“Childhood friends?” Clovis repeated, scratching his beard. They were back at the manor, sitting at a burnished table that sat forty in the seldom-used great hall on the first floor. A few years ago, he had ordered the hall built on some passing whim that he could no longer recall.

“Yes, your lord,” the young woman said.

She sat next to Mairwen with a pleasant smile on her face. The two almost looked like sisters. Ani would be the younger sister, a few inches shorter and without the freckles. Her hair was a darker shade of brown and tied in a high ponytail.

Their eyes, though, seemed similar at first but drew completely different sketches. Mairwen had dark eyes that were big on her small face, giving her an air of innocence along with a touch of naivety. Ani, too, had dark eyes and a small face, but the corners of her eyes slanted upward. The air of innocence remained but there was a tint of impishness. Regardless, it was hard to imagine that an hour ago she had been sitting atop an oafish woodworker with a dagger to his throat.

His gaze shifted from across the table to the aforementioned oafish woodworker who sat beside him. “And how much money do you owe this young lady again?”

“Four half-pittens,” Harald said peevishly. “And three quarter-pittens.”

He whistled through his teeth. “What did you do? Rob her family treasury?”

“Well…” The man paused. Out of the corner of his eye, Clovis saw Ani shoot the woodworker a threatening glare. “I’d rather not say, my lord.”

“I’ve never much cared about the sordid pasts of those that come under my wing,” he said. “So get it over with, Harald, so this young lady can go her way.”

“Very well.” Harald gestured at Emil who rummaged into the pocket of his frock and pulled out a heavy pouch. He passed it across the table.

“Thank you for your help, my lord,” Ani said, beaming. She looked up at the dark skylight and gave a troubled smile. “Ah, it’s so late. I’ve spent so much time chasing down this rouge. It’ll be a far walk back to the 1st ward.”

Clovis stared at her. He couldn’t see how Ani and Mairwen could possibly be friends. She was a devious little beast best handled with tongs. Or a ten-foot thrasher pike.

A thought crossed his mind: was it possible that she was the one cheating Harald?

“You may of course stay for the night,” he said reluctantly. “Make use of any of the spare rooms, though be advised that some of the artists can be a bit territorial. The sculptors, in particular, are a vicious lot. But I’ll see to it that no one harasses you.”

“You are too gracious, my lord.”

“Have you eaten?” Mairwen asked her. “We still have some leftover bone broth and bread. Come.”

The women both stood up, gave him a curtsy, and left the room. The moment the wooden double doors closed shut, Clovis looked at the duo beside him.

“I said that I didn’t care about your past,” he said with a glare, “but you have brought it to the present and into my estate.”

The large man shrank under his gaze. “I’m sorry, my lord. Please don’t throw me out. It won’t happen again.”

“I told you, my lord,” Emil said. “She came out of nowhere! It was completely unprovoked!”

“No, my friend,” Harald said to him, a grateful smile on his face. “I had it coming.”

Clovis looked at the two. Emil had told him that he had met the woodcarver two weeks ago at a pub and they had already become as thick as thieves. He couldn’t decide if he felt nauseated or impressed by their quick camaraderie. Either way, he was tired and wanted this resolved.

“Explain what happened then,” he said sharply. “Or you’ll both be needing a new place to sleep.”

Emil and Harald shared a panicked look.

“Well, let’s see…” Harald began, his brow furrowed.

The next morning, Clovis woke with a start. Something wet ran down his face. Sweat or tears or maybe both.

The nightmares came and went, but over the past few weeks, they had come relentlessly. The worst ones woke him with a consuming tide of terror and dread. But other times, he woke up feeling something that confused him.

Nostalgia. Harsh, ringing chords of it.

The nostalgia was just a harbinger of other emotions: regret, fear, self-loathing. Following close behind was the nagging thought that he was wasting his life. Or that his life was already wasted, his future indistinguishable from both his present and past. It was as if he was becoming a time wraith and that thought always disturbed him.

He reached under his pillow and pulled out a sheathed knife. Fumbling, he pulled the bone knife out of the sheath and slit the blade across his wrist. Pain, thick and glorious, came and his muddled emotions began to clear. But not quickly enough. He pressed the blade against his veins and suppressed a gasp.

When he lifted it, there were two white marks crisscrossing his wrist, but they, like his emotions, were already beginning to fade. The curved blade of the knife came from the claw of a Nulerian.

The Nulerians were an amphibious race of master artisans who could infuse their creations with Divinity and grant miraculous blessings. Vivineers still weren’t able to figure out how to replicate their work, but their retractable claws had been widely speculated as the most important clue to the puzzle.

Unfailingly sharp, their claws were as thick as his arm and could grow to varying lengths. They withstood everything from blades to extreme heat, but the other mystery was why they were unable to cut through living flesh.

For that reason, they demanded an exorbitant price but had very limited functions. They were too risky to use as scalpels for corpses as they could cut through organs and tendons with ease. Largely ineffectual as weapons, they were also too costly and small to use for armor.

But Clovis had found a use for the knife: it could cut unsavory emotions and thoughts into tiny, manageable pricks of pain.

He wiped his face with the long sleeves of his robes and pulled himself out of his soft linen sheets. The sunlight filtered through his ornate bed canopies and he hoped that Ani was still in the manor. After hearing Harald’s story last night, he had a few questions for her.

His robes were wet with sweat, so he stripped them off and threw them in the corner pile. His room on the third floor was as massive as his great halls and it was a sprawling mess. Half-read books were strewn on the floor, the spines cracked and the pages splayed open like a corpse lying stomach-down on an examination table.

Among these literary corpses were sundries of all shapes and sizes. Several weapons, such as the rapier he had brought out last night, lay forgotten on the floor or against a bookcase with warped shelves. The gallbladder of a gallinger lizard was kept in a glass jar on his desk beside others – he had a use for it, but he couldn’t remember what – and he always kept the statues and paintings gifted by the artists he sponsored.

Back when he was a Vivineer, he’d let his most trusted servants tend to his room, but now he had strictly forbidden entry to everyone. Whether it was a well-meaning servant or a priest coming to pull a prank, he would immediately banish them from his manor. There were things in here that couldn’t be mishandled.

After putting on a fresh robe, he made his way down the stairwell that led to the dining room. He could hear two voices and one, fortunately, belonged to Ani. The other was one he knew all too well.

“You’re too funny, Lord Thracius,” Ani said with a pleasant tinkering laugh. She was sitting down, a plate of smoked beef and sourdough in front of her. The light blue servant’s gown she wore was most likely given to her by Mairwen.

“No need for that lordship nonsense,” Thracius said with a pleased grin. “I’m no Foretoken.” He stood over her, his right hand on the table, and he gestured out the wide window with his left. The garden of pink roses was in sight. “Have you had a chance to see the garden? We could –”

Ani looked past Thracius and saw him standing by the stairwell. She stood up and gave a low curtsy. “Lord Clovis, thank you again for letting me spend the night.”

“Yes, yes.” Regretting his entrance, he tugged at his earlobe. Thracius looked less than amused with him. “You’re not with Mairwen?”

“She’s preparing lunch.”

“I see.” Thracius’s eyes glinted at him with unbridled blood lust. “I will speak to you later then. There is a…” He paused. “A thing I must attend to.”

“Ah, wait, my lord!” She stood up from the table. “I wanted to speak to you now. Privately.”

He frowned. “Must it be now?”

“I’d rather it done sooner than later,” she said, looking worried.

“Very well. I suppose we should go back to the great hall.” He gave Thracius an apologetic look. Thracius curled his index finger into the shape of a hook, an obscene gesture best ignored.

Clovis led her down the hallways and past the courtyard to the great hall at the end of the first floor. She asked questions as they walked, pointing and marveling at the statues and paintings that haphazardly adorned the manor. He explained what they depicted and that the artists were given free rein as to where they wanted to put their works in the manor.

“Only if they want to,” he said, opening the double door to the hall. “Should they choose to sell them instead, I give them recommendations based on who I think would most like it.”

“You’re so accommodating, my lord.”

“It’s the opposite. I’m a pretentious snob like the rest of them,” he said wryly. “I only take in those whose work I admire.”

“And the priests?”

“Compelling ideas are worth as much as compelling portraits,” he said, taking a seat at the same table they’d used last night.

“I never thought about it that way,” Ani said as she sat down. There was a look of contemplation on her face and for a few moments, neither of them spoke.

“Well?” he said.

“My lord, I have come to you under peculiar circumstances,” she began. “You have given me three favors. One was in having that ruffian return the money that was stolen from me. The second was that you reunited me with my childhood friend that I have not seen for three years. And thirdly, you provided me a safe refuge for the night.”

He said nothing, keeping his expression guarded. What was she getting at?

“My mother has always urged me to repay my favors,” she said, her head bowed low. “And I have heard from Mairwen that you are lacking in staff. Won’t you let me repay your favors as your servant?”