Melena rushed up the stairs, Hazel at her heels. She couldn’t believe they had done it. They had found the five ingredients to the Seeking Solution. A buggy ride would put them back in Hickory with time to spare. Mr. Owl would pay them their due (or better yet, give Melena a cupful of the potion) and she’d begin her search for Milo. She would never have to work for the Bells again! Tonight was truly the start of a new life.

Her elation made her dizzy and she flopped down on one of the beds, knees quivering.

“We’re going to find him, Hazel!” Melena cried. “We’ll finally find him!”

In a haze of ecstasy (created mostly by the heavy perfume of the moonflower, still clamped in her hand), she fantasized buying a shop on a sunny street in Hickory. She and Milo would live together and work together. They’d laugh about their long separation as if it was nothing more than a distant, silly memory.

She and Hazel would never be alone again.

As Melena’s elation began to settle into contented joy, she rose from the bed and safely tucked the moonflower into her bag. She recounted all the ingredients, making sure they were still there. Then, realizing Toad was still at the bar, she trotted back down the stairs to see what he was up to. If they were going to get on the road quickly in the morning, they needed to get at least a few hours sleep.

As she descended the dark stairwell, she heard Toad talking to someone, and a sudden string of words made her jerk to a stop.

“— I tricked that girl into tagging along. She worked in an apothecary, see — she knows everything. And she thinks she’s gettin’ something out of it, ’cuz I pulled her strings just right. She thinks she’s gettin’ dibs on Owl’s money, but she ain’t gettin’ a druet and she doesn’t have a clue!”

Melena swayed on the step, the rest of the words muted by crashing waves of horror. Toad was going to take all the money? He was going to go to Mr. Owl by himself? It was true that Mr. Owl didn’t know anything about her. Nothing at all.

And Toad was a thief. He knew how to hide from people. It seemed very unlikely that she would be able to track him down if he decided to run for it.

Quickly, Melena hurried back up the stairs. Her breath came in short odd gasps. How could Toad do something like that? To her, of all people? After everything that she’d done for him! After everything that they had been through! She had been stupid to think they were friends. You could never trust a thief — never!

Melena heard Toad’s feet on the stairs.

She spun around, ready to accost him for his treachery. But wait — that wouldn’t do. He’d deny it. Pretend that he had just said those things to impress a fellow thief. And then, the moment her back was turned, he’d steal the ingredients and flee.

She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let him know that she was on to him. Melena knew what the potion did. What was stopping her from making it herself? Nothing! She didn’t need money to find Milo. She didn’t need to hire Mr. York. Not when the Seeking Solution was at her fingertips!

The door opened and Toad stepped inside. His face was oddly drawn, but then his eyes found her and he smiled.

“How far do you think Hickory is from here?” he asked.

“Not far,” said Melena, taking herself by surprise at how calm she sounded. “There’s a buggy station down the road. We should try to get a few hours of sleep, before we head out.”

Toad nodded, yawning, and settled onto his bed. Melena went about the room, extinguishing lamps, partly to hurry sleep along, partly to keep her back to him.

“Melena.” There was something in Toad’s voice that stilled her. She turned. In the darkness of the room, she couldn’t make out his face, but their was an uneasy slouch to his shoulders. Had he seen her on the stairs?

“Thanks. For everything.”

Melena hesitated for half a breath.

“It’s not over,” she said. Melena turned down the last lamp and crossed to her bed by the window. She sat on the edge and waited, listening for Toad’s snores. She ain’t gettin’ a druet and she doesn’t have a clue!

Melena’s face grew ugly, masked in the dark. She’d see who tricked who.

Thanks. For everything.

Something hard and constricting grew in her chest. Melena had never realized how deeply betrayal stung. As she sat there in the dark, waiting for Toad to fall asleep, the ache in her chest intensified.

You’d thought you’d found a friend. You’re such a fool. He was using you all along.

Tears pricked her eyes, but they were blinked furiously away. She half-turned on the bed; Toad’s breathing had deepened, slowed.

Melena sprang into action.

Softly, she prodded Hazel awake and pressed her finger to her lips when Hazel showed signs of voicing her displeasure. Scooping her bag off the floor, and placing Hazel on her shoulder, Melena scanned the dark room. Her eyes landed on Toad, curled on his side. He was still in his coat, but it had fallen open, and Joe was just visible, his large teeth glinting in the moonlight.

A blistering savagery erupted in Melena’s chest. It wasn’t enough to take the ingredients. She wanted to cut Toad down from his high horse. So having the talking beer mug made you a Thief Lord? Wouldn’t it be fitting to take him too? Pinching Joe right from under Toad’s nose would wound him just as deeply as the loss of Owl’s reward.

Making her decision, Melena inched closer, putting one knee on the mattress as she leaned forward, freezing when Toad grunted. Fingers shaking, she undid the rope tying Joe’s handle to Toad’s belt.

“M’lady?”

Melena slapped her hand over Joe’s mouth. His eyes widened in surprise. She stuffed him into her bag, his objections muffled. Tiptoeing across the floor, she eased the door open and slipped out of the Black Swan.

Melena knew she was nearing the buggy station as the fourth barreled past her. She stepped from the road and tucked herself behind a boulder. Hazel flapped into the air and curled up on top of it, sunning herself in the pre-dawn.

Melena’s heart raced. She opened her bag and pulled Bartholomew’s book, Joe, and the ingredients out. The moment she took out Joe, he ceased his constant attempts to gain her notice. Instead he took in the frost-crunched field, the lone boulder, and a passing buggy.

“M’lady, where is Master Toad?”

Melena ignored Joe, busying herself with lining up the ingredients.

Joe gave an uncharacteristically heavy sigh. “Oh, dear.”

Melena, who had pulled her potions book close, was scanning the index.

“M’lady, you should know that whatever you heard in the night, Master Toad didn’t mean —”

“Oh, he meant it,” Melena snarled. “He meant every awful word.”

Joe looked pained.

“You know Master, m’lady,” he tried again. “Master is brazen and hot-headed and puts his foot in his mouth five times a day. He was goaded, m’lady. You must believe Ol’ Joe. Master Toad will be distraught to find you gone —”

“Good.” Melena returned to her book.

“Let us return, m’lady,” Joe cajoled, pretending that he hadn’t heard her. “Let us go back and Master Toad can tell you himself.”

When Melena continued to scan the index in angry silence, Joe asked gently, “What is m’lady looking for?”

“A potion,” said Melena shortly, flipping the pages.

“What kind?”

“One that uses some of these ingredients,” said Melena, still turning pages. “Bartholomew doesn’t have the Seeking Solution in here, which is so odd — he has everything — but if I can find —”

“Seeking Solution?” asked Joe, his voice sharpening. “Did m’lady say Seeking Solution?”

“Yes. Izzie told me about it. She told me that’s what these ingredients make. It’s so annoying that Bartholomew doesn’t have it.”

“Well, Bartholomew was a baboon,” Joe stated. “He thought he was the highest authority of the Cauldron. Imbecile,” he added.

Melena, who was busily flipping pages, was not paying close attention and so did not catch that Joe had, once again, insulted her favorite potioneer. She was becoming increasingly irritated. Was she supposed to soak the elfin moss in the Mirg water? Should the roc talon be pulverized? Was the unicorn hair more potent added at the beginning or the end? And what part of the moonflower was to be used? Petals, pollen, or both? Not to mention the glaring issue of this supposedly special ‘Vessel’ that the potion was designed for. Would she ruin it if she concocted it in a regular cauldron?

“I don’t know what I’m doing!” Melena shouted, slamming the book shut. “This is no use to me at all!”

This violence toward Bartholomew made Joe’s eyes spin happily.

“Perhaps I may be of assistance, m’lady?”

“You? What do you know about potion brewing? I shouldn’t have been so stupid. The Seeking Solution can’t possibly be real. How can there be a potion that Bartholomew hasn’t heard of? Maybe I should just take the ingredients to Mr. Owl. I can tell him that I helped Toad and he and I got separated and —”

Joe, who had chuckled when Melena had assumed he knew nothing about potions, blanched at the rest of her speech. “You put too much weight in Bartholomew, m’lady!” Joe cried. “He had his achievements — I will give him that, but no more! He knows nothing of the Seeking Solution —”

“That’s what I’ve been saying —”

“ — the greatest achievement to date —”

“How am I supposed to —”

“To hear him prattle about possibilities and then pointedly ignore —”

“It’s so frustrating —”

“When I was practically under his nose!”

“You can’t make a potion without — what did you say?”

Joe was no longer grinning. His fat lips were clamped tight over his large teeth and he breathed heavily through his nose.

“Years of torment, m’lady!” Joe seethed passionately. “If you could have heard the wrathful things he would say about me and still remain so blinded! He disregarded the Seeking Solution and called it nothing more than gibberish and fish eggs all because he could never believe I existed!”

“What are you talking about? You know about the Seeking Solution?”

“Know of it? HA!” Joe shouted, eyes popping. “I am the Vessel! I am the key component! I am the Seeking Solution!”

Melena stared.

“You’re serious,” she said slowly. “You’re the Vessel?”

“Of course I am the Vessel!”

“But you knew the ingredients we were getting,” said Melena. “You’ve been hearing us talking about them for ages. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

Joe ignored her. He had worked himself into too high a rage.

“Ignoring my existence,” he stormed, “while I sat under his engorged snout! And now to go further and poison the minds of generations with his blindness! The audacity! The disgrace! The —”

“Mr. Joe.”

Joe froze in mid word. He looked so comical with his mouth ajar that a giggle escaped Melena. Joe might have been dubbed numerous titles, but Mr. seemed a first.

“If you are the master of the Seeking Solution, then why don’t you help me?”

A faint pink tinged Joe’s cheeks. He looked suddenly wrong-footed.

“I would, of course, like to help m’lady, but I still think it would be better to return to Master Toad.”

Melena resisted the urge to scowl. Why wouldn’t Joe just do what she said?! Instead of snapping at the mug, she bit her lip in what she hoped was a conflicted fashion.

“Joe … I just don’t know if I can—”

“Oh, but if m’lady would just return to the inn,” Joe insisted, “and speak with Master Toad, m’lady would feel so much better! Ol’ Joe is sure of it!”

“But … Joe … you know that Toad wants to give the ingredients to Mr. Owl and …” She bit her lip again. Her eyes fell to her lap. “I’ve wanted to find my brother for so long, Joe … and you can help me. You can help me right now. I’ll —” Melena raised her eyes and met Joe’s brilliant blue ones. “If you help me with the potion, I promise I’ll go back and talk to Toad. Please,” Melena whispered. “Please help me.”

Joe’s marble eyes glistened, his fat bottom lip trembled.

“Well,” he said hesitantly, his voice slightly choked with emotion, “of course Ol’ Joe understands … I suppose — if m’lady so wishes — that is to say — perhaps it wouldn’t hurt —”

“Wonderful!” Melena cried. “What do I do?”

“Let me see. You … you have all the ingredients … yes, quite. Now, first things first. I can only Seek one item or person.”

“That’s fine,” said Melena quickly. “It’s my —”

“Brother, yes,” Joe interrupted. “The potion’s effects will dissipate once you have found him. Literally found him. Now, give me all the ingredients.”

Melena picked up the moonflower before pausing as Joe’s instruction sunk in.

“All of them?”

“Quite.”

“Do I put the water in before the flower?”

“If you wish.”

Melena blinked. “What d’you mean, ‘if I wish’? Isn’t there an order?”

“The order of moss, hair, flower, water, and talon means nothing,” said Joe. “Just add them as you wish.”

“How do I prepare them? Should I shred the petals?”

“If m’lady likes, though such actions will be pointless.”

Melena, who had been trained that potions had very specific rules, with the order and proper preparation of ingredients being highly, if not devastatingly important, felt very uncomfortable. But she did as Joe said, packing the ingredients one after the other inside the mug and then pouring a flask of Mirg water on top. There were so many ingredients, and the moonflower was so large, that Joe looked more like a demented garden pot who had just sat through a heavy downpour than a beer mug, with moss and petals threatening to overflow from his rim.

“Now add what you seek,” Joe instructed, puffing a petal out of his eyes.

“I … what?”

“What it is that you seek. Add it.”

“But —” Melena didn’t want to make Joe angry again, but she didn’t understand. “I’m looking for my brother.”

“Yes, m’lady, I know that,” said Joe in a sharper tone than usual.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not following you. How am I supposed to add my brother?”

Joe actually laughed.

“In order for me to find the one you seek I need a match. Something that is a part of him. Do you have anything that belonged to him and him alone?”

“I —” Melena was going to say ‘no, I don’t’ when she realized with a jolt that she was wrong. She did possess something of Milo’s. She had since the day of the fire. She had carried it with her every day, slept with it every night, and never once realized the importance of what she had round her neck. Heart jumping, she withdrew her mother’s locket from under the confines of her shirt. She opened its latched doors with trembling fingers and took out a small lock of hair bound by a tiny blue ribbon. The number of times she had opened the locket during lonely nights with the Bells, and never once guessed the importance of what she carried…

“Will his hair do?” she asked.

“As long as it is his.”

Melena couldn’t imagine whose else it could be. Her own tiny snip of hair remained in the locket, bound by a faded pink ribbon.

She dropped the honey-colored lock on top of the mess of ingredients. She didn’t have any idea what would happen. Perhaps a sinister sizzle or a great puff of smoke. Instead, everything Melena had placed inside the beer mug, the chipped talon, the glistening hairs, the glowing moss, the shimmering water, the sickly-scented flower, the lock of hair — vanished.

At once, Melena knew something was wrong. “What happened? Where did they go? Joe, what happened?”

Joe was silent.

“Joe — talk to me! What happened? Where did the ingredients go?”

When Joe still did not respond, Melena panicked. She picked him up and shook him, but Joe hardly seemed to notice. He remained abnormally still, almost as if he were standing at attention, waiting to leap into action at the sound of a command. She peered at him closely, so close their noses touched.

A terrifying and thrilling thought came over her. What if it had worked … what if Joe was waiting…

“Joe,” Melena began quietly, “do you know where Milo Snead is?”

“Yes,” said Joe.

Melena swallowed. Her hands began to shake.

“Is he … alive?”

“Yes.”

Melena’s heart could have sprouted wings and soared away. Alive! Milo was alive! All these years — she had been right!

“Where is he, Joe? Where is he?”

“Black Swan Inn. 2nd floor. Room 5B.”

Melena stared. That couldn’t be right. She had just come from the Black Swan. She would have known if a Milo was there. They had chatted with all the lodgers.

“Milo’s there? At the inn?”

“Yes.”

“But Joe” — Melena even found herself laughing at how ridiculous that was — “we were just there.”

Joe was silent. Melena glared at him.

“Stop fooling around. Tell me where Milo is.”

“Black Swan Inn. 2nd floor. Room 5B.”

“You just said that,” said Melena, growing frustrated. “He can’t be — ” Her voice died in her throat. Room 5B? 5B? It couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly …

Joe continued to stare forward as if fixated on an invisible target. The wild urge to toss him away in the grass nearly took her breath away. She desperately wanted to ask but she also desperately wanted to flee from the spot and never look back.

“Joe,” Melena whispered, voice trembling, “is Milo Toad?”