By the time the Pear’s Mistress was anchored near Port Sapphire once again, Sammy had fully recovered. “Sammy, you’ll be acting captain until I return,” Montague told her as they prepared to disembark.

  “How long will that be, Cap’n?”

  “How long will that be, Mr. Blackwing.”

  “We have eight more crystals to recover,” Ian answered, “so somewhere from eight days to a few years or so.”

  “You have convinced me to aid you for some time, Mr. Blackwing, by being amusing and clever. I advise you to remain so if you don’t wish me to pay another visit to the bounty office.”

  “Perhaps three months.”

  “Perhaps three months, Sammy,” Montague told her first mate, who responded with a bemused smile.

  The Captain ordered two of her crew members to row the pair of them to shore, along with Captain Blake, bound and kept unconscious partly with magic and mostly with drugs. “I’ll take him to the bounty office and secure some provisions.”

  “You’re going to walk into a government building, a pirate captain yourself.”

  Montague took off her hat. “You keep this for me and return it to me when we meet up.”

  “That can’t seriously work.”

  “It works every time!” The Captain grinned at him with a hearty laugh and a rakish wink. Ian had no idea whether she was joking. He was distracted by something strange about her smile, and focused on that until he realized what it was: She had most of her teeth, a rarity among pirates. “You two stay with me until the markets. I’m buying a crate of fruits for you to take back to the ship as well.” Ah. “And once we’re funded and equipped, where shall I meet you, Mr. Blackwing?”

  “The Sapphire Temple.”

  Mongague gave him a dubious look. “And they’ll just let you in there with your whole…” She waved a hand vaguely at his purple robes, eldritch insignia, and hooded face half in shadow, “…deal?”

  “Oh, that’s the delightful thing about holy temples. They let anyone in.” His smile was broad and genuine, but not reassuring. “How else will they convert and redeem us, after all? You really can just walk in. That’s where the Sapphire Stone lies hidden.”

  “The Sapphire Stone in the Sapphire Temple in Port Sapphire?” Montague asked, “The place isn’t named after this doohickey, is it? Is this some treasured artifact they’re sure to miss?”

  “I told you,” Ian snapped with a sneer, “I made the Mystical Orbs. They’re just bits of crystal enchanted to serve as keys to the magical lock. They’re not ancient, and they really aren’t that special. I’m the one who put it there!

  “Though I did try to give them a little bit of extra oomph to make them desirable.” He grinned mischievously. “I did choose this landmark for the Sapphire Stone on purpose, of course. I thought the implication would help entice that Hero.”

  “A’right then,” Montague said with a satisfied nod, “new question: What do you need me for? This seems straightforward.”

  “Without your ship it would have taken me some time to get here.”

  “So y’won’t be needin’ my aid any further from here?”

  “I hope not! But while this one should be easy, there are seven more of these things. Some of them are in dangerous areas, and it’s substantial travel anyway. I don’t have my imps with me this time, and I didn’t make any preparations for the journey. I probably don’t need you, but if I try it alone I may find out, suddenly, that I did need help after all. I do try to cover my bases.”

  “Like makin’ sure the door is closed?” Montague gave him a wry smile, which Ian returned with a hateful snarl. “Now now, Mr. Blackwing, if you’re insistin’ that I travel with ye, insightful commentary on your delightful ineptitudes is one of the many included, non-optional services on offer.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “I shall be sure to return the favor, then.”

  “I welcome it, should ye find one. How can I improve and get even better?”

  “Hmph.”

  The rowboat reached a dock, and Montague paid a coin to the dockworkers, plus an extra to avoid a record of their arrival. Her pirates hauled the unconscious captain off of the boat and loaded him onto a cart she rented with another coin. “As your mission will surely go precisely to plan and take no time whatsoever, we’ll likely still be in the market when you’re ready. And when that doesn’t work, I shall arrive at the temple to save your hide.”

  “It’s just a temple.”

  “She does grant some of her priests quite formidable powers, you know.”

  “Yes, but mostly healing. Very few of them can do anything else.”

  “I’ve heard the high priest is an excellent knitter.”

  “Few of them can do anything else that’s useful.”

  “I see ye’re a man who doesn’t appreciate a fine scarf. When y’inevitably get into trouble, do be sure to shriek as loud as y’can so I can find y’more easily. And take care of my hat. That’s a genuine phony phoenix feather, that is.”

  “I don’t think phoenix feathers are blue.”

  “’Twas an ice phoenix, most likely.” Montague swept nothing off her head (apparently forgetting for a moment that Ian was holding her hat) and bowed an exaggerated bow. “Be seein’ y’shortly.”

  “She’s not coming back,” Ian muttered to himself as he scanned for the tower of Sapphire Temple. He didn’t know the way well, but the tower was an impossible landmark to overlook, so finding the right direction was easy enough, at least. The port was full of market stalls, most of them smelling strongly of fish. There wasn’t a single market. If he knew that Montague surely did.

  He’d made it halfway there before it hit him: A pirate captain had entrusted him with her hat. “She… is coming back?” He had never known anyone to do that before. With a very strange feeling in his chest, Ian pulled down his hood and set the hat on his own head so he’d be sure not to forget it somewhere. Losing a pirate captain’s hat would probably be bad. Though how he was supposed to find her, in that case… well, one objective at a time.

  Ian ignored a woman trying to sell him fish, a man trying buy fish from him, a man trying to sell him fish, and another woman trying to sell him fish. Port Sapphire was a bustling port town, and many goods from all of the continent were bought and sold here, but the main thing produced locally was fish. Someone also tried to sell him some pearls. He informed the salesman that he knew perfectly well that they were fake and reminded him it was entirely legal to lay curses on scam artists. At least one of those things must have been true, because the man turned pale and fled, shouting apologies over his shoulder.

  Sapphire Temple was named after the town, which was of course named after the sparkling blue waters. Rumors that it was also named for sapphire mines were unfounded as far as Ian knew, but if they ever were sapphires in the nearby hills those mines were long since dry. Regardless, over many generations the temple’s priests had increasingly embraced the name. Sapphire Temple stood out because everything was painted blue at a slightly higher rate than the rest of the town (though it was already overwhelming blue itself). Ian knew he’d arrived in the right neighborhood when he reached the walkways of blue stone. Some of the decorations even had sapphires, or reasonable facsimiles.

  There were guards armed with spears and shields at the entrance, and while they never stopped anyone from entering who wasn’t obviously threatening, it was generally polite for visitors who weren’t local to present themselves at the gate. Ian was prepared to do so, as after all he wished to meet with his contact here, a priest by the name of Miranda. Miranda was a decently respected administrator, though she had no holy powers. This was, Ian knew, because she was not all that dedicated to the holy powers. The holy powers didn’t like that much.

  Approaching the guards, who looked at him nervously and exchanged glances, Ian smirked and bowed low. “I am Ian Blackwing, of the Blackwings of Blackwing Manor—”

  “Of what?”

  “I think that’s the proper name of Creepy Keep.”

  “Of Blackwing Manor,” Ian repeated forcefully, his teeth grinding. “While I am honored to visit the hallowed halls of Sapphire Temple, I am particularly interested in meeting with my friend, the Sister Miranda of—”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Sorry?

  “Sister Miranda. She died last year.”

  “Oh. That’s-that’s unfortunate.”

  “The high priest said they found—” One guard shushed the other, smacking the butt of her spear on the ground and glaring at him. “Hm. Right, never mind.”

  “Oh come now,” said Ian, “do tell. She was a dear friend of mine, after all.”

  “You’d have to speak to the high priest. He said they might have defrocked her, but as she was already dead.”

  “She had some weird stuff. Related to dark magic, they said. Even demons!”

  “Oh dear. Honestly, I really didn’t know her that well.” This was going very badly indeed.

  “But you know about demons, though?” The guards both watched Ian carefully.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say—”

  “Aren’t you the exorcist?”

  Ian stopped trying to back out of the conversation as this hit him. “The whom?”

  “You’re here about the demons, right?”