Rocking in her favorite chair, Abi d'Ilga looked up at the night sky. Edrus played the dulcimer to one side. Richan played checkers with Left Attendant to the other. Hermes and Nin played hide and seek with the ghosts of other children who called the Ancient Bailey home. Nhao pretended to be asleep in Abi's lap.
Abi smiled. Nin bounced up.
"Abi," she said. "I've been thinking."
"What have you been thinking, Nin?"
Edrus and Richan looked up.
"Are we going to let the other vampire foxes go?" asked Nin.
"I was thinking about the other vampire foxes too," said Abi.
"Were you really?" asked Nin.
"I was," said Abi. "But we only found the first vampire because you explored your house so well, Nin. The others are also hidden by elven magic, and finding them will be very difficult."
Nin's big eyes got huge.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
All the children present tried to figure out a way to find the other four vampires despite the fact they were hidden by elven magic.
"There must be a pattern!" said Richan.
"Ancient magic always involves patterns," agreed Abi.
"Nin's house was south of the Mound," said Edrus. "There's probably a vampire imprisoned to the west, north, and east."
"That's four," said Nin.
"The fifth is in the middle," said Edrus.
"Right above the First God of War!" said Richan.
All the children who weren't sitting down jumped around excitedly.
"The four directions are reasonable guesses," said Abi. "Assuming one vampire is in the middle."
Nin's big eyes got even bigger.
"What if there isn't one in the middle?" asked Nin.
Abi rocked in her chair a few times.
"If there isn't a vampire in the middle," she said, "then the setup is different."
"How different?" asked Richan suspiciously.
"A pentagrammaton!" said Hermes.
Nin had never heard of a pentagrammaton. Abi explained that it was an occult word, but what Hermes probably meant was a shape with five sides. Hermes nodded enthusiastically. Marquis Yue's Mansion aligned roughly with the middle of the Mound. If the vampire fox demons were arranged as a pentagon, Edrus reasoned, then the most comfortable alignment was one where two vampires were to the north, with one east and another west.
"We're in the west!" said Richan. "Maybe there's a vampire fox demon under us right now!"
Edrus played several haunting chords on his dulcimer.
The fact a vampire fox demon was almost certainly underneath them at that very moment excited all the children.
"How would you look for the vampire underneath us, Edrus?" asked Abi.
"The lump of granite under the Ancient Bailey is full of labyrinths," said Edrus. "I would ask Nin and her friends to explore them."
A hundred little ghosts liked that idea.
"If they find an exclusion spell," said Edrus, "we'll know we're on the right track. Then Nhao can sniff around for a portal to the Gloaming Realm."
Nhao raised his head and nodded.
"Once we know where the portal is," said Edrus, "Abi can cast an astral projection spell, and we can look for the central key. Hermes can get rid of the exclusion spell, and we can go into the tomb."
"This time," said Richan, "we know about the balconies!"
"The tunnels behind the balconies connect to the outside," said Nhao. "Nin and her friends could look for those."
A hundred ghosts cheered.
"The exclusion spell will keep them out," said Edrus.
The little ghosts sighed forlornly. Nin declared the exclusion spell unfair. Abi agreed the spell was unfair, but they could still execute on the plan Edrus described. Nin was put in charge of organize the hundred little ghosts.
"I've also been thinking about something," said Edrus.
"What have you been thinking about, Edrus?" asked Abi.
"What are we going to do with the elven sword Nhao recovered from the vampire?"
A hundred little ghosts wanted to see the legendary Elven sword. Nhao rushed off to collect it, and returned. The kirin puppy adopted the shape of a boy so he could hold the sword in his hands instead of in his mouth. The Elven sword had a long, straight blade which was wider at the top and bottom than in the middle. Delicate lines were engraved into the flat of the blade on both sides. Despite being at least ten thousand years old, the sword's metal gleamed like a mirror. Nhao manipulated the blade well. As a celestial being, he was an expert swordsman.
"It's so pretty!" said Nin. "What are we going to do with it?"
"Give it to Abi's pet thief?" asked Nhao.
"We can't do that," said Abi. "It will take over his mind."
A hundred ghosts gasped. Would the sword take over Nhao's mind?
"Impossible," Nhao assured them. "My mind is like a diamond."
Then he pretended to walk around like a puppet. The little ghosts cried out in alarm.
"Nhao is teasing you," said Abi.
Nhao apologized.
"Maybe the thief would benefit from having his mind taken over," suggested Edrus.
"You are incorrigible!" said Abi. "But I have something else in mind."
"No secrets!" insisted Richan.
A hundred little ghosts agreed that secrets weren't fair.
"My plan is not fully formed," said Abi. "These things take time. But we'll figure out a way for my pet thief to tell his Abbot he's found a sword too dangerous to carry back to Jian Peak Abbey."
"We might even find another sword soon!" said Richan.
"That's right, Richan!" cheered Nin.
"Five legendary swords," said Edrus. "Are you worried Jian Peak Abbot would kill your pet thief if he brought the sword back to the Abbey?"
"It's possible," agreed Abi.
"That would be a terrible thing to do!" protested Nin.
"Despicable!" agreed Richan.
Edrus played a soothing song. Abi rocked her chair a while and admired the stars. Nin started to instruct her ghostly friends in the art of exploring spooky labyrinths. Nhao performed several celestial sword dances.
Then he stopped for no apparent reason.
"Are you going to kill Jian Peak Abbot when he comes to get the sword?" Nhao asked.
Edrus stopped playing. Everyone looked at Abi.
"Maybe," said Abi.
"Absolutely not!" insisted a small white mouse standing on Abi's fruit table.
Nhao growled, and insisted the mouse hadn't been there a moment earlier.
"I was wondering when you would show up again," groaned Abi.
"Should I eat him?" asked Nhao. "Cats eat mice!"
"Killing and eating will only make the situation worse," said the Grand Preceptor. "Because of events you set in motion, we have a vital task."
"Communicating with the Asamati Polemarch?" asked Edrus.
"Exactly that, young man!" agreed the mouse. "It's too bad you're not in charge."
"You tried to get him killed!" protested Abi.
The mouse jumped around angrily, and insisted that Abi was distorting the record.
"You're the sage," said Abi. "You're supposed to be looking into our task."
"You're an oracle," said the Grand Preceptor. "You should be looking into it too."
"I've been waiting for inspiration," said Abi. "But the Asamati Polemarch is sealed inside a prison constructed by the First Elven Emperor. That's tough for inspiration to overcome."
The mouse paced back and forward on the table.
"You can't do nothing just because the problem is tough!" he said.
"I'm not doing nothing!" said Abi. "I'm contemplating!"
"Now is not the time for contemplation!" retorted the mouse. "We must act!"
"You're personality as a mouse is completely opposite what it was as the Grand Preceptor," said Edrus.
"I am still the Grand Perceptor!"
"Well, we are acting!" cried Abi. "Edrus has a plan to find the next vampire. Nin is training her spectral regiment to explore the labyrinths."
Erdus strummed a tune. Nin and her regiment saluted.
"That's not enough!" protested the mouse.
"What more do you want!?" cried Abi.
"We need to raid Moonlight Chamber's secret archives!" cried the mouse right back.
Abi sat up in her chair and blinked at him several times.
"No, seriously," she said. "Who are you and what have you done with the Grand Preceptor?"
"I am the Grand Preceptor!"
"Is he trying to trick us into a trap?" asked Richan.
"He's not an Elf," said Iba Algi. "What does Moonlight Chamber know?"
"Nothing," said the Grand Preceptor.
"That's what I thought," said Abi. "In fact, they participated in the First Charlattan's usurpation."
The mouse tried to pull out his hair, then realized his paws didn't work like that.
"The past is done," he said.
"That's the kind of thing guilty people say to avoid responsibility," replied Abi.
"Moonlight Chamber's archives include detailed maps of the Imperial Mound," said the mouse.
"An astral raid?" asked Abi.
"A stealth mission," said the Grand Preceptor. "Get the kirin to the right place, and he can steal the maps without a fuss."
Nhao flashed his elven sword through several cuts.
"I like the mouse's plan," he said.
The mouse gestured triumphantly toward the kirin.
"There will be a fuss," said Abi. "Moonlight Chamber has demon hunters and exorcists. The easiest thing to do is just kill them."
"No, no, no!" said the mouse. "Why are you so bloodthirsty?"
"I'm aggrieved! You conspired to depose my ancestor!"
"Your ancestor wanted someone else to be Emperor!"
"Mom!" yelled Abi.
Abi's mother calmed the situation with a special shaved ice and fruit dessert.