Verdan was able to finish all of the temporary enchantments by the time Tim caught up with him, leaving just the work on Sylvie as his preparation before they set off in the morning.

“We’re here, Boss. Where do you want her?” Tim asked as he came in, Sylvie padding into the room behind him.

“Up on here, please, Sylvie,” Verdan said, addressing the wolf directly, much to Tim’s surprise. He’d prepared a workbench for the procedure, using his magic to scour it clean earlier.

Sylvie leapt up onto the workbench with surprising grace, sitting down where Verdan had pointed without complaint.

“Good, now, drink this, please,” Verdan said, placing a bowl in front of Sylvie and pouring in the sleeping potion. The wolf obediently started to lap up the potion, confirming Verdan’s suspicions on how much it could understand.

Tim didn’t say anything, but Verdan could see a thoughtful expression on his face. Perhaps he was realising what Sylvie could understand as well. Looking back to the wolf, Verdan watched carefully to ensure that she drank the whole potion, nodding to himself in satisfaction once she was done.

Natalia had told him that the potion was fast acting, but it was still a relief to see it impact Sylvie almost immediately. At first, the wolf began to look sluggish, but in short order, that progressed to her falling asleep on the table.

Waving for Tim to be patient, Verdan gave it another few minutes for the potion to take full effect before gently shaking Sylvie. Thankfully, the silver-furred wolf didn’t even twitch; she was well and truly out of it.

“Okay, grab the kit. It’s time to get to work,” Verdan said, taking a deep, steadying breath as Tim grabbed the surgical kit and laid it out next to the unconscious wolf.

Taking a pair of clippers, Verdan started to remove the fur around the collar, rolling her over partway through to get to the other side. A lot of her fur had been damaged by the collar, so it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.

With the surrounding fur removed, Verdan studied the collar in more detail, noting three parts to its structure. There was the collar itself, the fragments of bone that were woven through the collar and her skin, and the longer piton-like hooks that went deep into Sylvie’s flesh.

With nowhere obvious to begin, Verdan started with one of the long filament pieces of bone. Pushing the leather of the collar down to expose the bone, Verdan attempted to cut through it with the clippers.

The sharp iron tools had performed well against her fur, but they weren’t enough to get through the bone. It was clear that the heavy corruption running through this foul thing was protecting it from outside interference.

“Torr,” Verdan said aloud, putting a basic Aether construct onto the clippers that would enhance their cutting ability and feed from his Aether directly.

Reaching down, Verdan exposed the piece of bone once more and tried to cut it with the clippers. Immediately, he felt resistance as something pushed back against the Aether, but the effect was far less than when he had been healing Sylvie.

The snap of the bone cracking between the blades of the clippers was a welcome sound, and Verdan placed the clippers to one side before carefully grasping the thin piece of bone with some forceps and drawing the two pieces out. The blood-covered bone felt slick and greasy in Verdan’s hands, and he was quick to drop the disgusting thing into a nearby box. He’d put all the pieces in there and burn the whole thing later.

With a single, small piece of the collar removed without issue, Verdan felt a bit of tension leave him. He’d been concerned that there would be more protection on the collar, but it seemed totally focused on the creature wearing it.

Picking up the clippers once more, Verdan ensured they were brimming with Aether before cutting as many bone strands as he could. Tim followed along behind him, pulling the fragments free using the forceps and dropping them into the box.

Considering that this must be quite far outside Tim’s zone of comfort, his hand was steady, and he was focused entirely on the task. Verdan was impressed. Competency was a rare beast. It was always nice to see.

Slowly, they worked across the whole collar, removing a disturbing amount of bone in the process. Periodically, Verdan would pause and give Sylvie a small healing pulse, just enough to accelerate her natural healing slightly.

Once the threads of bone were removed, the collar was only held in place by the four pitons of bone that went deep into her neck. Cutting around the pitons, Verdan pulled away the leather of the collar, forcibly keeping his thoughts away from just what sort of leather it was.

Dismissing the construct on the collar, Verdan took a scalpel from the kit and applied a similar construct to it, magically enhancing its ability to cut. Once done, Verdan turned his attention to the final portion of the collar, the pitons.

The pitons came an inch or so out of the wolf’s flesh but were thick enough to give the impression of their size. Grasping the end of one of them, Verdan gave it an experimental tug, but it was caught on something within her.

Verdan had suspected that they were kept in place somehow, but he’d wanted to check before going in with the scalpel; the less damage they did here, the better.

Cutting in and around the first piton, Verdan quickly found the issue; there were barbed protrusions around the outside of the bone. There was no way this was a natural shape, which meant they were there by design, a sickening display of magic that made him glad they’d killed all the darjee they found.

The whole thing was around four inches long, one on the outside and three deep into Sylvie’s neck, but thankfully the barbed protrusions were in the middle, so Verdan didn’t have to cut all the way down.

Throwing the foul piton into the box, Verdan gave Sylvie a dose of healing before moving on to the next one. She’d lost a lot of blood through this, but he could see the wounds closing on her neck as his healing accelerated her natural rate. In fact, now that he thought about it, her wounds were healing at a rate far higher than he’d expect from the Aether he’d used. Considering that there was still some corruption produced in the collar’s remnants, that was particularly impressive.

Filing the information away for the moment, Verdan turned back to the task at hand and began to remove the other pitons. Each one required several cuts around it for Verdan to peel the flesh back far enough that the barbs would come free without ripping great wounds in Sylvie’s flesh.

One of the tenets of healing magic was that less trauma meant faster healing. It was easy to seal two pieces of flesh together after they’d been sliced apart, repairing a jagged gash from ripping something free, not so much.

It was the bloodiest, messiest part of the operation, but soon enough, they were done. The last blood-soaked piece of barbed bone was tossed into the box, and Verdan was free to focus on healing Sylvie.

The corruption within the wolf was still strong; the collar's removal weakened it, but it was still strong enough to drastically reduce his Aether's efficacy.

Much like with Gwen’s recovery, it would take Sylvie a few days to fully cleanse herself, maybe longer. This form of corruption wasn’t one that Verdan was familiar with; he was basing his judgement on cyth corruption. Regardless, Sylvie had held up well, and the job was done; now she just needed to rest.

“Is that it, are we done?” Tim asked, bloodied forceps still at hand in case he needed to do anything further.

“Yes, all done. It’s down to her now, but we’ve got rid of that foul thing,” Verdan said, his lip curling as he looked down at the box.

“Thanks, Boss. I realise how much this all took and how much magic you used on her,” Tim said, gesturing at the blood-soaked fur around Sylvie’s neck. “What I’m saying is that I owe you for this, and I won’t forget it.”

“No, no, you owe me nothing,” Verdan said with a shake of his head. “I’d do this for anyone or anything I found with such a horrific collar. No one deserves this.”

“That’s as may be,” Tim said, his jaw firming and his brow furrowing as a stubborn look came over him. “But I still owe you one, and you’ll not talk me out of it.”

“I won’t argue with you, even if you’re wrong,” Verdan said, a ghost of a smile on his lips as he did some final checks and channelled a bit more Aether into Sylvie, ensuring that she wasn’t bleeding anywhere. “There, she’s good to go. I’m going to dispose of the refuse, take her back to the mansion and clean her up a bit. She’s going to be groggy and sore when she wakes.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” Tim said, his attention fully on Sylvie now that Verdan had declared that he was done. There was something in Tim's eyes that looked a bit off, a sort of worry that Verdan wasn’t expecting with how well that had all gone.

“What’s wrong? You look concerned?” Verdan asked softly.

“Do you think she’ll stay now that she’s all healed up?” Tim asked, his voice little more than a whisper as he softly stroked the silver fur on her side. “I’ve never had a companion like this before. She’s already become such a big part of my day, of my life. It’s always been me and Tom, never anyone else.”

“You wouldn’t try to make her stay if she wanted to go?” Verdan asked, curious about what Tim would say.

“No, that wouldn’t feel right at all,” Tim said, frowning to himself as he muttered his answer. “She’s not a pet. Sylvie's too smart for that; you saw her before. It’s almost like she can understand us. Sometimes I think she’s just as mentally there as any other person, but I don’t know if I’m imagining it.”

“I don’t think you are,” Verdan said, mentally kicking himself as he realised how little contact modern-day humans had with non-human sapients. “The darjee captured her, and they hunt sapient creatures. That alone would be enough for me to agree. Beyond that, she acts like no wolf or dog I’ve ever known, beyond her desire to follow you around.”

“I never thought of that,” Tim said, face pale as he looked down at his companion in a whole new light. “So, if she isn’t a wolf, what is she?”

“Who knows, for all we know, she actually is a wolf, just one that’s a breed apart,” Verdan explained with a shrug; it made no real difference what she was at the end of the day.

“I was hoping you’d ease my mind, Boss, not make things even more complicated,” Tim said, rubbing his temples with his eyes shut.

“Well, the potion will have been somewhat countered by the corruption, so I would expect Sylvie to transition to a normal sleep in a few hours. Take that time to think about everything and set the tone for your relationship now she’s free. If she does understand us, perhaps simply asking her what she wants is the way to go. Why make it more complicated?”

“Yeah, I suppose it is that simple,” Tim said with a laugh, shaking his head at himself. “Sorry, Boss, I’m getting all worked up over nothing here.”

“No need for that. I’ve seen my share of weird and wonderful things. It’s nice to put that knowledge to use every now and then,” Verdan said with a warm smile, patting Tim on the shoulder as he started to gather up the various pieces of equipment they’d used and run a cleaning spell over them. “Now, help me clean up.”