Thaddeus grunted as the light came on, pulling his jacket back up his to his shoulders before he’d even taken it all the way off. He’d expected he would have time to sort the work he’d accomplished this week, finally sending the pile of folders off to be filed.

Instead, a new pile of folders waited in his office inbox.

His was an unusual existence, namely in that he did not exist outside his line of work. His office door was one of only two places one could find his name. The other was in a document entailing his family’s genealogy, sparing only one line: Thaddeus Birch, deceased.

He had a life of his own, of course; he enjoyed opera and a fine cup of tea, so long as it was brewed in a cast iron kettle. The flavor was unpalatable otherwise. He kept a kettle in his office as well as his home, which was a stately old place he shared with a much younger Keeper. Not out of necessity, of course, but the boy was a new addition and not yet used to their order’s rules and customs. Despite sharing lodgings, the two of them rarely crossed paths. The boy worked in a different office, and Thaddeus… Well. He rarely stopped working at all.

Scooping a folder from the top of the stack, he flipped it open and stood behind his desk. There was little reason to sit, since he’d be out the door again in a moment.

Every folder was the same, in a way. Someone had a problem, one they couldn’t resolve on their own. While it pained him to think of it in such simplistic terms, solving problems was–in essence–a Keeper’s job. The nature of those problems varied, of course, and not all of them warranted a Keeper’s attention. But those requests were screened, and the half-dozen new problems in his inbox had been approved for intervention. And judging from the folder in his hand, he’d have no time for tea tonight.

“Have someone prepare a car for me,” Thaddeus called as he took a slip of paper from the folder, tucking it into the pocket inside his suit jacket before putting the folder on his desk. “And fetch my hounds.”

Their order worked with simple efficiency, and Thaddeus smiled to himself when he reached the garage to find both his requests fulfilled, a valet standing beside the unremarkable black car, leashes in hand.

“Hello, pups,” Thaddeus said. Both blue shepherds stood, tails wagging. Most dogs disliked the undead, but any animal could be trained to overcome such shortcomings with the proper care. As far as he knew, among vampires, Thaddeus was the only one who kept such well-trained canines.

“Going for a jaunt, sir?” the valet asked as he opened a door and ushered the dogs into the back seat. The two hounds bounded into the car without hesitation, tongues lolling.

“Going back to work,” Thaddeus said. “The problem with being efficient is that there is always more work.”

The valet nodded. “Simple task?”

“Simple enough.” Thaddeus took the keys from the lad, pausing to note how young he was. Unlike most, Thaddeus had turned at a senior age, doomed to be gnarled and gray forever. Some nights, he felt it more than others. “A fellow in Saint Louis needs someone to disappear.”

“Ah,” the valet nodded again. He opened the car door and stepped back, glancing to the back seat. “And the dogs?”

Licking his fangs, Thaddeus gave him a toothy smile as he settled into the front seat. “My boy, making people disappear is what the dogs do best.”

---

This week’s prompt was “Committing a crime.”
The lovely Megan Cutler already tackled this one, and you can see her response here.

There had to be a key, she simply hadn’t found it yet. Twisting a curl of her black hair, the mage girl mumbled to herself as she paged back through her book. That was the way with everything; no matter how complicated a knot, as long as you kept picking at it, it would eventually give way.

Envesi didn’t recall how long she’d been studying. It was her uncle’s notes that had first intrigued her, drawing her into this field of study. His peers thought him odd, but they’d never spent as much time working with him as she had. At first, her position as Tanvar’s apprentice had only been to keep her out of trouble. It wasn’t that she’d been in trouble, precisely, but that was just the sort of people her parents were.

Had it not been for her uncle’s superior strength in magic, she might have thought herself an oddity. Neither of her parents made particularly powerful mages, and as far as she knew, none of her younger siblings had yet manifested any sort of Gift. Her family preferred politics to sorcery, as they called it. But they recognized the value in having mages in the family, and so had indulged her desire to learn, placing her beneath Tanvar’s tutelage.

It was then that she’d become acquainted with his work.

It was a fascinating notion, the idea someone could loosen the ties of magic. Anyone who knew anything about magecraft knew that an affinity to a particular type of power was permanent; only her uncle had thought to challenge the idea.

Magic was a river, they said. Once it cut its path, it was impossible to change the flow. This was how the bonds of affinity worked, limiting the path one’s power could take, the same way a river was limited by its banks.

Tanvar thought it worked differently. Rather than a river, the forces of magic were but droplets on a windowpane, tracing a path downward. As it traveled, it gained momentum, drawing in the droplets around it. But, like a rivulet streaming down the window, enough force could change its direction.

Of course, there was little reason to try. Even if Tanvar’s suspicion proved correct, shifting the direction of one’s magic would only push them into a different affinity, and what difference did that make? Perhaps with enough practice, a mage could learn to shift affinities on demand, but there had to be a better solution.

If there weren’t, there wouldn’t still be free mages.

“Still here, little blossom?” Tanvar chuckled as he stepped into the room.

“Yes, uncle.” Sometimes Envesi forgot that her study space was his office; she spent more time there than he did.

He turned down one of the lamps, making the office just dim enough that she couldn’t keep reading. “You know you ought to be sleeping. Your parents will be here early in the morning, and they have important news.”

Envesi tried not to groan. “I already know what they’re going to say, and I don’t care.”

“You’re nearly twenty pents, blossom. You should be happy to marry.”

“And at nearly twenty pents, I’m one of the youngest women to ever wear Master white,” she replied, mindful not to be curt. Tanvar was kind to her; it wouldn’t do to snap at him for something that wasn’t his fault. “I have no intention of being married off.”

“And what do you intend, child?” her uncle asked, raising a brow.

To determine what truly limited power. To discover how to manipulate it. It was not a knot that tied their magic to one element, but a tapestry of something, woven and thrown over their Gift to leave only a narrow channel exposed. To understand the limitations her uncle hadn’t yet determined. To find the woven powers that held them, and determine how to pull them apart. To find the tapestry’s edge and rend it.

Only then could she understand the true nature of magic, understand the power that flowed in her veins as surely as her blood.

Only then could she harness it all.

She licked her lips. “To expand on your research, Uncle. That’s all.”

And all she could now imagine.

---

This week’s prompt was “Obsession.”

The lovely Megan Cutler covered this prompt back in September!

Demons.

It was a foolish name for them, though he understood why humans called them that. He didn’t doubt that the sirens singing their lonely songs among the rocks earned themselves the same label. Humans didn’t always understand things that were different, and they couldn’t relate to his people. Not that he would correct them; his kind had no name for themselves. And the longer he was out of the sea, the more he thought the label might fit.

The ocean lapped at his bare feet, beckoning him, calling him home. The gills on the sides of his neck had been dry so long they barely showed, folded closed, leaving little more than shadowed lines on his cyan skin. He longed for the water, for the tropical currents and blessed warmth of aquatic vents. He’d been on land too long to venture into cooler waters, his layer of insulating fat dwindled to nothing.

It was just one of many trade-offs he’d needed to survive.

Foam clung to his toes, whispering promises of freedom in the sea. He ignored it; there was nothing for him there. Not now. He’d not regained his strength, nor had he grown used to the itching of the leather patch where his left eye used to be. He’d told his host little of his life before, only that he’d been betrayed. The man praised him for waiting to exact revenge, muttering one of those odd human sayings about cold food. But years flowed differently for those with magic, and Elulyan did not wait.

He cloaked himself in magic during the day, hiding his brilliantly blue flesh and one crimson eye, but he did not wait. He was weakened without the power of his Overseer to feed upon, but he was coming into his own power; in time, it would be enough.

But he did not wait.

He worked, growing stronger, making allies, making plans. He studied, scouring the Great Coast for every sliver of information that could bring his Overseer to ruin. And every night, he stood at the sea, watching the waves and burning with resentment for the tight scars that lined his fingers, where the Overseer had cut away the webbing that let him swim.

The sound of the ocean shifted now, the song of the waves becoming mockery. Clenching his fists, Elulyan turned away from the surf, shutting out the sweet melody of the sirens that still drifted to the shore.

In time, he would be well.

And then he’d teach his people what the name demon meant.

---

This week’s prompt was “How They Relate to Their Race.”

The lovely Megan Cutler addressed this prompt back in September. Check it out!

Sometimes, no matter how many precautions she took, things went wrong.

They were not the explosive accidents of her novice days, but they were mistakes, nonetheless. Improper measurements happened, sometimes from a fuzzy head after a late night. Delicate mixtures bubbled over when her back was turned for only a second. Reagents scorched when the burner’s flame was set just a little too high. Accidents were part of experimentation, and experimentation was the heart of progress.

It was benevolence that made Laele first pursue alchemy. Medics and true healers were sometimes few and far between, rarely able to travel, rarely able to attend people in isolated villages. It was one of many situations where her potions and elixirs could be of help. They would last for months on a cool cellar shelf, kept handy for the inevitable night when a child’s fever wouldn’t break and there were no medics to be found.

It was determination, however, that kept her struggling on through trial and error, mistake after mistake, and more failed mixtures than she could recall.

Months had been spent on this particular concoction. A fortune spent on herbs and distilled essences, too. She could have made them herself, but that took time, and every minute spent making her own reagents was minutes spent away from the troublesome brew she simply couldn’t conquer.

Colorful herbs stained her fingertips and her collection of mortars, each of the bowls a different color, a streak of yellow from a crushed flower marking her forehead from where she’d absently wiped away the sweat of concentration. From the moment she sat down, she’d known it would be a goal-changing night. Either she accomplished what she’d set out to do, creating one of the most powerful anti-toxins ever designed, or she’d know once and for all which of the herbs was to blame for the foul sludge she’d poured out every night for ages.

One by one, she’d tested them. Each and every one. Leaves, stems, roots, fruit and blossom all had to be tested individually; each part of the plant contained its own unique properties. And one after another, she’d found everything stable, performing exactly what she’d hoped for. Up until the last one.

Was it the shoot’s leaves or the stem she needed for that potion?

Was it the leaves or stem that had reacted badly with the mixture?

Her fingers wriggled above the reagents laid out on the counter. One or the other, she just had to take a chance. No matter what she picked, she’d have her answer, a long-plaguing problem finally solved.

She jammed the last ingredient into the glass beaker and scooped up the narrow tube of blue fluid, sucking in a deep breath before she poured it in and put it all together.

Plumes of color spread from the paste of herbs and powders in the bottom of the beaker, darkening as they expanded to fill the glass. She exhaled, beaming.

It exploded.

---

 

This week’s prompt was “A memory linked to their occupation/profession.” As usual, my companions are far ahead of me! You can read the lovely Megan Cutler’s take on this prompt at her blog.