I.
"The Ancient Arcana Expo was the first target the Faceless Fox hit. That's where they got the boots, and since then, they've been nothing but trouble." Captain Heaventide waved his pointing stick toward a red pin on the map of Youngershore plastered to the office wall. Even standing on a milk crate as he was, the large size of the map (or the small size of the captain, depending on your perspective) necessitated that he use a long, thin rod to point anything out, and he did so with gusto, rapping the stick against five points on the map in quick succession. Each was accented with a red pin. "What do these locations have in common?"
Bart cast his gaze low upon the table, as though if he couldn't see the captain, the captain, too, couldn't see him. To Bart's right, he could hear Thory's seat creak as his fellow junior constable sat up straight to raise a hand. Bart hazarded a glance upward toward the captain and saw his gaze slide right past Thory, landing, to Bart's horror, on himself. "Constable Lee," Captain Heaventide said, and it was too late for Bart to look away as the captain's eyes met his own. "What do they have in common?"
"I—um—" Bart said hoarsely, his throat dry and sticky like a silk coccoon. He cleared his throat for far longer than was helpful or necessary as he searched the map, his eyes darting from pin to pin. "That is, well—"
"They're all public locations with small, high-value items in abundance," Thory cut in. "High-end storefronts, museums, that sort of thing."
Captain Heaventide sighed deeply before he replied. "I had addressed the question to Lee. However... that is correct, Constable Delany." Thory shot Bart a sideways glance and half a grin. Captain Heaventide rapped his pointing stick against the map again, just for emphasis. "This is why we believe the self-same crook will strike again in short order, and nowhere other than the Martyr's Day parade." Once again ignoring Thory's raised hand, the captain continued: "As constables of the Canary Constabulary Company, it is your job to ensure that nothing goes wrong. And what's the most important thing when it comes to making sure nothing goes wrong?"
"Sticking to your post," the twenty or so constables said in unenthusiastic unison.
"Right," said Captain Heaventide. "Youngershore has the privilege to host real, genuine, honest-to-Ilmater relics of the Saint of Compassion this year. If something happens to those relics, the municipal government of Youngershore is on the hook. If the government is on the hook, then as government contractors, the Canary Constabulary Company is on the hook. And if I find out you abandoned your post... You're on the hook. Got it?" He paused for the smattering of nods and "Yes Sir!"s in reply. "Good. The parade route starts here—" the pointing stick tapped at a spot on the map labeled "Occidental Odeon", then traced a pathway through the snaking streets of Youngershore until it reached the boardwalk— "and ends here. We'll have four of you posted at the Odeon, six of you posted at the boardwalk, and ten—yes, Delany?"
"Why are there so many constables assigned to guard the temple float?"
"Why indeed," Captain Heaventide said, his lips pressed into a thin, slanted line that ran from sideburn to sideburn. "Perhaps Constable Lee has an answer for us?"
Bart felt a prickling blush spread across his face as he looked up, eyes wide, mouth agape uselessly for an agonizing ten seconds before he stammered out, "Me, Captain?"
"Yes," Captain Heaventide said dryly, "you."
"Uh. Well... I guess I don't know, Captain," Bart said, and hung his head low in shame, eyes screwed shut so as not to see the faces of his fellow constables, all of whom, he imagined, were surely leering at him.
"It's because..." the captain said, leaving a long pause as though to offer Bart a last chance at redemption, "The relics will be displayed on..."
"Um, the float?" Bart said, eyes still shut.
The captain sighed. "Yes, Constable Lee. On the float."
Without raising her hand this time, Thory said, "But, Captain—wouldn't it be difficult to steal precious relics off of a moving float in front of thousands of people?"
"I can take this question, Captain Heaventide," said a smooth voice from the far side of the conference room, startling Bart enough to open his eyes and peer over his shoulder. Detective Commissioner Basset had been so quiet the whole meeting he'd forgotten she was there—but there she was indeed, leaning against the brick wall with her arms crossed like a copper novel PI.
"The Faceless Fox-as the press has taken to calling them—has only struck six times, but from these incidents there are certain things we can infer. Firstly, they operate alone. Secondly, they are able to blend into formal and well-to-do environments without much trouble."
Detective Basset paused and panned her gaze across the room of wide-eyed constables, who nodded along to her reasoning with enthusiasm. "It's highly likely that we're dealing with an educated, starched-collar criminal. They target singular high-value objects from elite locales rather than, say, shipments of valuable trade goods, because they aren't focused on maximizing profit—it's about status. About the challenge of it all. The only other possible explanation for such risk-taking would be madness, and a detective must always exhaust every rational explanation for a criminal's motives before falling back on criminal insanity. So, if we accept this prestige-based model of the Faceless Fox's motives..." The detective smiled as her audience leaned forward to await her conclusion. "Why then, nothing would make more sense than to steal the relics right from the temple float."
"Quite so, Detective Basset! Quite so." Captain Heaventide said, nodding energetically, then with considerably less enthusiasm added: "Does that answer your question, Delany?"
"Yes! Thank you, Detective Basset!" Thory said with an eager smile, awkwardly attempting to bow in reverence while still seated.
Captain Heaventide cleared his throat. "Now, as for individual assignments..."
"I can't believe I don't get to be on the float," Bart said dejectedly, thunking his head into the wall as people continued to filter from the conference room into the hallway.
"Hey, cheer up!" Thory replied. "The Odeon's not a bad place to be posted." She glanced over each shoulder and lowered her voice before continuing, "Better than the stupid boardwalk, at any rate. Always smells like fish there, you know."
"But..." Bart lolled his head to look over at her, lips pouty and eyes brimming with despair. "I want to be where the relics are, so I can save them from the thief. I... I want to be a hero."
Thory laughed, though not unkindly. "Better to do the best job you can and hope that you don't have to be a hero." She doesn't understand, Bart thought. But how could he begin to explain the oath he had sworn—how the promise he made in Pascal's honor on the day of their death had changed the course of Bart's life?
Perhaps sensing that there was more to Bart's sorrow than he had words to express, Thory stood on tip-toe to clap a hand to Bart's shoulder and said, "Hey, you're a good fellow, Bart. Just do the right thing whenever you're given a chance. Keep on doing that, and you'll have a lot to be proud of one day." She met Bart's eyes with a smile, then dropped back to her heels and sighed. "Besides—I bet you'll have more fun, posted at the Odeon. Maybe you'll even be able to see the dancers from your post."
Bart could not see the dancers from his post. He could hear the music, at least, and he'd seen a Martyr Day show before back home in Westcross, so he knew the broad strokes of the story: an arcanist in ancient Myrith summons a fiend by mistake, Saint Ilmater shows up to save the day, he withstands the fiend's horrible blows and picks it up, then walks into the ocean, and they both drown. Bart hadn't been sure what it was all supposed to mean the first time he saw the show, and truth be told, it wasn't any clearer to him now. But he knew that he liked to hear music and watch dancers. So, as he patrolled the Odeon loading dock, Bart hummed along to the orchestra and tried to picture the dancers in his mind: blue-robed dancers waving ribbons of seafoam-hued silk, the arcanist and Saint Ilmater in funny-looking ancient garb, and Bart's favorite, the cur of Gehenna itself, a dog-faced fiend with ruby-red eyes. (When he was younger, Bart believed a real dog-man played the part of the fiend, and he'd been more than a little disheartened to learn that instead it was an actor in some kind of gem-studded wolf hide suit.)
A flurry of activity descended on the loading dock for a half hour or so after the performance, alleviating Bart's boredom for a fleeting moment as he watched stagehands hustle to and fro, lining up wheeled racks of opulent costumes and loading instruments into shipping crates as tall as he was.
"The porters will come to pick everything up by and by," a stagehand told Bart as she approached him carrying a long, stringed instrument (the name of which he did not know). "You can let them know it's all arranged by destination." She glanced down at the Canary Constabulary Company badge pinned to Bart's jacket and hurriedly bowed her head. "Erm, that is—if you don't mind, sir."
Oh no, thought Bart. She isn't sure if I'm up to the task. She thinks I don't look competent enough to be a Canary Constable. Straightening his spine and clearing his throat, Bart said: "I'm happy to help, citizen!" He grinned as confidently as he could manage.
"Oh. Great! Thanks, Constable," the stagehand said, tilting her head with an expression somewhere between surprise and relief.
Once the gaggles of stagehands and performers had moved along, leaving naught but crates and costume racks in their wake, Bart was alone again. He paced betwixt the Odeon backstage bay doors and the alleyway countless times, running his hands along the costume racks. Silk, silk, velvet, fur, velvet, silk, silk... He studied the cracks in the stucco facade of the Odeon. He counted cobblestones in the alleyway. Again and again his mind wandered to the parade, to the wiry, masked figure he imagined slipping through the crowd toward the temple float—toward the relics of Saint Ilmater, on display for the jubilant people of Youngershore.
Snap out of it, Bart! he thought, shaking his head like a retriever dog after a swim. You've got a job to do. He raised his head to peer down the alleyway in case a porter's wagon drew near.
Still nothing.
He took a deep breath, then sighed slowly as he spun on one heel to face the bay doors again for what felt like the thousandth time. Silk, silk, velvet, fur—wait. He stopped, frowning, as his vision refocused from the hazy middle distance to hone in on the costume hanging nearest to him.
It was the cur of Gehenna, a fabricated colossus patched together from wolfhide, leather, and cloth-of-gold, its head lolling to the side with the suede leather tongue hanging out, its empty eyesockets tilted to the sky.
Empty eyesockets where two fist-sized rubies should have been.
Bart's brow creased as he craned his neck toward the costume. He outlined the absent gems with his thumb, running it along the leather seating—tattered, like it had been hacked at with a blade.
The little hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and as though moved by some unseen force, Bart whirled toward the alleyway just in time to see a creeping figure break into a sprint. Without hesitation, he gave chase.
"Stop!" Bart's voice echoed through the alley as he pursued the fleeing figure. "Stop, thief!" The thief did not stop, though, choosing instead to pick up the pace. Bart's breath came in gasps as he struggled to keep up. Weaving left and right, turning corners, vaulting stairs—he dared not let the thief out of his sight for even an instant. The figure he pursued was small and slight, and all the quicker for it. They wove gracefully through what scarce crowds there were this far from the parade route, whereas the lumbering Bart crashed through coversations and even sent a cafe chair flying as he negotiated the narrow streets of the entertainment district. As Revue Road opened up into the far busier Shadowdusk Square, the thief became no more than a barely perceptible ripple passing through the crowd. That ripple merely heralded the tidal wave that was Bart, who crashed into at least five pedestrians directly during his dash across the square.
When the thief slipped into a side street that ran toward the harbor district, Bart broke into a sprint once more. He flew past townhouses and storefronts, apartments and warehouses, the distance between himself and his quarry only five or so meters. When the thief paused for a split second in preparation to make a sharp turn, Bart saw his chance and leaped at it—literally. He threw himself at full-speed toward the unfortunate criminal, letting out a "rraaagh!" of effort as he did so. At the moment of impact the thief made a small yelp which was soon lost in the cacaphonous clatter of both humans to the ground.
Bart was not a weak man. He knew this perfectly well—although he tried not to be vain about it—and so it came as quite the surprise when the thief wriggled away from Bart almost immediately. Unwilling to waste a single second, they lurched forward and away from Bart as they scrambled to their feet, abandoning whatever maneuver they'd previously planned to make for the alley straight ahead.
Bart was only seconds behind, clambering from the cobblestones with a huff and sprinting after the slippery criminal—but no sooner had he set off than some treacherous object beneath his foot scraped against the stone beneath, causing him to slip—he windmilled his arms around in panic, feeling rather like one of those Fortune Festival clowns with his breath caught in his cheeks like balloons, but he did manage to steady himself in time. The object that narrowly missed being his downfall had skittered a few meters forward as a result of its slapstick encounter with Bart. He made sure to step over it as he ran into the alley, only realizing several seconds later what it was:
A theatrical mask designed to look like a fox.
A mere stone's throw into the alley, the thief had come upon an obstacle of their own, namely, a wall. The alleyway came to a merciless halt where it ran up against the garden wall of a gray-brick townhouse. Crouching low against the wall, the thief stared at Bart with eyes so wild he just about expected them to hiss. Without a mask to conceal their face, Bart could see it was pale and moon-shaped and—in all honesty—quite childlike.
He flung his arms wide, planting each of his palms against the wood siding of the tenements that outlined the alley. Not having finished catching his breath, Bart hurried to speak, chest heaving as he forced out the words: "You're—cornered—thief! Hand o-over—the—rubies!" He paused to draw in a long, ragged gasp. "There's nowhere—"
The Not-So-Faceless Fox flashed toward Bart too quickly for him to react. Pain seared itself into his consciousness as a blade punched through the back of his left hand and out the palm into the wooden siding with a squelch-crunch-thud. His vision swam. His hearbeat reverberated in his skull. He felt he was going to be sick. "Auughh," he said weakly, and was amazed he didn't throw up in doing so. He dropped to his knees with his left arm outstretched above him, his hand still pinned to the siding.
The fuzzy outline of the thief reached down to pick up their mask and put it back in its proper place, becoming the Faceless Fox once more.
"H—wait.." Bart mumbled, his tongue moving clumsily in his cottony mouth.
"Stay put," the Faceless Fox said in a low, hoarse voice as they heaved their rucksack higher up over their shoulder and took a step past Bart, their blue-gray leather boots padding softly on the cobblestone. "You'll only make yourself bleed."
Bart took no time to consider this.
(But if he had, he probably wouldn't have done anything different.)
Propelled by the inertial force of the person he'd resolved to be—the ramifications of which he did not yet understand remotely—Bart lurched away from the wall, a scream gargling in his throat as hand and blade alike came free from the siding with a pop. The Faceless Fox turned around just in time to catch a smattering of blood across the mask, from behind which Bart heard a muffled retch.
So distracted was everyone by the nauseating spectacle that was Bart's mangled left hand, even Bart himself nearly did not notice the objective of his right hand until it had snatched the strap of the Fox's rucksack. The Fox grunted and tried with all their strength to wrench the rucksack away, but Bart's grip, too, was strong—and the both of them were considerably stronger than the canvas rucksack, which promptly tore.
Twin flashes of red clanged against the cobblestones. Bart and the Fox both launched themselves toward the rubies, fighting the momentum that bore both of them backwards. Bart, for his part, miserably miscalculated his trajectory and came crashing into the ground with his outstreched right hand still several feet shy of the nearest gem, the wind knocked entirely out of him. By the time he'd succeeded in using his battered elbows to push his chest up from the ground, the Faceless Fox was already sprinting off into the night, a gleaming ruby clutched in each fist.
Bart allowed himself to slowly crumble back toward the ground, shivers running down his extremities as the adrenaline left him. It was then, with one aching cheek pressed against the cobbles, that he saw it: a small, brass key, no more than twelve inches away from his face.
"Eeeuuurrgh," Bart said, then darkness settled on him like a soft blanket and sent him sweetly to sleep.