Sael and Richter spent most of the day visiting the corrupted professors in their homes, beating each one to near-death before purging the Corruption from their bodies.

  And then heal them, of course.

  It was methodical work. Exhausting, not physically—Sael could have done this for weeks without tiring—but mentally. Each professor required the same careful calibration: enough damage to trigger the Corruption's survival instinct, precise enough not to kill the host outright. Then the purification spell at exactly the right moment, followed by healing extensive trauma while the former host sobbed or screamed or stared at nothing, processing what they'd been made to do.

  By the fifth professor, Sael had refined the process down to a grim efficiency. But unfortunately, the intelligence gathered proved disappointingly sparse.

  Most of them knew very little beyond their immediate circle. The network's compartmentalization was thorough, almost paranoid in its design. Each professor had been recruited individually, often years apart, chosen for what they could specifically contribute to the Corruption's goals rather than for any broader strategic value.

  One specialized in warding theory and had been maintaining protective enchantments around certain meeting sites; places where the Corrupted could gather without detection, discuss their findings, coordinate their search.

  Another had access to restricted archive sections and had been slowly copying forbidden texts, ancient references to primordial entities, methods of binding or summoning, anything that might lead them closer to understanding how to locate or create a suitable host.

  A third managed the university's rare manuscripts collection and had been researching historical accounts of exceptional individuals, those with unusual magical affinities or bloodlines that might prove compatible.

  But their actual lives were remarkably normal. They taught their classes. They graded papers. They attended faculty meetings and complained about budget cuts and maintained cordial relationships with colleagues. The Corruption simply gave them an additional purpose, a secondary agenda that ran parallel to their ordinary existence.

  And crucially, none of them had bothered with students at the Astra Academy itself.

  It made sense, really. Their goal was finding a host for the Primordial, not recruiting an army. Students were irrelevant to that objective. The Corrupted needed researchers who could access obscure knowledge, specialists who could identify potential candidates, protectors who could secure their operations. So the Astra Academy's student body had remained untouched, at least for now. A small mercy, though it did nothing to provide Sael with his next lead.

  By the time they finished with the last professor—a quiet man who taught history and had been cross-referencing genealogical records with documented cases of magical anomalies—the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon.

  Sael healed his fractured skull and broken jaw, watched him slump against his bookshelf in numb silence, and felt the familiar weight of frustrated futility settle over him.

  All these people purged, yet zero useful leads.

  The cart ride back should have taken them directly to the duchy. Sael settled into his seat, prepared for the return journey, watching the countryside roll past as workers continued their frantic preparations for the King's birthday celebration.

  Then the cart slowed and Sael glanced out the window only to find that they weren't at the duchy. They weren't even in the general city proper anymore. This was the outskirts.

  The cart came to a complete stop as Sael looked at Richter, one eyebrow raised in silent question.

  Richter smiled wide enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes and stepped out of the cart. Sael followed, because apparently they weren't going back to the duchy yet.

  He knew this place.

  The dirt path, the way it curved just so before opening into a small clearing. The ancient oak tree standing guard at the property's edge, its branches wider now but the same gnarled shape he remembered.

  The house itself sat nestled into a gentle hillside in that distinctive halfling style—though no halflings had ever lived here—with round windows and a door painted green that was just slightly too small for someone of Sael's height. Not inconveniently so, but enough that he'd had to develop the habit of ducking. He could, of course, have made it larger by magic, but he never had. The first few times he struck his head on the lintel had been accidents; after that, it became deliberate—an easy, harmless thing he could do on the days when Eirlys was sad, because seeing him hit his head like an idiot on the doorframe never failed to draw uncontrollable laughter from her.

  The roof was thatched, well-maintained from the look of it, and smoke curled lazily from the stone chimney.

  Someone had been keeping the place up.

  The garden had expanded since his time here. Neat rows of vegetables, herb boxes beneath the windows, flowering vines climbing trellises that hadn't existed before. Everything carefully tended, clearly loved. A stone path wound through it, the same stones he'd laid himself, though the moss had claimed more of them now.

  Beyond the house, perhaps fifty yards distant, he could hear the river. The sound of it hadn't changed. Still that particular gentle rushing, not quite a babble and not quite a roar. It was constant, clean and exactly as he remembered.

  "I'd hoped to see you more often," Richter said, clasping his hands behind his back as he surveyed the property. "And I suspected that would be the case from now on. So it seemed logical that you should have a place suitable to dwell in while you're here in Orlys."

  Sael opened his mouth—he had his cloud for that, perfectly comfortable, no need for—then closed it again. Richter was still talking, and interrupting felt unnecessarily rude.

  "At first, I arranged for a suite in the castle itself," Richter continued. "Private quarters, your own staff, maids, the whole business that someone of your station would typically—"

  Not at all, Sael thought.

  "—but Great Aunt Margaret informed me you would absolutely hate that."

  Sael's opinion of Little Margaret's perceptiveness increased marginally.

  Richter turned to face him fully, expression somewhere between apologetic and pleased with himself. "So Great Aunt Margaret asked me to renovate the home you and your wife, Lady Eirlys, lived in when you were still teaching here. When you were acting as the first headmaster of the Academy, centuries ago."

  Sael stared at the house.

  He'd assumed it had fallen into disrepair, been reclaimed by the wilderness or bought by someone else after enough time passed that the property records got confused about who actually owned it. He knew his old house in Gatsby had become a historical place people would visit, not out of reverence so much as curiosity. He didn’t resent it; he just found it strange, the idea of strangers walking through rooms where he’d once lived, running their fingers along banisters he’d worn smooth without ever meaning to. Stranger still that those ordinary, absentminded touches had become something worth preserving.

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  "Margaret's been maintaining it," Richter said, answering the unspoken question. "She didn't want to presume, but she thought... well. She thought you might come back eventually."

  The garden made sense now.

  "I had the interior updated," Richter continued. "Nothing dramatic, the structure's sound, and Margaret was quite insistent I not change the 'character' of the place. But new furniture where the old had rotted, fresh paint, that sort of thing. Modern conveniences while keeping the same feel." He paused. "I hope that's acceptable."

  Sael continued staring at the house.

  "If you'd prefer the castle suite after all—"

  "No." The word came out rougher than Sael intended. He cleared his throat. "This is... fine."

  'Fine' was an understatement of criminal proportions, but Sael had never been particularly skilled at expressing gratitude for things that hit too close to memories he generally preferred to keep locked away in the part of his mind labeled 'do not open unless you want to spend three days being useless and maudlin.'

  Richter seemed to understand anyway. His smile softened into something more sympathetic. "Margaret left the key under the blue pot by the door. She said you'd know which one."

  Of course he knew which one. Eirlys had painted it blue specifically so they could remember which pot hid the spare key.

  The river continued its gentle rushing in the background, the smoke continued curling from the chimney, and Sael continued standing there like an idiot, looking at a house he hadn't seen in centuries, trying very hard not to feel anything in particular about it.

  Sael inhaled deeply.

  The air still carried it—that particular quality he couldn't quite name. It felt... well, it felt like better days.

  This wasn't so much worse than the cloud, he supposed. Actually, if he was being honest with himself, it was significantly better.

  He looked at Richter. "Thank you. Truly."

  The Duke's face went red, which seemed quite out of character for him. He waved his hands in a gesture that was probably meant to be dismissive but came across more like he was trying to physically bat away the gratitude.

  "Archmage, please," Richter said, voice strangled. "It's nothing, really, you don't need to—I mean, it's the least I could do, considering everything, and Great Aunt Margaret did most of the actual work anyway, I just arranged for the funds and the laborers and mages, so really, you should be thanking her more than me, and—" He seemed to realize he was rambling and cut himself off. "Please think nothing of it."

  Sael blinked at him, surprised to see this side of the man. You truly never completely knew someone, huh.

  Richter cleared his throat, recovering some of his composure. "The house is fully supplied. Food, firewood, linens, everything you should need. You're welcome to go in and look around now, if you'd like."

  "I would," Sael said.

  And before neither of them could take even one step toward the house, a sound cut through the moment: the distinctive beat of pegasus wings, powerful and rhythmic. Both of them turned to see the white-winged horse descending from the sky, a messenger in the duchy's colors astride its back. The pegasus landed with surprising grace for something that large, hooves touching down on the grass without so much as disturbing the garden beds.

  The messenger dismounted quickly and bowed, first to Richter, then—after a moment's hesitation, as if remembering protocol—to Sael as well.

  "Your Grace," the messenger said, slightly breathless. "Archmage. My apologies for the interruption."

  "What is it?" Richter asked, his tone shifting immediately from embarrassed to business-like.

  "Lord Steward Carrickford requests your presence, Your Grace. A foreign matter has arisen. The council has been summoned, and they await you to preside."

  Richter's expression tightened marginally. "Bad news?"

  "I don't know, Your Grace." The messenger's face was carefully neutral. "I'm not certain of the details. But Lord Carrickford's tone was..." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Not happy."

  Richter hesitated, glancing back at the house, then at Sael.

  "You should go," Sael said. "I'll be here anyway. If you want to visit."

  "I would like that." Richter's expression softened. "We should have a meal together here soon. Once you're settled in."

  "I'd like that as well."

  Richter nodded, then turned to Oz, who had been remarkably quiet throughout the entire exchange. "Goodbye, sir Ozyaranthes."

  Oz did not answer.

  The messenger's face underwent a fascinating journey of expressions: confusion, uncertainty, the dawning realization that the Duke had just addressed a chicken, and finally a very careful neutrality that suggested he'd decided not to think too hard about what he'd just witnessed. He said nothing, which was probably the wisest course of action available to him.

  Richter mounted the pegasus behind the messenger. The creature's wings spread wide, muscles bunching as it prepared for takeoff. Three powerful beats later, they were airborne, rising quickly into the late afternoon sky.

  Sael and Oz stood in front of the house, watching them go until they became a speck in the distance.

  Then they were alone with the garden, the river, the smoke from the chimney, and a house that held too many memories for Sael to count.

  Oz looked up at him and Sael looked down at Oz.

  "I think the entrance needs a sign like: 'Beware of Chicken.' You’re grumpy enough to justify it," Sael said.

  Oz's expression suggested he had several opinions about the situation but was graciously choosing not to voice them at this particular moment.

  The blue pot sat by the door, exactly where it should be. The key would be underneath it.

  Sael took a breath and walked toward the house.

  Sael lifted the blue pot and found the key underneath was exactly as ridiculous as he'd expected.

  He picked it up, turning it over in his palm, and a sound escaped him; somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh, though it leaned more toward the former. The key itself was functional enough, standard iron with the teeth filed to match the lock, but Eirlys had wrapped the bow in copper wire twisted into an intricate spiral pattern, then hammered small brass stars into the metal at intervals. Decorative, completely unnecessary and utterly characteristic.

  They'd never needed a key, really. The wards on the house responded to him and Eirlys, but she'd started that business—metalworking, smithing, key-making—and once she got interested in something, she committed to it.

  He'd introduced her to blacksmithing. A mistake, in retrospect, though not one he regretted. She'd taken to it immediately, spent hours at the forge he'd built for her in the back, emerging covered in soot and grinning like she'd discovered something profound about the nature of reality. Which, knowing Eirlys, she probably had.

  The keys came first. Simple work, she'd said, good for learning precision. Then came the decorative elements, wire wrapping, embossing, inlay work. Then swords. Then axes. Then increasingly elaborate weapons that served no practical purpose but looked spectacular mounted on walls.

  Sael had kept several of them after she died. He wasn't sure where they were now. Somewhere. Probably in storage, mixed in with the accumulated debris of several lifetimes.

  He slid the key into the lock. It turned smoothly, well-oiled, and the door swung open.

  The interior was pacious. Far more spacious than the exterior suggested, which was exactly how it had been before. The entry hall stretched out for a good ten meters, wood-paneled walls glowing warm in the late afternoon light filtering through the round windows. The ceiling arched overhead, higher than it had any right to be, with exposed beams that Sael had carved decorative Tellem runes into centuries ago.

  The house felt lived-in despite being empty. It was warm and cozy.

  Sael stepped inside fully, ducking slightly out of habit as Oz followed, talons clicking on the wooden floor.

  They stood there for a moment, Sael taking in the space, Oz presumably doing whatever Oz did when he surveyed new territory.

  Then the chicken spoke.

  "It is not a bad place."

  Sael looked down at him.

  Oz looked back, expression as grumpy as ever, but the words hung in the air between them like something significant had just occurred.

  "Hmm," Sael agreed.

  And it wasn't. Despite the day they'd had—the violence, the screaming and the sobbing and the blank stares of people processing what they'd been made to do—this felt like therapy. It hurt to hurt people. Even people who were corrupted.

  He walked further in, exploring rooms he hadn't seen in centuries but remembered with perfect clarity. Everything had been maintained, updated where necessary, but kept fundamentally the same.

  Sael decided needed to show this to Orion and Ilsa. Also, he'd been gone to Ashams, and tradition dictated he bring candied peanuts to Little Margaret after traveling.

  He closed his eyes and sensed for Orion's location through Erwyn was. There. It wasn't that far, still in Orlys proper, somewhere in the northern district if Sael's mental geography hadn't failed him.

  He opened his eyes and looked at Oz.

  "Would you like to come?"

  Oz didn't answer verbally. He simply walked toward the door, talons clicking against the wood. Sael followed him out, locked the door behind them, and slipped the ornate key into his pocket.

  Sael took three steps down the path before he stopped. His frown came first, then the full halt, one foot planted mid-stride. Oz turned back, head cocking to the side.

  "What was it?"

  "Young Orion," Sael said.

  Oz's beady eyes narrowed. "What about him?"

  Sael's awareness of Erwyn had sharpened the moment he'd started actively tracking it, and now that connection hummed with something else: movement, rapid and violent, the staff cutting through air in patterns Sael recognized instantly.

  "It seems he is fighting."