Syril wrinkled her nose.

  That smell again — sharp, sour, like someone had bottled raw anger and tried to sell it as perfume. It was getting closer. She couldn’t see much from her prison — a crib, in a room without windows.

  Her prison was Devin’s idea. After the first bird attack, he’d decided fresh air was a luxury she did not need. And since they were inside a tower, even if she escaped, it would be a long way down.

  “He he he…”

  The voice came from under the crib. Syril tensed. She hoped it was a rat so she could chase it off. But she knew better.

  It was the sarcastic, terrible, not-fun Gnomum — who had taken it as a personal insult when Syril threw her out of a fifth-floor window. Twice.

  “He he he…” The voice again, high-pitched and evil, now joined by the sour stench of anger… and something thicker. Smoke.

  The first lazy trickles curled into view. The temperature rose.

  Syril pulled herself up, panic bubbling. She did what children do best: she screamed.

  Somewhere far away — probably in another room, stuffed under a pile of cushions — Devin napped peacefully, both ears packed with cotton fluff. Her own doing. He’d learned quickly there was no other way to sleep around her.

  The flames licked the side of the crib. Syril rocked it hard, screaming louder.

  The smoke thickened. Tiny flames flickered in the wood.

  She threw her entire (tiny) weight into one side, again and again.

  Gnomum reached up to steady it.

  “No you don’t,” she said, grinning the kind of grin that usually came right before something exploded.

  One more slam — and the wood gave way. Syril tumbled to the floor with a thud and a wail. A single bead of blood formed on her nose.

  She sat up, sniffing, and remembered Gnomum.

  The gnome was still under the crib, swearing, kicking, and clawing. Her beard was hopelessly tangled in the broken slats. The fire was now merrily chewing its way through the wood.

  The curtains were smoking. The heat swelled.

  Syril ignored the curses and unpleasant commentary. She had another problem — and if she could wake the problem up, maybe she could escape.

  ***

  This was difficult.

  She’d seen Reralt do it, so she knew it worked.

  But making it look as easy as he made it look? That was the tricky part.

  Syril took a deep breath, mustered every ounce of concentration, and hurled a teacup — tea and all — straight at Devin’s head.

  Missed.

  Again.

  And again.

  By the time the fourth and final cup clattered uselessly across the floor, she was glaring around the tower in desperation. Only four cups in the whole place. What kind of self-respecting tower had just four cups?

  Her gaze fell on the burning room — where the fire’s crisp, hungry whispers were interrupted only by the foul-mouthed swears of the smelly gnome.

  She had it.

  “Yes, come and help me, child! I demand it!” Gnomum barked as Syril crawled closer.

  “It is your duty to serve Gnomedom! Perhaps I will even make you a special serving wench! Or boy! Or… whatever you are.”

  Syril came within arm’s reach of the singed-eyebrowed gnome… and took her hat.

  The hat. The sacred, traditional hat every gnome wore at all times, as was the Way.

  Without a word, Syril set it on fire.

  Gnomum fell silent. Syril was already on Gnomum’s list; now she was considering adding her again just for emphasis.

  Syril crawled back to Devin under a barrage of gnomish curses that could probably strip paint.

  Then she slid the flaming relic under Devin’s beard… and waited.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  ***

  It took a surprisingly long time.

  By the time Devin stirred, his beard was already smoking and rapidly disappearing. The smell of burned hair curled through the room, blending with smoke and that strange, bottled-anger perfume.

  Half-snoring, he slapped his own face a couple of times.

  Then he saw her.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” he bellowed, staring at Syril — her coal-smudged cheeks shining in the firelight — as the flames in the background licked eagerly up the walls.

  He scooped her up and ran for the door.

  The door was already ablaze, the hinges glowing red-hot.

  Devin looked at Syril. Then at the window.

  Without thinking, he jumped.

  Five floors down.

  Mid-air, he twisted, shielding her with his back from the rapidly approaching ground.

  They landed with a muffled whoomp in a haystack.

  Everyone who knew Syril would have expected her first word to be Pie, Uncle Reralt, or Not the Mama.

  Instead, she blinked up at Devin and said:

  “Again?”

  Devin, beard singed, eyes rimmed with exhaustion, sat up in the haystack. Smoke still curled lazily from his ears.

  He remembered the cotton, yanked it out, and sighed.

  “I hope this is all worth it,” he muttered, watching the tower burn. “At least I can expect never to get invited to the Sorcerers of the Shore again.”

  It was, he reflected bitterly, the moral equivalent of a bandage on a third-degree burn.

  ***

  The villagers had formed a line from the well to the tower, shoulder to shoulder.

  It had taken the entire village to make it work — which, given how much they disliked the GOAT, was comment-worthy in itself.

  “Where are the buckets?” asked the one nearest the well.

  “The GOAT has them,” someone in the middle replied. “We can hire them… except the one in the well.”

  “We are not going to pay to fight his fire,” another villager muttered.

  “So there’s only one bucket?”

  “I don’t think a line is effective with one bucket,” came the cautious observation.

  A murmur rippled through the line.

  “With one bucket you can’t extinguish a fire,” someone concluded. “This is a waste of time.”

  The line collectively agreed, broke apart, and went back to minding its own business.

  ***

  Devin strolled to the well, dipped a bucket of water, and walked back at a pace better suited to light gardening than firefighting.

  He threw the water at the tower.

  “There,” he said, returning the bucket. “Tried harder than the villagers.”

  He sat on the well’s edge, wondering what to do next.

  “I will get her for this!” shrieked a small, smoking figure that emerged from the tower — a ball of singed hair and fury.

  “Quick, a bucket of water!” the figure barked.

  Devin, only now recognising Gnomum, nodded and fetched one. She jumped in, fully submerging herself until the steam died down.

  Syril giggled at the sight of the now completely bald gnome.

  Smoke began to rise from Gnomum again — this time, nothing to do with fire.

  “I will get you for this,” she wheezed, jabbing a finger dangerously close to Syril’s face.

  “Careful—” Devin started, but too late.

  Syril bit down. Hard.

  “Ow! You little—!” Gnomum snapped. What followed was entirely unfit for polite company.

  “I’ll cut you to pieces! Roast you on a fire!” she raged, now fully in overdrive mode… right up until she tipped, bucket and all, into the well.

  There was a splash, a brief swirl, and then she was gone — swept away by the current.

  Devin watched the ripples fade where Gnomum had vanished.

  “Well, at least she can cool off a bit,” he told Syril.

  Syril giggled, still looking triumphant.

  Devin exhaled — a long, heavy sigh that seemed to empty his entire soul.

  “Right. To the cave, then.” He glanced at the sky. “We’ll be early. Shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

  With the casualness of a man who had just jumped out of a burning tower with a baby, fished a bald gnome out of a bucket, and thrown her into a well, he started readying the cart and horses.

  ***

  Somewhere in the crevices between realities, the Lost Gods sat around their battered card table, snacks half-eaten and drinks half-drunk — all of them entirely imaginary.

  A shimmer passed overhead.

  The Lord of the Disc tilted his hat. “That’ll be him, then.”

  “Who?” asked the God of Felt, not looking up from his fake beer.

  “The priest,” the Patron of the Stick said, leaning forward. “And the godchild. Moving toward the cave.”

  “Finally,” sighed the Protector of the Terrycloth. “I can’t hold on to this full house forever, you know.”

  “What? We’ve been playing Go Fish for the last few hundred years.”

  “Well, full house. Read ’em and weep.”

  All except the God of Felt clapped.

  The Barefoot tapped the table in rhythm. “The fifth shall rise, beneath fractured skies…”

  “Yes, yes,” the God of Felt waved him off. “I know the words. I wrote them, remember?”

  The Lord of the Disc smiled faintly. “Oh, I remember. I just don’t remember why.”

  They all nodded gravely.

  “Yahtzee,” the Barefoot said smugly.

  The God of Felt took another imaginary drink. Quietly, he switched to imaginary hard liquor.