They kept a wide berth as they rowed passed the Spirit, but from a distance they saw no signs of life aboard the ship.

They navigated to a narrow cove tucked into the coastline. Another dinghy was already there, beached ashore. Inside it was a sable cloak, an axe, and a ripe green apple. Brune gleefully took the apple and sunk his teeth into it. His hand trembled, and he kept stealing wary glances at the sea, as though the Leviathan might sneak up on them.

It took nearly half a day to summit the hill the castle was perched on, winding through switchbacked trails and dense forests. Their relief was immense when at long last the trail emerged on a wide courtyard. They kept their distance, taking cover behind the foliage.

“Who builds a castle on a godforsaken uninhabited rock?” Brune said.

“A chateau, not a castle” Enzo corrected. Up close, it was distinctly a chateau in the rococo style, stylized with gilded filigrees in a leaf-like pattern. And I know who built this.

“You truly are an insufferable know-it-all,” Brune said.

“I know,” Enzo replied.

It took Brune a moment to register the jest. He scoffed and shambled off.

A few feet away Leo was pointing out something to Cosimo.

“Third floor, east side of the house. A grapple hook is hanging out of the window. Someone must have snuck in recently.”

“The passengers of the Spirit,” Gianna whispered.

“Is that them on the first floor?” Cosimo said.

There were vague shapes moving on the first floor, formless silhouettes moving to and fro.

“Might be. We'd best hurry. We'll go in the same way they did.”

They crossed the vast estate, moving as stealthily and speedily as possible. Leo was the first up the grapple hook, climbing with practiced ease. Gaining the window's ledge, he hoisted himself up into the dark room.

But as he lowered himself in the room, his foot squelched on something wet. He looked down and found a head that had been smashed to pulp. There were two corpses lying about.

Then someone or something was bull-rushing him. Before he even consciously recognized the threat, he was instinctively drawing Wraith, his enchanted falchion.

His assailant was a beast, a creature with a muscle-bound human torso and a bat’s head with baleful red eyes. It was wielding a spiked mace caked with blood.

Leo brought around Wraith in a fluid arc, blocking a blow that would have shaved off his head. He kicked the creature back, but found it was like kicking a stone wall.

The beast barely noticed it. He pressed forward, swinging his mace again. This time Leo dodged, and then somersaulted backward to gain room.

It was apparent that what the beast had in strength and raw manic energy, he lacked in grace and technique. It was a truism of swordplay and martial combat that solid form beat brute strength; even an adolescent girl like Gianna could leverage superior form to defeat a ham-fisted knight.

Leo charged back into the fray, effortlessly dodging the beast’s next clumsy blow, and then ramming the point of Wraith into his belly. Green ichor poured from the wound, steaming and sizzling on the floor, and the beast howled. It took only two more well-placed cuts to bring him crashing to his knees.

Leo was bent over, panting, just as Gianna gained the window ledge.

“Two flights of stairs and you’re already winded, Lee?” she said, grinning.

“Oh, ha ha ha. Very funny.” he said. “Careful. Two dead bodies there. And I just made a third.” With Wraith he gestured vaguely at the beast’s prone corpse.

“Blessed Bael. I leave you alone for two minutes and you leave a wake of carnage? Is that — is that a man with a bat’s head?”

One by one, the others climbed into the room and asked the same question.

Cosimo pricked its flesh with the tip of his dagger, releasing a fresh spool of sickly green ichor. The corpse’s form seemed to be fading, disintegrating.

“Corporeal, yet inorganic. A conjured Zinthebat. A dangerous and demonic creature.”

“Ilhen used temple guardians in his Fourth,” said Brune, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps that’s what this is.”

“Perhaps,” said Cosimo. “Perhaps we’re really here — Ilhen’s Seventh… Enzo, did you find anything?”

Enzo was examining the other two bodies. He half-expected to recognize them — he had a passing familiarity with most adventurers in Genoa. But these two men were unknown to him. No uniform, guild marks, or sigil. Perhaps they were freelancers, or new to the game.

“No,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Leo was already standing by door, ready to fling it open. “Shall we? We need to find the cellar.” Presumably, the door to Ilhen’s Seventh awaited in the cellar. The last line of the duke’s riddle had been ‘In the cellar the prize awaits.’

“Wait,” Cosimo said. “If we're truly in Ilhen’s Seventh, that door could be boobytrapped.”

“I don't see any —”

“Still, why take the risk? Brune, you open the door.”

“Me?”

“Your name is Brune, isn't it? Moron.”

“But why me?”

“Because I don't value your life, obviously. You can be the canary in the coal mine. Take the lead. Leo, you stand aside.”

Brune drew a deep breath, gripped the handle, and then opened the door ever so slowly, his eyes shut tightly. Nothing happened.

“Told you,” said Leo, “no boobytraps.” He slipped past Brune, leading the way into dimly lit corridor. He scanned around for pressure plates or tripwires along the way, but saw none.

They passed several rooms, each one fascinating and eclectic. One contained nothing but hats — the tall, pointy kind that some mages were fond of. Another held a vast display of igneous rocks. A third was all black, like an abyss or a portal to another world — it contained a diorama of stars and planets and comets.

“Woah, look at this!” said Gianna. She was standing outside one of the rooms Leo had passed, pointing at something inside.

“Is that — is that what I think it is!?”

The room was a cozily appointed study with a warm blazing hearth. In the center, an opalescent ball sat on the crest of a staff, clutched by talons.

Dinella gasped. “A crystal ball!” She lurched forward.

“Wait!” Cosimo said. “There could be traps!”

But it was too late. Dinella had already scampered to the crystal ball, and was ogling it with infinite joy.

“It's real! Look — I can see —”

But no sooner had she lifted it than the column on which it rested transformed into a vicious harpy. It flew at Dinella, gashing her across the face, eliciting a startled yelp from the pained diviner.

Ragnar was the first to join the fray. He stormed into the room, looking not unlike the Zinthebat Leo had just conquered. Leo and Enzo followed him, and it took their combined efforts to put the bird down. Ragnar was left with a gash on his arm.

“New rule,” said Cosimo dryly, “no one enter a fucking room without my say so. Brune — that rule does not apply to you. You're welcome to fling yourself off a cliff. But the rest of you — the rest of you are valuable. Stay vigilant.”

Under Brune's murderous glare they departed the study, Dinella cradling her new crystal ball like a baby, and crossed the corridor to the third floor landing. Attempting discretion, they descended the curving stairwell. They passed a row of statues, which Enzo expected to spring to life, but they didn’t.

Perhaps they only attack if you intrude or take something.

Enzo was still confident this was not Ilhen’s Seventh. He knew whose residence this was. But he did not want to tell the others; it would only inflame Brune’s suspicion that he was somehow in on things.

Fortunately, he did not need to tell them. When they reached the foyer, they were drawn to a rank odor emanating from the solar. They followed it, mostly out of curiosity. Inside, they found another corpse.

The half-rotten corpse of Ambrose the wizard.

Brune was the first to recognize him. “Holy balls,” he said, “we’re not in Ilhen’s Seventh. We’re in Ambrose’s winter palace! This is his fucking corpse.”

“Explains why we haven’t seen him in ages,” said Gianna.

“Told you wizards are mortal,” said Leo. “You know what you call a dead wizard?”

“What?”

“A spelleton.”

Gianna looked at him blankly.

“You know. Spell, magic… skeleton.”

Gianna shook her head, laughing. “You should be in a guild for this. A guild for people who have a talent for terrible, god awful puns.”

They exited the drawing room and canvassed the first floor for a while before finding the cellar. Leo yanked the door open.

Below lay only darkness. Gianna invoked the Illumination cantrip, sending a pair of aquamarine orbs into the cellar, revealing neatly cut stone steps.

“Alright,” said Cosimo. “Who’s first?”

Leo shrugged nonchalantly, and took the lead.

Down they each went, single file, into the stony cellar.

The two aquamarine orbs were circling the room in a lazy orbit, revealing a pair of dead bodies — both savagely mauled, both bleeding profusely. Both dismembered and decapitated.

Ahead, pacing to and fro, was a sphinx: a lion with a woman’s head. Its mane was soaked red with blood. Perhaps it did not relish its meal, for it was still growling in apparent agitation.

It rounded on Leo as he approached.

“Who dares approach me in my lair? Who dares match wits with me?”

“It is I,” Enzo said, stepping ahead. “Enzo d’Verona. Give me your riddle Sphinx, and if I am correct permit me to pass.”

“No,” she growled. “What you seek will not be found here. But I can offer you something else. Instead, I offer you a key.”

“Very well. Riddle me, Sphinx.”

“What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, and three feet in the evening?”

Enzo considered for a moment. “A man.” A man crawls as a baby, walks as an adult, and needs a cane in old age.

“Correct,” said the sphinx, and suddenly exploded in a spray of fine dust. A key materialized in midair, floating over to Enzo.

As Enzo stepped into the light and examined the key, he knew without a doubt what door it opened. The key was crafted with one of the most famous symbols in Genoa.

The symbol of the Black Cabal.