"Montesano P.D.," said the officer facing off against Cairo's father, one hand cautiously on the gun at his side as he eyed the lobby with a pointed sort of wary suspicion. "Someone reported a double murder."

Mrs. Quimby looked on watchfully from the receptionist desk, sparkly pink smoke wafting from her long, elegant cigarette holder. Everyone present in the room had tensed at the arrival of the police, even the humans, but she alone carried a sense of calm that made the officers visibly uneasy—like she wasn't intimidated by their authority in the least. Of course, this was a woman who had once narrowly evaded imprisonment by the Court's Guard. Authority should mean little to her in her own establishment.

"We both know your jurisdiction here is murky at best," Richard replied distastefully.

"I'm just here to do my job. Where are the victims, Quimby?"

Cairo held his breath. Paris reached up for him and he frowned, shaking his head. After a few moments of insistent tugging he caved and hefted him up, settling him on one hip so that he could see.

Mr. Quimby presented a wide, sweeping gesture towards the incriminating table, where the bodies still remained but the rest of the evidence had been wiped clean. The surface of the table was entirely empty. Cairo wished they'd had the foresight to get rid of the bodies, too.

Then he remembered. No cleaning service.

It was always just one thing after another at the Quimby Hotel, wasn't it?

The officer who'd spoken, flanked by two others, sidled over to examine the dead. It was beyond obvious that they'd been poisoned, and Cairo couldn't stop thinking about Shanghai and Rome in the kitchen, about how easy they'd be to blame. Of all the passing cook's assistants, which of the fleeting faces might have been the spy's, committing smooth, undetectable sabotage? Or could he simply have been any of the guests Cairo had passed by while carrying the tray, taking advantage of the fact that he was hardly paying attention?

He placed his hands on his hips, turning to take in the stray customers who were apparently so unaffected by the situation that they were content to read, chat quietly, and do paperwork throughout the lobby, some even still at their lunch seats watching the television on dialed-down volume. There were very few. Father would have had to refund them for their trouble and send them to get food elsewhere to avoid liability. "Where are all the guests?"

"It's midday, officer." Mr. Quimby's voice dripped with loathing. "Hardly any of my business where my guests go during the day."

"What'd you do with the evidence?"

"Traditionally we handle this sort of thing ourselves. I can have the matter settled shortly, but I've spent the last half hour ensuring the safety of my guests and providing them with compensation for the inconvenience. Not that you would understand such a thing as hospitality."

The officer looked at him sharply. "This better not have happened more than once."

Richard fell silent. The ticking of the clock on the wall seemed to echo louder than usual.

"I have an investigative crew on the way, and damn good reason to search your place."

"The Guard will be here long before you get the chance to get your grubby hands on my hotel." His anger was showing. Cairo's, too. Cairo wanted to rip something to shreds.

"You have a good bluff, Mr. Quimby. For a man so sure of himself, it seems curious that you'd feel the need to get rid of all that evidence so quickly. If there's anything suspicious here, we're going to find it."

"By all means, entertain yourselves," he drawled.

"I'm surprised you haven't already magicked away the bodies, turned them to dust or whatever it is you likely did with the rest."

Cairo winced. Such would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Dealing with a murder investigation privately was one thing. Disposing of bodies without express consent from the victims' families was entirely another.

"Your impression of my people as disrespectful of the dead is bad enough, but really—I take great offense at the implication of poor business practice."

Hattie finally spoke. "Don't escalate things, Richard."

"I'm no toxicologist, but I presume these two ladies had an unpleasant meal?" The officer directed his attention toward the Quimby children watching at the stairs, all of whom, with the exception of Cairo, wore uniforms. Everyone and their mother in the area knew this was a family-run business. "Who does the cooking?"

Richard slid his hands into his pockets. "I haven't the slightest obligation to tell you anything."

They were going to be arrested. Of course they were going to be arrested. That was the whole point—to anger Richard Quimby by framing his sons. Ice shot through Cairo's blood, grip tightening around the boy in his arms. The police would buy right into it. Any excuse to cripple a place like this was opportunistic gold.

The guests would keep their mouths shut—for now. But an investigator was coming, and eventually Rome and Shanghai's names had to come up. Shanghai glanced over at him, pulling at his collar and looking, for once, nervous.

As the officer continued to attempt to instigate an argument with an unwilling Richard, Cairo spotted one of the readers relaxing leisurely on a lobby love seat—goodness, members of the magical community were so unfazed by everything—fold his book closed and get up to leave. Suddenly Vienna's voice was whispering in his ear.

"That's him, five-twenty-four."

"What?" he whispered back, instinctively, although by the time the word had come out of his mouth his brain had caught up with what he said. He shoved the kid into her arms, hoping the police were distracted enough not to notice his absence. Ghostly, ghostly, ghostly. It would work in his favor now. Thatcher was moving fast, already out of sight. He had to be faster.

He grabbed at his coat from behind, yanking him silently down a darkened hall before he could get to the staircase. They both knew better than to make noise, glaring each other down without making any indication of the confrontation that would alert anyone in the lobby. Frustratingly, as Cairo cornered the guardsman, he was pulled just short of attacking him, some unseen force stalling his hand. Thatcher was equally defenseless; he held up a smart little blade, his hand trembling, and eventually dropped it.

"Clancy, is it?"

The young guardsman's sharp face contorted into a smile that managed to be both friendly and menacing. "You must be Cairo. Delighted to meet you."

"Likewise." Cairo nodded to the discarded knife. "This spell really is spoiling the mood."

"Shall we take this outside?"

"You know, you're oddly well-spoken for a guardsman."

"Homeschooled."

"Me too. I'm starting to think that if you weren't a conniving murderer, we might have been friends."

His eyes gleamed. "Murderer is a strong choice of word. I've got a license to kill, same as you."

"Oh, that makes it so much better."

"Well, we can argue over who's the most reprehensible 'round back."

So they ran. Heart slamming against his ribs, Cairo was swarming with anxiety and terror that at any moment Clancy would be the one to land the kill first. It was a matter of who could catch up, a game of chase. The doors to the back flew open and the moment they were in the outdoor garden, they were grappling with one another, hoping that the spell would wear off. It was difficult to tell in all the chaos whether it was actually working, whether either of them was landing any successful hits on the other.

Clancy's knife grazed him as he ducked, tearing through his clothes but failing to draw blood. But the further away they got from the doors and the closer they got to the fountain, the easier it became for Cairo to land a punch or Clancy to slash across his arm. Clancy's book fell out of his coat pocket and for some bizarre reason Cairo's first instinct was to spin to grab it, slamming it with full force toward his face. The move was juvenile, but he'd never been particularly adept at fights. In the muddled mess Cairo couldn't think. Come on. Come on. Don't you have a weapon on you somewhere?

Where was his gun? He'd left it in the room with his other things, stashed away where Shanghai hopefully wouldn't dig around. He didn't have a knife, anything. What did he have, what did he have?

Clancy lurched forward with the blade again, sending him jolting to maneuver out of the way.

"Is one of your quirks having horrible aim?"

"The spell is messing with my aim, you dunce," he muttered rather defensively as he heaved a breath and smoothly avoided Cairo's elbow, which was only half-believable.

That was when it struck him—the key, the skeleton key. The key he'd been using to get into the rooms. It wasn't enough, but it would have to be. He flicked it out of his pocket and slid it between his knuckles, giving Clancy no time to react as he grabbed him by the shoulder and drove it straight onward into his eye.

The guardsman's screaming was music to his ears.

"I thought we were friends. Don't you want to match?" Cairo said with a little more glee than was probably appropriate, yanking out the shaky knife to the shoulder he'd gotten for his trouble and flinging it aside, out of his opponent's reach. It was an eye for an eye, wasn't it? Seemed only fair, given that the Guard had done the same to him.

Clancy gritted his teeth and shoved a hand under his chin, Cairo faltering as he felt his fingernails sharpen to points. Clancy persevered through the pain even with blood pouring from his eye, clawing at his throat with increasingly desperate movements. It was then that Cairo made the haunting realization that even though he knew his opponent's name and the organization he came from, he didn't know the most crucial information about him:

His quirks.

Cairo was being pushed further and further away from the boundaries of the spell, and as he tried to take another step back, he hit stone—the fountain. This time he didn't get the chance to think.

Thatcher wrenched him by the neck, pinprick holes stabbing into his skin, and shoved him headfirst into the fountain. Everything plunged into blue before fading to white. He thrashed and struggled, but the pressure holding him down under did not relent. Surrounded by endless suffocation, once more he was very small and tumbling around in a washing machine, the water rushing around him in a swirling hurricane of madness. And he was going to die, he was going to die, he was going to die.

This time his mother could not be here to save him. This time there was only Cairo, and he was nothing if not a walking corpse already, long dead, long gone.

The guardsman let go, and he burned with relief—all he had to do was return to the surface—

But that would be far too easy. With a breath of freezing air, a layer of ice solidified over the top of the water, stopping him just short of reaching back up for air. Magic was a terrible thing.

Clancy Thatcher turned away whistling, his work here done, and Cairo sank down into the water, lungs giving out, because he wasn't good enough to save himself.

━━ ⬫ ❪ ❖ ❫ ⬫ ━━

His heart stopped beating for a full six seconds before the oxygen came rushing back to him.

"It's going to be alright. It's going to be alright."

The memory was his mother. But this time it was Lucille.

They said that sometimes In-Between magic developed as a protective device, a defensive last resort. This would be the second time this saved his life.

Cairo breathed in deeply, half-wishing he hadn't survived but knowing it was inevitable. It was like God was forcing him to keep going, to press on, even when he was doing everything in his power to stumble his way to the end of the line. Why bother? It wasn't fair that it was him here instead of Lucille, who'd had plans and aspirations and passions, whose smile had burned brighter than the sun. There wasn't time to ruminate on any of that now, but the invasive thoughts pressed in on him as he readjusted to his surroundings. He was still submerged fully underwater, pressing his palms up against the ice as the blood seeping from his shoulder swirled faintly around him.

He shook his head. I can't do it.

"You have to. Get up, Cairo." Lucy was never one to take no for an answer. She was waiting for him on the other side, and he could just barely make her out through the ice. If he just could get to her—

He tucked his knees to his chest, thrusting his feet towards the ice. Kicked it once. Twice. Three times. It began to crack.

Cairo burst from the frozen fountain not gasping for air but gasping for life. He was not going to die. And it felt like being born again.

He emerged dripping and bloody, already looking around to zero once more on his target. Lucy was not here. There were only painful slashes across his neck, a wound on his shoulder, and determination in his one good eye. It had been only moments, but Thatcher was already gone, probably heading back into the hotel. He had to be dealt with before he caused any more problems.

Cairo went for the closest way in, the back door that they'd used initially to enter the garden. But he hurled the door open and Clancy was nowhere to be found. He must have been going the other way around, he realized, cursing himself.

Antalya was there instead.

"What are you doing?" he hissed as she stomped forward with fervor, hastily pushing her back inside.

She was wielding a large butcher's knife from the kitchen that no self-respecting nine-year-old should be walking around with, pointing it in Cairo's direction. "I'm going to capture the spy," she told him haughtily, waving it around a bit and making him take a cautionary step back. "Then Mother and Father will see I'm fit to inherit the hotel."

Cairo sighed. "Still on that, are we?" He grabbed for the knife at lightning speed, but her reflexes were faster. Now this was, at least, a quirk he'd been familiar with her having since birth. "Don't be ridiculous," he said sharply, snatching at it again. Each time, she easily slid out of the way. "You're nine. That's a grown man."

"I don't care. You're a grown man too and just look at you. Doesn't mean anything." She tried to push past him but he held her back.

"You're just like your sisters. Hot-headed, power-hungry. They've been lovely influences." Apparently crazy and delusional, too. Clancy Thatcher would eat her alive, and he wasn't even all that talented of a guardsman. Just a bit wittier than most others, maybe. "Stay here, and stay out of my way."

"You can't stop me," Antalya said angrily.

Cairo leaned forward. "You're going to hate me for this." With that, he cracked her head forcefully against the wall, sending her crumpling in a heap instantly. Mother would be furious to find his little sister in such a state, but he didn't have time for meddling, and he couldn't exactly lock her in a closet. He picked up the knife, testing its weight, and went out to find himself a guardsman to kill. He supposed he should thank her for the help when she woke—if she let him live long enough to manage it.

Cairo was running, paying attention this time to the sounds of pained breathing as he chased after his unseen opponent. How long had it been? A minute already? There was no time to let him get away. He hesitated briefly before halting, pressing a steadying hand to the wall and reaching into his mind. He dug around, not really all that sure what he was searching for. Something he could access fast, something debilitating. He'd already used up the memory of the stabbing on his brother...

"Use your head, Cai," Lucille told him.

His head. She'd been there—well, she hadn't been real, but real enough. Cairo grasped onto the sick-inducing migraine of the previous night and clung on tightly, taking a fleeting moment to prepare himself for the horrible drain of energy this was about to do to him.

He expelled it everywhere, pushing the boundaries as far as he could reach, holding out hope that it would reach Clancy wherever he was. Cairo collapsed from the effort but forcibly pushed himself up again using the brick wall to his side. He couldn't afford to waste what he'd done. The sudden moan of agony coming from the direction of the opposite back entrance reignited his adrenaline. Just what he needed.

Clancy was easy to find after that, shuddering with tremors and drenched in his own vomit. Cairo wrenched him up by the collar, fueled by a short-lived magic-induced burst of ecstasy and the satisfaction he derived from the terror in his eyes.

"You honestly thought you could kill me?" he laughed, raspy and breathy. He was still losing some blood from his neck and he was tired and fatigued and running on negligible sleep. But maybe the slightest part of him was also having a little bit of fun. It felt good to finally have the upper hand. "Even I've never achieved such a feat. Believe me, I've been reckless, but despite my best efforts death has eluded me time and time again."

Clancy's eyes were fluttering in an attempt to stay open, biting down on his tongue to keep from crying out. The effects were lasting longer this time; he still had the migraine, or residuals of it.

Cairo was swaying the blade of the kitchen knife just inches from the side of his face, tilting closer to whisper in his ear. "What's the captain want from my father, Thatcher?"

Clancy pressed his lips together, letting his eyes close. "I'm a rookie. They don't tell me everything."

"So once again we find ourselves on the same page."

"Look. All I know is that the captain suddenly blames Richard for his daughter's disappearance."

Cairo's brow furrowed, armed hand stilling. "Why?"

"He discovered very recently that the last place she was seen was this very hotel. He came here specifically searching for answers and found something much more advantageous," the guardsman mumbled. "When justice is out of reach revenge will have to do."

Cairo connected the logic easily enough. "He wants to take something from Father as he believes Father took something from him."

"Precisely. Captain Hayes—"

"Hayes?"

His eyes flew open. Blood still dripped from the left, although it appeared he'd pulled out the key. Cairo could imagine that feeling unpleasant. Hmm, the left. It was a shame Cairo was right-handed. They didn't match after all. "Yes, what about him?"

No, not about him. Not about him whatsoever. Hayes. He couldn't recall Father ever mentioning the captain's name. Cairo was gutted with that horrific sensation of dread, when one realized that they'd made a terrible, terrible mistake.

The captain had come here in the first place because of Cairo.

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