“How could you lose her?”

  A high-pitched, very annoyed voice yelled at the purple-robed man.

  “I didn’t lose her. She hid,” Devin told Gnomum.

  “Children play hide-and-seek all the time,” he insisted.

  “This ain’t a child—it’s a demon,” Gnomum hissed,

  “wrapped in a cute baby skin.”

  They had spent the last hour in a considerable wizard’s tower—belonging to one of Devin’s so-called friends.

  They’d played a game once. Devin lost.

  He didn’t like the man, and the feeling was mutual.

  But tradition was tradition, and so they were here, holding out.

  “Why can’t we just burn the tower?” Gnomum asked.

  “She’s in it.”

  “We need her alive,” Devin sighed, “or Reralt won’t cooperate.”

  “So we wait for Reralt, then we burn the tower?”

  “No. Reralt needs to fulfil his holy quest—the one for the Hat,” Devin said in the slow, deliberate tone of a teacher explaining for the eighth time how to open a door.

  “The one we’ve been talking about this entire, soul-grinding journey.”

  “What Hat?”

  “You’re doing this just to torment me, aren’t you?”

  “Well excuse me, someone has to make sure we get decent plot exposition.”

  “Fine. For the tenth time: Reralt needs to find the Hat so he can find the Lost Gods.”

  “See? Not hard, was it?”

  “Why are you even here?” Devin groaned. “You’re clearly not helping.”

  Gnomum wasn’t.

  She just wanted to see Reralt and Narro cry.

  Preferably over a burned baby.

  Revenge was best served cold, they said—so she had to hurry. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be cooled off.

  “Both Reralt and the other are upset now, aren’t they?” Gnomum laughed her evil laugh. “For now that is enough of a reason.”

  “So for that, we need Syril as leverage.

  Leverage works best if it is unharmed, in a place where you actually know where it is.”

  That was exactly what they were trying to figure out.

  “Otherwise it’s just a scam.” Devin looked around the round tower room—two big windows on each side. It was the living quarters: spacious, well-furnished, very luxurious.

  “If you were a baby, less than a year old—where would you hide?” Devin asked, hoping to spark a brainstorm.

  “Why? Because I’m small?” Gnomum snapped.

  “Well… that would help.”

  “Did you just do a sizeism?”

  Gnomum folded her arms and glared at him with the full force of two and a half feet of fury.

  “But you are small. You can see—”

  Gnomum ran forward, jumped as high as she could, and drop-kicked him.

  Straight in the shins.

  “Gnomum, please,” Devin muttered, lifting her up with one hand and setting her on the table.

  “So we’re just to be put where you please now?” she barked.

  “What if you were small and handled like that, huh?

  Placed in gardens to scare off vermin?”

  It ran deep.

  “I’m very sorry,” Devin said.

  Decades of practice made him sound sincere.

  “Can we now please find that child?”

  “She’s under the couch,” Gnomum said, still upset.

  Devin looked at the couch. Then at Gnomum.

  He refrained from commenting—a trait learned from decades of being thrown by Reralt for stating the obvious, or for acknowledging things that slightly deviated from Reralt’s personal version of reality.

  Now they faced the following problem:

  The child was under the couch.

  Retrieving her would involve biting, scratching, sour vomiting, or—Devin was quite certain—a revenge diaper.

  “Shall we leave her there?” Devin whispered.

  “Well I’m not getting her,” Gnomum said.

  “Last time it cost me a hand and a nose.”

  ***

  Syril lurked under the couch, watching.

  Waiting.

  One of them would try it—the tall man or the short creature—and when they did, she’d bite.

  Bite like it was the last apple on earth.

  This had stopped being fun a day ago.

  She’d wanted a story. One of the good ones.

  The Uncle Reralt stories, usually told by Dad.

  He always told them with that funny tone—like he wasn’t proud of it, even though he totally was.

  Especially the dragon one. Every time he told it, she saw it:

  A flicker in his eyes.

  A tremble in his voice.

  She missed it.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  So for now, she’d bite.

  Daddy was searching for Uncle Reralt.

  And Uncle Reralt was coming for her. She was sure of it.

  She’d been under the couch too long now.

  Devin and the tiny one were stalling.

  They were in on her plans.

  That displeased her.

  She peeked from under the couch.

  The two kidnappers weren’t paying attention to her.

  She had succeeded. They were tired.

  So tired, in fact, that every chance they got, they tried to nap—even standing up.

  Syril had learned that technique from the stories of Uncle Reralt.

  She had perfected it through rigorous testing on her parents.

  Dad was very sensitive to it.

  Mother? Completely immune.

  She devised a plan.

  Devin: in a chair near the fireplace.

  The little one: on the windowsill, basking in sunlight.

  An open window.

  On the fifth floor of the tower.

  She could crawl with the speed of a wolf.

  Silent as the Void.

  She crawled toward the little one.

  “I hear you,” a smug Gnomum said, sitting up slowly.

  “Heard you crawl out from under the couch.”

  Gnomum turned her head—

  slowly, to make it extra creepy.

  “I… misjudged your speed,” she muttered—

  as she fell out the window.

  She muttered something about fire all the way down, landing with a soft thump.

  Her beard took most of the impact. She bounced once, landed on her feet, and stormed off swearing vengeance.

  Syril, proud, looked around.

  One down. One to go.

  Devin was no longer in the chair he’d been in just seconds before—

  She felt old, bony hands scoop her up from behind.

  “Back to your bed, little girl,” Devin sighed, already calculating how many doors he could lock between her and the world.

  A familiar warmth spread in his hands.

  “Oh, not again. What do you eat?” Devin yelled, disgusted.

  One revenge diaper.

  Delivered.

  ***

  After making sure Syril couldn’t escape her room again—

  and after scrubbing his hands thoroughly (he wasn’t ashamed to use the drapes; he never liked the GOAT anyway)—

  Devin sat back down.

  Gnomum still had to climb the ten flights of stairs.

  She refused to be carried, insisted on jumping every step.

  He had an hour or two of relative quiet.

  Time to think.

  “The gods need to return,” he told himself—the old mantra.

  “We need order in this realm.”

  He walked to the window, slowly.

  The countryside stretched below, quiet and green.

  In the village nearby, people bustled about their daily routines—market stalls, wagons, honest work under a sky that no longer guaranteed divine attention.

  “They need it,” Devin said, his voice firming.

  “To know their lives aren’t just some meaningless drift.

  That they aren’t born only to wonder what they’re supposed to be doing.”

  He spotted a little boy sitting on a log by the market, selling carved wooden toys.

  Simple. Pointless. Beautiful.

  “A boy like that,” Devin said,

  “should be able to pray.

  To believe that death is not just a hole, but a door.

  That something better waits—something serene.

  Somewhere you can finally be free to choose.”

  He nodded once, hard.

  All of it—

  His time with Reralt,

  The humiliation,

  The screaming,

  The absolute collapse of logic—

  All of it was worth it.

  If the gods returned.

  If he was rewarded, one day, by the structure he still believed was out there.

  For now, he would point Reralt toward the Hat.

  He had a plan. One Reralt couldn’t refuse.

  Well—

  He definitely would refuse.

  And quite definitely hurt him while doing so.

  But Narro would persuade him.

  Devin smiled. He had it all figured out. Finally.

  He admitted to himself it felt a bit like revenge.

  It felt sweet.

  If Syril’s diaper ever stopped stinking up the curtains, he was sure it would smell just like this moment.

  Outside, the boy was talking to a customer.

  Selling one of his toys.

  “Good boy,” Devin said softly.

  “You deserve it.”

  He felt like a force for good in that moment.

  Lawful good.

  Then a second boy stepped out from behind a barrel,

  cut the purse from the customer’s belt,

  nodded once at his partner,

  and vanished like mist.

  The first boy broke off the sale and sprinted.

  Devin sighed.

  “Or you’re going to hell.

  Pretty sure we need gods for that, too.”

  ***

  as hummed softly under the couch, possibly while sharpening a rattle

  I’m a baby in a tower,

  With ten sharp teeth, no plans to cower.

  You took me from my comfy bed,

  So now I’ll bite until you’re sad.

  I bit the goat, I bit the chair,

  I bit that gnome with too much hair.

  You think I’m small but I can crawl—

  Like nightmares sliding down the wall.

  You find me out, take me to my crib?

  A last small gift into your hand I slip.

  Before you know what’s going up…

  One full diaper—coming up.