Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The sound came like punctuation marks in a sermon—measured, deliberate, final.

  From amidst the flanking Collectors, the Curator said, “Ah,” as if greeting dinner guests at the end of the world. “The thieves who fancy themselves as revolutionaries.”

  “More like freedom fighters,” I muttered, gripping the bat tighter. The runes along the shaft buzzed faintly like a nervous insect.

  He smiled thinly. “Even so.”

  Elly’s grip on her ward-charm tightened until her knuckles went white. “The Curator.”

  He tipped his bowler in acknowledgment, the gesture almost courtly. “The thing about collecting for so long,” he said, voice smooth as varnished oak, “is that one learns so much. One comes across the most fascinating novelties.”

  His gaze drifted across our formation like a hand over a shelf of books. Then it stopped—on me.

  “And you,” he murmured, cane tilting my way, “are a misprint. A glitch in the catalog. A first edition with no known author. How could I resist?”

  “You could just stay home and collect stamps or Pokémon cards?” I offered weakly.

  He ignored that. “When one collects such curious origins, one grows… protective of them. Possessive. I can’t imagine misplacing you.”

  “Take him down!” Elly shouted. No hesitation, no debate—just command.

  Sélis moved first. Of course they did. Their body fractured into five shadows—each sprinting from a different vector, knives gleaming like punctuation marks in motion.

  The Curator didn’t dodge. He simply drew a prism of glass from his pocket, no larger than a child’s toy. Light bent through it wrong, angles twisting.

  One of Sélis’ five selves screamed. Then imploded, vanishing into the prism’s gleam.

  The Curator pocketed it with the casual grace of a man closing a folder. “Four now,” he said mildly. “So much tidier.”

  Sélis staggered, their remaining forms flickering. “Give her back,” they hissed, four mouths speaking as one. “Give us back our self!”

  “You may be reunited…” The Curator straightened his lapel. “Soon.”

  Zorka charged, roaring, a streak of lithe muscle and fury. Her pipe met his cane in a crash that should’ve broken bones—but the street buckled instead.

  A ripple tore through the pavement like a ledger page folding itself shut. Zorka went tumbling end over end, slammed into a wall with a crack that made my stomach twist.

  She laughed anyway, sharp and defiant as she tried to get back up on all fours. “Still got the other leg!”

  Elly swore in a language that probably violated treaties. Runes lit around her hands like blue fire. “Back formation! NOW!”

  Eury stepped up, golden eyes flaring. The air turned molten with her glare. Several Collectors froze mid-step—half-statues of themselves, joints locking as their chest slots hissed shut.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The Curator lifted a hand mirror, old bronze and etched with glyphs that made my teeth ache just to see. It drank the light from Eury’s eyes like a sponge—and hurled it back.

  Eury screamed, hands clutching her face. The gold bled from her irises, turning pale. She staggered, snarling, sightless but still upright. “Coward—can’t fight us, can you?”

  “The tragedy of diluted bloodlines,” the Curator said. “Power without permanence. Even vintage weakness can be… archived.”

  Lily stepped forward, perfume spilling into the night like wildfire—warm and irresistible, laced with her will. The Collectors slowed, some even trembling as the scent reached them.

  But the Curator only inhaled deeply. His grin widened.

  Then he exhaled.

  Her own glamour hit her back—doubled, reversed. Lily gasped, knees buckling, drowning in her own pheromones. She dropped to one knee, hand over her heart.

  He chuckled. “Delightful. A fragrance that intoxicates even the brewer.”

  Elly moved, flinging a charm that detonated between them in a burst of blue-white light. The shockwave scattered the nearest Collectors. I felt the air pull tight, smell the ozone, taste the copper.

  “Daniel!” she barked.

  “Already on it!”

  I swung the bespelled bat with every ounce of fear and anger I had. The Curator parried with his cane—gently, like teaching a child. The null feedback surged up my arm, blistering through the glove. My vision went white at the edges.

  He leaned close, voice low enough for me alone. “How curious you are, Mercer. How… unfinished.”

  Elly’s runes flared brighter, cracking into chains of radiant light. She hurled charm after charm, embedding them in the ground. The Curator stepped through them like a man walking through puddles—but one snagged.

  The air hissed. Wards constricted. For the first time, he slowed.

  His head tilted. Not anger. Interest. “Resourceful,” he murmured. “Stubborn.”

  He flicked his cane.

  Every light on the block went out. The wards shattered like glass.

  Darkness fell with the sound of paper tearing.

  Then it happened too fast to think.

  A Collector lunged. I saw only the blur of movement before Elly shoved me sideways, hard. Her runes exploded into light, trying to fill the gap. She screamed my name, raw and furious.

  The Curator’s cane tapped once.

  Ink-black chains lashed from the air, wrapping her wrists, her waist, her throat. They glistened with shifting words—entries, dates, details of every fight, every victory, every breath she’d ever taken.

  She fought. Gods, she fought. Charms burned through her fingers, runes searing her skin, but the chains held.

  “Elly!” I tried to grab her, but the air itself thickened like syrup.

  “Run, Daniel!”

  I didn’t. Couldn’t. My throat burned, and before I knew it, words tore out—louder than I meant: “Elly—I love you!”

  Everything froze. Even the Collectors paused.

  Elly blinked, shock and something softer flickering across her face. Then—damn her—she grinned, even as the chains pulled tighter.

  “I know,” she said. “And I’m charging interest.”

  The Curator tugged his cane. The chains yanked her backward, into a fold of darkness that hissed shut like a drawer closing.

  Gone.

  Just gone.

  The Curator tipped his bowler, polite as ever. “I don’t need to take you, Daniel,” he said. “I take what’s dearest to you, and I get you in the bargain.”

  He stepped backward into shadow, the last of his words echoing like a stamp being pressed into paper.

  The Collectors followed, melting into the night with the dry rasp of pages closing.

  Silence dropped like a curtain.

  Zorka groaned, half-laughing through broken ribs. “Still… got the other leg,” she muttered again, weaker this time.

  Sélis was on their knees, flickering between selves, whispering apologies to the one that hadn’t come back.

  Eury, blind but furious, stood like a broken statue, one hand bleeding where she’d gouged her palm just to orient herself. “Where—where is she?”

  Lily crawled to her feet, shaking. “Gone,” she whispered. “They took her.”

  I stood there, bat humming faintly, glove scorched, heart beating too fast to feel real.

  The spot where Elly had stood still glowed faintly with the residue of her last ward—one flickering rune trying to hold shape before fading into nothing.

  For the first time, I understood what being filed felt like.

  Not just tagged. Not just logged.

  Filed. Retrieved. Indexed.

  And this time, it wasn’t me in the drawer.

  It was Elly—our sharp-tongued, infuriating, indispensable Elly.

  The city felt suddenly quieter. Smaller.

  And in that silence, I realized: we weren’t just surviving anymore. We were going to have to steal her back.

  No matter what the Curator and his damned record books said.