"Well, we're here."
Ricard looked askance at his adventuring partner. The lanky Felix had his hands on his hips and was grinning across at an entirely empty clearing.
Ricard looked to the clearing. Then back to Felix.
Ricard cleared his throat. "Ah... Felix, your imagination can be
ineffable
at times. I fear I'm quite lost here."
"Hm?" Felix glanced back at Ricard, looking puzzled. He gestured in front of them. "Didn't you say we were looking for a ring of stones?"
"Yes?"
Felix's head tilted. "Really, now, Ricard. And here I thought
I
was the airhead."
Ricard blinked. His head tilted.
And he slapped his forehead. "Of course! Felix, you sparkle-headed old spider, there must be some sort of illusion going on here! And you, with your resistance to magic, clearly stand immune." He grabbed Felix by the arm, grinning. "Is it true? A ring of seven white stones?"
Felix chewed his upper lip, examining the clearing closely. "I count eight."
"Ah. Don't be absurd, Felix." Ricard chuckled, tapping the map. "The map
clearly
marks for seven. A magical number—the number fortune follows like a lovesick waif. Definitely seven."
"Uh, maybe, but I'm just saying, there's eight stones."
Ricard let out a low sigh. "Felix, I don't mean to malign those fine hazel eyes of yours, but perhaps your numerical facilities have turned pixillated."
Felix considered this, and carefully re-counted. Twice. "I don't think so, Ricard."
Ricard's mood was souring a little, but he tried to stay in good spirits. "Felix, Felix, Felix." He rubbed his eyes in a great show of weariness. "I'm telling you, the
map
clearly says—"
He opened his eyes and glance down at the parchment. He took a beat.
"Does it say eigh—"
"Ah, yes, Felix, I can confirm that it is eight. No need to doubt yourself." Ricard patted Felix on the arm. "We
are
, indeed, here. This is the Honeymoon Manor."
"Great!" Felix strolled into the clearing, lips pursed. "But you heard the part where it's just a bunch of rocks, right?"
"It's an
enchantment
, my leviathan friend." Ricard smiled, following after. "For now, yes, we have essentially acquired the world's most isolated rock garden as our winnings. But give it an hour..." He pointed up at the stars above. "Give or take a few cricket chirps, and there it will be, open and ripe for ravishing. The Manor reveals itself to those who wait."
"Really! How polite of it." Felix glanced to the side. "Say, what's that?"
Ricard took no notice at first, reaching out and feeling cold, rough stone where he could see only air. Fascinating. Delightful. Lucky he'd taken the lug along, really.
He looked over just in time to see Felix approaching a ring of bright crimson mushrooms. He coughed. "Ah, Felix, I wouldn't—wouldn't advise—
stop
!"
Felix froze in place. Stiff as a board.
He didn't actually seem to be doing anything aside from looking at the mushrooms. Still, Ricard couldn't be too careful with Felix. For a locksmith, the fellow had the discretion and patience of a highly impetuous goldfish—the sort that failed to flee when its owner tapped the glass, and instead stared openly and defiantly at the owner until the owner felt ashamed and walked away. And all the culinary caution of a goblin's fiance.
"Poison?" Felix asked, still not moving. "Because it's not as though I meant to
eat
it, Ricard. Really, now." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sucking candy, giving it a crunch. "I was just wondering if it was one of those 'fairy rings' we're supposed to watch out for."
"And not go near."
"Well, yes..."
Ricard gave a long-suffering sigh and smile. "Felix, those fairy rings are
back doors
. We are trying to avoid going through them."
"Why not?" Felix stuck his tongue into his cheek, but he took a step back from the ring of fungi. "It seems to me—and, well, I'm not any sort of expert on doors, after all, except the locked kind, which I'm actually a licensed expert on—that if one is, uh, breaking into a house, the back door might as well be a
front
door."
"
Not
if you don't have those doors listed on the map you need to navigate the anti-euclidian mass of winding rooms that the Honeymoon Manor can become, Felix." Ricard reached up to Felix's shoulder and gently tugged the fellow away. "We already have our route, and it involves the front door."
"Okay, sure." Felix shrugged. He had an exaggerated and elegant way of shrugging that, with his long arms, rather reminded Ricard of a bird about to take flight. "So we wait?"
~~~~
They waited.
Felix ran out of candies an hour or so in. He was, naturally enough, feeling rather sour about it.
After about a half-hour more of unbearable tedium, the Honey Moon rose over the forest.
Felix immediately saw where the moon got its name from. It was a particularly orange crescent moon. Only occurring on the weeks after the Autumn Equinox—quite an abnormally lucky happenstance, Felix had to admit, considering when they'd gotten word of this place—it was quite a pretty sort of thing.
And as it rose, Felix's eyes shone with understanding as the eight stones blended together and poured through shadows, spiraling like liquid light atop one another, rising and swirling and spreading.
And soon, the clearing was a little bit larger than it had been before. And in front of them was...
"The Honeymoon Manor," Ricard breathed. "Lovely."
Felix stared up at it. It was a true feat of architecture. A true marvel of the artistic inspiration of the Fair Folk. Piers, wings, walls, all that important stuff.
"Why do you suppose they call it the Honeymoon Manor," Felix remarked, "and not the Honey Moon Manor? With a space separating the words, I mean?"
Ricard ignored him. Felix grimaced.
Probably folk customs simplified it,
he told himself, trying to push the intrusive question away for now.
Because there were definitely priorities. Carved into the strange mix of ivory, wood and stone that made up the Honeymoon Manor were many windows of crystal and diamond and glass, and many strange crooked chimneys...
... but there was only one door.
The door was cut out of a single sheet of aspen bark, but it somehow managed to be the most elaborate and strange part of the whole house, covered in eye-like scars and knots that made it strangely difficult to focus on. Felix considered it skeptically. Not exactly a traditional door.
But the seventeen locks on it looked normal enough. He grinned, whipping out several lockpicks. His long, delicate fingers fiddled with some picks as fine as hairs.
"Felix, if you would do the honors?"
Felix stalked over and crouched down, considering the contraption. The locks were intricately connected to one another through fine brass weaving. It was actually really remarkable.
His brow furrowed. This was an amazing feat of engineering, but also a very frustrating one. It was a puzzle. No doubt, there was an order to the locks. Or perhaps he had to undo every single lock at once. Easy enough for the Unseelie Court, who could always find ways to cheat physics when it suited them, but a bit trickier for a humble ex-witchhunter.
And Ricard was probably not going to be quiet while he worked.
Felix got down on his knees and set to it.
"You know," he remarked, "I'm basically just breaking into someone's house right now. I keep feeling like a guard is going to start yelling at me."
"If a guard comes by, I'll just tell them you locked yourself out."
"I think you'll run if you see a guard coming at us."
"Felix!" Ricard sounded offended. "Really, now. That's a real rough scratch against our friendship!"
"Oh, sorry, Ricard. Love you too." Felix was only half-paying attention. "So are we just gonna steal the furniture and paint rude words on the walls, or...?"
And then he had it. It was actually very easy, once he looked at it the right way. His eyes lit up, and in seven deft motions, every single one of the eighteen locks gave a
click
. He sprang to his feet, beaming with satisfaction... and nudged the door with his foot.
It slowly creaked open, beckoning them inward.
"Well done, Felix!" Ricard clapped him on the shoulder, his manner once again sunny and bright. "Ah, only fair that you get first crack at whatever we find in the foyer, no?"
"Sure, sure." Felix sighed and nudged his way in.
The walls glistened in the moonlight from a prismatic sunroof overhead—or moonroof, Felix supposed. The windows bore a kaleidoscopic effect, creating dazzling colors reflected on the walls and floor. They had entered into a vast foyer carved of marble, crystal and color.
The foyer was quite well decorated, too. A critical burglar might have dared to call it 'cluttered'. Aside from the twenty-five doors—Felix noted the number without even pausing to count—there were brooding statues and grimacing gargoyles and all sorts of things seemingly designed solely to send properly paranoid adventurers into fits of panic. A great crystalline chandelier hung from the ceiling, and from each candle sparked a different-colored pastel flame.
Several statues in particular, depicting gorgeous humanoids all in various compromising positions, had Felix suspicious. They had been placed in the far corner, but the breeze from opening the door blown the sheet off of them, exposing them to his view. Each had an expression frozen in a look that could only be described as rapture.
At the center of the room, a gorgeous fountain depicted what appeared to be a gorgeous woman of solid crystal. She had one arm outstretched, as if waving an unseen handkerchief, and was clad only in a toga that covered exactly half of a breast and two-thirds of a groin.
She was incredibly beautiful, and the light shimmered with special radiance as it struck her. Small transparent cubic crystals covered the edges of the basin.
Felix turned to Ricard. "Don't touch any statues," he instructed firmly. "Especially not the salt mephit in the fountain."
Ricard nodded. "Understood."
"Great. Just making sure."
A sputtered, indignant,
"What!"
came from behind him.
Felix turned back as Ricard entered behind him.
