Blood-drenched mud squelched between Ethan’s toes as he ran barefoot through the skeletal grove, its gnarled trees standing like gaunt sentinels in the dark.

  He dodged left to avoid a trunk, veered right past a thorned bush, vaulted over the legless corpse of a redcoat, and slid beneath the shattered remains of a Falchovarian twelve-pounder.

  Its iron flank bore the olden motto in weather-worn relief: ‘Ultima Ratio Regum’. Only now, the word ‘Regum’ had been chiselled out and crudely overwritten with ‘Republica’.

  Mist expelled from his mouth with every laboured breath, forming a translucent plume that dissipated into the frozen air. The December chill had tightened its grip on the land; by dawn, all this bog would be solid as stone. His boots – once finely elegant, now irretrievably mired somewhere behind him – would freeze along with it.

  He lamented their loss – not with sentiment, but with pragmatic regret. The leather had been carved from a Vorepeiran monstrosity’s corpse and stitched by a gnomish artisan. Resilient, handsome, comfortable. A pity to leave them to rot in mud and blood.

  “I heard something! Get over there and look!” a bluecoat sergeant bellowed in Falchovarian, just ahead.

  Ethan swore silently. He altered course, weaving through sparse underbrush, and fixed his sights on the looming Stoic Keep in the distance – a black wedge against the dark sky, rendered in slate-grey.

  What in Hell’s name had Best been thinking? Dispatching him and a gaggle of untrained imbeciles to poison the surrounding wells? The blood spilled by the routed Helveconean infantry had not yet cooled, and already the Old Ghost was plotting the next lunatic plot to stave off encroachment.

  Still, the cover of night offered advantage. Ethan’s vision surpassed theirs. The dimness allowed him to outmanoeuvre their search lines with relative ease. Whether Simon, Kaiden, Warren or Mary had reached their respective targets, he could not say. Nor did he particularly care. He had executed his portion of the plan. Now, only escape remained.

  He ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and sprinted – only for the world to suddenly tilt as a weight collided with his side. The force knocked him clean off his feet.

  “I got the rosbif!” a bluecoat shouted triumphantly, adjusting his spectacles as he raised the butt of his musket.

  “He alive still?” Simon’s voice came from behind the trees.

  “Breathing, ja – vich is always goot,” replied Doctor Heisenberg in his strange Swelandish cadence, bringing the musket down on Ethan’s face and fracturing his nose with a sickening crunch. “Let us get him on ze bed,” he added dispassionately, striking again. And again. The doctor’s face remained utterly placid as he bludgeoned Ethan’s head into paste. “I need to let some blood to ease ze fever.”

  Ethan groaned as something unseen lifted his trembling frame from the sodden earth, the sensation less like being helped and more like being plucked – limb by limb.

  “Wha – whuh…” he mumbled, throat raw, tongue leaden. His hands fluttered with instinctive violence, trying to fend off the Falchovarian infantry even as they captured him. He felt his fist connect and, off-balance, tumbled into bed.

  A slender finger – cool and familiar – traced the jagged scar beneath his right eye. Down it went: over the cheekbone, chin, neck, and then beneath the duvet to dance along the bare musculature of his chest.

  “Why do you always start with the scar, Lisa?” Ethan murmured with a hollow playfulness, slapping the curve of her bare buttocks with a lazy hand.

  Martha’s laugh erupted nearby – a high, brittle cackle that cracked like dry kindling. She flung the duvet aside with theatrical contempt. “Can’t help herself, she can’t. Says it lends a mackerel the makings of manhood.”

  “I would concede her point on most days…” came Annie’s voice – silken, warm, and drenched in honey. “But I know where your real manhood lies, Auryman…”

  He felt her weight straddle him as she giggled with feline glee, shifting above him with lustful intent.

  His eyes snapped open just in time to meet a wave of ice-cold water crashing into his face. He lurched upright with a gasp, soaked to the marrow, chest heaving.

  Warren loomed beside the bed, empty bucket in hand, wearing the expression of a man who would rather be anywhere else. Lyra sat on the floor, wide-eyed, mortified, her ears flushed to crimson. Somewhere beyond view, Simon’s laughter erupted in a gale of wheezing howls.

  “Huh? Whe–” Ethan tried to speak, his arm reaching blindly out.

  Suddenly, the floor rose to greet him. His head struck the boards with a dull crack, and he stood alone. The silence was absolute. There was no room, no world, no dimension – only the abyss.

  His feet met nothing solid, and yet he did not fall. Around him stretched an endless expanse of black so profound even his darkvision, honed to pierce pitch and shadow alike, met total defeat. The air was still. There was no horizon. No ceiling. No sense of scale. A perfect, airless void.

  Not even he existed within it. Not truly. He could feel neither heartbeat nor breath. Only awareness remained – raw, suspended, disembodied.

  “Hello?” he called. The voice that issued from him was unfamiliar – higher in pitch, firmer in inflexion. More Northern. Younger. It ricocheted through the unseen space and echoed unnaturally, becoming warped, discordant – a choir of disembodied murmurs.

  He lifted a hand. Nothing. Even when he brought it directly before his eyes, there was only more blackness. He crossed his eyes to see his nose, and found not even the silhouette of a face.

  “Oh, confound it all,” he muttered, the words reverberating back at him with unnatural clarity.

  "Thou art frightfully brusque, leman," the korrigan teased in sing-song tones, right against his ear.

  He flinched and turned. No one there.

  “You seem the type who enjoys a little danger,” whispered another – Lyra’s voice this time, tickling the hairs behind his other ear.

  He jerked away, disoriented. But the voices kept coming.

  “Ye haven’t a clue o’ what misery ye have brought ‘pon yersel’, och foolish son o’ mine…” came his father’s voice from below, cold as the grave.

  Ethan screamed – a full-throated, panicked cry, stripped of calculation. He turned to run, but the nothing beneath him crumbled like ash. He fell, tumbling downward in a terminal plummet.

  Wind whipped past his face, dragging his hair upward as he descended ever faster into the abyss.

  Then, light – pale and lustrous – emerged below. Two gleaming orbs of white radiance, spinning in slow orbit around one another. As he drew nearer, they ceased their rotation and turned toward him with unnerving synchrony. Pupilless, at first. Then came the slits – vertical, reptilian, carved of shadow.

  They watched him, unblinking. Scrutinised. Descried.

  Then came the maw: four gleaming fangs protruding from a mass of writhing, wet flesh, oozing venom that hissed as it fell.

  Ethan screamed once more, and the light swallowed him whole.

  He awoke with a gasp, eyes wide and heart racing. The scent of damp cloth filled his nostrils. A cold rag rested upon his forehead, with two more tucked beneath his armpits. His limbs were trembling. He was drenched in sweat, yet chilled to the bone.

  Reality, in all its miserable clarity, had returned.

  Ethan sat up with a muted groan. He felt the scarred, welted skin of his back being prickled by the unbleached straw inside the mattress. His muscles shrieked in protest, and his joints ached with the clammy residue of fever-sweat.

  Tangerine sunlight bled through the shutters in strips, casting a quiet warmth upon the far wall. Whether it heralded dawn or dusk, he could not yet determine. His perception of time had disintegrated alongside his grip on consciousness.

  At the foot of the bed sat Warren, folded gracelessly into a wooden chair, his chin resting on his chest and snoring with dogged determination. Both his shirt and trousers were crumpled, his boots dusted with straw, and his face wore the slack serenity of one who had prayed himself into sleep.

  The damp cloth on Ethan’s brow detached itself and flopped into his lap with a wet slap. It was a delightfully slimy sensation.

  Warren stirred, mouth smacking as he stretched with audible creaks of ligament and bone. The moment his eyes found Ethan sitting upright, he jolted in panic, inhaled at precisely the wrong moment, and dissolved into a fit of coughing that shook his entire frame.

  "Good morning to you too," Ethan rasped, his vocal cords scraping against one another like sanded leather. His hand found his neck. "Water..." he whispered.

  Still coughing, Warren fumbled for the waterskin at his feet and passed it over with a flushed, teary-eyed grimace.

  Ethan accepted it with a weak nod of thanks and drank deeply. The water, cold and sharp, sent fire lancing down his inflamed throat. He doubled over, coughing into the crook of his arm until his body relented. A second attempt, slow and measured, proved more successful.

  "How do you feel?" Warren asked once he had composed himself.

  "Like I am suffering from a hangover of poor judgement attained across the span of a lifetime," Ethan replied, handing the empty skin back and rubbing the bridge of his nose with his bandaged fingers. He hissed sharply as pain blossomed from the point of contact.

  "If your metaphors remain intact, then I suspect your faculties are likewise unimpaired," Warren deadpanned, a flicker of laughter lurking beneath his tone. Then, more sombrely: "You have drifted in and out of consciousness since yesterday morning. Doctor Heisenberg, in his merciful benevolence, suggested bloodletting. We declined on your behalf, trusting your past refusals remained current."

  Ethan groaned and pressed his right palm to his face.

  "That explains the rags and the conspicuous lack of trousers," he muttered. Then, after a brief pause: "I trust there is a reason you are blushing like an altar boy at his first confession."

  Warren cleared his throat and glanced aside. "We, ah... encountered certain obstacles whilst attempting to dress you for rest. You were rather... uncooperative. Even managed to land Doctor Heisenberg a rather admirable black eye."

  "Fever dreams," Ethan said firmly, cutting the subject short with an authority born of mortification. "They are to blame. I mercifully remember nothing of them, only that they occurred, and they were deeply unpleasant."

  He spoke the truth, insofar as he understood it. Whatever visions had plagued his fevered psyche had defenestrated from his mind themselves the moment he looked at the window.

  "Quite. Well," Warren said, seemingly just as eager to change topics. "I shall go inform the others you have returned to us. Do you require anything?"

  "The time?"

  Warren glanced to the side. "Dawn’s breaking – likely somewhere near nine."

  "In that case – breakfast," Ethan replied tonelessly.

  Warren snorted. "I shall ask Gregory to try and conjure you something cooked but unburnt."

  The priest-in-training rose, stretched with the stiffness of one who had spent the night in a chair, and left the room.

  Alone once more, Ethan attempted to swing himself off the bed. The act proved ill-advised. The moment he transferred weight to his right leg, the limb gave out beneath him and he collapsed onto the floor.

  He remained there for a moment, silent but for a vehemently whispered string of precise, articulate curses. One hand massaged his skull, the other his thigh – until it too flared with white-hot pain from burns and stitches alike. He stifled a groan and sat upright, careful to avoid placing any pressure on his injured limbs.

  His clothing had been neatly stacked on a nearby chair. A pair of crutches leaned against the wall beside it – primitive things constructed from uneven timber, bound with rusty nails and splintered in every conceivable place. John, no doubt, had delivered them. Why two, when one of his hands was swaddled in gauze and half-useless, remained a mystery.

  He sighed again and crawled to the chair. Donning his garments became a painstaking exercise in balance, dexterity, and sheer willpower. Shirt, trousers, cloak – all wrestled on without the benefit of standing or a second working hand.

  Eventually, he succeeded.

  A quick inspection of his cloak’s inner pockets revealed no tampering. The lining remained intact. The tinderbox, vials, lockpicking set, coins… The list went on, but it was all in place. Suffice to say, if anyone had searched his effects, they had not the audacity to steal anything.

  He stood slowly, balancing on one leg, his right hand braced against the wall. With measured hops, he reached the crutches and examined them. Both were crude, unvarnished, and guaranteed to embed splinters deep into his armpits. Good enough.

  Clumsily arming himself with the better looking of the two, he began the short, awkward journey toward his boots – still sitting by the door. Each step scraped and jolted, the crutch biting into the floorboards like dull axes. When he reached the boots, he eased himself back into the chair beside them and stared at the problem like a colonel surveying a career-breaking siege plan.

  The left boot slid on easily enough. The act of lacing it, however, took a battle of half-whispers and clenched teeth that would have scandalised a Portside strumpet. Eventually, he succeeded in that as well.

  The right boot was a more formidable adversary. The tall collar rubbed directly against the stitched flesh of his calf, and as he forced his foot inside, the pain was so immediate and intense that he whimpered aloud. Lacing it fully would have been masochism.

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  Instead, he tightened it only to the instep, leaving the upper shaft of leather loose. It would not have passed inspection, but it would allow him to walk without howling.

  An inelegant compromise. His life, of late, had been full of them.

  At that precise moment, the door creaked open and Warren entered, balancing a tray laden with fried eggs, roasted beef, boiled potatoes, and enough thick gravy to fell a small rodent.

  "Ethan?" he queried, eyes scanning the empty bed. Upon catching sight of him seated stiffly in the chair, Warren paled. "What in the Lord’s good name are you doing? You ought to be abed, recovering!"

  "What?" Ethan blinked at him, utterly nonplussed. Then the grim realisation set in: Warren’s earlier departure had not been an invitation to rise but a benevolent interlude to procure sustenance. Which meant the entirety of his laboured dressing – cursing, splinters, limp, and all – had been not merely premature, but futile.

  A scream coiled in his throat, ready to be unleashed with the fury of a wrathful magistrate. Warren could tell as much, if the softly clattering tray in his trembling hands was any indication.

  But reason – cold, bitter reason – intervened. The fault lay in a misunderstanding, not in malevolence. With an effort that strained every fibre of his patience, he inhaled deeply through his nose, pinched the bridge of it, and exhaled slowly.

  "Warren?" Ethan asked in a voice that suggested a man walking the knife-edge between civility and arson.

  "Y-yes, Ethan?"

  "I shall be breaking my fast below. With the others. Kindly ensure that tray reaches the table, and that I do not perish en route."

  The words were formal, clipped, and so full of suppressed ire that the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

  Warren, nodding, hurried ahead. Ethan, rising with all the elegance of a corpse in the throes of rigor mortis, placed his weight on the crutch. Every step was a treatise on pain: the boot’s collar chafed mercilessly against the stitches in his calf, while the crutch bit painfully into his hand and armpit. A fresh jab of pain signalled that a splinter had embedded itself into the web between his thumb and forefinger. He bit back a shout.

  They reached the stairwell without further mishap. Warren lingered midway down, prepared to serve as an emergency buffer should Ethan topple. Despite several perilous slips, Ethan managed the descent, keeping his wounded hand hovering above the rotting bannister. It was unlikely hold his weight, but might delay a fall long enough for him to curse fate one final time.

  The main room was sparsely populated – his companions were in one corner, and a handful of wenches were setting tables for the morning crowd in another. The inn's other guests had evidently eaten and gone, and the bar would remain unmanned until afternoon.

  "Oi! Look alive, lads and lasses! Hanky-Panky Fighter’s finally up an’ swingin’!" Simon bellowed, spotting him first.

  Ethan immediately regretted leaving his room.

  Warren deposited the tray on the table while Ethan limped forward with all the dignity of a three-legged cat. He dropped into his chair and offered Warren a silent nod of thanks.

  "Very well," he said with audible reluctance. "I shall indulge you. Why 'Hanky-Panky Fighter'?"

  Warren coloured at once; Lyra’s ears tinged rose. Mary smirked with furrowed brows, and Simon’s grin widened into caricature.

  "Fighter’s on account o’ you givin’ ze doktor a shiner, me and priestboy here a couple good knocks, and damn near twistin’ yerself in half while we tried gettin’ your piss-soaked arse to bed," Simon declared, beaming.

  "I pissed myself?”

  "Oh aye," Simon said in half laughter. "Why d’ye think yer cloths all clean and pressed? We had to strip you down and rinse ye like a chamber pot."

  Now that he examined his garments, they did appear uncharacteristically spotless. And there had been no grit on his skin when dressing… a troubling realisation.

  "But that ain’t even the best bit," Simon continued, visibly giddy. "When ze doktor told us to strip ye and put rags on yer pits an’ crown, ya started moanin’ an’ groanin’ all sorts. At first we thought it were the fever talkin’, but then–"

  He broke off into helpless laughter.

  Warren looked stricken. Lyra buried her face in her hands. Mary leaned forward, eyes gleaming.

  "B-but then," Simon gasped between wheezes. "We saw the bulge in yer britches! A-and ye started humpin’ the air, grabbed Lyra by the tit, and slapped me across the arse! Bwahahaha!"

  The room erupted just as Simon collapsed. Mary howled with delight. Warren shook his head with performative disappointment, though his lips twitched traitorously. Lyra’s shoulders quivered, face hidden beneath her fingers. Ethan groaned and mirrored her posture, eyes hidden behind his uninjured hand.

  "Of all the devil–"

  "Devil’s right!" Simon interrupted. "By the bye – who’s Lisa? Ye screamed her name when ye swatted my arse – I’ve been called worse, but that’s a new one."

  Ethan slumped back and stared at the ceiling, a defeated groan escaping his blushing face. Laughter thundered around him, uncontainable. Even Warren had finally succumbed, weeping with mirth.

  "Pumpin’ crivvens," he muttered when the chaos finally abated. "I owe you an apology. And my gratitude. Thank you for tending to me during my... whatever that was."

  "Aw, yer welcome, ya daft whelk," Mary said with a wide grin, placing a hand on Lyra’s shoulder. "But I reckon our wee lady here deserves an apology most. And Simon – his arse still smarts, y’know."

  "I could apologise for it," Ethan replied evenly. "But I suspect they rather enjoyed it."

  Another wave of laughter circled the table. Lyra narrowed her eyes, took up a forkful of mashed potato, and launched it with unerring accuracy. It struck Ethan’s nose with a wet splat.

  "Deserved," he admitted, dabbing the mash from his face.

  This time, they all laughed – including Ethan.

  Once the cacophony of laughter had settled, only the clatter of cutlery remained. The group tucked into breakfast with all the civility their fatigue allowed. Ethan seized the lull, pushing aside a stale crust of bread to address the prior day’s indiscretion.

  “I must apologise for my... display yesterday. Before the fever,” he said flatly, his tone devoid of sentiment but formally constructed enough to bear the weight of contrition.

  The effect was immediate. A tableau of surprise unfolded – mouths parted, brows climbed.

  Mary, the quickest to gather her scattered wits, gave a small grunt and waved a hand. “Aye well, tensions were tighter than a gull’s arse, weren’t they? Nothin’ to crab over – water under the bridge.”

  Lyra gave him a gentle smile – delightfully sincere. The brief exchange forestalled further comment, and the moment was buried under the weight of eggshells and silence before it could fester into something worse.

  They finished the meal with quiet economy, after which the company made their way toward Clayton Headquarters. The air outside still carried the chill of December dawn, clinging doggedly to wool and skin alike. At headquarters, they found both surviving Stonewaters alongside John – already in council, hunched over a colossal map stretched across the oaken table.

  This was not the same map they had worked with previously. The topography was finer, the annotations more meticulous. Each corner had been anchored with polished weights, and the sheer scope of it claimed nearly every inch of the expansive table’s surface. John, fulfilling his role as both local guide and reluctant chronicler, had augmented the document with a detailed report – inked lines denoting sections in ruin, marginalia describing arcane anomalies, and crude sketches where his lexicon failed him.

  Maria looked up from the map, eyelids languid but mouth set. If she was displeased by the interruption, she was too refined to voice it plainly. “Ah, you deign to join us. Sit. There is business in abundance.”

  They filed in, wooden chairs creaking under them. Ethan, favouring one leg, moved without ceremony to the central seat directly opposite Maria and allowed his frame to drop into it with precise gracelessness.

  “How fare your wounds, Mister Harbinger?” Maria asked.

  “Hellishly,” he replied with candid detachment. No merit in bravado. “Though better than they would've without Doctor Heisenberg’s interference. I suppose I ought to thank you for summoning him.”

  His tone matched hers in its weaponised civility – an exchange of formalised venom that only those born to noble houses could truly master.

  Maria smiled. “Delighted to be of service. Now that we are rid of pleasantries, tell me – what, in the devil’s own confounded, thrice-damned name, happened in those mines?”

  Ethan leaned back, his grin a grimace, arms resting atop his crutch. “I would assume you have already heard accounts from Mister Rock and Master Stonewater. Where, precisely, does your confusion begin?”

  “I have,” she admitted, a note too sharply to be casual. “But John is no scholar of the occult, and Marcel has only ever read about death in books. I would prefer the testimony of someone more... seasoned.”

  The flattery was so unsubtle it might have passed for insult. Ethan responded with a snort. “Very well.”

  His recounting was factual, detached, and precise. He described the encounters, geography, and wounds with all the warmth of a coroner’s ledger. The others interjected where necessary, correcting or clarifying with their own additions. The knocker settlement in particular seemed to arrest Maria’s interest.

  “Do you believe they can be reasoned with?” she asked carefully, her index finger idly tracing a route on the map.

  “In a crude approximation of diplomacy, yes,” Ethan replied with a minute shrug. “They possess sufficient cognition to understand trade, at least. Why?”

  “That need not concern you,” she said, her mask slipping just a fraction.

  He tilted his head. “The Falchovarian patrol outside Clayton causing you sleepless nights? You suspect that stashing the vulnerable in the caves will not suffice, so now you seek allies in the dark?”

  Maria went rigid. John’s forehead slicked with sweat in real-time. Marcel began a quiet descent into panic, his breath hitching with increasing frequency. His mother, by contrast, held fast – save for a subtle tremble at the corner of her mouth.

  Ethan’s voice stayed even. “You wish to forge a provisional pact with the knockers – provisions in exchange for sentry duty? For concealment?”

  The silence was so absolute it might have turned the air to glass. John blinked hard. “How did–”

  “That need not concern you,” Ethan cut in, voice like a guillotine’s blade. “Which leads us to our next matter.”

  “Which is?” Lady Clayton asked cautiously.

  “Our departure.”

  Grimaces slackened, brows unfurrowed. Maria exhaled audibly; John’s shoulders slumped. Marcel’s reaction, however, betrayed disappointment – a brow-arched, lip-trembling, teary-eyed variety of disappointment.

  It was so plain even Ethan recognised it.

  “Proceed,” Maria prompted, her tone now much gentler.

  “The Falchovarian patrol is tracking us, not your barony. For reasons you may confirm with Richard, if you believe he will grant you the truth,” he pre-empted the question. “We intend to revisit the pillar chamber at your earliest convenience, catalogue our findings, then depart under cover of darkness, embedded within an ore convoy.”

  Maria's lips pursed. “And what then? Tempt the Falchovarians to torch Clayton as a farewell gesture?”

  “Au contraire,” Ethan replied in Falchovarian. “They shall observe our departure and follow. The escort is simply insurance – deterrence against ambush until Crystalrock.”

  “And beyond?”

  “We improvise. Unless, of course, you can provide a guard detachment to see us as far as Oaleholder?”

  That struck something raw in her. She looked away, poise faltering.

  “We cannot,” she said eventually. “Clayton’s garrison was never restored after the Coalition War. Mercenaries avoid us now – too small, too poor.”

  “Then delay the caravan until we are ready to depart,” Ethan offered, as it he doing her a favour. “That will suffice.”

  Maria gave a tired nod and produced a sealed envelope from beneath the table. She slid it across the map. The red wax bore the Stonewater crest – a frog with antlers.

  Fitting, Ethan thought dryly. With the frogs at their doorstep now.

  “A contract,” she explained, noting Ethan’s quirked brow. “For the extermination of all arcane entities within the mines – korrigans, knockers, and all else which lurks. Additionally, the recovery any magical artefacts discovered therein. Deliver it to a reputable company in Oaleholder, or failing that, the Guild of Hunting Monstrosities.”

  “You wish to cleanse the mines of all aether?” Lyra asked, aghast.

  “I take no joy in condemning the knockers,” Maria replied, voice soft but resolute. “Yet I will see every monster and relic razed before another one of my miners is swallowed by the dark.”

  Ethan’s tone sharpened. “What?”

  Maria’s eyes dropped. “Ah, of course. You have only just risen.”

  She sat back, the years in her bones suddenly showing. “Over a dozen pitmen have either vanished or turned up mutilated since yesterday. Throats torn, bodies bled dry. The signature is unmistakable.”

  Ethan said nothing.

  “You have incited the korrigans,” she continued. “Provoked them.”

  Her words held a charge – not accusation, not quite, but something near enough.

  “They were always a danger,” she added, more to herself than anyone. “This merely hastened the inevitable.”

  Warren frowned, steepling his fingers. “Even so, is this scorched earth solution not… extreme?”

  Maria’s reply came without hesitation. “It is. But these are scorched earth days, Mister Macintosh. And I would sooner answer for the death of faye than the death of my people.”

  It was, in its own way, a rational proposal. Ruthless, yes – but not without logic. Ethan found himself more disturbed by the implication than the method. Once again, humanity proved incapable of recognising the faye as anything but errant beasts trespassing upon land they never ceded. They were not subjects; they were obstacles. And like all obstacles, they were to be removed with minimal inconvenience and overwhelming prejudice.

  He said nothing of the thought, merely lifted the envelope and slid it into the inner lining of his cloak. One more blood-drenched errand added to his crimson ledger.

  “A favour for a favour,” he muttered.

  “Quid pro quo, Mister Harbinger,” Maria replied, lips curling in a manner that had grown familiar. “The second oldest trade in Aerda.”

  The corner of her eye twitched. A jest, shaded in innuendo. Ethan remained unimpressed. Marcel flushed a shade deeper than the ink on the map, while John simply looked away, jaw clenched as though biting down on something best left unspoken.

  But the smile faded quickly. Maria straightened, age and warmth vanishing from her features like mist before fire. Lady Stonewater, Baroness of Clayton, returned in full.

  “John shall escort you to the ruins and back, one final time. After that, our business concludes. I will not be present upon your return, so allow me to offer my farewells now, while the moment permits.”

  She inclined her head at each of them – stiff, minimal, but impeccably formal.

  “Safe travels,” she said, in the clipped tone of a benediction recited too often to retain conviction. “You are dismissed.”

  “Farewell,” the others chorused, more out of social momentum than sentiment. Chairs scraped back. Boots struck wood. The company began to file out, dragging weariness and obligation in their wake.

  All save Ethan, Marcel, and the baroness.

  Marcel hovered, shifting his considerable weight from one foot to the other. His mouth worked open, then shut again. The lad looked every inch the chastened child, too frightened to plead but far too impassioned to agree. Ethan glanced sideways and understood at once.

  Maria had forbidden him to descend. Sensible. But the lad still wanted to follow.

  Simon’s voice came from the door. “You comin’, Ethan?”

  “In a moment,” he called back. “Lady Clayton and I have unfinished business.”

  Simon gave a shrug that could have meant anything and stepped out. John lingered. His gaze shifted from Ethan to Maria. She gave a faint nod – assurance, perhaps. Or dismissal. Either sufficed. He left.

  Ethan turned his attention to Marcel.

  “Go say your goodbyes to the others, Your Lordship,” he said softly. “We shan't be long.”

  The lad drew a breath so deep it shook in his chest. He blinked hard against gathering moisture, nodded with all the dignity he could summon, and bolted before the door shut entirely.

  And then there were two.

  The silence stretched. Ethan allowed it to, leaning back just enough to let his gaze harden. There was no pleasure in it, only method. His father’s stare had always compelled answers, and Ethan had inherited the look, if not the legacy.

  Maria cracked first.

  She sighed – hard and prolonged, like someone swallowing bile. “Where should I begin?”

  He leaned forward, voice as sharp as Heisenberg’s scalpel. “At the beginning, of course – how did you come to know my family?”