Max Parkhurst

"I'll settle my demons, will you just lay with me Please touch every beautiful broken part at least The guilt I hide from you Won't shadow the grief, of words I used to cry myself to sleep

Alone to be lonely is not the same at all I don't want to be lonely But long deeply alone"

During my tenure with the Seventh Son’s Trading Company, I specialized in mycology. Fungi are adaptive. They flourish in nearly any terrain; however, this particular species is resilient unlike variants found in places such as the Zaralek Caverns. These caverns below the Isle of Dorn house a myriad of lifeforms co-existing alongside the founts of residual magic left behind by Dalaran’s fall. The mycobloom has not only adapted but evolved with it. The mycelium, left untouched for thousands of years, seems to have fed on this teeming energy. It is a wonder what their limitations might possibly be… - from the field notes of Maxinora Parkhurst

It mattered surprisingly little to Maxinora where the Alliance embassy stationed her. Stored and transported in a velveteen coffer, her alchemy equipment was portable. Her and her work were bound by no border nor boundary; the only limitation was the conflict between ravenous curiosity and overwhelming apathy. Whichever won over the other dictated where the Alchemist would burrow. In the week following her arrival in Gundargaz, Maxinora found herself to possess an insatiable hunger…

By the misfortune of an Earthen innkeeper, Max charmed her way into a spacious room. Clever words and disarming smiles are a foxes key tools, after all. She retreated there after grueling days spent drudging through the Ringing Deeps. Her muzzle soddened in red as she drug the prizes of her hunt home - venom sacs and deepflayer glands, orbinid bulbs and luredrop heads, leyline ash and effervescent spores. A bounty of secrets and truths waiting to be gutted and devoured. And in the cool shadows of a slumbering hearth, she could digest in peace.

The carnage of Maxinora’s curiosity laid waste to any order the room might’ve possessed. Books and parchment, scrolls and maps, gurgling beakers and boiling admixtures. It was an organized chaos understood only by the Alchemist. She found it to be a welcomed comfort. A facsimile that echoed close to home. Enough for her to remember why she sank her teeth into her work, and how to emerge as human once she picked her molars clean. A stalk of mycobloom harvested from the Waterworks was her most recent prize. It lay on a metal tray beneath a the halo of an alchemical lantern. She breathed a slow hum as she cut into the flesh of the decapitated bloom. A skilled incision from the scalpel divided the gills from the cap. Irradiated spores oozed from the wound, drenching the air in a pungently sweet and metallic scent. It was inorganic. Electrical, even.

Max substituted her scalpel for a pair of tweezers. She worked the tip under plant tissue and coaxed the wound open enough to take a peek. She released an nonplussed whistle. Inside - clusters of spores made bulbous and fat from the arcane energy swirling inside them.

“And still I continued to be amazed.”

“What is it? Lemme see…”

The voice. Familiar yet different. Always continuing to be different. Somehow sounding exactly like her brother, and yet not at all. It possessed neither weight nor texture as it reverberated from the shadows, nestling close to Maxinora’s ear. The shadows at her shoulder shifted. A feline shape emerged from the dark, paper-flat and semi-translucent. Its gaze, lament eyes burning bright as green-glass fire, widened then narrowed.

“A mutation!”

Maxinora licked that morsel of truth from a canine as she worked the tweezers tips around an irradiated spore. With a great degree of care and deliberation, she coaxed it from the fungi’s fibers and placed it in an awaiting dish. “The mycelium must have absorbed the arcane energy from Dalaran’s fall.”

“This far underground?” The shadow cat glided from Max’s shoulder, collecting onto the table like a cloud of smoke. Its head canted as it watched her slide the dish under a scope’s lens. A moment of silence passed. Then its eyes brightened like midsummer fireflies. “Oh. The water channels… They’re all connected .”

Maxinora rewarded the shade with a toothy grin as she peered down the scope’s eye piece. It took adjusting the turret to a higher lens and a bit of fine tuning with the focus knobs to bring forth a clear image. The spore was composed of agglomerating pockets encased in a clear, keratin coat. Housed in the core of each pocket was a cortex of spiraling arcane mana. “Ah,” she laughed, the sound equal parts mirthful as it was sly, “You are capable of clever moments, little brother.”

Her jest was met with an unexpected fold of silence that momentarily curbed her appetite. She stole a glance up at the shadow cat to find its eyes gone dark and its form nearly transparent. It wavered. Struggled. Then lingered like an autumnal fog. She tempered her smile as she waited. A moment passed into a minute before the shade darkened and its eyes suddenly reignited.

“Ah! Sorry…” The voice sounded warped. Guttural. Pitch black. Wrong. The distortion lasted only a brief second before being corrected. Her brother’s voice spoke in sync with the shadow cat, “It is hard to keep the connection across such a great distance. What were you saying?”

The fox faded from Maxinora’s smile as she turned towards her work. “Oh, yes,” she offhandedly remarked as she opted for a pair of point tip forceps, “Simply that you are very clever, Augustine.” In a different time, different place, she would be all but certain of his puckish grin. Of the delight shining so bright in wonder-struck eyes. But things were inexplicably different, now. She did not dare to even glance at the shadow cat, afraid to catch a glimpse into its starved gaze. Instead, she pierced the spore and dug beneath its keratin skin. Electricity jolted up her arm as the tines clasped a thread of coalescing arcane, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to bristle. She gritted her teeth and uncoiled a cluster of cores with a single tug.

Nothing but a ringing in her ears.

And a sudden flash of white. A lightning strike.

Blood roared in her ears like the distant roll of thunder as her vision cleared. She possessed no recollection of the interim between extraction and now, though during such time she deposited the volatile thread into a separate tray. Her gaze momentarily flicked to the fiber, watching as it oxidized and was slowly reduced to shimmering dust. “Leyline residue,” she concluded, tossing the forceps onto the worktable, “How… Shocking.”

“Perhaps it would be best,” spoke the shadow cat, eyes following Max as she rose and crossed the room to a leaning tower of books, “If I were to travel there, too.” Its tail swayed from shoulder to shoulder, eyes narrowed in a display of concern. “I worry for you, you know.”

Max dismissed his concern with an offhanded wave. Her gaze scanned the tower’s titles: Letters of Avaloren, Coreway Catalysts, Curse of the Flesh, Observational Reports: Mycology, The Order of Azeroth. “Your concern is appreciated,” she remarked, casting the first tome aside and cracking open the second, “But misplaced. Mishka is a formidable combatant and a serviceable escort.” Coreway Catalysts had been devoured and digested within the first few hours of Max’s arrival, yet she found it worthy of a second glance as a sudden thought piqued her interest. The book spoke of the varying magical lifeforms inhabiting Khaz Algar, particularly those with close proximity to the Coreway. The link shared between them and the World Soul have caused some herbs to partially crystallize. This made Max exceptionally curious: If such creations were capable of adapting to both arcane and life energy, what else might they absorb?

“You know that’s not what I- Hm. Listen. Your methodology is a bit… Well, it lends itself to the extreme.”

“Oh-ho. So said the pot to the kettle.” Max plucked Curse of the Flesh from the tower and added it to her growing stack. Stepping over a moor of discarded notes and theories, she meandered back to the worktable. The tray of shimmering dust was scooted closer, and a fresh piece of parchment was drawn from an awaiting stack. “A bit of sacrifice is necessary, especially when unraveling mysteries as complex as the wilds of Khaz Algar.” She found a quill amidst the cluttered table and dipped it in a half-dried inkwell. There was enough pigment to draw up a legible draft.

“Sacrifices…” echoed the shadow cat.

“Yes. Such is the First Law.”

“I am aware of Equivalent Exchange…”

There was a momentary pause during which Maxinora refused to look up despite having not written a single word.

“But you must know that there are people who value you more than your work? Surely some part of you does.”

Max barked an arsenic-sharp laugh as she set the quill aside. Such a vulpine sound. Her lips twitched up into a sly grin, breath drawn in retort, when she looked up to find the shadow cat gone. Naught left but an ever-dissipating trail of smoke.

Alone again.

Max suddenly dropped her gaze, hands clasped in her lap. Sitting amidst the massacre of her ravenous curiosity, ink drying like blood on her fingers, cannibalized theories and speculations stuck in her teeth, mouth salivating for more and more and more… She suddenly felt very abashed. “I am my work…” she whispered, gossamer soft.

If Maxinora did not possess a shimmering spark for alchemy, an insatiable hunger for knowledge… Then what remained other than a husk of a mycobloom dying dark on a metal tray?

The words are different. Some are clever, others are direct. The weight of their intent, though, remains the same. Their expectation is equivalent to that of an unending sky, boundless and without limits. What a heavy burden it is to carry… To be understood as nothing more than talented. I am not talented. I am simply curious. - from the field notes of Maxinora Parkhurst

Max licked the saccharine grit from her molar as she ducked inside. Free of the sun’s scrutinous glare, she pulled back her cowl and shook the sky from her hair. She lifted her flight goggles and nested them in her hairline, taking in the shop’s dim-dark interior. Arcane runes crawled along the surface of sconces sentineled on opposing sides of the entry. An incredulous blink cleared her eye of sunspots and allowed time for her to adjust to the azure glow cast along the Artificer’s workspace. Max was familiar with the organized chaos that cluttered the space - books with cracked spines stacked high as obelisks, still-born thoughts written on scattered parchment, inkwells with oozing necks of drying ink, and candles burnt to their wicks’ end. A scholar’s massacre; it brought a sense of nostalgia that begot a yearning for home. It took a conscious effort for her hand not to drift towards her collarbone, the skin absent of its ribbon-bound stone. She swallowed hard, stuffing the heat inching up her throat down deep in her stomach, and bowed her head in a shallow nod.

“Pardon the intrusion,” she called into the dark, “Master Nagad.”

The clutter shifted an indiscernible degree, a low sigh escaping the towers of books and tomes. A gaze colored the same azure as Azerite veins pierced the shop’s thick veil of dust, lambent in the dim interior. Slowly, Max was able to pluck the Artificer’s visage from the bench and counter - his form camouflaged so effortlessly that she could almost imagine the Titans fashioned him and the shop from the very same stone. Nagad peered through her for a moment longer before his gaze brightened with acknowledgment.

“Alchemist.” The Artificer’s words were calculated and measured. Straight forward as a ranger general’s arrow. “I did not summon for you.”

'But I have waited for two days with no word from you.'

Max could appreciate the lack of duplicity. A cordial grin invented itself on her lips as she breathed honey-suckle sweetness into her laugh. “Consider me eager.”

“It is considered,” Nagad affirmed with a shallow nod.

The lack of nuance was more than a little grating for the Alchemist. A beat of silence passed between them. And when it became evident that Nagad would not break it, Max took a stepped towards the door “If it is not ready, I will return in a -“

“I did not say it wasn’t ready.”

Max drew in a quiet breath, then summoned a grin most pleasant as she approached the Artificer’s counter. Her own words were measured, though only to prevent any inklings of vulpine mirth from seeping into them.

'Give it to me, then.' “May I have it, then?”

Nagad glanced down at his work. A destructed staff lay sprawled before him. Each component suspended an inch above the counter in a field of arcane energy, the faint outline of runes orbiting them. The staff’s head, a dull charoite gem fashioned into a serpent’s likeness, thrummed with depleted magic. An artifact pulled from the wreckage of Dalaran. A furrow marred the earthen’s marbled brow as he reluctantly withdrew his hands. The staff and its pieces floated down to the table. The energy dispersed and the runes disappeared. Nagad heaved himself onto his feet with a gravel-laced sigh. His path to the rear wall of shelves was painfully arduous. Her gaze found her order amidst the cluttered shelf- a slender, black box- with ease, palms itching with the inclination to snatch it. She was good, though, and patient. As all pleasant foxes should be.

“There.” Nagad eased the box from its burrow. Then paused and opened it. His inspection spanned for a long moment.

Max crossed the distance between them in a few swift strides. The Earthen recoiled with an incredulous blink when he turned, clearly startled to find her over his shoulder. She beckoned for the box with the faintest hint of teeth in her smile. “Thank you.”

Nagad would not relinquish the box; instead, he lingered. The Siren Stone pulsed with an almost sanguine glow, embossed within a silver clasp and fastened by a black ribbon. The frown carved on his lips made Max bristle. And her smile threatened to be a sneer as he shook his head. “This is outdated. An obsolete model. Grink can craft you a better one.”

“Yes,” Max mused, flexing her fingers.

'Grink could not fathom its complexity. I want this one. It is all I have left.' “But this one is special. Its hold- Ah.” Another breath of laughter as she finally allowed the vulpine mirth to escape. “It is sentimental to me.”

“Sentimental?” Nagad’s gaze softened at the word. The box was sealed and promptly passed over to Max. “Its charge will last until the month’s end.”

Max made an effort to collect with composure and grace, head dipping into a shallow bow. “Then I will seek your services again in a month,” she mused before slipping out of the shop. No sooner did she expose herself to the sun’s glare did she fasten the Siren’s Stone around her neck, the box discarded into a planter. ***

A constant draft filtered through the Coreway, carrying the smoke from Max’s cigarette skyward. She adopted a squint as she peered over the metallic ledge and into the seemingly endless pit. Pin-pricks tickled her neck as the wind rustled her hair. Deep, down in Azeroth’s underbelly was a world untouched for decades. Whether the unease that tripped hot in her stomach was from anticipation or trepidation, she could not decide.

“Tha’ll do et for ye’, lass.”

Max looked over her shoulder to the Wildhammer and her feathered charge. Mishka Evenreach was considered towering by dwarf standards, Max possessing only a couple of inches over the woman. A woman of her stature required a gyphon of equal strength, and her steed did not fall short of that measure. The gryphon’s wingspan was twice the size of normal, its chest wider than a merchant’s stall. So large was he that no stable in Dornogal could house him. Instead, he circled the city above, awaiting his master’s call. Mishka boasted about finding him in the Twilight Highlands, somewhere deep in the mountain’s valley. With each retelling of the tale, she wore a broad smile. Broad smiles were a habit of hers. Even amidst the rubble and construction of the Coreway, her smile was as jovial as one found at the bottom of a stein during Brewfest.

Mishka tugged on the saddle’s fastens before giving a firm nod. “Aye! All secure. Wouldn’ want ye’ tae go turnin’ an’ tumblin’ outta the sky.”

The thought of a free fall into Azeroth’s core shot Max’s stomach into her throat. She obliged the dwarf with a tight smile and an arsenic-sharp laugh. “No. I don’t believe falling to death is on my agenda.”

Mishka threw her head back with boisterous laugher. “Not on the agenda she says!” she howled, slapping a hand on the saddle, “Ho! Ye’s a clever one, Miss Parkhurst. No wonder they sendin’ ye’ down intae th’ Ringin’ Deeps. With wit like tha’, ye’ll sure to uncover somethin’ fine.”

“I should hope so,” Max muttered as she took a final drag from her cigarette. She tossed the bud over the ledge and stepped towards Mishka.

“Well- Omen’s all ready for ye’.” The Wildhammer presented the reigns to Max, grinning ear-to-ear. “Rather broodin’ name. Think ye’ll change it?”

Max looked past Mishka’s shoulder to the massive crow in her charge. With saddle and harness the creature was large enough to bear a small rider, but its sleek and slender silhouette lacked the bulk of any gryphon or hippogryph. Its feathers, perfectly black as ink, drank the sun’s light with a merciless thirst. And its eyes - twin marbles possessed of a fathomless depth, and a perception sharp enough to cut through even the most elaborate facades. Max knew the moment she met its gaze that Omen was more than a beast. For no simple-minded creature could survive the outreaches of Dorn, circling the skies without a rider in sight. She heard rumors that the crow had belonged to an agent in Dalaran; for the bird to survive while the rider perished spoke volumes. Max had drawn her conclusions about the bird. She was dubious at best.

‘And what do you think of me, crow?’

Omen canted its head. And remained rather quiet.

Max cracked a grin as she took the reigns. “I think it suits him just fine,” she mused.

Mishka shrugged with a breath of laughter, “If that’s ye’ fancy, Miss Parkhurst.” She reached towards the Alchemist’s hairline, pulling the flight goggles down over myopic gaze. The dwarf stifled a chuckle as she stepped back to appraise Max alongside her crow. “Aye. Them suits ye well. Looking ready for flight, ye’ are.”

Max barked a laugh, vulpine in sound, to mask the venom on her tongue. Omen ruffled his feathers as if sensing the subtle shift in her stance. Mishka took no note as she continued to grin, laughing along side Max. The dwarf gave one last appraisal before nodding.

“Right! Ye’ get yerself saddled. Once we’re in the Coreway, it’ll be smooth flyin’. The under current will carry us all the way through.”

Max sucked the backs of her teeth as she watched the Wildhammer withdraw a whistle from a cord around her neck. No sound emerged when she blew into it. None that Max heard; Omen, however, bobbed his head and shifted on his feet. It grew suddenly dark around them, the sun eclipsed by expansive wings. A torrent of wind whipped past, causing Max to back into Omen as she withdrew into herself. Mishka’s smile threatened to split in twain as she lifted her arms to the sky, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Sorren!” she sang, “Ye’ ready, friend?!”

The gryphon alighted before the Wildhammer, enduring the brunt force of her embrace the moment talons hit the cobblestone. A low, content grumble rumbled from the bird in response. Mishka threw herself into the saddle with expert ease. And appeared as comfortable on top the gryphon as a fish in water. She took the reigns in either hand and beamed down at Max. “Follow close, kay?”

Max tugged the hood of her cowl low over her brow, drawing her scarf over her nose. She gave a shallow nod. Then scrambled up into her own saddle. Thankfully, Omen remained docile and patient - as if he knew of Max’s inexperience. She hunkered lower, reigns clutched in a white-knuckle grip, and watched Mishka take wing. A hard lump formed in her throat as she stole a glance at the sky. The higher the pair climbed, the smaller they grew in the grand, blue expanse. Effortless. Unaware of how insignificant they were. A speck of nothing in an ocean of everything. Its weight bulged towards Max. She ducked her head. Buried her face in the crow’s feather. Felt herself being crushed down to her actual size…

Another gust of wind whipped past. Sorren and Mishka. Max did not need to see to know. She sucked in a shallow breath and lifted her head a small degree. “I do not intend to replace your old master,” - her voice was fragile and soft - “Nor do I wish to form a bond as Mishka has…” She unfurled herself and cast her gaze to the Coreway. “But you and I can work together. An equivalent exchange. Your services in exchange for my resources. Neither of us burdened by menial obligation.” She ran her tongue over dry, chapped lips. “Does that deal suit you, Omen?”

The crow said not a word. Nor did Max expect such a feat from a creature. Omen, however, did acknowledge her request by spreading his wings and taking flight.

Up, Up, and Up. Then a steep plummet Down, Down, Down.

Her head felt light as a pressure squeezed either temple. The wind roared in her ears, in her skin, in her chest - everywhere it seeped. Threatening to tear her apart. She clung onto Omen’s reigns as he swerved with the natural formation of the corridor. A flap of his wings sent them at a higher speed. They swerved right. Always right. Soaring through earthen veins that grew thinner by the moment. It ended sooner than she feared. As promised, the current carried them through the Coreway and promptly spat them out. Omen settled into steady drift, allowing Max to finally look up at her surroundings.

What little breath remained in her lungs was quickly stolen.

The corridor opened onto a cavern that stretched for leagues from all angles, the ceiling peppered with stalagmites and undergrowth. To the west, she heard the whispers of waterfalls and rivers. East was the cacophony of iron against stone found only in mines. North - O’ North was steam and heat, railway tracks and carts, whistling machines and whining pipes. A living, breathing city. All set below the crust of Azeroth. Max sat up straight as she took in this new world stretched before her. So much unknown. Many things untouched. In that instant, she knew she could spend lifetimes here and never come close to grazing the surface of all that was to be discovered.

It would be a harrowing thought… … Yet Max could not help but swell with anticipation and curiosity.

Thankful was she for the flight gear. No one could see her manic smile possessed of nothing but teeth.

Ahead, she spotted Sorren and Mishak. She spurred Omen forward, the crow making quick work of the distance. They fell in pace with the dwarf and her gryphon. Max’s gaze was set north as she flagged down Mishka’s attention.

What is that? - she signed before pointing down to the city of pipes and machines.

The wind swallowed Mishka’s laugh. She signed with her offhand.

G-U-N-D-A-R-G-A-Z

Her time spent in solitary confinement taught Maxinora how to listen.

All was dark and quiet, then. Her world reduced to four walls and the sound of undulating waves playing in tune with the shadows shifting behind her eyes. No sound nor light reached her cell set levels beneath the Sounde. All she possessed were her thoughts that grew louder in the enveloping silence, speaking in bold italics.

One part saltpeter, one part phosphorus, one part oil… … combustion of any hydrocarbon with sufficient oxygen yields water and.. … Prime matter naturally divides into opposites: Dark and Light, Order and Chaos, Nature and Decay… … If I had been more careful, more observant, would it have gone so wrong… … Terrible, terrible, terrible, awful, horrendous, vacuous, cretinous… … One part saltpeter, one part phosphorus, one part oil.

On rare occasions, a novel sound would trickle down from the upper levels: the creak of an iron door, the cough of a patrolling guard, the subtle whisper of a passing breeze. Maxinora learned to curate these sounds. To pluck them from the quiet and drain them of their worth. Small kernels of information she gathered: an inmate is taken to trial every third week of the month; the guard who wanders the halls, his lungs are decaying at a pace that will not let him see the next winter; three floors up is a window the scullery wench opens so she can smoke, it is often forgotten until morning.

In Tol’dagor’s dark underbelly, Maxinora became practiced in coaxing truths from cold stone and dank moss.

Such skill was unnecessary in the Above. So rarely silent, everything spoke in the bold italics.

And it became hard to discern where Maxinora’s thoughts began… … And the white noise ended.

Somewhere in the distance, the clock tolled eight.

A warm, ember glow filtered through the curtains to cast a dappling spotlight upon Max. She hovered outside the window pane, peering into what would otherwise be a dim and dark interior. The alchemical sconces were lit to full this evening as her brother and their assistant - an aspiring arcanist named Colette- guided a fresh face through the labyrinth of books, herbs, and alchemical formulae. The new hire was a stripling of an elf, whose name eluded Max despite being introduced not moments prior. Colette fluttered like a hummingbird around the new hire, chirping in his ear as she fed on the nectar of his attention. She plucked vials haphazardly from their cases and paraded them as if they were her own concoctions. Watching her peacock around, knowing very well Max’s departure would not be for another few days, coated the alchemist’s throat in a caustic venom.

She did not want to hire Colette, much less a second assistant. Not for a lack of finance; between the stipends gifted by several organizations and the building’s rent covered by their absentee benefactor, the Parkhursts were to able accrue both monetary and influential wealth. From connections to the Gilnean Black Market, to the discrete research done for the kingdom’s reconnaissances division, it was safe to say that the Parkhursts possessed hands in several pockets. Except for Dalaran. No one held much claim in Dalaran; not as recently.

The shattering of glass caused Max to retreat into the shadow. Colette stood with upraised palms, she and the new hire blinking at the pool of azure and glass at their feet- utterly dumbfounded. A sour scowl drew across Max’s lips. No, it was not a lack of money that made her loathe someone new or novel.

Max’s attention briefly flicked to her brother. Augustine dispelled their stupor with a gentle smile and a chittering laugh. Both Colette and the elf grinned alongside him as they stepped back from the mess. Her brother’s gentle nature disarmed even the most seasoned veteran. Warm and affable, people often drew to him like moths to the flame. Yet as of the last few months, he began to shift. Slow and subtle. Constant, like a shimmer of sorts, dark like an overcast sky. She first noticed it when she woke in Drustvar after a long slumber. She heard it in his voice. In his choice of words. Not wrong. No. Still undoubtedly her brother. But there was deliberation in his words. Reservation. A guarded nature she did not see in him before. He was different. As if possessed of some new secret. Or, perhaps more adequate, stripped of something integral. Augustine was adept at batting away the topic of Drustvar and its witch. Whatever happened, he would not share with Max. He only continued to be different.

Augustine guided them to a new case of potions, directing their attention away from the deepening shadow sewn to his feet. The dark pool rippled and stirred. Tendrils rose from the depths, wavering in the shop’s glow, before coalescing into themselves. Gradually, the dark took form. A mirror image of her brother separated from his shadow. It was void of color and depth as if it’d been clipped from the daily paper. With an off-handed gesture from Augustine, the shade began cleaning the broken vial.

The mishap remedied and forgotten, the three continued their charades. Colette the bird and Elf the sheep, poking and prodding at Max’s work. Shepherded by Auggie - her dearest brother- who was more vulpine than either of them could ever imagine.

Max watched from the other side of the window. The burden of the sky weighed on her shoulders. The Alliance called for aid in Khaz Algar; if she did not go, then he must. And she would do anything to keep him safe within her shadow of silver-spun sophistry.

Some part of her, though, wished to go inside. To banish these newcomers from her burrow…

Somewhere in the distance, the clock tolled nine.

Smoke burned Max’s throat raw. The last of the cigarette sucked down in greedy puffs before being snuffed of its embers. Max tucked the bud in her pocket - after all, she must maintain the image of a consciousness citizen- and pushed off her claimed lamppost. A salt-laced breeze from the harbor rustled her hair, tiptoeing past to the silent gardens of Lion’s Rest. News of Dalaran and the growing onslaught of Nerubians finally reached Stormwind. It suffocated the last inkling of summer idealism, leaving behind a dense shawl of unrest and uncertainty. Many were recruited to the front lines. Most soldiers. Some artisans, scholars, mages, alchemists…

A sigh escaped Max’s chest as she meandered through the stone arches that fed into the harbor. She passed a number of shops on her way, a dozen unlit, a dozen half-lit, and a dozen dying dark. The city was dead as a result of recent events. Which served Max just fine. She needn’t worry about which mask appeared most pleasant. Even if it that dance were almost reflexive at this point. Being clever and pleasant was always exhausting. Better to be seen by no one at all.

She stopped just short of a door nestled where Light, Death, and the Deep meet.

Well- perhaps that was a small lie. There were a few individuals who saw past Max’s facade. And one in particular whose gaze she sought more than anyone’s.

From her satchel, Max fished out a sealed envelope. She ran her thumbs over the corners, ignoring the needle stuck between her ribs. A courtesy, she reminded herself, to a friend. That was the purpose of her letter. Her gaze lifted to the Kraken embossed on the door. A momentary pause as she wrestled with herself, hand poised above the knocker. She sucked the backs of her teeth and withdrew into herself. Standing on the other side of the door, she shifted on cold feet. The burden of her decisions weighed heavily on her shoulders.

Max drew in a quiet breath before placing the envelope in the door’s mail slot. She stepped back into the streets, hands stuffed in her pockets, and took a final cursory glance over the building. All the windows were vacant of light, much like the rest of the city at this hour. She found it rather peculiar and lingered a moment longer. The home’s tenant was gone for the evening. Not a strange occurrence. Yet Max couldn’t seem to shake a distinct feeling of deja vu.

Stuffing tendrils of dread deep into her chest, Max snaked her way through the Cathedral District and towards the Canals.

Some part of her, though, wished to retreat back in time. To a small cottage hidden in the shadows of the Jade Temple…

Somewhere very near, the clock tolled ten.

“He must be worried.”

More statement than question, Max’s voice cut through the Canal’s gentle quiet. She perched on the bridge connecting the Trade District and Old Town. Another sealed envelope sat heavy in her lap. Her myopic gaze lifted from the water and slid to the slip of shadow that lingered a few paces back. At this hour, with the street lamps burning low, the feline appeared paper thin. No more than a piece of shadow-stitched patchwork with eyes that glistened like translucent marbles. No fire burned in its gaze. Those eyes belonged to Calcifer alone.

“Is he still tending to our guests?”

The feline flicked its tail.

Max pursed her lips with a flat-note hum.

“I see.”

She offered the envelope down to the shadow familiar.

It stared back, unblinking.

“Deliver this to Director Hawke for me.” She settled back on her palms when the feline freed her of the missive. Head cocked back and eyes shut, she released a slow breath. “I haven’t the energy to do it myself.”

She was met with silence.

Peeking her eye open, she caught the last glimpse of Calcifer as he stepped out of the lamplight’s halo and dispersed into the evening’s dark.

Alone again.

Some part of her wished that Calcifer had stayed…