Ethan and Maria regarded one another in silence, their gazes locked in an unyielding deadlock.

  The room itself seemed to shrink around them, charged with an unspoken tension so thick it could have been cut and stacked like firewood. His posture remained still, his jaw set; hers was looser, almost aloof. She wore the smirk of a woman who knew she had won before the contest had begun.

  Ethan disliked not knowing the rules to a game he was already losing. The baroness knew far more than she ought; had uncovered connections he did not even realise existed. That she had anticipated him – and bested him – rankled deeply.

  His foot began to itch. His fingers grasped under his cloak for his pistol. His posture remained unmoved.

  Lyra hovered uselessly nearby, caught somewhere between propriety and panic. Her arms flailed once, then she pressed them tight against her chest. When that proved insufficient, she dropped them to her sides – only to raise them again to her lips. The loop repeated, as if motion might replace words. It did not.

  At length, Maria Stonewater sighed. She was the first to break eye contact.

  “You have Dunwald’s glare, young man,” she said matter-of-factly. “That same defiant squint he used to wear – like a man who believes the world owes him explanation, and can wait an eternity for it.”

  She shook her head with some manner of obscure emotion, then lowered herself into the redwood chair behind her. “But that is not why you are here. I despise you for what you did to my dear Maximillian, but I do not hold you to account for it. I warned him – explicitly – not to resist Richard Best and his breed. He thought himself above compromise. Pride has a butcher’s bill, Mister Harbinger, and he paid it.”

  Her gaze fixed on Ethan again, heavier now. “Tell me, Ethan. How did my husband die? What was he like in his final moments?”

  There was no use in denial. She already knew. Even more than she was letting on. And trying to rat his out of it now would only deepen her contempt.

  The tension in Ethan’s shoulders dissipated – slightly.

  The beating of his heart calmed – sufficiently.

  His mind reached back into that sour compartment of memory, recalling the man who had soiled himself in fear and fury, attempting to shout in protest even as Ethan’s blade bled the life out of him. He had died in a vile puddle of his own piss and shite.

  Hardly dignified. But facts rarely were.

  “Valiantly, your Ladyship,” Ethan replied with the dispassion of someone delivering an inventory. “I ambushed him inside his landau. The outcome was never in doubt, but that did not stop him from resisting. He kicked, punched, bit – fought with the fury of a man determined to drag fate down with him.”

  Maria had clasped her hands beneath her chin, elbows planted firmly on the table. As he spoke, her jaw tensed, and the moisture in her eyes caught the candlelight. She blinked once, slow and deliberate, then wiped her cheek with the edge of a gloved finger.

  “And the body?” her voice cracked slightly, though the steel in it was audible. “And do not insult me with euphemisms, Harbinger. I know this game well. I have waded through worse truths than you can conjure.”

  He considered omission – softening it, at least. The urge was there, flickering for a moment like a candle’s last gasp. But there was no room for it. Not here. Not with her.

  “We fed him to the pigs at Berkeley Estates,” Ethan said plainly. “They had been starved beforehand. Standard practice to ensure a clean sweep. No hair, no clothes, no bones. The hogs did not hesitate. In under an hour, the body was reduced to pulp. Nothing left but a stain on the straw.”

  A twitch passed through Maria’s expression, barely perceptible. Her fingers clenched tighter around one another.

  But Ethan did not stop. Something in him insisted he finish the picture. Insisted he torture the snide widow with every grisly detail.

  “I am not a wasteful man, Lady Clayton. Nor am I in the habit of leaving valuables behind. Before the body went in, I searched his pockets. Recovered a journal and account ledger. Delivered them to the Mademoiselle of the Red Mist,” his voice remained purposefully flat, even as the memory brought bile up his oesophagus. “I also extracted his teeth – gold and enamel, both. Sold them to a dentist in Westbank; two guineas for the lot.”

  The sound that escaped the baroness was no longer speech. A strangled sob slipped past her clenched jaw as she lowered her head.

  Shoulders hunched, she collapsed inwards. The baroness – steel-hearted, iron-willed – was, in this moment, just a widow. Raw grief unravelled her poise as tears flowed freely, soaking into the black fabric clinging to her neck.

  Lyra turned away, stepping toward the back of the room to weep in private melancholy.

  Ethan, unaffected by either tirade, reached beneath his cloak. The sudden scrape of metal and leather broke through the quiet.

  He slammed his hand down onto the oak table – palm down, concealing the object. The sound cracked through the tension like a pistol report.

  Maria flinched. Her tear-glazed eyes snapped up, drawn to the intrusion. Her attention dropped to the hand on the table.

  Ethan said nothing. Instead, he dragged his hand slowly forward, letting the hidden item rasp against the polished surface, leaving a long, shallow scar in the varnish.

  Maria and Lyra both stared at his hand, its slow motion like a conjuror’s final flourish. Morbid anticipation caught them both, their eyes fixed not on the man, but on the shape concealed beneath his palm.

  Ethan lifted his hand.

  A solitary golden molar lay revealed – a small, unblinking thing. The last unsold remnant of Maximilian Stonewater. Denny could not afford it. Caroline did not want it. Now it gleamed beneath the candlelight, smaller than memory had made it, yet unmistakably real.

  Maria stared. Her hand, trembling, reached forth and plucked the thing off the table, grasping it between gloved fingers as though it might vanish if touched too roughly. She clutched it to her breast, over her corset stays, over her heart.

  “Twice I tried to be rid of it,” Ethan said. His voice was wooden, stripped bare of intonation. “But fate, as you called it, appears to have determined it belongs to you.”

  Lyra, pallid and stricken, approached with caution. A faint greenish cast clung to her face – nausea or horror, hard to say. She moved to Ethan’s side once more, the hesitation in her gait poorly disguised.

  “Th-thank you, Ethan,” Maria stammered, the words snagging in her throat. “I feared I would never again lay eyes on any part of my beloved Maxim again.”

  Ethan gave a single nod. He offered no apology. No condolence. To do so would have been hypocritical. Grotesque.

  The guilt he had kept lashed down began to rise again, slow and insidious. His shoulders slumped, lips grew taut, and his eyes began to string – not with tears, but with the impulse to blink away whatever wretched emotion had dared to surface.

  Atlas. Shoulders bent, knees locked. Bearing the unbearable upon his back.

  His old tutor’s voice echoed in his mind – impeccable, cold:

  “Puff your chest. Hands clasped behind your back. Let no soul see you unmade. Compartmentalise emotion. Process it when alone. Do not think. Do not act. Do not show outward perturbation. You are a tool. Tools do not think. Tools do not feel. Tools exist only to be applied where they are required.”

  Ethan had always hated the lesson but could not deny the technique was a useful tool. The irony behind that thought was lost on him now.

  He obeyed, of course. He always had.

  Ethan drew himself upright. Hands folded behind his cloak. Elsian silk, dark green with golden trimmings – the colours of House Harbinger. The last memento of a life he–

  Later. Compartmentalise now, ponder when alone.

  His face set. Rigid. Stone over flesh. A statue in mourning – if statues mourned.

  Lyra crouched under the obscenely large table and emerged at Maria’s flank. Her hand rested gently on the grieving woman’s shoulder, white against black. She looked up at Ethan then, eyes wide with something unreadable. He acknowledged the glance. Compartmentalised it away. Swallowed the sickness it stirred.

  “You’re a rare kind of kindness, my dear,” Maria murmured, placing her onyx-gloved hand over Lyra’s snowy fingers. “Do not let that scarecrow frighten you. You are worth more than he could ever imagine.”

  She shot Ethan a glance supported by a smirk. Derision? Mockery? He could not tell. If she noticed the war behind his eyes, she made no sign. The mask held firm.

  He said nothing. Being judged was routine. If her words had been weapons, they struck no deeper than any others. Surface wounds, all of them.

  “This conversation has gone rather askew,” Maria said at last, laughter escaping through the sorrow like air from a punctured lung. “Still, I suppose it is time we return to the matter at hand. You came seeking access to the mines – intent on reaching the Ailbe ruin. Is that correct?”

  “Aye,” Ethan replied in monosyllable. His voice, flat and undisturbed, betrayed no residue of emotion. He had sealed the door. Whatever grief had surfaced was back in the dark where it belonged.

  “Very well,” she said, fingers tapping the table with renewed clarity. “If I am to grant you access, there is one condition. You will take my son, Marcel, with you. I expect him returned. Whole.”

  There was a beat of silence. Then–

  “Whit? Nay. We’re not some gommy nursemaids,” Ethan snapped. Aury inflexion bled into his words unbidden, pulled to the surface by sheer incredulity.

  “That is not a request, Your Grace,” Maria said, words clipped and razor-sharp. “It is the price. You may either pay it, or go chase ruins in someone else’s barony. I am sure Crowg's cliffs are thick with them.”

  She smiled. Not kindly.

  Ethan held her gaze. Anger warred with heartache beneath his skin. Too many stimuli, too intensely, in too rapid succession.

  He closed his eyes. Inhaled deeply. Richard Best had shackled him with a ward in Oaleholder. Now this baroness presumed to do the same. Different person, same game.

  And she knew it.

  When his eyes opened again, the fight in them had gone.

  He sighed, teeth clenched, and muttered: “Aye… that’ll stand.”

  Maria’s lip curled upwards. "I do pride myself on precision."

  She stood. The chair creaked beneath her as she did, a final punctuation to her triumph.

  “Report to headquarters at first light,” she ordered. “You will receive the full debriefing then.”

  Ethan and Lyra returned to the Clayton Inn and Tavern beneath a pall of mutual silence – awkward, brittle, and sharp enough to slide between the ribs. Neither appeared inclined to acknowledge what had transpired. A shared aversion to the memory bound them more effectively than words ever could.

  So much for resting from the others...

  The moment they stepped inside, however, any illusion of quiet was dashed.

  The common room roared with bedlam. A swarm of drunken miners occupied its centre, bellowing cheers and slurred condemnations at something obscured by the crush of bodies. Tankards slammed, boots stomped, and every available surface shook with the recklessness of men too deep in their drinks to care for furniture or dignity.

  Ethan’s headache arrived before his temper. A cursory scan revealed no immediate sight of his companions, which could only mean one thing: they were at the heart of the commotion.

  Lyra glanced between him and the riot, her countenance trapped between fright and disbelief. The question hovered on her face like mist over a bog: What in Hell’s foul name is going on?

  He pressed forward, shouldering past the mass of sweating bodies without apology. Protests followed in his wake – shouted complaints, jostled elbows – but no one tried to stop him.

  And there it was. The source.

  Simon, brimming with ale and bravado, played ringmaster atop a chair, orchestrating chaos with inordinate flourishes. Mary leaned against another table like a drunken bookie, counting coins with unsteady motions. At the eye of the storm sat Warren – shirtless, ruddy-faced, and tense – engaged in an arm-wrestling contest with a miner built like a medieval siege ram. Slightly shorter than the erstwhile farmhand, but wiry with vascular forearms and the raw musculature of honest labour.

  The two men strained at one another with such intensity it seemed an aneurysm was imminent. Their elbows trembled on the scarred tabletop, veins bulging like ropes under soaked canvas, jaws clenched to the point of fracture. The match had long since ceased to be entertainment – it was now a question of who would die first, or simply burst from the pressure.

  Each slight shift in dominance sent the crowd into frenzied spasms – cheering, jeering, sloshing ale on boots and beards alike.

  Ethan ran a hand down his dampened brow, then slicked back his hair with a sigh of long-suffering resignation. Warren, the genteel priest-in-training until drink turned him monstrous, now resembled a man possessed. Whatever soul he had was presently drowned in spirits and shouting.

  The stalemate broke. Slowly, inevitably, Warren began to gain ground – inch by trembling inch. The crowd lost what little coherence it had, splitting into shrieking camps of gamblers, partisans, and sore losers.

  Simon began chanting Warren’s name as though summoning the Saints of Meat and Muscle while Mary clapped to the rhythm. Lyra, swept up by the madness, had begun to cheer as well – “War-ren! War-ren! War-ren!” – caught somewhere between encouragement and incredulity. Her delight, as quick as it was bewildering, contrasted sharply with the scowl Ethan hardly bothered to conceal.

  The miner made a final desperate attempt, his frame shaking like a felled tree, but the outcome had been assured from the start. With a roar, Warren slammed his opponent’s arm to the table with such force it rattled every pewter in the room.

  “You've another ten years o' breakin' rocks 'til ya can challenge my might, pebble boy! Now pay up and piss off!” Mister Macintosh boasted in manner most impious.

  The defeated pitman staggered away, cradling his wrist and wearing a thin-lipped grimace. He muttered curses under his breath and shot narrow glares at the table, its victor, and everyone seated near it.

  Meanwhile, those who had bet on Warren howled their victory, banging mugs together and flinging copper in the air like midsummer hay. The rest spat and sulked, accusing Simon of rigging the table and Mary of sleight-of-hand.

  Simon vaulted onto the table, arms flung wide like a showman. “Who else has the stones to challenge the undefeatable, the unmovable, the unstoppable – WARREN MACINTOSH!?”

  The room surged with noise, but even above the din, Ethan’s measured voice struck like thunder.

  “None. The competition is over.”

  The words landed with the sharp finality of a closed casket. A silence fell. Even the fire seemed to hush.

  “The Pale Rider returns!” Warren bellowed with drunken vigour. “Did ya see me thump that boy, eh? Never was a doubt I’d win! I ALWAYS win! Hahaha!”

  He teetered slightly as he gestured, arms thrown wide like a gladiator on a winning streak. His speech was slurred, spattered with foamy spittle.

  “I’ve seen a dozen towns, a hundred taverns, an endless parade o’ limp-armed milksops! None can match Fat! Fucking! Warren!" he pounded his bare chest with each word. "None! You, Pebbles, yer not even worth the sweat in me sock!”

  He struck a pose – arms flexed, chest puffed. His arms, usually doughy and covered, had swelled under exertion. Muscles bulged with alarming definition, veins rising like ink pressed beneath skin. Jacob might have found a rival in brawn – if not in decorum.

  The miners’ laughter ceased. Eyes narrowed into flints.

  Ethan did not wait for the spark. He had seen too many tipsy crowds turn to drunken mobs.

  “We need to discuss the mission,” he announced curtly, his voice slicing clean through the haze. “There has been a development.”

  That word, and his emphasis on it, drained the colour from every face in the group. Even Warren stopped mid-boast, blinking at him with the foggy lucidity of a tippler waking in a gaol cell.

  Developments were never good.

  Warren groaned and hawked a gob of congealed spit across the room. It arced in a perfect parabola, landed in his empty pewter, and toppled it.

  “Pay your tabs and come upstairs. We shall talk there,” Ethan ordered.

  He did not wait for acknowledgement. The moment he turned, the miners’ mob rule lost momentum. Grumbling, they filtered back to their drinks or else dispersed into corners to lick wounds on pride and debt alike.

  Upstairs, the five of them assembled in the small room shared by Mary and Lyra. The women sat cross-legged on one of the beds; the men sprawled on the other, still breathing heavily from alcohol or exertion. Ethan remained standing – rigid, composed, and central. He could see each of them clearly. He intended for them to see him in kind.

  “First,” he said, voice low. “Keep your voices down. We do not know who might be listening.”

  Each nodded. No argument.

  “To proceed directly: Mister Best’s contact in Clayton is Lady Maria Stonewater. Baroness of Clayton. Widow to the late Baron Maximilian.”

  Lyra offered no reaction; she had already endured the meeting. The others, however, drew sharp breaths.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Oh, me giddy fuckin’ aunt…” Mary muttered, rubbing her temples.

  “I fail to see the cause for panic,” Warren slurred, one hand gesturing vaguely through the stale air. “Just keep schtum, aye? Don’t tell the hag a damned thing, and it’ll be sweet. You did make the job look clean, right?”

  “Warren,” Lyra interjected gently. “She already knows.”

  The room turned to her, collectively frozen in disbelief.

  “Oh, we are so buggered…” Simon moaned, slumping forward. “I’m too young – too fetchin’ – for the gallows…”

  “Wait just a bleedin’ second,” Warren growled, posture tightening. “How d’you know that? Ethan – did you tell her?”

  “I did,” Ethan replied without apology. “A fortuitous decision, as it happens. The baroness accused me of the deed the moment she laid eyes on us. She also knew of Richard, of my family, and of various other inconvenient truths. She is better informed than we are.”

  A weighted silence followed, thick and resentful.

  “Well... fuck!” Warren summarised with the eloquence of the inebriated.

  So much for keeping it quiet...

  Simon and Mary buried their faces in their hands. Neither spoke.

  “So what now, then?” Mary asked at last, dully.

  “Functionally? Very little changes,” Ethan said. “Barring a minor addition to our party, our objective remains fixed: enter the mines, locate the ruins, complete our investigation, and leave with minimal entanglement. For now, rest, sober up, and reconvene in the common room tomorrow morning.”

  “Hold up – wind it back a tick,” Simon interjected, suddenly alert. “What sorta addin’ to the party we talkin’?”

  He still had his wits, despite the drink.

  Ethan was mildly impressed.

  A shared sigh passed between him and Lyra. That, more than words, turned the group wary.

  “Well? Spit it out,” Warren barked, arms flailing like a belligerent windmill. “You’re dragging it out like whores with a dirty confession.”

  Ethan drew a slow breath. “We are to escort and protect the baroness’ son during the mission. One Marcel Stonewater.”

  Wide-eyed silence passed through the room like a draft under a broken door. Then came the collective groan.

  “Oh, piss right off,” Warren bellowed, throwing his arms up. “We’re to be nursemaids now? Warding over another snot-nosed nobby prick while crawlin' through forgotten tunnels? Sod that – why’d ye even agree?”

  “Because she has us over the barrel, Macintosh,” Ethan snapped, the first note of real irritation breaking through. “Had I any viable alternative, I would abandon the contract entirely. But we do not. It is this, or we end up floating arse-up in the Matresa and Richard Best laughing his arse off.”

  That had the intended effect. No further protest was offered. The memory of Fergus – or any one of Richard’s enforcers – was sobering enough to quiet even Warren.

  “That is all,” Ethan concluded. “Get to your rooms. We reconvene at first light.”

  He left before further complaint could gain traction. The hallway beyond was active with a few late wanderers – miners and merchants staggering upstairs or taking turns at the privy downstairs. Clayton’s solitary inn managed to balance chaos and comfort, though neither in full.

  Once inside his own quarters, Ethan locked the door and scanned the room. There was no light but he could see well enough. Nothing appeared disturbed. Satisfied, he disrobed and collapsed onto the bed.

  A mistake.

  The mattress was too soft. The pillow too prickly. The duvet too warm in one place in too cold in others. His body ached in strange places, all too aware of its own rare comfort.

  Sleep eluded him. Always did, when the past stirred.

  Maria Stonewater’s words had dragged up memories he preferred left buried. Closing his eyes only conjured vivid phantoms – his father’s corpse lying at his feet, his mother hanging by the neck, his expulsion from Cadefal delivered by ink, wax, and the castellan’s suffocating silence.

  He shot upright and threw off the cover. Sweat soaked through grime, blotting the linen beneath him with a greasy stain. No use pretending. He would not sleep tonight. Not without some facilitation.

  Dressing again, he stepped into the corridor.

  Downstairs, the drinking had thinned. Stragglers remained: one man clutched his pewter tankard with dogged stubbornness, two others had succumbed, half-folded across tables, mouths open, breaths wheezing.

  Gregory nodded from the counter, then pointed to the longcase clock in the corner – last call, closing soon. Ethan acknowledged the gesture with a dismissive lift of his hand, then continued past him.

  He retrieved his tinderbox – stained and battered but sturdy despite it all. Inside lay the same assortment of matchcord, flints, cigar spills and rolled papelates. Of these he extracted two: a spill and a papelate, one wrapped in purer parchment than the rest – clean maize paper, rather than ink-stained gazette sheets. The candle by a snoring miner sputtered with low flame; he stopped by it, lit the spill, then transferred the fire to the roll-up in his mouth.

  He stepped out the inn before the flame took, and shook the spill extinguished just as the door shut behind him.

  The aroma that rose was pungent, earthy, laced with a bittersweet herbaceous note – stronger than his usual fare, but not unpleasant. He walked around the corner and lowered himself onto a bench, taking a long, slow drag.

  Aether shifted around him, mildly but noticeably. He caught the sound of the door opening and closing around the corner.

  Ethan took another drag, blinking away the glow trying to creep into his irises.

  “No need to lurk,” he said to the darkness, smoke riding his words. “I am merely resting, not returning you to your stable.”

  A shadow shifted. Then Lyra emerged, hesitant but not afraid. She paused, caught in a window’s half-light, observing him in silence before stepping one step closer.

  "You say that," the pale elf began, fidgeting nervously. "But I can tell you are in a bit of a mood. Not quite one of your brooding rages, perhaps, but... adjacent."

  Ethan inclined his head, smoke trailing idly from his nostrils. "Aye. That is not inaccurate.”

  Something about his tone must have soothed her. She took another step.

  Emboldened, Ethan continued. "And in fairness, I am attempting a remedy," he gestured at the papelate pinched between his thumb and forefinger, its tip smouldering in blacks and oranges. The grin that accompanied it exposed a row of yellowing teeth and sat poorly on his grime-mottled face – more wolfish than warm.

  But it was enough. Lyra crossed the rest of the distance confidently, eyes narrowing as she studied him more closely. Eyes bloodshot and half-lidded, as though ill. Shoulders hunched, like a man preparing to absorb a blow. The hand that held the papelate trembled with fine, rhythmic tremors – small enough that most would miss it.

  He hated this pall that had settled over him. Hated the symptoms it produced.

  And yet, he made no effort to hide it. The smoke was already taking its intended effect.

  “What are you puffing on?” Lyra asked lightly but shrewdly, sliding down beside him with a rustle of her cloak. She motioned to his hand. “It smells nothing like Arthur’s pipe tobacco, and markedly less vile than that rolled muck you usually favour. Even the cigars I’ve seen lords partake in were not quite so... herbal.”

  Ethan flicked a line of ash into the wind and exhaled smoke through his nose, gaze locked on the craggy tors ahead. When he spoke, he did so at length, drawing out each word.

  “Those of an eastern persuasion call it alqunb. Grown in the damp interior valleys of the Alkhinsar Peninsula, along the southern frontier of Anatopeira. Harvested by hand, cured in clay-lined barns, then spirited away by smugglers to the coastal cities of Omoritsi. From there, it is traded into civilised societies like Oaleholder and redistributed by criminal syndicates for the benefit of the melancholic masses and forlorn fiends.”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “It’s cannabis, Lyra,” he translated with a dry chuckle, still not looking at her. “I am smoking the buds of indica.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “My people banned recreational use of such substances centuries ago. Claimed they were dangerously addictive. Made the mind prone to hysteria.”

  “Yes, well. Your people – whoever and wherever they may be – sound like intolerable snobs,” his voice was flat, absent of any real contempt or conviction. “Men should be permitted to bring about their own ruin in whatever manner most pleases them.”

  That coaxed a sharp peal of laughter from her, loud and sudden. Ethan flinched. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “You are awful,” she managed through guffaws. “An incorrigible rogue, truly. Were it not so grating, it might even be charming.”

  Ethan could only stare here in slack-jawed bafflement. Capitalising on his distraction, she snatched the papelate from between his fingers and raised it to her lips with exaggerated ceremony. The ember flared as she inhaled, her pale face lighting up in warm tangerine tones.

  Then, the cough. She doubled over, hacking and wheezing, expunging smoke with each spasm of her diaphragm.

  Ethan plucked the papelate back, lips quirking upwards. “You failed to pace yourself there, greenhorn,” he observed wryly.

  “Oh, truly?” Lyra croaked, eyes watering as she hacked up another cloud.

  He took a slow drag, letting the smoke fill his mouth, then inhaling it the rest of the way as he took the papelate out. The flavour was earthy – soil, woodsmoke, the faintest whiff of citrus rind. It bit at the back of his throat, then spread warmly through his chest and into his limbs. His thoughts, once honed and surgical, melted into loose associations. Sharp edges dulled. The inn’s creaking timbers softened. The night air grew heavier and less distinct, as though he sat not in a mining outpost but in the memory of one.

  When her coughing subsided, Lyra fixed him with mock haughtiness. “Well then,” she said hoarsely. “May I have another go at your smuggled alqunb?”

  He played the miser for a beat, then relented with a faint grunt. “Do try not to choke this time.”

  Her second attempt fared better. He coached her on how to measure the puffs, how to let the smoke linger before inhaling fully. Told her to let it saturate the lungs before exhaling. They passed the papelate between them until it dwindled to a stub. Conversation meandered – frivolous, trivial. Something about weather. Something else about names that had fallen out of fashion. Whether specific sounds had taste or certain colours smell.

  “Blue smells like petrichor and goose honks taste like mushrooms,” was the final consensus.

  Neither said anything of substance, and both were better for it.

  The fog behind Ethan’s eyes thickened. Time no longer moved in discrete beats. Every second felt slightly out of order. His nerves ceased their endless hum. The sharp focus with which he observed threats, exits, body language – all of it dulled to a manageable hush.

  For once, the cognitive silence, the intellectual distraction, and the somatic ebb did not oppress.

  Eventually, the ember died. He flicked the burnt butt away, watched it arc briefly before vanishing into the gravel. Then, with a slow stretch, he stood. “Gregory will be locking the doors shortly. We should return.”

  Lyra rose with him, her movements loose and unbothered. A fatuous smile had fixed itself to her lips. Ethan, observing it, realised a similar one must have crept onto his own face.

  “What?” she asked, glancing at him, then tripped over a loose stone. Her boot caught, and she pitched forward with little ceremony. Ethan instinctively reached out, then withdrew the motion halfway. She landed face-first in a patch of damp earth.

  “Ow–! Why did you not catch me, you... You prick!” she barked from the mud, voice roughened in an attempted mimicry of Mary’s.

  Ethan’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Because I am incorrigible,” he said simply, offering her his hand.

  She took it with mock fury, rising to her feet and brushing her front off with one hand and wiping her face with the other.

  “Detestable,” the pale elf muttered.

  In the dim light of shuttered windows and overcast night, her visage was utterly grey in his vision. Not that different to how perceived her in daylight, really; the elf’s complexion was uncannily fair.

  “Undeniably.” Ethan replied, plucking a limp cat’s-tail from her matting hair, dirty from the road.

  Her large, bloodshot eyes followed his hand, the arc of the flung away cat’s-tail, then settled on him in a heavy-lidded stare. He gazed down at her, saw his own drooping visage reflected in her dilated pupils, and snorted with amusement.

  Lyra’s lips curled upwards again and she too, snorted.

  They stood at the inn’s threshold, snorting at one another like swine. Then chuckling. Then finally doubling over with fitful laughter for no better reason than finding the other’s guffaws funny.

  Their gasping peals resounded across Clayton until Gregory appeared, brows raised, mop in hand, to herd them indoors with grumbling authority.

  “Goodnight,” she said as they reached the upstairs hallway.

  He inclined his head. “Sleep if you can.”

  “I will if you will.”

  With that, they parted.

  Ethan returned to his room, collapsed atop the straw-padded mattress, and drifted almost immediately into a dreamless sleep – the haze of smoke and shared absurdity blotting out, for a little while, all the ghosts that usually waited in the dark.

  “Oi! Rise an’ shine, ye sunless bastard!” Simon’s muffled shouts came through the door, punctuated by rhythmic pounding. “The lot o’ us are waitin’ on yer lazy arse! Up an’ at it, ya prick!”

  Ethan opened his eyes with a dry-mouthed groan. Pale morning light filtered in through the grime-fogged window, casting faint streaks across the room's cracked plaster. He dragged a calloused hand over his face, the bristles on his jaw rasping beneath his palm.

  “Be there in a moment,” he called back, voice hoarse.

  He heaved himself upright with effort, a chorus of protesting joint pops greeting the unwelcome motion. His gaze drifted to the chair where he presumed he had left his clothes, only to find it empty. A glance downward confirmed he had never taken them off. The previous night’s comfort had evidently overruled hygiene.

  The mattress tempted him back, but the knowledge that he had thwarted Simon’s likely attempt at petty revenge was strangely invigorating. He straightened his shoulders and exited the room, yawning into a fist as he locked the door behind him.

  The tavern's common area was already alive with clattering cutlery and low conversation. As he approached the group’s table, the expected jeering welcomed him.

  “Your hair’s lookin’ like a cowbird nest after a storm,” Mary snorted between bites. “Wouldn’t be shocked if it laid eggs in the night.”

  “Cowbirds do not nest,” Ethan replied flatly, easing into a chair. “They deposit their eggs into the nests of other avian species, allowing unwitting hosts to raise their young.”

  Mary squinted at him for a spell. “Sodden wisearse,” she muttered, resuming her meal.

  Warren slid a plate toward him with slow care. The scrape of pewter against wood caused the big man to wince and clutch his head. Ethan offered him a nod before inspecting the unappetising contents: slabs of rare beef, underboiled potatoes, and a murky pool of gravy. He pushed the plate aside and reached for the coffee instead.

  Simon, smiling too broadly, produced a comb from his pocket and laid it before Ethan like a peace offering. Or a trap.

  Ethan noted Warren’s dishevelled beard – moustache matted flat, chinstrap mottled with sick – and Simon’s bloodshot eyes, rheumy around the edges. Hungover, both. And severely.

  At least he was not alone in his decrepitude.

  Lyra, quiet until now, met his gaze. “Did you sleep well?”

  He took a sip of the bitter brew before replying. “Best sleep I have had in months. That alqunb hit like a draught horse.”

  “Knew I caught a whiff o’ somethin’ odd when you crept in nearer cockcrow,” Mary wrinkled her nose at Lyra. Then, directing her narrowed gaze at Ethan, said: “The baroness got her hooks in last night, ey?”

  Ethan said nothing, but her words stirred a vague warmth in his chest. Recognition absent of ridicule – a rare currency.

  With breakfast concluded, the party made their way to the mining headquarters. The squat, rectangular building retained the same air of unremarkable function, even beneath the overcast daylight. If not for the wrought crest above the doorway, Ethan might have mistaken it for a warehouse.

  Lyra cast a wry glance at him. “Are you attempting to tame your hair or excise it entirely?”

  “Better bald than riddled with lice,” Ethan replied, scowling. The comb snagged again before wrenching free a stubborn tangle along with a cluster of the tiny parasites. He shook them off onto the ground.

  I need to ask Gregory for a hot bath. Sooner, rather than later.

  “Oi, easy now! That’s me finest comb, that is!” Simon protested. “Dunno if I can use it no more after it’s been rubbin’ round yer ratbag head…”

  Ethan ignored him and continued. A sharp crack rang out as one of the bristles snapped. Simon whimpered like a man witnessing a loved one fall.

  Groaning, Ethan handed the comb back. Simon cradled it like a wounded animal.

  “Oh no, Simon love,” Mary deadpanned. “However will your starfish pride cope without its holy comb?”

  Simon stuffed the injured instrument into his trouser pocket with a long, tremulous sigh, fixing Ethan with the look of a man who had just sworn vengeance.

  Inside the headquarters, Baroness Stonewater awaited them, flanked by two others. One was a weatherworn man with a miner's stoicism etched into his brow. The other was a boy, pale and round-faced, with an air of nerves saturating his plump form.

  Like father, like son.

  “You are late,” Maria remarked, not looking up from the expansive map splayed across the central table. “I said first light.”

  “Punctuality, your Ladyship, is dreadfully unfashionable among society’s upper echelons,” Ethan replied, scratching at the stubble on his cheek.

  She scoffed, raising her eyes at last.

  “These two gentlemen shall be your guide and your charge, respectively,” she announced. “Mister John Rock shall lead you through the mines to the ruins.”

  John gave a brusque nod.

  “And this is Master Marcel Stonewater, my son,” Maria continued. “You will protect him at any cost as you explore the subterranean network.”

  The boy attempted a solemn nod to match John’s, but succeeded only in appearing constipated. Ethan did not bother to mask his scepticism.

  “Now,” Maria gestured to the map. “Observe.”

  The parchment spanned six feet in length and three in width, marked with a meticulous rendering of the mine system beneath Clayton. Ethan recognised it at once; the same map had adorned the wall the previous night.

  “There are fifteen entrances to the mine complex,” she began, tracing a gloved finger over the yellowed surface. “Each is paired with a numbered tent at ground level. You shall enter through tent number seven, descending a hundred feet.”

  Her finger moved steadily down the illustration.

  “From there, you will proceed east-northeast for approximately an hour. The tunnels intersect, incline, and descend in such erratic fashion that any hapless fool would become hopelessly lost within moments.”

  She fixed each of them with a hard look. “Hence, Mister Rock.”

  John nodded again, unsmiling.

  Ethan studied the lines of the map in silence, mentally logging junctions, narrowing shafts, and chambers large enough for an ambush. He marked three separate choke points and five possible fallback routes before Maria had even finished her sentence – and knew that each one was worthless.

  The ruins lay deep within a labyrinth of stone, silence, and collapse. Something, he thought, was bound to go wrong.

  Anxieties began to coil tightly about the group, as the grim logistics of their assignment loomed in detail. Ethan, for his part, was acutely aware of a persistent queasiness in his gut and felt vindicated in having foregone breakfast. Caves were not among his domains of expertise. He had spent his lifetime learning to navigate palaces, fortresses, and the streets of foreign cities, not the bowels of the earth.

  Still, the presence of a guide – however uncouth – provided a modicum of relief. Though he would sooner swallow coal than confess as much.

  "Beyond the risk of becoming disoriented or sustaining injury, are there any other hazards within the tunnels?" Ethan inquired coolly.

  "Aye," came the reply from John Rock – gravel-voiced, laconic, and sudden as cannon shot. The rest of the party jumped subtly at his voice, save for the baroness, who remained unmoved.

  The man said nothing further, preferring to hold Ethan in a long, wordless appraisal. The miner's eyes were grey-green, cold as steel, and shadowed beneath a prominent brow. His cropped hair, uneven and burnt in places, betrayed evidence of exposure to fire, and the powder-burn scar on his cheek bespoke long service in His Majesty’s Royal Army.

  A redcoat turned mercenary turned baron’s retainer. Life’s mysteries know no bounds.

  Ethan, unflinching, returned the stare. "Do you intend to elaborate, or are you merely auditioning for a statue?"

  Silence. The others fidgeted under the weight of the exchange, shifting in their boots.

  Posturing brute.

  Maria exhaled heavily through her nose and gestured to the map with a single, elegantly gloved hand. "Several regions of the subterranean network harbour monstrosities, magical entities, and ambient magical phenomena."

  That earned the room's full attention. Tension tightened like a drumskin. Lyra, in particular, perked up, clearly roused by the mention of magic.

  "What sort of phenomena?" she asked brightly. Too much enthusiasm for something so dangerous.

  “Sod the fuckin’ sorcery,” Simon barked. "She said monsters, ain’t she? If we’re pissin’ about in a nest o’ man-eaters, we’d best pack black iron and guns.”

  "You shall pack no such thing, Mister Gershom," Maria snapped, her enunciation of his surname so precise and pointed that Simon visibly recoiled. Whatever prior impudence he had been mustering promptly died in his throat.

  "The cave system amplifies sound exponentially," she continued. "A single pistol report would ricochet into a thunderclap with potential to rupture every eardrum within half a furlong."

  Ethan was uncertain if she exaggerated, but he would heed her warning, nonetheless. So long as it suited him.

  “Well, ain’t that just tide toppin’,” Mary muttered darkly. “Trapped in the underways with beasties and not a single shot to spare. Kraken of a plan, that.”

  "The phenomena–"

  "Let us begin with the beasts, if you please," Ethan cut in, much to Lyra’s visible annoyance.

  Marcel Stonewater made a peculiar noise in his throat, somewhere between a cough and a gulp. His small, beady eyes darted about the room like cornered prey.

  "Speak, Marcel. It is your area of study, after all," Maria said, her tone now surprisingly gentle.

  The pudgy young man gave a single nod. His jowls and auburn curls bounced as he inhaled deeply, releasing a waft of lavender oil from his person.

  Of course. Heading into the abyss with a gargoyle of a miner and a pantywaist of a scholar. Splendid.

  "Two confirmed faye species dwell in the lower shafts," Marcel began, voice small but academic. "Knockers – small, gnome-like tricksters who mimic miners and steal tools. And the Korrigans."

  He lowered both tone and gaze at the mention of the latter. John Rock shifted at the name. Clearly, past encounters had left him with scars beyond the visible.

  "Korrigans are siren-like, magical entities. They linger near the waterlogged veins of the mines, luring unsuspecting men with promises of gold or, alternatively, physical indulgence. Those who follow them never return, or are found as corpses. It is theorised they are consumed, somehow, as all autopsies suggested…” he paused, swallowing. "Forceful exsanguination.”

  The room fell silent. Even Simon refrained from comment. Lyra parted her lips to speak.

  "Has no one tried combating them? Or using some manner of holy relic? A statue of the Virgin, perhaps?" Ethan asked, voice laden with dry scepticism.

  The collective response was unimpressed. A series of exhalations, shrugs, and dismissive glances.

  But Marcel leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "You too have read Lord Murdock’s Encyclopaedia of Preternatural Creatures, then?"

  Ethan released a scoffing breath. "Murdock was a parochial bigot and a Reformist besides. He conflated dwarves and elves in the same chapter. His work is little more than a crude amalgamation of superior treatises."

  Marcel blinked at him, then offered a weak smile. "My apologies. I did not expect such... literacy."

  Perhaps the lad possesses a functioning mind after all. Pity about the rest of him.

  "You two can polish each other’s encyclopaedic cocks after someone tells me what the Goddamned aetheric phenomena are!" Lyra erupted angrily, slamming her palm upon the table.

  All eyes swivelled. Her white ears flushed crimson. She tried to hold their gazes but failed, muttering an embarrassed apology and focusing intently on her hand. Which she promptly withdrew from the wood.

  Ethan cleared his throat. "Indeed. Master Stonewater, if you would be so good."

  Marcel coughed, mirroring Ethan, then adjusted his collar. "There are also bluecaps. Ethereal blue flames resembling will-o’-wisps that drift aimlessly through the network. They are harmless. On occasion, they guide miners to valuable ore. On others, to rotting corpses."

  "Delightful," Warren murmured.

  Lyra frowned, her expression pensive.

  "Miss Lyra?" Maria prompted.

  "I should like to see one," she replied, voice soft and far-off. “These… bluecaps.”

  John let out a wheezing chuckle. "You and every bugger what swings a pickaxe in them caves."

  His Fovetongue inflexion confirmed Ethan's earlier suspicion: Sallefove County – a coarse dialect cloaked in archaic idiom. Ironic, considering they had recently dispatched a bandit of Sallefovian origin.

  "Is there anything else?" Maria asked.

  "Yes," Ethan interjected. "Provisioning."

  "John, supply them with whatever they require. No explosives or flammables. If there is nothing else, you are all dismissed."

  The room stirred and the others began to file out. Ethan turned for the door, but Maria’s voice called him back.

  "Mister Harbinger. A word."

  He paused. Turned.

  "Lady Clayton?"

  "I am entrusting my only son to your care. I am aware of what transpired between you and my Maxim. Should Marcel come to any harm, the retribution shall be scriptural in scope. Am I understood?"

  "Perfectly."

  "Good. Get out."

  Ethan turned again, but then halted with his hand on the door handle.

  "One more matter," he said without turning back. "When this expedition is concluded, you and I shall have a very thorough conversation regarding your knowledge of my lineage. Prepare accordingly."

  He slammed the door before she could form a retort. Not that it was necessary. His voice, posture, and poise – so disconcertingly reminiscent of a man she had known so long ago – had rendered her mute.

  Maria Stonewater sat in silence for some time, suddenly less certain that inviting Ethan Harbinger into her enigmata had been the correct choice.

  https://images2.imgbox.com/76/b0/fCbBIAC4_o.png

  https://images2.imgbox.com/37/1c/J1o8aNrS_o.png

  All AI-assisted content was made using and .

  And all image editing was done using .