Fasol glanced out the apartment window above the corner store where he’d taken up residence, expecting to find his nephew waiting below for him to return from checking in on the old man he’d adopted. He squinted into the darkness next to the stairs and then by the dumpster surprised the youngster had moved. Sliding the vent cover he’d left attached with only a single screw to the side he hurried out into the alley to catch his scent in the open air. 

Philemon’s form stepped away from the wall where he should not have been missed, startling the elder into bristling a bit.

The elder cat gasped, “You little devil!” 

“Hrm?” He asked head tilting, his black fur shining in the sunlight and the golden glitter of his eyes looking too regal for almost any undercover job.

“Nothing, nevermind. Before we go in, what do you think you know about Tuor?”

Philemon looked across Baines Street to the row he knew was one of the two original blocks built in Melitown. The antique store seemed much younger than the rest of the shops but he didn’t see the telltale shimmer of an illusion. Considering the resident he figured it probably had some sort of protective charm.

“Not a lot. Does anyone really know where she came from?” His uncle stepped towards him to sit on the bottom step, and he joined him facing the sign with its human script and a gilded tower with a single eye shaped window that every community in the Obscure half of Melitown and the towns and villages near and far recognized as the mediator between them and their liaison to the Obvious. But he had no idea how she came to be in that position. “Well, I’ve never questioned it but I don’t really know how she knows so much. I guess when you have lived for so long you have a lot of time to learn everything.”

The elder cat chuckled, “well don’t go speculating about her age in her presence, but you’re not far off. She’s ancient, possibly timeless.”

“Is she a seer?” asked the prince, nodding toward the golden eye. 

“If she is, she's not let on. She says she’s an archivist, and researching the world. Consulting for the Obscure just seems to have happened naturally over time.”

“Why not ask the opinion of the one who’s seen the most, I suppose,” considered the younger aloud. 

“Important notes, young prince: The place is protected by a Kikamora. That’s a spirit from abroad in the form of a moth the size of a human. She can get into your head and give you nightmares if you disrupt her household. Only your best manners.”

“I… I love moths,” said Philemon promptly forgetting his genteel upbringing at the mention of delicious treats. 

Fasol bopped him over his head, “Exactly none of that foolishness. If the Kikamora doesn’t fill your mind with endless terrors, there’s at least one other formidable creature in there but I’ve yet to see them.”

“Tuor’s got… pets?” The prince’s voice wobbled between shock and disgust.

“Absolutely not,” Fasol quickly answered. “She would never. Although I can’t place all the scents inside. There is definitely something different in there, watching. It feels dangerous.”

“Specter? The building is very old, right?”

“Well, she’s been the only proprietor and I doubt the Kikamora would end anyone in a fashion that would leave a lingering spirit. Specters don’t smell of … well, anything.”

Philemon didn’t have much time to think about this before his uncle was up and crossing the street. He stopped behind him on the black and white mosaic penny-tiled entryway that also depicted an eye. Fasol hooked his paw into a handle on a chain that formed a loop suspended from a metal contraption covered in bells next to the double-width heavy wooden and glass paneled door. There were other handles along its length at various heights to accommodate various guests from all land-living-and-dead communities. The ringing hadn’t stopped before a rush of displaced air from the door opening gave it another life. Only Philemon looked up expecting to see someone, while the elder cat stepped forward. “Good evening, Madams!” he greeted. A thick rope of smoke wound down the stairs in the back corner of the shop before settling into the form of a tall, pink-skinned woman with a pair of comb-like antennae extending from long pale yellow curls. Her multi-jointed arms cradling a notebook to her chest, she blinked at them with the oversized eyes one would expect of an insect, before giving them a small stiff bow and turning around the notebook to show an ornately lettered “Welcome” in the glyphs used by their colony. It then morphed into “Tea?”

“No thank you, Miss Kika. I hope you’ve been well.”

The notebook page flipped, “The house remains standing,” appearing in the same elegant script.

“Kika my dear, don’t make them think I’ve been causing you trouble,” came a voice from behind a deep blue velvet draped archway a few human-sized steps beyond the curved stairs. A shorter figure wrapped in layers of fringed ebony and emerald silks stepped into the sunlit room, arms of bangles and fingers full of jeweled rings sending glinting reflections scattering around the dustless display cases and polished rich woods of the furniture ostensibly for sale. Philemon strained to not let his instincts send him chasing after a large scarab-shaped reflection from a charm its owner deliberately moved slowly back and forth having noticed the youngster’s attention. Tuor’s glossy merlot smile grew, pushing her round cheeks to squeeze her kohl-rimmed eyes nearly closed, already quite taken with the handsome young cat, as his eyes followed the glowing beetle across the carpet beneath his paws, older than the city.

Fasol’s tail thumped against his haunch snapping him to attention, and he did his best to sit up straight hoping no one else had noticed. “Madam Tuor, this is my nephew and our Colony’s brightest scholar, Philemon.” 

Philemon bowed deeply and straightened, his regal poise regained, “Madam Tuor, it’s my pleasure to meet you.”

A tinkling of golden bangles sounded along with a swoosh of silk as she clapped her hands together, “Young Prince Philemon of the Eastern Colony! Little Rue’s favorite pupil; beloved by the Veil. You made it exactly on time. Well done, gentlecats!” 

Two furred chins dropped in a most undignified way.

“Beloved?” Fasol asked.

“By the Veil?” Philemon whispered.