The ladies were headed for the city center. Jenkins initially assud they were off to a party, but it was already past midnight—an unlikely hour for any social gathering.
Puzzled, he followed them from the sky, debating whether he should greet them when the carriage finally stopped. It pulled up in front of a shuttered club, three streets away from the Sage Church. Julia stepped forward and knocked. The door imdiately cracked open, and the three won slipped inside one after another.
His curiosity now piqued to its limit, Jenkins landed silently on the club's roof. He slid down a drainpipe to a second-floor window—the very room the won had entered. He soon heard voices from within; it seed Dolores was eting with her local network of spies.
Despite being in a foreign country, Nolan's importance ant she had a considerable number of agents stationed in the city. With the upcoming Tri-King Summit, Dolores was actively mobilizing her resources from all along the continent's central west coast, ensuring she had enough people at her disposal when the ti ca.
As she spoke with her local representative, she also complained to her teacher—Alexia—that Jenkins hadn't been taking them out lately. For a mont, Jenkins was certain they knew he was hanging outside the window, eavesdropping. Flushed with sha, he started to climb back to the roof, ready to leave. He made a silent promise to himself: as soon as he was done with his current business, he would make a real effort to show the ladies from the northern kingdom around Nolan.
Just then, soone entered the room and announced in a low voice that the guests had arrived. Jenkins lingered by the window a mont longer and was stunned to see Marquis Mikhail and Earl Hersha walk in.
"Dolores and Alexia are going to all this trouble for , even at this hour," Jenkins thought. "I'll really have to make it up to them."
The Sage Church was only three streets away. The closer one got to it, the stronger its influence, making the chance of any supernatural disturbances extrely low.
Jenkins left the club's window and headed in the opposite direction, wondering if he might run into Celtic Knight or soone from the Treehouse. But luck wasn't on his side tonight. The next incident he encountered was at the Byron Art Gallery, the very place where he'd experienced the "glimpse into the future" event earlier that year.
Of course, the gallery was closed at this hour. Though a watchman guarded the front entrance, the cluttered back courtyard was easy enough to hop into over the wall. With Chocolate perched on his shoulder, Jenkins moved through the gallery's deep, quiet corridors. Moonlight stread through the windows, draping every painting and statue in a luminous, ethereal veil.
The spiritual aura wasn't very strong, leading Jenkins to guess it was sothing minor—a statue that spoke at a certain hour, perhaps, or a figure in a painting that shifted its pose. These sorts of tales were common in urban legends and cheap tabloids. Their causes varied wildly, but they rarely posed any real danger to the brave.
But Jenkins was wrong again. The source of the faint aura was, unexpectedly, a crumpled ball of paper in a wastebasket. He peered into the bin, checking for any suspicious liquids or other gri before carefully retrieving it. As he smoothed it out, he recognized the familiar script and nearly dropped the paper in shock. It read:
"It's been a while, Jenkins. It's Mason Pisco. My apologies for disturbing you again. In life, I was a good friend of this gallery's director. He promised he would drop this note into this specific wastebasket on this particular day. I am truly sorry to intrude once more, but this is a unique opportunity. This gallery is situated in one of the few places in the material world where temporal energies converge. Only here can I leave you a vital ssage about the future—one even more critical than the last. These words will directly shape what is to co. While I know that the currents of fate would guide you to a solution even without my intervention, I believe a asure of caution is necessary. That is why I am forced to trouble you."
"Mr. Pisco again?"
He thought, astonished. Mason Pisco was the man who had guided him through the thirty-one-day ti loop, the man who possessed a page from the Millstone of Fate. But Pisco was dead—he had died right in front of Jenkins. This must be another one of the man's arrangents, set in motion before his death, just like when he had sent Jenkins to seal the machine in the catacombs... an adventure that had ended with him being turned into a mouse. It was one of the most humiliating monts he'd had since arriving in this world.
He flipped the crumpled note over. The ssage continued on the back:
"Return to the tavern imdiately. You will find a familiar item being traded."
That was the entire ssage—incredibly brief compared to the detailed instructions for the sealing ritual. But his last encounter with Pisco had taught Jenkins that the man's arrangents were always sound. Without hesitation, he scooped up his cat, who was sniffing around, and ran for B-11-04-2529: The Tavern That Doesn't Sell Poison.
"Mr. Pisco said he wouldn't bother again," Jenkins thought as he ran. "I wonder if he's truly dead after all."
Lost in thought, he quickly arrived back at the tavern. While the establishnt's unique nature prevented most people from finding it a second ti, that particular enchantnt had no effect on Jenkins.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside. A glance was all it took to spot Miss Stevel, his fellow apprentice, still perched at the bar, swirling a glass of wine as if lost in thought. She was slightly tipsy, but she still sensed his arrival. Turning, she saw it was Jenkins and broke into a smile, beckoning him over.
"I won't ask how you found your way back here," she said. "The secrets of a Son of the Sage are beyond my comprehension. So, did you finish what you set out to do?"
Before he'd left earlier, Jenkins had ntioned he had important business to attend to that evening.
"Not yet," he replied. "I'm here to wait for soone."
As he took a seat, the bartender brought over two glasses of lemonade. Jenkins offered his thanks before looking up at the man.
"If I were to kill soone in here," Jenkins asked, "would you have a problem with that?"
"So long as you don't interfere with our business or damage any of the property," the bartender replied smoothly, "you're free to do as you please."
Reassured, Jenkins nodded. He placed Chocolate on the bar to amuse himself, then pulled out the ladies' pocket watch to check the ti.
"A ladies' watch?"
Stevel asked from beside him.
"It was a gift from a friend,"
he explained vaguely. Just then, the tavern door swung open, and a man in a black trench coat walked in, his face obscured by a hat.
Miss Stevel's eyes narrowed. Her purpose for staying was to prevent ordinary people from stumbling into this place, but this newcor was clearly no ordinary person.
The man scanned the room before walking directly to the bar. He kept his distance from the two people and the cat sitting together, then gestured for the bartender.
"I have sothing to sell."
He produced a tightly wrapped newspaper bundle from inside his coat. Shielding it from the view of Jenkins and Miss Stevel, he carefully unwrapped it layer by layer for the bartender, whose expression turned to one of surprise.
"A bowl that turns any liquid into poison? That's quite the curiosity," the bartender remarked. "While we don't sell poison, since it is a bowl..."
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