Meya pressed her eye up against the keyhole as sunlight ebbed out of the room behind her. A servant scurried across the length of the hallway leading away from Hasif’s lab, lighting oil lamps mounted on the walls. Every now and then, alchemists in flowing purple robes would walk by, some alone and some in pairs, headed for dinner in the Great Hall. Yet, Lasralein Hasif was not among them.

It had been a quarter-hour since Meya and Ahmundi parted with Arinel; she and the Lord Hyacinth headed for the unused room near Lasralein’s lab to lie in wait, whereas the Lady Crosset rushed off to find Lady Hyacinth.

Lady Hyacinth was still under the impression that Meya had set off with the sunset, headed for the Pleasure Lane with Coris and Gillian, her two guards in tow. The change in their plans, however, left them no choice but to put the guards to sleep and stuff them into the wardrobe in the Hadrians’ guest quarters, so Meya would be free to sneak off and help Arinel spy on Healer Hasif.

At long last, clattering footsteps echoed towards them, then a servant boy turned the corner into the hallway, hurrying towards Lasralein’s door. He knocked. Lasralein’s muffled voice must have answered, for he then announced Lady Hyacinth had summoned for her.

There was a pause, then the double doors opened and Lasralein emerged looking annoyed, a length of chains coiled around her arm, and Meya made a fist in silent celebration. Lasralein produced a ring with four keys, jamming one into each corresponding hole on the left-side door. Top, middle, bottom. Then, as the final precaution, she uncoiled the chains from her arm, knotted them around the door handles, then sealed them with a padlock.

Meya readied her sweaty hand on the doorknob as she pushed her face harder against the keyhole. She strained her eyeball against the confines of the narrow field of vision she’d had to work with, following Lasralein as she stalked past their door, the servant boy tailing two steps behind. She waited until they have disappeared behind the corner and their footsteps have faded to silence, before turning the doorknob. The two troublemakers spilled out onto the hallway, then scrambled for Lasralein’s door.

As Meya fell panting against the wooden double doors, breathless from the thrill, Ahmundi bent down and pulled a ring of keys out from his sleeve, slotting one into the padlock on the chains. It popped open with one sharp turn.

“Doesn’t she ever change her locks? All this time, she never noticed you nicking her stuff?” Meya asked as she pulled the heavy chains out from the door handles. Ahmundi had knelt down to open the bottom lock.

“Told you, her lab’s just a front.” Clack! Ahmundi straightened up with a sigh and slotted another key into the middle lock, “She mostly works in the secret lab.” Clack! He stretched up on tippy-toes and strained for the top lock, “And she barely uses the stuff I took anyway, because our experiments are very different.”

Clack!

Meya let out a sigh of relief when the fourth key turned smoothly in the last lock. Ahmundi, however, remained tense. He grasped both door handles and pushed his way inside, Meya hot on his heels.

As Ahmundi pulled the doors close behind them, Meya handed him the chains and padlock then took the time to explore the room. Lasralein had left the lamps lit; apparently, she’d thought she would be able to return soon.

The lab was roughly as large as the one room in Meya’s cottage back in Crosset, with a worktable instead of a hearth-hole as the centerpiece, and shelves carrying books, scrolls, apparatuses, and labeled jars containing hazardous substances, instead of pots, pans, jars of pickle, strings of sausages and hunks of meat (from Meya’s piglets) and loaves of bread.

Not a thing was out of place, except for the chair Lasralein must have been sitting on, her eye on the door, touching nothing. Ahmundi truly had been in here numerous times; this lab had probably barely seen experiments, at least not for a long time.

A heavy clunk resounded in the still air from Ahmundi snapping the padlock close. Meya turned to him as he advanced a step further into the room, his eyes trained on the shelves on the opposite wall,

“Now, the time for truth.” He sighed, eyes narrowing. Meya hurried after him as he rounded the table towards the three-tiered shelves, then joined in when he set to work relocating their inhabitants onto the wall-length chest of drawers below. He didn’t bother taking note of their places so they could erase their trail once their job was done; he really had meant for this to be his one last heist.

Now that the shelves had been cleared, a hair-thin, vertical gap appeared along the seemingly seamless adobe wall, once hidden behind books and jars. Five tiny round holes that could have fitted no rod thicker than a meat skewer had been drilled into the wall at intervals, all framed with a golden ring.

Ahmundi laid a tapered finger over the hole in the middle, rubbing the golden ring to a shine in frustration.

“These smug little holes have been taunting me for years.” He muttered, “I bribed the castle’s locksmith to make these for me, but for these, he’s stumped.”

He raised the ring of copied keys, then gestured it towards the peculiar keyhole with a chorus of jangles, shaking his head,

“He’s never seen keyholes even remotely like these in his life. None of his mold keys would fit, so he couldn’t get markings. Either Hasif commissioned a different locksmith for this door, or she crafted this lock herself.”

Meya met his apprehensive gaze, then narrowed her eyes at the keyhole, thinking hard. Ahmundi had guessed that it might have something to do with Lasralein being a Greeneye. If Lasralein did indeed craft the locks herself, she could’ve used some sort of technique only Greeneyes would have been capable of, yet not an inherent skill any uninitiated Greeneye could manage...

Ahmundi mentioned mold keys. Meya had heard tales of lockpicks and thiefs from travelling bards. When the key was unavailable, locksmiths would ram a mold key into the keyhole and force it against the lock. The pins would leave markings on the mold key, which they could then use to craft the imitation key.

Meya raised her right pointer finger to her eyes. She still required heaps of practice to make herself a nose-bridge from scratch, but perhaps she could make herself a key with a mold in place to guide her flow.

As Ahmundi frowned in puzzlement, Meya pushed her fingertip up against the minuscule keyhole, then closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. Letting out a long, sustained sigh, she opened her eyes and willed hot metal to gush out of her pores in a steady stream into the keyhole. Once the hole was filled, she allowed the silvery liquid to form a coat over her finger, creating a handle, then tugged out her finger once the metal had cooled and settled.

Beside her, Ahmundi let out a breath of awe. Meya glanced aside and met his magnified eyes, quivering behind his glasses, then took another deep breath as she closed both hands around the finger-shaped handle. So tiny was the hole, the key might just break in the lock if her strip of alloy was not strong enough to turn the weight of the deadbolt. But if her hunch was correct and this was how Lasralein did it, then this would have to work. Unless Lasralein subsisted on a diet rich in much hardier metal than she did, that was.

Very well, here goes nothing.

Whispering a silent prayer to Freda for a miracle, Meya turned the makeshift key.

Clack!

A single note like music from the Heights graced their ears. The gap in the wall widened slightly now that one of the deadbolts holding the halves of sliding wall together had tucked itself away in its nook. Four more to go, and they would be in.

The hallway which led to Dizadh’s quarters was a stark contrast to the one housing the Dolls. High-ceilinged enough to accommodate Gillian’s height and a chandelier with plenty of wriggle room in between, and wide enough for a man of Gillian’s breadth to spread his arms and just about touch his fingertips to the walls, and interspersed by sliding doors made of panels of smooth, polished wood, which let out not a whisper nor a glimpse of the private affairs going on behind them. The doors were identical save for the golden letters emblazoned upon them, spelling out the name of the courtesan who resided within.

The man in the gold-trimmed blue toga halted before the door bearing the name Dizadh, bowed deeply to Gillian, then scurried soundlessly away. Gillian followed him out of the corner of his eye until he had disappeared round the corner with a flutter of his robe, before pushing aside the door.

The room was brightly lit with paper lamps set along the curtained walls and hanging from the ceiling. Dizadh was right across from him, reclining against a long triangular cushion. His black eyes widened at the sight of his visitor, and he rose to his feet with a swish of his crimson toga and much jangling from his rows of bangles. Golden and silver threads were still entwined in his river of black hair. If he had entertained another client after his canceled session with Lady Hyacinth, it was impossible to tell.

“You’ve come in place of the Lady Hadrian?” He asked, his voice soft and fearful. He’d probably recognized Gillian as one of the Greeneye girl’s entourage. The man was sharp. Very well. It saved him trouble.

“She would’ve come personally, if not for the danger.” Gillian thrust the door back against its frame with a slam then marched into the light, glaring down at Dizadh from his towering height, his grip tight around the hilt of his curved blade, “Where are those Greeneyes? What have you done to them?”

Dizadh shrank under his shadow, trembling hands raised in surrender.

“Please. I’m your ally.” He whispered, shaking his head side to side, “I answered Lord Hadrian’s letter in Healer Hasif’s place. To warn you. She called me to the palace for a session a few days ago.”

As Gillian froze, frowning, Dizadh swept towards the red floor-to-ceiling curtains draping over the wall and tugged them aside, revealing the sliding screens once concealed behind them.

“I was beginning to fear you’d never come for them. I can’t keep them for much longer.”

He rambled, his voice bursting with sobs, then slid back the screen. The lamplight flooded the once pitch-black cupboard, illuminating its occupants—a teenage girl with long golden-brown hair whom Gillian recognized as one of Baroness Hadrian’s maids-of-honor, a stocky brown-haired man in his prime, and a middle-aged man with chestnut hair and mustache.

There they sat in a row, hunched in the cramped space, limbs akimbo like resting marionettes, lifeless but for the slow rise and fall of their chests. They had been stripped down to their undergarments. Their signature eerie, glowing green eyes had been replaced by blue human eyes, perfect but for their lack of a soul, and their glass-like gleam when touched by the light. The stale stench of piss and shite billowed out and inundated his nostrils, faint yet pronounced against the perfumed air of the room. Dizadh must have been feeding and cleaning them to the best of his ability over the past few days.

As the pieces fall into place, Gillian clenched his trembling hands, hissing through gritted teeth,

“Where are their eyes?”

Dizadh had just scurried off and returned with fresh towels and a water basin. Streams of clear liquid were flowing down Lady Persephia’s bare legs, yet she appeared not in the least aware.

“The brothel owners sold them to Healer Hasif. If we’re in luck, she might not have used them yet.” He knelt down and mopped up the mess. Gillian ducked inside and half-heaved, half-dragged the brown-haired man out to make way and prevent him from getting soiled as well.

“And where is the other Lady Graye? The human twin? Have they silenced her?”

Dizadh shook his head with a shudder.

“They were about to. She convinced them she’d work for laudanum, so they let her live, but her addiction’s getting worse. She’s working in the Dollhouse.”

“The Dollhouse?”

The staff woman stood waiting impatiently beside the door as Coris and Christopher hurried over to join her. Zier and Simon were standing before the door, their heads tipped back. In the dim light, Coris could just make out the letters scrawled in carmine ink across the wooden panels.

Dollhouse

An apt name. So innocent it was unnerving. The enormous woman tossed Coris a key along with parting remarks,

“Your room’s down that way. Number’s on the key.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, indicating another hallway perpendicular to the one they had just traversed, then nodded at the Dollhouse’s door,

“You have one hour. Try any and as many dolls as you want. Just be considerate of other clients. Take one at a time. I’ll come knock when your hour is over.”

With that, she strode back the way she came. Christopher, Zier and Simon watched the bald woman until she disappeared into the shadows, tossed incredulous looks at each other, then turned as one to their leader.

“So...do we each snag a doll first?” Simon asked hesitantly. Coris met his gaze in the gloom and nodded.

“I’d say our best shot is to blend in and ask other clients if they’ve seen any of the missing four.” He explained as a furrow appeared between his eyebrows, and tremors wracked his slight frame,

“To be frank, I reckon we’d be lucky to even recover their remains. Greeneyes are mindless golems without their eyes, and Agnes isn’t worth anything as a prostitute thanks to her burns. If I were the brothel owner, I’d sell the dragon eyes to Hyacinth authorities in exchange for protection, bury the Greeneyes alive to destroy the evidence, and silence Agnes.”

The cruel yet irrefutable guess left his three friends speechless, petrified in horror. As his wavering resolve threatened to succumb to despair, Coris turned pointedly away from their bloodless faces, their gaping eyes, and pushed open the door. As leader, he didn’t have the luxury of showing weakness. It was important to maintain his men’s morale. Yet, he must also ensure their safety and the success of the mission by keeping them abreast of exactly what they were up against. It was a fine balance to strike. He wasn’t sure he had made the right move, but now that he had chosen, forward was the only direction he could take.

Unlike the dingy hallway, the Dollhouse was bathed in pleasant orange light. Two bald, well-built women were already inside, browsing the rows of ‘dolls’ sitting propped against all four walls of the room.

The ‘dolls’ were life-sized, bundled in vividly colored togas decorated with intricate patterns. There were male and female dolls, child and teenage and adult, blonde and brunette and dark and redheaded, snowy and fair and olive and brown-skinned. Their eyes, however, were all glassy blue, gaping unblinking into space. They appeared too lifelike to have been mere gum molded over a wooden skeleton. So lifelike it was uncanny, and too masterfully crafted to be exploited as an economic alternative to living prostitutes.

The two clients seemed to have been acquaintances; they selected their preferred doll and left the room together, giggling. One picked a doll resembling an adult man, and the other nabbed a young girl, proof of their differing tastes.

Coris shifted aside to make way for their exit. His eyes strayed towards the dolls lolling on the floor nearest to him, then he nearly yelped in fright.

He could have sworn he saw their chests moving—rising and falling in the slow rhythm usually indicating deep slumber in actual humans. A male doll that looked to be his age sat with its mouth ajar. A trickle of drool was seeping out through its parted lips.

No—No, not it. Him.

A wave of freezing cold cascaded down his back as the harrowing realization dawned upon him. Coris faltered back and bumped against Christopher.

“Oh, Goodly Freda.” The Meriton heir pressed his hand over his mouth, stifling a retch, “They’re breathing.”

“I should’ve guessed this,” Coris shook his head as he alternated between disbelief and rage, “How obvious. How disgustingly ingenious.”

Yes, the brothel had kidnapped Greeneyes and sold their priceless eyes to Hyacinth authorities. However, they didn’t simply dispose of their comatose bodies after the deal was sealed, but had decided to milk the Greeneyes for what they were worth, forcing upon them a fate perhaps worse than death.

Zier dropped to his knees, shivering. Simon gritted his teeth. Setting his emotions aside to be acknowledged later, he glanced wildly around, scanning the dozens of eerily empty faces for a familiar one.

“They must be here. Find them, hurry!”

He barked at his paralyzed friends as he dove towards the Greeneyes nearest to him, spurring them to follow suit. Before long, he came upon a young woman with flowing brown hair. He grabbed her chin and pulled her closer, shut her eyelids over the distracting glass eyes and compared her face against Persephia’s in his memory.

A grating noise sounded from the far side of the room. He glimpsed a slab of the wall sliding open out of the corner of his eye, and turned around. A wheelbarrow sat in the doorway, carrying a naked, unconscious Greeneye girl who seemed to have just been cleaned after her session with a client.

Behind it stood a young woman with a wooden mask covering half of her face. Her visible eye, bloodshot and shadowed, welled up with tears as she noticed them. Her hair was unkempt. She wore the same red maid uniform she last had on when she parted with them at the dried lake, plus some large splashes of water and dark spatters of what was likely human excrement.

“Agnes?” Coris breathed.

Over to Meya, now standing in the doorway to Healer Hasif’s secret chamber, she was also facing her darkest fears turned reality. The shelves along the far wall of the hidden lab held rows of glass jars, crowded together like merchandise to be sold. Each and every was labeled, and each imprisoned a glowing green, metallic eyeball.

On the worktable was a complex metallic contraption with a small windmill attached to one end, and an eggcup-like receptacle the size of a teaspoon at the other. The windmill was spinning so fast, it had turned into a psychedelic gray whorl, likely powered by the glowing, acid green stone held in the clutches of the spoon.

Two bowls sat nearby, one holding a dozen similar glowing stones, and the other littered with what appeared to be cracked shells made of opalescent metal—Lattis. A vat sat at the corner of the table, half-filled with clear, syrupy liquid. Thousands of minuscule particles hung suspended throughout the jelly, winking in the room’s light like flecks of powdered sequins.

“Oh, Freda. Goodly Freda. Freda Freda Freda.”

Lord Ahmundi rambled feverishly under his breath, his fingers tangled in his curly black hair. Strength deserted Meya’s legs. She crumpled to her knees, then slumped against the wall. Her guess was correct, but only partially. The whole truth was worse than she had expected, worse than her wildest nightmares.

The green crystal wasn’t simply a dragon eye by another name. It had been harvested from inside a dragon eye.