Having - more or less - cleared up the whole “charming” problem, I went looking for Drackar, only to be told he was off inspecting some outposts. Well, that’s what happens when you don’t plan and announce your visits.

  Not in the state to tackle anything requiring more than two functional brain cells, I decided to check on my ghoul. That, at least, was within my current capabilities, and more importantly, it kept me outside in the yard, away from most people.

  Alice had mentioned he was busy repairing weapons and armor, and I wanted to see how things were progressing, and whether he was still sticking to the agreed-upon menu. My shoulders sagged slightly at the thought. You never really knew with ghouls. Even if I’d let the others talk me into sparing him, whatever he did, or might do next, was now entirely on me.

  His residence was tucked along the inner wall, not far from Muherjo’s dakta: a former smithy he’d since reactivated. I was curious to see if he’d made any changes to the place. Do ghouls even do that? Do they feel the need to adjust their surroundings?

  The faint clink of hammer on anvil drifted from his direction. I paused, ears swiveling instinctively. The sound seemed oddly distant, considering how close I was. Drackar must have had a mage set up a noise-reduction ward around the area, otherwise, it would be echoing through the entire castle yard.

  As I stepped into the smithy, my eyes were immediately drawn to the large feline sprawled near the forge, basking in its warmth. Beside him, the ghoul was busy hammering a glowing blade over an anvil. The noise-reduction ward must have been set up around the forge area—neat work, actually. Even inside the room, the sound was pleasantly muted.

  “Hey, Lynx. What are you doing here?”

  He yawned, revealing a flawless row of sharp, white teeth.

  “Uhm, sorry!” he said, voice as casual as ever. “Alice and Grubber went off to search for orcs, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I’m just keeping Fred company.”

  “Fred?” I echoed, glancing around in confusion before realizing he was flicking his tail toward the ghoul.

  I raised a brow at him. He chuckled and scratched his chin.

  “Well, you never gave him a name,” he said. “So I decided to call him Fred. Isn’t it fitting?”

  At that, the ghoul paused mid-strike, turned toward Lynx, and shook his head with slow, deliberate disapproval.

  “You cannot give me a name. Only Master can give me a name,” he said, then turned back and resumed hammering.

  I rolled my eyes. “Your name is Fred.”

  He froze again. Then, his sunken eyes lit up with something like… joy?

  “Thank you, Master,” he said, his voice low and oddly reverent. Without another word, he turned back to the blade and resumed his hammering.

  I glanced around the smithy. It looked exactly the same as before: nothing had changed apart from the forge being lit. Even the anvil still stood in its awkward spot, and the same old basket sat squarely in the middle of the walkway.

  A small sigh escaped me.

  “You haven’t changed anything,” I said, my shoulders slumping just a little.

  The ghoul paused mid-hammer and turned toward me.

  “Changes?”

  I gestured vaguely at the space. “I mean… this place is exactly as it was. That basket’s still in the way. You have to walk around it every single time. Why not just move it?”

  His pale, sunken eyes widened in something like disbelief.

  “How could I?” he asked.

  I frowned. “This is your place.”

  “My place?” he echoed, stunned—as if the words had never occurred to him before.

  Then, with an almost mechanical precision, he turned and kicked the basket. It shot out the open door like a ball through a goalpost.

  “Thank you, Master!” he said, his voice even deeper now.

  I raised a brow. That was… unexpected.

  I turned toward Lynx.

  “And he talks to you?” I asked, genuinely curious. Ghouls weren’t exactly known for being conversationalists.

  Lynx puffed up with pride.

  “Of course he talks to me!”

  “How come?” I tilted my head. This didn’t make much sense.

  He chuckled, clearly amused.

  “You once told him to answer my questions,” he said, flicking his tail with smug satisfaction. “So he’s been doing it ever since—bravely, I might add!”

  That was so ridiculous I burst out laughing.

  Lynx just grinned, looking pleased with himself, as if this counted as a personal victory.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “And what exactly were you two talking about?” I asked, genuinely curious. What could anyone possibly discuss with a ghoul?

  “I’ve been trying to convince him to let me fully shield the hammer noise,” Lynx replied, twitching an ear. “But he insists on hearing it.”

  I raised my eyebrows. So Lynx was the one who’d set up the sound dampening? And the ghoul didn’t want it?

  “You can do that? Sound shielding?”

  Lynx blinked, clearly offended.

  “Of course! How else would I ever manage to ambush anyone if I couldn’t muffle my own footsteps?”

  Fair point. I’d always assumed he had some stealth skills, not that he was capable of full-on magical silencing. Clearly, I’d underestimated him.

  I turned to the ghoul, still confused.

  “Why do you want to hear the hammer?”

  Was this some kind of ghoul music?

  He looked faintly appalled.

  “That is not noise,” he said with a deep, almost reverent tone. Then his expression softened, as if he were explaining something sacred to a child.

  “It is the metal’s cry—as it resists the change I impose on it. If I can’t hear it, I can’t shape it properly.”

  I blinked, surprised, but I wasn’t about to argue with a ghoul about the emotional cries of metal. If that’s what he heard, so be it. The sound shielding Lynx had set up was working just fine, and that was enough for me.

  Lynx shrugged, his tail giving a lazy flick.

  “So you see—getting him to stop hammering through the entire night has been the real battle.”

  Oh, right. Ghouls don’t sleep.

  I scratched my scalp, suddenly imagining the poor castle guards trying to rest while the forge rang nonstop like a maddened bell.

  “What’s he actually working on?” I asked.

  “Drackar gave him a big commission,” Lynx said, sounding vaguely impressed. “Swords. Lots of them.”

  I ended up dragging over a small three-legged chair from under a table and lowering myself onto it.

  “Have you seen Yolanda?” I asked, glancing at Lynx.

  One of his ears perked at the mention of her name.

  “Did she ask you to talk to me?” he asked cautiously.

  That caught me off guard. I blinked. “Uh… no?”

  Lynx lifted his head with an almost defiant air.

  “Well, I haven’t seen her lately, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  I raised a brow. That was unexpected.

  “You’re hiding from her? Why?”

  He gave a nonchalant shrug.

  “She wants to go shopping in Orcmound village.”

  I blinked again. I still didn’t get it.

  “And?” I asked, frowning when he didn’t offer any clarification.

  “She wants to go riding the lynx,” he said with a long-suffering sigh.

  I blinked again. “Why? Isn’t the warlock’s teleport still working?”

  “Oh, he’s doing his job bravely every day,” Lynx replied, flicking his tail, “but she’d still have to walk from the teleport point… and it’s a long way down to the inn.”

  I didn’t really know what to say to that.

  “Oh… uh… and the rest of the time, what does she do?” I asked, feeling the conversation slipping out of my grasp.

  He shrugged lazily.

  “I don’t know. You might ask the maids. They’d know more.”

  Then his eyes narrowed slightly.

  “And you? What are you doing here? Just here to chat?”

  I nodded slowly, my mood dipping again. With a heavy sigh, I admitted, “I’m hiding. A lot of people collapsed today because of my aura. So I thought I’d give everyone a little break... including myself.”

  “Weaklings! All of them!” the ghoul suddenly growled from across the room.

  I blinked, startled—not just by the outburst, but by the fact that my ghoul was actually joining the conversation. That was… highly unusual.

  Lynx let out a hearty laugh.

  “So, we’re both in hiding then!”

  I sighed and turned my attention to the ghoul.

  “Fred, come here.”

  He shuffled over obediently, his hammer still in hand. I pointed toward a barrel near the wall where faint smears of blood had caught my eye.

  “There’s blood over there. Where’s it from?” I asked, already bracing myself for the answer.

  “I ate a couple of stragglers who came into the smithy,” he said without a hint of shame.

  I closed my eyes. Wonderful. Just what I’d feared.

  But before dismissing him, I needed to know exactly what we were talking about.

  “What kind of stragglers, Fred?”

  “There was a rat nest,” he explained matter-of-factly.

  I opened my eyes and blinked.

  “No humans? Orcs? Elves?” I asked, raising a brow sharply.

  He shook his head firmly.

  “No humans, orcs, or elves. That’s master’s directive number three.”

  I let out a long breath of relief.

  “Oh, okay… um, good.”

  I didn’t know what else to say about rats, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if setting too many rules would just confuse him. Instead, I reached up and adjusted his neck and some of the other loose bits still hanging awkwardly from his frame—at least as much as I could manage.

  “Thank you, master,” he said, sounding almost content.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  He nodded, so I fed him a stream of mana. It was the cleaner way to keep a ghoul sustained—more direct and certainly less horrifying than other alternatives. And my mana quality was high enough to keep him full for quite a while. I really should do this more often. He shouldn't have to go scrounging around for rats. Maybe I ought to buy a few mana crystals for him… though I wasn’t sure he’d be able to give up all of his instincts.