Tallah spied their destination in the gloom and backtracked them some dozen paces. So easy to miss the hovel in this accursed place. One more misshapen box among many, torn down and rebuilt so many times over Valen’s lifetime that its origin was lost to the folds of time. The two-storied, sharp-roofed home looked as if it had just barely survived a hurricane’s fury and was held up by leaning against its equally humped and broken neighbours. Maybe it had collapsed in on itself a bit since her last visit?


    A single gargoyle peered down at them from the eaves—Ludwig’s obsession with an architecture style dead for more than a century—with beaked face frozen in mid-roar, ready to vomit water into the cobbles below.


    At least there was a light shining on the upper level window, flickering candlelight casting thin rays into the fog. The trip wouldn’t be a complete waste of time.


    “Burn my eyes, would have walked right past it again.”


    Sil grabbed Vergil’s arm and halted him, backtracking to Tallah.


    “How did you end up with the Storm Guard as your enemy? What did you two do? Did you betray them because you didn’t agree with their methods? Are you renegades?”


    Now he was gushing, bordering between endearing and imbecilic in his newfound enthusiasm. Any more excitement in his day and he was likely to wet himself.


    “She’s in their bad books, not me. I doubt anyone in the Guard even remembers me,” Sil replied and shushed him afterwards. “Maybe I’ll tell you about it some other time.”


    Tallah knocked loudly on the small door and got back a loud groan from the entire building. She knocked again, louder. The old bastard would see them or she’d kick his door down. Finally, something shuffled within and the light at the upstairs window moved away. The latches were pulled back with glacial slowness after what felt like an age of waiting.


    Ludwig’s gnarled hand emerged first, holding a tray with three barely burning candles. His decrepit, sharply-angled, dried-leather face followed, hooked nose under-lit by candlelight. He grimaced upon seeing who his late-night caller was. A ridiculous, floppy night hung haphazard across his ear.


    I will never get used to seeing him like this, Christina groaned. I used to think him distinguished, not… this.


    Teacher’s pet, Bianca chided.


    “This is a very strange hour for visits,” Ludwig said, voice still carrying the sonority of his teaching days.


    “I know you burn both ends of the candle,” Tallah replied. “When have you ever not liked visitors in the night?”


    “Always.” Ludwig swung his light around and took them in, stopping on Vergil. “Who’s he?”


    He lifted the candles higher for a better look but Tallah shoved him aside. The blasted feeling of someone watching out in the gloom, as irrational as Sil’s worries, frayed her patience worse than seeing the ancient bastard usually did.


    “I’m not here to be kept out in the cold, old man.” She and Sil walked in, while Vergil remained outside, barred by the old man’s scrutiny.


    Ludwig turned around and slammed the door in Vergil’s face.


    “Do we leave him out?” Sil asked. “He’s too dumb to catch a cold, but still.”


    Tallah opened the door as the old man shuffled away. She grabbed the boy by the lapel of his shirt and dragged him in, slamming him face first into the header with a dull thud.


    “Why?” he groaned once he shook her off and shuffled inside.


    “Next time, if I tell you to move, you move,” she snapped at him while Sil took a look at his nose. Bent, red, and slightly bleeding. Not broken. She could have pulled harder.


    “But you didn’t.”


    Whiner.


    Ludwig blew out his candles. He clapped his hands and three large light sprites appeared to properly illuminate the room. He wore a patched and battered old night gown draped over his long, thin frame. With a sigh, he sat tiredly unto a dusty armchair that creaked under his familiar weight.


    His books, old and new, littered the room, stacked in haphazard towers that threatened collapse at the slightest disturbance. Work benches were overladen with apparatus and experiments half-completed, all strewn about in drunken chaos.


    What the room lacked were chairs.


    “It annoys me more than I like admitting that I can’t figure out how you can make three of these,” Sil said, poking at one of the sprites moving lazily through the air. “Why do you even need candles if you can make sprites? Or just buy a sprite-lamp. They’re cheaper than candles nowadays.”


    She and Tallah had relinquished their wet fur coats, hanging them on an ill-used set of hangers on the wall. Vergil followed their lead, though he kept shooting looks for the old man’s approval.


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    “I dislike reading by cold sprite light,” he said in a tone of voice that didn’t betray any of the constant annoyance etched on the features of his face. “Candles are kinder on my soul. I could teach you, if you’d like.”


    “I’ll have to refuse. I’m certain I don’t need to hear another life story for the five heartbeats of actual learning that it would lead to.”


    He produced an ancient corn cob pipe from somewhere and lit it with a small crackle of fire from his fingertips. Ludwig reclined back in his chair and looked to his visitors with a raised eyebrow.


    “Suit yourself, Miss Silestra. While it gladdens me greatly to see the both of you safe and hale, I assume you haven’t come to bother me just for a friendly chat.”


    “Could it ever be just a friendly chat, you old fart? No, I came because I owe you my ear.” Tallah tried to find somewhere to sit. A stack of books sufficed. She refused to be made to stand for him. “I would cut it off and send it by runner if I could. I’m here. Feel free to bore me.”


    Ludwig gave her a gap-toothed grin. “It was her, wasn’t it? Who the rhyme spoke of? It was Anna.”


    “It was. Your contribution was less than useful but it did get me on the right path. I’ll listen to your plea, nothing more.”


    “How is Anna these days?”


    “Dead, cold, and rotted. Good riddance.”


    “Did you really seek her out just to put your old grudges to rest? I thought you above such childishness.”


    She fought back a smile. Yes, she had settled an old score. But it hadn’t been about it at all. She and Anna would probably butt heads again on that particular issue come Thaw.


    “Wish that I could just grow old and waste away like you but, alas, I’ve other interests. On the road to the Empress’s forgiveness, settling grudges is just a happy occurrence.”


    He nodded almost sagely and smiled above a plume of pipe smoke. Yes, that tickled the perpetual Empress-botherer just fine.


    “It pains me somewhat to learn of her death. I hope you were swift in your execution.”


    “Too swift. I’ve rid us of a monster that should have suffered.” Tallah bristled. “It would be best if I never learn you had any dealings with her.”


    The old git actually chuckled at that.


    “I haven’t seen her since you lot were still at Hoarfrost. I told you as much.”


    Ludwig had told her. Appealing to him had been a last ditch effort before moving on to the next name on her list, and he’d provided a cryptic children’s rhyme from a village out in the Ruffle.


    Tallah and Sil had spent weeks up in the high hills looking for that village. A near nameless place, hidden in a deep gorge, lived in by some hundred people collecting healing herbs for Valen’s apothecaries. Children recited the rhyme in their games, as if to ward off evil by turning it into something mundane and ridiculous.


    She comes, she comes, the Blood Queen comes,


    Your sight she’ll break; your heart she’ll take,


    She comes, she comes, the Blood Queen comes,


    Your mind she’ll snare; your soul she’ll scare,


    She comes! She comes! Here the Blood Queen comes!


    Pity more than nothing to go on, but it served. A creature dwelt in the deep tunnels under the Valen-Drack mountains, the elders of the village had said when inquired. It carried children off into the night, bled them, turned them into monsters and wights. Some of the lost had returned once twisted and broken, made into near-mindless monsters that had needed to be put down. Pleas to the Guild had gone unanswered.


    Of course they had. Too close to the mountains, too little pay. No sane adventurer would go near that place for the kind of money those unfortunates could muster.


    Tallah could recognise the work of a Vitalis Mage even when twisted into local folklore. Anna’s lot were a decaying, dying breed, but always tightly knit. If she could find this Blood Queen of the rhyme she’d either find her wayward old friend or someone who could know whether she was alive or dead.


    In the end, she had found her prey, hidden away and grown frightfully powerful in hermitage. Killing her had not been easy, not even with Christina lending her strength. The less said about the aftereffects of the battle, the better.


    She gave Ludwig a long glare.


    If this helps me, I will come back and you can lay out your request, old man. Those had been her exact words to him. Ever since her raid on Valen’s Deep Vault, he’d been adamant about getting her to help him on some matter he never fully disclosed and, in return, she wasn’t interested in.


    Now he had her captive attention. May as well get it over with.


    “This had better be a good use of my time, old man. My gratitude only got me to the door.”


    Ludwig blew out a ring of smoke and settled back in his chair.


    “I’m certain it will be, if you’re inclined enough to listen and think on the matter before you dismiss it, as you’re wont to do. I believe it could profit us both greatly, and even spare you your bloody quest.”


    Acid rose in her throat as she readied an answer about what she was wont or not to do, and where he could shove his tone, but Sil cut between them.


    “Behave, Tallah. You haven’t dragged us out through this place’s stinks just so you two can get into another shouting row. Let him speak and maybe it won’t take all night.”


    “Thank you, Miss Silestra. You are very kind.”


    “I’m minding the hours, not your sentiment.” Sil gave him a thin smile. “Just tell us what it’s all about so we can leave.”


    That dampened Ludwig’s spirits.


    “So you can leave…” He sighed. “Why even come if you can’t entertain the idea of helping me?”


    “Because I owe you. I’ve said it before, I say it again. Start talking, old man. Let’s see if your need is worth considering further.”


    For some reason, she had thought she’d be more inclined to patience this time, more willing to indulge his bloody way of talking around what he meant to say. She had made the promise and was behoved to it, but would rather have fought Anna all over again.


    The back of her neck and her palms itched with the silent touch of unseen eyes waiting somewhere in the gloom outside.