My Femboy System

The words "We need to talk" carried many meanings—some mild, some murderous. The tone, company, and whether or not blood was actively dripping from the speaker often served as a decent metric.

In this case, Salem stood panting in the cathedral’s vaulted entrance, smoke curling from his shoulders, ash streaking the edges of his coat, and something that looked suspiciously like bodily residue smoldering faintly along his cheekbone.

So naturally, I assumed the worst.

"I thought you were dead," I said cheerfully, swirling a chalice of stolen sacramental wine while reclined on the chaise lounge I’d forcefully relocated to the nave. "Or worse, involved in something unsexy."

Salem dragged himself in, his boots leaving soot marks along the polished marble, and dropped something wrapped in silk onto the table beside me. "Worse than that," he grunted. "I’ve been reading."

I gagged on the wine. "Saints preserve you. You really have hit rock bottom."

He didn’t smile. Not even a twitch. Instead, he unfurled the silk to reveal a scroll so aged it looked like it had molted in someone’s crypt.

"This was hidden in the secret chamber beneath the ossuary," he said. "Took me three hours, a prayer to a god I don’t believe in, and at least twenty lock picks."

My brows perked. "Impressive."

He laid the scroll down with care. The script was spiderweb-thin, a madman’s ink—scrawled in erratic strokes, as if the author’s hand had been trembling or caffeinated to death.

"This," Salem said, "is a record kept by the last High Priest. No name. Just a title. But there are... conversations. With someone referred to only as ’Her.’ They talk about something called The Maker’s System."