Matabar

As the gunfire crackled in a relentless, blistering symphony, restoring his Star was proving... jarringly fragmented. Often, the energy would simply dissipate into the air.

"Faster!" Shouted Lisa, reloading the drum of her gun.

From the folds of her grimy dress, she pulled out a cluster of eight bullets bound in a "moon" shape. She shook out the spent casings and attempted to insert the fresh rounds. But at that moment, one of their foes knelt to steady his aim and fired his rifle.

A bullet tore through her right shoulder, embedding itself into the ground. Lisa cried out, though Ardan couldn’t hear her. He’d drained half of the accumulator, which would normally be enough to restore three full Red Stars, allowing him to finally recover all his rays. Visualizing the blueprint for his lockpick, he crafted the seal once more.

The moment a tear appeared in the barely visible, rain-soaked shroud, he leaped inside, tossing his staff aside, and hurriedly grabbed Lisa’s legs to drag her to safety.

She screamed in pain, but Ardi was just fast enough. The restored shield severed a portion of her lush hair, sparing her head — a success of sorts under the circumstances.

Alas, as Ardi was pulling her along, her dress hitched up.

"Having a good look?" Lisa asked angrily through labored breaths, her teeth gritted.

Ardan flinched, immediately reaching for his knife. He cut a strip from her dress, binding it tightly around her wounded shoulder.

"The bones are intact," he observed. "But you need a doctor."

"As if I didn’t already know that," she snapped, pulling herself up with Ardan’s support and slipping off her heels.

Flipping her mane of hair, she turned to the men now approaching the shield. She threw a gesture at them that was best left uninterpreted.

"Bastards," she spat onto the ground.

Those by the shield merely smirked before raising their umbrellas and positioning themselves in an arc along the barrier’s edge.

"What are they-"

"They’re waiting for their mage," Lisa interrupted, glancing at Ardan. "We don’t have much time, Ard. There’s no Second Chancery or guards on the island tonight. So…"

"But why wouldn’t any of them-"

"Listen to me!" Lisa exploded, groaning as she gritted her teeth again. "Do you really think it’s a coincidence that the train with the Senior Magister was delayed? And that, while you were dining merrily with Arkar, a shelter for the poor folks exploded in the Old Park?"

"What?"

"Exactly!" Lisa glared back at the gangsters standing mere meters away. "Someone really wants this damned artifact. Enough to play dirty with the Orcish Jackets and the Dandy both. That’s basically a death sentence…"

Ardan tilted his head and looked at Lisa again. She handled a vehicle with great skill, doing so even better than most cowboys managed their horses. Her shooting, of course, wasn’t on par with Katerina’s, but Ardi had never met a marksman as precise as the Cloak officer. And there had been… Well, it wasn’t just the absence of underwear. The cheap dress had been concealing surprisingly fine stockings beneath it.

"You’re not from the Second Chancery," he ventured slowly, "and you’re not a guard… You’re…"

Lisa’s purse, miraculously still slung across her unharmed shoulder, was quickly opened, and she handed him a document.

In a lacquered, yellow leather cover, he saw an official paper stamped with a crest.

"Private Detective Agency, Peter Oglanov and Assistants."

"And how do the Jackets feel about you working with a private detective?"

"With a detective’s assistant," Lisa parried, "and naturally, they don’t know about it. I’m just a driver, Ard. I work for whoever pays me more. Tonight, I was paid by both Arkar and Peter."

A detective named Peter… If Ardi had had more time, he would have pondered why that sounded so familiar.

"Ouch…" Lisa winced, pressing her hand to her bleeding shoulder.

Ard wasn’t well-versed in treating bullet wounds. Cowboys, of course, had occasionally suffered such injuries, but when they had, the Evergale medic had stepped in. Still, even Ard knew enough to tell Lisa needed help, preferably soon.

Apparently, she’d reached the same conclusion. She took the knife from his hand, cut off another strip of fabric from her dress, and layered it over the existing makeshift bandage.

Returning his blade, she glanced over at the sneering men outside the dome before shifting her gaze to the old house.

"What do you think that thing is, Ard?"

"I have no idea," he replied honestly.

"You’re a mage!"

"And you’re a detective’s assistant!" Ardan shot back, unable to help himself. "So maybe you can tell me — where did that thing even come from, and why are half the city’s gangs chasing an artifact from Makingia?!"

"Oh, no way…"

"What?" Ard barked.

"I thought you simply had ice running through your veins," she muttered, surprised. "You’ve been so calm this whole time… I was starting to think you worked for the Cloaks yourself… And no, Ard, it’s not half — it’s a third. The capital has six major gangs, and heaven only knows how many smaller ones. The larger ones control the factory districts and the New City areas, while the smaller groups are just young thugs. Neither type, of course, dares to touch the center and… Why am I explaining all of this to you?"

Ardan only shrugged.

"Peter believes that the artifact didn’t suddenly catch everyone’s interest without a good reason, especially considering the fact that the trinket’s been here for almost a century, untouched, so… Eternal Angels, Ard! What’s happening? It’s like I’m unable to control my own tongue!" Lisa looked at him as if contemplating murder. "I don’t know what you’re doing, but stop it."

"I can’t," Ardan shrugged. "How do we get to the sewer?"

"Artifact first."

"You’re serious?"

They locked eyes.

"You’re serious," Ardan sighed. "And you’re not going to show me the escape route until I help you find the artifact."

"Smart boy," Lisa winked at him, her foxlike grin briefly returning before she winced in pain.

Ardi looked back. A young man of about twenty-five was approaching the shield. Naturally, he held a staff, and, unsurprisingly, bore no regalia.

"Will he manage to do it quickly?" Lisa asked, following Ardan’s gaze.

"No idea," Ardi repeated. "But I don’t want to find out."

Ardan turned to the building. After what he’d just witnessed, he wasn’t exactly eager to enter it, either. And, most unnervingly, his current state of mind wouldn’t allow him to hear the words he needed to open a path to the Fae Lands. A pity. Between the Sidhe and that unknown creature that had torn off Milomir’s head, Ardan would’ve preferred the Sidhe…

"Let’s just go," Lisa grumbled, clutching her wounded shoulder and cursing with each step as she made her way toward the entrance.

Ardan followed her. Together, they ascended the creaking porch, its boards lamenting their steps like a mourner weeping over a fresh grave. The door, askew on its hinges, squeaked as it opened, and they found themselves inside the house.

This place had once been home to the wealthy. Now, only a layer of dust and mold-ridden, rotting floorboards remained of that former grandeur. The peeling lacquer on the walls resembled snake scales, and the torn, gray wallpaper exposed gaping holes lined with splinters, revealing stone partitions covered in runes and symbols; parts of the staircase had collapsed into heaps of debris. The only furniture left were dilapidated tables and cabinets, which had long ago lost their shine, hunched over like bitter, ancient beings.

And yet, for all its decay, the house on Baliero Fifth Street bore no obvious signs of anything truly sinister.

Except…

"Hold on."

"Ard," Lisa sighed. "We’re already inside. We don’t exactly-"

"Don’t move," Ardan repeated firmly.

Lisa froze mere steps from the staircase. Ardi crouched, examining the floor carefully. He saw old, damp boards reeking of mold. And covered in dust. A thick, undisturbed layer of it, one that resembled spilled, soggy flour.

"What is it?" Lisa asked, glancing back at him.

"Elver and Milomir," Ardan replied, pressing his palm to the floor.

"Eternal Angels, Ard, enough with the riddles!"

Ardan pointed to the line of tracks.

"I can only see our footprints," he said.

Lisa finally looked down. Starting from the door and leading to where Ardi now stood, only two sets of tracks could be seen, and then there was another short trail up to her. Besides these footprints, nothing had disturbed the pristine, untouched layer of dust. Odd, considering Elver and Milomir had entered the house the same way.

"Ard…"

"Hmm?"

"Look…"

She was pointing behind him again, as she had before. Ardan turned around, still crouched, and saw… nothing. Or rather, he didn’t see what he should’ve seen.

Where the door had once been, there was now a wall. The wallpaper was worn, the boards cracked and moldy like the rest.

Breathing in deeply, Ardan stood and walked over to the nearest cabinet, seizing it and slamming it against the wall. But the wall held firm. Ardi, nearly losing his composure, began to pound the wall with all his strength until…

"Ard…" A gentle hand was placed on his shoulder.

Lisa was staring at him, eyes wide with growing fear.

"What are you doing, Ard?" She whispered.

"I’m trying to make us a way out."

"With what?"

Ardi, not realizing what she meant by that, looked at his hands. They were bloody and trembling. The skin was already sliding off his knuckles like the varnish on the floor had so long ago. The same way it was slithering off his bones and cartilage like snakeskin, pouring scarlet, viscous fluid down his shirt.

Ardan turned toward the cabinet. It stood exactly where it had before, untouched and covered in that damn dust.

"Sleeping Spirits…" He whispered, cutting another strip from Lisa’s dress, which was growing shorter and shorter.

"An interesting way to undress a lady," Lisa tried to joke to distract herself from the situation, though her quivering voice betrayed her fear.

Ardan ignored her, making cloth masks for them. He tied one around his own face, then helped secure the other over Lisa’s mouth and nose.

Her dress smelled pleasantly of berries…

"You think this’ll help?"

"The mold," Ardan murmured, licking his bloody knuckles — a habit that clearly bewildered her. "The shield over the building should block excess moisture. This mold couldn’t have grown here naturally."

"Magic?"

Ardan shrugged. If this had simply been Star Magic or the Aean’Hane’s art, then… He could’ve assumed that an illusion had tricked him into thinking he was striking the wall with a cabinet instead of his fists. But…

Ardan ran his hand over the spot where the door had been, finding only rough, splintered boards there and-

"AAAAAAAAAA!"

Lisa and Ard instinctively cocked their revolvers, aiming toward the west wing where the scream had erupted from. It wasn’t the kind children used when they were playing, nor the reflexive cry of an adult in sudden pain.

No, this had been a different kind of scream.

It had been drawn-out, almost turning into a long, low wail, and then blending into a howl. The kind of scream where a flickering ember of reason lingered on one side, while on the other, the cold abyss of death yawned open. Not a simple or peaceful death, either — a death that made one scream with all the power their lungs could muster, tearing their throat and rupturing vocal cords in the process.

After the scream came gunfire — from both revolvers and rifles — and then more screams.

"Well, he managed it quite quickly," Ardan murmured, recalling Lisa’s question about the gang’s mage.

"But why are they over there and not here?" Lisa asked, her gaze fixed on the dark, suffocating corridor.

"This is like the paths of the Vilas," Ardi whispered, his finger twitching on the trigger. His heart raced faster than the pistons of a tractor engine. "Something’s wrong with the space here."

"The Firstborn’s art is doing this?"

"I don’t know," Ardan answered after thinking it over quickly, "but we’d better hurry. Whatever’s making them scream like that… I don’t want to meet it."

"Reasonable," Lisa nodded.

Shoulder to shoulder, they advanced toward the staircase, moving in sync. Their eyes stayed fixed on the darkness that draped the corridor like a thick web. Silence had settled over the house again. There were no creaking boards, no gusting wind coming in through wide gaps, no scratching of mice or rats. None of the usual sounds that old houses held.

There was only the void and the dust, which, like river sand, kept swallowing the footprints Ardi and Lisa left in their wake, making it appear as if they’d never been there at all. But neither of them noticed this. They were too focused on the darkness ahead, expecting anything to emerge from it.

By the time they reached the once-grand staircase, nothing had come forth.

"Do you know where we’re headed?" Lisa asked, keeping her aim steady on the corridor but glancing occasionally at the staircase, its first landing cloaked in those same dense, gray cobwebs as the corridor.

Ardan quietly recited Andrew’s words, "Third floor, eastern wing, children’s room."

"But if, as you said, something’s wrong with the space here, how will we even know where we are?" She hissed, probably more from the pain than anything else.

"Maybe it’s time to tell me where that exit is?" Ardan replied with a question of his own.

Lisa looked at him with a hint of a wild, half-manic smile.

"Nice try, big guy," she scoffed, gritting her teeth as she climbed the staircase first.

Ardan followed. At the first landing, he glanced back and saw the door again. It was even open, inviting him with a view of the abandoned square outside. No men with guns stood at the shield’s edge. For a brief, dangerous moment, Ardi was tempted to descend, until, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of long, black, claw-like fingers gripping the doorframe from outside.

He swallowed, quickened his pace, and continued up the staircase to the second floor with Lisa. Here, the neglect and abandonment were just as heavy as on the floor below. Torn portraits and dusty frames clung to the walls, their faces staring with silent judgment and faint disdain, as if eager to witness a spectacle of blood and suffering.

"Help me!" Lisa cried out suddenly.

She dropped her revolver and collapsed to the floor, slamming her injured shoulder against a side table before falling flat. Screaming and writhing, she clawed at her left foot with her fingers, nails digging into her flesh in a frantic, desperate attempt to tear something free.

"They’re crawling inside me, Ard! Help me!" She screamed.

Ardan shook off his shock and rushed to her, covering her eyes as he tried to infuse as much will into his Words as he could muster.

"It’s alright, Lisa," he whispered into her ear.

She gasped, shuddered, and yanked at her leg one last time, nearly exposing bone, before finally slumping over, limp in his arms. To Ardan, it felt like a fully-grown horse had fallen onto his shoulders. His breath came in gasps, his head spinning. And it definitely wasn’t because of Lisa.

He pressed her against his shoulder, leaning his back against the wall, and tried to catch his breath. Lisa stirred just seconds later, groaning softly.

"Arkar and Peter are going to owe me extra," she muttered, tearing off yet another strip of her dress, which now barely covered her thighs. "Damn… It hurts like hell."

Fashioning a pad from one strip, she bound it tightly to the torn flesh of her left foot.

"What did you… see?" Ardan asked heavily.

Lisa looked at him with a teary expression.

"I’m just a driver, Ard… Just a driver. I… damn it, I shouldn’t have to see rotting cadaver worms crawling up inside my leg … Worms with baby faces."

Ardan swore. Whatever was happening in this house, it had nothing to do with Star Magic. And if it was part of the Aean’Hane arts, then it was a facet of them Atta’nha had never spoken about.

And Ardi understood why…

"Can you walk?" He asked Lisa.

"Only if I crawl," she shook her head.

Ardan set aside his staff, turned his back to her, and crouched. Without any further prompting, she managed to clamber up onto him, locking her legs around his waist. At this point, Ardi hardly cared about the pair of long, bare legs wrapped around his torso; nor did he pay attention to the pressure of her chest against his back.

Kicking his staff up with his toe and grabbing her fallen revolver, he turned slowly back toward the staircase.

And, as with the door, where there should have been steps leading to the third floor, there was only a wall. He turned back toward the corridor and saw, in the dimly-lit distance, a hazy silhouette. Like a dawn shadow — elongated and flattened — it stood near a painting, its whip-like arms stroking the torn canvas.

Carefully, Ardan cocked the revolver and aimed it at the figure.

"You see it too?" He whispered to Lisa.

"Yes," she whispered back into his ear.

Ardan reached out to open a nearby door, but his hand met only the rough, decayed wallpaper and splintered wood. The entire corridor had transformed into a long, claustrophobic tunnel.

He swallowed, checked the revolver’s drum, and confirmed that all the rounds were in place (he hadn’t even fired it yet). Pressing his side against the wall, he edged forward, step by cautious step.

The closer they got to the shadow, the more ardently Lisa’s heartbeat thudded against his back. His own heart felt like it might burst out of his chest and run as far from this place as it could.

A treacherous floorboard creaked underfoot, and Lisa, out of sheer fear, bit down hard on his shoulder.

Directly in front of them, barely an arm’s length away, stood the shadow. It had separated from the wall and now loomed at its full height, but it remained as thin as a newspaper. One hand stroked the painting while the other held something at the level of its waist.

Ardan held his breath, noting that the creature wasn’t paying them the slightest bit of attention, and took a sidestep, then another, until they were several meters away.

"W-where… w-where…" A voice, distorted and metallic, echoed from within the shadow. "W-w-where… i-is… m-my…" It turned to look at Ardan and Lisa, and she pressed her face into Ardan’s shoulder with a stifled moan. Ardi, if he hadn’t been so terrified himself, might have been tempted to join her.

The shadow had turned out to be…

"W-where’s m-my… h-head…"

Before them stood Milomir’s silhouette. Headless and flat, he stroked the ruined portrait of himself as he’d entered with Elver. And his head… His head, detached, rotting, and crawling with cockroaches, was cradled in his flat arms, pressed against his waist.

"Just what in…"

Ardan swallowed the rest of his sentence as, from behind Milomir’s shadow, a creature lunged at them. It looked like a hunched old woman, her breasts hanging like ropes as she dragged her empty barrel of a stomach behind her; her legs, shorter than a cat’s tail, shuffled awkwardly along the floor; her arms were as long as snakes, with the joints bent wrong as if her limbs had been broken and twisted countless times. Her chin and forehead were reversed, and her mouth was a long, fanged slash across her skin that stretched from nose to chin.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" The creature shrieked, pouncing on them like a feral cat.

Ardan reflexively fired a shot and leaped back. Behind them, the door creaked open, and together, he and Lisa both tumbled into the room, only for Ardi to look up and see another wall where the door had just been.

"Sleeping Spirits…" He whispered, turning to help Lisa, but she was just sitting there, sobbing quietly as she stared off into the distance.

Following her gaze, Ardi realized they were in a small room once adorned with painted wallpaper, a delicate chandelier, and only a few pieces of furniture. Among them was a crib and a small chair.

On the chair sat a little girl, who was only visible from the back. She wore a pink dress, long white stockings, and polished shoes. Her hair was in two braids. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. All of that would have been fine, if not for the fact that part of her head was missing, and her hair was matted with blood and wriggling worms.

Her right foot dangled from a thin strip of tendon, and her left side, stripped bare of skin and flesh, revealed ribs teeming with flies.

"Did you come to play too?" The girl asked in an angelic, innocent voice.

She was holding something in her hands, taking slow, deliberate bites. At first, in the dim light, Ardan didn’t recognize it. But then the clouds outside parted, and moonlight spilled through the only un-boarded window, revealing the girl’s meal.

It was Elver.

He was still alive.

Slumped across her knees, held down with unnatural strength, he twitched and gasped. His lips, nearly gnawed away, dribbled with foamy, pink blood, and his eye sockets held only a white, clouded film where his eyes used to be. The girl, oblivious to his moans, gouged chunks out of his torn-open abdomen with her teeth and devoured them like candy.

"Nanny brought me so many treats today," she said.

The moonlight illuminated another corner of the room, and Ardi nearly gagged. A pile of mangled bodies lay there, including the gang’s mage. In his mutilated hands, he was clutching a pile of blue accumulators.

So that was how he’d managed to breach the shield and let the gangsters inside…

"They’ll all become my toys, and we’ll have endless tea parties together," the girl… The creature in the guise of a child, prattled on. "Do you want to be my guests, Ard, Lisa? Will you be my guests?"

"Hold on tight," Ardan whispered, leaning down carefully.

He waited for Lisa to wrap her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist again, then straightened up, drawing his revolver as he looked at Elver’s twitching, convulsing face.

Ardan raised the revolver and fired.

For a moment, all was silent.

Elver’s body shuddered one last time, then fell still. Ardi’s aim might’ve been poor, but even he couldn’t miss from this close. The bullet had struck right between what had once been the eyes of the loyal devotee of the Tavsers.

"You…" The girl’s voice shifted, changing as if something dark and unnatural had begun seeping into it, like the cawing of hungry crows. "You ruined my treat!"

She turned sharply, and instead of a face, Ardan saw only an oval mouth, worm-like and ringed with sharp, triangular teeth that would’ve looked more at home on a fish.

Ard pulled the trigger several times, but the bullets seemed to vanish before they reached the creature. It leaped from the chair and lunged toward them.

Lisa screamed in pure terror, and Ardan may have joined her. Swinging his staff with all his might, he struck the creature’s body, sending it sprawling several meters away, shrieking in pain.

A scarlet, ember-like patch appeared where he’d struck it, spreading and seemingly causing it excruciating pain.

"Ley-wood!" The creature wailed. "Ley-wood!"

Ardan wasn’t inclined to argue over it. He saw two options and sprinted forward with all his might. The creature raced after him, reaching out with its elongated, claw-tipped fingers. But Ardan was faster. He snatched up a figurine from a nearby table and, with Lisa still clutching onto him, dove out of the window, plummeting from the third floor straight to the ground.

Somehow, Ardan managed to twist mid-fall, and Lisa ended up cradled in his arms rather than on his back. When they hit the ground, Ardi rolled, ignoring the nauseating crunch in his right ankle, and saved Lisa from an even grimmer fate.

They lay there on the cold, muddy ground, gasping for breath. White clouds of vapor puffed up from their faces, fading quickly into the night. After a painful breath, Ardan pulled himself up and raised his staff toward the house, but…

The house was gone. Only a heap of rotting boards and crumbling stone remained. And in the shadows within, he saw Milomir’s silhouette once more, mouthing soundlessly:

"Where… is… my… head?"

But soon, even he vanished.

"What… an... absolute… nightmare…" Ardan muttered, pushing himself upright and leaning heavily on his staff. The pain radiating from his broken ankle nearly made him bite his lip until it bled.

Then he remembered Lisa and helped her up. By some miracle, whether from adrenaline or something else, she managed to stand on her good leg. Supporting each other in a series of limping hops, they made their way over to the damn shield.

Ardan drained the last bits of Davos’ accumulator — it shattered in his hands, crumbling to fine dust — and made another tear. Not a word was exchanged as he and Lisa hobbled to one of the gangsters’ parked cars near the corner.

Lisa pulled out a few odd-looking tools from her inexplicably intact handbag and fiddled first with the car door, then with something near the steering wheel.

Within less than half a minute, the car shook, and the engine roared to life, spewing clouds of exhaust.

"Take the wheel," Lisa groaned, about to collapse onto the back seat.

"I don’t know how to drive."

Her hand froze on the handle.

"What?"

"I. Don’t. Know. How. To. Drive," Ardan repeated, emphasizing each word.

Lisa turned, rolling her eyes. Ardan definitely needed to figure out the meaning of that gesture…

"Eternal Angels… If we somehow make it to "Bruce’s," I swear I’m teaching you how to drive, big guy."

***

Perhaps their trials for the night had been enough, because they reached the intended pier without incident. And after Lisa exchanged a few words with the captain of a small barge ferrying cargo from shore to shore, they set off toward the Night Docks — a modest port on the right bank where ships that stayed within the bounds of the Niewa loaded up. It was a sort of city water transit system.

When they’d sailed about five hundred meters from shore, the bridge’s wings closed above them, and ambulances, fire trucks, and guards raced across, flashing their lights and blaring their sirens as they sped toward the black column of smoke rising above Fifth Street, which showed where a fire had broken out after the explosion.

The barge’s captain didn’t ask a single question. In fact, he didn’t utter a word the entire thirty-minute journey.

Once they docked, they drove through narrow streets and alleyways, winding away from the wide boulevards and main roads. Lisa seemed to be worried about running into a patrol that would ask why they were both injured. It didn’t help that one of them wasn’t entirely human and, what’s more, was a mage with no regalia. And they had no paperwork for the vehicle, either.

But by some stroke of fate, they reached "Bruce’s" without further incident.

"Finally," Lisa whispered before passing out at the wheel and slumping over the horn, which let out a long, drawn-out honk.

Ardan stepped out, opened the driver’s-side door, and, paying no mind to securing the vehicle, lifted Lisa’s limp body, carrying her bloodied and mud-covered figure even as his own battered and bloodied form limped toward the bar.

The bouncers opened the doors for him and, clustering around discreetly, led him toward Arkar, who was waiting by a set of doors leading to a private room.

Ardan had once assumed that the room existed so private parties could go unnoticed. And now he was certain of it, but with a much darker understanding on top.

Passing the stage, Ardan caught sight of Tess, who was finishing her two-hour set. For a fleeting moment, their eyes met.

Sleeping Spirits… It had only been a few hours. And yet, it felt like several lifetimes had passed since then.

Along with the bouncers and Arkar, they entered the private room. A long table stood in the center, its edges rounded. Three sides of the room were bordered by green leather couches, and the walls were adorned with mounted horns, animal heads, ancient axes, and other symbols of orcish heritage.

"Lay her on the table," Arkar instructed, turning to the guards. "Fetch Tess, and bring warm water, soap, thread, cloth, and a harsh liquid… A strong bottle of whiskey, I mean."

The bouncers nodded silently.

"Two chubbies… Two bottles, I mean!" Arkar called after them, his voice carrying an orcish growl.

Ardan cleared a space on the table, shoving aside straw wrappers, plates, and ashtrays, and gently set Lisa down, then collapsed onto the couch beside it. Breathing heavily and drenched in sweat, he unbuttoned the collar of his shredded shirt, trying to catch his breath, though the effort was in vain — pain throbbed in his ankle and where his side had been grazed by a bullet.

"How are you holding up?" Arkar asked, glancing between him and Lisa’s wound.

Ardan didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure how long he could stay here…

"What do you want, Arkar?" Tess asked, entering the room with a slightly irritated expression. "I’ve still got two songs left."

"They can make do without your songs, Tess," Arkar said, guiding her to the table and grabbing the items the bouncers had brought. "Make sure no one comes in here, and let the band play out of hell... Loud and lively, I mean," he added, barking an order at his men.

The bouncers gave another silent nod and slipped out.

"So, what do you-" Tess began, but Arkar interrupted her.

"You studied medicine for a couple of years, right?"

"You mean surgery?" She raised an eyebrow, looking stunningly out of place in her elegant green gown, her hair done up with a sparkling tiara, and her long, white silk gloves that reached her elbows. She stood in that room like a queen in a den of wolves. "It was only a year and a half, Arkar… The last six months, I worked as a seamstress for Mrs. Okladov."

"Good enough," the orc replied, setting the whiskey, thread, and other supplies on the table. "Help her, Tess. Please."

"I already warned you that I want nothing to do with your dealings, Arkar," she replied coldly.

"This was an entirely legitimate, extremely trav… trivil… simple matter, I mean," Arkar spread his arms out. He might have said more, but Lisa groaned, bringing a worried grimace to Tess’ face.

"Eternal Angels, Arkar!" Tess exclaimed, casting a scathing look at the orc. "She’ll bleed out if we don’t do something."

"Exactly," Arkar nodded in agreement.

Tess muttered something under her breath, kicked off her high heels without using her hands, and approached the table. Effortlessly uncorking the whiskey bottle, she poured it over her hands to sterilize them, then took the scissors and carefully cut the fabric away from Lisa’s shoulder.

"Gunshot wound," Tess observed. "It went through. No bullet left in here."

With that, she threaded a needle soaked in whiskey and set to work stitching up the wound. Ardan, recalling his own ordeal in the steppes, rose unsteadily to his feet, grabbed a teaspoon from the table, and was about to place it between Lisa’s teeth when...

"What are you doing, fool?" Tess growled at him.

"She’s going to-"

"She’s unconscious," Tess cut him off, her hands covered in fresh blood. "If you put that spoon in her mouth, she could choke on it. Go sit on the couch and wait for your turn."

For a few minutes, Tess focused on Lisa’s shoulder, and then she asked Arkar to help her turn Lisa over. The orc, with surprising gentleness, shifted her onto her stomach. Lisa, still unconscious, groaned faintly. The exit wound was larger than the entry one, and Tess worked on it for a bit longer.

When she’d finished with her shoulder, she examined Lisa’s torso and legs, checking for any other injuries. Finally, she untied the makeshift bandage around her foot.

"Eternal Angels… She did this to herself?"

Both Arkar and Tess turned their questioning gazes on Ardan, but he merely stared into the distance, his mind blank.

"Angels and Light," Tess muttered, then spent another half an hour tending to Lisa’s foot. When she finally finished, the table, floor, and even Arkar and Tess were stained with blood. But Lisa was still breathing.

"She needs a hospital, Arkar," Tess said, her face shadowed with worry and her gown far beyond saving. "She’s lost a lot of blood…"

"We’ll take her," Arkar replied, then whistled sharply. The bouncers came in, and he instructed them on what to do. Carefully, they lifted Lisa’s groaning form and carried her out of the room.

"Now you," Tess turned to Ardan, slicing through his already ruined shirt with a pair of scissors.

More expenses…

"Arkar… This is just a graze, but it’s deep," Tess announced. "He’ll need something for the pain."

The orc approached and silently handed Ardan the whiskey bottle. Ardan hesitated, then took a few large gulps. The fiery burn ran down his throat, numbing his tongue and seizing his breath.

"What is… this… swill…" Ardan rasped.

Moments later, the room started spinning, and everything blurred around him. He barely noticed it when Tess stitched up his wound, then set and bandaged his ankle with a splint fashioned from table knives and napkins.

The whole time, Ardan inhaled the scent of her herbal perfume and watched her slender, nimble fingers work the needle.

"You get Elver’s share as well," Arkar set ten 10-ex notes and several coins on the table. "For your trouble. That means you’re getting your share and what that rat of a Tavser follower took to his grave."

Arkar had apparently already handed the statue over to his lackeys…

"And as for Andrew, as two-faced as that pup was, his share will go to his sister… She’s sick… Needs it for the doctors, after all," the half-orc continued. "And Milomir’s cut — may the Sleeping Spirits welcome him — will go to Lisa when she wakes up. That would be fair enough."

At that, Ardan couldn’t hold back any longer. Perhaps it was the whiskey loosening his tongue, or the surge of frustration from the night’s events: the gangsters, the shooting, the otherworldly horror conjured by some unknown hand.

"Fair?" Ardan growled. "What fairness are you talking about, Arkar?! So many people died out there! And then Andrew… You knew he was working for that… what’s his name… the Dandy! And the artifact! You’re really telling me someone would pay all those exes just for a trinket in a collection, huh? Who did you even get it for?"

"No idea," Arkar replied calmly, his tone as unflappable as ever.

"And it doesn’t matter to you?!"

"Not in the slightest, kid."

"Because money doesn’t stink?" Ardan bared his teeth.

"Then take a sniff yourself, if you’re so curious," Arkar nodded toward the money on the table. "Go ahead. You worked for it, so don’t act all high and mighty now. Take it and get yourself patched up. Next time-"

"There won’t be a next time!" Ardan shouted, springing to his feet. "And you can shove that money, orc! I’m no bandit! I’m no criminal! I’m a hunter, not some-"

"A hunter?!" Arkar bared his own fangs in turn. "How dare you… A hunter, you say… You brainless whelp! There are no hunters left in this world, Matabar! No hunters, no shamans, no spirits, no ancestors! All of that is gone! And largely because of your own great-grandfather! Oh… You thought we didn’t catch on… That we didn’t know, I mean, I didn’t know, who rents a room here? Ard Egobar, great-grandson of Aror Egobar… You play at noble wizardry, do you… little brat? You don’t want to work with us? Fine, we’re not forcing you. But don’t come crawling to me when you’re starving. Hunter, my ass… Your money’s there. Do whatever you want with it. Wipe yourself with it for all I care."

Arkar spat, turned, and stomped out the door, leaving Ardan stunned. He’d heard every word, but in his mind, echoes of Hector’s battle against the head of the Shanti’Ra mingled with memories of his father. Why had Arkar’s words sounded so much like his father’s?

Ardan sank heavily into the couch, glaring at the whiskey.

He would never touch that stuff again…

"You didn’t know…" Tess’ whisper broke the silence.

He turned to her, seeing a mixture of a smile and surprise on her face.

She laughed, and it was bright, musical, nearly as sweet as her singing.

"Eternal Angels, Ard!" She exclaimed through her laughter. "You didn’t know you were renting a room from the Orcish Jackets?"

"I had… other matters to attend to," he muttered.

Even he knew how absurd that sounded. But what else could he say? It had happened the way it had happened. So went the dream of the Sleeping Spirits…

"Come on, big guy," she said in that same joking tone, smiling, and put her hand on his shoulder and helped him up. "I’ll patch you up better... Or these stitches might fester in the morning."

"Why did you help-"

"I hate gangsters," Tess interrupted, answering his unspoken question. "But Lisa is a good girl."

"And you live in this place?"

"And what about you?" Her green eyes flashed. "You, as I understand it, don’t want to be associated with the criminal world either, but you’re not planning to move out, are you?"

Ardan gritted his teeth. He might’ve been glad to do so, but where would he move? Back to the dorms? Yeah, that might not be a bad idea... if one didn’t take into account all the factors involved. Looking for a new place to live… He’d already tried that, and it hadn’t worked out so well. The only thing left to do was to continue living in the Orcish Jackets’ profit house.

Ironic.

Distracted as he was, he didn’t notice when Tess discreetly took the money from the table and slipped it into his pocket. Supporting him with one arm and carrying his staff with the other, she helped him up the staircase to the top floor, leading him through the door of her apartment.

Ardan, still dazed from the pain, blood loss, and whiskey, barely registered the apartment’s interior.

He only came to when Tess guided him to a small balcony adjoining his bay-windowed room, only with a door that led directly to the rooftop, where she’d set up a cozy little terrace.

It had a table, a couple of potted flowers, and two chairs.

"Wait here," she murmured, seating him at the table and disappearing inside.

Ardan sat there, gazing out over the city spread out below, its twinkling lights stretching into the darkness, shrouded in smoke and the cries of sirens, filled with gangsters, aristocrats, and, as he now knew all too well, blood.

Yonatan’s words suddenly made more sense…

"Here," Tess returned, offering him a cup of hot, sweet liquid.

"Cocoa," Ardan whispered, grateful.

"You’re a fan too?" She asked with a gentle smile.

"My brother is," he replied a little wistfully. "I just… dabble."

"You have a brother?" She asked, laying out bandages, vials, and other small medical items on the table. She wrapped herself in a soft blanket from a nearby table while Ardan, finally feeling a hint of relief, savored the cool night air.

"I do," he nodded. "His name is Erti and…"

And he found himself telling Tess his story. Of course, it was the carefully edited version — the one that left out the wolf spirit who’d taught him the Aean’Hane arts, Duchess Anorsky, the vampire Cassara, the train attack… and much more.

He spoke and spoke, the whiskey warming his words and loosening his tongue. Tess, bandaging his wounds with practiced hands, listened intently. She asked questions here and there, laughed sometimes, frowned at other times, occasionally even teasing him gently.

It was easy to talk to her. Strangely, he didn’t want to stop. Was this how people felt under the effects of his Witch’s Gaze?

And yet, eventually, Ardan fell silent.

For a while, they drank cocoa in silence, watching the sleeping city.

"You’re lucky, Ard," Tess said suddenly, setting her cup down.

"Why?"

"Because you get to choose who you become," she replied, taking off her tiara and letting her hair fall loose. "You know, big guy, some people are born with a purpose. Like me. The Face of Light gave me the gift of song, and that’s all I want from life. To sing. On the biggest stages. For the biggest audiences. That’s what I live for. That’s why I left my parents back in Shamtur. Dropped out of medical school. It’s why I moved here, so I could sing at the bar… It’s my fever, you could say."

She gazed into the dark liquid in her cup as if seeing something only she could understand within it.

"And sometimes," Tess continued, "people experience something… something big, something profound. And for the rest of their lives, they live in the shadow of that event. Dealing with its consequences or searching for its causes. It’s like being imprisoned by your own fate… But you, Ard, you’re free of that. You can find out what you truly desire. What you want. Believe me, not everyone’s that lucky."

Ardan turned away, considering her words. He’d never thought of his question — "Who am I?" — from that perspective before. He’d never considered that neither his great-grandfather nor his father, nor anyone else needed to give him an answer. He had to discover it himself.

"You-"

"Sorry," Tess waved her hands, laughing awkwardly. "I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong… It’s probably just everything that’s happened tonight. I’m rambling… Just ignore me, Ard… Eternal Angels, how scared I was…"

Ardan swallowed a "thank you" and quietly sipped his cocoa, savoring the rich, dense flavor — sweet but not cloying, hot but not scorching.

Tess sat beside him. The breeze, carrying the first hints of winter, played with her fiery hair, which was brighter than the city lights below.

And then, perhaps because of the whiskey, the cocoa, or Tess herself, Ardan finally felt, for the first time all night, a faint but undeniable calm wash over him.

It had been one strange night indeed.