I guess they’d never seen a woman in jeans and tee shirt. And the jeans were a bit small on me, since I grew taller than Gran used to be.

I bet their culture included horror over a woman showing her ankles, too. The setting seemed right for it. Yup, that woman just looked in disgust at my ankle bone. If I lifted and wiggled my foot, would she faint?

Now, I needed to find a place to check my bearings. But after wandering around for over an hour, I concluded I may need to wait until nightfall or go out of town. Though, if the other sides of town was like the end I came in on, there was even less shelter.

How did I know for sure no one was looking over that empty sheep pasture and wouldn’t see my little light show? I could be hidden on one side of the little stone wall but not on the other.

Sigh.

There was just nowhere to pull out my tracking device undetected.

Yes, witch hunter, that strange light came from me. No, it’s not a lightsaber or death beam, I promise.

Yes, that conversation would go amazingly well if they’re still witch phobic here. I had a tiny sliver of hope that Ghana’s info was outdated but… better not risk it.

“I don’t want to wait until nightfall,” I whined under my breath.

The woman walking a few feet from me with her kid grabbed her son’s hand and pulled him into a shop.

Yes, run from the crazy lady.

I stuck my tongue at their backs and continued looking.

Maybe I’ll have to get a blanket from home. It would look funny to be hunched under it while I light up the tracker, but no one would see what I was doing.

Suspicious activity, you say? I was just playing hide and seek with myself. No worries. Oh, what is that bauble throwing off magic vibes? It's, uh, a… a glass eyeball. For an ogre. Yeah…

Why are all the alley’s straight shots?! No twists and turns. And no dumpsters. I suppose I could crouch behind a sleeping homeless man.

With a huff, I stepped away from yet another alley entrance and glanced into a display window.

And stopped cold.

Earlier I saw some cute clothes but I let that go easily. No time for clothes!... Yet. I’ll have to keep a key down in civilization and come back when I’m not on a mission.

But this! This here was a bakery.

Cakes. Cookies. Dozens of different kinds of bread!

My mouth watered.

No, not judging myself. It's been a little less than 10 years since I’ve had real bread. And just the sight of it all was enough to hit me with a bad craving.

Almost like I was possessed, I approached the front door…

And stopped.

What was I going to do? Beg for sample size bits or to sweep their floor for a crumb?

Hmm…

I tapped my foot and looked around.

Down the street I could see some street performers. They were doing some sort of miming and acrobatics. They weren’t amazing but they’d drawn a small crowd.

I smiled.

It was easier to casually find a door and set a ‘don’t see me’ spell than to find an unobserved corner. I mean, who’d question someone entering a back door with a key?

Once inside House, I breezed past Ghana before she could ask questions and ran upstairs.

When I came back down, I was wearing Gran’s one dress (a lacy monstrosity with puffy shoulders. Eww!) and carrying my guitar case.

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting,” I said cheerfully and closed the door in her face.

Now to make some money!

I chose a corner and pulled out my guitar, keeping the guitar case open like street performers back home. Now, I just needed to remember not to use illusions and this was excellent.

By the time I was done tuning, there were already a handful of curious onlookers.

Pleased, I started with the goblin kids’ favorite.

“I went to the animal fair-”

It wasn’t as big a hit for these folk as for the goblins. Probably from lack of visuals? Maybe they didn’t know what an elephant was?

I switched quickly to ‘sipping cider’ and finally got a few laughs. Mostly from older folk.

I jumped around a few more folk songs to get a feel for what their vibe was and a few people generously threw in coins. Big fat bronze things. I hoped they were valuable.

I’d just finished my 3rd successful song in a row when I noticed one of the street performers from earlier.

The clown scowled at me and I smiled cheekily back.

I wasn’t a complete butthead. I was intruding on their spot, after all. So two more songs later, I bowed to my audience, packed up my guitar, and left.

I perched myself on a water barrel in an alley (in full view of the road, how annoying!) and investigated the coins.

… I had no idea what any of them were worth.

After some deliberation, I picked up one of each coin, put the rest into my pocket, and went to the bakery.

The woman behind the counter must’ve eaten one of those lemons on display. And got a bad smell up her nostril at the same time.

Cheerfully, I leaned across from her.

“What can I get for this?”

I dropped the biggest coin on the counter.

She wasn’t impressed.

“Anything on the bronze shelf.” She indicated the bottom display shelf.

Interesting.

“And this?”

By the time I got a general idea of the value of each coin, and both heard and forgot their names, she was getting impatient with me.

“Are you actually going to buy?” she snapped as the bell on the door jingled.

“Not with illegal gains she’s not.”

“Excuse me?”

I turned to face the intruder and saw both street performers from earlier. Both wearing nasty grins. And standing in front of them were two uniformed people.

Cops. They had to be cops.

The woman of the pair crossed her arms.

“We were told you performed illegally on the street. We’re just here to check your license.”

My license?

“Uh…”

The other performers snickered. I glared at them. I should’ve milked that crowd for all it was worth and stole every last coin…

“Since you lack the correct credentials, you’re under arrest.”

Ah… crap.

I forgot my vindictive thoughts. And needless to say, I didn’t get a single bite of cake.

***

Hansel

The odd object was winged and made of a strange material. And there were little white bulbs on the ends of the wings that he was told had been lit up and blinking when the objects were found. A matching light had also blinked on the square thing with a stiff, shiny tail.

When Hansel tested them, there was magic attached. Not a lot, though. Maybe that’s why the lights were no longer blinking? Because the magic had dissipated? However, the magic didn’t feel like it was fading.

Just what kind of monstrosity had the witches made? For what purpose?

He supposed it could be a wizardly creation. Especially since he didn’t sense any death or blood magic.

But he’d been wrong about sensing a particular kind of magic before.

“Any ideas what they could be, sir?” asked the officer respectfully.

“None. Since it has magic traces, I want you to pack it up and send it to the main archive in Amourville.”

The man’s jaw tightened as he forced a compliant smile and a nod.

He and Abel left the storage room.

“I think you upset him,” Abel commented.

“He’s just annoyed I was sent at all. And am now taking his case.”

“Hmm. Well, now that we’re here, there’s this great play house-”

“Is there a city where you don’t know all the social centers?”

Abel waved that away.

“I made it my business to know where people meet and greet wherever I go. It helps me do my job.”

“You just like the drinks and women.”

“Those aren’t bad either, but I’m now sworn off women.”

Hansel grunted. They’d reached the front office area.

“We don’t have time to visit these places. Since we can’t do anymore here, we should head back to Amourville.”

“What? Tonight?!”

“Can you think of a reason why not?”

“Uh, well-”

“We’ll head to the train station as soon as I talk to the Captain.”

As he walked away, he heard Abel’s whines.

“You’re mean!”

My partner is a child, Hansel thought with a huff.

After asking around, he was directed to the jail below the building.

He had just reached the bottom of the stairs when he paused.

The strangest sound he’d ever heard reverberated through the cold cellar. Deep, twangy, and rhythmic. What the fairy dust was that?! After a moment, he concluded that it was an instrument, but he couldn’t identify what kind.

He didn’t know where the Captain was and there were several corridors of cells here, ranging from solitary confinement to open bars.

Since he didn’t know, he might as well satisfy his curiosity while looking.

As he rounded a corner, someone started singing.