The Forgotten Tale Part 3

  The whistle of the Polar Express echoed like a sigh of relief as the terminal drew closer and closer, one final effort from the steel beast as it reached its destination. The train glided to a stop beneath an immense dome of brick and glass—the North Pole terminal station. Once again, it had bravely completed the great journey across the frozen plains of the icy winter, once again fulfilling its entrusted mission by delivering all its passengers safely to their destination.

  From the cars, the passengers began to disembark one by one in an orderly manner. A group of elves arrived to check the visitors, verifying their names on the lists and guiding them to the carriages that would take them to witness the inauguration and the departure of their leader, Santa Claus. César’s group remained inside the cars, unsure of what to do, when the Engineer appeared once more at the doorway to deliver new information.

  It was then that the Engineer reappeared in the doorway. His immaculate uniform now bore an oil stain on the sleeve, and his face—usually serene—was marked by barely concealed tension. His eyes scanned the group: César, pale; Tifa perched on his shoulder; Erina nervously stroking her bag of crystals; and Drosselmeyer, observing everything with calm, analytical focus.

  “Gentlemen,” said the Engineer, closing the door behind him with an audible click. His voice was low, yet it cut through the air like the edge of a razor. “We have a situation. A security matter.”

  Everyone went on alert. Erina’s feathers bristled slightly.

  “I have just received an encrypted message from the Alfheim. High Guard. Apparently, there is a breach in the security protocols of the perimeter around the lower Workshops and the metal storage facilities. Not an invasion, but… an infiltration. Something or someone has bypassed the detection systems and is interfering with internal communication channels while disabling the automated defenses.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “Under Level One security protocol, all non-essential departures from the terminal are suspended until the threat is identified and neutralized. Unfortunately, that includes the Polar Express.”

  “Suspended?” César asked, his voice sounding strangely hoarse. “But… for how long?”

  “Hours or maybe a couple of minutes. I don’t think it will happen before midnight, unfortunately. Time, here, is… peculiar, to put it mildly—but the protocols are not.”

  The Engineer stepped closer, lowering his voice even more. His gaze locked onto Drosselmeyer, as if he knew he was the one who would understand the implications.

  “This is not a coincidence. The interference is specific, targeted at tracking and logistics systems in the workshops and the residential area. They’re taking over the surveillance cameras. They’re watching and searching for something specific—or perhaps trying to cover their own tracks. Santa Claus himself is directing the investigation. He has no intention of leaving until the problem is resolved, which will delay his gift-delivery itinerary, but he wants to make sure everyone here is safe in his absence.”

  Tifa felt a chill that had nothing to do with the snow.

  “Are they looking for us?”

  “It’s a strong possibility,” the Engineer replied with a solemn nod.

  “Mrs. Vetra No?lle has been very persistent in her negotiations, trying to secure a collaboration for her franchise and for Christmas.”

  “Her company doesn’t say it publicly, but some theorize that the destruction caused by the rat-men is meant to help her with her plans.”

  “With the gossip network she maintains and her presence in almost all the lower districts, it’s easy for her to know what’s happening in any city.”

  A weight of despair began to settle over the carriage. They were trapped, inside the very gates of the greatest fortress of the North, yet just as exposed to their pursuers as if they were out on the open plain.

  “However,” the Engineer continued, and a glint appeared in his eyes—not alarm, but rapid calculation. “The protocols cover essential and non-essential exits. And the internal transport network of the workshops and the city… that’s a different matter.”

  “Those remain powered on, on standby for the deployment and transfer of emergency units such as police or ambulances.”

  He leaned forward, resting his hands on the back of a seat.

  “Look—on the outside, this looks like a toy workshop. On the inside, it’s the logistical heart of an operation that spans parts of everywhere. To move materials, components, and occasionally specialized personnel between the different sectors at incredible speeds, we use a pneumatic vacuum tube system. It’s fast, silent, and—most importantly right now—it’s classified as internal infrastructure. Its monitoring is independent.”

  Drosselmeyer raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

  “A high-speed pneumatic transport system. Fascinating. And where do these tubes lead?”

  The Engineer gave a brief, tense smile.

  “Everywhere within the complex. And there’s a transfer station in the precious-metals smelting sector, right at the northeastern edge of the main dome. From there, a maintenance tunnel leads to the outer glaciers.” He paused dramatically.

  “Zimorodok isn’t far. In a straight line, across the ice peaks, it’s a matter of a few hours by sled… or a single, long push through a class-three cargo tube, if one knows how to reroute the path.”

  Hope—sharp and dangerous—returned to the carriage.

  “Are you suggesting what I think you are?” Erina asked, her amber eyes gleaming intensely.

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” the Engineer said, straightening up and once again assuming his official posture. “I am simply reporting on the technical characteristics of our infrastructure. As the master of this train, I must remain here, overseeing the quarantine and coordinating with security. It would be a grave negligence on my part not to personally supervise the situation.” His eyes met César’s. “But if a group of passengers, for example, were to get lost in the turmoil of the arrival and, out of curiosity or desperation, were to find an unattended tube terminal… and if someone with knowledge of fine mechanics,” his gaze flicked toward Drosselmeyer, “knew how to reconfigure a destination panel for a ‘special’ shipment… well, that would be an unfortunate security failure of which, of course, I would have no knowledge until it was far too late.”

  The message was clear. It was a way out. Risky, unauthorized, but possible.

  “And the elves? Security?” Tifa asked, her tiny voice heavy with concern.

  “Most of the staff is focused on the main event and on containing the security breach in the central workshops. Peripheral logistics sectors will be operating at minimum levels. But it won’t be a walk in the park.” The Engineer pulled a small rolled-up blueprint from an inner pocket. It was a schematic diagram of the station, with colored lines snaking through it like veins. “The tube terminal is here. The control panel is behind a ventilation grate. The lock combination is the date of the first Christmas recorded in the Polar Express travel log: 2-4-5.”

  The blueprint was spread out over a seat, a labyrinth of precise lines beneath the dim light of the carriage. The group clustered around it, a silhouette of determination against the windows fogged by the outside cold. Beyond them, the murmur of the crowd—excited laughter, carols sung by elven choirs—belonged to another world, a celebration from which they were now fugitives.

  “Understood,” Drosselmeyer said, studying the layout with a surgeon’s focus. His gloved finger rested on a point marked with a golden star. “We are here. The most discreet route is through the auxiliary storage galleries. They are rarely guarded on Christmas Eve—everyone is in the main plaza or the central workshops.”

  César nodded, clenching the fist of his uninjured hand. The weight of the revolver he had fired still vibrated in his memory, but that sensation hardened into cold resolve. They couldn’t stay. Tifa, sensing his tension, brushed his cheek with one tiny wing, a minute gesture of support.

  “Let’s go,” the boy whispered.

  The Engineer nodded, a shadow of approval crossing his face. “Good luck. And remember: once inside the tube, there is no turning back. The system is automatic and fast. Hold tight to the internal supports.” He opened the carriage door only a centimeter, scanning the crowded platform. “Now. Disperse, as if you were going to watch the show. The service door to the warehouses is behind the statue of the first flying Reindeer. It has a mechanical lock. The code… you already know it.”

  The station was a marvel: towering arches decorated with garlands of living light, ice statues that seemed to breathe, and elves in brightly colored uniforms guiding families along. Joy made city. And by contrast, their furtive mission felt darker, more urgent.

  Erina, her borrowed cloak from the carriage covering her wings and a cap pulled down ridiculously over her head, walked hunched over. Drosselmeyer, with his natural elegance, looked like a distinguished guest drifting away from the bustle out of boredom. César, with Tifa hidden inside his heavy coat, followed the jeweler, his heart hammering in his ears.

  They found the statue: a majestic Reindeer carved from crystal, its legs raised in an eternal gesture of takeoff. In its shadow stood an unmarked metal door. Drosselmeyer crouched before the numeric panel, produced one of his fine tools, and with three precise clicks, entered the code: 2-4-5.

  A dull clunk, and the door gave way inward, revealing darkness scented with old wood and oil.

  The festive world shut off in an instant. Beyond the door stretched a cavernous gallery, lit only by emergency lights spaced every thirty meters. They were in the auxiliary warehouses: endless corridors flanked by shelving that vanished into the gloom, loaded with crates, rolls of wrapping paper like gigantic silk cocoons, and mountains of metal and timber components. The silence was absolute, broken only by the distant hum of the city’s machinery and the crunch of their own footsteps on the dusty floor.

  “This place… is scary,” Erina murmured, spreading her wings slightly to ease the tension. The whisper of feathers seemed to multiply in the emptiness.

  “The heart of magic has its boiler rooms as well,” said Drosselmeyer, consulting the blueprint under the light of a chemical lamp he had drawn from his cloak. “This way. Toward the foundry sector.”

  They moved like ghosts among the inanimate treasures of Christmas. They passed an army of unpainted toy soldiers, their bayonets glinting faintly; piles of plush toys that looked like sleeping beasts; crates labeled in languages from worlds Tifa could only guess at. The grandeur of the place was overwhelming and, in some way, melancholic. So much manufactured joy, at rest and waiting.

  That was when the smells changed. A sour trail of dampness, dirty fur, and rusted metal overlaid the scent of wood and fabric. Erina stopped, her feathers bristling completely. A hiss, barely audible, came from a stack of empty barrels to her right.

  “They’re here!” Tifa shouted, her tiny voice ringing like an alarm bell.

  From behind the piles of supplies, from the gaps between the crates, the Skaven emerged. It wasn’t a horde, but a rapid assault group: six of them, agile, with bloodshot eyes beneath their ragged hoods. They carried short, serrated weapons, and from their belts hung green crystal devices that pulsed with a sinister light.

  “The feather-that-flies! The crystals! For the King! For the White Lady!” shrieked the leader, pointing at Erina with a deformed finger.

  There was no time for plans. Drosselmeyer already had his revolver in hand, but the space was enclosed, packed with flammable and valuable material. A single shot could cause a catastrophe.

  “Run! To the main corridor!” the jeweler ordered, shoving César forward.

  The chase was a hell of shadows and obstacles. The Skaven were fast, scrambling up shelves and leaping between stacks of crates with supernatural agility. Erina, freed from her disguise, flew low, dodging beams and using the sharp edges of her wings to knock boxes down onto their pursuers. The crash of splintering wood and clanging metal filled the gallery.

  César ran, with Tifa clinging to his neck, following Drosselmeyer’s shouted directions. “Left! Now right! The double door at the end!”

  Drosselmayer found the control panel and began working on it with precision, while the harpy defended the door as best she could from the rat-men.

  “Tube ready! Get in, now!” Drosselmeyer roared.

  The central opening of the tube system flared with an intense blue glow, and a hum of static energy filled the air. A transport capsule, like a metal egg padded on the inside, slid out of a side compartment and stopped in front of the opening, its hatch open.

  Erina, tearing off the hook, went first. She dove in headfirst, struggling with her wings. Drosselmeyer grabbed César by the arm and nearly threw him inside, after which Tifa slipped in like a bolt of lightning. He turned, fired twice into the air to drive back the rest of the Skaven already breaching the doorway, and jumped into the capsule.

  “Automatic seal in five seconds,” announced a mechanical, feminine voice.

  Through the capsule’s small viewport, they saw the Skaven regaining ground, fury burning in their eyes. But they also saw something else: from the door they had entered through burst a flash of golden and silvery light. The Elven Guard. Tall figures in armor that looked like living ice, cloaks the color of the aurora borealis, wielding energy spears. Their faces, usually serene, were hardened by professional fury.

  “Intruders! Halt, in the name of the Council of Eternal Ice!” shouted their captain, an elf with a scar running across her cheek.

  Trapped between the closing capsule and the elven elite, the Skaven spun in place, shrieking in panic. The last sound the group heard before the hatch sealed hermetically was the high-pitched whine of the elven spears charging and the terrified screams of the rat-men.

  Then the world exploded into absolute silence and immense pressure.

  The capsule was hurled forward by a force that crushed them against the padding. There was no sound, only a deep vibration that ran through their bones. Through the viewport, all that could be seen was a tunnel lit by rings of blue light streaking past at impossible speeds, merging into a single, continuous blaze.

  They were inside the torrent, flung into the bowels of the North Pole’s transport system, fired like a projectile into the unknown—toward the outer glaciers, toward Zimorodok. The warm refuge of Christmas was left behind, replaced by icy speed and the whistle of the void. But they were alive. And, at least for now, safe.

  In the violent silence of the tube, César tried to grab onto something, which turned out to be Erina’s body. Tifa curled up against his neck. Drosselmeyer adjusted his eyepatch and consulted a small navigation instrument glowing with soft runes.

  The pneumatic capsule burst from the tunnel like a bullet spat out by the earth’s intestines, braking sharply in a reception chamber filled with steam and electrical sparks. The door opened with a hiss, and the group fell more than they stepped outside, dazed and dizzy from the journey.

  The air that greeted them was different. They were in an abandoned loading station, with exposed brick and rusted iron beams. Faded signs in alphabets that mixed elven runes and human slang advertised goods from every origin and destination. Through a broken window came the cold, electric light of an urban night.

  They stepped out into an alley. And Zimorodok unfolded before them.

  It was a city of contradictions and art. Skyscrapers with Art Deco spires, coated in the snow that was falling, rose beside tower-houses of elven wood and concrete, intricately carved but now plastered with neon signs on their fa?ades. Cars—a mix of long-lined classic models with strange blue-crystal thrusters—raced through cobblestone streets alongside screeching trams. The crowd was a melting pot: tall, serious elves in tailored pinstripe suits and felt hats, their pointed ears discreetly peeking out; hard-faced humans in long coats; and stranger creatures still, like trolls in furrier jackets working as gorillas, or little goblins shouting as they sold newspapers.

  But beneath the neon glow and the promise of jazz hanging in the air, there was a palpable tension. Patrols and police in blue uniforms with batons—some human, others elven—watched the corners with scrutinizing eyes. It seemed that the North Pole quarantine had reached the city as well and was beginning to seal off its exits. In doorways, shadows watched and curtains were drawn as the agents of the law passed by.

  “This… isn’t what I was expecting,” Erina murmured, while César adjusted her scarf again.

  “It’s exactly what we need,” said Drosselmeyer, polishing his monocle with a handkerchief. “A city where information and favors are the real currency. But we must move quickly. We won’t be the only ones who took that shortcut.”

  “You look like you just came out of a travel station nobody uses unless it’s out of deep necessity—and like you’ve got more trouble piled on top,” he said, his voice rough with tobacco. “A chase, maybe?” said a new voice as he smiles. “The Skaven have eyes on the street stalls. And Vetra No?lle’s goons have ears in every illegal speakeasy. You won’t last an hour here without a guide.”

  As they deliberated at the mouth of the alley, a figure detached itself from the shadows beside a trash container. He was a thin man, wearing a Zoot Suit and a fedora with a feather, pulled low over to cover his eyes. He had a sharp face, a big smile with confidence. He could have passed for human, if not for the slight, elegant tips of his ears peeking out from under the hat: a half-elf.

  César instinctively stepped forward, shielding Tifa, who hid against his neck. Drosselmeyer, however, studied the stranger with interest.

  “And what do you gain by being that guide?”

  “I’m bored,” the half-elf said, lighting a cigarette. The tip flared with an orange flame that didn’t seem entirely natural.

  “A friend who works the trains told me about you a couple of minutes ago—barely gave me time to get here.”

  “He’d say this is what you’re supposed to do on Christmas Eve.”

  “Besides, I hate rat-men. They stink and they ruin my boss’s business.”

  “The streets have been a war ever since the rodents showed up trying to carve out territory.”

  “What’s your name?” Tifa asked, bravely peeking out.

  “You can call me Clarence,” he said.

  “Clarence Odbody. I might not look like it, but people around here consider me an angel, and not for my face. I have earned my wings a long time ago—but you always have to earn your pay, you know.”

  “Around here, the work never ends, and nights like tonight demand overtime.”

  “Now, if you want to make it back home, you’ll need to learn quickly how things work in this city,” he added, pointing toward a car on the nearby street.

  “In. We’ve got to get moving.”

  The car’s engine coughed with the laugh of tired metal before roaring to life. Clarence drove with a casual calm that clashed with the tension filling the vehicle. The neon lights of Zimorodok slid across the windows, painting their faces in sickly blue, red, and green.

  “Zimorodok is a city of crossroads. Everything passes through here: collectors hunting for all kinds of goods, elven liquor, medieval or modern weapons… and passports to everywhere.”

  “But even a city like this has its criminals and factions. On one side there’s Vetra No?lle, who’s been trying to turn everything into a franchise and a brand under her catalog—everything packaged and sold in stores.”

  “On the other side is the Rat King, who controls the underworld, magical scrap, and the trafficking of creatures. And in between, people like Rick Blaine.”

  “Rick Blaine?” Drosselmeyer asked.

  “The very same. Owner of Rick’s Casablanca Café on 34th Street. The only real neutral ground in the entire city. That’s where exiles, refugees, dreamers, and scoundrels gather. Rick has one rule: he takes no sides. But he has his passageways, his contacts. If anyone can get you a clean pass through the police cordon to anywhere, it’s him.”

  “And why would he help us?” César asked, sidestepping a puddle of something that smelled of wormwood and copper.

  “He won’t,” Sam said with a grimace. “Rick doesn’t help anyone. He’s a cynic. But there is one person he listens to, the man who got him out of the cold streets after his problems with his ex-girlfriend and put him on the path with loaded money, George Bailey.”

  “Bedford Falls isn’t far,” Clarence said, never taking his eyes off the street as he dodged a crowded streetcar with a skill that spoke of years of practice. “It’s one of the oldest neighborhoods, from when the city still believed it could be nothing more than a peaceful normal place. There, things… work. Or at least, they seem to.”

  The car left behind the bustle of downtown and its jagged skyscrapers, slipping into narrower streets lined with two-story houses with porches and small front gardens filled with clean snow. The streetlamps cast a warm orange glow, and the sparkle of Christmas trees could be seen through the windows. The air, even through the glass, smelled of burning firewood and gingerbread cookies. It was a fragment of normality so overwhelming that César found it hard to breathe. Tifa, on his shoulder, felt the boy tense.

  “George Bailey is the luckiest man in Bedford Falls, and probably in all of Zimorodok,” Clarence continued, turning onto a street called Maple Street. “He has a settled life. A beautiful family, a business he loves—a small loan company that helps people own their homes—the respect of everyone. He’s happy. In the simplest and truest way one can be.”

  “And why would he help us?” Erina asked suspiciously. “He sounds like someone who wouldn’t want trouble.”

  “Precisely because of that,” Drosselmeyer said, understanding before the others. “Because his happiness is built on active kindness. Helping is his nature, even when it’s inconvenient. And more importantly for our case, Rick Blaine owes George Bailey a debt.”

  “George lent Rick the money to start his business in the city when he had nothing left, after he lost his restaurant in Morocco for helping his former lover, Ilsa Lund.”

  Clarence stopped the car in front of a large white wooden house, lights glowing in every window and a holly wreath hanging on the door. “Wait here,” he said, turning off the engine. “George doesn’t take surprises well, and you are definitely a surprise.”

  The half-elf stepped out and walked toward the door with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. He knocked in a specific rhythm: two firm knocks, a pause, then three quick ones.

  The door opened. The figure that appeared was that of an aging man, with graying hair but an upright posture. He wore a wool sweater and had an easy smile, though his remarkably clear eyes hardened for a moment when he saw Clarence, before softening into resigned affection.

  “Clarence. On Christmas Eve. You’re not bringing good news, are you?”

  “I always bring good news, George. The chance to do another good deed,” the half-elf replied.

  “That’s exactly what scares me. Come in, and introduce me to your… friends.”

  Inside, the house was as cozy as its exterior promised. The scent of cinnamon apples filled the air. A fair-haired woman, Mary, greeted them with kind but cautious curiosity, and soon a mug of hot chocolate appeared in front of each of them—along with a tiny plastic one for Tifa, served on the lid of a preserves jar.

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  George set his mug of hot chocolate down on the table after listening to his friend and the journey they had made so far, with a calm that seemed to chase the tension out of the room. His eyes—of an unbreakable clarity—swept over the group: the wounded yet resolute boy, the tiny fairy on his shoulder, the nervous harpy, and the jeweler with an impenetrable air.

  “Clarence is right,” George said, his voice like the old wood of his house—steady and warm. “I can’t look the other way on Christmas Eve. Not when it involves lost children and creatures fleeing from Vetra.” He spoke the name with clean disdain, without theatrics. “That woman has tried to buy half of Bedford Falls to turn it into one of her ‘seasonal plazas.’ Fortunately, people here value their home more than their wallet.”

  He stood and went to a wardrobe, from which he took a thick coat and a scarf. “Rick owes me a favor. He won’t like me calling it in like this, out of the blue, but he’ll do it. He’s a man of his word, even if he tries to hide it under layers of cynicism.” He looked at César. “Can you walk? Your arm—”

  “I can,” César said, with more strength than he felt.

  “Mary,” George said, without taking his eyes off them. “Get the car ready, dear. The company van.”

  Within minutes, the group left the house on Maple Street—not in Clarence’s car, but in a modest delivery van from the “Bailey Building & Loan.” George drove with quiet confidence, cutting through residential neighborhoods that soon gave way to the business district, denser and less welcoming. Clarence rode in the passenger seat, watching the streets with hawk-like eyes.

  “34th Street is no-man’s land,” the half-elf remarked. “Neither the Rat King nor No?lle’s people control it completely. Rick is the one who keeps the balance. In his own way.”

  The flickering neon sign was discreet: RICK’S CASABLANCA CAFé. There was nothing Christmas-like about its frosted glass and metal fa?ade. But when the door opened, a wave of warmth, music, and voices enveloped them.

  The interior was a cavern of bluish smoke and low golden light. Dark wooden tables, lazily spinning ceiling fans, and a long bar where bottles gleamed like treasures. But what immediately seized their attention was the stage—an explosive wave of powerful music washed over them. A large jazz orchestra, made up of musicians from all the races of the fantastical world—a troll on double bass, an elf on saxophone, a man with a bulldog’s face on drums—attacked a Christmas swing with joyful fury.

  It was a Christmas show, but a sophisticated, adult one—a celebration of form more than sentiment. The audience, a mix of races and species, applauded respectfully between saxophone solos.

  George moved forward without hesitation, threading his way between the tables toward the back, where one table sat slightly elevated. There, in the half-light, a man drank a whiskey neat. Rick Blaine. His face was carved by disillusionment and weary elegance. His eyes watched George approach without surprise, but with a slight tension.

  “George Bailey. In my establishment. The world must be about to end,” Rick said. His voice was dry, roughened by smoke and perhaps by something else.

  “Rick. I need one more favor. You know you owe me,” George said without preamble, gesturing to the group clustered behind him.

  Rick glanced at César, at Tifa peeking out from the boy’s collar, at Erina, and at Drosselmeyer. A shadow of annoyance crossed his face. “I always figured it would be something like this. Not normal people. It’s never normal people.” His gaze drifted to another part of the club. “And right when the company is especially… complicated.”

  “Rumors travel very fast in this city.”

  Following his look, they saw Vetra No?lle at a table near the stage. She was not the grotesque witch of fairy tales, but a middle-aged woman in an impeccable pearl-gray tailored suit, her hair pulled back into a severe bun. She spoke in a low but intense voice with a sharp-featured man—undoubtedly a lawyer and an elf—who took notes in a notebook. In her hands, Vetra held a contract dense with clauses. Around her, discreet yet visible to those who knew how to look, were bodyguards with builds far too thick and eyes far too small: rat-men clumsily disguised in expensive coats that didn’t quite fit.

  “…this isn’t about abolishing the Christmas spirit, Attorney Thornton,” Vetra was saying in a mellifluous voice that cut like glass. “It’s about managing it. Giving it a brand, quality control, a uniform experience. Imagine: ‘Christmas by No?lle.’ A single emporium of joy. The Pole’s workshops are inefficient, artisanal. We can produce a billion units of ‘verified happiness’ and distribute it optimally. Santa Claus is an adorable symbol, but outdated. He could be… our brand ambassador, like what happened with the soda company. With fair compensation, of course. It’ll be like merchandising the Grinch all over again—or selling Soviet Union shirts, gift boxes, perfumes, candies, plates, bottles, plush toys, postcards, maybe even a new car in collaboration: SUV X CHRISTMAS, and its luxury variant, Polar Expedition Limited.”

  “…..”

  “All I need is for the black ops team to manage to steal the old fat man’s battle axe, Gjallar, and recover the stolen magic gems to strip him of his magic—force him to sell. The elves won’t follow someone weaker than they are.”

  “The old woman is crazy enough to think the old man even needs the axe to tear someone’s head off with his bare hands.”

  “They follow him because they believe in a leader who rescued them from their darkest days. Unlike her, they have a code of honor to uphold,” Rick muttered to himself.

  George didn’t look at Vetra. He kept his eyes on Rick. “I need clean passages. For these four to get out of Zimorodok, wherever they need to go, without the police stopping them at the barricade—or the rat-men or that woman’s goons detecting them.”

  Rick took a sip of his whiskey. “The passages aren’t the problem, George. The problem is the attention they’re drawing. Vetra’s been trying to buy me for months—to turn this place into a franchised ‘Rick’s No?l Café.’ I’ve told her no. Now she comes here to close deals with her investors, to show me her power. If I help you openly, this stops being a neutral port. It becomes a battlefield.”

  “It already is, Rick,” George said softly. “Some people just prefer not to see the trenches. You gave me your word. When everyone in this city turned their back on you, the Bailey Building & Loan extended a hand. It wasn’t business. It was faith.”

  A muscle in Rick’s jaw tightened. Memories—of a woman named Ilsa, of an airport under the stars, of a bitter beginning in a strange city—passed through his eyes like clouds. The band’s music swelled, a glorious crescendo of trumpets that seemed to defy the darkness beyond the glass.

  “Sam,” Rick called, without raising his voice. An older elf, with a serene bearing, approached from behind the bar. “Prepare the transit papers from Vault Four. The special ones. For… our four unregistered individuals and guests.”

  Sam nodded, unperturbed, and vanished into the back room.

  That was when everything fell apart.

  One of Vetra’s rat-man bodyguards, with an overly keen sense of smell, violently sniffed the air. His red eyes locked onto Erina—and more specifically, onto the bulge of her bag, where the blue crystals emitted a faint glow, visible only to certain sensitivities.

  “Boss! The stolen crystals! They’re here!” he screeched, pointing with a claw.

  Vetra No?lle cut off her conversation and turned her head. Her gaze—cold and calculating—identified the group, then George, and finally Rick. A thin, dangerous smile spread across her lips.

  “Bring me that Harpy!”

  “No one escapes the power of Vetra No?lle!”

  Rick sprang to his feet. “There is no ‘law’ in my place except mine, Vetra! Sam, lock the doors!”

  But it was too late. Through the service entrances, more rat-men burst in, this time without disguises, armed with clubs and rusted spring-loaded pistols. At the same time, from the upper balcony where the private booths were, hooded figures in robes appeared—Glass Mages, their fractured orbs glowing with that sickly green light. Vetra No?lle had not come merely to negotiate; she had come prepared for a takeover.

  The café erupted into chaos. Customers screamed, overturning tables in search of cover. The jazz band, with admirable professionalism, far from panicking, stopped their song midway and shifted the tempo of the new music to something faster and more upbeat, further feeding the cycle of chaotic, violent, dissonant madness—as if their music were the soundtrack of the riot.

  Drosselmeyer already had his revolver in hand. “George, get the boy and the fairy to safety! Erina, at my back!”

  Erina spread her wings with the sound of unsheathed sabers, the hidden blades gleaming in the light. A rat-man lunged at her, and with a fluid motion she disarmed him and sent him flying into a table with a powerful sweep of her wing.

  Rick, with lethal calm, pulled a small automatic pistol from a drawer beneath the bar. “This was bound to happen sooner or later!” he shouted at Vetra. “But on Christmas Eve, you’ve got terrible taste, madam!”

  George shoved César and Tifa behind the bar. “Stay here!” he ordered. But César saw a mage aiming his staff at Drosselmeyer, who was distracted fighting two rat-men. Without thinking, the boy grabbed an empty bottle from the floor and hurled it with all his strength. It struck the mage’s hand, deflecting the green beam, which burned a hole through the ceiling.

  George Bailey was not a man of violence. But he was a man of action. He saw Vetra aiming at the group and acted on instinct, just as he once had when he saved his brother. He grabbed Sam’s heavy zinc serving tray from the bar and hurled it like a discus. It smashed the device from Vetra’s hand, sending it flying into a wall where it burst, instantly coating a painting in a layer of ice.

  Lawyer Thornton screamed from beneath a table. The fight was a whirlwind of green flashes, sharp gunshots, the snap of blades, and the snarls of rat-men. Rick, pistol in hand, held back a group near the main door. Drosselmeyer and Erina formed a lethal duo: he with surgical shots that disarmed and wounded, she with her wings creating a spinning perimeter of steel around her.

  But the Glass Mages were regrouping. One of them conjured a wave of cold that coated the floor in slippery frost. Another began weaving a net of greenish energy to trap Erina.

  In that moment of uncertainty, Sam the elf reappeared from the back room—but not with documents. He carried a double-barreled shotgun carved with elven runes. He didn’t aim at anyone. He fired into the air, toward the massive crystal chandelier hanging from the center.

  The blast was thunderous. Struck, the chandelier tore free and crashed down in the middle of the Glass Mages and rat-men, exploding into a thousand shards of crystal and extinguished light. Confusion reigned.

  “Now! Through the back!” Rick roared as he raised his gun and began firing at the rat-men climbing the walls, forcing George and the others toward the rear door of the bar.

  At the same time, the sound of police sirens began to wail nearby, blue and red lights slamming against every window of the building, revealing that everything was surrounded. A large group of police officers armed with batons stormed in, swinging wildly and striking everyone indiscriminately, without regard for sides.

  The group ran through a steaming kitchen, down a narrow staircase, and into a cellar filled with barrels. Sam, lighting the way with a kerosene lamp, approached what looked like a solid brick wall. He pressed a specific stone, and a section silently rotated, revealing a dark, cold tunnel.

  “The tunnel leads to the city’s old distribution conduits,” Sam said quickly. “They’ll come out near the east gates, where control is more lax. The documents and some money are in this envelope—bribe Police Officer Louis Renault.” He handed it to George. “Rick says the debt is settled. And that… that you should take care of that family of yours. It’s the only thing that matters in the end.”

  George nodded, his eyes moist. “Tell him… tell him he’ll always have a home in Bedford Falls, and that he should ask for help repairing today’s damage.”

  The group entered the tunnel. Darkness swallowed them, broken only by Sam’s lamp fading behind them. César, panting, felt George’s steady hand on his uninjured shoulder.

  The fight in the café erupted into its most chaotic phase just as the back door closed behind the group. Left behind were Vetra No?lle’s screams, the crash of shattered furniture, the hum of magical energy, and Rick’s sharp gunshots—posted behind the bar with his smoking pistol, covering their retreat with the ferocity of a man defending his last free territory.

  “Where does this lead?” Erina asked, her voice echoing in the narrow space.

  “To the main sewer system of the eastern district,” George replied, walking at the front and guiding them with a confidence that suggested this wasn’t the first time he’d used this route. “Rick and I… had to use it years ago, when the Rat King’s thugs tried to take control of the merchants’ association.”

  After what felt like endless minutes of descent, the tunnel opened into a wider gallery, where a channel of black, sluggish water ran down the center. Here the lighting was scarce but present: rusted gas lamps hung from the brick arches. The air was cold and heavy.

  “Let’s follow the flow of the water,” Drosselmeyer indicated, consulting a small orientation device he pulled from his cloak. “It should take us to the exterior discharge sluices.”

  They walked in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Tifa, perched on César’s shoulder, felt the boy’s trembling. It wasn’t just the cold or the fear; it was the exhaustion of having lived too much in a single night. The violence in the café, the shot on the train, the escape from the factory… each event was carving something into the boy’s soul, shaping the man he would become.

  Suddenly, voices ahead. Bright light.

  “Halt! Identify yourselves!” A powerful flashlight blinded them—the police had found them.

  George slowly raised his hands. “I’m George Bailey, from Bailey Building & Loan. We have transit authorization.”

  The light lowered, revealing a group of Zimorodok police officers in blue uniforms with hard faces. Detective Eliot Ness was the one holding the flashlight, blocking the only escape route. Behind them, an iron gate marked the boundary of the tunnel system. Through the bars, the open night and the lights of the city’s outskirts were visible.

  The detective stepped closer, examining the documents George handed him. He read them under the beam of his flashlight, his expression shifting from skepticism to resigned recognition.

  “Sealed documents for priority diplomatic passage,” he murmured. “And signed by—”

  “By me, Louis,” said a voice from the shadows beyond the gate.

  A man stepped into the light. Tall, with a trench coat open over an impeccable suit, and an expression of cultivated annoyance born of having seen too much. Louis Renault, chief inspector of the Zimorodok police, friend of Rick Blaine and, according to rumor, the most pragmatic man in the city.

  “Inspector Renault,” George nodded, visibly relieved.

  Renault looked at him, took one last drag, and flicked the cigarette butt to the ground, crushing it under the toe of his shoe.

  “George Bailey. Bedford Falls must be very quiet tonight for you to be wandering around here, mixed up in… this.” His gesture encompassed the distant smoke and sirens.

  “There’s always work to be done, Inspector.”

  “I ought to arrest you for disturbing public order. Your little war in Rick’s café has had half the city on edge.” Renault lit a cigarette with deliberate calm. “But Rick is an old friend. And his… recommendations carry weight. Besides,” he added, exhaling a plume of smoke, “I have higher orders not to interrupt certain diplomatic transits on Christmas Eve, despite the quarantine protocol. Strange, isn’t it?”

  He looked at the group one by one: the wounded child, the tiny fairy, the harpy with ruffled feathers, the distinguished-looking jeweler. He shook his head.

  “The city is getting very strange, even by my standards. Rick says you need to cross the cordon without questions.” He opened the gate with a gesture. “I say the sooner you leave Zimorodok, the better for everyone. Besides, if I stand around much longer, I’ll have to pretend I’m doing my job.”

  “Thank you, Inspector,” Drosselmeyer said with a slight bow.

  “Don’t thank me. I’m just avoiding paperwork.” Renault let them through. “Out there, there’s a carriage waiting. It’s not mine—it arrived half an hour ago with a driver who insists he’s here to pick up a certain ‘Herr Drosselmeyer’ for a party at the Stahlbaum house. Apparently, his niece is quite impatient.”

  Drosselmeyer smiled for the first time in hours—a genuine, warm smile. “Oh, my carriage! Excellent.”

  “I must admit the coachman is certainly a persistent fellow if he’s come all the way here just to finish his job.”

  “And for me,” Erina said, her voice more vulnerable than they had heard before. “Is there… anything for me?”

  Renault looked at her, his gaze tinged with sadness.

  “I regret to inform you that your case is far more complicated than we expected.”

  “I believe that, in your case, you won’t be able to find the way home—or the person you’re looking for—tonight.”

  “But one of our best agents has offered to forgo rest and personally see to resolving your problem.”

  “Special Operations Agent of the CSS and clockmaker, Clarence Odbody.”

  The inspector nodded toward Clarence, who had appeared silently beside the gate. Only the silhouette of his body was visible—his elegant Mafia suit and a face hidden by his hat, save for his smile.

  “Your case, Erina, is certainly different from the rest.”

  "Unfortunately, I think your prince is in another castle."

  “We have someone else searching for you without knowing it—the Emperor who looks for redemption. Perhaps that is the one you are looking for.”

  “But we were in the wrong place and at the wrong time, so we must set things in motion.”

  “The boss’s plan is a rather strange one, and yet as precise as a clockwork mechanism.”

  “I can’t help but remain impressed by every single step.”

  Erina nodded, a tear sliding down her feathered cheek. She turned toward César and Tifa.

  “You… were my first true company in a very long time. Thank you.”

  Tifa flew from César’s shoulder and rested for a moment on Erina’s hand.

  “Find him,” the fairy whispered.

  “May your story have a happy ending. I’m sure César will love to see that you managed to be happy after all.”

  “I’m certain we’ll meet again someday, at some point.”

  César, with the solemnity of a knight, made a small bow.

  “Take care, Lady Erina.”

  With one last farewell, the harpy and the weary angel melted into the shadows of the alley, heading toward a different quest and a patrol car—one that would finally lead her to her new permanent home.

  Inspector Renaul remained with the boy and the fairy, reading a document handed to him by Detective Eliot Ness.

  “We’ve managed to identify them.”

  “The boy is César—the same one from the rumors, a real headache for the higher-ups.”

  “The fairy is his companion, from years later.”

  “In theory, these two shouldn’t be together right now.”

  “We need to return them to the exact moment they came from, or we’ll be demoted to writing parking tickets again.”

  “Damn it, how do people like them end up here in the first place?”

  “Prepare the patrol—sirens and all. The terminal is about thirty minutes from here. We need to get there in ten, before midnight.”

  “Yes sir, right away.”

  “And you, Mr. George, please go back home. It’s Christmas Eve.”

  “You should be with your family. You’ve already done more than enough good deeds. Go and rest where you belong.”

  The police patrol cut through the streets of Zimorodok with urgency, sirens wailing nonstop and lights spinning, painting the snowy fa?ades with fleeting blue and red flashes. César, slumped in the back seat with Tifa curled against his neck, could barely keep his eyes open. Exhaustion, the pain in his arm, and the accumulated shock of the night had left him in a dazed, resigned stupor.

  Inspector Renault drove with white knuckles gripping the steering wheel.

  “The terminal is in the municipal district, beneath the old clock tower,” he explained curtly to Detective Ness, who sat beside him.

  “Restricted access. Red platinum code.”

  “Only for correction of Dragon-class space-time anomalies, like this one.”

  “It’s almost never used, so pay attention—this is how the CSS treats important people.”

  “They call it preferential treatment.”

  They arrived at a gray, nondescript building, indistinguishable from any other municipal warehouse. After showing credentials and whispering passwords through an armored intercom, a heavy steel door slid down. Inside, the atmosphere changed dramatically.

  It was a cathedral of archaic technology—noir and advanced at the same time. The “Chrono-Spatial Transposition Terminal” looked nothing like a train station, but rather an observatory fused with the forge of a cosmic blacksmith. At the center of a polished black-stone rotunda rose a massive ring of bronzed metal and strange alloys, engraved with runes that seemed to move and constellations that twinkled with their own light. Around it, consoles with crystal spheres filled with steaming liquid, rows of quartz levers, and technicians—some human, others silver-robed elves, others beings of even stranger forms—worked with feverish concentration. The air smelled of ozone, clockwork oil, and something like the air after a storm.

  It was a Portal that connected different worlds at the same time.

  A tall, slender man in an immaculate gray uniform of the “Chronological-Spatial Integrity Authority” approached. He wore thin-framed glasses, his expression one of icy professionalism. His badge read: “Agent Wells.”

  “Inspector. Tifa and the Emperor César, I presume.” His gaze scanned César and Tifa with dispassionate, clinical interest.

  “Temporal signature readings are completely out of phase. Severe desynchronization. The child, especially. His personal timeline is… receding toward an origin node, but contaminated with future resonances. Extremely dangerous—a genuine Apollyon-class threat to the CSS.”

  “If the boy does not return, no one will defeat the dragons or conquer Atlantis.”

  “What will happen to him?” Tifa asked, flying from César’s shoulder to face the agent, her tiny voice trembling but firm.

  “Reinsertion,” Wells said, as if explaining the weather.

  “Each subject must return to their exact point of origin. The child to his bed, on Christmas Eve of his own timeline. You, fairy, to the instant after your disappearance from the room you shared with your… husband.” The agent showed no emotion as he spoke.

  “The process is precise—nothing we haven’t already done dozens of times.”

  “Please leave it in our hands, Lady Tifa.”

  César instinctively grabbed Tifa, his small hand closing gently around her.

  “No… I don’t want to go without her.”

  Tifa’s heart shattered. In his eyes she saw the same protective desperation she would see again and again in the man he would become. But she also saw innocence—pure fear. A child who had killed, who had been wounded, who had known absolute terror. That memory could not go with him. Not yet. Not until the man he would become was strong enough to bear it without breaking.

  “Agent Wells,” Tifa said, gently slipping free from César’s grip and flying to perch on the edge of a console near the man. She lowered her voice to a whisper only he, with his sharp hearing, could catch over the hum of the terminal.

  “There is a protocol… for cases of traumatic contamination, isn’t there? For memories that… shouldn’t be in a mind that isn’t ready yet.”

  “The Emperor went through a very specific process. If something alters it, many things might never happen.”

  Wells looked at her, and for the first time, a flicker of something like understanding—or at least recognition of tragedy—crossed his face.

  “There is. We can’t erase them completely, but we can bury them deep enough.”

  “He will think it was all a dream—a Christmas dream. He himself will forget it on Christmas morning when he opens his presents.”

  “That should prevent his mental state from changing… too early.”

  “But it may cause… sensations of unexplained sadness when he sleeps. The feeling of having lost something important on some mornings when he wakes.”

  “Erase the memories of this night,” Tifa begged, her wings drooping weakly.

  “Erase them all. Of me, of the factory, of the Skaven, of the train, of Zimorodok… of the blood on his hands. Leave him only… the feeling of a strange dream. A bad dream that fades upon waking.”

  “Are you truly sure?”

  “That’s what I want,” Tifa said, and a tiny, diamond-bright tear fell from her cheek, evaporating as it touched the cold console.

  “He will already have enough scars to tend. Enough weight to carry. He doesn’t need the memory of a fairy who loved him too early, and who was too weak to protect him from the truth. Let him suffer for what is to come when he is strong—not now, when he is only a frightened child.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Wells nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “All right.”

  “The procedure will be carried out during the transposition phase. He will feel nothing more than a moment of confusion.”

  “Thank you,” Tifa whispered.

  She turned to César. The boy was looking at her, confused by the hushed voices.

  “Fairy? What’s going on?”

  Tifa flew toward him and settled into his hands, which he cupped together to form a cradle. She looked at him, drinking in every detail of his young face: the wound on his cheek, the dark eyes filled with early courage, the traces of dirt and blood. Her César. The one who was not yet the man he would become.

  “It’s time to go home, César,” she said, with all the sweetness she could gather.

  “You’re going to step into that shining arch, and when you wake up, you’ll be in your bed. It will all have been… a very vivid dream. A Christmas dream.”

  “And you?” he asked, his voice breaking.

  “I have my own way home,” Tifa lied, smiling.

  “But I promise you… I promise you we will see each other again. At another time. At the right moment.”

  “And in that moment you’ll save me from that glass jar and those horrible demons.”

  “Like a great, brave, strong knight. Next time I’ll be the one crying in fear, but you’ll be the one comforting me, just like you helped me today through so many troubles.”

  “Trust yourself more and bravely endure your future. Bad things will happen to you, a lot sad things, but please keep moving forward.”

  “There are many of us who depend on you to save us.”

  “But at the end of that journey, I promise you there will be a warm and beautiful home, with people waiting for your return with a smile.”

  “Where you will never feel forgotten by your family again.”

  “But please, hold on until then.”

  She hesitated, and then, with a love that pierced time itself, she leaned forward and placed a tiny kiss—like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings—upon his forehead. A kiss that carried no magic, except that of farewell.

  César looked at her, and for an instant something seemed to pass through his eyes—a glimpse of agony, of imminent loss.

  “I’m going to miss you, Fairy.”

  “And I you,” Tifa whispered, her words nearly drowned out by the sudden rise in the hum of the Portal.

  Agent Wells stepped forward.

  “Subject César. Please step onto the transfer platform.”

  He guided the boy, still weak and confused, toward a circle engraved on the floor directly in front of the great ring. César turned one last time, searching for Tifa with his eyes. She raised a tiny hand in a gesture of farewell, holding her smile until the muscles in her face ached.

  Wells activated a sequence on his console. The metal ring came to life. With a sound like restrained thunder, the space within it turned into a liquid vortex of amber and silver, slowly spinning. The air crackled with energy.

  “Activating transposition. Temporal coordinates locked. Firing Mnemonic Consoler… now.”

  From the tip of Wells’s device, a pale blue pulse of light, almost imperceptible, reached César just as the vortex enveloped him. The boy blinked, his expression softening as confusion and fear faded away, replaced by a serene emptiness. His eyes closed, as if he were falling into a deep sleep.

  “César!” Tifa cried, unable to contain herself, but her voice was swallowed by the roar of the Portal.

  The boy’s body was gently lifted by the energy of the vortex and absorbed into the spiral of light. For a second, his silhouette was visible at the center of the torrent, floating peacefully. Then, with a blinding flash and a sound like glass shattering in the distance, the Portal closed. The ring fell inert, dark and silent.

  César was gone.

  In a child’s bedroom, on a Christmas Eve long past, a little boy would wake with a start, his heart racing from the echo of a dream he could no longer remember.

  The silence that filled the terminal was deafening. Tifa collapsed, sitting on the cold console, her small shoulders shaking with silent sobs. She had sent her love back to innocence, to a present in which she did not exist. She had chosen to bear alone the memory of their meeting, the certainty of his destiny, and the pain of this separation.

  Agent Wells cleared his throat.

  “Tifa. Your turn. Coordinates set: moment immediately following your disappearance from home, primary timeline.”

  Tifa lifted her head, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. There would be no consolation for her. There would be no memory erased. She would carry this forever: the image of the brave, bloodied child, the promise she had made him, and the knowledge that the road toward the man she loved was paved with this kind of silent sacrifice.

  “I’m ready,” she said, and her voice was no longer that of a frightened fairy, but of a woman who had seen the cost of eternal love.

  She stepped onto the transfer platform. The ring activated again, this time with a warm, golden glow. The vortex that formed smelled of burning firewood and the wool of the blanket she shared with her adult César.

  Without looking back, Tifa closed her eyes and let herself be carried by the current of time, back to her home, to her husband, to a future where he would not remember her… until, at the precise moment, their paths would cross again, and she could love him bearing the full weight of a secret that had protected his childhood heart.

  The Portal closed for the second time. The terminal returned to calm, leaving only the residual hum of machines stitching together the tears in the universe.