Someone died. Likely murdered. Nobody, and I mean nobody, called us for anything less. The police existed, of course. They just couldn’t handle what we did.

  I liked my job. Not sure about Frederick.

  He sat beside me—messy black hair, tidy black clothes, pale as a corpse. The carriage was too small for him, his chin almost touching his curled-up knees.

  He stared into nothing. I never knew what was going on behind those glassy eyes, and he didn’t say either.

  “Connie,” he blurted out, making me jump in my seat.

  “Yes, Fred?”

  “Did you remember to bring the box?”

  My lips twitched in frustration. I’m not sure what else I was expecting him to say.

  “I did,” I said.

  That was it. He fell silent again.

  I pulled my hair back with a sigh, then saw my fingers—ball-jointed articulations. They were quite pretty, I thought. Durable too, as I only had to replace them occasionally.

  I’m a living marionette. The first, and only, of my kind, as far as I knew.

  Frederick is my maker.

  The scenery changed outside when Savio cried out from the driver’s seat, “We’re almost there!”

  I shoved my head through the window. “Thank you, Savio!”

  A countryside mansion came into view. The lights on the lower floor were on even though it was late at night.

  My stomach churned as the building grew closer, bigger, then loomed over us like a black-furred mammoth.

  I hopped off as soon as we stopped, then grabbed the box from under Savio’s seat.

  “Good luck,” he said to me, but his eyes were on Fred, a worried look beneath his neatly combed gray hair.

  “I’ll take care of him,” I said.

  A faint smile curled on his lips. “I know.”

  Light spilled outside through the open front doors; Fred stood in front of them, staring at the upper floor.

  I approached him. “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” He went in, ignoring the young butler who stood by the door. “We’ll see.”

  I couldn’t see anything other than dusty old windows above.

  Keep me in the dark again, then, why not?

  I followed him with a sigh. I always did.

  Today, however, I was determined to make a complaint to him after we solved this case.

  The butler frowned as I passed, then diverted his eyes.

  But that didn’t make him guilty of anything other than being intolerant—most people looked at me like that.

  I stuck my tongue out at him as I went in. I don’t think he noticed. Good.

  We entered unannounced. Inside, a family of aristocrats whispered among themselves and didn’t notice us. A long object wrapped in a white canvas peeked out from behind them.

  It looked like a body. The red spot on the side confirmed it for me.

  Fred faked a cough as we stopped in the middle of the entrance hall. They turned to us as if they’d seen a pair of ghosts.

  “You’re here!” A bald gentleman emerged from the group and walked towards him. “Oh my, I hadn’t seen you—”

  The man halted, his semblance turning sour as his eyes fell on me.

  My head tilted.

  “Could you please take this thing out of my house?” he asked.

  My arms tightened around the box as I turned to Fred.

  He slipped his hands inside the pockets of his coat.

  I was ready to protest when his dark lips finally parted.

  “I think not,” he said.

  I suppressed a smile, my chest aching a little.

  “But…” The man shrank under his stare. Realizing Fred wouldn’t budge, his hand fell to his side in defeat. “Just don’t let it touch anything.”

  That’d make work bloody hard, wouldn’t it? What does he think I am, a thief?

  “Understood.” Fred followed the man back to the family.

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  I gawked at my maker in disbelief.

  “Hmpf!” And scurried after him anyway.

  He wanted to inspect the body first.

  I peeked inside as the strings holding the canvas came loose.

  It was a man, the spitting image of the one we just talked to, except this one had hair.

  Fred slid his fingers across the edge of the canvas towards the red stain, then stopped.

  I took a step back, my curiosity sated for a season—something big had opened this man’s belly like a can, gruesome claw marks carved around the wound.

  “Bear?” I felt sick. “But then…”

  Why did they call us?

  Fred glanced back at the family.

  They looked scared.

  “Fred, what’s going on?”

  “There are no bears around these parts.”

  “An accident, then?”

  “No. It was definitely a bear,” he said to my surprise.

  “How is that…” The words escaped my mouth when I noticed that, for some reason, they kept a safe distance from each other, almost as a rule.

  “Did you get any visitors recently?” he asked them.

  They shook their heads in unison.

  “Okay.” Fred swiveled to face them. “Connie, it’s time to crack open the box.”

  “Eh, already? Why?”

  “There’s a werebear among us.”

  From the outside, it looked like a giant spider had wrapped the mansion in webs, white marionette threads in front of every door, every window. Fred and Savio took a couple of hours to deploy them as I watched the family, including the butler, on my own. Nobody leaves—his orders.

  He came back with a pair of threads and pulled me into another room, leaving Savio in my place. The valet smiled awkwardly at the terrified aristocrats, sweating the collar of his shirt.

  Click. Fred flicked the switch behind him.

  This service room was big enough for the two of us and no one else.

  Is this allowed?

  He was so close. I didn’t know what to do with my eyes.

  I yelped when his fingers slipped under my vest and shirt, cold to the touch. They began to work.

  My nervous system was accessible from the outside if you knew where to look for it, believe it or not. He did.

  I couldn’t help but shiver when the threads touched my spine.

  Fred raised his eyes. “Tight?”

  I shook my head, holding back another embarrassing noise.

  He continued.

  What the hell. Maybe this is a good time for that complaint—

  Something tugged at my waist.

  Maybe not.

  “Done.” He stood back again. “Now nobody steps outside this mansion without your knowledge.”

  I looked down, white threads protruding from my clothes like antennas. “Really?”

  “I adjusted the tension so that the wind and bugs won’t bother you at night, for the most part.”

  “Do you think we’re going to spend the night here?”

  “Yes.” He flicked the lights off. “Time to speak to the family.”

  Ah, yes, the natural step after stringing me up in a closet.

  I followed him out of the room, playing a whole argument inside my head.

  Nobody had moved much, but they fidgeted more after the thread lockdown, aside from the butler, who remained composed and professional.

  Fred took a seat behind the table they brought to him. “Judging by the rigor mortis, your brother has been dead for at least a day. Can you confirm?”

  “Yes.” Lord Mulberry, the bald aristocrat, pulled the collar of his shirt. “We found Sebastian last night.”

  “Who’s we?”

  Oh, our first little lie.

  Mulberry’s features twisted. “Me. I found him.”

  “What were you doing before you found him?”

  “I was the one who called you.” He slammed the table. “I didn’t kill my brother!”

  I scurried closer to Fred, in case the man tried something funny. The aristocrat glanced back and forth at me, red-faced, and I bet he was about to throw us out.

  But something in his eyes held him back.

  Fred noticed it, too.

  He raised his hands and said calmly. “Okay.”

  Mulberry’s wife sat down next, a rotund woman with a massive white wig on her head. “I-I didn’t see anything.”

  “What were you doing when your husband found Sebastian?”

  “Nothing, I swear!”

  Fred’s fingertips tapped against the table. “Nobody here does anything until a man is found dead.”

  She glanced back at Mulberry and lowered her voice. “I was writing letters to my family, inside my boudoir.”

  “Sebastian was found outside in the garden, correct?”

  She nodded.

  Fred leaned back in his chair. “That will do.”

  Another family member took her seat as she left with a sigh. Then another one... the same answers surfaced—nothing, nowhere, no one.

  The butler came down last.

  “What about you? What’s your name?”

  “Edgar Kemper, sir.” The man was unfazed, unlike his employers. “I was in the city at Lady Mulberry’s orders.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I’ve arrived at the estate this morning.”

  Fred frowned. “That’s not what I asked.”

  Edgar pushed his glasses back in place.

  “My apologies,” he said. “I was delivering letters.”

  Fred glanced past him. “This family seems to trust you a lot.”

  “Edgar has been with us for years,” Mulberry said. “I trust him more than myself some days.”

  “What about the other servants?”

  That had been nagging at the back of my head since we arrived. I didn’t see any other servant aside from the butler, which was strange for a household of this caliber.

  Mulberry opened his mouth, but Edgar spoke up instead as if he owned the place. “There are none.”

  Fred’s gaze lingered on him a second too long.

  Edgar didn’t blink.

  The lord didn’t seem to mind.

  “We only hire helpers occasionally,” Edgar said.

  “This must make running the estate difficult.”

  Edgar nodded. “I’m used to it. Lord Mulberry doesn’t trust outsiders, as we had many cases of theft in the past.”

  Holy paranoia.

  “Is that so?” Fred scratched his head. “That’ll be all, Edgar.”

  The interrogatory was over. Fred pushed himself to his feet.

  “Can we bury my lord’s brother yet?” Edgar asked. “It’s starting to smell…”

  Fred glanced at the body. “We’ll do it ourselves. I would much rather that you all lock yourselves inside your rooms for the night.”

  “In that case...” Edgar stood up as the family began to disperse. “Allow me to show you to your rooms.”

  “Aren’t you so kind?”

  I checked the doors once the family had retreated to their rooms on the upper floor. If what Lady Mulberry said was true, then she couldn’t be the werebear—her chambers were too deep inside the mansion.

  But who knew what was true in this strange household?

  Lightning cracked like a whip in the sky as I stepped outside looking for Fred; thin rain began to pour.

  Our carriage was empty, the two nowhere to be found. I went around the mansion, the threads following me like tails, careful not to get them stuck in the corners.

  I halted as something caught my attention—Fred forgot to string up one of the exits. It was a wooden portcullis, with weeds growing around it.

  Should I cover it up?

  I searched for excess thread around me, but, afraid of messing with the rest of the setup, I ultimately decided not to touch it.

  I’ll let him know.

  Fred and Savio appeared near the woods as I reached the back of the mansion. They were busy digging a grave for Sebastian, his wrapped-up body on a cart nearby.

  I approached them, unable to erase the smug grin I had on my face. “Fred, you forgot to cover the wine cellar’s exit. Do you want me to fix it?”

  Rain and sweat mixed on his face, sleeves rolled all the way back. He sat back on the cart and rested his hands on top of the shovel.

  “Leave it,” he said, like a bucket of ice on my head.

  I frowned.

  Fred didn’t leave loose knots.

  “Are you sure? This doesn’t seem like you…”

  He looked at the dark windows above rather than paying attention to me. Again.

  What’s so darn special about them?

  I jumped when a man’s silhouette flashed behind the glass with another lightning bolt, his gaze set on us.

  Fred’s lips curled up at the corners, the kind of half-smile that only showed up when we were neck-deep in a nasty case.