I climbed out of the enormous brass tub and fumbled my crutches into position so I could hobble over to the benches, already feeling the heat from the raised bed of coals at that end of the room. I wrapped myself loosely in a towel and sat there to dry, still sore and aching but feeling much better than I had the day before. Errod was downstairs in surgery, or the magical equivalent, but they''d sent me to get myself cleaned up while I waited my turn.


    We were in some sort of super swanky combination hospital and spa - they''d had an actual shower with hot water and decent water pressure that I had used to get the top layers of blood and grime off, and fancy bathing attendants that I had quickly banished half out of embarrassment and half because I was sure they would insist on being thorough enough that my extra Dumines would be immediately discovered.


    Katrin was off with Errod of course, and Hugh was dealing with the local authorities. I had no doubt Hammersmith would have already heard about the incident, but I was encouraged by a friendly clerk that had asked me a few questions during our return trip including one very interesting one after I made some offhand comment about being swept off somewhere for my ''safety''.


    "Do you want to go?" she''d asked, and I said no. She nodded, was quiet for a moment, and then said "We are the most influential city in the Free States, in no way required to cede to demands from Erathik or the Endless Empire - or Halenvar," she hastily added. "This seems very... political... but I''ll make sure my masters know your position."


    There had been a closer town than Sentortzi, but the soldiers that had rushed out once our fight on the road had been spotted were under orders to escort us all back and they didn''t care much that we were injured - with magical assistance Errod''s stump had been sealed up, and while I was a battered mess it wasn''t technically life threatening. They had been searching for me (and more specifically the Behemoth) and had been pretty close, but probably wouldn''t have made it in time if Errod''s hand hadn''t come running down the path to get help.


    That was a hell of a thing. The Mister Creepy rig would have explained the hand moving independently, but only while in view of Errod and certainly not once he was knocked out. I thought back to all the times I''d watched him practicing, the little ways he''d used that hand to adjust his grip or even tug at a pant leg while changing his stance. There was the time he''d thrown his sword with perfect accuracy to save Elba, or the sudden show of competence at the end of the fight with the Behemoth''s men - both cases where he''d been holding the sword in his off hand, with the glove.


    He''d looked surprised after throwing the sword, but switching it to that hand during the more recent fight had been a deliberate choice - and he absolutely knew what he was doing when he cut it off, nervous though he was. At what point had he been aware that the glove was... what, alive? Taking over his hand? Regardless, it had saved Elba and helped us fight so I was willing to believe it was on our side.


    I tried to get into my memory palace and ended up standing next to my body instead - that meant wards were keeping my mind close to my body and preventing planar travel. That was fine, I''d been intending to use divination anyway. I very carefully didn''t look at myself - I was clean, and partly healed, but there were still a hundred reminders of what that motherfucker Pogue had done to me. I didn''t even get to kill him myself.


    I took a deep breath - not that my mind needed to breathe - then very carefully attempted to fall through the floor. I was so used to using doors and everything, but with the limited range I needed to take a shortcut; at first the ground was infuriatingly solid, but after a minute or two I found the trick. Falling through solid floor was impossible, but imagining that it was some sort of thick mud I could sink into? That worked for whatever reason.


    I dropped down into the room below, and then while keeping an eye on my rapidly depleting mana I stepped into the hallway and listened for voices. I couldn''t go far, the range from my body was roughly twenty feet and I was already at half that vertically. But I was able to get close enough to hear a conversation, which was all I needed.


    "- have patience," the first voice said, though I''d missed the start of the sentence. It was a woman, voice melodic but also extremely confident.


    "I want her out of the city. I don''t know who she is, but with this war going on the Lord Protector may as well be the Clockmaker himself - the other two will let her practically run the Empire until after the Grand Alignment, and I don''t feel like getting on the wrong side of her." This one was a man and had an indescribable vibe that said ''spoiled rich dude'' somehow.


    "She is, above all, a woman of her word; Lord Protector Hammersmith will negotiate rather than using force, and Miss Smith is the perfect bargaining chip at the moment."


    "Just because the Empire wants her?"


    "No. Because from what my clerk told me she''d be willing to request asylum, and we have plausible reasons to delay in handing her over. Preliminary information requests say she''s wanted by Halenvar, has a warrant issued by the kingdom of Erathik for questioning in relation to a theft from the auction house, has a bounty from the Endless Empire for some sort of military secrets, and she matches the description of someone involved in a fight at the University a few months ago. All that confusion means we can hold her as long as it takes for the Lord Protector to offer us some... incentive."


    "Gods! Next you''ll say she''s a war criminal in the Patic empire and a Duchess in Markonti!"


    The woman laughed. "Nothing so far but I''ve authorized additional information probes there, along with the Yannan Islands and the kingdom of Romatna. I still don''t even know where she''s originally from - she has odd features."


    I would feel offended, but I did have odd features compared to everyone else. I was finally starting to learn all the ethnicities here, but there were still times that it would throw me off to see people with what would be a bizarre mix of traits on Earth - some were more jarring to me than others, but I''d long since realized I must look out of place to them as well. I felt a hand on my shoulder and popped back into my body reflexively, almost punching Katrin in the face. "Shit, sorry. I think I''m just jumpy from... um."


    She smiled apologetically, but mainly she looked tired. "In your head, or spying?"


    "Spying - well, eavesdropping. I guess I''m wanted for questioning because I paid the family of that guy that got killed robbing the auction house."


    "Is that going to cause trouble?"


    "Nah. If anything it''s the opposite, they want to keep us in town to leverage Hammersmith for... I don''t know, probably something boring like trade deals or cheaper rates on teleportation or something. Should buy us some time. And I''m pretty positive I threw the Behemoth off my trail, so he shouldn''t be after me anymore even if he hadn''t lost his spy."


    "Well that''s a relief. So we''re not being chased by him or the wild mage anymore, just... what, bounty hunters and the Endless Empire?"


    I didn''t feel like bringing up the guy we''d killed last time we were here, so I let that omission slide. "Yeah, and they want us alive and safe so that''s not too bad. How is Errod?"


    Katrin shook her head. "I feel so stupid. I knew something was up with that glove, but he kept telling me it was fine. I can''t believe he cut his own hand off."


    "To be fair, it was actually very cool - and it gave him a chance to stab the Behemoth in the eye."


    "Well it also ruined that arm. They''re re-stringing his tendons now, but they don''t want to pull the hand off the device without knowing more about it. They said the maker''s mark on it indicated the creator was someone who lives here in the city, so they''re sending for them."


    That made sense, we''d bought it here after all. I got dressed - not in my old clothes, those were getting burned - and pulled on my stupid hover shoes which were only very slightly bloody. I wasn''t sure if turning them on would make it easier to get around, or harder. If my feet could float, but I used the crutches... hmm. Either way, at least the dress was simple to get on without further hurting myself. "I''m telling you, it''s ridiculous we ever stopped just using sheets with a hole in them to make dresses. Fashion on Earth is bullshit, especially for women."


    The shoe question was rendered moot by stairs - nothing in this world was very friendly towards people with disabilities, presumably because most were so temporary. Still, you''d think that a hospital would have some sort of elevator. Instead Katrin had to help me the whole way down, and then I immediately collapsed onto a bench in the lobby to wait.


    "The moskar are fine," Katrin said, "except Bashful who ran off gods know where. The wagons are in bad shape, but they''ve been dragged back here and we should be able to get them repaired - if we want to, anyway. It''s more likely that when the time comes we''ll be teleported directly to Theramas or... wherever."


    She rested a hand on the neatly folded stack of Errod''s clothes and gear - presumably he was wearing something more like my dress at the moment, which at least was better than a hospital gown on Earth. Katrin picked up the glove Errod had had made to match the one stuck on his left hand and idly turned it back and forth, looking at it without seeming to actually be noticing it.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    I wanted to distract her from herself, and almost offered to try letting her into my memory palace again before I remembered what had happened to that guy the Behemoth had brought in. In theory that shouldn''t be an issue since Katrin would be on the guest list, and it certainly hadn''t done anything to the wild mage, but... better not to mess with it until I got a better idea of what the fuck had happened. I did offer to march around in the university library though, with the idea that I could hopefully use divination to get copies of books later.


    This pulled her out of her head some, and we spent a good hour and a half talking about the logistics of it. Mostly it was questions about how my divination interacted with wards, how much I could store in the memory palace, and other questions like that that I wasn''t really certain on. It was a good distraction though, and I did learn that while this library had something like a card catalog it was in some secret language only librarians knew for reasons Katrin couldn''t explain - that was just how it was done. Our conversation was cut short by the door flying open to reveal a woman nearly as wide as she was tall wearing goggles and a cape - I loved her instantly.


    "Greetings!" she bellowed, looking us up and down. "You folks with the group that did something dangerous with my linked essence discs?"


    "Oh! The - yeah, with the spider?"


    "Right, yes, that''s what the shopkeeper had me put on for demonstration purposes. A good choice, easy to remove the brain and doesn''t use too much life mana. Gets into small spaces. Shit eyesight, though."


    "Yeah, not great past a few feet. But I really liked it. I named it Mister Creepy."


    "Hah! I love it! So what idiotic bullshit did you try with it that got me called to a healer for consultation?"


    "Ah. Well, her brother was trying to save my life and he... cut off his hand and sent it for help."


    She stared at us. Slowly - very slowly - a smile began to form and just kept growing until it stretched all the way across her enormous face. "Brilliant! Yes! No vision, of course. Bit of a waste on that feature. But the connection would be strong, and the life mana would match perfectly so there''d be no loss at all! So what''s the problem? Are they just scared to yank the hand off and re-attach it?"


    "I think so, yeah. They just want to be careful."


    "Yes. Yes. Of course. Oh, this is perfect. This is wonderful. And I brought my tools!"


    I shared a look with Katrin. "Wait. What do you need tools for? I thought you said they could just pull it off."


    "They could, yes. But since I''m here... what''s really needed is some simple adjustments, a better locking mechanism - oh, and the other end would need to graft on in the same way the, uh, the spider end does. Yes. The size should be about right already, so that''s good."


    Katrin waved the glove around to get the woman''s attention, as she was clearly getting caught up in planning... something.


    "Hmm? Yes?"


    "Hi. What are you talking about?"


    "Ah," she said, "Look at that! How wonderful!" and she snatched the glove right out of Katrin''s hand. "What a lovely reproduction! Very well made, though it''s the wrong hand. You can see in the painting that it''s only a left glove; the top of the right hand is visible at the bottom of the canvas and is bare."


    Katrin grabbed the glove back. "I''m sorry, what painting?"


    The woman looked confused. "Oh, I assumed you knew. This is a reproduction of the glove in the famous painting ''The Swordsman'', which hangs in the Artificer''s Guildhall in Kettle Keep."


    "Who is it a painting of?" I asked, and the woman looked confused for just a second before answering.


    "Oh! No, it''s not of a person. Or, it''s of a person but they''re irrelevant. Their face isn''t even in the painting, it''s centered on the glove itself, though of course you can tell some things about the person holding it based on the clothing and the weapon."


    Katrin squeezed my hand, and I knew what she was thinking. This woman was very excitable, and was about to see Errod''s hand complete with the actual glove. There was no way she wouldn''t realize what she was looking at once she found out it was stuck on there, and at that point she might go on a whole rant about it. On the theory that it would be best if we found out as much as we could before then, I decided to ask a bit more. "Uh, Mrs....?"


    "Candecky! Talia Candecky, at your service."


    "Great. I''m Callie, but the way. Uh. Talia, what do you know about the glove? If, just for example, this one was made using the real thing as a reference..."


    "Hah! Doubtful, that painting is extremely old and according to my old mentor - gods keep his spirits - there''d been no sign of it for ages. Could be in a private collection, but more likely it was destroyed or buried with its last owner or something."


    "Okay, but... just in theory."


    She shrugged, and flopped down into a seat next to Katrin - it groaned under the sudden weight but appeared to be holding firm. "Well, then there would be a lot of interested parties."


    "To buy it?"


    "Oh, no. To study it, I suppose, since records about it are spotty, but also I''d say there would be quite a few people that would want to fight over it. One of the only things known about that glove was that it belonged to a series of famous sword fighters, and in most cases ended up being claimed by whoever killed the person that had it before them. It came to be seen as a sort of... well, a badge. A sign that you were the best. But along with that comes challengers who want to murder you, and declare that now they''re the ones that hold the title."


    Katrin was sweating. She reached over and clamped her hand on Talia''s wrist, and looked her directly in the eyes. "I need you to promise me that when they call you in there you won''t make a scene. Please."


    "Of course! Why would I..." she looked down at the glove in Katrin''s other hand, then back up. Katrin nodded. "Oh. Oh. Well! Yes, I see. Fascinating! And you don''t want your - your brother, you said? - you don''t want him being beset by people wanting to make a name for themselves. Ah."


    "You''ll... uh..."


    "Yes! Oh, absolutely! I daresay I''ll get a good close look at it while making the modifications he''ll need for his new situation, and that will be reward enough for my silence. And in a few years nobody will care regardless."


    "New situation? And why won''t anyone care?"


    Talia perked up even more, which I hadn''t thought possible, and clapped her hands together. "Do you know what artifacts are?"


    "No. I mean, kind of. But no. And nobody has been able to explain it very well."


    "Typical. It''s not that complicated, but laymen are useless sometimes. So. There are time-honored and well understood ways to make magical items. Not everything is made with the same methods, but they''re all crafted with some combination of... arguably five techniques. Where you draw the line gets into this whole tedious debate, of course. Artifacts are, put simply, things that are made in some novel way rather than just those normal methods - technically that would include some that are strictly worse, but more often it''s something that was made in some special way that''s hard or impossible to reproduce. Maybe it required help from unfriendly spirits on other planes, or some huge number of people working together, or crazy wild magic that almost never works, or things like that. You can usually tell there''s something odd about them, if you have any experience with creating magical equipment."


    That basically lined up with what I''d been told before. "Okay, but then why won''t anyone care in a few years?"


    "Right. Sorry, forgot where I was going with that one for a moment. So, some of the main things that keep you from just using those unique methods all the time are access to special laws of the universe that are different on other planes, and lack of enough ambient mana. But in about, oh, six hundred days? Well then the Grand Alignment hits, and we''ve got thirty-four of the thirty-six planes aligned! You''d better believe every artificer in the world is planning something crazy. The market for strange and powerful artifacts will be absolutely flooded, it will be fascinating to see what all they make."


    Once again, I had forgotten that even with the doomsday device probably fucked this upcoming alignment was going to be batshit insane and could involve anything from a glorious new age dawning to the collapse of civilization. Assuming we''d successfully dealt with all the shit on our plate I would have to think about building a bunker and stockpiling beef jerky before the big day. I was going to ask a follow-up question, but someone poked their head into the lobby and waved Talia in - she spared a glance back at us and winked as she went inside, and then Katrin and I were alone again.


    "Well she seems cool. I think I want to be her when I grow up."


    "A little too excitable for my taste," Katrin said, "but she was nice enough. I''m a little worried about what she''s doing in there."


    "Don''t look at me, I don''t have the mana to watch her the whole time. Errod will be fine, and then they''ll patch up my legs and whatever else inside me is making me feel like shit, and then we can try to negotiate some time at the university while we plot our escape."


    Katrin switched to English. "Are you worried they''ll notice your... extras?"


    "Oh. Right. I don''t know, I hope not. I don''t know how healing stuff works. They almost saw them while I was captured, and if Hammersmith gets her paws on me she''ll probably give me a once-over and find them. I don''t think I''ll be able to keep them secret forever, unfortunately, but we''ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it." I was trying to sound calm, but inside I couldn''t stop picturing being locked up forever and tortured for the secret of how to get extra Dumines. Even if I told them, would they believe me?


    The next six hours were dreadfully boring, although they had a Tactics set that we played a few games on and someone brought us food eventually. They also offered us a recovery room to sleep in, but Katrin wanted to wait in the lobby and I resisted my desire to abandon her - some social expectations were pretty easy to spot. I did eventually try using divination to spy on the progress, only to find that unlike the other walls this one firmly rebuffed me. Clearly there were different and more thorough wards on that room. Eventually, as we dozed sitting up, Talia walked out laughing with Errod close behind her.


    Katrin nearly dumped me on the floor as she bounced to her feet - I''d been laying my head on her shoulder - and she crushed Errod in a hug. "Oh! I''m so glad you''re okay!" She grabbed his left hand, still in the glove, and then looked him in the eyes. "What took so long? Did they have trouble re-attaching it? Is it... did the glove... it''s you still, or...?"


    He smiled, a little sadly, and then stopped with his mouth halfway open like he had changed his mind about what to say. After a moment he shook his head and said, almost to himself, "No, it''s okay. It''s fine." and then louder, "Sorry to scare you two. I''ll explain later, but what took so long was... well, Miss Candecky and Miss Rutlen - the healer - had a bit of an argument, and I''m afraid Miss Candecky won somehow. It''s all a blur."


    Talia Candecky laughed and elbowed Errod, and by way of explanation he twisted his wrist in a complicated way... and released his hand to climb up onto his shoulder.