A soft smile and eyes full of mischief sent Crispin stumbling back. It was as if the bookshelf he had been braced against no longer existed. Rather than falling, he felt as if he were flying—pulled like a lure on a string. His vision blurred, the book aisle among the mists where he once stood becoming dim, black, then nothing.

  A scream ripped its way out of Crispin’s chest, raw and guttural, like a revenant rising from its grave. Cold, wet mud soaked into his back. Eyes swimming, stars above spinning, Crispin tried to stand. His hands scrabbled at the side of the shallow ditch he found himself in. With a grunt and more effort than he'd like to admit, Crispin finally dragged himself out.

  Hands braced upon the loamy soil, Crispin felt himself gag. Hot, bitter bile bit at his already sore throat. Hands shaking with adrenaline's charge, Crispin reached for his chest to learn what had been done by Remoulade’s firelock. Yet he found no hole, no ruin of burnt flesh or broken bone. His honest heart was still whole.

  With no life-ending wound to be found, Crispin began to take stock of himself. The air felt different; the deeply natural but unsettling atmosphere of Remoulade's domain was gone. Crispin felt his lips wiggle as a rebellious smile crawled onto his face. He gripped the green grass and shoes that sprang up from the ground like defiant little emissaries of life.

  Shoes? Time's flow had felt loose, true, but as the luckless carpenter wound back to that observation, he felt his senses realign. The back of his neck suddenly cold, Crispin’s eyes traveled up the fine pair of shoes until they eventually met Ms. Remoulade’s own. Cast in night's shadow, her gaze was cold. With a start, Crispin realized he was fondling her shoes.

  Springing away, hands thrown out to his sides, as if the unseelie woman's shoes were hot coals, Crispin went tumbling back into the ditch he had just climbed out of. A light sound joined the hushed sound of crickets; an uncustomary streak of annoyance raising its head, Crispin realized it was laughter.

  "Crispin—" asked Remoulade, her tone inquisitive as she observed him in his pig’s palace of mud, "can you sing?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I suppose that's a no, then." The odd woman seemed to pick up on his deepening confusion, and as she offered him her hand, she continued, "It's just—you said you're a carpenter by trade, though a poor one, but with all the tumbling you seem to get up to, I thought you might have a future on the stage. If not a singer, then surely a tumbling fool."

  It was strange; her words were spoken without rancor or insult, as if she were genuinely offering a heartfelt consultation. Letting go of embarrassment and the heat it lit beneath his ego, Crispin took Remoulade's hand, resisting the wicked urge to pull her into the mud with him. The woman's hand was neither warm nor cold. The only sensation he could extract from it was a paper dryness that soon was gone as she pulled him from the shallow grave.

  Now standing on firm ground, Crispin took in his surroundings more fully. He and Remoulade seemed to be situated on a low-rise hill obscured by a copse of trees. To his left, he could see the sharp outline of a city, bright and sparkling even this late, and to his right was the growing wilderness that formed at its natural limits.

  Questions upon questions assaulted Crispin. When all this madness had started, he was certain he had still been in the city proper. Though even that felt uncertain now. Thinking to demand at least some form of explanation from Remoulade, Crispin was brought up short.

  He heard a rustling sound of snapping twigs, followed by a low, piteous moan. It was haunting, ghostly even. It seemed to travel up through the darkness, growing closer, the sound of a wagon's cartwheels coming behind it. Crispin's heartbeat quickened. Only now he was wondering how he could even feel it, if he was nearly a ghost as Remoulade claimed.

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  From the darkness, ever-watching yet unknown, came a shambling beast. At the sight of it, there was recognition. Crispin knew it by name—it was his doom. Wild-eyed, the cow that had run him over came shambling out into the starlit clearing. She dragged with her the cart that had been her charge and the mutilated form of its driver.

  Crispin felt his gorge rise with horror as he took in the ox-cart that had caught him unaware as he had fled an unnatural terror. It was an old, rickety thing, small enough to pass through back streets and alleys.

  A new coat of bright red painted its frame. It almost seemed to steam in the night's cool air, the copper of it hitting Crispin's nose and working its way down his windpipe to sit heavy as lead in his gut.

  Crossing to the cart, Crispin clapped his hand to his nose to block the scent of the driver's last indignity. Head twisted to an awful angle, the driver's guts spilled loosely onto the cart bench. With a closer inspection, Crispin realized it was more than just the head—each joint was twisted, mangled, and wrong.

  The unreality of this awful night was too much. The otherworldly airs of Remoulade's office and archives seemed easier to bear, but this—this was far from the world Crispin knew. For him, violence was a thing of broken fingers, bloody lips, a black eye or two, more often from accident or over-rambunctious roughhousing than violent malice. This was a bad thing done by something far worse.

  Crispin's panic broke as he felt the warm, wet breath of the heifer who may have caused his death. She was a big thing, truly, with soft brown eyes so wide and gentle. Much like her now-dead master, her body bore numerous wounds. Whatever curses Crispin had once held for the cow were gone. Slow and steady, he turned to meet the weary beast.

  Voice warm spite of all circumstance, Crispin spoke, softly he said, “There, there girl, it's all right.” Eyes glassy, pain clearly overwhelming, the cow turned away, stomping its hooves. Still, Crispin held his courage and placed a tender hand just above her nose. Her long, thick tongue trailed out, leaving a line of goo upon his wrist as she snuffled at his hand. Crispin paid it no mind as he continued speaking, trying to project at least a passable counterfeit of bravery.

  With his free hand, Crispin began to work free the bridle that held her bound to the broken and bloody cart. It took some time, yet he did not stop, not even as his hand cramped. The latch unfastened, Crispin slowly, patiently, as if he had no other concern, unhooked her from the bridle that kept her bound to the broken cart. Unburdened, the heifer did not run but rather stepped closer into him, nuzzling once more at his hand.

  A calming hand on the heifer as he inspected her wounds, Crispin spoke, tone laced with recrimination: "You shot me."

  "Oh, is that what you were puzzling over?" replied Remoulade, suddenly close as she inspected the cart herself.

  "Well, yes, in part, I suppose," replied Crispin, the edge of his words dulled by Remoulade's nonchalant retort. "That, and why I can still feel my heart beat if I'm a ghost," he groused.

  "What do you mean?" inquired Remoulade, a note of confusion tinging her words. "It would be strange if you couldn't. It's your heart, after all."

  "But—" said Crispin, his protests gaining heat.

  "No," interrupted Remoulade.

  "What?"

  "I said no, Crispin. We have little time to see you right and certainly less for lengthy metaphysical conversations or existential nitpickery. Just accept that you have a heart, and even if you are apart, you can still feel its beat," concluded the clerk as she began her own deeper inspection of the dead man.

  It was ghastly to watch as the woman rummaged around in the cart. At last, she let out an "Ah" of appreciation as she drew out a flask. Disregarding Crispin’s spluttered dismay at her casual act of grave robbery, she jumped down from the cart and upended the contents of the flask onto a fine silk handkerchief. With quick and effective motions, she began to clean what she could of the cow's wounds, a raised eyebrow speaking volumes.

  Eyes darting away from Remoulade and back to the comforting chocolatey brown ones of the cow, Crispin continued to voice his concerns. "So, about my body—what exactly is the plan?" Suddenly, Remoulade’s head popped up from where she had been administering to the cow. Her expression was odd—clearly a smile but lacking any professional guile. Tracking it, Crispin turned just in time to be splattered liberally by blood and viscera as Win-Gyatt, who whispers all your dirty secrets, landed drunkenly upon the unfortunate cart driver’s corpse.