#ward eight

I would say that there was something different about the morning when all the trouble started, but to be honest there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Dawn was bright and frigid, and as usual I saw it coming from the wrong side, a mug of kawhe in my hand and a heavy tome detailing current ascendril elemental theory open on the table. Not that it was my business anymore, but I never shook the habit of keeping up with what the competition was doing.

These days my job was more finding swindlers and runaways, or locating suspiciously 'misplaced' heirlooms, usually in a syndicate backroom or changing hands over the carcass of a badger at the beast pit.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the old life at least a little, but when you saw what the guild was up to in the morning's Informant, it was hard to miss it entirely. It seemed every time you heard about them it was what new mess their guild leader had them in, what new dignitary he'd offended. Still, not my circus, not my dancing bears. It was with these thoughts on my mind that I was standing at the window, staring down at the street below and the early risers struggling through the morning frost, when a small, dark brown bird landed at the sill. It wasn't one of the white city owls, but it was clearly a messenger, so I set down my drink and grappled with the latch (frozen shut, of course) to let it in.

The note was brief, only a few words in the middle of a too-large sheet of parchment, but the words said enough; HELIOS IS DEAD.

I blinked at the missive. That sure was some news, if it was true- but if it was, why was someone telling me? It was too early to be trying to figure that one out, and it was FAR too early for the frantic banging on my door not moments later.

"Mrs 'heart! Mrs 'heart!" That was the young lad who had been hired to take the consanguine shift in the building's little office on the first floor. Hadn't learned his name yet, but he'd gotten at least half of mine. I swept open the door and caught him mid-knock, his hair in a mess and his collar sticking up.

"Mrs 'heart, there's some city guard here, they want--"

"--to ask you a few questions." Right on the boy's heels, two guardsmen in uniform looking mighty stern and official. The one in front looked me up and down, eyes narrowed, taking in my gently rumpled shirt, my pinstripes, the shoes I was still wearing from the day previous. I watched some manner of mental note go down in his mind.

"You don't look like you've slept," he observed, and fairly so at this hour: knocking on doors this early ought to yield a lot of folk still in their bedclothes. "Long night?"

I thrust the note I was still holding into a pocket, and took a moment to contemplate what this could be about. Usually, I let the guard do their job and they let me get on with mine, and ne'er should the two paths cross, with a spot of luck. The timing, though, was suspicious, especially given the message I'd just received.

"Up late reading," I told them, not untruthfully, stepping aside so the table and its book would be visible. "And you lads are up early," I added. "Can I pour you a kawhe?" The one in back seemed like he was about to accept, but the guard in front shook his head.

"Just business this morning, Ms. Lionheart." I caught him flicking a glance over the room behind me, no doubt adding to his fistful of mental notes with what he could see. "You hear anything suspicious last night?"

Suddenly, I could feel the note in my pocket as if it had been written on a sheet of lead rather than paper. These were the kind of questions you asked a suspect. Niuri's garters, did they think I was fresh home from a murder? I'd have been blindsided if not for the tip-off. I had no alibis; I would need to play my cards carefully.

"Nothing I can recall," I told them. Then, a gamble: "Something wrong?"

There was a moment's pause where I could practically hear him ticking over in his head how he was going to handle this.

"Well actually, Ms. Lionheart, we've got ourselves a bit of a mystery, and we thought we'd come and see if we could get your professional opinion on the matter." Now, that was a bit of a long line he was casting, but not completely inconceivable. There were some on the Guard who disliked me, of course, thought of me as some kind of snake oil merchant trying to do their jobs. There were some though- old Guard mostly- who respected my experience, and my particular skill set. This fellow didn't look like one of those, but he could have been sent by one.

The Ward Eight is one of the Boston’s major contributions to mixology, originated in 1898 at the bar of the Gilded Age restaurant Locke-Ober.