Page 25

“What is he, Fezzik?” Sithe hissed, sounding for a moment like she was attempting to imitate the imp; said imp, for its part, looked thoroughly excited. Entranced. It giggled, which sounded more like an old man’s hacking cough, with smooth little clicks back ‘round its tiny throat.

“You’re not a stupid mistress,” Fezzik purred, “so I’ll assume that you are after a—shall we call it—specific answer?” Sithe gave a curt nod. “Fine, then. He deals in work much like your own. Of course he does. Wicked little Abney does. Why, how else could he have such a powerful position in your human politics? Each of his rivals? Each ... and every ... one? Are they among the living? Those nobles who could threaten his position with the lofty, illustrious Sisters? Oh, no-no-no-no-no.” A spit-shining, sickle grin cut through the imp’s twisted face again. “They are quite ...” A pause. “... dead. Now, be serious, clever girl. Could that possibly be a coincidence?”

“Your work?” Sithe asked; she sounded almost betrayed.

“Not mine personally.” Fezzik looked entirely betrayed. It put a hand to its chest. “But we have allies, we creatures of ether. The same as you. We share stories, the same as you. Tell me true, Mistress: don’t you think it odd that Master Abney, old and white-haired and hunkered the way he is, would have a sweet, young little daughter?”

“Odd? Perhaps. But not unheard of.”

“Oh, no. Of course not. But think, Mistress. Only one child to share in his fancy estate? No wife? No servants?” Fezzik waved an admonishing finger. “There is no playful little excuse for such solitude in a man like that. He’s had wives, and he’s had children, and he’s had people in his employ. Yes, indeed, he has had them.”

Sithe closed her eyes, and repeated, slowly: “... Had.”

Page 24

If Sithe expected any kind of reaction from her unsightly, unholy apparitions, it certainly wouldn’t have been for them to laugh. Nonetheless, that was precisely what Fezzik did. It tossed its head back and cackled. Metha’li had no mouth, nor a voice, but it seemed to vibrate with mirth alongside its partner.

“Oh, good old Abney!”

“Wait.” Sithe’s eyes bored into each demon in turn. “You know this man?”

Fezzik continued to howl. Metha’li nodded ... inasmuch as a mass of black goo could nod.

“Oh, Mistress ... lovely little Mistress of mine ...” the skeletal creature purred into Sithe’s ear. “We know Abney very, very well.”

Silence reigned.

Sithe finally leaned back against her desk, and regarded Metha’li carefully while Fezzik danced across her shoulders. She said, after a while, “I suppose this simplifies things. If you know him, then surely you know why I’ve called for you.”

“Oh, certainly,” Fezzik said, sounding almost disappointed. “Master Abney is ... well, to use a turn of phrase you might use, here in your living world, quite a piece of work. Has he finally slipped enough that you’ve discovered him? My, my. How sloppy.”

The look on Sithe’s face was dangerous. Her mouth drew down into an ugly scowl, and her eyes added to the dance by going wide and rather feverish. It wasn’t often that this lovely young woman looked in such a state. Her tongue was sharp, her eyes sharper, but honest anger took a painfully long time to build in her. Sithe's standard coping mechanism was to block it, and all other negative emotions, and box them in. Compartmentalize.

Which was to say that, when Miss Sithe got super calm, her children knew better than to cross her.

This, though. This went far beyond torrential calm. This anger was not something that could be blocked behind a mental barrier. It was deep, and primeval. A scorching sort of rage. She knew, in the darkest part of her, that there was only one way for her clever little familiar to know about Gregor Abney.

A contract.

Only the Dragonbride herself could sanction such a thing.

Page 23

The thing was darkness given substance.

Thick and bulbous oil, rising up from the center of the floor; a bubbling, purplish mass of ooze, glowing like a ghoul at midnight. It was a top-heavy hulk with long, undulating appendages that might have once been arms in a past life, and there was a vague impression that it should have a head.

It didn’t.

Sitting in its place, where a neck would have been, was a thin little creature. A small animal—sort of—with pointed ears that were pulled back on a tiny skull, and a dagger-toothed grin that split its mocking face in two. Unlike its silent companion, which may or may not have even been sentient, this thing radiated malevolence.

Both of these monstrosities, whatever they were, were translucent. If not for the glow in the skeletal imp’s eyes, there wouldn’t have been a focal point to see them at all. Not with a layperson's eyes, anyway.

Sithe's glare bore straight into the both of them.

“What an ... unadulterated pleasure, Mistress,” the imp hissed, offering a grim mockery of a courtly bow. Something resembling fondness rested in the ethereal black that was its voice. “Don’t you think so, Metha?” The imp patted its oily companion. “I think she’s ... up to something. Mm. I do.”

“Fezzik,” Sithe murmured softly, with a dark little smile. She gestured almost delicately toward the thing. Fezzik hopped onto her hand and scampered up her arm, to rest on her shoulder and lean its bony cheek against her ear. “Metha’li,” she continued, obviously referring to the other. “Thank you for coming. I have an assignment for you. Involving a rather ... unseemly sort of man.”

“Are we doing noble work again, Mistress?” Fezzik asked mockingly. “To what do we owe the pleasure of being your instruments tonight? The last I heard, you preferred to use our dear little Ekza when dealing with ... heh, men.”

Sithe’s smile widened. “We’re not at that stage yet, little one.” She reached up and ticked the imp’s long nose with the knuckle of one finger. “I need information. Shall we say, damning evidence.”

Fezzik clapped its talon-tipped hands together with a squeal of dark delight. “Oh! Listen to that, Metha! We’re off to spy on the decadent! You humans have such a capacity for ... what’s your word for it? Evil? Tell me, Mistress. Tell me true. Who is the hapless, craven creature which has so caught your ... illustrious fancy?”

“His name is Gregor Abney.”

Page 22

A transformation took place, when night folded its shroud over Aranh Breckenridge’s daughter.

The common room was cleared out and set for bed. All of the children, save two, were asleep. The twins, Godric and Fuller, stood sentinel outside their matron’s private chambers, with eyes and ears as sharp as any seasoned thief’s. Which was just as well, considering they had both been well on their way to becoming thieves, before they’d wound up under Miss Sithe’s roof.

Outside the good matron’s sanctum, the night was quiet. Serene, even. Moonguard slept easy, as always it did. The twins looked two shakes away from bored at their posts. But past the threshold, inside Sithe’s study, something ... unsavory was happening.

Something that would have set Sythius Sil’nathin into a frothing rage.

An intricate, circular rune was drawn on the hardwood floor. Drawn in the language of God the Father, with a hand as steady as any calligrapher, Sithe had managed to invoke something unspeakable.

Most runes written in this language stayed stationary after being drawn, but these were somehow different. They seemed to dance in the night air, restless and harsh, pulsing, fluctuating. Like veins leading straight into the heartbeat of the earth.

This was not the sort of thing one learned at a university, or as a thaumaturgist’s apprentice.

Standing in one corner of the dark, candle-flickering room, swathed in a robe that looked like a tailor reached up and grabbed midnight out of the sky for fabric, was the matron. She held a thick book in her hands, opened to a page far in the back. Her quicksilver eyes roved across the text, lips moving silently.

A full five minutes, an age in miniature, passed before Sithe finally shut the book, with a declamatory thump that would have made a lesser being jump straight out of its skin. She reached into a pocket of her dark robe and drew out a knife. She held out the other arm, pulled back the cloth, revealing her pale flesh.

The blood in her veins seemed to glow, and pulse—not with her heartbeat, but with something else’s—and snake-like strips of light began to lift off of them. Whirling, undulating, inside the confines of a cage that eyes were not meant to see.

Sithe took a firm grip on her blade, and belted out a string of words in a language that could not be transcribed; ugly, guttural sounds that slithered out of her mouth and dripped thickly in the air.

She ripped the blade across her arm, and bright red blood splashed into the center of the circle, where it solidified, and promptly shattered like crystal. Light exploded out of it in a volcanic geyser of white.

Sithe shut her eyes against the glare and waited a number of seconds—heartbeats—before opening them again.

In the interim, the white had coalesced into a concentrated, deliberately inhuman shape.

Page 21

A day later, Sithe was neck-deep in the market district of Moonguard, weaving and dodging through the intricate dance that was commerce in a big city. She picked up a little bit of everything: a roll of thread, needles, fruits imported from east of the Aubrith River, new shoes for David and a traveling cloak for Elliot—who was set to leave for Eastwharf mere days from today—along with any number of spices, scraps of random materials better left unnamed, candles, a few fingers of chalk, and a jug of foreign-vintage wine.

As she did this, Godric eventually fell into step beside her, along with another boy that looked patently identical to him, save for the fact that while Godric’s hair was cropped short and seemed to jet out in spikes from his head, the other boy wore his own locks long, pulled back into a tail that wanted desperately to be a braid.

“Abney’s in a foul one again,” Godric said.

The other boy, who could only be Godric’s twin brother, Fuller, put in: “Brought his daughter with him out to market today. Six, maybe seven. Thin as sticks. Dolled up and real pretty ... leastways she would be, ‘cept the part where she keeps flinching at things like she thinks there’s monsters hiding in everybody’s shoes.”

Sithe frowned. “What do you think?” she asked quietly. She barely moved her lips, as she headed off on a path that only she could see. She bumped into a noblewoman nursing a babe at one of her mammoth breasts. The woman started to snap and snarl at Sithe, until she got a good look at the matron’s face and realized who she was.

Being the only heiress of a city legend had its benefits.

“Is she one of ours?” Sithe continued eventually.

Godric spoke up first: “I’d put money on her. Keeps her eyes down, never talks, kind of squeaks when anything so much as touches her.”

Fuller nodded decisively. “Definitely ours.”

“You know how this works, boys,” Sithe said, admonishing. “Intuition and instinct is fine and good, but it isn’t enough. If this is all you have to report, then we have a sign to dig deeper. That’s it.”

The boys looked crestfallen, but only for a moment. Fuller got a spark in his eye, and he said, “She was dragging behind, she was, looking woebegone and some such-like at some other’ns. Kids, I mean. And Abney, he looks at her with this piggy look on his face” —here Fuller scrunched up his face in imitation— “And he says, ‘Move yer feet, girl! On with it now!’ And she goes, ‘Yes’m, Master. Sorry, Master.’ Don’t she call him Daddy, or Papa, or Sire. Calls him like he’s her owner. Tell me that ain’t a sign, Missus.”

Sithe’s expression soured.

“... I’ll look into it. Personally.”

Page 20

“Do you understand what I’m asking you?”

One look at Sythius’s face was enough for anyone to realize that he didn’t understand anything. His big face was slack, his amber eyes clouded and confused, and he fidgeted like a little boy who didn’t know what he’d done to get put in a corner. Sithe half-expected him to ask her if he could go out to play now.

She was surprised when he shook his head.

Sithe tried again: “... My boys, and my girls, used to live with other people,” she said. She saw a pile of wooden soldier toys lying on the floor. Likely left over from one of David’s mock campaigns. She stood from her chair and picked up a few of them.

She held up a female soldier. “Pretend this is me,” she said, and set the toy down on the table.

Then she took three more and set them down, with a bit of distance between them and the other toy. “These are parents,” she said, lifting up two of the toys and shaking them a bit, feeling like she was trying to train a puppy.

The big lummox was paying attention, though.

“This is their child,” Sithe said, lifting up the last toy.

“Parents take care of their children,” Sithe said. This, Sythius seemed to understand. His face grew determined, and he nodded. “They protect their children.” Another nod. “But if they die—” Sithe knocked over the two dolls, leaving the “child” standing “—who takes care of the children?”

Sythius’s face brightened, and he pointed enthusiastically at the remaining doll. “You,” he said, in his low rumble, and Sithe realized that this man might just be smarter than he looked. Perhaps he simply had trouble articulating.

Sithe nodded. “That’s right. Me.”

Sythius grinned his unsettling little grin.

“So,” Sithe said, righting the parent dolls. “Usually, if a child’s parents die, that is a terrible, tragic thing. But sometimes, that’s not true. William’s ... parents didn’t take care of him.” She almost said guardians, but figured it best to keep things simple. Sythius looked concerned. “The man who hurt William, the man you killed, was his parent.”

Sythius’s face screwed up into something predatory.

Something terrifying.

“What do we do,” Sithe dared, “with parents who treat their children like that? What do we do with parents who hurt their children?”

Sythius was a long time in answering, and when he did it wasn’t with words.

He bared his teeth and growled.

Page 19

Sythius didn’t stop glaring at Cell until Ollie started laughing and pulling at his hair, calling for her horsie to spin around again, spin around again! This he did, and by the time he turned around a few times he seemed to have forgotten that someone had thrown a rock at him.

Cell approached Sithe’s side, but didn’t speak for a long moment. When he finally figured out what to say, his voice was quiet but determined: “She was never in any danger. Even if he hadn’t been able to deflect it, I would have. And even if I hadn’t, you would have.” He gestured to the giant. “This man is an anomaly. As fierce as a hurricane, yet so gentle that we feel bad when we complain about getting wet.”

Sithe snorted laughter in spite of herself. “The sad part is, I think I believe you.”

Cell quirked an eyebrow at the matron. “You could use someone like him, Milady Breckenridge.”

The laughter died, replaced by confused silence. “Use?” she repeated.

“Something you said to Vincent,” Cell went on. “This assassin, Uncle Scratch, was able to deflect your ‘skills.’ Which means that you attempted to deal with him, but couldn’t. I’ve heard rumors about a vigilante, acting in secret, beneath the lofty gaze of Saint Vilaya’s guard dogs. They say this person targets ... abusive parents. Such an odd choice, don’t you think? Why not thieves, murderers, blasphemers? Why undertake a mission whose only purpose is to create orphans?”

Sithe didn’t look at Cell. She didn’t move. “A mystery for the ages,” she murmured.

“A gentle giant like our huntsman from the North would be ... useful in such a mission. Don’t you think? Look at how he is with the children you already have. And then think about what he did when I provoked him. And,” here Cell lifted a finger, and gestured to William, who had meandered over to the other side of the yard, “he came to you for help, which you provided. It would be easy to convince him that he should ... repay the favor.”

“Are you suggesting that I manipulate this man?” Sithe asked.

Cell chuckled. “I would never. But ... it would be easy.”

Sithe sighed, and watched Sythius for a while longer.

A smirk slowly slid onto her young, sharp face.

“Yes,” she almost purred. “I suppose it would be.”

Page 18

While Sithe and Vincent watched Sythius play with the children, Cell guided William gently outside, smiling like a kindly old governess. He gestured grandly to the scene unfolding before them. “This is one after my heart,” Cell said, and brandished one of the giant’s carvings. He placed it into William’s hands.

William looked incredulous, looking at the crude gift and then up at its creator, who had actually begun to neigh and shake his head in a disturbingly accurate mimicry of a horse. He looked ready to drop onto all fours and gallop. “That man saved my life?” William asked, with a curl in his lip.

Cell laughed. “You sound incredulous. I suppose I don’t blame you. He doesn’t look very dangerous, does he? Surely not the sort of man who could kill a master assassin like your Uncle Scratch.”

William nodded slowly, dumbly.

Cell bent down and picked up a chunk of loose cobble from the path leading back to the building. Hefting it in one hand, he watched Sythius play for a while, calculating, then reeled back and pitched it toward the giant with a strength and precision that defied imagining.

Sythius Sil’nathin’s attention was focused entirely on a pair of boys, laughing and singing an old trail song while they clapped and slapped their knees. The stone sailed directly for little Ollie’s head, and considering the strength of Cell’s throw, it was destined to split the poor girl’s skull in twain.

Sithe’s left hand twitched, and her eyes widened—not in fear, but in anger. Cell had a hand on the pouch he wore about his neck.

But they needn’t have worried. As William gasped, Sythius whirled on a heel, his own amber gaze blazing with a predator’s intensity, and crushed the impromptu projectile in one huge fist. His lips were pulled back, revealing teeth that looked alarmingly sharp.

Cell held up both hands slowly, and began to applaud. “Well done, friend!” he called.

Sithe turned her head without facing the blond man. “Do that again, and you’ll be eating your next meal without the benefit of your teeth.” She paused. “Or your lips.”

Page 17

“See? You has to puts the waters in just like thats.”

“Hrnh.”

“And then? You has the perfect con-sis-en-see.”

“Rgh.”

Vincent found them first. After five minutes of searching out every corner of the building, wondering how it was that a seven-foot-tall slab of muscle could possibly hide himself, Cell mentioned that the best place to look for a man like him—he gestured to the leathers and feathers of his own outfit—was outside.

They found him, in the yard outside, behind the black-iron fencing that Commander Breckenridge erected—“To make the place look more official.” A little girl, Vincent recalled that she went by Ollie, was teaching the giant how to make mud cakes. For a long while, Vincent watched in silence. Sythius had a rapturous look on his face as he listened to Ollie’s step-by-step instructions, and when Ollie applauded and congratulated him on finally making one that stayed together the right way, Sythius grinned like a child and nodded so vigorously that his hair flew around his head like a blue-black octopus.

Vincent was still watching as Sithe came up behind him. The matron actually laughed as Ollie pulled Sythius along toward some of the other children to play a game of hunt-the-aurochs. This soon devolved into six or seven small children using the big man as an obstacle course, swinging from his mammoth arms and latching onto his huge legs as he stomped around. Ollie sat perched on his shoulders, directing her new horsie this way and that, effectively ruining the yard in a storm of dirt, mud, and laughing.

“That ... is pathetic,” Sithe muttered, but there was a smile in her voice that Vincent didn’t have to turn his head to see.

Page 16

“Vincent?” Sithe asked softly, looking imperial. “You say that you know where William’s sister is staying right now? With another friend?”

Vincent nodded. “We call ‘im Freddy the Goat. Frederick, that’s his real name. His goodly name, if you like. He’s got a sister, her name’s Deb. She’s helping. But I know Branny. She’d wanna be with her big brother.” Vincent winked at William. “She’d move the earth and sky for him, if she could.”

“So, you think she’d want to be here?” Sithe asked.

Vincent nodded vigorously. “I’m sure of it. Should I go get her? She’s been ... antsy. Wants to see him. Figured we should wait ‘til he was out of the woods, though. Y’know. Awake.”

Sithe nodded. “That’s smart of you. Purging hexblood is a ... delicate operation. I’m sure she’d have wanted to help.” She looked at Vincent with an odd look. “You already knew that, didn’t you?”

Vincent shrugged. “I ... learned things. At the guild. Heard the name tossed around a few times.”

Sithe smiled. “You’re too smart for your own good. It’ll get you into trouble someday. I hope you know that. Go and get her. If your other friends want to see him, I won’t begrudge them. But understand this: I hold everyone who steps under this roof to the same conduct. So don’t think I won’t keep order.”

Vincent laughed. “I’ll remember that.”

“Thank you!” William blurted out suddenly, causing everyone to look at him. “Um ... everyone. For everything. I—I know I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for all of you. So ... thank you.”

Sithe nodded gently. “You’re quite welcome, William. But if you wish to thank anyone ... thank the shield that guarded you.” She looked around, then blinked. She looked at Vincent. Then at Cell. Then back at William.

“... Where’s the big one?”

Page 15

“Tried to go to the Wolves,” Vincent said. “Talked to this man, Redcroft. I don’t even remember what kind of double-talk he gave me. Basically it meant you was dead and I’d better get used to it, a’cuz welp! God’s hands!  Praise be unto He of Many Hands!”

Sithe seemed to find this amusing. “And yet,” she said, “it seems like there might just be some truth to that, after all. I suppose I understand your frustration, though. In any case, as I said before, it would be best if William stayed here for the time being.” She frowned, suddenly deep in thought. “In fact, I’m thinking that it might be best if he stayed here, period.”

William looked confused. “Matron ... are you ... ?”

“You and your sister are on your own, aren’t you?” Sithe asked. William hesitated a moment, then nodded slowly. “That falls directly under my ... purview. Now, before I give you a direct offer—I told this to Vincent, as well—let me establish what it is that I’ll be offering. I am offering you a home. I am offering you a family. With those things comes certain responsibilities. I expect my children to abide by the law. I expect my children to learn from each other, to support each other, to love each other. Most importantly, I expect my children to keep the peace.

“If you can do that, then I can assure you that you, and your sister, will never wonder where your next meal comes from. You’ll never worry about having a dry place to sleep. Your needs will be met. That is what it means to be one of my children. So, now that that’s out of the way, allow me to ask you officially: will you stay in this house, William? Will you join this family?”

William continued to stare; his mouth fell open, and he seemed unable to form words of any sort, to say nothing of a coherent answer. Vincent was grinning, nodding, gesturing almost frantically for his friend to accept. Sythius was eyeing the matron with a sense of keen interest in his amber eyes. Cell had a soft, contented little smile on his face.

William looked around himself, at each of the others. He looked behind them at the other children in the front parlor.

He eventually smiled.

“Yes, Matron. If you’ll have us ... we’ll join your family.”