“There’s no one here?” said Suze with a disappointed look on her face.

  Olivia looked around the room with suspi. “The windows are all locked from the inside, so it’s not like she could have gotten out that way either.”

  “I was so sure she would be here,” Balthazar said.

  “Well, I see no witch,” the mayor’s niece excimed, throwing her arms out in exasperation. “Just a cat.”

  The crab stared at the feline creature sitting on the armchair in front of the firepce, purring and zily ing its bck fur. Its pierg blue eyes attentively observed Balthazar as he racked his brain for answers.

  I’ve seen that cat before, haven’t I?

  “Maybe we came too te, and she was never here to begin with?” the street ur suggested.

  “No, she had to be,” the mert said. “The ander came out of this room to make sure we couldn’t get to her, remember? As out of his mind as he was, I’m still sure he wasn’t defending ay room.”

  Suze cocked an eyebrow. “I’m gonna cheder the bed!”

  “I’ll look around too,” the irl said with a sigh. “There’s got to be some clue arouo help us.”

  Balthazar sed the room as well, keeping aalk o the whole time.

  The light of the firepce paired with the mostly dark palette of the decoration gave the room a moody atmosphere that made the very air around them feel heavier. Thick bck curtains adorned most of the windows, while dark brs made of soft bear fur covered the mahogany floor. The king-size bed was made with bck covers of a soft and lush material—velvet.

  “So soft,” Suze said as she got up from cheg the underside of the bed and pced her hands on the covers.

  “This witch’s name is Velvet and she decorates her whole pce with velvet stuff?” Olivia ented with a disdainful eyebrow cocked. “A bit of an egomaniac, isn’t she?”

  “Also pletely nuts,” Balthazar added. “When I first met her, she wanted me to sell one of my legs for her to use in one of her cos.”

  “And you didn’t sider the offer?” asked the smaller girl as she rummaged through the drawers of the nightstand.

  “Of course not!” the crab immediately excimed. “Alright, maybe just for a moment. But that’s not the point. This witch ’t take a no for an answer, and she ’t be trusted. The ime I saw her, she tried to y leg with a sickle! I would probably be a seven-legged mert now, if it wasn’t for Blue setting her hair on fire.”

  “Wait,” said Olivia. “I thought crabs could grow back their limbs.”

  “Maybe,” the crusta responded. “But I never lost a leg before and don’t want to find out if that’s true or not. I’m very attached to my legs, thank you very much.”

  Balthazar stared at the room again for a moment. He was so certain he was about to find the witch there. Hopeful, even.

  Not because he felt any pleasure in entering the wretched woman, of course.

  But because it would be an opportunity to uphold the promise he made Hea before leaving the pond.

  That he would fi a her to reverse the curse she pced on the former innkeeper, turning her into a toad under Antoine’s and.

  Stumbling upon that advehere could have been a stroke of good luck, but now it seemed those hopes were for nothing. All they found in that room was a house cat, warming itself as it watched them search the room for clues.

  The mert still couldn’t shake the sehat the bck feli weirdly familiar.

  Something clicked from a nearby dressing table that Suze was searg and both the wooden surfad the round mirror above it flipped, revealing a set of previously hidden items.

  “What did you do?!” Olivia asked the kid.

  “Nothing! I just… poked around.”

  They all came closer to look at the tents oable.

  “Woah. That’s a lot of hairbrushes,” the young girl said.

  “And tonic ampoules,” the other said.

  The assortment of beauty essentials all surrouhe tral pie the dresser: a mannequin head with a wig of long and lush bck hair resting on it.

  “Is your witch bald?” Suze asked.

  “No?” Balthazar said. “At least I don’t think so. Maybe…”

  The crab thought back to his st enter with her. Bae, by the shore of his pond. How she had him under her hex, o the fact that she was about to slice away at his leg with a scythe. It was Blue who stopped her with her fire breath, sending the witch screaming into the water with her long bck hair partially on fire. It didn’t seem that bad at the time, but he hadn’t seen her again sihat day.

  He g the wig on the dispy and almost felt bad for her.

  Almost.

  A low and soft growl came from the other side of the room and the mert turo look at it.

  The cat had jumped from the armchair and was now sitting on the bed, still watg them like it had just moved to get a better view of what they were doing with the things oable.

  “Oooh, what’s this?” Suze excitedly said while grabbing and twisting a small lipstick that was—unsurprisingly—bck.

  “Put that back!” Olivia excimed. “Don’t take stuff that belongs to a witch. Who knows what’s in it.”

  The little girl rolled her eyes and dropped the shiny stick tainer bato the drawer she found it in while Balthazar eyed the strange feline creature quietly them.

  I remember now. The alley. It was dark, but I’m pretty sure this is the same cat I saw there on the fehe night we went to the bandit hideout.

  The fur ball zily licked the back of its paw and tis grooming, all without taking its eyes off the group—especially Balthazar.

  And that night, at the inn. There was a cat outside the bedroom window too. Bd with blue eyes. That ’t be a ce!

  With the pebbles eg in the crab’s mind, the dles of his brain slowly lit up as he pieced together what his gut was telling him the whole time.

  “Alright, this is a waste of time,” said Olivia. “She clearly slipped through our fingers. We should get out of here.”

  “Maybe,” said Balthazar, looking at the crag firepce. “But before we go, we should make sure she won’t get the st ugh if she es back here.”

  The crab gathered a pincerful of hairbrushes from the dressing table as the two girls watched on with fused frowns.

  “What are you going to—Oh.”

  Balthazar walked up to the firepd unceremoniously dropped the brushes into the fmes, which roared as they fred up, causing the cat to hiss from the bed.

  Olivia crossed her arms in disapproval. “Well, that just seems immature and pletely unhelp—”

  “Me ! Me !” excimed Suze, as she gleefully grabbed the bck lipstid ran to the maossing the small pieakeup into the fire.

  “Oh, fihe Marquessa heir said, uncrossing her arms and snatg a fistful of etid tonic vials.

  With an expression of vindication on her face, Olivia dumped them all into the fmes too. “This is for taking our city’s mangoes, you rotten witch!”

  Balthazar g the cat from the er of his eye.

  “Yeah, rotten, ugly witch,” he said. “Look at all this crap she has to wear to hide how ugly she is underh.”

  The metallic crusta went back to the table.

  “Imagine how mad she will be,” said the mert as he lifted the bck wig from the dispy head, “when she finds out her new hair burned up like the previous ooo.”

  As the agitated feline paced bad forth on the bed, Balthazar walked across the room, holding the long bck curls up on his cws, like a procession. A procession to a cremation.

  “Too bad she’s not here to stop me from destroying this expensive hairdht, girls?” the mert loudly decred as he held his pincers over the fire, the fmes nearly lig the tips of the long locks of hair.

  “Fine!” a resounding voice shouted, making Olivia and Suze jump in pce as they saw the bck cat jump off the bed.

  As the creature soared through the air, its shape ged in a blink, the limbs growing into human arms and legs while the fur became a bck ga dress. The cat head morphed into a woman’s face, the dark fur giving way to pale white skin, leaving nothing of her previous form save for the pierg blue of the eyes.

  “You certainly know how to rile a girl up, you silver-tongued crab,” the witch said with a sly grin as she nded gracefully on the bear rug.

  “Velvet,” the crusta said bitterly.

  “Hello, Balthie. Missed me?”

  “That’s the witch?!” excimed Suze. “She’s a talking cat?!”

  “Oh, shush, you runt,” the bck-cd adventurer said. “Of course I’m not a cat. It’s just a little shapeshifting intatiohe adults talk now.”

  “So you’re the one who’s caused all this trouble for my aunt and our city,” Olivia said with fire in her void a searing gre in her eyes as she stepped forward. “I’m going to—”

  “You’ll do nothing, girl,” Velvet interrupted, her smile vanishing from her face as she flicked her wrist toward the windows.

  The bck curtains draped over them suddenly uo life, ripping themselves off the rails and flying through the room like textile spirits.

  Before any of them could react, the velvet drapes ed around the crab and girls like a snake enveloping its prey.

  Suze and Olivia were pulled back against the wall, arms aightly packed against their bodies like an irapped in a spider’s web.

  Balthazar, however, would not go down so easily. While he was not much of a fighter, he was an expert at using his pio cut things.

  Dropping the wig on the floor, the crab quickly s the charging curtains with his deft scissor-like appendages, imagining pesky birds to fuel his momentum.

  Against the evil drapes that the wicked hag jured, the iron crusta sent unto them his cws, ripping and tearing until it was done.

  The shredded pieces of fabric fell to the floor, defeated and lifeless as the gleaming crab stood victorious between the woman and the two girls.

  “Haha, take that, witch!” the street rascal shouted with glee from her velvet bonds.

  “A little too early to be celebrating, Suze,” said Olivia as she struggled against the curtains trapping her. “We’re still not free, and the witch isn’t beate.”

  “Pfft,” Suze scoffed. “We’ve got an iron crab on our side. He’s got this! Kick her butt, Balthazar!”

  His fidence boosted by the girl’s words, the metallic crusta puffed himself up, pincers held up as he stepped forward.

  “Damn right!” he said. “You’re done for, Velvet. I’m going to—”

  A rge crack appeared over the crab’s shell, splitting his iron chitin down the middle. With just enough time to look down at himself, Balthazar saw the eal finish crumble to pieces that vanished before reag the floor, leaving just his regur old chitin behind.

  [Iron Imbuing: 0 seds left]

  The system line disappeared as the crab stood in the middle of the bedroom, suddenly feeling strangely naked for someone who had never worn clothes in his whole life. The iron was gone, and with it all the physical bonuses as well.

  “Oh, crabapples…”