I snap awake like my consciousness just got shot out of a cannon.

The first thing I feel is a healthy amount of surprise at the fact that I still have a consciousness at all. That comes with some serious pluses and minuses, but I guess I’d rather have one than not.

I lean forward in what I guess is a bed and cough a few times - lungs feel dry. An arm from somewhere offscreen gives me a glass of water and I slug it down without thinking about who gave it to me or whether the clear fluid in the container is actually bleach. It doesn’t taste like bleach, at least, so we’re off to a great start.

My eyes pan around the room I’m in. I can see. Binocularly. I’ll never take my depth perception for granted ever again.

Vaulted stone room, mostly made of sealed and carved blocks. Probably wet most of the time, but the folks in charge here installed heaters and dehumidifiers to keep things feeling indoorsy despite this being an underground chamber. Warm lighting, casting everything in shades of yellow, orange, and earthen brown. Beds in rows along the walls, some with people in them or next to them. Some specialized-looking machinery next to each one. Next to mine, too.

There’s a person next to my bed, also, so I stop taking in the sights in order to pay attention to him.

He’s gray with age, but not in the way that makes him look withered or ineffectual - in the way that an old wolf looks. It’s hard to notice under his dark padded coat, but he’s got some muscle. Granite-colored shoulder-length hair, swept back. A mild beard that could be a conscious decision, or could just be a week or two of not finding the time to shave. Glasses, delicate and so thin that in the right light the frames almost disappear completely, resting atop a strong, aquiline nose.

His vitae is spectacular. Green, blue, white, and gold. It smells like sunlit stones, old books, and fresh bread. It looks like a comfortable manor of white stone in some faraway beautiful place, where the sun never stops shining, and vines crawl up the walls to drink in the spray from the fountains. His vitae is a secluded place. A citadel of shelter and rest.

Arms crossed and leaning back in his bedside chair, he smiles and says in a voice like malt beer and parchment, “Welcome back, Baulric. How do you feel?”

This is Voldzet Summerstone. Ex-Brotherhood body carver, longtime Shadow Surgeon, and proud bearer of the “Saved Baulric Featherlight’s Life the Most Times” ribbon, which I believe he keeps framed above his desk.

I consider his question for a moment.

“Better than I used to, I know that much. My guts itch.”

He nods to the bandages around my middle. “Yeah, we had to use a bit of synth tissue on your kidney there. It’ll feel like that for a few days, or until your magic bounces back and takes over the healing process. Gotta admit, I wasn’t expecting to see you back here for another few months at least. Wanna tell me what happened? Or is it a secret.” He widens his eyes playfully.

I sit up a bit, wincing as my stitches tug. “No secret. I’ve been poking my stupid nose in places where it doesn’t belong, and got bit.”

“Pretty big bite.”

“You should see the other guy, huhuhuh. Well, guys. Five of them. Well, four guys and a piece of industrial loading equipment with legs.”

He nods again, pensively this time. He angles his gaze at me in a very... paternal expression. “Em tells me you’ve been pretty active lately. Knee-deep in trouble and digging deeper like there’s treasure at the bottom.”

My face breaks into a frown. “There might be treasure at the bottom. Probably not, but there might be. You never know. I uh… didn’t know Em talked about me at all. To you.”

He sighs. “You know, for a guy with such exquisite ocular implants, you have a hard time noticing things. And less self-esteem than a guy one fifth your size. Of course she still talks about you. She’s worried about you. She cares. Because some people care about more than what’s on the outside, Baulric.”

His glare is more full of disappointment than I can realistically handle at the moment. Did I mention Voldzet is Em’s dad? You probably figured that out already, you smart reader, you.

I didn’t find out he was a Surgeon until after I uh… after what happened. And believe me, if I’d had any idea beforehand, things probably would have shaken out a lot differently. There’s a lot of lingering stuff in my relationship with him as well as her, but somehow he’s still willing to see me as a friend of both him and his daughter instead of anesthetizing me and extracting my spine in my sleep. Hell, he’s worked on me dozens of times in the last ten years or so. He could have killed me ten hundred different ways at this point, but he hasn’t. In fact, after my own parents died, Voldzet stepped up to be the closest thing to a father figure I was ever going to get. I owe him a lot more than just my life.

And yeah, I’m not sure I really deserve this kind of treatment.

As another example of his infinite patience and mercy, he changes the subject.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“About what?”

He beetles his impressive silver bar eyebrows at me. “I’ll admit, you’re so good at playing stupid that sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re playing at all. About the shit you’re in, son. Do I get to know about what you and, by proxy, my daughter are involved in? Or are you gonna be a tough guy about it? You’re confined to this bed until I’m satisfied all your clank is working regardless, so I can either grab the electrodes and start testing that way, or we can talk. You pick.”

When a Surgeon says you’re in bed, it might as well be your final resting place. I’m not getting out of here for a bit. Ideally I’d want to involve as few people in this as possible, but who am I kidding - Voldzet and his associates are some of the most dangerous people in this city. If they can’t handle themselves, I don’t know who can. And I wouldn’t turn my nose up at having the Surgeons in my corner.

So I tell him the whole thing, from top to bottom. He gets us some tea (the real stuff, not vat grown, and it’s amazing) and we have it all out. He asks a few questions here and there, but mostly lets me talk.

At the end, he sips his tea and says, “... Huh. Okay. You’ve really gone and blundered your way into a real rat’s nest this time, haven’t you.”

“Yes. Yes I have. But I don’t know what other choice there is.”

The doc sighs. “The rest of it I pretty much understand, and I’m proud of you for it and all, but did you really have to go and borrow so much from the most dangerous demon spawn on the street, Baulric?”

I hang my head a little. “I know. I know, it wasn’t smart. But work was scarce, and I was eating about once a week, and I’m not really comfortable with stealing in order to feed myself. Not that I’m much of a burglar anyway. Don’t exactly have the build for it.”

“You coulda come in here if you wanted. We don’t always have a lot of space or stuff to spare, and we ride the line of being broke pretty much always, but we definitely could have tossed you a loaf of bread or something every once in a while. I’ll say that your credit’s been wearing a little thin since you stopped working with the orphanage, but you’re still in good standing with us.”

There’s only one person on the planet that can make me feel like an idiot teenager again, and he’s sitting right next to my bed. I can barely raise my voice above a mumble.

“I didn’t want to take advantage.”

Voldzet sighs again, and wipes his face with his hand exhaustedly. He does that a lot whenever I’m around. “Pride. Pride, pride, pride. The bramble we just can’t let go of. I get it, son. I understand. You don’t want to show up to your ex’s dad with hat in hand looking for freebies. But they’re not freebies. If I, and by extension the rest of the Surgeons, didn’t think you’d already earned this stuff, we would have left you to bleed out on the front porch a few hours ago. We do the shit we do to prop up people like you. Now, yes, you’ve been testing our patience a bit, because you’ve been even lazier than usual lately, but Baulric, I know your heart’s in the right place. Because I’ve known you since you were in diapers. That and I’ve literally held your heart in my hands. As long as you’re out there doing the right thing and not cutting any corners, you’re square with us and we’ll do whatever we can to help you. Does that make sense?”

I nod. I wish it didn’t have to make sense, but it does. First Ten, someone who used to be so small she could fit in one of my hands, and now Voldzet, who by rights doesn’t owe me shit but decides to anyway out of the goodness of his heart. Both percussively reminding me, in their own ways, just how much of a fool I’ve been.

We’re both quiet for a second. The clinic is quiet too. By now it’s pretty late, and most of the patients are firmly asleep. An old woman over in a corner is snoring so loud you’d think she was a three hundred pound dockworker.

I frown at him. “I’m not keeping you up, am I?”

He raises an eyebrow, and taps the side of his head. “I’m a Surgeon, kid. We have access to the finest neuroaugmetics the Brotherhood can unknowingly provide us. I got a brainwasher installed a while back.”

I raise my eyebrows and whistle quietly. I didn’t know the Surgeons were stealing such high-quality implants. Brainwashers are expensive. A little dangerous to install because of how integrated they are with multiple bodily systems, and the side effects can be very nasty even in the best of scenarios. In exchange, however, you get a huge boost to your brain’s processing power and sensory perception. You also only need to sleep about once a week, as long as its filters are working. I’d kill for a brainwasher, but they’re extremely rare and my head’s already so full of circuitry that I doubt my substrate could handle much more.

He asks, “So what’s the next play?”

That’s a pretty good question.

“Go down to Littlerock’s place and see if he left any clues behind. If he’s an active agent in any of this, he might have something there that could implicate him. But I’ve got to be careful about where I go and when, from now on. The Brotherhood already jumped me once, and they’re gonna do it again.”

Voldzet rubs his beard contemplatively. “Hmmm. Speaking of which. The mercenaries that attacked you. You said one of them was pretty clanked up?”

“That’s an understatement. The guy had the most ridiculously huge arm replacements I’ve ever seen. Both with electrite reactors, and he wasn’t using them sparingly. All he had to do was tap me once with his elbow and it blew out my eye. If he’d hit my skin, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Voldzet’s eyes darken a little, and he folds his arms. “I know him.”

“You do?”

“Mhm. I used to work with him. He’s been a Brotherhood mainstay for years. They don’t use mercenaries very often at all, because the Neutralizers are usually more than enough to bully people into doing what they want, but even they understand the value of being able to do things without their name attached to it. And they only take the best operatives. The ones trustworthy enough to prove themselves through the Brotherhood’s neuroticism.”

I take a sip of tea. “So this guy is serious business.”

“About as serious as it gets. His name is Krint Seagraves. The Brotherhood’s worked with him for as long as they have because they know Seagraves does not give a damp hoot about anything other than money and turning himself into the most cut-up mechanized monstrosity anyone’s ever seen. His dedication to shedding his own humanity rivals even the most fanatical Exarchs, but here’s the trick - he doesn’t care about the Brotherhood’s dogma at all. He doesn’t believe in the Rectifier, he doesn’t care what the Prime Controller says, and he’s long since had every altruistic tendon in his body surgically removed. He just wants power, and he wants it all to himself. The Brotherhood have tried for years to get him to join officially. They’ve offered him positions as high as War Executor, but he spits in their hand every single time. So, they’ve settled on the next best thing - paying him in enhancements in exchange for his services.”

I beetle my brows at this. “That… that seems uncharacteristically naive, even for the Brotherhood. Couldn’t they be making their own worst enemy with this cat?”

Voldzet shrugs. “They don’t have a lot of choice. They benefit enormously from having a merc of his caliber on their payroll. He’s smart, he’s strong, and he’s utterly ruthless, long as he’s being paid. One of the only independent contractors soulless and effective enough to earn the Brotherhood’s begrudging respect. So they keep him on. He very well could turn his back on them, if he wanted. He’s such a machine at this point that even the Neutralizers might have difficulty punishing him for it. But he’s been with them for almost twenty years now, so. Who’s to say? Between you and me, I’m impressed you got away from him. But, I told him multiple times that his augmetic platform was too topheavy, and he never listened. Good thinking.”

I nod. “Must be the kind of guy that thinks brute force will win through every time. I talked to him, a little. He says he doesn’t hold grudges.”

“He doesn’t. Not as far as I know. I don’t think Seagraves feels any emotions or impulses stronger than ‘professionalism’ and ‘greed’. Any reprisal visited upon you will be the Brotherhood’s decision, not his. So... if I were you, I’d count on seeing him again.”

My eyes wander into the middle distance a bit as I think. “It’s gonna be tough moving around with the Brotherhood’s monkeys on my tail. Especially when one of them’s a gorilla.”

“That’s true. And let’s not lose sight of the greater picture here - we don’t know why they want you off this case so bad. But what’s happened so far gives us a few clues.”

I meet his eyes and nod. “If they’re trying to hit me while using mercenaries to keep their name off the books, then they have to be involved in this somehow. Or that’s what I thought, until a Brotherhood priest showed up dead too. And why would the Brotherhood be involved in magical killings? It doesn’t add up.”

“Well… I can provide some insight on that first point, at least. The Brotherhood are not above sacrificing their own people in order to execute an agenda, if it means enough to them. Take it from someone who knows from experience, heh. That doesn’t mean I think they definitely are behind this somehow, but… it does get me thinking.”

His face tells me that something juicy’s occurred to him. “Thinking what?”

He’s quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “It’s a bit of a long shot, but…” He smiles, in a way that’s both knowing and strangely sad. “I want a smoke before I spill the squash. You want one? Not ordinarily something I’d offer to a patient, but let’s be honest, one smoke isn’t gonna kill you.”

I nod very seriously. “The Deep will burn before I turn down a Surgeon’s smoke.”

He stands and steps around the bed a bit. “Feel good enough to get on your feet, son of Featherlight?”

My jaw sets in sheer determination. “I think I can, Summerstone. I think I can.”

I push the blanket off me and realize that I’ve been changed out of my clothes and into a thin hospital gown. I hope all the people who saw me naked end up getting the therapy they need. Voldzet extends a hand to help me out of bed. It’s entirely a symbolic gesture. I outweigh him by about six hundred pounds. But I take his mitt in mine anyway.

On my feet with not even a shred of wooziness, I look around. “You didn’t burn my stuff, did you? There were lollipops in my coat. Also my wallet.”

He chuckles. “We kind of wanted to, but no, we just washed them instead. On the table, there, everything where we found it. Have you been using your coat as a doormat?”

By the table, I reply, “Some kids in Sector Eleven wanted shoulder rides. Hazards of being the size of a beast of burden.” I raise my coat and inspect it briefly. “I could swear this was a different color.”

“It was. But then we washed it. And Idronai took the liberty of patching some of the battle damage by way of her practicing her needlework.”

I check and see. Sure enough, some of the tears and holes have been cinched together with some sturdy double-layered sutures, surgical style. Pretty stylish, honestly. Even my coat has scars now. “Yeah? Well, thank her for going out of her way like that for me. I’m a one-coat kind of guy at the moment.”

He nods. “I’ll meet you outside. You can draw the curtain there if you want some privacy.”

I can’t help but scoff. “And deprive everyone of a glimpse of this? Perish the thought. I’m nothing if not generous, Voldzet.”

He wrinkles his nose at me, laughs, and walks off through a hatch on the far side of the room.

I draw the curtain even though everyone in here is asleep, and get my clothes on. For a bunch of silent murdering thieves that live underground outside the bounds of the law, the Surgeons’ hospitality is basically second to none. My pants, socks, and underwear are all pristinely laundered, my coat is more full of character than it ever has been, and they even sanitized and shined my boots. I’ve never shined my boots. What a bunch of utter heroes. Shirtless, scarred, becoated, clean and healed, I’m feeling like a brand new monster.

It really could have gone a whole hell of a lot worse. But it didn’t. Now I have to capitalize on the chance I’ve been given, and prove I’m worth the effort.

Preferably without dying in the process.

I draw the curtain back, take a deep breath, and cross the room to the door. On the other side of the hatch is a long stone hallway made of the same ancient blocks as the clinic, with more industrial-strength hatches set into the walls every ten yards or so. Voldzet is standing to one side by a lamp. He holds out a smoke to me and I take it. This one’s got purple and red wrapping paper. I know the brand - high-class Sector Two stuff favored by wealthy playwrights that like their smokes spicy and sweet. Weird, but better than a Shallowgrave by a long shot. We light up and take a few contemplative drags in the warm underground hall.

I ask, “What was this place?”

He frowns pensively and replies, “We’re not a hundred percent sure. It was mostly intact when we found it, but completely flooded by a crossflow a few caves over. I think it might be an ancient cistern or some kind of waterway they built a long time ago. It keeps trying to flood all over again, but we installed some pumps and drains to keep the water out, and put in these hatches to divide the space up.”

“Huh. Subterrane’s a weird place. The other day I was down here going to a meeting and I found a weird Wellwarden statue someone put up.”

Voldzet raises an eyebrow. “A statue of a Wellwarden?”

“Yeah, someone carved a Wellwarden out of stone and left it at the entrance of some cavern. Had barnacles all over it. Never saw anything like it before.”

“That is interesting. Wonder why anyone would go through the trouble.”

“That’s what I thought. Either dedicated to the art or trying to trick people into not going down that way. I’m thinking about poking my nose around there once I have less on my plate. Anywho. What’s this idea of yours?”

He exhales a cloud of the rich, sweet-smelling smoke and asks, “You’re still using those vitae tanks I gave you, right?”

“Yep. They’re mostly empty these days, but they’ve come in handy. Why?”

“What would happen if you filled one up to the brim, left it in a crowded street somewhere, and it exploded?”

I frown at him. “... Huh. I never really thought about it. I’m not sure if you could overpressurize the thing, but if that happened… it’d hurl pure undifferentiated liquid vitae all over the place, I guess.”

“And what would that do?”

“Well… there really isn’t any way of knowing, I don’t think, but it probably wouldn’t be good. Normally small amounts of disembodied pure vitae just sublimate with nothing to hang onto, but a large amount like that would have more staying power. And it could do all kinds of stuff. It’s unstable. Pure Life energy does whatever it wants. If you set off a… vitae bomb in a crowded place, it’d be nasty. Waves of infectious bacteria growing out of nowhere, people mutating to the point where they’d be unrecognizable, tumors sprouting like daisies. Probably some literal daisies growing on the concrete where the stuff splashed on it, or basically anything that has the capacity to grow and live. Without a living thing to contain it or a biomancer to exert control over it, raw vitae is super dangerous.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Read it in an extremely illegal book, back when I first joined the Consortium. They felt the need to call in a favor with the Librarian, on account of me being the only biomancer in a long while. They wanted me to get whatever education I could. So I didn’t accidentally cause a megaplague or get myself otherwise arrested and executed. The book was extremely old and mostly burnt, but I was able to get at least a few… helpful and frightening tidbits out of it.”

He nods. “That’s a good education to get, then. Even if it was brief. The undiseased populace of Wellspring City thanks you, haha.”

I bow. “Just doin’ my part, sir.”

“So, lemme ask you this: how do the vitae tanks I gave you work?”

I never really thought about that. “I never really thought about it. Wow. I uh… I feel kind of stupid, suddenly. How do they work? Vitae doesn’t hang around long without a body to keep it in.”

He smirks, again, in that sort of sad way. “You remember Kaastvam?”

“The noble dragon destroyer. An old drinking buddy of yours?”

“... He died over five hundred years ago, Baulric.”

“I know. It’s always sad when a friend passes. I’m sure your extremely advanced old age has been made all the more sour by his absence.”

“Son, I just spent four hours putting all your dumb meat back where it belongs. Do you really want me to take you apart again?”

I giggle like a toddler, because I am one. “Please continue your story, sir.”

He sighs exasperatedly and takes another drag. “You ever notice how the Brotherhood likes to fling his story around and hold it up as a triumph of their creed, but they never really get into how it happened, specifically?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well how the hell are anti-magic artillery shells supposed to work?”

“Uh… Man. I never really thought about that either. I’m… guessing there’s some materials out there that have a neutralizing effect on magic?”

He exhales calmly. “It’s all related. All of it. Behind closed doors, Kaastvam was considered to be quite the radical among his peers. He brushed up against excommunication multiple times, because he was one of the only researchers within the Brotherhood’s ranks willing to work with magic rather than against it. Instead of turning his nose up at it across the board, he examined captured mages, seized artifacts, anything he could get his hands on that would give humanity an edge. Now, that might sound kind of logical to you and me, but back then, it was basically heresy, and it still is. On paper, at least.

“See, what the Brotherhood don’t advertise is that they have an entire internal division dedicated to the study of magic. It’s small, and they treat it kind of like a dumping ground for unwanted or problematic personnel, but it exists, and they do work. They don’t talk about it because they don’t want their perfectly pure public image stained by hypocrisy, but uh… that’s where I worked. For a bit. Until some disagreements over research protocol led to my very exciting exodus.”

I don’t know how to immediately reply to this. I always had the sense that Voldzet was a smart guy, and he used to be Brotherhood. But after me and Em, I just sort of… never talked to him very much. For a few reasons. Not getting his advice before now was probably a mistake.

“What kinds of protocol?”

“I think you know what I’m driving at here, Baulric. You’ve been there. They stopped with you once they found out what you were. That’s how it usually goes. But it isn’t always.”

“... You’re saying they don’t always let people go.”

His expression turns very dark. Darker than when he found out about everything that had happened to me. “I’m saying they don’t always wait for their test subjects to walk through their doors willingly, either.”

My forehead scrunches up, and I run a hand through my hair. “Well how… then how are they getting away with that? Isn’t that a violation of the Charter? Where’s the Tribunal? The Brotherhood can’t just fucking disappear people and use them as petri dishes like that.”

He smiles again, and shakes his head. “You assume far too much compassion on the city’s behalf. They don’t really like mages any more than the Brotherhood does. The Charter is just something they put together because the Mayor made them, and regardless of what he is or isn’t, it seems the Mayor can’t be looking everywhere at once. The city is more than happy to look the other way and let the Brotherhood vanish people in exchange for other concessions. It’s not common, but it happens. Who’s gonna say anything? Who’s gonna cry outrage over some missing gutter arcanist?”

I don’t say anything for a while.

I’d always just assumed that the laws were obeyed as written. The only reason the Brotherhood’s never run the city over is because the Tribunal, and by extension the Mayor, always stopped them from having their way. But I guess no one’s really on the up-and-up around here, are they. Especially not where it matters.

I’ve felt like an idiot a lot recently. Now, I feel like a genuinely inanimate clod.

Voldzet continues around his smoke, “That’s why the Surgeons keep working. Even though it’s hard, and expensive. Someone needs to spit in the Brotherhood’s eye. The Tribunal aren’t gonna do it, so who else?

“... Anyway. That’s only sort of related to the point I was gonna make. The Brotherhood work on magic, even though they act like it’s too icky for them to touch. That’s how Kaastvam worked out the runic electrite inlays that he carved on his shells so they’d split dragonhide. And that’s how I worked out the arrays that you can put on the inside of a container to make it able to hold onto a certain kind of magical energy.”

My lenses widen. He’s not looking at me, but down the hall, determinedly.

“You invented those?”

“Yeah.”

“What the fuck are these runes?”

He sighs again. “It’s kind of complicated. Long story short, there are very old kinds of… semi-magic that you can do to make normal materials able to interact with magical ones. People think that magic can only exist inside a magical being and nowhere else. It dissipates when it’s separated or used. But that’s not entirely true. Kaastvam found this runic alphabet in some ruins beneath the city. Way, way beneath the city. So far down that the modern-day Brotherhood has yet to relocate the spot where he supposedly found them. The language, if it is one, is ludicrously complicated, and you have to inlay them with electrite in order for them to work. But if you know how to write with them, you can carve them onto a thing, power it, and that thing will gain some new properties. Anyone can do this, as long as they have the know-how and the electrite.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Voldzet. Voldzet, I have so many questions. My brain. It hurts from all the questions inside it.”

He’s still smiling. “I know. Imagine how everyone else would react if word got out. It’s one of the Brotherhood’s best-kept secrets. Hell, even within their ranks the runes are still controversial, because the debate is still open on whether using them counts as magic. Anyone can use them, but they have effects that interact with magic, so it’s a gray area. But that hasn’t stopped some more radical elements in the cult from trying to decode and use them.

“Like I said though, it’s slow-going, because there are thousands of symbols, and putting even a single one wrong will screw up your array, or make it do things that are unpredictable, even dangerous. It took me years to write a runic script that could functionally bottle a specific kind of magical energy. I chose vitae, because it seemed like it had the most applications. And that’s where your bottles came from.”

My brain is overclocking itself trying to work out all the implications of this. “So… so with these runes, given enough time, a non-mage can basically do magic.”

“... Sort of. In theory I guess that would be possible, but rogue researchers in the Brotherhood have been working on these things for centuries and the best we’ve been able to come up with is some fancy throwable rocks and a bottle. That’s how hard these things are to work with. And they’re not just finicky, they’re expensive, because you have to power each rune with at least a little electrite, which brings up a whole host of other problems.

“And this brings me back to your case. I can’t say anything for sure, but… this stinks. It’s too many coincidences in a row. Mages are going missing. Mages are apparently killing people. The Brotherhood tried to pay you off, but now they’re bullying you. There’s too much there to say that they’re up to something, for sure. Your rogue mage theory could still hold water. But…”

I think I know where he’s going with this. I wish I didn’t.

“... But the Brotherhood know how to bottle magic. And if they can do that… they might have figured out something... new.”

He nods. “Can’t be sure without proof. But I’ll be dragged down Deep if there isn’t something there, Baulric. I know these creatures inside and out. I used to be one. They’ve always got something up their sleeve, they’re always planning and inventing. Don’t let your guard down, even for a second.”

“They already attacked me once. I don’t plan on it.”

Voldzet crosses his arms, smoking and deep in thought. “Did that Neutralizer you mentioned give you his name? They usually do. They’re not very cautious.”

“Yeah. It was, uh… ‘NH3-588 Corundum Vengeant’.”

“Hm. Not very high-ranking, for a Neutralizer. Hunter division, but that doesn’t really tell us much. And I’ve never heard of him. Shit. Once we hit a bit of treatment downtime, I’m gonna wrangle up some sneaks and see if we can’t dig anything up on him. He was sent to you for a reason, and we need to find out what.”

“... Voldzet, you don’t have to do that, this is-”

He snaps a glare at me. “Don’t get selfish on me, Baulric. This is even bigger than you. I’m not saying you can’t handle yourself, but you’re in over your head, and you didn’t even know it. You wandered into my turf. I’m putting the Surgeons on it, when I can spare them.” I open my mouth, but he cuts me off again, “And before you say it, I know you need the money. We’ll work something out along those lines too. As long as you keep working at it and let us help you.”

I don’t bother protesting further. I’m not gonna say it isn’t a huge relief to have the Surgeons in my corner on this. They’re about the best possible cloak-and-dagger allies an amateur investigator could ask for, and they’ll be able to pull results that I can only dream of. But I definitely still am worried about the paycheck. My life’s on a bit of a money-related clock these days.

It’s funny. I took this case for the cash, thinking it wouldn’t be much. Then it turned into much. And the more people I blab to about it, the more people get involved. Boy, I sure hope that doesn’t come back around to bite me somehow.

Sigh. What am I saying? Whatever’s going on would have to be some seriously heavy-duty crap to give the Surgeons any real grief. These guys are terrifying. They’re what goes bump in the Brotherhood’s night. They’ll be way more fine than I ever would be. I need to quit being territorial about the case and just let people give me a hand. Control and personal glory aren’t important here. Hell, with these guys on the job with me, I’ll be worry-free, sipping beer in peace before I know it. Don’t look at it like a hand-off. Look at it like… calling in reinforcements. Yeah.

He goes on, “It’d be nice to have more leads, though. Breaking into the Brotherhood’s databases isn’t easy, and it’s even harder if you’re doing it willy-nilly without a good direction.”

Something occurs to me. “Wait. There’s one other thing. The kid told me who he works for. Or, at least, he told me who authorized him to try and give me money.”

The old doc’s eyebrow goes up. “Yeah? I’m glad you remembered. Who is it?”

“Hang on.” I buzz through my internal database for a minute, cutting back to a few days ago. Gotta love integrated wetware hard drives. I barely have to remember anything anymore.

“It’s uh… here it is. ‘Optimizer Exarch OMB1-004 Copper Dawn’. And I thought my parents were a bit excessive. Some pretty low numbers, though. Sounds kind of important.”

At this, Voldzet goes through an interesting series of behaviors. First, he freezes, for such a brief instant that it’d take someone with cameras for eyes to notice it. Then, rage. Not the loud kind - the pupil-narrowing, teeth-exposing kind. But he doesn’t give it enough time to affect his face much at all.

Then he laughs.

It starts pretty quiet, but builds to raucous peals that shake his whole body and echo up and down the stone hallway. He stops and catches his breath for a second.

I blink and ask, “So, uh… I take it you recognize the name.”

He chuckles a few more times, wipes his eye, and replies, “It’s… it’s just funny, what can happen in life. I haven’t checked up on him in so long… but I guess it makes sense. He was always cleverer than he deserved to be.

“When I worked with him, Copper Dawn was Optimizer Technician, not Exarch. But that was years and years ago. We were in the same division. And we hated one another. He was convinced I was an atavist through and through, and I was convinced he was a monster who pushed his experimental initiatives too far. We were both right. He used my runic research as evidence in a case against me, brought it before the Exarchs, and got me excommunicated. I was on my way out anyway at the time, but he drove the last nail in. This was despite the fact that he actually admired my work and admitted that it was a valuable project. Maybe even because of it. I couldn’t tell if he was jealous of my results or if he just hated me for standing in his way all the time… but it didn’t matter. I was pushed out and he stayed in. He inherited all my projects, just like he wanted. And, from the sound of it, managed to get himself promoted to the point that he’s in charge of the entire Aberrant Research division. Now he gets to optimize people to his hydrocardiac augmetic’s content. What a world.”

He shakes his head and flicks his smoke into a nearby gutter drain.

I ask, “Why would he be involved, here? What’s his stake?”

Smiling, Voldzet replies, “Copper Dawn is just as much a snake and a thief as I am, but he is legitimately brilliant. And he hates magic. Really took the scriptures to heart when he was younger. But unlike a lot of his colleagues, he hates it enough to want to work with it and destroy it from the inside out, which is why he did so well in Aberrant Research. The only authority he cares about is his own and he’s completely deaf to criticism or outcry. He’s so single-minded and vicious that he might as well be an automech. I don’t know how he’s mixed up in your murders, but I do not doubt for an instant that he is, somehow. If you heard the way he used to talk… saw the things he did…”

He fixes me with a firm and severe glare. “If he’s managed to keep a lid on his hatred long enough to become an Exarch, then he’s a genocide waiting to happen. That’s not an exaggeration. Copper Dawn attaining power might possibly be the worst thing that’s happened to your people in centuries, Baulric. And you need to be careful. He’s not a War Executor or anything, but he is an Exarch. That means he gives orders to Neutralizers and has an entire division under his command. To you, he’s untouchable, and to him, you’re an insect to be crushed and swept away in the name of humanity.”

I frown. “I’m a big ol’ bug, though.”

“Not big enough. Not by a long shot. Honestly, I wish you’d taken their money and brought this to me sooner. We could have had a chance to keep you out of the crosshairs while I dig up some information.”

Under my breath, I mumble, “Pretty big damn bug.”

He whaps me on the shoulder. “Quit being a baby. You’re playing in waters where you’re not the biggest fish anymore, son. You need to play this smart or you’re gonna end up in a vat.”

“Well, seeing as how it’s not really my investigation anymore, I guess I’ll just go hide in a dang hole somewhere, huh? Easy.”

He rolls his eyes, because I’m being very childish. “My investigation feeds into your investigation. You don’t stand a sapling’s chance against a hurricane of getting anywhere near Copper Dawn, and we don’t even know what he’s doing yet. Besides, there’s work for you to do while I’m looking into him. There’s people missing.”

I nod. “You’re right. They might not be dead. I have a feeling that if we figure out where they went, we’ll be close to the end of where all this leads.”

“And. On another note. Have you maybe learned something from nearly getting your oversized carcass handed to you by Brotherhood mercenaries?”

Other than the fact that I might be gradually losing my goddamn mind, I can’t really think of anything. But I don’t know how to tell him that.

“Uh… yes. Stop borrowing money from dangerous criminals so I don’t have to get involved with even more dangerous private investigations.”

“Nice try, Baulric, but I know you better than that. In fact, I know you so well that I bet you haven’t been training at all, have you.”

He’s absolutely right, but I can’t make anything easy for him, so I stick my nose up haughtily. “I don’t need to. I’m flawless.”

Voldzet scoffs. “Bullshit. You suck. If you were flawless you wouldn’t have gotten your eyeball blown out tonight. The gods cursed you with some of the greatest power in the world, and you barely even use it. Em’s had her magic for less than half as long as you, and she’s way better than you are by now. Because she trains. Because she has people she needs to protect, and we live in an ugly damn world. Meanwhile you’ve been sitting on your ass doing nothing.”

I sigh. Why’s everyone I know gotta be so correct all the time?

“I don’t even know how to train. I’m the only one of my kind in the city, and it’s not like I can look up some hot biomancy tips in the pool. Well. I could, but I’d be arrested after not finding anything.”

He waves a hand dismissively. “Excuses. Just excuses, Baulric. You wouldn’t know hard work if it moved into your apartment and ate all your snacks. You just don’t want to try. What about that book the Consortium gave you when you were a kid, huh?”

I shrug. “Gone. The Librarian took it back after about a week. And only about a few dozen pages were readable. And it was written as an epistolary between a biomancer and a necromancer discussing the respective merits and supremacy of their craft in a combination of historical allegory and structured rhyming verse in an outdated dialect of Valtean from about 800 years ago. I needed six other books to be able to understand anything in it. And I could only find two without risking uh, imprisonment.”

Voldzet squints at me. “Well, it’s proof of concept, at least. That book came from somewhere, didn’t it?”

“I’m not going to the Library, Voldzet.”

“Why not?”

Returning one of his many smirks, I smarmily reply, “See, now you’re in my territory, oldtimer. Let me list off allllllll the reasons why I’m not going to the Library.”

I take a big drag of my dying smoke. Voldzet rolls his eyes.

“One, I don’t know where it is. Almost no one does. The only way to find out is to find one of the Librarian’s thralls, and they can look like anyone. Two, the Librarian is ancient and terrifying and legendarily foul of temperament and I’m not going anywhere near him. Three, even if I did get in, getting caught with one of his books is a guaranteed life sentence in the Arcanix. I’m a good boy, Voldzet. I’m not risking it.”

He just shrugs. “There’s always four or five reasons not to do something. You can either continue to evolve and survive, or you can stay still and get your spine torn out by what’s hunting you. You’re a big strong bastard and you’ve been able to coast on that for a long while, but you escaped death by literal inches tonight. One would think it would’ve put a bit of the fear in you. Well…”

Voldzet sighs and stretches. “I’m gonna head back in and do the rounds. You and I both have a lot of work to do, either way. You’ve got my number, and I’ve got yours. I’ll call you when I find anything out.” He pats me on the arm. “You’re a good man, Baulric. I’ve always known that. But the times might demand something a bit more than good.”

He crosses past me and goes back into the clinic ward.

And that’s that.

I guess I’ve got an immortal wizard to find.