“It took longer than I thought for the Articles to collapse. I spent those years traveling the newly independent states looking for new recruits.”

This had to be a joke.

Maybe it was Beatrice’s attempt at hazing: make someone go to a random location and make a fool of themselves. But then I saw the yellow door just past the main entrance of the school. Prank or not, I needed to get to the third floor before Beatrice upbraided me further.

The door opened without issue into a landing with two sets of stairs: one with an arrow pointing up and one with an arrow pointing down. It triggered bad memories of my own elementary school in Brooklyn, where if you walked into the wrong stairwell, you would be barreled into by kids going the correct direction, and if you walked into the right staircase, you would be barreled into by kids who thought it was funny to walk up the down staircase.

Thankfully, the school appeared empty, so I made my way up to the third floor without incident and turned left as instructed, until I finally reached the end of the hallway to find … a bulletin board filled with Post-it Notes.

You would have thought there would be a cooler system for giving out requests to steal valuable items from highly-secured places than a small bulletin board with Post-it Notes. But nothing made sense in this messed-up world.

With Beatrice still nowhere in sight, I approached the Board, picked a random section, and then began scanning the notes.

“Wanted: silver pocket watch. Don’t care where you get it, as long as it’s stolen and at least 110 years old. Reward: 34 bronze tokens.”

“Request: the 1954 Audrey Hepburn Barbie from the FAO Schwarz display case. The store is closed so you’ll need to figure out where they put it now. I’ll give you 70 iron tokens for your trouble or a bottle of rare (and I do mean rare) whiskey.”

And on and on they went. The level of skill required to accomplish these Raids was overwhelming, especially for a still relatively newbie like me. Digging through dumpsters was one thing, but breaking into the Museum of Natural History to steal a stuffed penguin was something entirely else.

“Good, you’re here.”

I turned around and Beatrice was walking down the empty hallway toward me, dressed in a long white dress.

“Yeah, uh sorry about earlier. I had no service on the train.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t actually need to be here to get the Raid, but I figured this was easier than setting up another meeting later.”

“Oh.”

So I had just killed myself getting here on time for absolutely nothing. It was like the time at work I rewrote the entire codebase for the Archer class, only to find out the next day that we were dropping it from the game.

“Did you get a chance to look at the Board?”

I nodded.

“It’s just a bunch of really hard Quests. Like, incredibly hard.”

“Yes and no. They’re Raids, so you need at least two people. That’s part of the reason I need you. I haven’t been able to do a Raid since my last trainee left.”

“So I’m not one of your first?”

“No, like I said, it’s been slow going with my current pool of prospects. But you’re probably the most promising since... ah, here it is.” She grabbed a Post-it Note from the Board and pulled it off. “Didn’t want someone beating us to this one.”

“I can’t believe there are this many,” I said. I had no idea how many Questers were leveled up enough to even know about the Raid Board, or even how many there were at all, but this seemed crazy.

“Not really. This Board is for the entire East Coast.”

“What? Isn’t that kind of inconvenient for everyone?”

“Yes, but it just means that we are lucky that the Board is in New York City. They usually move it to other locations around town. One year I think they moved it to Wilmington, Delaware, but people flipped out. I wouldn’t have minded that much, it would only have been an Acela ride away.”

Beatrice handed me the note. Purple ink filled the small square and the handwriting was so sloppy, I could barely make out what it said.

“Some valuable information was recently tattooed onto the back of a woman who has no idea what it means. I need that information. Leave this note under the garbage can next to Belvedere Castle and await further instruction.”

I read it over a few times before giving it back to Beatrice.

“I don’t understand. We just need to look at this woman’s tattoo? That’s it?”

Beatrice frowned.

“No. That’s not it. That tattoo is hiding something very important.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know it’s important?”

“Because I got a tip an hour ago from a trusted source that this Raid was going to be posted here.”

“And this ‘trusted source,’ as you put it, is worth listening to?”

“Yes. They’re the reason I am where I am today. Well, that and my relentlessness.”

“I don’t understand. We’re going to complete the Raid and then what? Keep a copy of the tattoo information for ourselves?”

“Maybe. Who knows? I told them that I was back in business and ready to move forward against the Guild and this was the first response I got back. But we can’t do anything until we find this woman.”

“It just seems like you’re placing a lot of trust in this person and sounds like you’ve never even met them so-”

“Enough,” said Beatrice with a huff. “If I wanted your opinion, then I would have asked for it. Just trust me that I know what I’m doing.”

“OK,” I said.

Clearly I’d touched a nerve and it wasn’t worth crossing Beatrice over something like this. It wasn’t like we were supposed to go kill someone. Maybe it would be as simple as tracking down this woman and asking to see her tattoo. Still, that seemed too easy to make a whole Raid out of.

“So this mysterious person also has an ax to grind with the Guild?”

“It would seem so. And I’ll take all the help I can get when it comes to the Guild.”

“Why is that?”

Beatrice pulled up the right side of her dress suddenly.

It took me a minute but I saw it, the faint line of a red scar going from her upper thigh all the way down past her knee.

“Because of this. Because I was minding my own business and the Guild tried to kill me.”

“Oh. I-I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

She dropped her dress back down and stared at the note again.

“It’s fine. It was years ago already. Doesn’t really hurt anymore. Just a memory.”

There was a sadness in her eyes with a twinge of fear that I hadn’t seen before. Maybe she hadn’t always been a borderline psychopath, maybe the Guild had driven her to become what she now was. That didn’t excuse what she’d done to me, but it made her a bit more human.

“Has the Guild gone after you since?” I asked.

“Not directly. Listen, we need to leave. I don’t want anyone to see us here. I’m on the Guild’s radar but as far as I know, you’re not, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

She stuffed the note in her pocket and walked back down the hallway. I wanted to stay and study the Board some more. There was a whole assortment of magical items waiting to be found and it was all there for the taking, but that would have to wait for another day.

Beatrice didn’t say a word until we were several blocks from the school and she had looked behind us 20 times to make sure we weren’t being followed.

“I’ll go drop the note in the park. Hopefully our requester will follow up by tomorrow morning, so let’s rendezvous at 10 at the coffee shop.”

“Umm OK. Can we meet a little earlier though? I ducked out of work early to go wedding dress shopping for my friend and I don’t want to come in late.”

“Oh. Fun. If you’re a sadist. When’s the big day?”

“Next June. But the bachelorette party is in February. We’re going to some fashion lecture at the Met and then flying to London for Fashion Week.”

“Wow, your friend sounds nuts. For my bachelorette, we went to the Bahamas and got hammered on the beach all day. But to each their own. Come to my apartment at 8:30 then. My sitter will take Jack-Jack for a walk and we’ll have the place to ourselves. 1264 Madison Avenue, 31C.”

The next morning, I arrived at Beatrice’s building 20 minutes early and paced back and forth across the street until I saw a stroller emerge from the door pushed by a tall brunette who couldn’t have been older than 18. When they were out of sight, I crossed the street and entered the palatial lobby. The doorman smiled at me as he dialed up to Beatrice’s apartment before eventually waving me through.

The elevator creaked up to the 31st floor and I stepped into a small brightly painted hallway with two white doors. I knocked on the one labeled C and waited for Beatrice to appear. Except when the door swung open, it wasn’t her that greeted me, but a man with reddish hair wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t quite place him.

“Umm, hi,” I said. “Is Beatrice here?”

The man smiled and I realized that I had seen him somewhere before.

“Sure, she’s just getting ready. Come on in.”

I walked passed him and into the living room and there was the couch I had sat on in the dream of Beatrice’s memory.

And on the other side of the room, the kitchen I had been in.

“And you are?” the man asked.

“Oh. I’m Jen, I, uh-”

“Nice to meet you Jen. Didn’t realize B had hired another tutor.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” I lied. “And you are?”

“Garrett, B’s husband.” He extended his right hand, keeping the other strategically on the towel, and I tried not to stare as I returned the gesture.

It was then that Beatrice decided to finally make her entrance.

“Garrett, I told you I was getting the door,” she said, a look of annoyance in her eyes. “Go put some clothes on.”

Beatrice swatted away Garrett’s hand and tried to shoo him out of the room, but he wouldn’t budge.

“What? I’m not allowed to meet your new employee?” he said with an even wider grin on his face.

Men, ugh.

“No, and we’re leaving. See you later.”

Beatrice wrapped her arm around me and led me out of the apartment before Garrett could protest further. We rode the elevator down in silence and I smartly kept any mention of the dream to myself, not wanting to upset Beatrice any further. The weather was mild for the last day of November in New York, so instead of plopping down at a coffee shop, we walked into the park.

“So, your husband is-”

“An ass. Actually, that wasn’t harsh enough. He’s a pompous ass who thinks he’s entitled to stick his-”

“Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to pour salt on a raw wound.”

“It’s OK. I’m far past caring.”

This meeting was quickly turning into a disaster. I knew from the dream memory that Beatrice and her husband had some issues, but didn’t expect her to be so upfront about it. It was like she was doing her best to convince me that she was a real person with real problems so I would sympathize with her.

“Umm, did you find out who the target is?” I said after we had crested a hill overlooking the Met.

“Yes,” said Beatrice with a detached note in her voice. “Her name is Francesca Lewis. Goes by Frankie for some reason. Here.” She handed me her phone and I looked down at a headshot of a woman who looked a little older than me, with strawberry red hair, too much mascara, a tattoo of two cursive words on her neck, and bronze skin from too many visits to the tanning salon.

“I take it that’s not the tattoo we’re looking for?” I asked, handing the phone back to Beatrice.

“No. The one we’re looking for is on her back.”

“Oh, got it. Kind of a weird Raid, isn’t it?”

“They’re all weird if you think about it,” Beatrice said. “I just try to focus on the end goal. I’ve done so many of these and every time I think I’ve come one step closer, it ends up being another dead end. But maybe this time… Anyway, it doesn’t do any good to hope that this will be the Raid that leads us to the Compendium.”

“Why do you need it so badly? You have the ink. That was enough for Rita. She practically changed the course of history with it!”

Beatrice shook her head.

“It wasn’t enough, not for her and not for me. Rita ran out of ink and had to leave the Compendium behind when she fled New York. And I only have so much ink left. I had to give most of it away, and I still haven’t figured out all the prima materia in it. That’s why the Compendium would be a game changer, the amount of alchemic knowledge in there…”

“I keep hearing those words: alchemy, prima materia. You don’t mean turning lead into gold, do you?”

“No. Alchemy is just a fancy name someone came up with to describe the science of magic. And prima materia is anything that has any magic in it, even a tiny bit.”

“Oh. I see. This is still new to me, it makes my head spin sometimes.”

“I’ll make you a deal then. Prove yourself during this Raid and I’ll give you a proper alchemy lesson.”

“Sounds great,” I said. “So what’s next?”