THE SIGNwas more than clear:The Arawn Agency will be closed until further notice. For immediate concerns, contact the nearest office of The State Bureau of Peculiari. For all non-urgent matters, mail and telegrams will continue to be received. Please use the mail slot. Thank you.
The message was repeated in Spanish, Massachusett, a version of French they used down south, a version of French they used much farther north, a dialect of Italian which had befuddled Holt at first with his schoolbook knowledge, and then the schoolbook Italian. Holt wanted a version in Cyrillic, although the growing population of Russian immigrants in the area, much like many people around the world, had their own traditions concerning people like thepeculiari and were only slightly more likely to come to this agency than to go to the State Bureau office in town. In any event, no one in the house knew how to write Cyrillic, so the matter had to wait until Holt had a sign made. He was also planning to get versions of the message made in Cantonese and Hungarian.
Attached to the bottom of the sign was another board upon which Holt and Burton had tacked a piece of paper, painstakingly dotted with Modified Braille, then lacquered to protect it from the elements.
Nicodemus had put the sign out himself the evening before, but gave in to his worries one final time to check to make absolutely sure the sign had not moved before he bolted the front door to the manor and scooped up what mail had arrived since yesterday.
He skimmed through the letters as he left the waiting room and office space that took up half of the manor’s first floor, shoving the personal correspondence for the agents in residence under his armpit while he opened and glanced through the professional requests. His armpit felt a bit sticky. His cheeks were flushed. He chose to ignore both of those things for the time being.
Beyond the front rooms were the dining room and the sitting room, the latter used by some of the agents in their downtime, most often for card games, of which they were fond. There was also a research library, used mostly by Nicodemus but sometimes by the others when they wished to go directly to a source. At the back of the house was the kitchen, which was where Nicodemus was ultimately headed, though he continued on his rounds first, checking doors and windows, glancing out into the garden to consider the high stone wall lined with iron spikes that surrounded the property except for the front entrance gate.
The house was chilled. Autumn was slowly giving way to winter, but with the house nearly empty, no fires had been lit in any of the downstairs fireplaces. Despite this, Nicodemus had not bothered with the coat of his suit. He pushed up his glasses as he read, clucking his tongue over the cases of the missing, as he always did, knowing that if those lost had wandered or chosen to venture into the Realm, the odds were that no peculiari could find them unless they wanted to be found. He did not enjoy responding to those letters, although he liked to think he answered with more gentleness than the State Bureau did.
There was another potential case of some interest: a house that would not be still. But all of the Arawn agents were currently on assignments, so that would have had to wait even if the agency were not essentially closing for the next week or so.
Nicodemus held in a sigh and made his way up to the second floor, all living quarters, permanent and semi-permanent, for Arawn’s stable of peculiari. He slipped letters beneath the appropriate doors then continued to the third floor to drop off all of Holt’s correspondence. A single envelope remained, addressed to Nicodemus, but he had a feeling he knew its contents, and tucked it into the pocket of his vest without opening it.
Holt was delayed.
This time, Nicodemus allowed himself the sigh. He did not slow in his rounds, however. He would make these rounds again tomorrow as well. With so much else to occupy him, he would at least like the manor in a fit state, secured and protected.
From the third-floor windows, even without pausing, he could glance down into the back garden—or what would have been the back garden at a normal house. But the manor and the wall around it had been built here for one reason only, and that was the large, perfectly circularwaverin the air where there should have been ornamental hedges or a pond of some kind.
A Ring.
The Ring was, as far as Holt or Nicodemus or anyone else knew, naturally occurring, as Rings tended to be. But usually Rings, when discovered, were marked off with fences or pits and signs to warn people of the danger. Most people did not want to be anywhere near them, much less live next to one. But this was a house of peculiari, except for Nicodemus, and peculiari did not fear Rings. The Arawn agents even liked to have this one handy for quick access.
Nicodemus couldn’t say that it didn’t make his breath catch to look out and remember how close he was to the Realm. But though his gaze sometimes strayed to the indistinct shifting in the air and the images he glimpsed beyond it, and there were days he found himself attending to errands on the upper floors while the Ring in the garden shimmered below, Nicodemus had never been tempted to step into that circle.
Not seriously. Not now. Not as an adult in a warm and well-run home with tasks waiting on him. Running away from this world to another was the sort of thing lonely children dreamed of, or humans lost to despair and hopelessness. Or the very curious and brave, he supposed. Many great minds had attempted it, for study, they had claimed, only for the majority to return so altered they abandoned their studies, and most of the rest to never return at all.
Those who came back, like any others who had been to the Realm, were changed. Absentminded and prone to daydreaming, if they were lucky. Pregnant, if they were slightly less lucky. Scared of the dark and unable to sleep through the night until fear weakened their hearts, if they had no luck whatsoever.
Or they returned seemingly untouched, to be labeled, at least in this country and throughout many across Europe,peculiari. Odd and special, with the powers of the Realm at their disposal, although to what degree varied. All peculiari could venture to and from the Realm as they pleased without consequence. They were users of what was called magic, although many of the learned suspected this magic had rules the same as any other science. But who might emerge from a Ring a peculiari had no rhyme or reason. They held no magic when they first went in and could not pass it to others once they came out. Nor did the ability pass to their children. The working of marvels was a gift granted in the Realm and nowhere else.
It was whispered that the peculiari were of the Realm in their thoughts, no matter which world they were in. Nicodemus would have said only that all the peculiari he had encountered, from this country or others, from cities or villages or towns, had beensettledin a way few regular humans were. They might have entered the Rings out of ancient ritual and practice, or misfortune, or childhood dares, or the reckless bravado of the young, but they had learned the truth of themselves. Many regular humans did not care for that almost as much as they did not care for the Rings.
Hiring maids that would help keep the manor clean had been a continual problem. Fortunately, Nicodemus had found a few human girls in need of work who were willing to come in, if not live in, and clean the place a few mornings each week for slightly more than the going rate for good maids. Even with that, there was dust on some of the fixtures, and fingerprints—in ink no less—on one of the hallway mirrors.
He adjusted his spectacles without glancing to his reflection, tucking the metal arms between the thick bases of his horns and the small, human shells of his ears.
No doubt one of the others had accidentally frightened one of the maids before she could finish her duties. Nicodemus wiped some of the dust as he went downstairs, brushing it off onto his trousers. They were dark and the dirt would show, but no one was going to care except him. He would have to bathe and change clothes by tonight anyway. That was always how it was as his affliction approached. Twice a year, every year since he’d left childhood, which was exceedingly inconvenient in addition to being embarrassing. But there was nothing to be done for it now.
Or ever.
He huffed a little, annoyed with the direction his thoughts were taking, though with the house so quiet, there was nothing to distract him. And in a day or two, his affliction would be all he would be able to think about, so of course it was on his mind now.
Nicodemus did not care for the termheat, and estrus did not apply. It was more fitting to call his affliction a rut, but for his preferences in the matter that put one more in mind of ewes than of rams. His cheeks stung at even the thought, which was another reason that he avoided speaking of it. When he did, it was only to Holt, who had known him since boyhood and the first onset of this humiliating problem.
This humiliatingasterionproblem. It was illogical and inexplicable, like all things that came from the Realm. Children conceived in the Realm but born in this one, the asterion, if one was being old-fashioned, were always different. It was simply Nicodemus’ misfortune to have this physiology as well as this appearance. A man, except with horns on each side of his skull, growing first up and then down in a slow curve, and, occasionally, in very cold winters, hair that came in a bit thicker all over his body. And, inevitably, a twice-a-year rut in which he was useless, and chafed and spent himself nearly to point of exhaustion in his room, then emerged, weary and embarrassed, after a few days.
At least the spring rut was milder.
His stomach rumbled. Another effect of his affliction was his appetite in the days leading up to it. He took the back stairs down to the kitchen at last, only to pause in the doorway to find he was not alone despite the early hour.
Three peculiari were seated at the long wooden table meant for preparing food and perhaps for a hungry servant to snatch a bite if they’d had any servants willing to do so. Since Nicodemus could not see the cook—recently hired also as day-service only—he had to assume she had been scared off by the sleepy ruffians at the table, probably when they came in the servants’ entrance, which they all tended to use instead of the front door.
Now he had to find another cook as well. Perhaps he could find a restaurant willing to deliver meals to them a few times a week, although since Nicodemus rarely went out, he didn’t know the good places to eat in town. Nicodemus could manage some simple dishes and did not mind cooking, but he did not have the time to plan and prepare meals for a house full of people, not with his other duties. Cooking for one or two or even four people was fine, but there were currently six full-time agents employed here, plus Burton, who appeared as he pleased, and Holt, the owner of the manor and everyone’s boss, and Nicodemus.
