burned wound lurking trolls,’ as they say.” He paused at Joy’s baffled expression. “Another old saying,” he explained. “Like the Imminent Return. Regardless, you will be expected to know how to present yourself accordingly and demonstrate your ability to establish your status in the pecking order, selecting your supporters and spurning your detractors in equal measure. Your presentation must be staged with precision and care, for among the Folk, impressions are everything and memories are long.” Two of his hands smoothed down his lapels as he came to a sudden realization. “Good heavens, I’ll have to contact my tailor...”
“Hello? Newbie halfling here who will be out of town those three days and currently hasn’t a clue what’s going on.” Joy pointed to herself. “I can’t go.”
“Correction—you must go,” Graus Claude said. “It is a welcome gala being held in your honor, after all—it will probably be the event of the century. To snub this invitation would cast yourself as a social pariah, which, trust me, is not a viable option.” His hands wove themselves together in pairs. “And you have nothing to worry about concerning distance or time. Indeed, there are far more serious things to worry about.”
“Like if I’m going to grow wings?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Graus Claude sniffed. “You would have sprouted fledgling nubs by now.”
Joy dropped her head into her hands and felt sick.
“Now, now, don’t fret overmuch—these things take time and, considering how dilute your lineage, you may be long in the tooth before you develop fangs.” Joy shot him a look. “Or gills,” he amended. “Actually, you might be quite fetching in spots.”
“Stop,” Joy said, closing her eyes and rubbing her hands over her knees. “One conniption fit at a time, okay?” She took a deep breath through her nose and out through her mouth. “If there’s no way that I can possibly learn everything before I immortally offend someone and smear both our reps, what options does that leave us with?”
Graus Claude gave one of his wide, toothy smiles.
“That’s simple,” he said. “We cheat.”
* * *
Joy picked up a pearl from a small pile spread across the Bailiwick’s desk. He was inspecting each one carefully, comparing their size and color and hue. It was hard for her to imagine Graus Claude ordering her a dress to match. Ball gown, she reminded herself, for my welcome gala. It was too ridiculous to take seriously.
“Is this really necessary?” she said.
“Trust me, Miss Malone, I believe this is our best option, given the current situation.” He opened his hand expectantly. Joy placed the pearl into his palm.
“I don’t understand what this has to do with my learning enough proper etiquette in time for the gala.”
Graus Claude grinned. “Leave it to me.”
“So I can stop typing?”
“Very droll,” he said while rolling the pearls between two plates of smoked glass suspended over a mirror. Joy couldn’t quite see how the thing held itself together, but Graus Claude stared intently at each pearl with a jeweler’s eyepiece jammed under his brow and several thin instruments in each of his hands. Long tubules ran from what looked like a brass coronet on his forehead to a nest of bulbs at its base. The emerald lamp shone close to his chin, highlighting every crag of his face in white gold. “You continue your work and I shall continue mine.” The Bailiwick went back to tinkering and muttering. “Think they can outsmart me, do they...?”
Figuring that she was still hearing him through the eelet, Joy decided not to comment. She turned back to the long list of official acknowledgment protocols on the tablet in her lap. Eye contact is mandatory excepting when bowing or curtseying to those greater than two stations above your current rank, whereupon eyes are lowered and lifted prior to attaining an upright position...bend at the knees, ankles parallel...hind in, chest out, don’t swallow as it is considered lewd...
A flicker of movement caught her eye. She stopped typing, grateful for the interruption—any interruption—Joy would have willingly hugged Hasp for the chance to escape. The outcast aether sprite may have been an evil toady for Briarhook, but an unexpected kidnapping certainly wouldn’t be dull! She wasn’t sure if her eyes, her back or her hands hurt worse.
Kurt opened the door and stepped inside without so much as a knock. That’s strange. Joy felt a prickle of premonition.
Inq marched into the room, lifting her hand to her eye as the four-armed toad glanced up, brow furrowing in confusion. She spoke before he did, crisp and sharp.
“I demand entrance to the Bailiwick of the Twixt.”
Graus Claude froze. His icy blue eyes glazed over, growing milky like cataracts, his wide mouth open in midbellow. His great jaw yawned with the weight of gravity, unhinging with a tiny clack and opening impossibly wider, lips peeling back from the rows of sharp, pointy teeth. Joy watched in fascinated horror as the giant amphibian’s tongue curled back upon itself, pale pink and gleaming, and adhered to the roof of his mouth.
Beneath the Bailiwick’s tongue were stairs, going down.
“Guard the door,” Inq said without looking at Kurt. He moved to obey. She placed one boot on the edge of the bottom lip and gestured to Joy. “Follow me.”
Joy gaped, attempting to make sense of what was happening, what she was seeing. She knew her eyes, at least, could be liars.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked, looking at Inq, then Kurt. “I mean, are you freaking kidding me?” The Bailiwick showed no awareness of any of them, or, for that matter, anything at all. He didn’t look alive any longer—it was as if he’d become a statue, a piece of furniture, like a wardrobe with its doors thrown open, exposing his insides to the world. Joy waved at his maw. “What did you do to him?”
“I’ve invoked his raison d’être,” Inq said simply. “And I’m entering the Bailiwick, as are you. I want to show you something.”
Joy looked to Kurt. “Is this normal?”
The muscular bodyguard did not so much as twitch. “He is the Bailiwick,” Kurt said, as if that explained everything. Which it didn’t.
Joy pointed behind her. “There is a stairway under his tongue!”
Inq smiled slyly. “Precisely,” she said. “Follow me.”
And she stepped over his bottom lip, which zipped a line of blue fire just behind his teeth.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It always does that.” Inq winked. “Watch your step!”
And she marched down, down, down into the Bailiwick’s throat.
Joy looked desperately around the room. Kurt stood in front of the office doors, staring ahead, politely averting his eyes. She wondered if Kurt was there to keep people from coming in or to keep her from running out. She edged closer to the gaping maw—widened to the full height of a man—and tentatively placed a foot on the first step. It was solid stone, worn slightly smooth in the center, and was the first of many going down into darkness.
