Ethan awoke with a violent inhale, his senses snapping back to awareness like powder igniting in the pan.

  Instinct propelled him upright.

  The decision was immediately punished – pain, sharp and total, carved a path through his right leg with surgical cruelty. He collapsed to all fours.

  His left hand met the flagstone.

  Agony repeated; worse than before. White, unreasoning, and absolute. His wounded palm screamed with fresh heat, radiating up his arm. The limb gave way, and he crumpled onto his shoulder with a ragged groan. It was not merely a sound of pain – it was frustration. At himself, at the situation, at the physics of leverage and the inflexibility of bone.

  "Easy there, convalescent," Warren said, voice reverberating, as he kneeled beside him. One arm eased Ethan up to a seated position with surprising gentleness. "We are not yet clear of the valley's shadow, but nor do I believe death's hand is on our shoulder."

  "Water..." Ethan rasped, throat dry as kindling.

  "Wheyy! Still among the livin’ then, lad?" John thundered, voice echoing as he offered a waterskin. Ethan accepted it with a shallow nod.

  The first mouthful burned. The second soothed. The third quenched. He drank the rest greedily, heedless of the irritation it caused. The final gulp slipped traitorously down the wrong passage and triggered a fit of coughing that stabbed his lungs with the insistence of broken glass.

  Even through his coughing fit, his eyes scanned the chamber.

  Memory flooded back. Tunnels, bluecap keys, korrigans, a fight, a retreat.

  The wounds.

  Ethan shuddered.

  The chamber remained unchanged. Pillar at the centre, his old blood trail, no new bodies. Lyra and Marcel stood beside the pillar, the two of them speaking in tones too hushed to overhear. They seemed absorbed in the glyphs covering the obelisk, illuminated by no less than five bright lanterns. Mary and Simon reclined nearby, seated upon a repurposed cloak, their eyes wide and fixed on him.

  "How–" another cough racked his chest. “How long have I been unconscious?”

  "Ten hours or so," Mary answered, voice dull. "Don’t ask me how you managed it – floor’s hard as fuckin’… well, y’know..." she rapped her knuckles on the flagstones. “Stone.”

  Ethan nodded. Stretched his stiff neck, then began a slow, clinical stretch of his entire body, rolling one joint after the other in a sequence taught to him by both renowned physicians and torturers posing as physicians. Each movement yielded a crack or pop, rheumatic pain retreating inch by grudging inch.

  "Damn," he muttered.

  "Out like a pissin’ statue, you were," Simon snorted. "John fetched rotgut, Warren poured it all over that leg o’ yours – waste o’ good drink if you ask me. I told 'em, didn’t I? Bit o’ water’d do, and we could’ve poured the spirits down our gullets where they belong. But no, no one listens to Simon..."

  He carried on, warming to the tale.

  "Tried wakin’ ya, we did, but ye weren’t havin’ it. Then – thought the sting’d rouse you, right? But nah. Ye just grunted like some ol’ farmer an’ kept snorin’. Impressive that, honest to God."

  Mary chuckled. Warren scowled. Simon shrunk as the ever-frequent sermon on blasphemy began.

  Lyra turned, attracted by the noise, and spotted him immediately.

  "You’re awake!" she exclaimed, hurrying over, Marcel waddling along behind her. Her tone had the brightness of unfiltered relief. She knelt beside him without hesitation and pressed a cool hand to his forehead, cheek, then neck. Her skin smelt faintly of chalk and smoke.

  "Had I been a touch more pessimistic, I would have already begun mourning you," she simpered at him.

  "What happened?" Ethan asked, not bothering to reciprocate her warmth.

  "John made it to the surface," Warren answered, his sermon finished and Simon rebuked. "Through the knockers’ burrow, as we suspected. He returned hours ago."

  "Aye," John added, arms crossed. "They recognised the butty you gave 'em, went madferit. Screamed some shite at me first, but soon as I showed 'em the scran, they changed their tune. I even brought 'em a whole roast chicken on the return leg. Didn’t lay a finger on me just kept laughin’ and shoutin’."

  "And 'sides wrappin’ and re-wrappin’ yer bits," Simon interjected. "We had a… kerfuffle. With Lyra."

  "Mm?"

  "She wanted to stuff the last bluecap in that pillar yonder. Swore blind it were safe. We told her it were proper daft doin’ that while yer out. Could've gone arse over tits too easy, yeah? And yer the only one here who knows how to fix things and bolt fast. Need ya for both, don’t we?"

  "And as I told them," Lyra said sharply, standing to her full height. "I have been studying ruins like these for years. They are never trapped."

  Simon shrugged. "Whatever. Majority ruled. John watched her. There was shoutin’, sure. Surprised you slept through it, honestly,” a grin split his pockmarked face. “Can ya teach me that, actually?"

  "Certainly," Ethan snorted. "Go into a forest, pick a fight with a bear. It’ll be the longest sleep of your life."

  That earned a round of laughter.

  "If you are quite finished with the banter," Lyra said with theatrical dignity. "I should like to complete the task at hand and escape this damp, accursed cavern."

  Ethan opened his mouth to offer a barbed reply, but his stomach intervened first. It growled with impressive clarity and vigour, the sound echoing off far off walls.

  Lyra raised an eyebrow, then smiled. "Or, we can allow our valiant hero a few minutes for breakfast."

  The others roared with reverberating laughter.

  "He’s like a chubby pug!" Mary wheezed.

  Ethan gave John a pained look.

  John nodded and handed him a sack containing food and a second skin of water. Ethan began to eat without comment. The others followed suit, morale visibly lifting.

  Once fed, the group assembled around the central pillar. Lyra stood closest to it. Ethan, seated gingerly some distance away, watched the procedure with interest but no evident tension.

  Lyra raised her arms. Her fingers traced precise, elliptical patterns through the air. Blue fire sparked to life above her palm – silent, clean, and without smoke. The bluecap. Or Ailbean key, as she called it.

  She drew the flame closer to her lips and whispered into it. The fiery wisp began to spin in place, gaining speed. It zipped upward and vanished into the cylinder crowning the obelisk.

  Lyra pressed both palms to the stone beneath.

  A low hum bloomed outward. It vibrated the bones, building and building, like a church organ playing one prolonged, subterranean note.

  Then it ceased.

  Utter silence returned.

  "Did we break it?" Simon asked.

  "Wait," Lyra said, breath held.

  She stepped back.

  At last, the cylinder began to emit a spectral glow, blue and subtle at first – not unlike the bluecaps themselves – before swelling to a brilliance that blotted out the natural contours of the stone chamber. The device pulsed brighter with each passing second until, without warning, the light scattered into flickering blotches and reassembled itself as a flowing cascade of characters.

  Glyphs of some sort tumbled and spun along the length of the metallic tube. They jittered in feverish motion, gradually slowing, falling into place with the mechanical finality of tumblers aligning in a lock. When the last glyph ceased its restless orbit, the pillar discharged a blinding flash that seared the eyes and scoured the chamber with phosphorescent flame.

  Ethan, momentarily robbed of vision, blinked rapidly. As the white-hot imprint faded from his retinas, his eyes adjusted to a vista he did not recognise.

  Exclamations broke the silence.

  “Whoa.”

  “Amazin’.”

  “Lord, protect us…”

  They were no longer buried in pitch blackness. The chamber now shone with a celestial radiance – an ethereal blue cast from the beacon aloft the pillar, illuminating the walls and hemispheric ceiling in full.

  The vaulted dome was of enormous breadth, stretching some hundred feet high. Its entire surface was sheathed in alien script, each glyph protruding subtly as though chiselled from light itself. The ceiling resembled a celestial manuscript, its language neither human nor known.

  “What is this?” Marcel murmured, overwhelmed. “It is… astounding.”

  “Lyra?” Ethan’s voice carried little inflexion, but the implication was clear.

  She did not respond. Her gaze remained fixed on the glowing glyphs above them, mouth half parted, eyes wide with reverent calculation. When she did speak, it was not in any tongue he recognised. A flowing cadence, reminiscent of Elvish, slipped from her lips – syllables unearthly and precise, as though drawn from memory rather than invention.

  And yet, inexplicably, Ethan felt as though he understood every word: “Begin realignment sequence, order chronological, starting point – exodus.”

  In response, the murals began to shift. The characters scattered across the ceiling like insects – darting, wheeling, interlacing. Ethan shook his head, feeling as though the multitonal words had resounded inside his head – then suddenly forgot the experience altogether.

  He watched in silence as the script spun a silent ballet across the ceiling. It halted as abruptly as it had begun.

  Lyra furrowed her brow and peered upward, lips moving silently. Her fingers traced the air as if deciphering an invisible code.

  “Lyra,” Ethan said again.

  She startled, blinking as if pulled from a reverie. Her eyes met his with visible confusion, the focus slow to return.

  “What does it say?”

  Her hesitation confirmed the worst.

  “It is… a message. Or what remains of one. Damaged, badly. Likely due to age or environmental wear. From what I can discern, it appears to…” she coughed into her fist. “It is intended solely for Mister Best,” she looked away. “My apologies.”

  “Of course it is,” Ethan muttered. “And what now?”

  “Now?” Lyra glanced at the ceiling again. “Now, I must record this. Everything. Every detail. And then bring it to Oaleholder. It may take a while – there is a vast amount to transcribe.”

  “Just as well,” Marcel interjected, voice more soft than firm. “Mister Harbinger’s injuries warrant rest. You are all most welcome in Clayton. By my… authority,” the last word faltered, emerging awkwardly – as if still trying on the mantle of command.

  Ethan stared at him impassively, then looked to the elf. “Have you any writing utensils, Lyra?”

  “No,” she admitted, smiling faintly. “Truth be told, I did not anticipate our success.”

  “Fortunate you were wrong, then,” Ethan replied, though his tone held no warmth. “At least the more trying segment is concluded.”

  The others, though perplexed at first, began to laugh. Dry, sardonic mirth. Shared frustration had become their common dialect, and this moment – one more in a string of improbable turns – slipped easily into it.

  “Best get movin’ then,” Simon muttered. “These caverns ain’t doin’ me poxy scabs any favours.”

  The laughter rose, their teasing buoyed by exhaustion rather than joy.

  Ethan could help but feel it would not last.

  Ethan’s injured leg throbbed with every step. His burnt hand still pulsed with heat beneath the bandages. Even with Warren supporting him, progress was slow – torturously so. But he had survived worse.

  The route passed through the knocker settlement. As planned, they brought more offerings. Scraps of bread, dried fruit, even a heel of cheese. The diminutive faye erupted in jubilation.

  "Mendapatmakanan!" they shrieked, the word foreign but vigorous. They took the food with rapid hands and vanished, their chatter echoing off the walls like wind through reeds.

  Ethan spotted Mutton Chops among them and offered an indolent thumb-up. The knocker stared at the gesture, cocked its head, and – after some contemplation – replicated it with painstaking precision. Ethan chuckled. Mutton Chops mimicked that, too.

  There were dozens of them – scores, perhaps. Short specimens darted between taller ones; some climbed atop wooden crates for a better look; others gnawed contentedly on scavenged food. The entire settlement thrived in a low din of activity, the group’s lantern-light barely stretching to show the full breadth of it.

  The cavern was roughly the same size as the pillar chamber, though less structured. No ornate beacon here. Instead, shacks stood like forgotten toy houses, built from castoffs: branches, rope, planks, leaves, bones. An architecture of necessity, not design. Yet the material also suggested the knockers had another access to the surface – likely one far more discreet than the miners’ paths.

  “What’re them stick heaps?” Simon asked, pointing to a strange arrangement of twigs bound together with twine and furculae.

  Several such constructs stood throughout the chamber, seemingly placed at random.

  “Tribal fetishes,” Warren said darkly. “Icons of pagan adulation or protection. Heathenry.”

  He crossed himself.

  Mary scoffed. “Why not preach a sermon next time, eh? Convert the gull dogfish.”

  Simon tittered, but Warren remained silent. The pinched expression on his face made the other two exchange a wide-eyed look.

  The group passed through the knocker settlement unmolested, their progress flanked by no fewer than twenty of the creatures who skittered alongside them like overzealous honour guards. Ethan counted each of them twice, and noted three alternate exits before they even reached the tunnel’s end.

  They took a different stairwell this time – less worn and only marginally less lethal. A railing had even been affixed along the edge, no doubt to placate some guilt-stricken foreman. Ethan made full use of it, hoisting himself up one step at a time on a single leg. His wounded calf throbbed with every motion, but he suppressed any indication of pain.

  They emerged from tent twelve. Dawn had not yet broken. Still, the upper plateau outside the mine bustled with pitmen in various states of undress and sobriety. They laughed, shouted, and exchanged profanity-laced greetings with the enthusiasm only the damned could muster before another day of subterranean toil.

  “Where to?” Warren asked, the weight in his voice matched only by the bags beneath his eyes.

  “Where to, indeed,” Ethan murmured, breath clouding the cold air. Then, louder, with forced authority: “John. Marcel. Return to Clayton Headquarters. My compliments to Her Ladyship and inform her of our findings. Requisition writing supplies for Lyra – parchment, ink, binding tools... whatever is available.”

  He exhaled sharply through his nose. “And a crutch. For myself. Please.”

  “The rest of us are returning to the inn.”

  "’Bout bleedin’ time!" Simon burst, throwing his arms into the air. "Stone me pissin’ crows, I’ve started missin’ that spunk-stained mattress. Warm grub, too – though I’d swap both for a flagon right now."

  The admission sparked a chain of chuckles among the group. Their conversation, meandering through banter, soon turned to nostalgic lamentation about home. By the time they reached Clayton Inn and Tavern, they were unified in their yearning for Oaleholder’s muddy streets and familiar squalor.

  Arthur’s coach remained where they had left it. The horses still tethered to the same posts. Its driver was still denied lodging at both the Stonewater estate and the inn itself. Arthur’s subsequent decision to sleep in the carriage had only deepened his natural bitterness into something approaching legend.

  Fortunately, the hour was early, and the coachman’s daily cycle of self-inflicted ruin had not yet resumed. He would remain unconscious until late morning, begin drinking by lunch, and collapse again shortly after sundown. Contact was unlikely.

  Unfortunately, Gregory’s inn likewise remained shut. The innkeeper refused to issue spare keys to lodgers, claiming they would simply duplicate them and burgle him later. Ethan had to admit that the thought had passed his mind.

  And so it was: the company of half-dead adventurers found themselves hammering upon the inn’s stout oaken door and cursing its proprietor with increasing ferocity. Their persistence was eventually rewarded by the sound of heavy boots descending from above, followed by a series of groggy, vindictive mutterings.

  “Diddy focken daddy granfers’ll drive Oi a-focken-Benny–”

  The tirade ceased mid-sputter as Gregory flung the door open and beheld the state of them. His eyes roved across their dust-streaked coats, torn trousers, and bloodstained boots.

  And finally: Ethan himself.

  Gregory’s expression slackened with alarming rapidity.

  “Blige, Oi can see, Oi can, why’ee bain’t come back las’ nigh’. Well, get in then. Bowgh lookin’ loik gramersows done chewed yer ‘eads…”

  He stepped aside without further protest. Mercy from a miser was rare; Ethan accepted it in silence.

  “Cheers, Greg,” Mary cooed, brushing a lock of flaxen hair from her brow. "Be a pouting and run a bath once the wenches show, would ya?"

  “Upon me word, Oi’ll do it meself, Miss Brown,” Gregory grinned, all yellow teeth and wiry beard. His bloodshot eyes lent the expression a ghoulish air.

  Ethan allowed Warren to help him up the stairs. The moment his boots crossed the threshold of his rented chamber, he dropped his provisions pack beside the door and collapsed onto the straw-stuffed mattress. He did not care for its texture, only that it was flat and softer than stone.

  The rest followed soon after. Lyra and Mary took up places at the foot of the bed, Simon sprawled across the floor like a corpse dumped from a cart, and Warren slumped against the wall with the grim resignation of a man awaiting divine judgment.

  The first light of dawn snuck its way into the chamber. Warren detached himself from the wall with a groan and went about extinguishing the candles he had lit not a few minutes prior.

  Ethan did not sit up. He addressed them with eyes closed teeth clenched. “Five days – or six, rather. We have endured six days in this miserable outpost. Now that a conclusion appears feasible, we shall take inventory of what we know.”

  The others stirred. Postures shifted. Minds cleared.

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  “Lyra,” he began. “How long will transcription take?”

  The pale elf pursed her lips in thought. “A day, likely two. The murals are extensive, some partially eroded, others distorted by time or damage. Once transcribed, I shall require archival references from Oaleholder to make any definitive interpretations.”

  “Very well. Tomorrow and the day after, we return below. Expedite the process however you can. I want to leave this place behind.”

  There was not a dissent among them. Only silence and exhausted nods.

  “Mary. Simon. Any whispers among the soot-faced locals?”

  Simon’s voice sounded from the floorboards, grin audible. "Well, I heard wee Betsy’s growin’ some massive–"

  “Something relevant, damn you.”

  A vulgar cackle, then Simon sat up and scratched behind his ear. "Gravel-eaters ain’t talkin’ war, if that’s what yer diggin’ for. Reckon they don’t care who’s wearin’ which crown long as there’s stew in the pot."

  “Aye,” Mary added, her voice softer. Her gaze drifted to the window, to the mist-shrouded outlines of the village. “The women’re worse. Their world starts and ends at the hearth. Don’t give a toss ‘bout kings or frogs – just who’s kippin’ where, and how to scrub piss-ice off the chamber pot come frost."

  “Anyone suspicious?” Ethan’s voice was blunt, unsympathetic. “Any informants? Any names the locals avoid?”

  "’Sides two scallops sniffin’ round where they shouldn’t?” Mary smirked. “Not a one. If some frogs made camp here, they buried it deeper than Matresa’s shallows."

  Simon nodded mutely, his silence an accord with Mary’s summation.

  “Lumbermen in the northeast woods claim certain superstitions,” Warren began, fingering his cheek mole again, voice hoarse from fatigue. “Though they interpret the disturbances as spectral, not Falchovarian. They speak of the Wild Hunt, Dando’s hounds, men screaming in the dark, and all the usual folkloric detritus one hears this far from civilisation.”

  “Wild Hunt?” Ethan’s tone held no dramatics, but a trace of interest crept in at the corners.

  “Hooves in the dark, horses whinnying, riders cursing into the void,” Warren said with a shrug that almost failed to lift his shoulders. “Most likely, their own mules shifting at night and frightening them out of reason.”

  Ethan offered a noncommittal sound. He allowed the conversation to pause, if only for the sake of momentary calculation.

  “Something gnawing at you, old bean?” Warren asked, his sudden liveliness suggesting adrenaline had briefly shaken off the weariness.

  “Don’t tell me them ghostie nags got ye shittin’ yer britches,” Simon jeered, snorting. He followed it with an overdrawn, hideously poor imitation of a horse’s neigh.

  The women laughed – Lyra politely, Mary less so.

  “I found hoofprints outside of Clayton,” Ethan said. “Two sets, fresh. Leading north from the woodline.”

  That struck the room silent.

  “They could be ore traders,” Lyra ventured, her voice laced with uncertainty.

  “They could not,” Ethan replied, opening his eyes and turning his head on the pillow to look at her. “Too remote a path, not even a road. No merchant would take that route. The Republic has found us again. Falchovarian scouts, likely two riders. I doubt they will attempt anything while we are within Clayton. But once we leave, they will be upon us.”

  A cold hush fell across the room, the sort that left only the rustling of cloth and the creak of wood.

  “How many?” Mary asked, her voice barely audible.

  “Two horses,” Ethan said, rubbing his face with his gloved hand. The sweat and soot on his brow smeared across the leather. He rested his head and closed his eyes again. “Minimum. I followed the tracks further. Found bootprints. Three men, possibly more. I lost the trail in the underbrush.”

  “So, a mounted patrol,” Warren said, drawing slow conclusions aloud. “At least five agents. Possibly more. And we shall be contending with them on the open road, isolated by fifty miles in every direction.”

  He closed his eyes as though trying to shut out the arithmetic of doom. “That... complicates matters.”

  "We ain’t cut for that sort o’ skirmish!” Simon burst out, now fully upright, speaking wide mouthed. “Let’s write to Ol’ Ghostie, beg for blades an’ hands, yeah? Otherwise we’re as good as stuck pigs."

  “They will think precisely the same,” Ethan replied, his voice flat, deadpan. “Where there is one frog, there are ten in the thicket and a company on the march. The whole Blue Horde. By the time reinforcements arrive, we shall be encircled. Not in a skirmish – in a siege.”

  “B-but that breaks the truce,” Mary stammered. “That’s war!”

  “Which is the point,” Warren said quietly. Then, a beat later, his brow lifted above wild eyes. “A surgical provocation. Falchovarii defended against the Coalition once before. What better time to strike again than when our armies are scattered and our nerves frayed?” He turned toward Lyra. “And if you were captured–”

  “They would bleed her for secrets she does not possess,” Ethan finished, before the image could fully root itself in anyone’s imagination. “We must leave before that happens. New plan. Lyra, you begin transcription tomorrow and work through the night if necessary. With haste. We extricate as soon as your copy is legible. If it takes all day and night, so be it. Better a skirmish with a patrol in the forest than facing a battalion here.”

  "I’d rather not fight at all, meself," Simon muttered.

  "Speakin’ o’ which–" Mary’s voice sharpened like flint on steel. She sat upright, turning her full attention on Ethan. "What in God’s blue arse possessed you to pull that daft stunt in the mines?"

  Warren winced. Ethan opened one eye, narrowed it. He propped himself up on his elbows.

  “What stunt?”

  "Ya went and near got yerself taken by some blood-suckin’ wenches, torched yourself, then picked a fight with two more – alone!” she snapped. “Who’re you tryin’ to impress, ye daft mackerel?"

  “I require no audience, Brown,” Ethan replied. “It was tactically necessary, and it succeeded. That is all that matters.”

  “Succeeded?” she echoed. Lyra had the good sense to shift quietly away. “Yer a shambles, y'are. Burnt. Bled. Wrapped up like yesterday’s catch. And now we’re sittin’ in this piss-pot midden with froggies sniffin’ at our rudders, waitin’ to pounce!”

  “And what do you believe should I have done instead?” Ethan growled, forcing himself upright with a grimace. He pointed a swaddled hand toward her, the bandages stained with dried blood and salve.

  "Literally anythin’ else, ye daft dogfish! Ask for help, maybe? You ever try that?" Mary spat, jabbing a rough finger toward the room, her chipped nail trembling. No one met her gaze.

  Except him.

  "Ya need to get it through that thick, nobby-born skull o’ yers that ye ain’t better than us, and–"

  “I am better than you, ye daft fuckin’ cow!” Ethan’s voice cracked like a thunderclap. The force of it shoved the heat out of the room, all warmth immediately vanishing.

  Mary and Lyra recoiled as if struck. Warren straightened up sharply, eyes wide and alert; Simon scrambled backwards from the bedside, legs catching against the floor like a tripped dog.

  But Ethan’s voice only rose, a current of cold, bottled rage surging beneath every syllable.

  “Unlike ye, I dinnae have a fuckin’ family to pamper. I dinnae aspire tae don robes and fuckin’ pray my way through life. I dinnae flash my tits at the first prick that lets sleep in his house. Nor dae I waste my hours chasin' drink and dockside strumpets! My leisure is spent drilling forms, sighting irons, inspecting steel. I train for this. I live for this. This is all I have!”

  He jabbed his left hand out at them, dirty bandages taut against scorched skin.

  “Those weren’t some piss-soaked louts waitin’ for fisticuffs outside a howf, Brown. Thay were monsters. One misstep – one fuckin’ misstep – and you’d be deid. All o’ ye! Stone-fuckin’-deid, bones in a heap, and me left alone, cartin' off yer fuckin’ corpses!”

  His chest rose and fell violently, breath rattling through clenched teeth. The room reeked of scorched hair and spilled rotgut. He took a deep breath, trying to collect himself.

  Failed.

  “I didnae order ye to watch the tunnel because I wanted glory. I left ye behind because ye would’ve slowed me down. Because ye would’ve gotten in my way. Because I am better than you, ye gommy, daug-faced, worthless fuckin’ bitch!”

  He spat on the floor – the bloodied glob of saliva landing in the dust and absorbing it greedily – then eased himself back into the bed like a furnace burning through its last log.

  Mary’s face crumpled, lip quivering as if she had been slapped. Tears clung to the corners of her eyes, unspilled. The rest stared at their boots, their hands, or the unremarkable boards of the ceiling – anywhere that was not Ethan.

  Then – a knock at the door.

  “WHAT!?” Ethan barked.

  The door creaked open. A middle-aged gentleman stepped in with deliberate care, his polished shoes clicking against the boards. He wore a brown dinner jacket, beige waistcoat, and a red cravat that cut against the agedness of his complexion.

  “Mister Harbinger?” he asked, voice tinged with a clipped Swelandish accent.

  Mary bolted at once, pushing past Lyra, who paused only long enough to cast Ethan a glare – a look forged of pity and tempered in quiet antipathy – before she too vanished through the door.

  “Mhm. And you are?” Ethan asked with pointed derision, his gaze cutting through the man as if daring him to waste more breath.

  “Doktor Heisenberg. I vaz sent by ze baroness to tend to your injuries,” the man replied with polite precision, holding up a black valise embossed with the Caduceus in dull silver.

  “Right,” Ethan muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose, summoning what little calm remained. “Give us the room.”

  Simon and Warren shuffled toward the door without a word, offering no glances, no excuses. The air they left behind was stale with tension.

  Doctor Heisenberg approached the bed, gleaming loafers crushing the dusty wad of spit on the floor. Sunlight poured from the window in earnest now, highlighting the dust floating about the room.

  “How much of that did you hear?” Ethan asked, voice low and exhausted.

  The doctor hesitated, adjusting his spectacles. “I vaz about to knock when you shouted zat you were better zan your colleagues,” he admitted, diverting his gaze. “I did not intend to eavesdrop. I thought it best to let ze storm pass, ja?”

  “Letting me hurl my bile at someone else before you stepped in,” Ethan muttered, a dry smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Clever codger.”

  Heisenberg offered a brief shrug and a mild chuckle. “Quite. Now zen – vat ailments do you suffer from, Herr Harbinger?”

  The man certainly looked the part: greyed fringe cut in a monkish circle, narrow eyes made large by his spectacles, and a tight chinstrap of a beard that gave his face an ecclesiastical sharpness. The only discordant feature was his neck – thick as a mason’s and too powerful for his academic frame.

  Ethan laid out the full nature of his wounds and the manner in which he had acquired them. Heisenberg’s eyes widened by fractions, the skin of his brow creasing like brittle parchment.

  “You have not... contracted vampirism, ja?” he asked, voice now tinged with clinical dread.

  Ethan considered baring his teeth as a joke, but the humour curdled in his throat. “No. Subterranean monstrosities do not tend toward that affliction. And I am human – you should know we are not contaminable.”

  The doctor paused, scrutinising him through convex lenses. Then, seemingly satisfied, nodded once before lowering his case to the ground and opening it with a metallic click. The interior rattled with clinks of glass and metal.

  “Lie on your belly – bitte.”

  Ethan complied without comment. A sticky tarpaulin sheet was pulled out and unfolded with a rustle. It crackled beneath him as the doctor eased it into place beneath his right leg. Then a groaning creak as he dragged a chair from the corner of the room.

  “I vill now remove ze bandages,” Heisenberg said.

  “Mhm,” Ethan grunted.

  Silver scissors snipped through the cloth, the steel glinting under winter’s weak sun. As the last layer peeled away, pressure released – and a spurt of congealed blood slithered free.

  More followed. It gushed dark and sluggish at first, like treacle left too long in the cold. Then it grew fresher, livelier. Arterial crimson joined venous maroon. It pooled in the folds of the tarpaulin sheet, then ran over its slick surface to drip audibly onto the floorboards.

  Ethan groaned. Releasing the pressure had also released the pain.

  Three wounds, not quite shallow and utterly jagged, arced across his calf. Skin split, muscle gouged. Fibres hung loose like butcher’s scraps.

  “Not deep enough to score ze fibula,” Heisenberg murmured, bent over his work. “But your musculature is... ja. Ruined. But not beyond help!”

  Ethan remained silent.

  "It is, indubitably, the work of a beast endowed with claws most vicious," Heisenberg declared with irrepressible cheer, an affect wholly incongruous with the gore beneath his hands. "Your flesh, Herr Harbinger, is most thoroughly rrripped."

  Ethan emitted a sound that might once have aspired to be a groan, but turned into a yelp halfway as the doctor prodded the wound. He bit down on the pillow to avoid further humiliation. Heisenberg, apparently deaf to his patients’ suffering or simply indifferent, peered closer at the shredded calf with the zeal of an apothecary confronted with a lucrative affliction.

  "Zere is much corruption in ze limb. Bad humours. Ze worst sort," he continued blithely. "I must drain zem before I can stitch ze voonds. Vould you care for a dram of poppy milk?"

  "No," Ethan growled, lifting his face from the damp, saliva-slick fabric. "I require a clear mind. Do your work and be swift about it."

  He had already allowed himself too much when he had smoked the cannabis. No more.

  The doctor shrugged, retrieved a green glass bottle from his black valise, uncorked it with his teeth, and set it aside. He then selected a cloth from the recesses of his kit – grey once, now wholly stained a mottled maroon – and began cleaning. He wiped away the clotted, coagulated remnants of dried blood and necrotic tissue, occasionally washing the wound with icy water from the green bottle.

  Ethan bit down on the pillow again. The pain was exacting and precise, like being flayed with a dull razor. But this, he reminded himself, was only the prelude. When Heisenberg produced a needle fashioned from polished bone, curved like a butcher’s hook, Ethan's jaw clenched tighter.

  The stitching commenced. With methodical efficiency, the doctor sewed muscle to muscle, each pass of the thread dragging torn fibres into uneasy alignment. Blood vessels were reunited where possible, spliced like rope; those too mangled were simply excised with forceps, scissors, and scalpels. Finally, skin was pulled taut and pierced shut, stitched like sackcloth.

  Throughout it all, Heisenberg whistled a curiously sprightly tune – some Swelandish nursery rhyme, nauseating in its cheer – while Ethan sank his teeth through the pillow, splintering threads and soaking it in sweat, spit, and snot.

  Eventually, the maniacal concert ended.

  "Zat is your leg – how do you say – goot as new," the doctor chirped, straightening and rewrapping the limb with fresh linen. His tone suggested pride. Ethan’s response was to suck in air through gritted teeth, not because he lacked gratitude, but because he could scarcely muster the strength for breath.

  Heisenberg gestured towards Ethan's injured hand. "Now, if you please, ze next patient is... also you."

  Groaning, Ethan pushed himself upright and rotated to sit at the edge of the bed, positioning himself opposite the doctor. They regarded each other like duellists – one armed with scalpels and sanguine cheer, the other with wounds and weary contempt.

  Once more, Heisenberg cut away the bandages, revealing the torn, blistered, weeping mess that had once passed for a hand. He clucked his tongue in academic disapproval.

  "Some raw parts shall scar and mend unaided, but ze blisters? The tears? Ah, nein, zey must be lanced, drained, and excised before zey rot. Only zen can ve stitch."

  From his bag came a clean scalpel, gleaming and honed to a sliver.

  "Are you entirely sure you do not vant ze milk of ze poppy?" he asked again, tone gentler now, perhaps even respectful.

  Ethan eyed the blade. His pride wavered, but not enough to capitulate.

  He shook his head. "Proceed."

  A look, a shrug, and the whistling melody resumed.

  One by one, Heisenberg opened the blisters with the scalpel, fluid spurting forth in pale streams. The remnants – shrivelled membranes and loose flaps – were clipped away with silver tweezers. When his hands trembled or slipped, the scalpel nicked healthy flesh, and a thin line of red would appear, trickling down Ethan’s palm like candle wax.

  He did not flinch. A wince, perhaps, but no more.

  When the ritual was complete, the doctor stitched what rips and flaps remained, then bandaged the hand anew and stepped back, inspecting his patient like a carpenter assessing compromised wood.

  "You are very pale, sir," Heisenberg observed with professional detachment. He produced a thumb-lance and a wooden bowl already marked with the memory of countless prior bleedings. "I vould like to take blood. To release black biles and stagnant winds."

  Ethan, who was reasonably certain he had shed sufficient blood to satisfy any cultist, physician, or parasite, offered a weary glare.

  "You may take your lance," he said, voice flat. "And insert it where the moon’s light dares not venture."

  The doctor paused, weighed the cost-benefit analysis of engaging further, then tucked the offending tools away without comment.

  "Very vell," he said, replacing the lance with two glass vials. They were an unsightly shade of green, their contents indistinguishable save for their opacity: one milky and cloudy, the other brownish and syrupy.

  "Zis one is poppy milk," he said, shaking the cloudy vial. "Two drops, not more zan four times daily. Ze other," he gestured with the brownish vial. "Is a purgative. Take today. It vill, ah, remove ze humours by... alternate means."

  Ethan accepted both without comment. He had not the energy to argue and might yet find them useful – if not for their intended purpose then as bartering tools.

  "I shall send ze invoice to ze baroness," Heisenberg declared, tucking his instruments away in his valise. "Good day to you, sir."

  Ethan inclined his head. "Extend to her my compliments along with the invoice."

  "Certainly, Herr Harbinger," the doctor replied, and with a final snap of his case and resumption of that infernal tune, departed.

  “And Doctor Heisenberg,” Ethan called.

  The man paused at the threshold.

  “Thank you.”

  A hum, a nod, and the whistling resumed once more, growing more distant as the physician retreated.

  Alone at last, Ethan allowed himself to slump, limbs heavy with pain and exhaustion. He stared at the vial of poppy milk as it rolled slightly in his hand.

  For a brief moment, he considered emptying it entirely down his throat. Not out of despair, but sheer exasperation. End all of it and suffer no more – the legacy, the birthright, the battles, the service...

  The thought was met with a deserving scoff.

  His year of tutelage under Aelielaya reared its head: a single vial would provide nothing but an unpleasant haze and, according to one text, three weeks of abominable constipation. A grim fate, indeed.

  With a grunt, he shoved both vials into the inner pocket of his cloak and lay down. They could languish there until he discovered a use for them or forgot of their existence entirely.

  Now the horse pistol in his holster – that was a far more effective tool, if marginally less clean. Not that he planned on using it on himself.

  Bite down on the barrel, set to full-cock, squeeze the trigger.

  He fantasised – not for the first time – with eyes closed and thumb rubbing the weapon’s stock. His brow furrowed.

  A coward’s exit.

  But an exit, nonetheless.

  Perhaps predictably, fate intervened before any decision could be made – another knock echoed against the wooden doorframe.

  Ethan’s eyes opened without surprise, only bitterness. "Come in," he called, his tone gruff and grey. Curiosity and irritation waged war within him as he stared the door down – he had no doubt both would lose.

  Lyra entered inconspicuously, her movements as soft as snowfall. The door clicked shut behind her, its modest echo lost beneath the low creak of ancient timber.

  Ethan remained supine atop the bed, gaze now fixed somewhere beyond the stained beams above. He did not rise. He had no need to. Her purpose here was transparent enough.

  She glided across the chamber and took her seat at the foot of the bed, precisely where she had last occupied it – as though it had been reserved in her absence.

  "How do you feel?" she asked, the question tentative, its placement awkward.

  Unsurprising, when one considered the insult he had hurled at her earlier.

  "As one might expect of a man burned, butchered, and haphazardly reassembled within the span of a single day," Ethan replied, his tone dry and cold-pressed with venom. "How fares Mary?"

  No sense delaying the inevitable. The swifter they pierced the abscess, the quicker it would drain, and the sooner he might sleep. He had meant to temper the words. He had not.

  Regrettable. Almost.

  "She has taken a good cry and is bathing now," Lyra returned, tone clipped, brows drawn together with mild umbrage.

  He offered a noncommittal hum, mimicking the musical cadence Heisenberg had subjected him to earlier. His eyes drifted from her face to the ceiling, which – while flaking and watermarked – suddenly demanded intense scrutiny.

  Lyra regarded him with disbelief. The set of her jaw suggested she was weighing the merit of throwing something heavy at his head. "Your obstinacy will be the end of you," she muttered, hand cradling her chin. "Assuming your pride does not murder you first."

  "If you say so."

  That very nearly ended it. She had clearly intended to mediate, to sew shut the widening rift in their small band of misfits. Yet here he lay – impervious, uncooperative, and exuding disdain for both her efforts and her presence.

  Perhaps he had never been hers to reason with.

  But she did not stand. Instead, she breathed – long and deep – and folded her hands in her lap.

  "You were not wrong," she said, the words carefully measured.

  "Concerning what, precisely?" Ethan's tone smoothed, though remained defensive. Sarcasm itched at the back of his throat like a dog at a door. Still, something restrained him. A quiet curiosity, perhaps. Or sheer fatigue.

  "That you are better than them," the pale elf pressed on. Her voice, for all its clarity, lacked flourish. "What you said was not without merit. When the stakes rise, when death breathes close, it is your knowledge and skill that deliver us from it."

  "Ah. Well. That is... appreciated, I suppose," the words stumbled out as though he were unfamiliar with the terrain of gratitude.

  "But that reliance is not why they want you here," she continued, shifting where she sat. The linen sheets whispered with her movements, the old bed-frame groaned under her weight. "It is the necessity. The obligation. But not the desire."

  She leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping just enough to demand attention. "They are your friends, Ethan. That is the truth beneath it all. And yet you drive them away."

  "I would argue the effort is mutual," he muttered, dragging his eyes once more to the ceiling. The flaking plaster had not improved.

  "Perhaps," she conceded. "But someone must end the exchange of fire, or the war will consume the friendship."

  "And what would you have me do?" his voice tightened as his glare found her. "Am I to grovel and beg for pardon?"

  "An apology would be a beginning. A modicum of temperance, a next step. Should you wish to avoid repeating this ordeal."

  She held his gaze now – direct, unblinking, unwavering. Her challenge lay bare between them.

  He opened his mouth. A scathing retort, cruel and precisely engineered, hovered on his tongue.

  And then, with effort bordering on the heroic, he shut it again. A groan escaped instead, muffled by leather as he covered his face with his hand and closed his eyes.

  "I shall consider it," he muttered petulantly. He hated himself for it.

  Lyra smiled. Not with triumph, nor mockery – but with the quiet relief of one who had wrestled a lion into the pen without the courtesy of a whip.

  She reached out, giving his uninjured hand a brief squeeze.

  "That is all I ask. Thank you."

  She had no further need to remain. The message had been delivered, the seed planted. As she stood, the subtle shift in the room’s atmosphere suggested some intangible weight had lifted, if only slightly. Her departure mirrored her arrival – quiet and composed – though now buoyed by a silent satisfaction that lightened her every step. The door shut behind her with the faintest click.

  Ethan remained motionless for a moment, then slowly regarded his gloved hand, still faintly tingling where she had touched it, despite the leather. A long, deliberate sigh escaped him, pressed from his lungs like steam from a kettle left too long.

  She was correct, of course. Not in sentiment, but in logic. If he continued to alienate those around him with his habitual contempt and ironclad self-reliance, the result would be inevitable: fracture or flight. He would be left, once again, to face the world alone – just as he had been upon his first arrival at Oaleholder’s docks.

  There had been a certain liberation in those early days. No ties. No obligations. No concern for the welfare of others, nor anyone to burden him with concern in return. A kind of freedom, yes. But it came with its own set of liabilities.

  Without allies, one could not fight – outnumbered and outmanoeuvred at every turn. One could not flee – exhaustion always caught the solitary first. One could not hide – sooner or later, there was always a pair of eyes, a loose tongue, a well-placed blade.

  But with companions, there were options. Battles could be survived by coordination. Escapes could be orchestrated with distraction and diversion. Retreats could be opened by friendly doors, loyal arms, and places to vanish into.

  Sentiment was irrelevant. Strategy dictated that maintaining those bonds was not a kindness – it was a necessity. Alone, he was vulnerable. Together, they were merely inconveniently entangled.

  This mental arithmetic, repeated and revisited, left his skull throbbing. First came the vertigo, then the cold, like frost crawling down his spine. Then an abrupt and burning heat, swelling behind the eyes. And then, as if to spite both, the chill returned.

  Not overthinking. Fever.

  Hydration. He needed water. To purge the heat and re-establish equilibrium. But the provisions bag lay by the door, precisely where he had abandoned it earlier. An oversight. Inexcusable.

  Ethan inhaled sharply and sat up. Agony. He had tried using his left hand for support, and white pain lanced through the entire limb, up to the nape of his neck. Regardless, he swung his legs off the bed.

  He stood.

  Another mistake.

  He attempted to stand. The moment he placed weight on the right leg, it crumpled, and he found himself unceremoniously deposited on the floorboards with a dull thud.

  More curses followed. None original, but all heartfelt.

  Gritting his teeth, he began to crawl – first across the bedding he had inadvertently dragged with him, then onto the floorboards proper. Each movement demanded full effort from every usable joint, dragging himself forward on elbows and knees. Progress was slow. Each inch felt equivalent to climbing the Great Hall’s steps. Each breath a debt owed to exertion.

  Eventually, the sack.

  He pawed through it, clumsily, with one hand, until his fingers closed around the water-skin. Cool to the touch. Sloshing with promise.

  Rolling to one side, he positioned his back against the wall. The cork came loose under his teeth; he spat it out unceremoniously and drank. No elegance. No pause. Just a man gulping like a dying animal, trying to reclaim something vital from the world that had denied him so much else.

  The water was cold as ice but tasted of life. It overflowed from the corners of his mouth, trailing down his stubbled chin and neck, soaking into the collar of his shirt. Still he drank.

  When the skin ran dry, he glared at it as though it had betrayed him. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he cast it aside. It landed near the bed, just beside the congealed bloodstain Heisenberg had neglected to scrub away after the impromptu surgery.

  The bed now seemed impossibly distant. The longer he looked at it, the more it resembled the view from the end of a long tunnel.

  I need to crawl back. Pull myself across and wrap up in the duvet. Let the fever run its course.

  Push. Crawl. Push…

  He tried. Nothing responded. His limbs refused the order. He slid sideways against the wall, gathering speed until he collapsed perpendicularly on the timber floor. His temple struck wood with an audible crack, sending a dull bloom of pressure through his skull.

  A tremor rippled through him. Cold returned, biting deep now. His cloak – Elsian silk though it was – provided no insulation against this internal chill. He curled inwards, spine bowed and knees tucked to chest, in a desperate attempt to retain warmth.

  He opened his eyes one final time. The bed loomed ahead, unreachable and unsympathetic.

  Then he closed them, and let fever and exhaustion drag him into darkness.

  And, of course, thank you for reading!

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