Tallah waited for Ludwig to go on but the old man lapsed into silence. A small crackle of fire showed him lighting up his pipe anew but he said nothing more.


    “Put this back on the shelf. It’s more religious garbage from the Dominion.” She slammed closed the tome she had been reading and brought Vergil out of his fascinated stupor. He blinked at her and then turned back to Ludwig.


    “What happened next?” he asked, maybe still hoping for a happy ending. There couldn’t be one.


    “Next, lad, was a long life of regret,” the old man said as he let out a heavy breath.


    “Which doesn’t tell me what you bloody want,” Tallah snapped at him as she physically pushed Vergil to do as she bid. “The girl’s dead. The Empress’s angry. All of it seems like a done deal to me.”


    “I want your help to get back into that city and find the girl.”


    Very few things in her long life had left Tallah at a complete loss for words. Rhine giving birth. The Empress betraying her faith. Maybe a few other scattered moments.


    The sheer stupidity of Ludwig’s request was now added to that short list.


    “Have you gone daft?” she finally managed. “Why would you want to go back there? What for?”


    “The girl haunts my dreams, Tallah. I see her every time I close my eyes. I haven’t had a night’s full sleep since we escaped that damned place. You are my final chance at setting right the wrong I enacted so long ago.”


    “Master Angledeer, there is no possible way in which the girl could still be alive,” Sil said, echoing Tallah’s thoughts perfectly. “Going back there is a fool’s errand at best.”


    “Yes, it’s an old man’s folly,” Ludwig agreed. “It could have meant something once, when it would have mattered, but now it is only an old man’s folly. I know that, Miss Silestra. You would think me mad but I know the girl, or something of her, still endures. I have proof of it.”


    “What proof?”


    “I’d much rather not say . If you must take something on faith, then take that.”


    He summoned his light sprite back and moved it around the room as if looking for something. “It is also a matter of redemption in the eyes of the Empire.”


    Tallah laughed, at both the absurdity of taking anything on faith and at his dreams of redemption.


    “The Empire doesn’t even know who you are. It doesn’t care.”


    “It doesn’t matter.”


    “The Empress will still have your head on a spike the moment you step into Aztroa. I doubt she still cares about you but that only means she’s never rescinded her edict.”


    “It doesn’t matter. I will have completed my duty and happily die once that is achieved.”


    Sentimentality and zeal always made for the worst combinations in people.


    No, this isn’t about either of those, Tallah thought as she studied Ludwig’s serene expression.


    You doubt him, Christina said, pensive. There is more to the story than he tells.


    There always is. I expect he wants his bloody place in history back.


    Out loud she said, “I don’t see my benefit in any of this.” She gestured to the room in general. “Your theatrics were all very fine, I assure you, but I don’t see why all of this is something I would care about.”


    He gave her a patient look, like an expectant teacher on the verge of disappointment.


    “I would think it obvious. You’re on this bloody penitent mission for whatever you did to wrong the Storm Guard and the Empress’s faith. Bring her this bounty, Tallah, and she will forgive you, regardless of sin.”


    That. She almost laughed. He truly believed the lie she’d fed him, years back, about her motives and her discharge from the Storm Guard. And he tried to use it for his gain. Which was… what?


    She played along for a while longer as she dusted herself off. If nothing else, he had at least managed to rouse her curiosity.


    “I don’t see the value in tracking down a corpse. Even if there’s anything left to find, you’d never know it. One bone’s as white as another,” she said. “We both know it’s foolish. I’m not so desperate yet that I’d turn to faer stories for my deliverance.”


    Ludwig blew out a plume of blue-grey smoke and grinned with mischief.


    “I never expected you to agree to this for the sake of naked bones and sentiment,” he said. “This could be worth your while if you’ll allow me a few moments more of your attention, now that I finally have it.”


    “By all means, beg away.”


    “This is not about begging. I do not plan to beg. I have that much dignity left.”


    He got up slowly and walked over to an overburdened worktable. One wayward spark could turn his home into a crater, considering the over-abundance of magical tomes and old, brittle paper.


    He dislodged a single, large tome from a scattered heap and blew off the patina of neglect from its covers.


    “This place is a sty,” Sil said as she covered her face in the crook of her elbow. More books fell and the dust rose thick as the chemical mist outside.


    “I still recall what drove you, back when you would still call me Professor. I expect it has changed little in the decades since.”


    He gestured Vergil to him, unwilling to come himself over to where Tallah had perched in her exploration. At a nod from her, the boy obeyed and brought the book.


    “This, I believe, might change your mind.”


    He means to bait you, Christina echoed her own thoughts. He is old, not foolish. I doubt he ever expected your better nature to jump to his aid.


    When Vergil presented her with the metal dressed tome, she heard its call immediately. It was barely as thick as her thumb but so richly dressed in illum that she could actually sense it. If she had her mask, it would likely show a tapestry of woven power so dense that it would be blinding.


    “Marvellous,” she whispered as she ran her fingers down the smooth, time-worn protection plate on the cover. “I don’t recognise this lettering.” She caressed the words imprinted on the shell, and could hardly resist the temptation of peaking inside. But opening a tome so thick with illum without proper precautions could be catastrophic.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    “Neither do I,” Ludwig said as he sat back down and lit his pipe again. “Neither does anyone. You hold the sole artefact I managed to hold on to from that cursed expedition. To my knowledge, nobody in Aztroa Magnor has managed to decipher any of the others.”


    He leaned forward as he smoked, letting the pause speak for his intentions.


    Sil sighed heavily. “You’re offering her power.” She clicked her tongue in annoyance. “You’re a malevolent old fart, did you know?”


    Tallah looked over to them to see Sil glaring at a very pleased-with-himself Ludwig. The glare snapped to her.


    “We are not going in the middle of Winter to some dusty old ruin in the middle of Nowhere!”


    “I never said we were going at all, Winter or Summer,” Tallah protested.


    “It’s on your face,” Vergil said sheepishly by her side. “We can all see it.”


    “Oh spare me,” Sil snapped at her. “When have you ever ignored a chance like this? The woe story was an excuse to have you sitting still for two moments, but this horrible old bastard knew exactly where to pinch to make you giddy.”


    That is a particularly disgusting mental image. Thank you for that, Adana. Both Christina and Bianca complained. Tallah shrugged off their indignation.


    She held the book out and waggled it at Ludwig.


    “You could have shown me this at any time and I would have been tempted. Why not lead with it? Why bore me first?”


    Ludwig reclined in his chair and puffed out more blue smoke.


    “I am not a fool. You being in my debt is the only reason you’ll even listen to the next part.”


    She raised an eyebrow at that. Sil had crossed her arms at her chest and seemed particularly displeased about the whole discussion.


    “Had you known about the book, I fully expect you would have gone into that city of your own volition for more and cared very little about my wishes on the matter. But you see”—he gestured with the tip of his pipe—“I want to come along. I need to come along when you go. My business with that place is not concluded.”


    “You will aim us in the right direction and that will be the end of your involvement,” Tallah countered. “If I go, it will be in my own time, on my own terms. You don’t have a say in that.”


    Ludwig shrugged, unmoved.


    “I am coming. I don’t care when. You owe me at least this.” He talked with such certainty that it made her blood boil.


    “I could just extract the path from you, old man,” she said, and meant every word. “Do not test my patience.”


    The git stared at her levelly.


    “Do your worst. I am either coming, or you shall never get there alive.” He tapped his temple with two fingers. “I am the only person living that knows the way. I’ve made certain of that. The Empress never had the time or inclination to risk another incursion. After my colossal mishap she lost the trust of the School of Healing and that rift has never mended since. And the one artefact that could be used instead of an Egia belonged to Valen, not the Empire; and is now in your possession.” His eyes shone with the fire of purpose. “I need to go, Tallah. I need forgiveness and to be freed of my ghosts and my failure. You will take me there because you have no other choice.”


    So bloody pleased with himself. He fashioned that he’d made his case and won her compliance. As if she were a child to be placated into behaving by sweet meats.


    Tallah smiled her best grin and threw aside the tome.


    “Well, get buggered then. Enjoy your dreams of the corpse girl. Come on, Sil, we’re done.”


    Ludwig’s jaw dropped and he sputtered, pipe almost falling from his lips. He’d had it all planned so well. Tempt her, offer a trinket, make promises of power and knowledge, even redemption to seal the deal. But she had listened to the story and weighed its allure against her needs.


    What was there really to gain?


    Weeks out in the cold. A delay to plans half-a-decade in the making. More strain on her when she was far from well and recovered. Come Thaw, she’d need to head towards the Inner Sea, and from there down the swelling Bistry River towards Old Forge. Deidra had been sighted there last. Ludwig’s errand would happen now, or never… and she saw no profit in it.


    “You owe me.” His face grew hard and pale, a bloodless mask draped over old, gaunt bones. “I gave Anna to you. I offer you power like you can scarcely believe. The secrets there—”


    “Secrets are worth less than nothing to me. Legends grow fatter in the telling. I promised I’d listen. I did. My debt is complete.” She kicked aside the pile of books on which she’d sat and walked to him. “Do you think me a child, Professor? Do you think you can waggle vague promises at me and I would lap it up, eager to bound off into the dark because you said there would be sweets there?”


    She pitied the old fool. She pitied the way he lived and the way he regretted that he lived. Alone, forgotten, abused by his memories. He surrounded himself by dust and the detritus of countless wasted years, and just waited to die.


    Well, she refused any part in his drama.


    “I— I can give you…” He faltered for words. Wide eyes searched around the room, desperate for something else to back up his pleas.


    “What can you give me, Professor? Even for Anna, all you gave us was a rhyme you heard in some village. We followed that trail on our own.”


    And now it was all getting rather pathetic. She gestured for Vergil to bring them their cloaks.


    The boy was looking at the discarded book, head tilted sideways, muttering. He leaned over and picked up the tome, staring at the cover’s odd letters.


    “The letters are really weirdly drawn but it says Understanding the correlation between illum conversion and intrinsic personality biases. It says it’s volume three of five.”


    Ludwig looked as if smacked over the head with the metal-bound book.


    “Fancy that,” she said nastily,”I don’t even need to go there for a cipher. Can you give me Deidra? Or Lucretia? Or the exact day Ort returns from the Maggot War?”


    Of course he couldn’t. His jaw snapped closed and he gazed up at her with honest loathing. At last, a spark of honesty from him.


    “You won’t forgive yourself even if you do go back there, Master Angledeer,” Sil said as she donned her thick cloak. “Learn to leave the past be the past and move on. Going back to the place of your failure will not atone you, not even to your own conscience.”


    He turned sharply to her, hands balled into white-knuckled fists. His eyes were feverishly bright.


    “She is alive, Miss Silestra.” Old fists struck the armrests of his chair. “Alive! I know that with every fibre of my being. Take the book and leave me be. Just remember, Tallah, that I know you’re in Valen. I…”


    He stopped and seemed to think better of the threat he almost voiced. She loomed over him and gave him time to consider his words.


    “No. That is unfair. I apologise.” He deflated and passed a hand over his eyes. “You are right. You only ever promised to listen, and did so. I was a fool to think you’d accept such an undertaking, especially on my terms.”


    “At least there’s still a shred of wisdom in you, Professor.”


    Sil glared at her. Christina too. Tallah relented in her mockery.


    “If I learn of anything in my travels that may aid you, I will pass it on. You, at least, have my promise on that.”


    Vergil brought the book and their cloaks. For better or worse, the evening hadn’t been entirely without merit even if her relationship with her old teacher would never mend. Him threatening her was not going to be forgotten.


    Ludwig did not rise to see them off. Sprite light faded when they opened the door and the night’s fog and chill rushed in. They left him brooding in his chair, clad in darkness and accusing silence.


    “For a heartbeat, I thought you’d accept,” Sil said as they made their way back out of the labyrinth.


    “For a couple, so did I. But it’s a bad time for flights of fancy, especially when they’re not mine.”


    Again the prickling sensation on the back of her neck, like someone tugging on hairs. She turned and startled Vergil right behind her.


    “What?” he asked, brandishing the book like a shield against her attention.


    Behind and over his shoulder the night stretched, old now and gloomy, threatening her storm. They’d stopped between the narrow cones of two streetlights, down a final flight of steps before the Agora, utterly alone. A faint noise of cheering and laughter came from their destination, but behind them all had grown still and quiet. Shifts would be changing soon.


    “It’s nothing,” she said after listening for a time. Sil tugged on her cloak, eager to be down in the city proper, away from the heavy chemical stench.


    “Dealing with the old man was more tiring than I thought. I’m imagining things.” She hooked her arm around Vergil’s elbow and dragged him forward. “Let’s go try this skating thing people here are so crazy about, my dear. It’s bound to be such lovely fun.”


    “At this hour?” Vergil whimpered. Sil chuckled.


    “My dear, Valen never sleeps.”


    And the back of her neck still bloody prickled.