Toad and Melena retreated to the steps of an apartment building located on the opposite side of the street, just far enough away from the throng of pedestrians, but still within view of Bell’s Brews. Melena’s hair was singed and she kept coughing. Her hands were bleeding; she didn’t even flinch when Toad pulled out the glass. Her eyes were fixed upon the shop, just barely visible through the crowd of onlookers, smoke billowing up into the night. Joe was safely sandwiched between them on the step, with not a crack, not a chip, even after Melena had stepped on him.

“I did this,” Melena whispered, tears leaving long streaks on her sooty face. “I brought him here. I—”

“You were buying time,” said Toad firmly. “How were you to know that this was gonna happen?”

“Do you think they’ll get them out alive?”

“Course,” said Toad stoutly, following up with a sentence he’d never said in his life: “The Guard’s the best.”

Hazel landed on Melena’s shoulders and tucked her scaly head under Melena’s chin. Her presence seemed to awaken something in Melena.

“How did you get out of the house?” she asked, turning to Toad, as if she’d just realized he was there.

“Lynch came along through the window and cut us all free. Jack and the others did a runner. I’ve got a feeling they’re leaving Hickory for the time being.”

“You didn’t go with them?”

“No …We’ve gone our separate ways.”

Toad could feel Melena’s eyes on him.

“Thanks for those boxes,” he said.

“What boxes?”

“The ones in your bag. They fell out, remember. When I was trying to escape, Ogg came at me and all I had were those boxes so I threw one at him and he started sneezing. He could hardly see straight. What was that stuff?”

“Sneezing Snuff. It’s filled with powdered prickleberch seeds. There was a man selling them on the street.”

“Saved my life, that stuff.”

Melena gave a watery smile. Toad watched her as she tried to mop up her face. Her hands would need bandages. The crowd of onlookers was growing as a brigade of fire wagons arrived. The whole street was awake now; people leaned out of the windows above Toad and Melena as the Guard manned the pumps.

Toad felt wired. Unsettled. Jerky. He twisted the hem of his coat to try to settle his nerves, watching water spray onto the apothecary. How was he supposed to say it?

This might sound crazy, but you know that Milo you were always yammering about? He’s me!

Toad grimaced. It sounded stupid inside his own head. Even if he did manage to say it, would she believe him? What proof did he have other than what Bone and Wilson had said?

Toad’s stomach flipped sickly as a new thought came to him.

What if she refused to believe him? What if she was insulted and marched off? He’d been with her for so long now that the thought of Melena and Hazel leaving him behind made his heart constrict.

He had to tell her

Just say it.

Say, I’m Milo.

I’m Milo.

“Melena, I’m—”

But the crowd buzzed in a new frenzy and Melena jumped to her feet.

“They’re bringing someone out!” Melena cried, standing on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd.

“It’s the Bells,” said a girl to her sister from a window over their heads. “See, Loraine. They’re fine. I told you so. Just a little smoked—”

The girl’s talk was drowned by a sudden shriek from across the street.

“HE WAS TRYING TO KILL US!”

Toad looked upward to the window with the two sisters. They looked shocked and were talking frantically to each other, but over the sudden swell of noise from the crowd at Mrs. Bell’s accusation, he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Oy!” he shouted up at the sisters. “What’s going on?”

“Mr. Owl,” the first sister shouted back at him. “They’ve got Mr. Owl. And — I’ll be gob-smacked! They’re arresting him!”

“Oh, no,” Melena whispered.

“Oh, no?” Toad repeated, confused by Melena’s expression of dread. “It’s excellent! They’ve got him!” He punched the air.

“But they won’t be able to hold him,” Melena moaned. “He’ll get out and he’ll come after us.”

“He won’t get off,” Toad argued. “The Guard’s been staking out his house. Dowell’s been after him for awhile. And now they’ve got him! We’re safe, Melena! We’re safe!”

Melena didn’t look convinced.

“What about Ogg? Or that other man? Fletch? Or all the others in Owl’s organization?”

“They won’t come after us, not with their boss in the slammer. They’ll be trying to save their own skin,” said Toad, knowingly. “I bet they run for it. The Guard will be storming the house any minute now that they’ve arrested Owl. No one in his crew will stick around.” And Toad felt so confident that they were safe that he scooped up Joe from the step. “Come on, I’m starved.”

Now that the danger had passed, it felt as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

They walked away from crowded 21st Street.

“What now?” asked Melena suddenly.

“Well, erm…” The prickly unease returned without warning, sharp and tannic on his tongue. Say it. Just say it. “I dunno know. We could—”

“I’m sorry I took the ingredients,” Melena burst out. “I’m sorry I ran out on you. I was so … so … angry! You were right, I did overhear you talking to that man at the inn and I thought you were going to steal the ingredients, so I stole them. Oh, Toad, I never should have thought—”

“Slow down!” Toad was highly uncomfortable at the glistening of Melena’s eyes. “If anybody should be apologizing it’s me. I’m the louse, Melena, not you!”

“You’re not a louse,” she said, tremulously.

A few young men ran past them toward the commotion they’d left behind. Toad wondered if they’d stopped the fire yet.

“If you really had thought I was gonna take the ingredients all for myself,” said Toad, something dawning on him, “why’d you rescue me?”

Melena seemed to blush, but in the dark, Toad couldn’t be sure. She scuffed her shoe on the cobblestones and mumbled, “I made the potion.”

“What?”

Melena took a deep breath. “I made the potion,” she repeated, more clearly. “Izzie told me what the ingredients made. She told me what the potion would do. It finds someone or something and it worked. I found—” She bit her lip. Her eyes stayed fixed upon her shoes. “I found—”

“I know.”

Melena looked at him then.

“You … know?”

“Yeah. Well, I sort of figured it out. When Owl took you away, Bone got a bit … vocal.”

Melena gasped.

“He told you you were Milo? He knew?”

“He didn’t know my name. They just said that I’d been Snatched from Miggens Street during a fire and” — Toad grinned rather sheepishly, running a hand through his wayward hair — “how many fires does that street have anyway?”

“Oh, Toad!” Melena’s face broke into a watery smile and she hugged him tightly. “Are you all right with it? Are you sure? Because I know you were set on your dad being a pirate and if you don’t want to be my brother, it’s okay. I won’t force you.”

“It’s okay!” said Toad, surprised by how okay he was. “Really. I’m good with it.”

Melena glowed. At their feet, Hazel let out a whiny warble.

“Oh, we’re all starved. Where are we?”

Toad looked around and felt as if a hand had just closed around his heart.

“Miggens Street.”

How odd that for over eleven years he’d strolled down this very street where he’d lost his parents and lost his sister, uprooted from all that could have been, without a passing thought. Now, as he looked at the sleeping townhouses with their flower boxes and small, fenced in yards, he pictured a very different Toad, a Toad named Milo. How funny. He wanted to bolt like a jackrabbit, and simultaneously stay on this spot of cobbled road forever.

A hand slipped into his own. Startled, he turned to see Melena, smiling sadly, understanding completely.

“St. Brenda’s Orphanage should be around the corner,” she said softly. “They’ll take us in until we figure something out.”

They started walking again.

“What d’you mean?” said Toad, relieved that his voice was steady. “What do we need to figure out?”

“Well, I’m currently unemployed.”

“Hey — why don’t we become explorers!” said Toad. “Instead of that Private Inspector—”

“Detective.”

“— we’ll be Private Explorers!”

“And what exactly would we explore?” Melena asked with a teasing grin.

“Anything! Everything! We’ll go on hunts for hidden treasure!.”

“As long as we do not get trapped, Master Toad,” said Joe, dryly. “Lost treasures have an unpleasant tendency of being underground.”

“Don’t worry,” said Toad with a laugh. “I ain’t going underground ever again. But I still don’t understand why Owl wanted you, Joe. Why’d he call you the Vessel?”

“He’s the key part to the Seeking Solution,” said Melena.

“The what?”

“That’s the name of the potion I used to find you. It’s called the Seeking Solution and Joe’s the Vessel. He isn’t a beer mug at all. He’s a cauldron. All the ingredients, when put into Joe, make the Seeking Solution. He told me you were Milo. He told me where you were. And Owl—” Melena grabbed Toad’s arm suddenly in a vice-like grip. “Owl’s after Izzie!”

“What?” said Toad, shocked.

“Elizabeth?” said Joe, startled.

“He told me — he said he was after a woman who’d left his brother to die and that he’d cut off her finger and he was going to use the potion to find her!”

“No way,” said Toad, shaken. “Izzie wouldn’t ever hurt anyone. She wouldn’t leave somebody to die — even if he was an Owl!”

“Absolutely not!” Joe raged, indignant. “That lying kumquat!”

Toad could tell that Melena didn’t want to believe it either, but that she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “But it’s a terribly awful coincidence, isn’t it? How many women are missing fingers? And Izzie … why would she choose to live on the Shards of all places when she can live anywhere? It’s … possible, isn’t it? And what’s to stop Owl from trying to find her again when he gets out—”

“He won’t get out,” Toad insisted firmly. “They’ve got him, Melena. Everything’s gonna be okay, now.”

“Elizabeth would never do such a dastardly thing,” Joe assured Melena passionately. “Do not believe that braggart, m’lady!”

Melena worried her lip and Toad, though still reeling from the possible revelation about Izzie, wanted to change the subject.

“How did Joe know it was me?”

Melena looked confused for a moment before saying, “The hair.”

“What hair?”

“The hair in my locket.” Melena withdrew a silver locket from under her shirt that Toad had never seen before. “It belonged to my — our — mother. I must have been playing with it before the fire. There were two locks of hair stuck inside, each tied with a ribbon. Mine had a pink one and yours had a blue one.”

There was a pause.

“Our mother put bits of our hair in a locket and carried them around?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Was she into potions?”

“I — I don’t know.”

“I bet she was,” said Toad, growing more convinced by the second. He could picture her now: an older version of Melena, bent over a steaming cauldron, adding clumps of cat hair and rose petals. He was filled with both a deep fondness and a great sadness. “Only you potion people would think it was fun to hold onto bits of hair.”

Melena smirked. “Lots of people keep hair in lockets, Toad. It isn’t that odd.”

Toad eyed her skeptically.

“It’s really lucky that she did put our hair in it, otherwise the potion never would have worked.”

Hazel launched herself into the air and soared the last few feet to the orphanage, windows yellow and bright.

“So the potion only works with hair and … fingers?” asked Toad.

“Not at all, Master Toad,” said Joe. “My Great Lady, the one who made me, intended to use a pearl.”

“A pearl?” said Toad, startled. “Really? What for?”

“To find her way home,” Joe explained. “She fled it many years ago.”

“If she ran away why would she want to go back?”

“Sometimes, Master Toad, the home we flee is still the only home we have.”

Toad didn’t know what to say to that and Joe, in turn, had gone oddly silent — the silence felt rude to break. But with a jolt, Joe seemed to come back to the present and exclaimed: “But what is Ol’ Joe doing, dwelling in the threads of the past? This is a night of celebration! Of family and triumph! Let us dine, Lord and Lady! And Ol’ Joe will regale you with stories to fuel your dreams tonight!”

With such a promise, Toad and Melena quickened their pace to the orphanage’s front steps, their laughter bouncing off the cobblestones.

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