Archive of Our Own

People talk about dreams like they're what we should aspire to. Like they're our innermost wishes. “Follow your dreams” they say. Follow them straight down Happiness Boulevard, to number 4, Contentment Place, where the fairies play baccarat on Tuesdays.

I don't have much patience for that sort of thing. Or for dreams.

But lately I've had this one, aggravating dream. Serene, but aggravating anyway. Like mining so deep down into frustration that you hit a vein of tranquility. that's all I can I ever remember about it. That, and this voice calling my name.

“Fakir?”

A voice I hadn't heard in a long, long time.

“Fakir.”

Calling to me out of the past, like... like—

“Fakir!”

“Shut up and let me finish my metaphor, birdbrain!” I snapped—at least that's what I meant to say. I had a suspicion from the way my lips were moving it came out more like “Shupn lemme finim mmmmm!”

Something grabbed my arm with thin little fingers and shook me. I shoved back—overbalanced. I hung in the air for a second, floating back towards sleep. Then I hit the floor, hard, shoulder-first, bringing a wooden chair down with me. A cascade of papers poured down on my head, waterfall like.

“Mr. Fakir!” a high pitched voice gasped and started brushing the papers aside. I was too stunned to do more but try to wedge my eyes open, looking up into a cloud of white. Then all of a sudden the veil was yanked aside and—

My eyes went wide open. My jaw dropped right off its hinges, stubble and all.

Kneeling over me, hastily brushing papers aside and stammering apologies was a girl with blue eyes and bright orange hair in a long ponytail.

I'm not especially proud of what I did next but, well, look there's not much point to telling a story if you're going to lie about it, so...

“F-Fakir? You're crushing me!” she gasped.

I held on to those bony shoulders like they were a life preserver. “It's you—it's really—I thought I'd never—” I managed to get out, choking on an uncharacteristic surge of emotion.

Suddenly, I was sure I was out of my mind. With as much speed as I'd pulled her into the hug I thrust her away, at arm's length—looking her over, certain my eyes were playing tricks on me.

But no. It was Duck, my Duck, every spindly, freckled inch of her.

“Wh-wh-what was that for?!” she said, her face bright red.

Her reaction lit a spark of anger for some reason. I snapped, “Don't give me that! What are you doing here?”

“Waking you up so our new client doesn't see you drooling on your desk!” she huffed.

“Client?” I blinked, and for the first time looked around. My tired eyes swept over the cramped office, too-bright sunlight filtering through venetian blinds onto a room with a sickly fern, a row of file cabinets, and, towering over me, a tired, saggy-looking desk. My fingers toyed with the fibers of a yellowed, cigarette-burned carpet that was all the impression I could afford to make.

“Yes, a client—and she's really pretty and fancy and rich looking so please tell me you're not hung over. We haven't gotten paid in months and I'm afraid those old men in the park might not think it's as cute if I beg them for breadcrumbs a second time!” She started hauling me to my feet. I let her, limply, without doing much to help. My office had a small window set into the door with a logo on it. A big not-so-friendly eye glared out in both directions. Above it ran the words “Knightly Investigations: R. Fakir, Principal.” Below, the door read: “A. Duck, Secretary.”

Memories came flooding back—my detective agency, working late nights delving into the dirty little secrets people tried to keep from their lovers, their employers, themselves. Sitting in an old car, watching some schmoe through binoculars, drinking cheap coffee, then dragging myself back to the office or my room at the Schmied Arms and collapsing. And of course, there was my intrepid secretary—

I looked at her again and it was like vertigo. That was wrong. Everything I'd just remembered. I'd never seen this room before; I'd never been a private detective. I lived in an old walled town, not a grimy city.

And Duck shouldn't be a human girl anymore. She'd given it up to free us all from a mad writer's “tragedy.”

So then what was this? A dream? The throbbing in my arm suggested otherwise.

No, not a dream. Dreams don't start with you waking up, with a client waiting at the door. It was too logical of a beginning—dreams start as if they'd always been going on.

This was more like...

A story.

Ms. Androy stepped into my office with all the grace and cool of an ice skater—and a look in her eyes like I was the ice under her blades. She wore a short, tight skirt that showed a lot of leg and a trenchcoat that wanted to know what you thought you were doing looking at 'em. Her lips were painted deep red. Her eyes were red too, not so dark. Black hair fell in dark waves against her shoulders. Even her hair looked like it could drown a man.

“Rue? What are you—?” I caught myself. Let them talk first, that was a must for meetings like this.

“I don't recall our being on a first name basis, Mr. Fakir,” she said frostily, taking the seat opposite mine like she wanted to minimize contact between her and the chair.

Duck had come trailing in behind her like... well, like a duck after its mother, and was making desperate “don't ruin this” eyes at me. I shrugged.

“All right, Mrs. Androy. What brings you here?”

“I think my husband may be cheating on me. I want you to follow him.”

I blinked. “You certainly get right to the point.”

“My time is valuable. As, I imagine, is yours,” she shot a doubtful glance at my shabby suit.

“To the point then. This husband of yours—”

She passed me a photograph taken from a newspaper, from which a familiar face beamed out from under a crown of thick white hair. I'd figured as much. “Mytho,” I muttered to myself. Whoever was orchestrating this, they hadn't wasted any time getting the gang back together.

Rue shook her head. “Honestly, that nickname. You're as bad as the people who kept calling him 'Prince' after he did Prinz und Rabe last year.”

At this, Duck leapt to her feet. “I saw that! Well, the ads for it anyway. They were everywhere! You're married to the Prince?”

This time I was the one to glare at her for silence. And I wasn't alone. Duck backed down into a chair—I suspect more to do with Rue's scornful look than mine.

“My husband, Siegfried ,” she said, stressing the name, “is the star dancer of the Goldielocks City Ballet, yes. He has practice today ending in just over an hour. If we keep this meeting to a reasonable length, you should be able to—what is it you people say?--pick up his tail then. I would like you to follow him and get confirmation of my suspicions.”

My eyes narrowed. An affair didn't sound like the Mytho I knew, but then again who knew what the rules were in this crazy place. “You don't seem very interested in the prospect of your husband's innocence. What's led you to suspect infidelity?”

Rue's face flushed with emotion. “My reasons are my own, Mr. Fakir!” Usually that meant trouble in bed, but I declined to point it out. “And believe me, I would love nothing better than to be proven wrong. I just don't dare hope for it.” Her eyes met mine. If you've ever seen two brick walls stand across the street from each other and not move, that summed up our exchange nicely. “You will, of course, be rewarded handsomely either way.”

I looked down at the picture in front of me. Mytho smiled back up. He wasn't the cheating type, no. But something was definitely going on here. Someone was having fun with me.

No, worse. Someone was having mystrery with me.

And I was going to find out who.

“I'll take the case,” I said. “My fee is $100 per day, plus expenses, and $500 at the end if I get proof.” Rue gave me something between a smile and a grimace which reminded me, “Also, I take $300 up front.”

“I'll write you a check.”

“I'd really prefer cash.”

A look of mock-affront crossed her face. “What, don't you trust me?”

I shook my head. “Never have.”

That threw her. “You say some odd things, Mr. Fakir.”

“That's what they tell me,” I said, taking her money.

When she was gone, I turned to Duck, who looked like she was about to burst with enthusiasm.

“That was so cool! 'That's what they tell me'! It was just like something The Crow would say! How do you do that?”

Great, I was already acting like I belonged here. I grimaced. “They just come to me. Now, Duck, I've got a really important mission for you, okay?”

“Really?” She lit up, then caught herself and made her face serious. “Right. I'll take my junior agent sidearm!” She pulled a pistol out of a pocket.

“Careful with that!” I snapped, flinching a little. “What lunatic let you have a gun?!”

“I-it only shoots pellets,” she said.

“Oh.” My heart started beating again. “Well look, I need you to take this money,” I gestured to the C-notes I'd taken.

“Yes?” My assistant put on her serious face again, ready to receive her secret, vital orders.

“And go get the car out of the impound lot.”

It's all well and good to make some big declaration like “the game is afoot!” or “I was going to find out who,” and sweep out of the office in a flurry of determination and flapping trench coats, but when you're actually sitting in a beat up La Salle across the street from a bakery, waiting for some poor schmuck to make up his mind between muffins, it's hard to feel like you're doing much of anything at all.

It was strangely familiar territory for me, following Mytho around and keeping an eye on him. Unsettlingly so. There'd been a time when this kind of surveillance was all in an afternoon's work for me. A different me. I wasn't a big fan of that guy.

We drove and waited in silence, waiting for something, anything to happen.

I turned over what I knew in my head. I seemed to be the only one who remembered anything about our other lives—not so surprising in Duck's case, but Rue was usually pretty sharp about that sort of thing. Was it because I had Drosselmeyer's blood, and with it, some of his power? I had been able to resist him before, though it hadn't been fun.

And who could do something like this in the first place? Had Drosselmeyer found a way to come back again? If not him, someone new? I knew for a fact I wasn't the only one of his bloodline still alive, could someone else have inherited his power?

And what was the point? I glanced at my companion, sitting still and uncharacteristically silent, with a pensive expression looking all wrong on her face. Why bring us all back together right when we'd finally gotten things how we wanted them?

The same thoughts bounced around the inside of my head until I thought I was going to scream.

“Would you say something already?” I burst out. Duck started, looked at me with confused blue eyes. “Usually by now you'd be whining about being bored or fiddling with the radio. I can't concentrate with you sitting there all quiet and sullen so just—say something!”

She looked a little taken aback. She turned back to the windshield before saying. “I was just thinking, poor Mrs. Androy.”

There were plenty of words I'd use to describe Rue: “poor” was not one of them.

“You know the gig,” I growled. “We've worked adultery cases before.”

“Yeah, but she's so perfect and pretty and cool. How could anyone cheat on her?” she said huffily.

“I wouldn't be too quick to believe that story either,” I said. When she looked at me, puzzled, I went on. “In our line of work, you've always gotta look for who has something to gain. Who benefits? Well, if she's really happy in their marriage, even if she thinks he might be having an affair, what's she got to gain by confirming her suspicions besides a lot of heartbreak? No, she wants something. Maybe she's got some guilt of her own. Maybe she wants leverage for a divorce or something. But it's something she's not telling us.”

Duck looked at me for a minute. “She could just want to know the truth.”

I scoffed. “People don't care about the truth. They spend all their time trying to run away from the truth. Look at the ballet—where's the truth in people swooning and dying and falling in love and expressing it all through dance?”

Duck sank back in her chair, thoughtful again. “I care about the truth,” she said sullenly.

I felt a bit bad in that moment. I wasn't even sure why I was being so contrary. “Well... you're the exception,” I grumbled. “But you probably wouldn't pay some hired dick to watch your lover go drop off his library books either.”

She flushed a little on the word lover. “You really don't trust much, do you?”

I trust you, I almost said, but stopped myself. I had trusted her, in another life, enough to risk everything on her. I didn't know if I could say the same in this one.

Besides, it didn't seem to fit my character.

“I trust that people act out of self-interest,” I said, after a moment.

As if she'd read my mind, Duck stared me down and said, “Okay, then what do you get out of bringing me along on a tail?”

The question hit me right where I didn't want to be hit. I shifted against the door, grabbed the handle. Managed to keep a wry grin on my face. “Today? I get to skip out early and leave you the boring stuff,” I said, stepping out of the car. “I've got some sleuthing around to do.” Enough of this waiting around. Enough playing by someone else's rules. If the story wanted me to detect, I was gonna do it on my terms.

“What? No fair!” Duck said, leaning over the armrest.

“If you think this is unfair, you don't want to see what I'll do to you if you dent my car,” I said. “Use the radio if you need me,” I patted the receiver in my jacket. “And for God's sake, don't lose him.”

If you ever want to see what dust and dirt looks like on mahogany, you don't have to go any further than the city Library. It was a grand building, big enough to inspire awe and silence—which I supposed was the point—but it'd fallen into disrepair and dinginess. But I didn't mind much about the squalor.

It was time to figure out just what sort of story I was dealing with.

That was the plan, anyway. But as I stepped through the front doors, into the big room with the vaulted-ceiling, I heard a voice form inside the stacks. A voice that made my blood run cold.

“If you want to hear a story, come gather round.”

I didn't waste any time. I ran for the source of the noise, my hand diving into my coat. I rounded a row of shelves, whipping my gun from its holster. “Hold it right there, Drosselmeyer!” I yelled.

A dozen children stared back at me, eyes wide. One of them began to cry.

“Er...” I stammered.

“Now, now, don't be afraid,” said the same voice I'd heard before. An old man in a rocking chair patted the crying child on the head. He had long white hair, and a little goatee trimmed improbably to look like a fleur de lis. His voice was soft and melodious—a voice made for pulling people in. “This knight is here to help with our story. Isn't that right?”

I bristled at the word knight. Leaning in close enough to whisper I said coldly, “I'm not playing part of your story, old man.”

He looked back at me with those wild eyes of his, that always seemed to be smirking in amusement. “Then I'm afraid you'll just have to wait. I've promised the children.

Storytime lasted the better part of an hour. I used the time to rummage through the stacks, looking for mystery books. The library was large and rambling, but I found the section I wanted eventually. From what I could tell, most of the tough guy detectives started out by playing dumber than they were, or more crooked. They let the criminals think they had the upper hand, all the while outsmarting them to strike at the last minute.

Well, I had the first part down.

I waited for Drosselmeyer to show up at the front desk. When he finally did, he met me with an almost lazy expression, as if I hadn't pointed a pistol at him moments before. “Now then,” he said. “What can I help you with?”

“You can start by telling me what you're up to.”

He gave me a look so innocent I wanted to arrest it for perjury. “Well, rearranging the shelves mostly—oh and we have a benefit gala coming up, have to clean up and decorate for that—”

“Don't play stupid with me!” I barked. I was getting good at barking. Like a dog that spends all day chasing its tail. “You're writing this, aren't you? What, beating you once wasn't enough?!” I kept my hand on my pistol, safetly tucked into my coat.

“I honestly haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about, Mr...”

“Fakir.”

He nodded, his facial hair bobbing up and down. “Well, Mr. Fakir, I'm afraid whatever it is you think I've been writing, it's quite impossible.” He held up one hand to his mouth, bit on his index finger, and—pop!—the whole hand came off, leaving him only a stump. “On the plus side,” he said around his mouthful of fingers, “I don't have to worry about papercuts.” With a series of complicated head motions, he reaffixed hand to stump.

“Never stopped you before,” I muttered, but even I didn't sound convinced. If Drosselmeyer's automatic writing apparatus still worked, then why hadn't he used it before now? And why the change in venue? The man breathed fairy tales. This place was anything but.

He didn't offer a response, as if he knew I wasn't looking for one. “All right,” I said at last. “What do you know about mysteries?”

“Ah, fascinating genre,” said Drosselmeyer. “What is it about them that makes them so prone to repetition, ad infinitum?”

“What do you mean?”

“Surely you've noticed,” the old man said, steepling his motionless, artificial fingers. “Mysteries always start the same way. A crime—a murder, an indiscretion, a theft—happens, or is threatened. The detective is contacted. He searches for clues. He does the seemingly impossible by seeing through lies or finding something no one else can, or by just being thick-skulled and willing to take a beating.” I swear he winked at me here. “And in the end, the detective solves the case, order is restored. He goes back to his life, the survivors move on with theirs. Until something happens again.”

“What's your point?” I asked. I wanted something I could use to get out of this, not a philosophical treatise.

“Well, it's such a conventional genre. The client always lies, and the detective always believes her, or pretends to. Why do we keep reading them if they all play out the same way? It's like a windup toy. We disrupt the status quo—kill someone, have some priceless object stolen—just so we can watch our hero set everything back to normal. What a waste of time, eh?” He grinned at me.

“I'm beginning to think so,” I said.

Drosselmeyer laughed, a dry old man's laugh.

Right as I was seriously considering popping him one, a startlingly loud voice rang out from beside me, “The Library is closing-zura!”

Shocked and a little defeaned, I whirled. “Uzura?!” The little girl—well, animated puppet, but let's not split hairs—with the green hair was standing next to me, looking stern.

“Ah, you've met my assistant?” said Drosselmeyer.

“Uzura it's me,” I said, not really sure why I was trying. Maybe if she recognized me it would be proof that Drosselmeyer knew more than he was letting on.

“No exceptions-zura!” Uzura said, shoving me towards the door. She was strong for a little wooden puppet thing, and I found myself stammering protests all the way to the front steps, where the door was slammed in my face.

I gave a frustrated grunt. So much for that plan. From all I'd learned from Drosselmeyer, he might as well have told me, “something unexpected is going to happen.”

The radio tranceiver in my pocket buzzed with static. “Fakir?” Duck's voice came through.

I fished it out of my coat and answered, “Yeah?”

“Would Mrs. Androy put another tail on her husband?”

I thought about it for a second. “Probably not if she doesn't want him to notice. Why?”

“I keep seeing this black car.”

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. “Where are you?”

I ran the 12 blocks to where Duck sat in the driver's seat of the car, gripping the wheel tightly and wearing a worried expression like she was trying to eat the inside of her cheeks. She jumped when I tapped the glass.

“Where's Mytho?” I asked between panting breaths.

She pointed towards an upscale clothing store, whose sign read “Der Hut Hut.”

“And the mooks in the car?”

“The guy by the entrance is one of them.” I looked and saw a Armadillo in a fedora standing next to the entrance of the store. His expression was just grim enough to suggest he wasn't there to shop for a new hat. “I lost sight of the other, but they were really tall.”

I cursed under my breath. “All right, we're going to have to get creative. Let's go.”

“Y-you want me to come with?” she stammered, and clutched the steering wheel.

“Quit messing around! Since when have you not gone dancing head first into danger?” I said.

“D-dancing?” Duck gave a nervous laugh. “You know I've got two left feet.”

I looked at her blankly.

“I mean, Fakir I'm not—you know me! I'm too mild-mannered and—”

“Forget it,” I said. “I'll do it alone. I don't know why I asked.”

Stupid. Why did I even let myself think that this Duck was the same one I knew underneath. Everything around me was flashing giant warning signs to keep my guard up, and I was walking around wearing a bullseye on my back.

Well, no more.

I made for the entrance, passed the guard Duck had pointed out. I recognized him, but tried not to let it show as I headed inside. A few raindrops fell on my bare head. At least I looked like I had an excuse for stopping in.

Contrary to its name, Der Hut Hut didn't sell only hats. Racks of suits of all makes and most colors stood all around me, each suit crowned with its own unique hat. I swept the room with a look. No hulking figure stood out above the racks—if I could trust Duck to get that much right.

I spied Mytho halfway down one of the aisles, dressed as fancy as if he were a store mannequin. It wasn't such a great look on him. It lacked a cape.

I came up behind him and pressed the barrel of my revolver into his back, keeping it in my pocket. “Keep quiet, but don't be afraid,” I whispered. “You're not in any danger.”

Mytho let out a breath, but his hair was too voluminous for me to have any read on his expression. I clamped a hand firmly on his shoulder to make sure he wouldn't bolt. “If I'm not in any danger, why do you have a gun?”

“Okay I lied,” I admitted. “You're in danger. But not from me.” I let the gun go. “We do need to get you out of here.”

Mytho did something funny then—he let out a guffaw, and swung around to throw an arm around my shoulders. “Oh you old joker!” he said loudly. For a moment I wondered if he somehow remembered, but then he said, “These places always have a back door for staff.”

“Perfect,” I said, a little testily.

We made our way towards the back of the store at a leisurely pace, with an arm around each other's shoulders and phony smiles plastered on our faces. “My wife sent you didn't she?” he whispered.

I blinked for a moment. “I always forget how smart you are.”

“Sir, I feel I should be insulted,” he said. “But for some reason I'm not.” I felt a shrug under my extended arm. “Honestly that woman thinks I need a babysitter. You know, if she thought it'd keep me safe, I'm quite convinced that she'd tear out my heart and keep it in a little jewelry box in her drawer? Wives, eh?”

I looked at him, astounded. “You don't know the half of it, pal.”

We slipped past the dressing rooms and out the back door. It opened onto a grimy alley, a narrow band of gray sky well overhead. It was an ideal place for am ambush, so I checked both ways a couple times before waving Mytho out after me.

“All right, keep moving,” I said. “I've got a car just out in front, so if we hurry—”

Something landed above me with a resounding, metallic thunk. I looked up just in time to see an impossibly long arm lash out for my head.

Fuzzy purple balls burst in my vision. I reeled, slipped in something, fell against the slushy pavement. My confused vision picked up a brown, furry creature with huge arms and a protruding muzzle, from which darted a length of think pink tongue, lying flat against the fire escape overhead. I recognized it—or, I should say, her. Anteaterina. Though she hadn't had the brass knuckles when last I saw her.

Reaching down between the bars, she seized Mytho about the arms like he was a child and yanked him up over the railing and into a crushing bearhug. It was all so fast he didn't have the chance to scream before she was scrambling back up the fire escape.

I struggled to push myself up from the ground. A tan ball rolled up to me, unfolded arms and legs and a hat, and grabbed my collar. It jabbed my stomach a couple of good ones with its clawed hands.

“You've been a pretty nosy guy,” said Armadillan, yanking me forward so that we were face-to-snout. “You know what happens to nosy guys?” He kneed me somewhere in the vicinity of my kidney.

“No,” I said. “But I've got a hell of a case of vertigo, so if it's a pun I may actually vomit on you.”

“They get dead!” he snapped, drawing a gun (from where? I didn't think to ask). “That literal enough for you, Mr. Tough Guy?”

I was contemplating a couple of things as the armadillo cocked the gun and made to introduce it to my face. Like whether dying in a story was one way to get out of it (past experience suggested no). And whether mouthing off to a man who was beating you up was really such a good idea after all. And... well, let's just say that things I should have done differently was becoming a theme.

“Halt!”

The voice was loud in the tight quarters of the alley. I wasn't in much of a position to turn to look, but Armadillan helpfully tossed me against a wall, and my head lulled in a mostly positive direction.

A shadowy figure stood at the entrance of the alley, something long and drapey blowing about its legs. “From the darkness, a lone hero emerges!” said the figure. “A champion of justice, haunting the dreams of the wicked! I am... Dame Tutu!”

The figure stepped forward.

She wore a long, tan coat with little bits of bronze trimming, under which, improbably, she was dressed exactly like a ballerina, tutu and all. Her hair was bright orange and her eyes were blue through the holes of a feathered mask.

Injuries notwithstanding, I managed to groan. “Did you steal that intro from a radio program?”

“What? Hey—n-no! I didn't! I—”

The speech, plus the response, provided ample time for Armadillan to make up his mind to just shoot her and get it over with. He fired a burst of three shots at the newcomer.

“Dame Tutu,” as she called herself, produced a fan as if from thin air and snapped it open. Sparks flew as the bullets glanced off.

She looked just as surprised as anyone that it had worked.

Armadillan fired another shot for good measure (Tutu deflected it as she had the others) and decided it was time to ball up and roll for the other end of the alley.

“Hold it!” Tutu shouted after him, throwing her fan. It flew true, but bounced off the fleeing crook's hide. He vanished around the corner.

Tutu ran—well, ballet-ran—to me. “Are you okay, Mister—?”

“Oh come on, Duck, you're not fooling anyone.”

“I'm not? I mean—who is this... 'Duck...?'”

I shook my head. The universe rewarded this exasperated gesture by spinning wildly until I felt like I really might vomit.

“Oh, no, Fakir! Hang on, let me—”

That was all I heard before passing out. But despite the fact that I'd lost Mytho and was rapidly losing consciousness, right then I felt just a little bit like smiling.

I woke up in the car, sore all over and with a feeling like someone was smothering my face in cotton balls. Which wasn't all that far from the truth.

“I don't need this many bandages, idiot!” I said pulling off some of the more ambitious wrappings around my nose and mouth. “I got hit on the top of my head.”

Duck—back to normal now—didn't even do me the courtesy of looking chastised. She threw her thin arms (carefully) around my shoulders and squeezed.

“You're alive!” she gasped. “I was so worried!”

“Yeah it's a miracle,” I said. “More to the point what's this 'Dame Tutu' stuff? What happened to 'Princess?'”

She let go, looked at me like I was a wiener dog in a clown suit. “'Princess Tutu?' That sounds really dumb.”

“Well...” I couldn't argue. “Anyway do you remember life outside this story?”

The dog had just pulled out a cigar and started telling war stories. “Are you okay, Fakir? You did get hit pretty hard.”

I frowned. How could she still be Princess—whatever, Tutu if she didn't remember anything outside the story? For the first time I noticed the pendant around her neck. The pendant that shouldn't have been there. The one that had been the final piece of the Prince's heart, that had let Duck become Princess Tutu in the first place. The one that Drosselmeyer had given her to set his story in motion.

“Where did you get that?” I said.

“This?” she held it up—and it shone purple, not red, in the light. Not the same pendant at all. “I don't know, it just sort of... showed up. And I knew how to use it?”

“So... so you've been using magic to secretly fight crime all this while?”

“Yep!”

She didn't have to look so proud about it.

There was a banging on the window. Outside stood an irate Rue, one fist raised with no regard for the mostly-undented frame of my car. “Mr. Fakir, where is my husband?”

I looked at Duck. “Oh, I um. Called the client,” she said.”

“Well done,” I said, genuinely impressed.

We got out of the car, me with a little difficulty, and explained the situation to Rue (with a few details changed to spare my pride and Duck's secret magic powers).

“And you just let them get away with him? Mr. Fakir, I recall hiring you to follow my husband wherever he went, not to try some harebrained heroics and lose his trail!”

“You knew this might happen,” I snarled, acting on a hunch. She looked away. Bingo. “Well, as far as I'm concerned, anything that happens because a client lies to me, they deserve. So you can take your case to the police for all I care—”

I was shooting for a reaction, and I got one. “No!” she gasped. “No police—”

“Then tell me what's really going on here,” I said. “Or I'll go to the cops right now.”

She glanced down at her feet. The woman didn't like to lose, but worry won out in the end. “All right,” she said at last. “Some days ago I started finding these.” She produced several folded sheets of paper and handed them to me.

I studied the top sheet. A neat cursive hand had written all down the page in neat lines:

The Prince looked around the dressing room in concern, as if sensing a presence. But there was no one there. He shivered and turned back to his warm-ups.

It went on like that for a while. The other pages were all similar. I gave Rue a look asking her to explain.

“They're... extremely detailed accounts of what my husband has been doing. Things nobody should be able to know unless they were standing right beside him all day long, written like some novel.”

Suddenly I knew what I was holding, and I almost wished I didn't. I looked back down at the pages in disgust. Pages of the story. The one we were all living that very moment.

“I feared... I don't know what I feared. I thought someone must be stalking my husband,” Rue went on.

“But you didn't get any demands.” It was more a statement than a question. Rue nodded, looking like she was about to break down in sobs. Duck rushed over to comfort her.

I rolled my eyes. “So why didn't you just say that in the first place?”

Rue shook her head. “I... I thought that if I told you, you might not take the case, not knowing what you were getting into.”

“So instead you counted on me to improvise based on half-truths? Some caring wife you are,” I said.

Rue actually did let out a sob then. Duck shot me a glare before turning back to comforting duty.

“I don't know why I did it... I just... felt like I had to,” Rue managed to say, wrestling her voice back under her control.

The client always lies... Drosselmeyer's words floated back to me.

Damn. The story again. I couldn't even really be mad at her.

“Look,” I sighed. “The way I see it, you did hire us to follow your husband. I guess we have a responsibility to see it through.”

Rue looked up at me. “You'll still help?”

I didn't even bother with the sass, I just nodded.

“All right, Fakir!” said Duck. “What do we do first? Find out who wrote the note?”

I weighed the paper in my hands. The handwriting was familiar, but in a generic, unplaceable sort of way. I held the paper up to the light and looked for a maker's mark. “GP, 20lb, 92 bright,” I said.

“Well, if you can tell the make, then let's get going! We can track down the manufacturer and—”

“Duck, we have 500 sheets of this back at the office.”

She paused. “So that's—”

“The most common kind of paper in the city, yes.”

She looked downcast, and Rue not much better. Heck, I didn't feel like dancing myself. We were right back at square one.

We had been having our little chat beside a payphone. Suddenly, it rang.

“I'll get it!” said Duck, helpfully, and ran to pick up the receiver. “Hello, payphone speaking! I mean, this is Ahiru Duck, but I'm at a payphone on, um...” Abruptly she stopped and turned pale.

“Mrs. Androy?” she said. “I-it's for you.”

Le Chat Dansant was one of those basement bars that you had to walk down a flight of stairs to get in. Inside it was all wood paneling and the smell of beer. A man in the corner picked at a piano with some moderate success.

“If you ever want to see your true love again, come to Le Chat Dansant at the corner of 32 ^nd and Hillock at 6 o'clock. Come alone. I will be wearing a red carnation.”

That was all the man on the other end of the line had said before the connection went dead.

I glanced at the wall clock. 5:30. Right on time. Duck should be arriving in another 10 minutes or so, and then we'd be in place in case something went south.

Of course, we couldn't be sure that whoever placed the call wouldn't recognize us, but it seemed like less of a risk than playing into this creep's hands. And so far, nobody had bolted at the sight of me.

I dragged myself to the bar, still feeling the effects of the blow to my head, and settled in.

“What can I get for you?” said the barkeep.

It was Mr. Cat.

Of course.

“Whiskey,” I said, trying to sound like I had a throat made of gravel. “Straight. In a clean glass,” I added, feeling the slightly greasy veneer on the bar.

Mr. Cat nodded, licked his paw twice, and began rubbing it around the inside of a cup. “You look like a troubled young man. Marriage problems?”

“Money problems, more like,” I said.

“Ah.” The line worked just as I'd figured. In two seconds flat, I had my drink and the barkeep had turned his attention elsewhere.

I took a sip and immediately recoiled from the burning in my mouth. This is what those would-be tough guys drank in these stories? No wonder they seemed impervious to pain!

A few moments passed. The door opened, and I heard someone almost trip three times on the way to the bar.

That would be my backup.

“What can I get you, young miss?” I heard Mr. Cat saying.

“I'll have a dirty martini,” Duck said, from where she'd perched at the other end of the bar.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as the cat made her drink. Duck stared at the glass for a moment, and as I watched in growing horror—unable to intervene—downed the entire thing in one gulp.

She started hacking like someone had replaced one of her lungs with bees.

“S-s-smooth!” she managed to gasp out between coughs, bracing herself against the table.

Idiot. Every eye in the bar was on her—that was not what we were supposed to be doing.

Mr. Cat laughed. “Young lady, if you don't build up your tolerance, you will never be able to get married!” He said this last part like a delcaration of war and immedately began clawing at something under the table, making hissing sounds.

Between the two of them they caused enough of a spectacle that nobody but me seemed to notice when Rue walked in. She strode to the center of the room, and stopped.

So did the piano music.

The pianist sprang up, his mop of purple hair bouncing as he turned around to show a red carnation pinned to his shirt. He practically bounded to the center of the room.

“Autor?” Rue said in shock. I echoed the sentiment.

“My lady—” He reached for her hand.

She gave it to him. Straight in the stomach.

“ Where is my husband? ” Rue demanded, socking the purple-haired pianist a good one across the Jaw. “What have you done with him?”

Between punches, the poor sap managed to gasp out, “I-I don't know!”

“Liar! You said—”

“I said come if you want to see your true love again. Your true love—that's me!”

There was a pause. Rue grabbed the guy about the shoulders and started shaking him, “We went on one date !”

Our host the barkeep was evidently getting considered about the condition his pianist might be in if this went on. He reached under the bar for something.

I raised my colt, pointed it at his chest. “I wouldn't.”

“Yeah!” Duck was next to me now, toy gun in hand. “You might have nine lives, bub, but he's ten bullets!”

I looked at her. “Duck. This a revolver. He can see that it's a revolver.”

Mr. Cat raised his hands and backed away from the bar just the same. “I'm down to five lives anyway,” he said.

Behind us, the drama had gone on unabated. “What do you mean someone told you to call that number!?” Rue demanded.

I turned just in time to see a crumpled Autor hand her a couple of blood-spattered pages (though they might not have been before he handled them). Rue frowned at the pages for a second, kicked Autor in the shin, and handed them to me. “Maybe you can make sense of this, Mr. Detective.”

I grunted and read. There was the phone call, described just as it had happened. I skipped down to where one page read:

Fakir took the page and began to read. On the page it read:

Fakir took—

I threw that page as far away from me as I could, without reading another word. There was a real possibility I might be stuck reading that page forever if I hadn't.

But on the next page—something useful.

“I know where we have to go,” I said.

Rue gave me a dubious look. “Because a piece of paper says so? Doesn't that strike you as a little suspect? Or... is there an adjective for walking directly into a trap?”

“Look,” I said. “I can't explain. You're going to have to trust me. These are... reliable. Probably the most reliable things in the whole universe.”

That raised an eyebrow. “But you'd believe me if I said I smelled,” I paused, grasping, “parchment mites that only come from one kind of parchment that only one place in the city has. Even though you have no idea if parchment mites even exist or if you can smell them.”

Rue considered this. I gave her my best earnest look. “Do you trust me?”

“I trust you, Fakir!” Duck chimed in, helpfully. “Even if you are acting crazy.”

“I do too,” Rue said after a moment. “I just don't know why.”

“It's a mystery,” I said, motioning us toward the door.

As we were on our way out, Mr. Cat glanced at the unconscious Autor, then turned to nod at Rue. “Young lady, with a right hook like that, you,” he paused, smiled. “Will be able to get married.

“I already am,” she said, and with one last, disgusted glance at Autor, swept out into the night.

“So you're sure that my Siegfried is in here somewhere?” Rue said.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“And you don't think the whole thing is a setup?” Duck asked.

“Oh, it's definitely a setup. Stay on your toes.”

“Like I have a choice in these shoes.” It was true, Duck's customary waddle did not translate well into heels. Watching her walk was a bit like watching a flamingo on a hamster wheel.

We were all dressed up in our Sunday best—well, I was dressed in Mytho's Sunday best, a smart black suit with too-narrow shoulders squeezing in on me. Duck was wearing a long blue dress that made her hair pop out like a bright lick of orange fire. Her pendant had been accessorized with a gold necklace that called the eye to the curve of her neck, up to her face. She looked different. Beautiful. Elegant. As long as she stood still.

Rue—well, from what I could tell, in this story Rue was always dressed for a formal occasion.

I checked that my gun was safely tucked into Mytho's jacket and wasn't making me look like I was smuggling a ham under my arm. All set. I nodded to the others.

We were finally going to get some answers.

Where better to look than our public library?

Rue's invitation for two (plus guest) got us past the gate, as if it was made for that purpose. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if it was.

Just as Drosselmeyer had promised, the main atrium been lavishly decorated for the Friends of the Library benefit. Snooty rich couples wearing more money that Duck and I were likely to see this year on one arm danced and laughed and hob-nobbed to light classical music being played by a band up on the second floor balcony. No sign of Mytho yet. Or Drosselmeyer. Or Uzura.

There wasn't a plan. All I knew from Autor's page of the story was that we came here next. All we could do was keep our eyes peeled and hope we could outsmart or outfight whoever was behind all this when the time came.

Rue broke off immediately, mumbling apologies and “so nice to see you”s to various upper crust types as she disappeared into the crowd.

The detective in me wanted to plant his feet with his back to a wall and watch. But I was getting sick of listening to that guy.

“Dance with me,” I muttered to Duck.

“Wh-wha?” She flushed and stumbled a little on her heels.

“Idiot. We should blend in,” I pointed to the couples dancing a little distance from us, my own cheeks feeling a bit prickly.

“Oh, right.”

We stood there for a moment, neither of us speaking, before I finally grabbed Duck's hand and pulled her onto the dance floor. Her hand felt warm in mine, and almost delicate, but after a second she clasped mine back just as firmly.

A waltz began to play. I cleared my throat a couple times, gave a little, stiff bow, and we were off.

We weren't going to win any prizes. I mean, between my injuries and Duck... being Duck, we were more than a little clumsy. But we did all right, under the circumstances. I hesitate to use the word “magical,” since the last time we had danced together it actually was magical, but—

Duck gasped, “Sorry!”

“Would you just like to stand on my feet like a baby penguin ?” I snapped at her.

“I said I was sorry! Jeez!” Her head snapped up to look at me. Perspiration and a slight flush had brought out the freckles on her face through Rue's expertly-applied makeup, and with a few hairs frizzily hanging out of place, she looked more like the Duck I was used to. We stared at each other for a second, our faces very close.

“I—” I began, when something tapped my shoulder.

Then something jabbed me in the back.

“Come with me,” said Anteaterina, clamping a long, muscled arm on my shoulder. Armadillan hovered on our other side, blocking escape. “And don't make a fuss. We are in a library.”

They took us to a back room and bound our hands together. My gun was seized. They even got Duck's toy pistol. Finally they shoved us down a long stairwell into a dimly lit, wide-open basement, where rows and rows of silent, forgotten shelves stretched into the gloom. The rough handling and worry about where this was all going would have been bad enough, but Duck would not stop nervously chattering about what the mooks should have said when they grabbed us.

“You could have at least made some sort of a dance pun like 'Your dance card is all full' or I don't know 'Can I cut in?' Except that works better if you have a knife instead of a gun—”

“Breathe, Duck,” I said.

She did.

“Yes, you'll want to enjoy that while you're still capable,” said an all-too-familiar voice.

Drosselmeyer stepped from the shadows. “Put them over with the other.” He gestured with one of his stiff, false hands to where Mytho stood in the center of a cleared space, his hands tied to a rope that was looped around an overhead rafter. The two mooks shoved us over towards him and left us there, keeping a couple of pistols trained on us.

“Hello again,” said Mytho when he saw us. “I wish I could say it was good to see you.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I wish—”

“You're really handsome in person!” Duck blurted out. Mytho and I turned to glance at her, while she took an interest in her feet. Drosselmeyer cleared his throat.

“So glad you could join us for the final act, Fakir, Duck,” said Drosselmeyer, grinning gleefully.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “What's your game this time, Drosselmeyer?”

“My dear boy,” said the mad writer. “I would think you'd know by now. Tragedy. These trappings,” he gestured to his suit, the gunmen on either side of him, “are just a... style experiment, if you will.”

“Long way to go just to kill us,” I observed.

“No no no, you think too small,” said Drosselmeyer. “I'm not here to just kill you. I'm going to write you all back where you belong . Into my original grand tragedy. Then I'll kill you.”

“Fakir, what is he talking about?” said Duck.

“It's complicated,” I said, then, to Drosselmeyer. “Wait a minute, you can't write anything! You don't have hands, and I broke your writing apparatus.”

Drosselmeyer sighed. His wild tendrils of white hair drooped as if they, too, were disappointed in me. “Honestly, I'm not sure what I was thinking making you a detective,” he said, pulling one hand off in his teeth. “I have another set of false hands. One of them is holding a pen.”

“Oh,” I said.

Drosselmeyer extended his stump and, on cue, Uzura came running up out of the shadows with a false hand in her own. The hand clutched a long quill in its motionless fingers.

“Uzura, no!” I shouted. “Do you really want to go back to that story! To how things used to be?”

“Uzura's just following the script, zura!” she said cheerily, attaching the hand to Drosselmeyer's stump.

“Thank you, Uzura.” Drosselmeyer flexed his arm, checking the fit of the hand. “Now, I'll just go to my writing desk and finish this troublesome story for good! Honestly, characters who don't stay put in your roles, the lot of you.” He turned and began to walk towards a desk with a single candle burning on it off to one side of the room.

“Not so fast!” A shot rang out. The end of Drosselmeyer's pen exploded in a cloud of white fluff.

It was Rue, standing in the stairwell, gun drawn, lips drawn in a tight line. She looked ready to kill a man, even by her standards. She swung the gun up and to the right and fired another shot. The rope binding Mytho's hands to the ceiling snapped.

“You okay, darling?” she called.

“Of course, my love!” he answered. “Though I confess to being very confused what exactly is going on here.”

“So am I,” said Rue. “But I don't care anymore. You! Old Man. Against the wall.”

“Oh, I don't think so,” said Drosselmeyer, raising his empty hand. He frowned at it. “I do miss snapping my fingers. Oh well.”

He gave a long, shrill whistle.

“Look out!” I called to Rue. Another gunman appeared in the stairwell behind Rue, and grabbed her shoulder. She ducked him, but more men were spilling out of the shelves, all wearing the same generic-looking clothes and sunglasses, and holding all-too-lethal looking machine guns.

“See what you've made me do?” Drosselmeyer seethed. “I've had to break out undeveloped characters! I haven't even had time to come up with backstories for them yet!”

“Duck, now would be an excellent time to do that thing we discussed,” I said.

“Applying for a PI license?” she said, confused.

“The other thing!”

“Oh, that! Um,” she frowned down at her chest. “Usually that just sort of happens, I don't really do anything—”

“Then just happen already!” I yelled.

The pendant on Duck's chest exploded with purple light, painfully bright to look at. The mooks all around the room raised their hands to shield their faces, even the ones wearing sunglasses indoors.

When the light faded, Duck seemed taller, calmer, more confident. And she was wearing a trenchcoat.

The gunman were staring to peer between their fingers.

“Siegfried!” Rue called from across the room, where she was judo-throwing the man who'd snuck up behind her.

Mytho stared at Duck for a moment, blinking in confusion (or possibly to clear the afterimage of her transformation), then turned and darted for his wife.

I was looking at her too. She smiled a benevolent smile at me. “Please dance with me, Fakir.”

“Anytime.” I leaned in so that our tied hands could clasp together. The world exploded in gunfire. We leapt, a long, high leap that carried us up to the support beams.

Below, bullets flew everywhere. Rue called for Mytho and blasted away at Drosselmeyer's Gunmen. Mytho ducked and rolled under a burst from a machine gun.

Somewhere an erratic burst of gunfire was accompanied by a shout of “Eat lead, mother-zura!” and shortly thereafter by Drosselmeyer's “Uzura! You're not even aiming at anything!”

It was towards that sound we flew through the air, bullets flying all around us, harmlessly bouncing off of Duck's coat that enveloped us like a protective mantle.

Drosselmeyer ran, bent over and hobbling for his desk, a desperate look in his eyes. His hand with the pen came crashing down on the sheet of paper there.

We came crashing down on his hand.

To be fair, Duck's heel did most of the damage, but I compensated by giving the old man a solid kick to the chest. Something I'd been dying to do for ages in any case.

With a wheezing grunt he collapsed back on the floor, his right hand splintered from our landing.

“Give it up, Drosselmeyer!” I yelled. “You can't win this!”

All of a sudden, everything went quiet. No, more than that, it went monotone. Colors faded to dull gray and black. All except for myself, Duck, and, across the room, Mytho and Rue who were picking themselves up from where they'd hunkered down in the carnage.

“Now what's all this then?” A voice rang out, echoing.

Drosselmeyer's voice.

The clock on the wall bulged outwards, then exploded as the old man's face shoved its way through. Just as I remembered him, ridiculous hat and all. “I'm not taking the blame for this plot hole-filled contrivance! Honestly! As if I would even write a mystery in the first place!” He snorted. “Repetition is the death of creativity.”

I stood there, blinking. “But if you didn't write this, who—?” I broke off.

Memories flashed through my mind:

Somebody was wasting no time getting the gang back together.

We've got 500 sheets of this back in the office.

You've got to look for who has something to gain.

Who benefits?

Rue didn't want us to find out that her husband was cheating. She benefitted from our following him.

So who benefits from this story existing in the first place?

Who benefits from the four of us trying to unravel a mystery?

I turned to where I'd left the fake Drosselmeyer spread out on the floor, knowing what I would say.

It was like looking into a mirror. A purple, translucent, floating mirror.

“A... heart shard?” asked Duck.

“You remember?” I said, looking at her.

She nodded, sleepily. “I'm starting to. Um. Do you want it back?” she gestured at the floating image of me.

“That isn't necessary,” said the heart shard. “I am a piece of Fakir's heart, yes. But I'm the piece of him that he put into writing this story. He couldn't take me back even if he wanted.” The heart shard smiled.

I looked down at my hands. “I... I did this? I put us through all of this?”

“H-hey, don't worry about it,” Duck said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I mean, nobody got really hurt, right?”

“I suppose not,” said Rue, icily. She and Mytho had crossed the still-frozen landscape of the basement to where Duck and I were standing.

“Now, now, dear,” said Mytho. “You have to admit it was exciting.”

“But when?” I asked aloud. “I don't remember any of this!”

“You've been sleep-writing, of course,” said Drosselmeyer. “Common affliction in our bloodline. I recommend a glass of sherry before bed. Or you can always rubber-band your fingers together. Now if you'll excuse, I think I've spent enough time in this hackneyed dimension.” And with that, he popped his head back into the wall clock and vanished.

“I'm sorry, everyone,” I said. “I didn't mean to, I just...” Visions flashed through my head of what I might do, what I might have already done if I hadn't gotten lucky. I could easily become just as much of a monster as Drosselmeyer, twisting people's lives for my own sick amusement, leaving tragedy in my wake—

“Take a chill pill, zura!” said Uzura, waddling over. I realized I was trembling. “You only did it because you miss us, right-zura?”

I looked at the little green haired puppet-girl. “I... I did?”

“Aw, he likes us,” said Mytho, slapping me on the shoulder in a friendly way. “You know Fakir, I had a feeling we hadn't seen the last of you. Right honey?”

Rue sighed, but nodded.

“I... I guess I... I didn't want to say goodbye forever,” I mumbled.

“Well, you don't have to, silly,” said Duck, jabbing me in the ribs with a finger.

“Hey!” I yelped.

“You're the one with the magic story powers. And you're the one who said we should all write our own futures. So write us together sometimes!”

I looked around at the others, at faces smiling back at me. “C-can I?”

“I have no objections,” said Mytho. “It really good to see you again, Fakir.”

“Go for it, zura!”

I looked at Rue. She marched up to me, leaning in close, and said, “All right, but if you ever put my husband in harm's way again for the sake of drama, there will be consequences.”

“Got it.” I smiled.

And lastly. “Duck?” I said.

She averted her gaze. “I mean, just floating around on a pond all day is kind of boring.”

“Sometimes you need to wind things up just to watch them wind down, zura!” Uzura said. “Because it's the journey that matters, zura.” She shoved me against Duck's shoulder. “Now kiss already, zura!”

“M-maybe next time,” I said, noticing a blank grayness beginning to creep in around the edges of my field of vision.

“Next time?” Duck turned bright pink.

“I mean if you—if it fits—I—”

The others started to laugh, and at the last second, I heard Duck laughing too, before the blankness enveloped me. It wasn't cold or empty though—it was blank like a page, untapped potential ready be filled with whatever the mind can conceive.

I knew that in a moment I would wake up in my own bed in Gold Crown, with all its familiar sights and comforts. But I wasn't in any hurry to get there. I wasn't quite through with dreaming just yet.