“Oh, dear,” said Velvet with a mischievous smirk. “How embarrassing.”

  Balthazar’s face sched up at the witch as the st bits of iron rusted off his chitin.

  “But don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal,” she tinued. “I have that kind of effeen all the time.”

  “Men like that ander outside your door, or Onion Jake?” the crab said with a frown.

  He didly have a pn before, but at least he had the fidence of a body covered in iron. Now that he had lost that, suddenly the mert felt a lot more exposed and in need of a new pn. Keeping the advealking was the beginning of one.

  “Those two fools?” Velvet replied with ughter. “Please, they were practically begging to be maniputed.”

  The crab and the witch started walking slowly in a circle around each other as if in a standoff. Balthazar carefully measured each step a his distance from her, while Velvet casually sauntered with unburdened grace.

  “What for?” asked the crab. “Why gh all this trouble? What was y pn?”

  The woman in the bck dress stopped on the spot where Balthazar had stood a moment before.

  “Oh, you devious crab,” she said with a smile and a disapproving wag of her finger. “You’re trying to get me to monologue about my scheming, aren’t you?”

  Ah, damn it, she got me…

  “But,” the witch tinued, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t indulge myself for a moment. A girl deserves her gloating from time to time.”

  “Is that a type of dy?” Suze asked from the back of the room, where she and Olivia were still bound by the animated curtains.

  Velvet ignored her and instead picked up the wig Balthazar had dropped on the floor moments before.

  “You know…” she said, pting the strands of bck hair draped down from the wig. “Your pet really did a number on my hair back whe met. For a while I could barely stand looking in the mirror. But now? I think I’m growing used to it. Maybe I should even ditch this thing. What do you think?”

  Usiher hand, the woman touched up the sides of her natural hair, which was now much shorter, cropped around the sides and back, the tips of its locks barely toug her neck.

  Balthazar found it quite suited her, for some reason.

  “I’m a crab, what do I know or care about hair?” the mert cimed, making an effort to soura crabby.

  “Looks good!” Suze shouted from the back. “You’re rog that pixie haircut, dy!”

  “Suze!” Olivia grumbled. “You’re not supposed to pliment the bad guys!”

  “Oh, sorry,” the little girl said. “Your hair sucks, dy!”

  “Hmph,” Velvet scoffed, rolling her eyes at the two girls while keeping a fident smirk. “The people of this city are just so… rude. That’s how it started, you know?”

  “What do you mean?” Balthazar inquired, still trying to think of a way to defeat the witch that wouldn’t involve getting too close to her and her nasty witchcraft.

  “I entered Marquessa a while baot too long after our fiery enter,” the bck-an said. “I was still looking for a solution to my hair… problem. I went straight to the city hall building, but everywhere I turned I could see them, the locals, the dirty peasantry. Staring, snickering, whispering, pointing at my head—they all mocked my misfortune.”

  “All of them?” the skeptical crab said with a cocked eyestalk. “Most people I passed oreets barely slowed down to look at me. And I’m a giant, talking crusta. Are you sure you weren’t just being paranoid?”

  “Quiet!” the dark witch yelled, her eyes widening as she raised her voice.

  The fmes of the dles flickered for a sed at her outburst, and a wind chill ran through the stuffy bedroom despite all windows being closed.

  “I am regaling you with the tale of my aplishments in this city,” she tinued, her smile and calmer demeanor settling bato her expression. “Do not be rude by interrupting it to call me paranoid.”

  “Yeah, sure, monologue away, don’t mind me,” Balthazar sheepishly said, the bristles on the back of his shell still standing from the sudden chill that passed through him at the witch’s and.

  “The worst of all was that… baroness,” the adventurer said, with bitter pt dripping from her every word. “Atop those stairs, looking down at me. I could see her eyeing my hair. The very faockery. Thinking herself superior, with her overly bright dress and excessive jewelry. So… gauche.”

  “You wish you had half my aunt’s css!” Olivia excimed from her restraints.

  “I warned you to be quiet while the grown-ups talk, girl.”

  With a flick of her wrist, Velvet ahe curtain to around the young woman’s mouth too.

  “So, what, you decided to steal the city’s harvest because the mayor looked at you the wrong way?!” Balthazar quickly asked, trying to take the witch’s focus away from Olivia and baself.

  “Something like that,” the woman responded.

  “You’re very petty, you know that, right?” the crab said.

  “Thank you, darling. It’s good to be appreciated from time to time.”

  The smirking adveossed the wig onto the bed and started cirg around again, making the crab do the same to keep his distance.

  “I simply took it upon myself to knock that pretentious woman down a few notches,” Velvet said with a tone of haughty disdain. “And what better way to take down a mayor than to undermine her trol over the city? It was all so simple, so easy. Practically child’s py. Fun, too. I should have started doing this kind of stuff a lot sooner!”

  Balthazar had circled all the way back to where he started, between the window and the firepce.

  “So, who came first, the bandit chief or the ander?” he asked, still trying to buy more time.

  “her,” Velvet responded. “It was a city hall office worker. So pathetically easy. A single drink one night at the tavern and a few sweet words and he spilled all the information I needed about this city. ho, the ins and outs. Even told me all about this wonderful abandoned manor for me to take over.”

  The crab listeo the woman’s gloating while his mind raced for a way out of that predit. If he tried to free the girls, the witch would surely react faster than he could cut. If he charged at her that would meaing close, and he did not want to risk falling to her charms again. The hex kind of charms. Not her natural charms. Not that Balthazar thought she had any, of course. She was a despicable witch. And her new haircut definitely did not look good on her.

  Damn it. Focus, Balthazar!

  “From there it was just a matter of finding some muscle to do the dirty work for me,” Velvet carried on. “That disgusting bandit chief was hard to stomach, but a girl does what she must to reach her goals. The only good part about his stench was it made it easy to mask my own perfume.”

  That expins it! That’s what blocked my attempt at ving him. And if it wasn’t for his strong onion smell I would have probably noticed that damn perfume on him when we first met and figured this out a lot sooner!

  “But those bandits were just so inpetent!” the witch bemoaned. “I had to step in to clear the way for them. So finding a guardsman ander was my move. Poor, lonely man. Practically threw himself at my feet as soon as I approached him. I holy think I could have just do without a hex. He got enough guards to fall in lio clear the road for my new bandit pythings, and I got ara set of men at my bed call. So wonderful.”

  And I probably didn’t notice the smell of her perfume when I met him because that prison stank of sewage!

  The crab frowned. “And to top it all off, you got yourself a whole shipment of mao yourself.”

  “Those disgusting fruits?” Velvet said. “Bah! I hate their taste. And the things these people make with them? Repulsive. Just the smell of those mango pies that Margo woman makes nearly turned my stomach when I first passed her bakery.”

  Balthazar gasped. She’s a monster!

  “I’ve just been leaving them to rot in the celr,” the woman tinued. “I only cared that the people of Marquessa wouldn’t have them, to expose their mayor as the inpetent leader she is. Just in time for the part of my pn.”

  “Which is?” the mert asked. He knew he couldn’t keep her talking forever, and no idea had yet sprung to mind. Reag into his backpack would take way too long. Even if he found something else to use his Imbuing skill on, his measly mana pool hadn’t recovered enough yet to activate it again.

  “I will swoop in and save the day, of course!” Velvet triumphantly decred. “The people will cheer for the hero who found their stupid fruits, the guards will back me up, and the bandits will vely retreat. I’ve always wanted a city to rule over. It’s going to be simply wonderful!”

  “Pfft,” Suze scoffed, o Olivia’s muffled protests. “Yirlfriend isn’t very clever, Balthazar. She just told us her whole pn. We just expose it now.”

  “Hey!” the suddenly flustered crab excimed. “She’s not my…”

  His words trailed off as his eyes caught a glimpse of something over the witch’s shoulder.

  “And who says, child,” Velvet whispered, “that you will leave this pce?”

  Balthazar’s eyes squinted, fog on something outside the bedroom window behind her. Something h in the dark. Like two glowing lights. Two golden eyes.

  Blue!

  The mert couldn’t help but crack a smile at the sight of his drake.

  “But now,” said the adveaking a step toward the crab, “I think it’s about time we finish our more intimate chat from st time. I haven’t fotten about the leg you owe me…”

  The witch’s figure loomed over the crab, the shadow cast on her face making her wicked smile all the more sinister.

  But as her eyes met his, her gaze flickered. She had caught a glimpse of the smile on his face.

  Gss shattered with thunderous ctter as a blue-scaled beast flew into the room through the window, screeg and charging talons-first at the witch.

  “Not this time!” Velvet ferociously yelled.

  With a swift twirl, the wicked woman dodged out of Blue’s way, a purple glow erupting from her fingers as she weaved magic around her hands and aimed them at the drake.