wind chimes.

As the winged envelope chased him through the office, using its gaping maw to snap at his head and spit fire balls at his face, Toris couldn’t help but scream.

“What did I do to deserve this?!”

The thing was spitting foam and guts out of its fanged mouth. Instinctively, he reached into his right pocket for his wand, but it was empty — as it had been for the last year.

It was completely ridiculous. He wasn’t supposed to even need to carry a wand at this job. His former coach had promised him a desk job where he could interact with magic without having to use it. And it had been that way in the beginning. For a solid two weeks, Toris had checked into the glass building, given his daily morning report to Mr. Alfred, and sat down for the rest of the day to catalogue magical incidents. It was the best possible job for someone like him, who couldn’t do much of any magic anymore. But then, on the third Monday of his new job, the first letter came in—

And everything became a disaster.

Smoke rose from the burning papers on Toris’s desk. Vargas and Williams had trampled over their cubicles in their rush to get out, and Toris had to jump over their broken chairs to sprint to the door at the front of the room. The letter was so close that he could feel its hot breath on the nape of his neck.

“Go away! I’m not the person you’re looking for!” he yelled. But his high, panicked voice only made the letter flap faster. Toris had dealt with cursed letters before, but this one was particularly vicious. It wouldn’t stop until it had torn Toris limb from limb.

“Laurinaitis! Stand back!”

Toris turned to the front. Jones shuddered in the doorway. With a flourish, he unsheathed his wand and aimed it at the letter. The tip of the wand glowed pale red with charging fire magic.

Toris’s eyes widened.

“No! It feeds on fire!”

“What?! Shit!” Jones yelled.

He jerked his wand back to try to withdraw the magic. But it was too late. The glowing light pulsated and burst forward — and a stream of white-hot fire magic barreled towards Toris’s face.

Behind him, the letter screeched in delight. It flew ahead of him and opened its maw wide to ingest the flame magic. It was impossible for Jones to cast another spell now. Ingesting the fire magic would give the letter the power to blow up the whole building if it wanted. If Toris still could, he would have thrown up one of his shields. But he had no other choice. He sucked in a deep breath.

And then he yanked the letter back, pressed its fanged mouth to his ass, and ducked – just in time  to barrel under the blazing stream of Jones’s fire magic.

The magic exploded into the wall, sending bricks and plaster flying everywhere.

On the floor, Toris coughed violently. Just like old times.

As expected, the letter had also bit into his ass – hard.

“Agh!” he hissed. 

It was terrible, but not the worst pain he’d ever felt – what was worse was the ringing in his ears and the bruising on his arms from sliding on the carpet. But at least he could feel everything, which meant that he was alive. Toris propped himself up on his side. With his left hand, he wrenched the letter off his ass, held it up, and gripped it by its writhing wings so it couldn’t move.

“Look, you — agh! Look!” Gods, these magical objects were stubborn! Even while incapacitated, the letter screeched and spat small fireballs at his shirt. Toris was so exasperated that he just gripped it tighter. “Listen! I’m not him! I’m not the person you’re looking for! That’s not his blood, see?! Go on! Taste it!”

The letter’s forked tongue slopped some of his blood into its mouth. It paused to swallow.

“See? I’m not him. So leave me alone. Go home!”

The letter shuddered.

Then, with a gag, it vomited blood and mouse guts and charred paper scraps all over Toris’s hands.

Agh.

Toris had just accepted that there were animal guts all over his formerly clean hands when the letter moved again. It chirped happily… then nestled right into the curve of his hand.

In one go, he’d lost blood, flesh, and new pants… to a fanged letter that was now mewing into his skin like a housecat.

Toris groaned. He slumped against the floor.

Always something new at this job.

“You have to go home now,” Toris pleaded, but the letter just chirped again.

“Laurinaitis!”

Toris looked up. Jones ran up to him, wand at the ready.

“No, no – it’s okay, it’s okay!” Toris said. “It’s not – I don’t know what it’s doing, but it’s not killing me.”

Panting, Jones finally slowed to a stop in front of him. His boss squinted at the letter – and blanched. Toris had never seen someone look so terrified of a cursed letter in all his life, and honestly, he was glad. Only unlucky people were used to mean tricks like this.

“What the hell – is that another cursed letter?” Jones asked. His voice wavered. Even after all his work in the Department, Toris knew that Jones had a naturally weak stomach when it came to anything creepy, so he tried to shield the letter.

“Yes, sir,” Toris said. “It—”

“Is it from that freaking criminal guy?”

“Yes, sir. I sat down—”

“God, are you okay?”

Jones was pale. To anyone else, he would have looked dazed – but Toris watched Jones swallow, then square his shoulders. All the while, his boss was glancing between the blood on his pants and the letter’s mewling mouth. He wasn’t dazed. He was righteous.

“I’m fine, sir,” Toris said. “It just – bit me. That’s all.”

“Bit you? God!” Jones was fuming. “This guy is crazy. Absolutely crazy. I’m sorry, Laurinaitis, this is just – crazy.”

“This is the job I signed up for, sir,” Toris said.

“Yeah, but this isn’t the job that you deserve. It’s not the job that any of us deserve. Fuckin’ Artie,” Jones spat. Toris sighed. At least Jones had a conscience. But before he could say anything, Jones held up his wand. “I’m calling you a medic. They’re gonna be here soon, so just stay put, okay?”

“Thank you,” Toris said weakly.

“I’ll stay here with you until they get here. God, at least we’re competent –”

On the other side of the office, a pipe burst.

Jones groaned.

“Always something new,” he muttered. “Hold on, stay here, Laurinaitis. And keep that thing with you. Artie’s gonna have to give us our damn funding when he sees whatever the hell that is.”

It was a good thing that Jones wandered away when he did, because Toris didn’t have the energy to talk; he slumped back down to the floor immediately, buried his face in the charred carpet.

All around him, his colleagues’ tables burned to smithereens. He doubted he would see Williams again – the boy had been missing more and more days ever since the first letter came in. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Department only had three employees, Toris was sure that Jones would have let him go a long time ago. Vargas would come back because he loved the stress – the running from disasters on one day and fixing them on another.

And Toris?

He was only there because he was too broken to do anything else besides low-level magic work. He wasn’t a hero like Jones. He was just trying to carve out a decent life for himself. If that really existed.

For what seemed like the nine billionth time in the past three months, Toris Laurinaitis laid on the office floor with his broken body and tried to live. He breathed. In and out. And, like always, his eyes went to the upper left-hand part of the address, where that one name continued to taunt him.

Gods.

He really was tired of Felix Łukasiewicz.

___

That night, when he finally limped back to his apartment, Toris stood in front of the door. And for a moment, he just listened.

He shivered in the dimly lit hallway, which smelled like old spices and musty wall. He should’ve walked inside already. But it was nice to have a moment, just one moment, where all he had to do was breathe. He breathed in deeply.

No hurried steps came from inside the apartment – no clinking glasses, no scratching pens. Oskars was probably writing poetry in his room. Thank God for that. All night, Toris worried about how he would hide this injury from this brother. The last time he came home with an injury like this, Oskars sat all night by his bedside to ask questions – first about the Tournament, and then about the injury itself. How did the medic apply the gauze? Does your hand hurt? Did Beilschmidt put up a good fight?

Toris did his best to answer each question dddddddddin kind. Tight across my arm. Yes. The best I’ve ever seen him give. But then Oskars leaned forward and asked, with his eyes round like bowls, Can you still use magic?, and Toris’s breath caught in the soft pit of his throat. And all his words seemed down to die.

No, Toris said.

What? Why? Is it—

No, Toris said, and he turned away. No, I can’t. It’s late, now. You should go to sleep.

I’m s—

Just leave me be. Go to sleep.

And the next morning, Oskars only asked about how the weather felt that day.

It wasn’t malicious. Toris knew that for a fact. Oskars had always just wanted to understand people with his questions. It was why he was such a good poet. But it was better, Toris realized, to stop his brother from getting any strange flights of idea in his head. It was better if he just went straight to his bedroom to sleep off the pain. God knows he needed it, especially when he had to be back at work next week.

The apartment was still. Oskars’ shoes lay slightly askew on the side of the hall; his maroon hoodie was thrown on the first rung of the coat rack, covering the yellow scarf Eduard had paid Toris to repair last week. Other than that, the kitchen and the living room were completely empty. Darkness enveloped him as he closed the door. He locked the doorknob and the door chain, and afterwards he sighed, softly. (He really needed to get Oskars into the habit of locking the door chain when he came back.) If Oskars was in his room, he had probably already scrounged up dinner for himself – and Toris could get away with not cooking up something, just for one night. Slowly, he walked toward his bedroom.

“Toris!”

“Ah?!”

“Hi,” Oskars said. He stepped out of his room. “Welcome home.”

Oskars scratched his head. Harrowing as it was to see him, Toris was still glad. “Jeez, Oska, you took me by surprise… I thought you were writing?”

“I mean, I was, but I just came out to get another snack.”

“Ah. What are you eating?”

Oskars scrounged in his pocket, then lifted his hand. “Pickles.”

Toris squinted. Oskars was holding a sandwich bag stuffed with whole dill pickles.

“What… pickles? Just plain pickles?”

“Yeah!”

“You’re not eating them with anything?”

“Nope.”

Oskars had always loved eating pickles in burgers, but Toris had never seen him eat pickles just plain. “My God, those are salty… but they’re better than potato chips, I suppose,” he said with a sigh.

“That’s why you wash them down with the drink of champions,” Oskars said, and held up a bottle of vodka with his other hand.

Toris’s eyes widened.

“Oh no, no, no, absolutely not,” he said.

“What? Want me to save you some?”

“No! I don’t want you to drink that at all!”

“But you like this combo, right?” Oskars asked.

“Pickles and vodka?! Never in my life!”

“No, vodka and anything salty,” Oskars clarified.

Toris rubbed his temples. Trust Oskars to remember something he tried so hard to forget. “I liked it, yes, but it wasn’t good for me, and it’s not good for you,” he said. Huffing, he dropped his work bag to the floor and turned to switch on the kitchen lights. Even if his leg still hurt, he was not going to let his brother descend the path to alcoholism. “You’re too smart for that.”

“So why’d you like it?”

Toris moved in front of the kitchen counters. How could he explain that stressful time where he drank in between competitions without sounding completely unhinged? There was no way he could, really… so he just shook his head. “It’s more for the effect than the taste,” he said finally. “Anyways. If you want a real meal, there are pierogi and chicken thighs in the fridge.”

Oskars was quiet for a moment.

“I wanna eat pierogi,” he said finally

“Good,” Toris said. He sighed. “It’s about time we got some real nutrients in you.”

And then, instinctively, he started pulling out the equipment – the pans, the bowls, the utensils, the bag of dumplings – and setting them on the counter. There went his plan of sleeping early. But at least he could spend more time with Oskars. They hadn’t seen each other that much lately, if he thought about it. With Oskars at university and him at work in the Department and the library, it was hard to carve out time for an actual conversation.

“What was the last real meal you ate, Oska?” Toris asked. He set a pan on their coil stove, then turned the heat to medium.

Behind him, Toris heard Oskars settle down into one of the wooden chairs around their kitchen table. “Let’s see…. Oh. Emil and I split chicken tenders for lunch today.”

“Split?!”

“I’m broke, Toris.”

“My God…”

“Actually, the pickles were an improvement over yesterday, because yesterday, we had to borrow instant noodles from Leon.”

“Ah… that’s good thinking,” Toris said at last. He was hit by a swirl of memories from his own university days, which weren’t so far away – memories of the big trays of frozen cepelinai he used to share with Eduard during the winter months. In those months, security deposits and health insurance and other start of the year expenses drained their student loan money instantly.

“Isn’t it?” Oskars sighed. “But I wish we didn’t have to do it. I wish I just have it all together already. Like, you were younger than I am now when you started competing, and you were great. But I don’t even know what I want to do next semester.”

The pan was getting hot. Toris added oil, then rotated the pan so it would coat the surface evenly.

“You’ll get there if you just keep at it. I know you will.”

As Toris warmed their pierogi in the pan, the rich smell of buttered potatoes and soft dough blanketed the kitchen. It only took him a few minutes to set everything up. He was so used to putting out literal fires at work that setting out two plates and silverware was actually relaxing in comparison. But the best part was when Oskars took a pierogi, bit into it, and smiled.

“Do they taste good?” Toris asked.

“Yummy. Mm… how do you get them so crispy but soft?”

“Just watch the heat. I’ll show you later, once I finish getting everything sorted.”

“After work tomorrow?” Oskars asked.

Toris hesitated. For a moment, he just watched Oskars scarf down pierogi after pierogi. There was still no way that he could tell his brother about the injury. Well, there was another thing for him to do – find some place to work outside of the office while he healed… “Yes, if you’re not busy with schoolwork,” he said.

Oskars grumbled. “I have so many essays to work on tomorrow that I feel like my brain is gonna burst…”

“So finish them, and we’ll cook after.”

“That’s gonna take forever.”

“You’re only in university for a short time; you have to make the most of it.” Here, Toris took a bite of pierogi, then swallowed. “But I’m always here.”

“I mean, not really,” Oskars said glumly.

Toris paused.

“You’re going to be busy at work again, right?” Oskars asked. He opened his mouth to say more, to launch into one of the unknowingly blunt assessments of his entire personality—

And then tapping came at the door.

Not a knock – but tapping. Repeated, fluttering, and soft-sounding tapping, like the scratchy thump of the broom their mother used to use to clean the floor in the old house. Toris shared a glance with Oskars.

“Is that Ed?” Oskars asked, in a lower voice this time.

Toris shook his head. He hadn’t seen Eduard in at least three weeks.

“Stay here. I’ll get it,” Toris mouthed.

Instinctively, he reached for his wand. It wasn’t there. He pulled out his pepper spray instead, and he made his way to the door, where the tapping came more and more insistently. And with more force.

Toris looked out the peephole.

There was no one standing at eye level.

He stepped back. Stilled.

And then –

A brown mass threw itself into the peephole.

It hit the glass with the softest thud Toris had ever heard. And another. And another. It wasn’t a human, nor an animal, nor any kind of magic. In fact, when Toris leaned forward to squint through the peephole, he saw… that it wasn’t even living.

When he realized what it was, a jolt went through his entire body. Flabbergasted, Toris unlocked the knob. Then, with the door chain still in place, he cracked the door open halfway.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered in exasperation.

And in response –

The letter that had nearly bitten his ass off chirped a lovely tune and smiled.

___

Toris had just barely shut the door when Oskars started asking questions.

“Who is it? Why are they singing? Are they looking for money?”

For once in his life, Toris didn’t answer all of them. “It’s just business,” he said, shaking his head. And he crossed his arms without saying a word until Oskars pouted and tactically retreated to his room. “But I want to know who it is when you get back from work tomorrow,” Oskars said before closing the door.

When Toris opened the living room door again, the fanged and blood-spackled letter fluttered straight into his arms. It meowed. Purred gently into his arms. Toris ushered it into his workbag, where it nestled in between his work files and his blood-stained former pants.

The next day, he left for work even earlier than usual to make an uninterrupted beeline for Jones’s office. It was unlikely that Jones would have the time to talk to him after the fiasco that happened yesterday. Still, he hoped – even prayed – that the stars would align for once to just give him a break.

But it was just as expected. After twenty minutes, when Jones finally emerged from his cavernous office, he was shuddering with caffeine.

“Huh? The letter?” Jones said. “I sent it over to Artie. His guys grabbed it yesterday. Speaking of guys, you’re not gonna believe this shit – those sons-of-bitches won’t expedite our funding request. Can you believe it? Unbe-fucking-leviable. That damn thing just about mauled you to death!” Jones’s eyes burned with a fervent desire for justice. Before Toris could say anything, Jones slapped him on the shoulders and started walking them towards the plaster-covered coffee station. “Ooh, they’re gonna wish they listened to us the first time when I’m done with them! Here’s what we’re gonna say: Dear Artie, you absolute massive asswad…”

And for the rest of the working day, Toris crafted the most diplomatic insults possible for Arthur Kirkland, swept up rubble, and compartmentalized his last remaining hope for bureaucracy into a very small cardboard box in his heart.

That was how he found himself sitting across Eduard’s desk.

Despite living in an apartment on a main city street, Eduard’s office was quiet. Quaint. His desk was made of thin birch wood and only covered with his white Mac desktop. It was the last place that a blood-thirsty, blood-covered letter should be in, but that’s exactly where Eduard decided it needed to be.

Behind the desk, Eduard leaned forward in his birch wood chair. He was petting the letter with his ring finger. The letter purred as it snuggled into a pile of white muslin. Occasionally, it extended its red tongue to lick at Eduard’s finger, but for the most part, it sat quietly while Eduard observed it.

“Well… it’s a well-behaved cursed letter, I’ll give it that,” Eduard said.

Toris exhaled. “You should ask it about the fireballs.”

Eduard’s eyes widened. “Fireballs?” he asked.

Toris nodded.

Eduard raised an eyebrow. Turning back to the letter, he gently patted it with three fingers.

“That can’t be true, can it?” he asked softly. “Did you shoot Toris with fireballs, you little dragon you?”

In response, the letter mewed.

Eduard chuckled. “You’re a courageous little creature,” he murmured.

He gave it a small, generous smile. He opened a drawer beneath his desk and lifted out a golden birdcage with a key, which he set next to the letter. “Prepared especially for you,” he said.

The letter sat up. It floated into the birdcage, peering around it curiously. And once it settled into the muslin that blanketed the bottom, Eduard locked the cage. A pale blue glow that smelled faintly of lavender surrounded it – and suddenly, the letter stilled… and began to snore.

Toris gaped at the cage. Eduard winked at him, then once again lowered the birdcage into the same drawer.

“And you are smart to have neutralized it,” Eduard said, finally fully turning towards Toris. “Had it gone unchecked, it would have burnt off both your legs and your stomach.”

Toris blanched.

“Legs and stomach?”

“Yes. Your wizarding correspondents have gotten their hands on a new breed of cursed letter. It mixes the large teeth of the old breeds with the potent fire magic of the new ones. I identified it by looking at the glands at the back of its throat – they’re large. Quite knotty. So, again – you’re smart to have neutralized it.”

Toris sank back into Eduard’s chair.

“That’s it,” he said. “I need your help tracking this person down, Ed. I can’t… There’s no way I can deal with this anymore.”

“And you know me – I’m more than happy to help you find them.” Eduard pushed up his glasses with his finger. He leaned forward, focusing all his attention on Toris.

Toris sighed. He felt a little better after hearing that Eduard was on his side – but then again, Eduard always was. Even after 10 years of competing together in tournaments, Eduard had never let him down. “Thank you. I just can’t have this happening at work anymore.”

“Of course.”

“Not with Oskars in school.”

Eduard paused. “And with you working, too,” he added mildly.

Toris nodded. “Yes, that, too,” he said. “It’s too, ah… distracting. Every week, a new cursed letter attacks me, and I don’t know who they’re from. All I know is that they’re addressed to someone named Felix Łukasiewicz.”

“Hm.”

“Yes.”

“Based on the first name, I’m going to assume they’re a man. Or they’re posing as one, at the very least.”

“I think that’s true, because the only letter I’ve read called him ‘the most hated man in the city’ and ‘a blight upon all of humankind’”.

“These wizards certainly are eloquent,” Eduard hummed. Tapping his fingers on his desk, he furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. “Are there any records of him working at the Department?”

“No, not at all. But that’s not the strange part. There are no public records of him even living in the city, either.”

“Public records,” Eduard mused.

“Yes, public records. Which is why, ah…”

Toris gestured at Eduard. Even after all these years, Toris still couldn’t say Eduard’s nighttime job out loud.

Which is why Eduard did him the dignity of saying it for him. “Understood. I’ll start my investigation as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Ed.”

Eduard nodded. “Do you have any of the other letters?”

“No. I have to destroy them before they can kill me.”

At this, Eduard stifled a chuckle.

“What? What was funny there?”

“It’s an absurd situation, that’s all.”

“Ahh… we’ve been in too many of them,” Toris sighed.

“Well, I’ll make this the last.”

Eduard smiled at him, small but genuine, and it was then that Toris once again realized how lucky he was to be friends with Eduard von Bock. There was no one else who he trusted more. Already, Eduard was opening his desk drawer; he pulled out manila files and a rolodex, and once he had laid them all neatly out on his table, he pulled out a pair of googles, too. When they still competed in tournaments, Eduard always wore those goggles into every fight. They helped him deal with everything.

It was time to go. Once Eduard put his goggles on, no one could distract him from his work.

“Thanks again, Ed,” Toris said. He stood up and grabbed his green jacket from the back of the chair. “I’ll leave you to your work, then?”

“Oh – you’re leaving already?” Eduard asked, a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

“I don’t want to distract you from your work. And I have to get back home, too – Oskars asked me to show him how to make dumplings.”

“Understood. Well, could I at least offer you some potato salad to take back? Or some coffee?”

“Ah, not tonight. But thank you.”

Toris finished zipping up his jacket. At that, Eduard nodded. “Well, maybe another time. Please send Oskars my greetings, too.”

“I will. I’ll see you later, Ed.”

“Goodnight.”

Toris quietly shut the door to Eduard’s office. The moment it shut, the sounds of rustling papers filled the hallway. Eduard was already hard at work. And as Toris walked out of Eduard’s apartment and into the night, he decided that he would work hard, too.

For the sake of his job and for the sake of the people he loved, Toris made up his mind: