to leave when I did, but I had to find you. Have you heard of this?” He turned the mobile around so Bay could see a news headline, something about a string of suspicious suicides.

“No,” Bay answered. He didn’t get much in the way of current events. It worried him how gleeful his master seemed about this, though.

“Three so far, another one almost certain to be reported soon,” Magnus conveyed excitedly. “Poisoned, no signs of struggle, no reason to kill themselves, found in strange parts of town, no apparent connection among them. Oh yes!” he added, texting avidly, “we have a serial killer on the loose in London!” He sounded, in a word, thrilled.

“Perhaps we ought to go to the country instead,” Bay suggested flatly, making Magnus glance up at him suddenly.

“Oh. No, I have to solve this,” Magnus denied after a hesitation. “The police will never get it. I’m a private detective, I told you that.”

Bay thought he might indeed remember that from the string of nonsensical prattle earlier. “Oh, yes. How exciting.”

“Well, I know who did it.”

“Already?”

“Well, sort of,” Magnus clarified. He was reading through something on his phone. “It changes each time, the specific person, some of the details. Get boring otherwise. I know it’s someone easily overlooked, who has free access to most places, someone people will get into a car with, no questions asked. I’ve already ruled out cab drivers and car valets, also EMTs and the police, and nuns. Been there, done that.”

“I wouldn’t get into a car with a nun,” Bay claimed, and Magnus snorted.

“Yes, well, the car bit is not always required,” he allowed. “Applies here, though.” After a moment he suddenly turned his mobile facedown and rested his full attention on Bay. “I’ve neglected you. I promised to make you comfortable.”

“Oh, I’m alright.” Neglect was often better than attention, honestly.

Not for this man, though, whose eyes raked assessingly over Bay. It made him feel quite naked, which had ceased long ago to be a good thing. “Why don’t you take a shower,” Magnus finally suggested. “It’s there, across from the loo. The shower doubles as a health scanner, so do that first.”

Safe enough, on the surface, and it was better to be clean than dirty. “Alright,” Bay acknowledged—saying he agreed would indicate more power than he actually had—and pushed himself up.

“I’ll bring you some clean clothes,” Magnus added.

“Thank you.” The door slid open to reveal a shower stall that Bay stepped directly into.

“Just toss the old ones out here,” Magnus told him.

“Alright.” Clothes were little enough protection anyway.

He was on the point of shutting the door to undress when Magnus spoke again, his voice still safely situated in the kitchen. “You’re very agreeable and polite,” he judged, not sounding entirely thrilled with this.

“Thank you.”

“The salesman thought otherwise.”

“Opinions differ,” Bay replied, and dared to shut the door. It didn’t lock, of course. Quickly he stripped off his shoes and clothes, so filthy he didn’t even want to contemplate them, and chucked the whole bundle into the hall. He followed the instructions on the wall to activate the health scan first, including the finger prick that would reveal the secrets of his DNA. Nothing that hadn’t been done before, and he tried to relax and stand still as the red laser beam washed over him, front then back, detailing all of his injuries for his new master to see. The reading should keep him occupied for a while.

When the scan ended, Bay turned on the shower. He couldn’t escape the spray, which was breathtakingly cold at first. At least cold was numbing; as the water heated up it began to burn his raw flesh, although the temperature was really quite low, to dig into every scratch and sting, to pound every bruise into a throbbing fury.

There was a knock on the door. “Bay, are you alright?” He couldn’t catch his breath to answer, and Magnus slid the door open a couple inches, to see Bay’s hands braced against the wall as the treacherous, glorious water stripped the grime from him. “You’re making noise.”

“Sorry,” Bay gasped, trying to muzzle himself.

Magnus seemed dubious. “Well, get very clean,” he instructed. “We’ll have tea when you come out.” He shut the door.

“Thank you!” Bay called loudly.

When he thought he could stand it he introduced soap and shampoo to the mix. It was agony, but in the way of disinfectant on a wound, where you knew it was doing good. Then he rinsed for a long time, letting his muscles relax as much as he dared.

Finally the idea of leaving the shower occurred to him and he shut off the water. There were no towels within view; he cracked the door open, as quietly as possible, and looked around. Two shelves unfolded from the wall near the door, one bearing a towel and the other some clothes. This thing did not miss a trick. Bay dried and dressed efficiently—the clothes were light and loose, and he predicted he would be cold soon.

After a long hesitation Bay limped out of the shower into the hall. Magnus, who had been sitting in the front cabin, jumped up and smiled at him. “There! You look much better,” he claimed. “How do you feel?”

“Well, thank you,” Bay replied without thought, waiting for a cue as to what to do next.

“Come in here,” Magnus told him. “Sit down, here’s your shoes and socks. Here’s a jumper. Are you warm enough?”

Bay added the layers slowly, as he had to, while Magnus hovered around him. Perhaps—perhaps he did mean to be kind. No, squash that thought right away. Perhaps he was just someone who took care of his possessions, the things he had bought and paid for. Though evidence of his general carelessness suggested the opposite. Kindness was too much to hope for, though. Kindness was another planet.

Bay finished tying his shoes, the whole act of showering and dressing exhausting to him. Magnus had unfolded a bed from the cabin wall and it hung there like a great white elephant, taking up space both physically and mentally.

“Here’s some tea,” Magnus was saying, pressing a cup on him. “Have some biscuits.” Bay had only a fractional reaction to the biscuits being served in a plastic baggie. “Mrs. Hudson made them,” Magnus explained. “She’s a very good cook. Well, so I’m told. I don’t like eating. You really don’t remember me at all, do you?” he ended suddenly.

“These biscuits are quite good,” Bay non-answered, but Magnus made an impatient sound. “Have we met before?” Bay inquired finally. He did not try very hard to recall it himself, because that tended to stir things up; but he didn’t think he could forget a man like this. “I’m sorry, my memory is poor,” he added, focusing on the biscuits. “Where did we meet? Perhaps at a party?” He’d been to lots of parties.

Magnus took his meaning and stiffened. “I assure you, I have no affiliation with any of your previous masters,” he asserted coldly.

“Ah.” Magnus was not the military type, he was too much younger to have met Bay in med school or uni, and they couldn’t have been childhood friends, again because of the age difference but also because Bay didn’t have any friends in childhood. After this brief assessment, he tossed the search out, and sipped his tea.

Magnus moved to lean against the bed, across from Bay. “You really don’t, I can see,” he judged. “You wouldn’t let yourself get into this position if you knew your true power.”

“Are we talking religion here?” Bay questioned neutrally.

“What? No.”

“General spiritualism? Humanism?”

“Bay, stop talking drivel,” Magnus commanded, which was ironic from Bay’s point of view.

“I’m sorry. Please, continue.”

Magnus sighed. “Alright, we will take this slowly,” he decided. “I don’t want you to have an emotional breakdown.”

“Yes, I prefer to avoid those,” Bay agreed.

“Why don’t you lie down and take a nap,” Magnus suggested, moving away from the bed, “and you’ll feel better when you wake up.”

“You want me to take a nap?” Bay repeated, dubious. It seemed too innocent, and helpful.

“Yes,” Magnus encouraged. “You must be tired. Regular people get tired.”

“But not you.”

“Nuisance!” Magnus declared, of being tired. “I’ve got a case, I’ll sleep when it’s done. I’m going to text Lestrade and see what’s been going on. So you might as well sleep.”

“Okay.” Bay pushed himself up and tottered to the bed, lying down on his side facing Magnus. It was not a fast or painless process.

“Honestly, you need to heal up,” Magnus told him impatiently. “I doubt we’ll have much downtime over the next few days.”

“I’ll try.”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “I doubt that.” He dropped his mobile in his pocket. “Alright, I’ll fix your leg,” he declared. Bay blinked at him. “Well, how does it feel?” Magnus prompted, expectantly.

“Um, better,” Bay claimed, after a quick calculation.

Magnus huffed at him. “Don’t patronize me,” he snapped, and Bay decided he ought to sit back up. Was the confrontation finally coming? “You didn’t even try it. Try it and see.”

Bay didn’t actually need to ‘try’ his leg to know it still hurt, but since he was sitting up anyway, it was tried. He didn’t bother to hide the twinge of pain.

Magnus was unimpressed. “It’s just a psychosomatic pain,” he dismissed, which Bay had heard before. Not sure what the point of that diagnosis was, though—it wasn’t like anyone sent slaves to therapy to get over these things. “You limp when you walk but forget about it when you’re daydreaming, or otherwise distracted.”

“I think it’s in my file as well,” Bay noted, which Magnus would’ve had ample time to study.

Magnus rolled his eyes again. “Alright, we’ll try it once more,” he allowed, and he gave Bay an intense stare, like he was a spoon Magnus was trying to bend. “Well?” he asked.

“I’m afraid it still hurts,” Bay replied carefully. “Uh, thanks, though. I appreciate—“

This was not the response Magnus was looking for. “Well, I don’t understand why it’s not working,” he insisted, frowning. “Unless…” He fixed his blue gaze on Bay. “Are you countermanding it?”

Ah, here we go, the paranoia, the accusations. “No,” Bay assured him calmly. “I’m in pain, I’d love to not be.”

“Well something’s going wrong,” Magnus persisted, staring at Bay’s leg as though he could convince it to surrender.

“Perhaps we need to get to know each other better,” Bay suggested pleasantly. “It can be difficult, at first—“

Magnus’s look, of exasperation and disgust, silenced him. “I am not mad,” he declared coolly. “I do not think I can heal you because of the phase of the moon or mystic crystal vibrations. And I think you are too willful, Bay!” he added in frustration.

“My will is all I have,” Bay snapped, without meaning to. Once out the words hung on the air. “I’d like to not be in pain but I don’t see how just staring at me is going to do it,” he added in a quieter tone. He kept his eyes firmly on his hands, clasping the cane between his knees.

Magnus rose, and Bay braced himself for a well-earned blow. Instead his master caressed his cheek gently. “Perhaps you’re right,” he allowed. There was a slight quirking of his lips into a sad smile. “Perhaps you’re not ready for that yet.” Bay did not know what else to do but nod, eyes downcast. He thought he’d gone past the ability to feel despair long ago, but somehow this new master revived it in him—kind acts, mad talk, dangling the things Bay wanted most in front of him, even though he knew they were impossible. One day at a time, he repeated to himself—his old mantra.

“Anyway, why don’t you go to sleep,” Magnus suggested again, backing off. “Shower, food, sleep—people feel better after those things.” He settled into a chair and propped his feet up on the edge of the bed, intently studying his mobile.

It was all deliberate—Bay was not fool enough to miss that. But he also knew he couldn’t play mind games with a mad man. So he laid back down, still facing his master who was pretending to ignore him, and closed his eyes.

He was some kind of warlord, Viking-esque really—which was rather odd, okay, he was blond, but he’d never been a big fellow, and he wasn’t a violent person, despite being in the Army. But now he was some kind of conqueror, sweeping across the peaceful kingdoms in his path like a farmer scything wheat, turning his back on his rapacious followers and facing ever forward, to the next land. He was searching for something, something he was desperate to possess, and he knew he was getting closer to it, and that proximity spurred him on, lashing his horse to slog through the mud, over the mountains that they said could never be breached, across the mighty rivers. He had never felt so driven and single-minded before, and there was an exhilarating clarity to it, a simplicity. He knew, vaguely, that his men admired him for it, admired him even as they feared him, even as they wondered how he could reject the generous offers of settlement that came his way, how he could face the mightiest armies without hesitation. And then, in a drafty medieval castle, once the property of a now-cowering king, he found—people whispered about a boy, well, a teenager, adult enough in this day and age, and as he turned in the firelight his eyes blazed blue with defiance—

“Bay,” Magnus whispered, stroking his cheek gently, and Bay opened his eyes with a sharp intake of breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” his master continued, as Bay’s eyes danced all around the cabin of the transport, orienting himself. “We’re just a few minutes outside of London.”

Bay took a deep breath and nodded, and Magnus stepped away and let him sit up. His dream had been so vivid, so immersive, it was hard to believe where he really was. Sometimes he wondered if this was the dream—nightmare, more like—and those other things were reality. Such thoughts were pointless, though, as long as beatings in this world still hurt.

“Slight change of plans,” Magnus announced, eyes glued to his phone. “There’s been another killing—another suicide, which is really a murder—and Lestrade wants me to come straight to the crime scene.” He looked at Bay. “Are you up for it?”

Bay had been stretching, and marveling at the lessening of the pain he felt while doing so—his leg was still horrible, of course, but other things were much better. Shower, food, and sleep were indeed a potent combination. “Sorry—crime scene?” he said to Magnus in confusion.

“Yes, another murder,” Magnus repeated impatiently. “You were an Army doctor, do you want to check out the body?”

Well, this was a new one for Bay, he had to admit that. “You’re going to attempt to solve the crime?” he confirmed.

“I will solve it,” Magnus asserted confidently.

“What about things like forensic evidence?” Bay asked him curiously, hoping he seemed interested and not skeptical. “DNA, fingerprints, security camera footage—you don’t have access to that, do you?”

Magnus waved this off as unimportant, and somehow Bay was not surprised. “That’s for building a case,” he scoffed, “for judges and lawyers.”

“Yes.”

“I’m interested in the answers, the truth,” Magnus proclaimed grandly. “Which can almost always be worked out using observation and logical deduction. Physical evidence is part of that,” he conceded, “but I don’t need a lab to tell me the white hairs on the murderer’s coat match the victim’s cat, it’s perfectly obvious from a glance there can be no other explanation, given the rest of the evidence.”

Bay nodded thoughtfully. “Have you any cats?” he asked. “Or other pets?”

Magnus frowned as if this was a completely bizarre question. “No.”

“Oh.”

“So you’re coming with me to the crime scene, then,” Magnus pressed. His voice still held a hint of question.

“If you like.”

“You won’t be unduly traumatized by a dead body?”

Bay considered it. “No, I shouldn’t think so.” Magnus clearly wanted him to come; so, Bay would do whatever he needed to for himself, to limit the trauma. He didn’t think it would really bother him, but these days he never knew. “Do you have my collar?” he inquired.

“Hmm?” Magnus responded distractedly, gazing at his mobile.

“My collar,” Bay repeated, touching his neck to make sure it wasn’t there. “I think you took it at the market.”

“Oh. Um…” This was clearly not on Magnus’s list of priorities. “I think I threw it away,” he remembered, dismissively. “Or left it with the salesman.”

“Ah. You have another?”

“What? No,” Magnus denied, texting furiously.

Bay felt something rising within him, something angry and scary. “You don’t have a collar for me to wear?”

Obviously he was interrupting Magnus’s text conversation and the man started to walk away, into the other cabin. “No. Forget about it. We’ll get one later.”

“I need a collar!” Bay snapped, forcefully enough that Magnus stopped in his tracks and slowly turned around to face him. Bay clutched the cane between his knees until his knuckles turned white, trying and failing to keep himself quiet. “Do you know what happens to uncollared slaves who get picked up by the police?” he asked, and tumbled on when Magnus didn’t respond quickly enough. “They’re held in jail for thirty days while the police advertise their picture. They won’t contact the owner, even if the slave gives them their information. If the owner doesn’t come to claim them—and get in trouble for letting them out uncollared—they’re sold at state auction.”

It was the most he had yet said to his new master and he was trembling by the end, frustration and rage and fear all mixed together inside him. A mad man who didn’t know the first thing about owning a slave, not even the parts that were beneficial to him, thus forcing Bay to pick up the keys to his own cell and hand them to his jailer—that went beyond mad to sadistic.

Magnus put his mobile in his pocket. Oh, serious now. He approached Bay cautiously, as one would a wounded animal. Did he think, for a moment, that Bay might be dangerous, unpredictable, perhaps not entirely sane? Good. Let him be the one to worry about that for a change.

Magnus reached for his face and Bay turned away, nauseous and terrified, so his hand dropped to his shoulder. “Bay, I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Can you calm down?”

“I—“ Bay didn’t trust himself to speak. Suddenly the transport beeped and the red light came on, indicating they were starting to slow and descend. Magnus swore under his breath and moved away, and Bay mechanically transferred himself from the bed to a seat and buckled himself in, glad of the distraction. Something would cause his new master to beat him, and the sooner Bay discovered it, the sooner he could avoid it in the future. He preferred his tests to be planned, though, and not emotional outbursts.

“I’ll find you a collar,” Magnus promised, beginning, absurdly, to dig through cabinets when he ought to be sitting down. “Are there any specifications? I might have one here…”

“It—it needs to go around the neck, somewhat tightly,” Bay offered, feeling slightly light-headed with the surreality of the situation.

Magnus was literally tossing things over his shoulder as he discarded them. “Oh, hmm, how about this?” he said triumphantly, pulling out something narrow and black. He wobbled into the bed as they hit some turbulence but hardly seemed to notice as he brought the object to Bay.

“What is it?” It was made of thin plastic, with connectors at the ends.

“No idea,” Magnus shrugged. “Does it fit?”

Bay looped it over his head and clicked the ends together at the front of his throat. “Yes, it fits.”

“Well, good.” Magnus grinned, clearly pleased with himself, which was oddly infectious.

“I still need a tag,” Bay was forced to remind him, and Magnus’s expression fell.

“What?”

“With your name and address on it,” Bay elaborated. He felt… better, knowing his master was trying to do things the right way. If there was a right way to own a slave, anyway. “So people know who I belong to.”

“Also required?” Magnus surmised.

“Yes.”

With a sigh he disappeared down the narrow hallway. They hit an air pocket and jolted a bit, and Bay heard a rather loud thump from the other cabin. He debated whether he should ask if his master was okay, and ended up staying silent long enough that Magnus returned. “Alright?” he checked mildly.

This was ignored as Magnus dangled a tag before him victoriously. Actually it was a business card with a hole jabbed in it, through which was threaded a piece of string. “Magnus Holmes, consulting detective, 221B Baker Street, London,” Bay read from the card. His mobile number was included as well.

It had to be the most slapdash and pathetic collar Bay had ever worn. But hey, it worked, and he looped the tag over the neck band. “Acceptable?” Magnus couldn’t help asking, slightly smug as though he’d done something quite brilliant. He tumbled into the seat beside Bay.

“Yes. Thank you,” Bay added, with more sincerity than he usually allotted. He wondered if he ought to apologize for his outburst. But the outburst had impressed upon Magnus the seriousness of the situation, and Magnus didn’t look like he was waiting for an apology. So he kept silent.

“I was going to suggest,” Magnus revealed as they landed, “that you pretend not to be a slave, but rather my forensically-minded colleague.” Bay turned to him slowly, trying to decide how serious he was. He feared he was very serious indeed. “On second thought—which I don’t usually bother with, by the way—I see that would not go over well.”

“No,” Bay agreed.

“Probably couldn’t pull it off, hmm?” Magnus added, a slight challenge in his tone.

Bay did not rise to that kind of challenge anymore. “Probably not,” he confirmed.

The transport set down somewhere—the windows in this cabin were all polarized and Bay couldn’t see where they were. But Magnus opened the door without hesitation and bounded off, pausing only to grab a long, dark coat. Bay supposed he would have to make do with his jumper.

It was dark out when he left the transport, the cool, moist air of London washing over him. Had he ever been to London? If Magnus had bothered to study his history he would’ve known Bay had spent years there, at uni and med school. The city held good memories for him, mostly. That might be about to change.

The scene was lit by police car lights and delineated by yellow caution tape, the sort of thing Bay had learned to shy away from. Magnus looked back over his shoulder at him then, tall, sleek, and imperious amid the chaos, and Bay kept limping towards him.

They were stopped at the yellow tape by an official-looking woman, whose expression contained nothing but displeasure. “Hello, freak,” she said to Magnus acidly, and Bay’s eyebrows rose fractionally in surprise at the disrespect.

“I’m here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade,” Magnus replied brusquely. His body language indicated this was the gauntlet he had to pass through first—unpleasant but necessary.

“Why?” the woman challenged.

“I was invited.”

“Why?” she repeated snidely.

Magnus’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “I think he wants me to take a look.”

The woman snorted. “Well, you know what I think, don’t you?” It was not something nice.

Magnus lifted the caution tape on his own and ducked beneath it. “Always, Sally.” He took a deep breath near her. “I even know you didn’t make it home last night.”

Sally’s face took on a look of mild alarm, and Bay knew Magnus had been correct. “I don’t—“ Then she spotted Bay and decided to use him as a distraction. “Er, who’s this?”

Despite the woman’s attitude, Bay distinctly heard Magnus’s tone brighten. “This is my new slave—“

“Not sure that’s a proper collar,” Sally interrupted, peering at it closely. Her gaze had glanced over his face so quickly, Bay doubted she’d even recognize him later.

“It’s fine,” Magnus declared. “His name is Bay. This is Sergeant Sally Donovan—“

“Oughtn’t even let you buy a houseplant,” Donovan judged, then turned to her radio. “Freak’s here. Bringing him in.”

Magnus lifted the tape for Bay, who ducked under it and followed his master and Sergeant Donovan towards the abandoned house at the center of police activity. Her behavior was what he was used to: very little regard, no direct speech or eye contact, unworthy of a name even. A thing, not a person. He’d probably have gotten more attention from her if he’d been a golden retriever. People at least liked to pat dogs on the head.

The contrast with his new master was obvious. Taking everything Magnus had said and done so far at face value, he’d been interested, respectful, considerate, and attentive, in his own eccentric way. Of course, Bay could never take anything at face value. But it was something to think about.

As they reached the pavement a man wearing coveralls stepped outside, the permanent sneer on his face deepening as he spotted Magnus. He had not made friends for himself on the police force, had he?

“Ah, Anderson,” Magnus greeted archly, glancing back at Bay as if to check the slave’s expression. He was being carefully neutral, as was proper. “Here we are again.”

“It’s a crime scene,” Anderson snapped, contempt dripping from his tone. “I don’t want it contaminated. Are we clear on that?”

Magnus took a deep breath over him, as he had with Donovan. “Quite clear. And is your wife away for long?” His question was a buildup to mischief, Bay sensed. Personally, he tried to avoid antagonizing the police, but free people had different privileges.

Anderson rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t pretend you worked that out,” he said, unimpressed. “Somebody told you that.”

“Your deodorant told me that,” Magnus claimed.

“My deodorant?”

“It’s for men,” Magnus noted innocently.

“Well of course it’s for men!” Anderson huffed. “I’m wearing it!”

Magnus moved in for the kill. “So’s Sergeant Donovan.” Anderson’s eyes shifted guiltily to Donovan and Bay pursed his lips, trying not to smirk. Magnus sniffed pointedly. “Ooh, and I think it just vaporized,” he went on cheekily. “May I go in?”

Anderson could not just let him leave after that, though. “Now look, whatever you’re trying to imply—“

“I’m not implying anything,” Magnus claimed, pushing past Donovan towards the door. “I’m sure Sally came round for a nice little chat, and just happened to stay over.” He turned back and raised his voice, attracting the attention of the other police officers roaming around. “And I assume she scrubbed your floors, going by the state of her knees!”

Anderson and Donovan blanched with horror while Magnus smirked smugly, before disappearing inside. Bay moved to follow, dropping his gaze and biting his lip a second too late, and Anderson glared murderously at him. “What are you looking at?” the policeman snapped menacingly, raising his arm.

Magnus popped back out. “He’s my new slave,” he informed Anderson coolly. “Touch him and you’ll regret it. Come on,” he added to Bay, who tried his best to get away from the angry pair.

Inside the house a not-unattractive man with a laddish air was pulling on a not-very-attractive coverall, and Magnus pointed to a pile of others on the floor. “You need to wear one of these,” he informed Bay matter-of-factly, who began the slow process of dressing.

“Who’s this?” the man asked curiously.

There was a pause instead of an answer, and Bay looked up to see Magnus giving the man a scoffing look, as if the answer ought to be obvious. It was not, apparently, and the man waited expectantly.

“My new slave,” Magnus finally said.

The man nodded with interest and actually made eye contact with Bay. “Oh, nice. What do you call him?”

“Oh honestly,” Magnus huffed, then added impatiently, “Bay, I call him Bay, of course.”

“Very evocative,” the man agreed, again looking at Bay. It was phrased almost as a direct compliment.

To Bay the atmosphere was very odd, though, and he looked uncertainly between the man and his master. It didn’t seem like Magnus thought an introduction was beneath him, more like it was somehow unnecessary. Unnecessary because they were all acquainted already.

“Slave, huh?” the man commented, and this time he talking directly to Bay. “That must have been interesting.” He seemed to expect a response, and Magnus was just going to let Bay dangle.

“It has its moments,” he finally said, deeply hesitant, and Magnus barked out a laugh.

“He doesn’t remember,” he finally informed the man. “Head injury.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. “From childhood? Blimey, he really has been a slave, then. Sorry, mate.” This was addressed to a very confused Bay.

“Sorry, have we met before?” He was beginning to wonder if Magnus was less mad than he’d feared—but if so, that would say something rather unsettling about his own memory.

“No, never,” the man assured him contradictorily, with a friendly smile. “Detective Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard.”

“He wasn’t born a slave, he got into it as an adult,” Magnus explained to Lestrade as Bay continued wrangling the coverall. “Med school, Army. Presumably an abusive childhood.”

Lestrade nodded soberly. “Well, you’re here now, right?” he offered to Bay, as if this was an improvement. “Shall we get on?”

“Upstairs?” Magnus assumed and Lestrade nodded.

The policeman led the way up a creaky circular staircase, he and Bay in full coveralls with shoe covers and latex gloves, and Magnus only with the gloves. The coveralls were definitely not stylish enough for him, contamination or not.

“I can give you two minutes,” Lestrade offered.

“May need longer,” Magnus tossed back without concern.

“Her name’s Jennifer Wilson, according to her credit cards,” Lestrade went on. “We’re running them now for contact details. Hasn’t been here long. Some kids found her.”

They entered a bare room on the third floor, lit only by police lamps that cast eerie shadows across the scaffolding poles supporting the sagging ceiling, and through the random holes in the walls. The building obviously didn’t see much traffic, at least not the reputable kind. In the center of the room lay a woman, facedown. She was clad all in pink, from her overcoat to her high heels to her fingernails—two of which were broken and ragged from scratching the letters RACHE into the wooden floor.

Well-dressed, money, free. What was she doing dead in a dump like this? Magnus was convinced it was murder, not suicide, and that this was the fourth one by the same person. A serial killer, preying on people who had every reason to think they were safe in this world, who had no reason to be wary. It made Bay terribly sad all of a sudden, thinking about the people who would undoubtedly miss this woman—and more selfishly, that no one would miss him, or even bother to investigate that much, if he was the dead one.

“Shut up,” Magnus demanded suddenly.

“I didn’t say anything,” Lestrade pointed out, startled.

“You were thinking. It’s annoying.” Lestrade glanced at Bay and rolled his eyes a little, as if saying, ‘Can you believe this guy?’ Bay made a noncommittal shrug in return.

Magnus approached the body slowly, eyes darting everywhere, but systematically. Bay could practically hear his mind clicking like a camera shutter as he took in one detail after another, unfazed by the larger picture. That was the secret, Bay supposed—one of them, anyway. He was still thinking about Jennifer Wilson, the woman in pink, dead in an abandoned house in Lauriston Gardens. Magnus was thinking about something else entirely—he shook his head slightly and then crouched down, running his hand along the back of her coat and studying his gloved fingers. He dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a small folding umbrella (surprisingly not pink) and examined it. Then he checked under the collar of her coat.

Bay glanced over at Lestrade and found his expression was attentive, mystified, but also oddly satisfied, like he knew Magnus was going to crack this one somehow, once he got going. He sensed Bay’s eyes on him and his face went more neutral, slightly concerned, and he glanced at the slave, who quickly went back to watching his master.

Magnus had pulled a small magnifying lens from his pocket and was examining the woman’s jewelry. After a moment he pulled her wedding ring off her finger and peered at the inside, then replaced it. He sat back, seemingly done.

“Got anything?” Lestrade dared to ask.

“Not much,” Magnus claimed as he stood. He ripped the latex gloves off and pulled out his mobile.

“She’s German,” Anderson stated from the doorway. Bay hadn’t noticed him appear there. “Rache, it’s German for ‘revenge.’ She could be trying to tell us something.”

Magnus closed the door in his face. “Yes, thank you for your input.” His attention was still on his phone.

“So she’s German?” Lestrade prompted helplessly.

“Of course she’s not,” Magnus declared. “She’s from out of town, though. Intended to stay in London for one night… before returning home to Cardiff,” he added with a smug smile, finally looking up from his phone. “So far, so obvious.”

“Obvious?” Lestrade clearly did not find it so. Neither did Bay. “What about the message, though?”

Instead of answering him, Magnus turned to the slave. “What do you think?”

Bay was slightly startled by the sudden attention. “Of the message?”

“Of the body,” Magnus clarified. “Go check it out.”

Lestrade huffed and Bay froze, but then the policeman nodded in exasperation and Bay approached the body. Not his usual sort of activity, forensics, but he lowered himself painfully to the floor beside her. He’d been a battlefield surgeon—no shortage of horror, combined with time pressure and often enemy fire as well—so in some ways this coroner thing was downright leisurely. Bay leaned down and sniffed at the woman, checked the skin on her hands, peered into her mouth, pushed an eyelid open.

Magnus was crouching on the other side. “Well?”

“Asphyxiation, probably,” Bay decided clinically. “Passed out, choked on her own vomit. Can’t smell any alcohol on her. It could have been a seizure, possibly drugs.”

Magnus’s eyes were shining in a way you really didn’t want to see when kneeling by a corpse. “Murder,” he intoned.

“Like… a bad hit?” Bay guessed. “Heroin cut with rat poison?”

“You have a delightfully dark imagination,” Magnus noted with approval, and Bay reminded himself to keep these extraneous thoughts to himself. His new master obviously had a warped sensibility.

“Magnus—two minutes, I said,” Lestrade broke in. “I need anything you’ve got.”

Magnus bounced up while Bay struggled to his feet in the background. “Victim is in her late thirties. Professional person, going by her clothes; I’m guessing something in the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of pink,” Magnus judged. “Traveled from Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night. It’s obvious from the size of her suitcase.”

“Suitcase?” Lestrade echoed faintly. Bay glanced around but did not see one in the room.

“Suitcase, yes,” Magnus repeated patronizingly. “She’s been married at least ten years, but not happily. She’s had a string of lovers but none of them knew she was married.”

“Oh, for G-d’s sake, if you’re just making this up,” Lestrade accused, and Bay was glad to know someone else was thinking this too, because it rather reminded him of the rambling phrases Magnus had rattled off in the market.

Magnus was affronted by this judgment, however, and pointed accusingly at the victim’s left hand. “Her wedding ring. Ten years old at least,” he described. “The rest of her jewelry has been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. State of her marriage right there,” he opined harshly. “The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside—that means it’s regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. It’s not for work—look at her nails. She doesn’t work with her hands, so what or rather who does she remove her ring for?”

He was spitting the words out rapid-fire now, mesmerizing like a magician setting up a trick. “Clearly not one lover—she’d never sustain the fiction of being single over that amount of time, so more likely a string of them. Simple,” he ended with a flourish.

“That’s brilliant.” Bay was slightly startled to realize he was the one who had spoken, as was Magnus. “Sorry,” he added quickly, dropping his gaze. Maybe… maybe his new master wasn’t exactly mad. Maybe… he was a genius. Geniuses were often eccentric. Didn’t necessarily mean they were bad. Bay shook his head slightly, telling himself not to let his guard down for cheekbones and cleverness.

Lestrade was asking about the Cardiff connection—Magnus pretended he thought it ought to be obvious, when he knew very well that it wasn’t. “Dear G-d, what is it like in your funny little brains?” he asked, glancing between Bay and Lestrade. “It must be so boring.” Well, modesty rarely accompanied genius.

“Her coat!” Magnus insisted. “It’s slightly damp. She’s been in heavy rain in the last few hours. No rain anywhere in London at that time.” Amazingly. “Under her coat collar is damp, too. She’s turned it up against the wind. She’s got an umbrella in her left-hand pocket but it’s dry and unused—not just wind, strong wind—too strong to use her umbrella. We know from her suitcase that she was intending to stay overnight,” he continued confidently—again Bay did not remember any such object, but maybe Magnus had spotted it downstairs—“so she must have come a decent distance but she can’t have traveled more than two or three hours because her coat still hasn’t dried. So, where has there been heavy rain and strong wind within the radius of that travel time?” He brandished his phone, showing a regional weather map. “Cardiff.”

“That’s fantastic.” Bay simply could not stop himself from speaking.

Magnus blinked at him. “D’you know you do that out loud?” he asked curiously.

“Sorry, I’ll shut up,” Bay promised hastily, gazing at his hands gripping his cane. The cane his master had insisted he have, so he could walk better.

“No, it’s… fine,” Magnus assured him, and his tone was odd, slightly surprised almost. Bay risked looking up. “That’s not what people usually say,” he admitted ruefully.

“What do they usually say?”

“P—s off,” Magnus revealed succinctly, and for a millisecond Bay smiled involuntarily before he got himself under control. Yes, he could picture that—like with Anderson and Donovan, spouting people’s private failings for all the world to hear, because he was too brilliant to not see them, and too mad to keep them to himself.

“Why d’you keep saying suitcase?” Lestrade cut in. He had clearly seen this performance before, too often to be wowed by every trick.

“Yes, where is it?” Magnus wanted to know, looking around. “She must have had a phone or an organizer. Find out who Rachel is.”

“She was writing ‘Rachel’?”

Magnus was obviously frustrated with the speed lesser mortals took to catch up with him. “No, she was leaving an angry note in German,” he snapped, deeply sarcastic. “Of course she was writing Rachel—no other word can it be. Question is, why did she wait until she was dying to write it?”

Magnus was still genuinely mystified on this point, it seemed, and Bay found himself actually trying to come up with a reason. Then he checked himself—he was a slave, he was here to attend his master, witness his feats, help irritate people by his mere presence. He was not here to participate, to solve this drug-related murder of a free woman in pink. How he could hope to contribute anything worthwhile anyway was beyond him.

“How d’you know she had a suitcase?” Lestrade persisted, obtusely.

“Back of the right leg, tiny splash marks on the heel and calf, not present on the left,” Magnus rattled off, pointing. “She was dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. Don’t get that splash pattern any other way,” he claimed, and Bay was ready to believe anything he said by this point. “Smallish case, going by the spread. Case that size, woman this clothes-conscious—could only be an overnight bag, so we know she was staying one night.” He took another look at the splash marks, in case they could tell him more miraculous things, like what she had for dinner or more helpfully, her attacker’s identity number. “Now, where is it?” he pressed. “What have you done with it?”

“There wasn’t a case.”

Slowly Magnus raised his head and frowned at Lestrade. “Say that again.”

“There wasn’t a case,” Lestrade repeated. “There was never any suitcase.”

Bay wondered if this was going to cause Magnus’s carefully-constructed assertions to come crumbling down around him, like the baseless hustling they were. He fervently hoped not, and was surprised at himself for that. But he knew his hopes didn’t influence anything in the real world, so he let them live this time.

Magnus sprang to his feet and threw open the door. “Suitcase!” he shouted as he clattered down the stairs. “Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house!”

The other police officers glanced at him, then each other, then their boss as Lestrade, with Bay limping behind him, stepped out onto the landing. “Magnus, there was no case!” Lestrade called down the stairs.

“They take the poison themselves,” Magnus was muttering to himself. “Somehow they’re induced to kill themselves.”

“Okay, fine,” Lestrade conceded, surprisingly. “And?”

“It’s murder, all of them. I love serial killers!” Magnus declared in delight, causing everyone to stop their activities and stare at him. “There’s always something to look forward to.” Bay arched an eyebrow, safely out of view, and Lestrade huffed, something more than exasperation.

“We’d like to prevent another one,” he reminded Magnus. “What are you on about?”

“Her case!” Magnus bellowed. “Come on, where is her case? Did she eat it?” he demanded sarcastically. “Someone else was here, and they took her case.” His voice dropped, as if he was just talking to himself. “So the killer must have driven her here, forgot the case was in the car…”

“Maybe the case is at her hotel?” Lestrade suggested. Pointless, really. “If she’d checked in—“

“No, she never got to the hotel,” Magnus denied immediately. Bay squeezed his way past Lestrade and started the slow, painful trip down the stairs to his master. “Look at her hair. She color-coordinates her lipstick and her shoes—she’d never have left any hotel with her hair still looking—“ He stopped talking suddenly, and Bay froze a few steps above him. “Oh.” Magnus’s eyes widened and his face lit up, like a child receiving the best Christmas gift ever. “Oh!” Then he clapped his hands in glee, obviously seeing something in his mind far different from everyone else.

“Um, Magnus?” Bay dared to venture, when he just stood there.

Lestrade leaned precariously over the rickety railing. “What is it? What?”

“Serial killers are always hard,” Magnus proclaimed, with an incongruously cheerful grin. He had dimples. “You have to wait for them to make a mistake.”

“We can’t just wait!” Lestrade refuted in irritation.

“Oh, we’re done waiting!” Magnus countered, racing further down the stairs. Bay had no hope of keeping up. “Look at her, really look!” Magnus insisted to them all. “Houston, we have a mistake. Get on to Cardiff—find out who Jennifer Wilson’s family and friends were. Find Rachel!” Then he reached the bottom of the stairs and disappeared.

“Of course, yeah,” Lestrade shouted down after him. Rather obvious, that part. “But what mistake?!”

Magnus popped back in for an instant. “PINK!” he shouted, and vanished again.

That seemed to be it, and with a sigh Lestrade shook his head and let Anderson and his team back into the room with the body. Magnus’s performance seemed to be somewhat routine to them—even suspect, Bay observed, although his reasoning had made perfect sense. To Bay, anyway, and what did he know? He continued down the stairs, hoping Magnus wasn’t getting too impatient with him.

A couple of police officers hurried up the stairs past Bay, seeing him no more than they would a post once they’d spotted the collar, and one of them actually knocked into him as he took the turn too wide. Neither even glanced back and for one horrible moment Bay thought he might fall, painful and humiliating, but he managed to steady himself.

Magnus’s explanations were tidy, but did seem to rely on the statistical likelihood of normalcy, Bay reflected as he dropped the coveralls from his shoulders. A good thing to rely upon, usually, but he’d seen plenty of weird exceptions himself, freak occurrences or personalities or the sheer randomness of life. He’d spent a long time searching for meaning, for purpose in everything that had happened to him, and he saw none—no brilliant conclusion to be drawn at the end of the chain of events. Maybe Jennifer Wilson’s ring was clean on the inside because she took it off every day to shower, maybe the mud on her legs was from being splashed by a cab, maybe her hair was mussed during a struggle with the other person, maybe her case was stolen from the crime scene by an unrelated hoodlum.

Magnus hadn’t mentioned how her makeup was streaked with tears; obviously she’d realized she was going to die. And yet she’d had enough time, presumably alone, to scratch those letters into the wood floor—wouldn’t the killer have stopped her, if they’d been together? And if she could scratch letters into the wood floor, could she not have called or texted for help? Bay accepted there was a killer; at the very least, someone who’d facilitated her death, someone who knew she was in trouble but didn’t get help.

Bay stopped on the street near the police tape and realized two things: for the last several minutes he’d been thinking critically, analytically, trying to solve an important problem, rather than focusing exclusively on his own misery and survival; and two, he didn’t see Magnus or the transport anywhere.

“He’s gone,” said a voice behind him, and Bay turned to see Sergeant Donovan standing there.

He was very conscious of his status as a slave whose master was not nearby. “Oh, yes, I’m to meet him at home,” he lied easily. “Ma’am.” He looked around, trying to get his bearings before he started walking.

“Didn’t look like he was coming back,” Donovan added pointedly.

Bay judged where the main road might be and awkwardly lifted the police tape to get past it. “No, lots to do,” Bay agreed with her lightly. “I’ll just pick up a cab on the main road, ma’am.” Because cabs stopped for slaves all the time.

“You’re new,” Donovan went on speculatively, and it would be rather unwise for a slave to ignore her and keep walking, especially when he didn’t know whose side his master would take. So Bay turned back to her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He’s never had a slave before.” Bay was not surprised to hear that, but he didn’t know what reaction Donovan expected. She gave him a critical once-over, eyes focusing on the cane, then on his face, but only as you might inspect a car. Bay knew instantly that she didn’t understand what appeal he held for Magnus. Frankly, neither did he.

“You know why he’s here?” she went on suddenly. “He’s not paid or anything. He likes it. He gets off on it.” She was crude, but not amused. “The weirder the crime, the more he gets off. And you know what?” Bay just stood there, accepting her rant. “One day just showing up won’t be enough. One day we’ll be standing round a body and Magnus Holmes’ll be the one that put it there.” Bay had a sudden flash that it was his body—though that was nonsense, because the police wouldn’t expend these resources for a slave death. “Because he’s a psychopath,” Donovan went on evenly. “And psychopaths get bored.”

For a long moment they just stared at each other. Bay didn’t get the sense she was trying to torment him, frightening Magnus’s slave because she was angry at Magnus himself. She was too matter-of-fact for that. It was almost like a warning, really—though she had to know there was precious little Bay could do about it.

“Donovan!” Lestrade called suddenly from the entrance to the house.

“Coming,” she replied, giving Bay one last look before walking away.

Bay stared after her, still flummoxed. Then he noticed Lestrade watching him, concern on his face, and Bay quickly turned away and began limping purposefully down the road. He didn’t need a detective inspector taking an interest in him, or realizing he’d been abandoned (temporarily?) by his master.

At least he knew his master’s home address and mobile number, thanks to the tag on his collar; but of course he didn’t have a phone of his own, and Baker Street was a long walk from here, if he could even find it. He knew London, but not at Google Maps level. A cab would be ideal—okay, he didn’t have any money on him, but hopefully once he got to 221B, Mrs. Hudson the housekeeper would be home and could pay.

Worst case, Bay would give the driver his master’s contact information, and the man could bill him. Obviously drivers hated doing that, though; it was one of the main reasons many wouldn’t even stop for lone slaves at all, because it wasn’t uncommon for masters to not trust slaves with money. That, and the somewhat apocryphal fear of being charged with helping a slave’s escape attempt. Masters could be very belligerent sometimes.

It then occurred to Bay to wonder if he should look at this as an opportunity, rather than an inconvenience imposed by his careless master. Unsupervised, new city… Bay squashed the thought right away. The police had seen him. Lestrade even seemed to know him, somehow. He might be able to take off his makeshift collar and join the homeless population for a while—but honestly, at his age and with his leg, that prospect was unappealing.

Donovan had called Magnus a psychopath. She and Anderson didn’t like him; there was some history there, something beyond just Magnus exposing their secrets and treating each other with mutual disrespect. On the other hand, Lestrade brought him in to help solve murders—he had professional value to him, at least.

And really, let’s not forget that Magnus had not so far done anything bad to Bay. He’d given him food, a shower, clean clothes, a nap. All his touches had been gentle, and sex hadn’t even been mentioned. He’d gotten Bay a collar when he asked for one, and a cane when he’d needed it. There had been several opportunities when even a reasonable master might’ve punished his new slave—but Magnus tried to see his point of view. Not a pushover, though, Bay decided, remembering his refusal to get him a drink at the market. Let’s not forget he was a bit mad, eccentric, brilliant, with several large gaps in his social education. He was mercurial—today it might be showers and hot tea, but who knew what tomorrow would bring?

Still, with the evidence he had to go on so far, Bay saw little alternative to sticking with his master. The thought for once did not fill him entirely with despair.

If he could just find the infernal man again.

As Bay limped past a public telephone, it rang. He glanced at it once in surprise but then kept walking, having seen enough crime dramas to realize it was probably meant for a drug dealer or something. He saw a taxi approaching and tried to flag it down—they slowed, saw his collar, and drove on. Another phone rang, this time a payphone inside a fast food place Bay was passing, but it stopped as an employee reached for it.

The phones gave Bay an idea at least and he ducked into the next payphone booth, quickly calling Magnus’s mobile number collect. It rang four times, then Bay was cut off—voicemail couldn’t accept his charges, he supposed. He decided to keep walking, and to try calling from each phone he passed—maybe the string of calls would intrigue his master enough that he’d answer at some point.

As he started to leave the telephone box, however, the phone rang. Maybe Magnus was calling him back already? Bay picked up the receiver gratefully. “Hello?”

“There is a security camera on the building to your left,” a man replied, who was not Magnus. “Do you see it?”

A chill went down Bay’s spine and he immediately dropped the phone and backed hastily out of the booth. He was not getting caught up in some creepy game—suppose that was the killer the police and Magnus were hunting for, who had seen Bay abandoned at the old house? Okay, that was rather fanciful, Bay told himself soothingly as he limped along as fast as he could. Much more likely it was something totally innocent, a phone call meant for someone else, and Bay glanced back, hoping to see a city worker at the phone, helping to resolve some issue with a sticky security camera. But the phone box was empty.

A large black car was rolling slowly along beside the walk, too slowly, and now it turned sharply to cut Bay off as he tried to cross the street. The back window rolled down to reveal an attractive young woman, who at second glance was wearing a necklace-like jeweled slave collar. This did not give him comfort. “Get in,” she told him.

Bay glanced around. “Who’s your master?” he asked. If she’d been sent by Magnus he needed to train her better.

“Get in,” she repeated instead, with some exasperation.

Bay ran through his options quickly. Late at night, not the best part of town, no free person would go out of his way to help a slave under threat. On the other hand, as someone’s properly-marked property, he did have certain ‘rights’—he was like a car that could call for help if it was being stolen. Someone might call the police after the fact, or at least notice what was going on—big, unmarked black car had to be suspicious, right? Wouldn’t do much good for Bay once he was in it, though.

Resolutely he turned and hobbled back onto the sidewalk. If they wanted him, they would have to take him.

“Dr. John Watson.” He froze at the woman’s voice, the name and title sounding so shocking and yet familiar to him. He tried to tell himself it didn’t mean anything, his birth name and career history were a matter of public record. Still, they’d managed to look him up so quickly, and with the phone thing, obviously they had resources…

Slowly he pivoted back around to face her and she gave him a pointed look. What kind of world had his new master dragged him into, he wondered futilely as he limped to the car door.

The woman scooted over to let him sit and as soon as the door was closed they were whisked away. The interior was spacious, luxurious; the woman well-dressed, nice nails, tapping on a smartphone authoritatively. “What’s your name?” Bay asked her. There were certain liberties that were supposed to be permitted slaves, when their owners weren’t around.

She gave him a slightly disbelieving smile, like he was being cheeky to expect an answer. He double-checked her throat; definitely a slave collar, twisted gold strands with an oval tag dangling from them, though at this angle he couldn’t read the writing on it. “Anthea,” she finally told him, which might or might not be true. Obviously she knew who he was, so he just nodded and turned to look out the window, trying to figure where they were going. He felt the tug to vanish mentally but resisted it; he needed to stay alert in this situation.

“What’s this all about, then?” he asked suddenly, startling himself slightly. He looked at Anthea. “Where are we going? Who’s your master?”

She gave him another one of those smiles that said he just didn’t get it; it made him angry, and he turned back to the window sharply, clutching his cane. She was just doing her master’s bidding. They all had to, to survive. But there were words for slaves who couldn’t spare even a drop of compassion for others in their situation, and they weren’t very nice words.

“Anthea,” she repeated and he looked over at her again. Her smile was different now, like there was nothing she was allowed to do or say that would help his situation, but she wished it could be otherwise. It was at once comforting and not.

“Beautiful,” he assured her, and she nodded and went back to her phone.

The car pulled into a warehouse, dim and nearly empty. Such wonderful things always happened in warehouses, didn’t they? Anthea nodded at Bay to get out when the car stopped, and as he did he saw a well-dressed man leaning on an umbrella standing before him. No point in asking which way to go.

In front of the man was a chair and he pointed at it with the umbrella. “Have a seat,” he suggested, his demeanor affable. Bay walked past the chair and stopped, gazing at the man with a neutrality that masked his assessment—something he’d learned years ago, when meeting new people who had power over him. “The leg must be hurting you,” he observed, more sternly. “Sit down.”

Bay remained standing, pushing the man’s temperament. “I need to get back to my master,” he stated, pointedly.

“Your master, who abandoned you at a crime scene, without even a proper jacket?” the man asked archly.

“I’m to meet him at home,” Bay maintained steadily.

The man’s eyes flickered disdainfully to the makeshift collar. “Well, at least he told you where it was,” he noted, though this was faint praise. He smirked a little more. “You don’t seem very frightened,” he observed curiously.

“Should I be?”

The man chuckled. “Well, I suppose not,” he agreed, surprisingly. “I know Magnus is terrible about maintaining the rules, so we might drop the façade for a bit, perhaps. He’s been looking for you for quite a while this time,” he added, more casually. “Where’ve you been?”

“Spain,” Bay replied, trying not to betray his confusion.

“Mm. What does he call you?”

“Bay.”

This made the man roll his eyes. “Sometimes I think he doesn’t even try,” he judged, which seemed rather insulting. “He was supposed to be Sherlock, which I grant you is a bit odd, but when he got old enough he changed his name to Magnus.”

He seemed to be waiting for a response. “Ah,” Bay acknowledged.

“Well, you know how he is,” the man dismissed. “Should be better now that you’re here.”

“I’ll certainly try,” Bay promised vaguely. He felt like he was supposed to be doing a scene in a play, only someone had given him the wrong script. Or no script at all.

“Yes. These murders should keep him happy for a while,” the man observed, as if this was a silly little quirk of Magnus’s. “We wouldn’t want him to get bored, would we? But really, you do need to keep a better eye on him, and not let him go wandering off on his own all the time,” he chided. “Otherwise what’s the point of you being here?”

Bay would really like to know the answer to that question himself. This was the third person who acted like he ought to know who he was, specifically, personally, as if they’d just been on holiday together. It was very unnerving.

“Have we met before?” Bay risked asking. It tipped his hand but he really wanted to know. “You, and my master, and Detective Inspector Lestrade”—he didn’t think it would hurt to imply that there was a police officer who was known to him—“all seem to think we’re old friends.” This was a bit cheeky; but the man didn’t seem concerned with that as he frowned deeply at Bay. Then he lifted his umbrella and jabbed Bay in the thigh.

The bolt of agony shot through him and Bay was unable to stand, his can skittering out from under him as he crunched to the hard floor, half catching the chair. He was angry at himself for letting the pain overwhelm him like that, he was used to pain, used to mistreatment. He could read people well and the man hadn’t given any sign that he was about to attack—which made him very dangerous indeed. Normally at this point he would’ve vanished into his own head, but something told him not to, not here with this man. If he did he might never return.

“Sorry,” the man said, as Bay struggled to lean against the chair. He sounded sincere but not overly distressed. “I needed to make sure you weren’t faking.” Bay gritted his teeth and crawled into the chair, and the man deigned to hand him his cane, evidently not afraid it would be used against him. “This does change things somewhat. Why don’t you remember?”

Bay tried to breathe regularly, in and out. “My master says I was hit on the head as a child,” he conveyed.

This man seemed to understand the significance of that, as Lestrade had. “I see.” He did a quick calculation. “Well, this is very lucky for you, Bay,” he claimed. “I think we can be of assistance to each other.”

“What?” Bay asked, not keeping his tone as subservient as he ought. He was getting tired of all these games, though—that was not his purpose, he was sure. He was just a slave.

“I’m interested in your master,” the man went on. “You can imagine he doesn’t have very many friends. In fact, he’d probably call me his enemy.” Bay’s eyebrows rose. “His archenemy. He does love to be dramatic.”

“Well thank G-d you’re above all that,” Bay bit out flatly.

He waited to see if the umbrella would rise again but the man merely rolled his eyes. “A bank account could be set up in your name, cash on demand,” he continued. “A meaningful sum every month. You look more like someone who would save it up, though,” he predicted.

“What for?” Bay asked, though he could well guess.

“Life can be difficult for a slave if your master neglects you,” the man said, trying for sympathy. They both knew he had absolutely no idea of what it was like to be a slave. “You weren’t born a slave… perhaps one day you’ll be free again.”

At this Bay took a deep breath and let it out, then stood, wincing as he did so. He’d have a bruise on his leg, he predicted. “No,” he replied firmly, and turned to go.

“I haven’t even told you what I want,” the man protested, slight disbelief in his tone.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bay dismissed. The man should’ve stopped with the offer of money. Offering his freedom, too—that’s when Bay knew he wasn’t sincere. Or at least that the plan was too risky for him—freedom had been dangled in front of him far too often for him to put his trust in it.

“You’re very loyal, very quickly,” the man observed from behind him. Bay decided he couldn’t rely on him for a ride and pointed himself in the direction of the warehouse exit, which seemed a very long way away. “You’ve had little reason to trust anyone in your life, John Watson.” The use of his real name made him slow for a moment, but then he kept going. “Can it be that you’ve decided to trust Magnus Holmes, of all people? Despite your lack of memory? How interesting.” He quite liked the sound of his own voice, apparently. Well, the warehouse did give it a nice echo effect.

“Bay,” he finally called, in resignation, and the slave stopped and turned. He was dismayed to see that he hadn’t gotten very far, and that the man crossed the distance between them quickly. “For Magnus the world is a battlefield,” he stated, and he seemed to be on about something else now, something that made Bay stop and listen. “Some might say you’ve seen enough of battles in your life. But I think you like it.” He smiled like a shark. “Welcome.” Abruptly he turned and walked away, twirling the umbrella as he went.

Bay stared after him for a long moment. What the f—k. Suddenly madness seemed like too simple an explanation.

The man was right about one thing, though. Sort of. Bay would not say he liked this vaguely sinister confusion, all the hints and assumptions and warnings—but he was finding that he didn’t fear it. Slavery, like the Army, was filled with terror and boredom—but this master was anything but dull.

Anthea opened her car door and got his attention. “I’m to take you home,” she announced, and Bay limped over to join her.

“You know the address?” he checked.

“Yes.” Okay then.

Bay let his mind wander as they drove—not vanishing entirely, just going over everything that had happened to him in the last few hours. It was more than usually happened to him. Donovan, Anderson, this unnamed man were all his master’s enemies; Lestrade might be more of a friend. Not a great ratio there. On the other hand, who told a slave their new master was a psychopath? Who offered a slave money to, presumably, spy on their master? Well, alright, people did, but not brand-new slaves, with elaborate setups involving payphones and unmarked black cars. Ludicrous. Was it because Magnus solved crimes? Perhaps he’d made enemies, the way a policeman might. This unnamed man could be some kind of organized crime boss. It didn’t seem to fit, though, not quite.

After a moment he realized the car had stopped. “This it?” He saw a sandwich shop and a dark blue door.

“Yeah,” Anthea agreed. “Bye.”

“Bye.” Bay maneuvered himself out of the car and watched it drive away before he limped up to the door, which was labeled 221B. It seemed like a nice neighborhood, though Magnus’s luxury transport would stand out; the sandwich shop would be convenient for meals, if his master allowed it. After surveying the area around him Bay gave the door a determined stare and rang the bell.

A few moments later he heard footsteps on the other side and straightened up, making sure his collar and tag were displayed. The door opened to reveal a sixtyish woman in a pink dress, wearing an apron with flour smudges on it. She seemed maternal but also lively, like someone’s cool grandma. “Hello, I’m—”

“Bay!” she greeted enthusiastically, welcoming him in. “Oh, I wondered what happened to you, dear! I was so worried when Magnus came back alone.”

He limped into the foyer, full of doilies and complicated clocks. “Magnus is here?”

“Yes, came back a little while ago,” she fussed. “Oh, you don’t even have a jacket! And poor dear, look at your eye.”

Bay appreciated the positive attention, but now he felt anxious to reconnect with his master. “Was he angry?” he asked her hesitantly.

She gave him a look. “Well, you can never tell with him,” she replied with some exasperation. That didn’t exactly comfort him.

“You’re Mrs. Hudson, the housekeeper, right?” Bay checked, just in case.

She gave him a fond smile. “That’s right, dear. He said you wouldn’t remember. It’ll be so nice to have you back, he can be such a pill on his own,” she added conspiratorially.

Bay sighed. “Sorry, was I here before?” he inquired, not very hopeful of getting a straight answer. “Everyone seems to think they know me already, but I just don’t remember—”

“BAY!” Magnus bellowed from somewhere up above.

Mrs. Hudson rolled her eyes. “You’d better go up and see him, dear,” she advised, and bustled away. Bay shook his head and started to climb the narrow staircase.

Magnus shouted for him three more times as he made his way up, the last as Bay was opening the door to the flat. “BAY—oh, there you are,” Magnus added in a normal voice. He was stretched out on the sofa with his shirt sleeves rolled up, pressing on one arm as he clenched and unclenched his fist and breathed noisily. There was definitely the air of a junkie enjoying his fix about him, and Bay raised an eyebrow. Drugs could perhaps explain Magnus, but not everyone else. “What took you so long?”

“The stairs.”

Magnus closed his eyes without responding and Bay limped closer. Then as Magnus unfurled his arm Bay saw he had not one but three nicotine patches stuck to it, which was what he was pressing on. Bay did not smell any smoke in the flat, so he surmised his new master was a non-smoker, at least now. Good news for his lungs. When Magnus didn’t do anything else Bay hobbled over to a chair and sat, starting to stretch out his leg.

“Bring me that phone,” Magnus suddenly ordered, gesturing vaguely away from himself, so Bay pushed himself back up and began to look around. It was not his place to question his master about the philosophical conundrums of life, like why so many people seemed to recognize him or why Magnus had an archenemy. It was merely his place to locate and fetch his master’s mobile for him, even when it had tumbled off the edge of his desk into the bin.

“Here,” Bay finally said, bringing the mobile over. Imperiously Magnus held out his hand, palm up, and Bay laid the phone on it. Magnus pressed it between his hands, which were steepled under his chin, and didn’t open his eyes. Bay waited a moment to see if any other orders were forthcoming. When they weren’t, he went back to a chair, this time one closer to the lit fire.

He was just about to risk poking around in the small kitchen—his master clearly didn’t want to be disturbed—when Magnus spoke again. “The murderer took her suitcase. First big mistake.”

“Oh?” Bay remarked, because he thought he should.

“It’s no use, there’s no other way,” Magnus murmured, more to himself. “We’ll have to risk it.” He held the mobile aloft, but without looking at Bay. “On my desk there’s a number. I want you to send a text.” Bay was already limping over to take the phone. He did not think to himself, why didn’t you tell me this when I was up before, because a slave couldn’t expect that kind of consideration from his master.

On the desk he found a luggage label with a phone number. “Jennifer Wilson?” he checked. The desk was rather a mess. “Wasn’t that the dead woman?”

“Yes. That’s not important,” Magnus told him, and Bay nodded to himself. No extraneous comments necessary. “Just enter the number. Are you doing it?”

“Yes,” Bay confirmed, lurching more into his eyeline.

“Have you done it?”

Magnus could clearly see him still typing—if he bothered to open his eyes, that is. “Yes.”

“These words exactly,” Magnus instructed. “What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out.” Bay started typing. “Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Please come.”

“Is that what happened?” Bay asked carefully. “You blacked out?” The transport could’ve brought him home automatically—

“What?” Magnus said suddenly. “No. No!” He popped up from the couch, energized, and stepped onto and over the coffee table rather than going around it on his way to the kitchen. “Type and send it. Quickly.” Bay continued typing, slow as he wasn’t used to it, and rather distracted by trying to keep his eccentric master in sight at all times. From the kitchen Magnus picked up a small pink suitcase, then placed one of the dining chairs in between the armchairs, apparently as a table on which to put the case. “Have you sent it?” he asked impatiently.

“What’s the address?” Bay checked, not wanting to get it wrong.

“Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Hurry up!”

“Okay. Definitely send it?”

“Yes!”

Bay did so, then watched his master open the slightly dingy pink suitcase and shuffle through its contents—clothes, a novel. Everything inside it was pink.

“That’s Jennifer Wilson’s case,” he realized, before he could stop himself.

“Yes, obviously.” Magnus looked up at him suddenly. “Oh, perhaps I should mention—I didn’t kill her,” he added dryly.

“I know,” Bay agreed, which earned him a frown from Magnus for his confident tone. “You were in Spain, buying me.”

Magnus clearly hadn’t thought of this. “Yes, an alibi, how novel!” he commented, turning the case sideways to examine the corners. Bay could see how some people—Donovan, for example—might like to assume Magnus was the murderer. Suddenly he stopped messing with the case and turned to stare at Bay owlishly. “You may sit,” he allowed, indicating the other armchair. Magnus was crouched rather precariously on the one Bay had been using before.

“Thank you.”

Magnus watched every movement closely. “How did you get back here?” he asked curiously. “Couldn’t have walked—taxi? Should’ve been faster. You’ve been in a car, a nice one, too nice for the police—” He broke off.

“Did you want me to tell you?” Bay asked politely.

Magnus waved his hand dismissively. “No, I know who gave you a lift,” he claimed. “Did he offer you money to spy on me?”

Bay supposed he should not be surprised by the deduction. “Yes,” he admitted.

“And your freedom, too, I’d wager,” Magnus suggested critically. “Did you take it?”

“No.” What else would one say, whether true or not?

“Pity, we could have split the fee,” Magnus said seriously. “Think it through next time.” He did at least seem to believe Bay. “He wouldn’t have freed you, you know,” he added more soberly, and Bay nodded along. “Not once he realized—” He tapped his head and Bay somehow knew this referred to his supposed memory loss, or whatever.

The bizarre game they were all enacting around him made him angry—slaves had enough to worry about without the mind-games masters sometimes liked to play. “Well at least he gave me a ride,” he said sharply, before he could stop himself, and immediately dropped his gaze to the cane he clutched.

There was a pause, and then Magnus suddenly flipped the pink suitcase shut and shoved it onto the floor off to the side. Bay closed his eyes and braced himself for the first blow, feeling almost relieved that it was finally going to start.

But then it didn’t; there was only Magnus, moving to the dining chair and putting his hand over Bay’s, rubbing his taut knuckles gently. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hit you. I’m never going to hit you.” His blue eyes gleamed with a frightening sincerity. “I love you, Bay. And I know you don’t understand that,” he added quickly as the slave looked away, stifling a sigh, “but it’s true, and I hope you will remember eventually.”

“What am I supposed to remember?” Bay demanded, too frustrated to be cautious. “You talk like we know each other, but I know we’ve never met. If it was just you I’d think you were mad”—Magnus smirked a little, faintly—“but at least three other people have acted the same way and I just don’t…” He trailed off hopelessly. “Did you—did you own me before, and I was injured and lost those memories?” he guessed desperately. He could see this was incorrect. “Or we met—at uni or—” It didn’t make sense; but honestly his life had stopped making sense a long time ago.

“I’ve been neglecting you,” Magnus stated regretfully. “I’m sorry. I just got so caught up in the case—” His eyes strayed to the pink suitcase, then snapped back to Bay. “But that doesn’t matter. Not like you matter. I shouldn’t have left you behind.”

Bay nodded. “Thank you.” He could see that in this situation, he needed to take what he could get.

“Do you want to know the truth?” Magnus offered. Bay could see he wanted to tell him. “You won’t believe it.”

“Give me something,” Bay requested, for what little it would be worth.

“You and I are—” Magnus interrupted himself, conveniently. “Well, what’s your idea? You must have one.”

“Honestly?” Magnus nodded, with great interest. “I guess you could be playing a game,” Bay hypothesized slowly. “Pretend you recognized me, just to mess with my head. All that nonsense with your archenemy acting like a cartoon villain—”

“No,” Magnus interrupted seriously. “Don’t underestimate him. He’s the most dangerous man you’ve ever met. But not our problem right now,” he added dismissively. “What purpose would this game, this… conspiracy against you serve?” He seemed genuinely curious.

“It might be entertaining,” Bay shrugged. “Rich people get bored.”

“I do get bored,” Magnus admitted readily. “If I were going to play psychological games, I would pick a more powerful mind than yours, though.” He seemed to mean this reassuringly.

“Well, then I’ve no idea,” Bay gave up.

“Alright, I’ll tell you,” Magnus proposed, again. He paused as if to give Bay time to object, but the slave just looked at him. One of these days he was going to vanish into his mind and never return—maybe that day was coming soon. “You and I are immortal beings of great power, who play out lives over and over in various settings. We have fairly typical childhoods, but then as we become more adult we start to become aware of our powers and memories of previous adventures—and of the pull we feel to find each other. We always want to be together. Oh, and other familiar characters often pop up, like Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson.”

“And your archenemy?” Bay guessed evenly.

Magnus nodded. “Every story needs a villain. Anyway, you really ought to remember all this by now, but you don’t because—”

“Ah, the childhood head injury,” Bay realized.

“Yes, exactly!” Magnus agreed with delight. “We’re generally rather hardy, but a head injury in very early childhood can delay the development of our memories—it has to be something deliberate, not just an accident.”

“Mm-hmm,” Bay replied. “Yes, that all fits together rather well.”

“Does it?”

“No, not at all,” Bay admitted freely.

Magnus gave a short sigh, having predicted this. “You might have dreams that are really memories of our previous lives,” he went on anyway. “Something historical, or sci-fi or otherwise nonsensical.”

“Dreams are often nonsensical,” Bay countered, a bit defensively.

“You probably heal quickly,” Magnus continued, “and there might have been times when unexplainable things happened to you—like surviving against all odds, or something impossible that you desperately wanted coming true.” He watched Bay’s reaction closely.

“I do seem to heal well,” he conceded, which he didn’t consider much of a concession. Some people just did. “But I’ve desperately wanted a lot of things,” he added more softly, eyes downcast, “and I’ve never gotten any of them.” Not through any means he considered unexplainable.

Magnus cupped his cheek with his free hand. “Things will be so much better for you from now on,” he said. “I promise. I’ll help you, and eventually you’ll remember everything.”

Bay cleared his throat, surprised at how suddenly it constricted. He wanted to believe this story—like a pauper pretending he was really an abandoned prince. Everyone, slave or free, had difficult times when they dreamed of being magically rescued, or able to escape and effect change in impossible ways. They were fairytales. Maybe they helped you cope sometimes but they were dangerous to rely on, addictive—like the daydreams Bay vanished into. They simply did not stand up to the harsh light of reality.

But here was someone telling him they were all true.

“You don’t believe me, do you,” Magnus observed. Bay shook his head slowly. “About any of it.” He shook his head again. He felt like he would be buying into a cult, that he would lose himself completely in the comfort of fantasy. It was so tempting, but his survival instincts held on a little longer, fingernails on the ledge. “Okay,” Magnus agreed simply, sitting back. “Well, why don’t we just get on with our parts in this world?”

“Okay,” Bay nodded readily, because what else could he do?

“I am a consulting detective, the only one in the world,” Magnus announced, “brilliant, eccentric, antisocial. You are my new slave who assists me in cases—your medical and military background is invaluable in the field, and because you’re a slave, you just have to put up with the misanthropic things I do.” He grinned, so cheeky and self-aware, that Bay chuckled involuntarily. “But I’m going to be a good master,” he promised sincerely. “I know you don’t believe that either. But you’ll see. Only, you might have to remind me of things sometimes,” he conceded, “or just take care of it yourself. Can we start with that?”

Naturally. Of course they could. They could all wear funny hats and clown shoes if he wanted. Magnus was the one with all the power here. “If you’re this—magical being,” Bay began carefully, and Magnus nodded readily, which said something right there, “why don’t you know the answer to this mystery already? Why don’t you just catch the killer right now?”

“That’s not as much fun!” Magnus declared, as if it should be obvious. “Do you go through a deck of cards, pick out all the best ones, and say that’s the hand you’re playing with? No, there’s no skill in that, no challenge, no interest.”

“But Jennifer Wilson might not be dead.”

Magnus waved this off. “She’s not real.”

“Oh.”

“Most people aren’t,” he asserted confidently. “They’re like… video game characters. Just filler.”

“Oh.”

“Well, there’s some debate about it,” he admitted, as if he couldn’t help it. “You usually disagree with me, in fact. It’s hard to get a definitive answer.”

“Oh.”

Magnus looked at him critically for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, it will take a while to soak in,” he judged. “Until then I think we should just try to solve the case. Maybe later I can do some ‘party tricks’ to show you my powers, but it’s possible that could cause a complete mental breakdown.”

“I’d like to avoid that,” Bay assured him.

“Right, then. The case.” Magnus retrieved the pink suitcase and placed it between them again, and Bay sat up attentively. “You were going to ask me how I found this,” he prompted.

“The dead woman’s missing suitcase, which you predicted the murderer had accidentally kept,” Bay reiterated, and Magnus nodded. “How, and where, did you find this?”

“I looked,” Magnus proclaimed. He was proud of himself, but there was a certain childlike aspect to it, in the way he eagerly presented the information to Bay. It was something about how because the suitcase was pink, the killer would be eager to get rid of it discreetly, so Magnus had found it in a dumpster near the crime scene. Bay nodded along and kept his eyes focused, but he was only half-listening; his thoughts were mainly occupied by Magnus’s earlier revelation. Something inside him wanted to trust that Magnus’s intentions were good, even if he was clearly missing a few connections in his mind. For Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson, perhaps he’d merely showed them Bay’s picture—plenty of time to do that from the transport—and talked him up so much that when he finally appeared in person, they felt like they knew him already. Lestrade in particular could’ve been humoring Magnus to a certain extent, too, since he was professionally valuable.

And the archenemy? Well, deliberately messing with your head—and Bay hadn’t forgotten the very real pain he’d caused him—seemed like just the sort of thing archenemies did.

“You got all that because you realized the case would be pink?” Bay said to Magnus on cue. His master appreciated a bit of disbelief and challenge, which highlighted his amazing achievements.

“Well, it had to be pink, obviously,” Magnus decreed, with false modesty.

“Yes, I see that,” Bay agreed. “Because Jennifer Wilson was so color-coordinated.”

“People often think it seems simple once I explain it.” Magnus’s tone was dismissive but his eyes strayed back to Bay.

“Making sense isn’t the same as being simple,” Bay countered, which seemed to be the right thing to say. “So, you’ve got the case—is there something about it that will lead to the murderer? Were there security cameras near the dumpster, or—”

This was the wrong approach. “What’s missing?” Magnus asked, indicating the suitcase. Bay was not going to dig through a dead woman’s clothes, so he just shook his head. Magnus was eager to tell him anyway. “Her phone! Where’s her mobile phone? There was no phone on the body, there’s no phone in the case. We know she had one—that’s her number there. You just texted it!”

Magnus seemed to really want an answer this time. “Maybe she left it at home,” Bay suggested. That was the kind of normal bad luck that happened to people.

Magnus shook his head, though. “She has a string of lovers and she’s careful about it,” he insisted. “She never leaves her phone at home.”

“What if—” Bay began, and Magnus leaned forward eagerly. “What if she was killed by one of her lovers or someone connected to them, or her husband—” From the way Magnus slumped back with a defeated, dramatic sigh, Bay realized he was on the wrong track. “No?” he guessed dryly. “If one did have a string of lovers, and one did forget one’s phone—”

“She was killed by the same person as the other three!” Magnus insisted, as if this should be obvious.

“What links the deaths?” Bay asked reasonably. As previously established, he wasn’t really up on current events. “Are they all thirtyish Welsh women in pink?”

Carefully, as though humoring a crazy person—which was rather ironic—Magnus took Bay’s hand and rubbed it gently. “Darling, I think it would be better to stay focused on her phone,” he suggested, with such obvious restraint that Bay couldn’t help a quick smirk. Right, Magnus already knew who’d killed her, of course—so he said—and it was the same person who’d killed the others, and not a coincidence or a copycat.

“Her phone, yes,” Bay agreed quickly. “She didn’t leave it at home?” Magnus shook his head quickly. “Perhaps she lost it once she got to London, or it was stolen by someone”—Wrong track again. “—stolen by some unrelated person who found her body first—”

“What else?” Magnus pressed.

Bay wished his master would just tell him, since he obviously had a specific answer in mind. He tried to think, not logically but Magnusly—Magnus had him send a text to Jennifer Wilson’s phone, a text that would be meaningless to most people but the murderer would think he’d failed—

“Did I just text a murderer?” Bay sputtered, a chill going down his back. Naturally Magnus wouldn’t think twice about doing something like that.

In fact, he grinned manically as Bay realized this. “Maybe she left it when she left her case. Maybe the murderer took it from her for some reason,” Magnus speculated. So she couldn’t call for help, was Bay’s grim guess. “Either way, the balance of probability is the murderer has her phone.”

Bay glanced at the phone, which he’d left on the arm of his chair in case Magnus wanted it back. “And what good does texting the murderer do?” he asked, feeling suddenly quite weary.

He still jumped when the phone began to ring. The Caller ID showed only an anonymous caller, and he looked over at Magnus questioningly, desperately hoping his master would not make him answer.

“If somebody unrelated had the phone, they’d ignore a text like that,” Magnus predicted. “But the murderer…” He paused dramatically, and the phone stopped ringing. “…would panic.”

Bay relaxed as the call ended. “Someone who stole the phone from what they thought was a corpse might panic, too,” he suggested. “Or conversely, someone who was trying to return the phone to its owner.”

“Unlikely!” Magnus declared confidently, popping out of his chair. Bay was not sure Magnus was really the right person to comment on what was likely among normal people. Then again, serial killers were not normal, either.

Magnus had pulled his long black coat on and was heading for the door. “Are you going to call the police?” Bay wanted to know, in case they would be showing up any moment.

“Four people are dead,” Magnus reminded him unnecessarily. “There isn’t time to talk to the police.”

Yes, that made perfect sense, in Magnusland, Bay decided. “But you’re talking to me,” he commented neutrally.

“Of course!” Magnus replied cheerfully. “Well?”

Bay blinked at him. “Sorry, well what?” Obviously Magnus wanted him to go out as well, but frankly Bay was not interested.

“Well, come on,” Magnus encouraged, hovering by the door. “I think better when I talk aloud. And Mrs. Hudson’s taken my skull again, so—”

Bay did not move to get up. “Sorry, what?” As if he could hope for a sensible explanation for anything from this man.

“My skull? I like to talk to it sometimes. Oh, you weren’t here before,” Magnus realized suddenly.

“No,” Bay agreed.

“I usually keep a skull on the mantel, but sometimes Mrs. Hudson takes it,” Magnus explained.

“A human skull?” Bay asked faintly.

“Well, yes.” As if any other kind of skull would just be silly. “He was a friend of mine. Well, not really,” Magnus added after a moment’s reflection. “So, come on.”

Bay sat back in his chair, deliberately turning away from his master. “I’d prefer not to.” Dangerous, very dangerous. Somehow with Magnus it seemed less so, but every master had their breaking point.

There was a pause, and Bay felt a chill settle in his stomach. Was it going to be now, finally? “What? Why not?” Magnus questioned.

“I’m tired, and I’m cold, and I’m hungry,” Bay announced defiantly. “I’d prefer to stay here.”

This was the point when the master marched over and cuffed him in the ear, saying he didn’t care what the slave preferred. And indeed, Magnus strode back into view and reached a hand towards him.

“Stop flinching every time I touch you!” he ordered angrily, cupping Bay’s cheek. “I’m not going to hit you, I told you that.”

“Sorry, it’s involuntary,” Bay dared to respond, making eye contact briefly. He didn’t seem angry, unfathomably.

Magnus let out a sigh, and caressed Bay’s cheek with his thumb until he relaxed marginally. “I’ll get you a warmer jacket,” he finally promised, “and we’re actually going to a restaurant. You can eat whatever you like there. Will you please come with me?”

His blue eyes were so earnest. Could someone fake that kind of sincerity? No, not fake, that wasn’t what mad men did—they believed, fully and completely, in every moment, no matter how much they contradicted each other, or reality.

Maybe it was time for Bay to go a little mad as well.

“Yeah, sure, of course,” he heard himself saying, and Magnus’s brief grin dazzled him.