GRIMSBY'S GUT WAS A MIXED STORM OF EMOTIONS.

He felt like lying on the ground and curling into a ball.  He felt like punching a wall.  He felt like breaking something beautiful.

But mostly, he just felt like crap.

The last hour had been a whirlwind of confusion, fear, and pain, and he needed a break.

"Grimsby?" Carla said, poking her head from her office door.  "Are the Auditors gone?"

"Yeah."

"Good."  She breathed a sigh of relief, then looked at the clock.  "We've only got an hour until the next party arrives.  I want you to clean up the bathrooms and the castle and - and Jesus, clean yourself up while you're at it."

He took a deep breath.  He wanted to scream and throw something heavy at her, but where else could he make a living on his magic?  Instead, he only said, "Yeah.  Fine."

"And don't forget to water down that disinfectant; last time you used too much.  I'm not made of money.  Oh, and -" Carla continued to call after him, but he tuned her out.

He made his way to the men's restroom and let the door slam shut behind him, blotting out her voice to a muffled mumbling.  He went to the sink, leaning on the cold porcelain and staring into the hard mirror.  He pushed down the natural anxiety he felt around the reflections.  Mirrors were about as close to the Elsewhere as they were to the real world.  But as long as he was careful, he would be fine.

He looked at his face and realized what a mess he was.  His dark hair was short enough that it was usually not a hygienic concern, but right now it looked like someone had half skinned a black cat and glued it to his head.  His burning scars had scorched through both T-shirt and tutu, leaving several patches of skin bare along his left shoulder and arm.  In the gaps, ash had painted his gnarled skin a sickly shade of gray.  His eyes were red and bleary, each with a line of semiclean skin that cut through the ash on his cheeks.  He realized that at some point he had been crying.  Probably in front of Rayne, no less.

He would have been embarrassed if he had any room left inside.

"Odd's Bodkin, Grimsby," he cursed himself.  "Get it together."

He ran the tap and splashed cold water on his face.  It came away in a murky gray color.  He grabbed a handful of paper towels and dampened them to start cleaning off the ash.  It was some minutes and many handfuls of paper later before they came away mostly clean.  He looked vaguely more human, even if he didn't feel it.

Just as he had scooped the blackened paper towels into the garbage, the door to the restroom swung open, the sudden creak of its hinges shattering the hushed silence.

He looked over his reflection's shoulder to see the skeletal man - Mayflower, that was his name.  His narrow face was gaunt, shadowed, and thunderous.  Grimsby expected that the man wasn't pleased with how their last conversation had ended.