The box was dropped at the corner of Thirteenth and Main sometime around midnight. It was left open so the summer wind would blow the contents free. It was full of sheets of paper, and the wind carried them south, beneath the light of the lamps, where they were caught in doorways and phone booths, along with the other detritus of the night. Around dawn, the first curious readers gave them a cursory glance, and soon every piece of paper had been picked up and its message shared around the city.

Before long, everyone was talking about Whisper.

BY LUKE ARNOLD

Fetch Phillips Archive

The Last Smile in Sunder City

Dead Man in a Ditch

One Foot in the Fade

Whisper in the Wind

ORBIT

First published in Great Britain in 2025 by Orbit

Copyright © 2025 by Luke Arnold

Excerpt from The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft

Copyright © 2023 by Josiah Bancroft

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-356-52161-9

Orbit

An imprint of

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

The authorised representative

in the EEA is

Hachette Ireland

8 Castlecourt Centre, Dublin 15,

D15 XTP3, Ireland

(email: info@hbgi.ie)

An Hachette UK Company

www.hachette.co.uk

orbit-books.co.uk

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

A Week Later

Acknowledgements

For Laura, finally and forever

1

The cafe was quiet, the city was burning, and I was happy.

Unbothered by the sirens and black smoke wafting in from the west, the last of the lunchtime customers took off with their meals and bestowed me with compliments and coins on their exit. I cleared the tables, scraped the hotplates clean, and took the garbage out onto the street.

Fire. Down near the Rose Quarter. An orange haze to the low clouds that made my skin crackle in anticipation of some incoming excitement.

Lives were being changed or ended. The start of someone’s adventure.

Not mine.

I still needed to deal with the dirty dishes and check the stock and prep the patties for the dinner rush . . . though a quick look from a higher vantage wouldn’t hurt. I didn’t need to get involved – my meddling days were in the past – but this was still my city and I’d feel left out if there was a mess being made without me.

I climbed the steel stairs of the fire escape, resenting every step. Those hideous eyesores were bolted to every building on Main Street like someone had wandered through a gallery and welded hunks of metal onto all the art. When I got to the top – and saw nothing of interest besides more black smoke – I decided that it was finally time to bust this damn thing up.

Though the steps were useful, the railing offended me. It obstructed the view out the Angel door with a stamped strip of metal that read “NILES COMPANY CONSTRUCTION”. The Angel door was a remnant of better days, before the Coda, when flying creatures could leave from the fifth floor and launch straight into the air. It was a reminder of what we once took for granted and – during periods of unchecked optimism – what we hoped could be reclaimed. The railing was installed by men who wanted those days gone for good. It was a safeguard that made me feel like I’d been separated from the city. I didn’t like that. I might have spent most of my life as the eternal outsider – an intruder in every room, and the odd one out of step and out of time at every turn – but not any more. I’d found my place. Worked out a way to do some good in this world gone sour. I’d become a proper, useful part of Sunder City, and I’d be damned if anyone was going to put a barrier between me and the streets that finally felt like home.

It wasn’t the first time I’d made an unauthorized attempt at city deconstruction; the steel barrier was warped with dents and blowtorch burns from my previous efforts. Say what you want about the Niles Company (and I’ll say more than most), but they sure know how to bolt a bunch of metal together.

The structure had stood strong against my side kicks and mallet attacks, so I’d made a few enquiries and procured something special.

Seven years ago, when the Coda froze the sacred river and turned down the lights on this once-majestic world, we’d believed that the magic had vanished from existence. That was technically true – no denying the fact that we were living in a faded, bloodstained copy of the life we once knew – but the memory of that power still echoes down these streets, sticking to the shadows, hoping to be heard one last time. That’s what I found, again and again, in my fruitless attempts to turn back the clock. Not magic. Not a way back to that better world. Just the curdled residue of what once was. A sacred power gone to seed, sprouting warped versions of its old self: often surprising, always dangerous, but occasionally useful.

I took the vial of acid from my pocket. The out-of-town Dwarven dealer claimed that it came from a Basilisk. I was pretty sure that – like all the old beasts that survived the Coda – it would no longer be some wild titan but a poor invalid animal, perhaps the last of its kind, held in captivity and milked for this strange greenish liquid. Once upon a time, a few drops of this bile would have been a weapon to win wars with. Now it was just a useful tool for breaking down unwanted metal barriers.

I unscrewed the lid – sure to keep the open vial away from my nose – and poured a couple of drops onto the bolts that were holding up the steel beam. It worked slowly, but a faint hissing sound and a thin stream of silver smoke let me know I might be making progress.

For the record, I wasn’t taking down the balustrade because I desired a clear path out the Angel door if I ever felt like nosediving into nothingness. I’d moved on from those dreary days when the thrill of a five-story drop onto Main Street was my daily fantasy, and I now had too many customers that relied on me for a cheap, calorie-filled meal every morning. I just didn’t like the idea of anyone, especially Thurston Niles, telling me what to do.

I had my routine, a hard-earned sense of satisfaction, and no desire to get involved with anything outside the greasy little cafe that Georgio had left in my care. I filled my days with bacon, eggs and coffee, and other than a preference for milk or sugar, anyone else’s business was no business of mine.

I tried to tell myself that when I saw a couple of ash-covered kids running up Main Street from the south.

Even without the soot and sweat, you would have guessed they were guilty of something: a duo of nervous teenagers who kept changing their pace, unsure whether they should be running for their lives or attempting to play it cool. When the sirens got louder, they panicked and turned into Tackle Place, unaware that it was nothing but an L-shaped, dead-end crack between the backsides of buildings without any fences to hop over or doors to kick in. If someone was on their tail, then the kids had just cornered themselves and given their pursuer plenty of time to catch up.

Goddammit.

I stepped through the Angel door and into my office. My plan wouldn’t work if I was seen sprinting down the fire escape, so I dumped the vial of acid in my desk, went through the waiting room into the hall, then down the inside stairwell taking it five steps at a time.

I came out the revolving door – no sign of any pursuer yet – and back into the cafe. The kids re-emerged from their fruitless adventure in the alley, and before they could scamper, I rapped against the window loud enough for them to hear.

They were flushed-faced, youthful, and as skittish as rabbits after a whipcrack. The one who heard me first was a Half-Elf girl with curly black hair, wide eyes, and the mottled two-tone skin that many of her kind had developed after the Coda. She was expecting danger more than assistance so I needed to beckon her repeatedly before she got the message. She turned to her companion for hasty deliberation about the risks of accepting my offer, but when the distant sirens became noticeably less distant, they decided to take their chances with the stranger in the window.

As soon as I saw that they were playing along, I grabbed a pile of greasy plates from the kitchen and brought them back out into the dining area.

“Are you Georgio?” asked the girl, holding open the door while looking up at the sign that dangled above it. It was a question I’d learned to endure on a daily basis. No, I was not the ancient Shaman who’d guided lost souls through the old world and filled empty stomachs in the new one. I was just one of the lucky people who benefitted from his wisdom before he wandered out of Sunder in search of a dream.

“We’re under new management. I’m Fetch Phillips: amateur fry cook. Now, come in, sit down, wipe your hands, and try to look innocent.”

I set a table of dirty dishes for two then threw them each a damp dishcloth. The Half-Elf’s friend was a stocky, blond Human whose hands bore the telltale marks of recent pyromania.

“Anyone get killed?” I asked.

The girl looked up, defensive.

“What?”

“Whatever stunt you just pulled. Anyone killed? Badly hurt?”

The sirens were getting louder. Cops would soon be coming up Main Street and the kids were visibly nervous.

“It wasn’t even us,” said the girl, wiping her hands. “We were sneaking around the Rose when this whole house went up in flames.”

“It was bullshit anyway,” said the boy, wiping soot from his face. “The firefighters were already there. Must have done it themselves.”

“One of them pointed at us, trying to pin the blame. We got out of there, but—”

She was cut off by a police car blowing past the cafe in a blur of blue light and black exhaust. I didn’t know if I believed her, but I didn’t really care. The Sunder City Police Department weren’t the lazy paper-pushers they used to be, and their treatment of ex-magical creatures who didn’t fall into line was getting worse every week. I was happy to accept the kids’ story without regard for its relationship to the truth.

“I think we lost them,” said the Human boy. “Let’s go.”

Before they could get up, Constable Bath jogged up the sidewalk and stopped right outside the front window of the cafe. His uniform was soaked with sweat and his hair was slick and sticking out at all angles. It looked like he’d paused to catch his breath, but as he leaned against the cafe to settle himself, his focus shifted to the customers inside.

There was a clatter of metal against porcelain as the suspects picked up their cutlery and shoveled the last of their imaginary meals into their mouths. I snatched the sooty dishcloths from the table and shoved them into my pockets as Bath made his way around to the entrance.

“Ophelia,” hissed the Human boy, “your hair!” He pointed to a paper petal caught in her curls: a calling card of the Rose Quarter, thrown by sex workers on balconies to attract the attention of those walking below. These accidental souvenirs had revealed the lies of many a Rose Quarter patron in the past, so I plucked it out and crushed it in my fist as the bell above the door went “ding”.

Bath stood at the threshold of the cafe, his expression a badly mixed cocktail of suspicion, trepidation and bewilderment. Our ruse was as thin as a Vampire on a hunger strike, but Bath was considerate to a fault and a lapsed believer in his own instincts, so he couldn’t help but give us the benefit of the doubt.

“Fetch,” he panted. “We’re . . . we’re looking for some vandals. Set fire to a cottage in the Rose Quarter.” Out the window, more cops jogged into view. One was knocking on the door of the teahouse across the way while two others charged down Tackle Place.

“Is that what all the hubbub was about?” I remarked, pouring cold coffee into a dirty cup as if it were a refill. “We all thought we could smell something, didn’t we?”

The double act played their part, nodding silently. The girl took an overly enthusiastic swig of coffee, almost spat it out when she registered the temperature, but managed to swallow it with an audible gulp.

Bath looked from the kids back to me, then back to the kids.

“Two suspects, apparently,” he said, his high-pitched voice avoiding accusation. “Young. They’ll probably be . . . sooty.”

He had the unblinking stare of a dog at the kitchen table, waiting for somebody to slip up and drop a piece of their meal, as if any minute now, one of the kids was going to clumsily let fall a confession.

“I haven’t seen anyone come past recently.”

“And what about . . .?” He pointed at my two guests.

“Oh, this lot wouldn’t have seen anything either. They’ve been back in the kitchen for the last hour learning the ropes. I’ve been teaching them how to use the fryer and we’ve just been tasting the results. You haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary, have you, kids?”

The boy just shook his head but the Half-Elf with the big eyes found her voice.

“Nothing like that. Sorry. We’ll keep a lookout though.”

Bath’s habitual civility caused him to thank her without meaning to. He looked back to me with a pleading expression on his face, hoping that I’d show him some sympathy by ending the charade.

“Golly, Fetch. It’s a lot of damage. If we don’t find the folks who did this, Company Men will be the next ones that come knocking.”

At first, I thought it was a threat. But no. Not from Bath. It was a warning, sure, but one meant as a mercy. A chance to come clean with him before Thurston Niles sent out butcher boys in charcoal suits to ask the same questions without the strained civility.

I gave him a smile – to let him know I appreciated his care and his candor – but I wasn’t worried about Niles Company goons or more city cops or the wrath of Thurston or Detective Simms or anyone. I was just a humble cafe owner taking care of his customers on an early-summer afternoon.

“Thanks, Bath. If I hear of any leads, you’ll be the first person I call.” I made my way to the kitchen, calling to the kids over my shoulder. “All right, team, lunch break’s over. Next up, it’s bacon butties – a cop favorite, as it happens – and we’ll need three dozen for afternoon tea.”

There was the scraping of chairs as they jumped to attention, leaving Bath to contemplate his options. It didn’t take him long. He wasn’t made for this kind of work. Backing up a superior officer was one thing – he had no problem following orders, no matter how inane, insane or immoral they were – but send him out on his own and he acted like a timid farm boy attempting to court a date.

In the kitchen, the fugitives gathered around me, holding their breath. We waited, and waited, until the bell jangled once more and the door slammed shut. The Half-Elf broke out in wild laughter, slapping both her friend and me on the back.

“Yes! Thanks, fella. We’ll give the copper a couple of minutes to clear off then get out of your hair.”

“Not a good plan,” I said. “Bath may be too nervous to arrest you on his own, but that doesn’t mean he won’t bring his buddies back for another look.”

Their smiles faded.

“So, we should go?” asked the boy.

“Cops will be all over the streets. Let’s hope Bath is too embarrassed to confess that he walked away from the culprits, but if he does come back, we need to solidify your story.” I took two aprons from the hook (perfectly clean, as I’d never used them myself) and held them out. “Come on. Three dozen bacon butties by four o’clock.”

They made a show of thinking it over, but they were still buzzing from the thrill of getting away with arson and I think the novelty of the whole thing tickled them too much. They tied the aprons around their waists and stepped up to the stations.

“There’s the rolls, fresh from the bakery this morning.” The boy made a right mess of his first attempt, hacking at it with a butter knife. “Kid, serrated knives are in the block on the bench. I sell these for two bronze coins a piece so make them look worth it.” He was about to argue back, but a look from his lady friend made him fall into line.

I turned my attention to the Half-Elf.

“Bacon’s in the icebox. Bottom drawer, wrapped in butcher’s paper. What are your names, anyway?”

“I’m Ophelia, that’s Ashton.”

She skipped across the room as I turned the knobs on the grill. A crackling whoosh brought a stream of heat from the pits below the city. They hit the underside of the hotplate, and I closed my eyes and breathed deep.

There was fire in the air, but unlike the black smoke outside, this was obedient, tame and contained. It was a good day. Coffee in the pot, meat on the grill, and a couple of kids safe off the street. I was finally doing something useful.

Bath didn’t come back that day. Or ever. A few nights later, he was shot eight times in his own home. I can’t say I cared all that much. He’d picked his side, hadn’t he? One less cop to worry about. Why would I make that any of my business?

If only I had.

Maybe then the good days would have lasted a little longer.

2

The box was dropped at the corner of Thirteenth and Main sometime around midnight. It was left open so the summer wind would blow the contents free. It was full of sheets of paper, and the wind carried them south, beneath the light of the lamps, where they were caught in doorways and phone booths, along with the other detritus of the night. Around dawn, the first curious readers gave them a cursory glance, and soon every piece of paper had been picked up and its message shared around the city.

Before long, everyone was talking about Whisper.

Turn the bacon, crack the eggs, switch the pot, flip the bread. Get more . . . goddammit.

“Ophelia! Where did the cinnamon buns go?”

She popped into my periphery, wiping icing from her cheeks.

“Payment for taking orders. Put them on my tab.”

“You don’t have a . . . Forget it. What’s the order?”

“Three breakfast specials, two black coffees, five biscuits, a butty and a big bowl of milk.”

I made some modifications to the cafe after Georgio left on his quest, and Ophelia took great joy in reaching through the new window that linked the dining room to the kitchen and sticking each order to the cork board as it came in. It had only been a week since I’d met them, and though the wide-eyed Half-Elf and her Human companion had proved to be useless kitchenhands, that hadn’t stopped them from making themselves at home. They deigned to take an order or two when things got busy. Which was nice, because ever since word got out that Georgio’s cafe was a haven for maligned and misbegotten youth with a taste for trouble, the place had become as busy as a Succubus’s bed.

The tables were so full that new arrivals were forced to take a lean, but that was no longer indicative of the place doing good business; the teenage rabble who’d decided to make the cafe their unofficial clubhouse hadn’t got it through their heads that I might appreciate them paying for something once in a while. The rowdy mass of feral hormones had pushed all the tables on the north wall together, and there was barely an hour without at least a couple of kids hunched over it, scrawling in notepads or flicking bottle caps. These pint-sized rebels made up most of my visitors but only a small percentage of my income, spending plenty of time but little else. Most days, it didn’t bother me, but they were louder than usual that morning. There were a number of new kids in attendance and the place was so packed that my other regulars couldn’t reach the counter.

“Where’s Richie?” I shouted to Ophelia (we’d gone past the pleasantries of please-and-thank-yous days ago). “His delivery’s getting cold.”

“Oi! Hand ’em over!” Richie’s huge, olive face appeared above the pack. He may have once been a Shepherd of the Opus – and was still plenty of pounds of Half-Ogre muscle – but even he was having trouble moving through the crowd. “I’ve been trying to get inside for ten minutes.”

I passed the basket of egg sandwiches over the heads of a few tea-drinking Dwarves, and Rich took it with both hands.

“Outta my way or I’m coming straight through ya!” he yelled, before parting the sea with his sizable belly. I was already back at the grill, plating up breakfast burgers and starting on the next set of specials. I poured coffees without thinking – two pots always on the go – and passed them through the window, trusting that the sound of jangling metal meant that someone was dropping the correct amount of coin into the till.

Check the mushrooms, slice more tomato, taste the sauce.

“Hey, Pheels,” I called to my Half-Elven helper, “what’s with the crowd today, huh?”

As a response, Ophelia pinned another piece of paper to the cork board. There were similar pamphlets in the hands of all the younger patrons, crumpled and dog-eared from being snatched back and forth. I’d noticed them being passed around but was too absorbed in the rotation of eggs and sausage to give them further thought.

“They’ve been blowing all over town,” said Ophelia, handing out coffees while I perused the pamphlet. “Nobody knows where they came from.”

It looked like a news article that had broken free of the paper and headed out on its own. The typeface was simple – blue/black with the occasional smear – and only ran for a couple of paragraphs.

YOUR LEADERS ARE LYING TO YOU

Friends, Rebels and Youngsters,

Brave Actors, True Hearts,

I see an afflicted city.

Doesn’t everyone remember reading information not gossip? Eloquently related, rational, even-handed, dispassionate, objective news?

Not a dictator editor’s measly offering of regurgitated horseshit, every night reciting yesterday’s propaganda?

I seek truth.

Old news and Niles-designed tales have unprecedented reach, soiling their once-nuanced newspaper in lies.

Enter Sunder’s herald: a voice every leader endeavored to shut up, not Derringer’s erroneous rag, spreading unsafe falsities, fouling every reader.

Beware, your cops help only insidious criminal entities take hold.

Early tomorrow, read an investigation telling of real secret meetings using Sunder treasuries.

Delivered in earnest,

Mister Whisper.

I turned back to the fire. Pour the coffee, refill the beans, pile the bacon, take the back row of eggs off the heat. I could understand why the kids were excited – this was just the kind of big talk they liked to fill the place with instead of filling my pockets – but I was already putting it out of my head. So, the city was corrupt? What a surprise. The Sunder Star was selling goose shit as gospel? Whoop-de-do. It was nice to know that somebody was out there kicking up a stink, but the state of Sunder’s four estates was less of a concern to me than working out how to get my hash browns crispy without giving the customer an instant heart attack. No Man for Hire here any more. No wannabe hero. You want anything other than a hot breakfast? Go bother someone else. Plate the next row of eggs, crack another dozen, send out the coffee, get the next batch on the stove.

Once the coffee was on, I added tomato and beans to the plates and lifted them up to the window.

“Order up!”

I’d been anticipating Ophelia’s smiling face, but the one staring back was as far from a smile as a papercut to a pistol shot.

Detective Simms stared through the service window, golden eyes visible over her tightly wrapped black scarf. Summer had hit the city, and while everyone else was down to essential layers – even I had my top buttons undone and my sleeves rolled up to my elbows – Simms was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a scarf around her mouth, and the collar of her trench coat popped up over her ears (or where her ears would be, if Reptilia were a species who sported them).

I sensed something off about Simms but put it down to her fluctuating appreciation of my friendship, her aversion to crowds, her dislike of young people, or her dislike of people in general.

“Here you go, Lena.” I reached under the counter and pulled out a glass jar of bone-white cream.

“Fetch, I don’t want that. I—”

“It’s the last I have in stock,” I said, turning my back on her. Flip the eggs. Butter the toast. Pour the coffee. “I’m still waiting on the ingredients to boil another vat.”

It was a reduction of collagen, marrow and fat, a few easily obtained plants and herbs, and a generous dollop of something Portemus (Sunder’s most enthusiastic mortician) called Reanicol. Portemus used the serum on his “clients” to preserve them for as long as possible, and together we’d created this cream: a milder version of his invention that worked as a topical lotion for ex-magical creatures whose skin had problems with this non-magical atmosphere. I didn’t exactly know what Reanicol was – like a lot of things to do with Portemus, it’s wise to stay oblivious to the details – but there was surely some magical element in it. Not active magic, of course (that had been dead for seven years), but a twisted remnant of the power that was kicked around the world in those glorious days before the Coda.

Knowing Portemus, the substance would have been something extracted from the unfortunate creatures who made their way through his mortuary, and if there was some magical power in it – no matter how dulled and disappointing it had become – that meant that it was now an outlawed substance in Sunder City. For that reason, the jar had no ingredients list and the label just read “skin cream”.

The response from customers had been positive – nobody had reported any miraculous response to the ointment, but it apparently eased some of their discomfort – so Simms and others would sometimes drop by the cafe to refill their supply.

I assumed that’s why Simms was paying me a visit, but she left the jar on the counter and cleared her throat.

“Fetch, I’m on my way to a crime scene. I want you to come with me.” Her sibilant speech wasn’t much above a whisper, but I noticed one of the kids clock what she said. It was Ashton, the Human arsonist who’d hidden out here with Ophelia after fleeing from the Rose Quarter fire. He’d just been stepping up to the window to return a pile of plates, and looked us over with unmasked suspicion. Ashton was still cynical about the Man for Hire turned cafe owner who’d opened his place up to Sunder’s growing counter-culture, and his sneering expression set me on edge.

“Sorry, Simms,” I said, placing a black coffee beside her skin cream, “I’m a little busy.” I dropped a Clayfield into her cup as a peace offering. They were harder to come by these days. The strips of bark worked as painkillers because the tree they were derived from was magical in origin, so a lot of stores had stopped stocking them for fear of repercussions.

There were now two pieces of contraband in front of Sunder’s most scaly police detective and, though I hadn’t accepted her proposition, she wasn’t about to leave them behind. She pocketed the jar, pulled down her scarf and sipped the coffee, taking a long, strained breath.

More tomatoes in the oven. Drain the oil. Cut a string of sausages.

“It’s Bath,” she said, as I salted the potatoes. “He’s dead.”

I paused for as long as I could – maybe a second or two – then picked up the spatula and rotated the eggs.

“I’m sorry, Simms. What happened?”

“I’d rather not talk about it here.”

“And I’d rather have a few extra hands who know how to fry an egg, but here we are.” Flip, slide, season, serve. “If you need someone to talk to, Richie was just—”

“It happened in Bath’s apartment. His home. There was someone waiting for him. A lot of someones, by the look of it. It’s . . . well, you should see it for yourself.”

I could only afford to glance up occasionally but, when I did, I saw Ashton standing over the large table, holding court. Kids leaned in to listen to him, all looking in my direction.

“Sorry,” I told Simms. Bacon, egg, brown sauce. Eight rolls ready to go. “I can’t leave. Why do you want me along anyway? You know I don’t do that work any more.”

“I want—”

“Hey! Copper! Read the paper this morning?” Ashton was standing at the head of the table with a smug look on his face. It was a match for the smug looks on the others sitting around him.

The grief and exhaustion that had been weighing Simms down took a back seat, and her narrow eyes became cold, golden slits. She attempted to ignore the provocation.

“Phillips, I can’t make this an official request, but—”

“Didn’t you see it, Detective?” It was Ophelia’s turn to pipe up. The group didn’t have a leader but, if they did, she would have been first in line. She was holding up one of the newsletters as if she was casually sharing a piece of amusing gossip. “Today’s big story alleges that you and all your friends are on the Niles Company payroll. Not much of a scoop, right? You’ve been enforcing his rules since the day he arrived.”

Ophelia wasn’t wrong. It had been a year and a half since Thurston Niles turned up in Sunder, and ever since he’d started signing checks, Mayor Piston and the local police had become increasingly concerned with the dangers of unsanctioned magical practices.

Simms refused to take the bait, keeping her attention on me.

“He didn’t deserve this, Fetch. He was a good kid.”

“You excited about Mister Whisper sharing all your dirty laundry?” said a third kid – this one with blue hair and a piercing through his nose – and I wondered if each of them was going to try to have their moment.

Simms bit her lip to stop herself from snapping back.

“Bath was on to something. I need your help to find who did this to him.”

A tear in her eye caught the warm light of the kitchen. At a different time in a different place, it might have persuaded me, but she wasn’t the only one applying pressure.

“Fetch?” prompted Ophelia, as if I were an actor on opening night who’d forgotten his line.

Maybe all I did was serve up greasy eggs and better-than-average coffee, but in the months since Georgio had left and I’d taken over, the place had developed a certain reputation. It was a safe place, in a city where that was becoming hard to find. We had flexible hours, no cover charge, and furniture that was already so stained you couldn’t add to it if you tried. The kids were only the latest lost souls who’d made it their second home. They were mostly full of hot air – spending their days celebrating petty vandalism and dreaming of a violent revolution – but I had more affection for their unruly brand of anarchy than I did for the shiny badge pinned to Simms’s coat. I’d never had much luck aligning myself with other people’s agendas, but if I was going to throw my lot in with anyone, these youngsters seemed a safer bet than any of the other groups who’d asked for my allegiance.

I’d helped Simms out before – I’d even sided with the cops over the people they’d vowed to protect – and I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do it again. She wasn’t here as a friend. She was here because she wanted justice for her fallen comrade, and it was time I made it clear that the police and I weren’t on the same side.

“Sorry, Lena,” I said. “You and your officers can sort this out on your own. My orders are piling up.”

I turned my back before she could argue. One row of eggs was already overdone and as I dropped them into the scrap bucket, the crowd of kids erupted in jeers and cheers, applauding Simms’s exit and my lackluster show of defiance.

“That’s enough!” I called through the window, playing the role of beleaguered schoolteacher. “This is a cafe, not your clubhouse, so treat my customers with respect or get out.”

Ashton led a round of “ooohs” but Ophelia cut them off.

“He’s right,” she told them. “Don’t act like children.”

An obedient silence followed. Ashton looked embarrassed and I hid a knowing smile. The kid was smitten. I tucked that ace up my sleeve so I’d have it ready the next time he tried to undercut me in front of his crew.

I put four specials on the counter – they weren’t perfect, but they’d pass – and as some Elves rose from their seats to collect them, a paperboy stepped into the cafe, dinging the bell for the thousandth time that morning.

“Delivery of the Sunder Star.”

He dumped a pile of tabloid papers by the door.

“HEY!” I yelled. “You get that filthy rag out of here. I never ordered it.”

The “paperboy” was a few decades old for the job. He wore a tailored tweed three-piece despite the heat and sported a white beard that had been waxed and brushed to unnatural perfection. He raised his notepad to his squinting eyes and furrowed his brow.

“Ah, no, no, no. It says here I have a special delivery for Mr Fetch Phillips.”

Great. I thought. Some kind of prank. Thurston Niles must have been missing my visits so much he’d decided to mess with me until I paid him some attention.

“Well, I don’t want them. Take ’em with you.”

The paperboy shrugged and looked down at the pile, then he leaned forward, as if something peculiar had caught his eye. He picked up the top paper and brought it to his nose. He blinked, then looked at me, then back to the paper, and back to me again. When he spoke, his voice was laced with warning.

“I dunno, mate; I reckon you might want to see this.”

Despite the heat of the kitchen, my blood went cold. I beckoned him over and he put the paper on the counter.

There I was.

My own stupid face, eight years and an eternity younger, standing side by side with the leaders of the Human Army. General Taryn – the man who’d recruited me – had a fatherly hand on my shoulder, with more senior officers on either side. We were the men who’d put an end to the magical age and doomed the world to death and decay. Our actions had shared the burden of mortality with those who had never known it and dragged even the greatest of this world’s wonders down to our level.

I was so stunned by what I saw that by the time I looked up, some customers had already retrieved other papers from the pile. Choking back panic, I dragged my eyes to the headline.

WAR CRIMINAL IN OUR MIDST

Local agitator, Fetch Phillips, catalyst for the Coda.

My old, wounded heart clenched like a streetfighter’s fist. What the hell was going on? The Coda was the worst thing that had ever happened to the world. The attack on the sacred river severed its connection to magical creatures, making the Elves mortal, the Wizards powerless and the Fae extinct. My involvement wasn’t common knowledge – only a few people knew the facts, and a few more knew a scrap or two – but I never thought it would warrant front-page news. I looked out to the large table, ready to watch in real time as more people who’d been dumb enough to put their faith in me tasted the inevitable disappointment.

But there were no shocked faces. No disbelieving stares. They were all just flipping through the various sections, remarking on the bullshit and bluster that was typical of every edition of the Star. Ophelia looked at me and shrugged, so I looked back to the paperboy.

He dropped the role of “confused delivery person” and stared back with the blank, uncaring eyes of a hired goon. The kind of look that had me mentally calculating the distance to the nearest sharp object.

“They’re not reading what you are,” he said, voice low and monotonous. “But they will tomorrow if you don’t come with me. The editor wants to see you.”

I had all kinds of insults lined up, but a look back at my personally designed newspaper smothered them. Things were finally going well. Every day, I went down to the cafe and did something that actually mattered. Sure, my life wasn’t as exciting or as wild as it had been a few months before when I was actively trying to turn back time, but there was a lot less blood and broken bones (unless you counted what went into the mincer). I’d found my place and my purpose and fuck me if some prick at a typewriter was going to take that away.

I shoved the paper into the oven and watched it burn. Once the offending article had been turned to ash, I picked up a ladle and saucepan and banged them together until everyone shut up.

“Finish your meals and settle your bills. Kitchen’s closing early!”