"No," said the ghost, a simple and clear refusal of the name displayed on the page. It was such a little thing, barely a syllable, yet it carried much weight. The ghost's pronouncement was bound tight in barbed wire-like complications, the sort that would see Remoulade buried under a barrow's weight of paperwork, she realized with growing consternation.

  Grave and silent, Remoulade pulled a slow and steady breath in through her nostrils, letting the cold air that wafted in from beyond her booth settle her rising impatience and fraying nerves. Lips parting, she spoke. "No," posed as a query—almost call and answer—a chance for the ghost to clarify and, unwittingly, save them both.

  It wasn't to be, though. With a firm shake of his head, he confirmed it a second time and then a third, as he spoke that simple word once more: "No."

  "You're absolutely sure, then?" cut in Remoulade.

  "That's not my name," continued the ghost, heat entering his voice. "Look, I just need some directions, and I'll be on my way," concluded the ghost, shrinking back as Remoulade leaned over her desk, hands pressed hard to its surface.

  Her nose was a scant few centimeters from the ghost's own. He continued to splutter, his face turning sheet white. "I'm lost, miss. I don't mean any trouble, really. Just point me to the nearest thoroughfare, and I'll be out of your hair."

  Remoulade's nails scraped along the smooth surface of the counter. The sharp sound elicited a shuddering squeak from the young man, causing his panicked entreaty to come to a whimpering halt. Realizing she was almost falling out of her booth—body leaning past the counter, a clear infraction of policy—Remoulade quickly glanced about herself and, letting out a long sigh, slumped back into her chair to regard the ghost.

  Filtering out the sounds of the hyperventilating, disembodied soul, Remoulade let her eyes trail over the misty darkness above, considering what to do. At this moment, the ceiling was indistinct, ever-shifting, seeming to reach through layer upon layer of reality. Inscrutable as it was, the swirling mists above provided the junior clerk with no remedy.

  Normally, the graveyard shift was quiet, allowing Remoulade to avoid office politics while still providing her with the occasional opportunity to converse with particularly unique or interesting clients. Thoughts rolling about, Remoulade picked one that would suit the moment, and then dressed it in words and posed it to the unfortunate ghost.

  "Sir, I still need a name," Remoulade said, quickly raising her hand to forestall complaint. "I understand you're lost. By profession, I am bound to help you, but there's really very little I can do for a nameless ghost."

  "Crispin," the young man muttered quietly, a name, clearly his own, for with its utterance, a bit of warmth returned to his form.

  A name—she had a name to call the ghost at last, thought Remoulade. It was a good sign. Although it did not fix things, at least it meant that the ghost had an identity, a reason anchored and bound, perhaps enough to slow the deterioration of the soul. Still, the name wasn't enough. Remoulade needed to know more.

  Considering the young soul she now knew as Crispin, Remoulade spoke. "Crispin," she said, with just a touch of force—not much, mind you, but enough to more firmly anchor the man in the moment once more. It seemed to work, for as Remoulade named him, his color grew stronger once more. It seemed that his identity truly had been fraying. In spite of herself, Remoulade found her curiosity beginning to emerge.

  Form no longer distorting and seeming far less like a ghoulish apparition, Crispin spoke as he flashed Remoulade a bashful grin. "I'm sorry, miss. Ah, Remoulade, wasn't it? Unique—I'll be sure to remember it."

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  "Regardless, I was raised better than to run up to strangers and just start making demands. It's just that I've had quite a night. I've lived in the city all my life, yet somehow I don't recognize this corner of it," he finished, gesturing to the shifting fog that concealed the deeper world from his unready mind.

  As Crispin spoke, Remoulade's opinion of him began to grow—not in regard, no. She just found that she could confirm her initial bias more thoroughly. The man—though, in truth, he was closer to a boy in thought and deed—was through and through a fool. And the dangerous kind, too: the sort that convinces you, in the heat of things, to go along with the absurd things that fools do.

  "Sir Crispin," she began, "if we could return to business, as it were—"

  "I'm no sir, Madam Marmalade. Just a simple carpenter. If I'm honest, a poor one, at least by my family's standards," the man countered, the past few seconds of familiarity seemingly loosening his tongue regrettably.

  "Crispin," Remoulade said, words clipped, barely keeping a grip on the reins of her flagging professionalism. "Your family and lack of peerage notwithstanding, would you pardon me if I take a closer look at you?"

  "Miss Remoulade, I'm flattered, really, but I've just ended a romantic entanglement, and I'm simply not—" Whatever words he'd been about to loose upon her, like a continual barrage of nonsense, died quickly on the sharp point of her glare. And lips finally sealing, Crispin gave Remoulade the confirmation she required with a short nod.

  Taking a step back from her desk, Crispin spread out his arms wide, inviting her to inspect. With a single finger, Remoulade slid the bureau-issue spectacles down the bridge of her nose. With the obstructing shields of her glasses removed, Remoulade peered deep into the disembodied soul.

  Focused on the task at hand, Remoulade disregarded the sharp intake of breath from Crispin as he felt her full regard burrow into him. The single moment seemed to stretch as she pulled apart his identity until she reached that spot where there should be a brand. The secret point at which the body was welded to the soul—that point where a seed of identity would flourish and grow. It was what tied the soul of a man to the flesh that most began as.

  What Remoulade found made her jaw clench, her stomach drop, and her palms become slick with sweat. It was a ruined thing, torn and rent. It leaked essence, identity, sense—whatever you wished to call it. Based on faith, culture, it mattered not. The man that stood before her had been ripped from his body, a ghost made early, without consent.

  There was no fate-touched hand on the scales here. No, it was beyond aberrant. The damage was so severe that Remoulade could not tell if the wound had been inflicted through cruel malice, disinterest, or lack of skill. The clerk's inspection had made one thing abundantly clear: with the soul so savaged, no rightful claim could be made on it.

  Setting aside the bureaucratic hellscape that might be split open by the young man, Remoulade felt what antipathy she had formed for the lesser spirit drain away as she realized his predicament. It would be one thing if he was simply stuck with nowhere to go, but as an unclaimed soul, it was so much worse.

  Quickly following behind Remoulade's unexpected bout of empathy came her well-developed instinct for self-preservation and interest. Having already gained the unfortunate ghost's name, she could technically place her own claim on it—at least she could if she weren't still on the clock and that were her inclination.

  The thought only sat on her shoulder a moment before it took wing and joined the flock of other things that beat around in the back of her skull, its temporary roost robbed by a much darker thought. The requirements for filing such an unusual occurrence and the required reports would see her stuck shuffling between offices and bureaus. Long enough that by the time everything was resolved, it would be the start of her next shift. Unacceptable, clearly. She would have to solve this.

  Mind spinning, plans knitting together quickly on the spot, Remoulade locked eyes with the till-now silent Win-Gyatt. And with a practiced and subtle gesture, she indicated that the vulture should prepare to grab young Crispin up. Returning her glasses to their proper place, Remoulade put on her best face and smiled with all the reassuring grace she could muster.

  "Crispin," she said, "I think I now understand your problem, and if you would just come a little closer—" Unfortunately, it seemed that though Crispin was clearly not the sharpest sheep in the herd, he had an uncanny, if misguided, sense for self-preservation. Somehow slipping past Winnie, the young man, eyes wild as if she were some wild witch woman, ran into the dark and swirling mists. With barely a pause, Remoulade gestured for Win-Gyatt to give chase.