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A cold chill fell upon the room despite the fact that it was summer. "He's doing what?"

"I help him drain their life force so that he can retain his youth," he replied, voice cracking. "I had no choice. He – he bound me. He binds all of us to his Fountain. I don't understand how you still can resist—"

"Lord Himmel is the one who bound you," I cut in. "But...how? And why can you speak to me of these matters now?"

"That's because you already know of the secret chamber. In turn, you've unlocked some of the bindings on me. Not all, but some."

The Fountain—how was it tied to all of this? "So once you all officially became a citizen of Heidelburg, you all are under the compulsion of Lord Himmel?"

"Yes. Every one of us, from the lowly peasants to the higher-born nobles," he said. Josef sounded relieved that he could finally confide all of this into an outsider. Or at least, the closest person he could come to as an outsider. "He binds us to his will through Saint Bromilde. It's ancient magic. I don't know how or where he managed to obtain it, but it's there, and there's no stopping it."

"Didn't anyone try to stop him?"

"How could we? We can't so much lift a finger against him." He raked his fingers through his hair, making it more dishevelled than before. "I don't even know if you can help us."

I folded my arms, considering, shifting my weight lightly onto my right leg. "That's the problem, isn't it? We're all trapped here and there's not a thing we can do." At his silence, bitter laughter gurgled at the base of my throat, ringing hollowly in the air. "And I just delivered myself into the Pied Piper's hands! Tell me, does he want me because I'm from Hamelin?"

"Not to my knowledge. Likely, he wants you because of your magic. Nothing more, truly. A live Magus would serve him better than a dead one, anyway."

A sudden thought struck my mind, and I raised a question: "So Elise...she's Lord Himmel's mistress, isn't she?"

Josef nodded. It was a solid punch to the gut. I'd expected this, of course. But to hear it actually being confirmed...I felt betrayed. Here I was, a fool of a girl so willing to give mind and soul to Lord Himmel, hoping the best from him. He was a lord, at the end of the day.

I took in a deep breath, forced myself to rein in my emotions, and said, "Lord Himmel is the Pied Piper."

"So you can comprehend why I was so worried when you suddenly walked towards my room that night," he said. "What if you were a Council spy? They would have doomed us all to death for what we've done."

"Not unless you were forced into this."

He shook his head dejectedly. "Lord Himmel protects us—sustains us. If the Council punishes him, saints forbid what will happen to us. We are too connected to Heidelberg—to the Fountain. And indirectly, to him."

I ground my teeth. "Then can you tell me of what he's doing?" If I couldn't get any physical help, I might as well obtain all the information I could.

"What I've told you: he's literally draining the life force of all the children from Hamelin. He says it's an experiment, to grant all Magi immortality to fight the monsters. I don't know if it's true, but...I swear that I had no part in the idea! I wasn't the first person to have aided him in his monthly ritual, apparently. And he was always so kind to me. I never suspected—"

I locked eyes with him; his dark irises were shattered, reflecting a boy who had been forced to grow up in the light of the truth. I understood that. It was how I felt when I had snuck into the secret chamber last night.

"You never suspected? It never occurred to you that Lord Himmel himself was the Pied Piper?"

Two perfectly red spots glowed on Josef's cheeks. "I never suspected until I had slowly begun to recover my memories, triggered by your flute." He gestured towards my pouch. "I only put the puzzle pieces together in my mind during the day I last talked to you one-to-one. And even then, I couldn't say anything. The binding, remember?"

"Do you think he's specially using you to assist him with...whatever the ritual is because of your connection to Hamelin?"

"I never thought about it like that, but yes, quite possible." His eyes grew distant, thoughtful. "In that case, the assignment of my room wasn't a coincidence."

Silence permeated the air for a moment as we gathered our thoughts. "So every full moon, he drains the youth out of the children for himself," I concluded slowly. "And you help him. Then why did I run into you the very first time I heard the screams?"

"I was going out to gather a missing ingredient for Lord Himmel when I ran into you," he replied. "Of course I couldn't have you ferreting down the chamber, so I had but to subtly escort you back to your room. I was sure that you had discovered the secret, as no one—not even a person with a hearing as acute as yours—could have heard the moans and screams from such a distance. That was why the second time, I barely convinced Lord Himmel to let me go, and I rushed to your room to stop you from following the trail. The third time, I was lucky: Lord Himmel was exhausted from hunting down gryphons terrorising the outer villages, and he didn't bother with the ritual. It was all right to miss it once or twice."

"I heard the children crying because I was from Hamelin," I murmured, only half-aware of what I was saying. "I have a connection to them. The same connection that Lord Himmel is exploiting in order to drain their youth. And the only reason why I can still resist Lord Himmel's compulsion is because of..."

Our eyes widened simultaneously. "My flute," I said at the same time he said, "Your flute."

"It's the only anchor that prevents me from being completely bound to Saint Bromilde," I said, not quite believing the words that poured out of my mouth. The idea was preposterous. Yet it made sense. That was why Elise had said that she had destroyed all of my belongings from Hamelin. It gave me a fresh start—literally, to come with nothing from another place and devote myself wholeheartedly to this new life.

Except that of all things, she'd chosen to save my flute. And had handed it to Josef, no less. She was the subtle hand behind all of this.

Josef's eyes sharpened with a calculating gaze; I instinctively knew that he was thinking the same. "Why did she bring your flute to me? She's Lord Himmel's mistress, but I think that her loyalties to him run far deeper than that."

"How so?"

"She's a Magus. That's all you need to know. Rumours say that she's the eyes and ears of Lord Himmel, and everything that occurs in Heidelberg, she knows. It's through her that Lord Himmel keeps tabs on his people."

Cool, enigmatic, beautiful Elise, the eyes and ears of her master. She fit into the role perfectly well in my mind. "Then why would she indirectly help us? I mean, she is under Lord Himmel's command, after all."

"That's a mystery we'll have to solve soon," he said. Then after a heavy pause, he added tentatively, "Do you want the answers to our past?"

"Yes," I said. "I need those answers, and the only way I—we can get them, is by playing along with Lord Himmel and Elise. For now."

He bobbed his head carefully. "Agreed. Be careful, and watch your back out there."

"I could say the same for you."

A roguish grin swept across his face. "I've been doing this for five years. I know how to watch my back just fine."

"If you say so." I shrugged my shoulders.

"I say so." He grabbed a tool from one of the shelves. It looked like a shortened awl, with a deadly point that looked like it could pierce through skulls with ease. For one sickening moment, I thought that he was going to use it against me.

"What's that for?" I squeaked.

He flipped the tool in his hand. "Oh, this? If we came down here with no particular purpose except to talk, it would send tongues wagging, would it not?" he said suggestively. "This is an etcher and I will use it to modify your flute."

"Oh." Heat bit into the nape of my neck. "Carry on then."

Without another word—and with another grin—he led me back into the Tinkers' workshop, where he eventually found his desk and pretended to be working on my Medium. We spoke nothing of the previous conversation.

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