Content warning: Suicide mention/discussion regarding a minor character.

Everything burned.

"Please! Have mercy!"

Dimitri flinched from the heat, but there was nowhere to run. Smoke blinded and choked him, ash catching wherever it could. His ears were filled with the sound of endless, tortured screams. Crying. Voices begging for mercy. Stumbling, his heels caught on something that clanked and he dropped flat onto his back, all air leaving his lungs in one fell swoop. Dimitri coughed, trying to scramble up again.

"Gah, the pain! Make the burning stop! Help me… Somebody…" wheezed the shape. An armored hand scrabbled uselessly in mud and blood until it caught Dimitri's ankle. "Help—"

A wet crunch and squelch reached Dimitri's ears, and hot blood splattered across his face. It burned. Goddess, it burned. Dimitri scrubbed frantically at his face, smearing it further, and looked up through stinging eyes. Backlit by flames, a figure wrenched an axe-head free of the fallen knight's face with the help of a boot.

Terror wrapped around his heart. His legs refused to obey him or that fear. All Dimitri could see were the dead eyes and the shadow. The world narrowed to the blade and the pounding drumbeat of his own pulse.

A longsword sprouted from the shadow's chest.

"Dimitri!" Glenn's voice, frantic and furious at once. He shoved the corpse off his sword and staggered over, sliding to one knee and gripping Dimitri's left wrist. "Dimitri, get up!"

"Glenn." Dimitri's voice was a near-silent rasp, but he managed to get to his feet with Glenn's help. His grip failed on Glenn's blood-slicked armor, and he didn't dare ask what the substance was. "Glenn, I—"

"Your father's still fighting, come on," Glenn snapped, and pulled him into a limping, awkward run. Blood dripped after him. "We can't stay here!"

And they were running.

And running.

Raza's wailing pierced the air.

Glenn fell, arrow in the back.

Dimitri ran.

And the screams—

Father's voice, making the air quake with his rage. "Avenge us! Those who killed us... Tear them apart! Destroy them all!"

"—mitri? Dimitri, hey, wake up—"

Dimitri woke with a shout trapped behind his teeth. One fist lashed out without any thought at all, catching only air, and the next thing he knew was his shoulders hitting the rug. Upside-down, stunned, and still with one leg still trapped by a blanket, he stared up at the ceiling in silent bafflement.

Morgan knelt next to him, her arms folded on her knees. Her armchair was abandoned behind her. "That was some nightmare."

Once his heart stopped trying to leap out of his throat, Dimitri slowly shuffled free of the blanket and sat up. Rubbing at his eyes—ugh, he'd been crying again—he mumbled, "Morgan? Is something wrong?" While Morgan ran a hand over his back, he cleared his throat against the feeling of sandpaper and said, "How long was I asleep?"

"Not that long," Morgan said, and Dimitri noted the page-down book she'd left on the table. She probably shouldn't have treated a copy of the Book of Seiros like that, but Dimitri found he didn't really care. "A servant said His Majesty is coming back here, though. I guess the meetings are finally done."

That sent a jolt of alarm up Dimitri's spine, but Morgan's hand had progressed to soothing circles. If he tried to get up, she'd probably wrestle a handkerchief into his face somehow. "Is… Do you think Father found anything?"

Morgan shook her head. "I don't know. Nobody said anything."

"If he didn't," Dimitri mumbled, "at least he's coming back."

Not like Mother. Or the stepmother who raised him practically since he could walk. There was a part of Dimitri that just wanted to curl up in the dark until the world hurt less. But those two facts hooked their fangs even into his dreams, inescapably a part of him now.

Then Morgan stuck a handkerchief under his nose. "Here."

Dimitri couldn't decide which part of this situation was the most humiliating part: the fact that she'd definitely seen him crying three times in the last three days, or the fact that he still felt like he'd fly apart at the seams without someone here to anchor himself. He took the handkerchief anyway and wiped under both eyes, all too aware that they and his face were red.

"Kind of sucks I can't just poof in here," Morgan said, flapping her hands as though to indicate wings. The floor would give out under her weight before anything good could happen. She kept rubbing slow circles against his back with her left hand, and it did help. "I'd offer you a hug, but you'd refuse, right?"

"Not right now," Dimitri admitted. "Um…"

Morgan seemed stuck in place for a moment, clearly expecting something different. Then she opened her arms and leaned forward, scooting over so she could tuck his head into her shoulder. She didn't seem to care at all that he was still fighting tremors from the nightmare, or the tears, or the fact that he was probably holding her too hard. Even though Dimitri's fingers dug into the back of her coat like claws.

It helped. Morgan wasn't as warm without the feathers, but that was okay.

Morgan hummed a little, likely to fill the silence. It sounded like a tune she only knew halfway, because she kept going back to the beginning and trying out different notes when she got back to where she stopped. The sound buzzed in her throat next to Dimitri's ear, accompanied by the faint thump of her heartbeat.

Once she let go and handed Dimitri another handkerchief, she said, "Do you want to talk about it?"

After blowing his nose, Dimitri managed, "About what?"

"The nightmare. I've heard it helps." Judging by the look on her face as soon as the words left her mouth, Dimitri guessed Morgan was already arguing against herself. The offer was genuine enough, but Morgan had already made it clear she didn't know how to handle other people's grief.

"Not now. It's—I'm sure it's all old news to you, anyway. I'll be fine."

That got Morgan to frown. She sat up and leaned until she was nearly bent double, peering at Dimitri's face. "Hey. No. Don't downplay it if you're still upset."

"Morgan…" Dimitri drew a deep breath. "It's over. We have to move on."

He couldn't have this conversation now. His hands still wanted to grip something until it broke, just to hide the tremors. The sensation of sweat drying on his skin was worse than usual, and he was starting to feel cold.

"You sound like Henry," Morgan complained, but she didn't press. She patted Dimitri's shoulder with solid thumps, then got up and went to the other side of the room to get something.

Dimitri climbed back onto the couch and sighed.

Morgan set a bowl of warm water and a towel on the low table, squeezing it between plates left over from their lunch. She'd apparently shooed servants away from trying to clean up and stacked the empty ones herself. Shifting a basket of half-devoured bread aside, she said, "It probably won't hide the redness much, but it'll give you an excuse."

Dimitri followed Morgan's suggestion, noting absently that she folded up the handkerchiefs and the knit blanket while he was occupied. Her idea of cleaning was just to get every moveable item out of the way, but it worked well enough. When he got up to smooth wrinkles out of his clothes, she practically snatched the washbasin back to put it on the tray by the door.

Morgan froze when she realized Dimitri was watching her. "Um. Father and Auntie both say the best cure for nerves is work, so I thought I'd try it?"

"You don't need to act like a maid," Dimitri pointed out, already moving to assist her. "I can help you pick up, at least."

"Okay, okay. Here, take the heavy stuff."

Truth be told, there wasn't much out of order in the first place. Servants cleaned the royal apartments' receiving room frequently during the long summer days, on the assumption that visitors preferred Faerghus's warmer months. If they'd sealed the room entirely during the Duscur visit, Dimitri wouldn't have blamed them. Aside from maybe his uncle, nobody would have been able to see evidence of neglect.

Father arrived a few minutes later, and Dimitri immediately went to greet him. Vaguely aware of Morgan bowing behind him, Dimitri was swept up into his father's hug. Once Dimitri's breath was mostly squeezed out of him, Father pulled back until his hands rested loosely on both of his shoulders. One of his hands came up to brush Dimitri's bangs back, as though checking for injuries.

Maybe washing his face hadn't helped at all.

"I'm fine, Father," Dimitri said, rushing to reassure him.

"You don't have to be," Father replied, and drew him back into the hug.

With the same casual strength as always, Father scooped Dimitri off his feet and carried him like a child to the couch like he'd never outgrown it. When they sat down, Dimitri locked his arms in place so his father couldn't escape, and he buried his face in his father's shoulder again. If not for the missing cloak, it was one of the most nostalgic sensations in Dimitri's entire life. Almost his first memory. Warm and safe in his father's arms.

Morgan closed the door and trailed vaguely after them, continuing the restless, nitpicking idea of cleaning the room. She didn't return to the table for the Book of Seiros. Any and all patience for sitting still was long gone.

"It seems I kept you waiting for longer than intended," Father said, surveying the room with an air of gentle judgment. Maybe they hadn't managed to clean as well as the servants in their absence. "My apologies, both of you."

"It's fine!" Morgan's voice was a little higher than normal, then she caught herself and coughed. "It's fine, Your Majesty. We weren't worried."

"I don't mean to impugn on your reputation for honesty, Lady Morgan, but…" Father trailed off, just a hint of warning in his voice.

"We were just reading and resting, Father. Nothing happened while you were gone," Dimitri told him. It wasn't as though his father was actually accusing Morgan of anything, but the urge to defend her was ingrained now. She hardly needed it, but Dimitri had to try.

Morgan folded first, a little red in the face and holding a pillow that refused to fluff properly. She stretched it experimentally a few more times, before admitting, "Okay, we were worried! But we're fine now!"

Dimitri didn't think Morgan would be "fine" until all four of the people who'd entered Castle Blaiddyd on pegasus-back were together again. He patted the empty spot on the couch at his side, opposite his father, until Morgan gave up her fussing with a groan and obliged the request. Dropping onto the cushion with her head in her hands, she accepted Dimitri's careful, comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Sir Gustave arrived a short time ago, which was the reason for our delay." Father didn't reach across Dimitri's back to offer comfort to Morgan, but it was a close thing. "He and his men, along with Glenn, have done much to shore up our forces here in Fhirdiad, which means you ought to rest easy now, Lady Morgan."

"Then what's keeping Auntie?" Morgan looked up, her big brown eyes beseeching both of them for answers.

"Lady Aversa requested time to confer with her colleagues, and to interrogate Sir Armand with them. Rest assured, she is in no danger."

Morgan huffed, but she accepted that answer better than the one before it.

Lady Aversa arrived a while later, after everyone regained their composure and settled a bit more comfortably onto the couch, side by side. There was no herald to announce her—Father had sent most of the servants elsewhere—but the way Morgan perked up was unmistakable.

The set to Lady Aversa's shoulders as she stood in the doorway didn't fill Dimitri with confidence. Lady Aversa's entire being showed increasing signs of tension ever since their group's arrival in Faerghus proper, and it didn't seem Fhirdiad had quelled that at all. On the contrary, the stress was more pronounced than ever. Her eyes and hands never entirely stopped moving while she was awake, and there was a set to her mouth that wasn't comforting at all.

Morgan bounded up to her aunt the instant she was through the doorway and immediately wrapped her arms around Lady Aversa's waist. With her chin digging into Lady Aversa's sternum, Morgan chirped, "Auntie, Auntie, what did you learn?"

It was as though she'd never been on the verge of tears from fretting.

Lady Aversa tried to pry Morgan's arms loose, to no avail. After straining for a few heartbeats, she managed to say, "It'll be easier to tell you when I can breathe freely, sweetheart."

"Fiiiine." Morgan released Lady Aversa and stood back, hands on her hips. "What'd you learn, Auntie?"

She seemed to wait a moment, as though listening for an untoward sound, and sketched something against the doorframe with one long nail before walking fully into the room. It was probably another anti-eavesdropping ward, like before. It didn't make the same sound when activated, though.

"Stop dawdling, all of you," Lady Aversa ordered someone behind her. From Dimitri's angle—and Morgan's, going by the sudden confusion in her body language—there was no one in view.

"Auntie?"

"They're fussing with those cloaks again," said Lady Aversa. She huffed. "Fine, then, figure yourselves out."

There was a sound not unlike tearing fabric, and then suddenly there were indeed three more people crowded into the doorway behind her. Before, Dimitri's eyes couldn't quite focus on the places they'd clearly been the entire time. With the magical cloaks being folded over arms and set aside, it was like having his attention drawn to a small detail and then being entirely unable to stop seeing it. Except with whole people instead of paintings or puzzles.

Sir Henry and Lady Lissa were welcome sights, of course, but they weren't smiling. That was unnerving in a way Dimitri rarely experienced.

And in their shadow, just blocked by their bodies, was a red-haired girl Dimitri had never seen before.

"This is Hapi," said Lady Lissa, stepping slowly to the side to encourage her charge to enter the room, "and she'll be working with us. So, Your Majesty, we can talk about the good news and the bad news. Which would you like first?"

"At least shut the door first before dropping that kind of ultimatum!" Sir Henry said, and slammed the door shut with a spell that left the handle covered in glowing runes. "Anyway, are there snacks? Gustave's cook short-changed us. Something about being busy preparing for dinner."

Dimitri pointed at the leftovers from lunch, and Sir Henry snatched them up immediately.

Sighing, Lady Aversa steered all of them back to the paired couches like particularly loud sheep. While she and Sir Henry elected to remain standing, Morgan, Lady Lissa, and Lady Hapi were bracketed by the couch's low arms. Leaning over the backrest, Lady Aversa reached down to pat her niece's head a few times before she said, "I have the bad news, if you choose that option."

Dimitri felt his father lean forward in anticipation, and mirrored him as soon as he noticed. Father said, "We may as well keep the good news as a palate cleanser. And we will eat soon, so please don't worry too much on that account."

"Good!" said Sir Henry, and he ducked out of Lady Aversa's swatting range before she could act on the impulse. The bread basket stayed stuck in the air where he'd just been, floating on a little purple cloud, until he came back for it.

"As you were saying, Lady Aversa…?" Father prompted.

"Ah, yes. You ought to know that Sir Armand is dead, Your Majesty," said Lady Aversa. She made no attempt to soften the news. "They say he took his own life out of guilt."

Dimitri winced. Even knowing—or at least suspecting—that Sir Armand was on the traitors' side, he was a devout man. He'd seek glory in battle, even to the death, but he'd never go out in peacetime. That meant their enemy was already silencing witnesses, and had done so under the guards' noses. Or perhaps the guards had helped.

"My understanding is that the men in the dungeon 'found him' hanging from a ceiling too tall for him to reach, strangled by a bedsheet." Lady Aversa looked down, then leaned forward so she could rest her hands on Morgan's shoulders. In response, Morgan hooked a hand around Lady Aversa's forearm in a reassuring grip. "I'd offer my condolences to his family, if I knew who they were, but I admit to some disappointment at losing the opportunity to interrogate him."

"Were you gonna use the same curse you used to bully Gertrude?" Morgan asked, peering up at her.

"Yes, and likely with a memory curse to maintain some secrecy." Lady Aversa glanced away, shrugging. Dimitri didn't know who she thought she was fooling with that affected nonchalance. Maybe it was just a part of her personality by now. "Alas."

Morgan squeezed her arm, but Dimitri couldn't tell if it helped.

"Should Sir Armand's family raise the issue, Lady Aversa, I would handle the task in your stead," said Father. "Given the severity of the crimes we must address, there is no other option. Now, as for the good news?"

"The good news is that we don't need him anyway!" Sir Henry waggled his fingers in the direction of their newest ally. The second the room's attention was on her, his smile slipped. "While you were all busy with politics, we met Hapi."

Father went along with it. "Dare I ask how this good fortune occurred?"

"It's less of a long story than you'd think, actually," Lady Lissa admitted. She bit her lip, then added in a rush, "Though there was some fire involved."

Lady Aversa's expression went somewhat pinched, as she was unable to decide if she ought to glare at Lady Lissa or Sir Henry first. "Are you telling me you burnt the evidence?"

"Only the useless stuff," Sir Henry said, dismissive and immediate. Despite that, his smile seemed oddly strained. "Like I said, it's still good news!"

Miss Hapi raised her hand, her expression mostly blank. "So, you're the king of Faerghus?"

"Indeed I am, Lady Hapi."

"Not a lady, Your Majesty," Miss Hapi said, not changing her tone at all. She hunched a little in the face of expectant stares, hugging herself, before saying in the same dead voice, "Not when I've been Cornelia's prisoner for the last eight years."

EARLIER…

Now, the back door might've stopped a weaker mage, but Henry didn't care. He slapped his hands down onto the likeliest spots for the hinges and on the doorknob, then channeled magic exactly where he wanted it to go. In the time it took Glenn and Lissa to join him, Henry had already ripped the heavy structure right off its hinges and left it leaning against an ornamental birdbath.

Which it crushed the instant he let go of the spell holding it up.

The half-dozen black handprints burned into the wood made it pretty clear Henry hadn't bothered with the lockpicks sewn into the lining of his shirt. Sure, they'd be noticeable once everyone woke up, but that was a problem for later.

Or never.

"Ta-dah!" Henry didn't wait for applause. He just skipped inside.

Crossing the damaged threshold was almost like walking directly into a downpour, except that the drenching was courtesy of another's magic rather than rain. It felt a little like Aversa's—a bit more rigid than Tharja's, and way more inflexible than Henry's—but it certainly couldn't stop him. Anytime it tried to hook into him like a burr, Henry idly plucked the influence loose. Not much more dangerous than lint.

"The idea of this man solving problems with no supervision is terrifying," Glenn muttered, though Henry caught it just fine. To Lissa, he managed, "After you?"

"Of course—" And she stopped, frowning. Her staff arm whipped out and blocked Glenn's progress right at the doorway, so he walked into it.

He let out a little grunt of surprise. Then, "Lady Lissa?"

"One hand first, just to be safe," said Lissa, even as she scooted sideways into the building. Her arm was still blocking Glenn's progress.

Though clearly confused, Glenn reached forward and then jerked his hand back with a hiss. It appeared the house had bitten back, going by the blood under his nails. "What in the world…?"

Henry tilted his head to one side. So did the rat. Exactly how bad was Glenn with magic?

"Some dark mages use magic to ward their homes," Lissa said. She'd been on the trip to break into Plegia Castle, too, and their group had set off like five different traps while inside. Nothing they couldn't handle, but they'd brought five dark mages on that trip to help puzzle out the problems. Even if Morgan didn't really count. "It's not strong enough to stop us, but the defenses usually get tougher closer to the center. It's not unheard of for thieves to die in the attempt."

"I knew Lady Cornelia was an accomplished gremory, but this is…" Glenn shook his head. "I should stay out here and keep watch, then."

"Probably a good idea. Your magic resistance is…" Lissa scrunched up her face, clearly trying to find a polite word for it. "Um."

"Nonexistent." That worked. Glenn rested his hand on his sword hilt and stepped deliberately back from the doorway. "I'd rather keep my hands."

"Good. Hands are worth keeping. But hey, if you need to rush back to His Majesty or something, don't feel bad if you have to leave us here."

"I'll consider it," Glenn said, in a tone that said he wouldn't.

Leaving Glenn in the garden to sort out his own business, Lissa looped her arm through Henry's as they walked through the manor. They had to step over the prone bodies of sleeping servants a few times, checking only a few to be sure that everyone was still breathing under loads of laundry or amid the contents of fallen serving trays.

The soldiers outside had helmets. People indoors had…rugs. Mostly. It was still less disruptive than killing everyone, not to mention less likely to trigger even more defenses.

Lissa still stopped to heal people along the way. Just not enough to break the sleeping curse.

Soon enough, they found their way up a set of stairs toward the dark magic blot. Inside the house, it was a little harder to spot because of the sheer number of spells clogging the air in the whatever-cardinal-direction wing of the place. Henry barely had to brush against them before they tried sapping his power.

And to think people worried about rats.

Help me, help me, chorused a hundred voices in the walls. Now that they were inside the spell-swamped space, they were all harmonizing more than not. Even the rat on his shoulder was only slightly out of tune.

Henry raised his free hand to his ear and rubbed at his temple there. They were kind of loud.

"Everything okay?" Lissa asked. When he looked down, her big eyes were wider than normal as she stared back. Concerned, probably.

"I'm fine!" Like always.

At the end of the hall, there was a door. While the design was as ornamented as anything else in this house, the magic was thick enough to taste once they got within arm's reach. When Henry flicked a tiny curse at the massive lock and cobweb of chains keeping the door shut, entire constellations of containment spells lit up across the metal and wood.

"Validar's bedroom was easier to get into than this," Lissa said, standing well back from the potential problem. If she had a little lead time, she could bat away most of the types of magical traps people like this Lady Cornelia usually had.

"Weird, right?" Henry said, and walked directly up to the cursed door and laid both hands on the over-enchanted lock. "Gotta wonder who's been crammed under this much power, and why."

Help me, help me, said the walls.

Sometimes, people put stuff like sealed gods under lots of locks. Honestly, the closest Henry really remembered involved running into the really big Entombed monsters in the Outrealm, or maybe the Deadlords' hidden crypt. But those places were specifically hard to get to because the people who'd shoved those things into hiding didn't want them to ever come back.

This felt more like a cell.

"This is even more complicated than anything in Plegia Castle." Henry shifted his shoulder so the rat would take a hint, and she scurried down from his shoulder without any more encouragement. "Chains or a silencing spell would be way cheaper, so what's this lady got hidden that needs this much work?"

Honestly, if the person who made all the wards was alive, why bother? Blasting Validar's door across the room was comically easy without the former master alive to power the defenses. Even if he had been alive, somebody like Aversa, Henry, or Tharja would just go around the ward and lob a bomb into his balcony or something to remove that problem.

Maybe this was why Aversa was so fixated on the spellwork she'd seen in Duscur. She'd even left her grimoire with Robin to get him up to speed on how to counteract some of that stuff.

"Can you get around this?" Henry asked the rat. "Tell the person inside that there's help out here."

Help me, said the rat.

Hm. He crouched enough to let her easily jump back into his hands if she wanted. "I have food if you do."

Food! The rat squeaked a little, nodded, and then scurried behind an ornately carved cabinet. Definitely not normal ratty behavior, but Henry could hear her little voice echoing as she sought a path around the spells. Food, food, food. Help me! Food!

"Henry?" Lissa rested her hand on his back. She probably shouldn't get close to the door, but if she was, then maybe Henry needed to back away too.

"What's up?" Henry turned a little, curious.

"The ceiling." Henry did snicker, but Lissa didn't let him linger on it. "You're really tense and uncomfortable. What's bothering you?"

"Nothing!"

Lissa just gave him a look.

Well, maybe something. An itty-bitty something. Henry drummed his fingers absently against his knees, unable to keep entirely still. What was the point of that anyway? "I didn't tell you about school, did I?"

"No." The worried eyebrows were back and badder than ever. He'd kiss Lissa's forehead to smooth them out if they were at home, but she didn't look like she wanted to be comforted.

"Wow, I thought I had. Weird." Henry tilted his head to one side, half-listening to the voices in the walls. They hadn't changed their tune. Then a thought occurred to him. "Oh, Olivia must've asked. I guess I told her and didn't ask if she'd tell anyone else."

Olivia was pretty good about secrets. A little like a dog with a bone if she didn't like what someone was doing to handle them, but she meant well. She said so.

"And your school… reminds you of this creepy room with tons of dark magic keeping somebody stuck there." Lissa spoke slowly as she thought, looking at the door like it was a Risen that needed smiting. Her hand crept over his, warm and solid. "And there's a mage inside who's been sending animals all over the place asking for help. We have no idea for how long, since you're the only one who can hear them talk."

Sounded right. "Yep."

"Hey, Henry?"

"Yeah?"

"We should—" And Lissa stopped, because a storm of squeaking in the wall crowded out her voice.

Five more rats joined the first one on the rug, squeezing out from behind furniture and forming into a little line. They got up on their back legs and darted back and forth between their starting spot and the edges of the door, saying, Here, here, here.

Outside, the crows were still going off on the guards like Frederick at slackers.

"You might wanna back up, Lissa," Henry said as he got to his feet. He shook out his hands until they steadied. "Or get behind something."

Lissa slid into his shadow like she'd planned it before he even said anything. That worked.

Sometimes, people had a bad habit of making their doors super tough, but not the walls around them. The back door, below, wasn't one of those cases because the whole house was loaded down with magic.

This, though? Definitely some rich-person thinking.

Henry sent power spiraling out of his fingertips, hooking into the doorframe and the adjacent walls like especially strong prybars. His magic locked into place a hand's span three feet to each side of the scorch mark Henry left by testing the wards, and he forced the two contact points to rotate in a pair of circles as they dug in. Black flame cut chunks out of the wood, drilling deeper the longer Henry held the spell in place.

"Hey, is anyone in there?" Lissa called, before Henry could do it.

A bunch of rats squeaked at once. The crows shrieked outside.

I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.

Help me, help me, help me.

Sounded like a yes to him. And then Henry pushed.

The doorframe burned like a letter tossed into a hearth. The edges closest to the two punctures started crumbling first, then sped up as the dark magic got greedier and hungrier. After a few more seconds, the whole thing was nothing more than ashy curls framing the door.

Henry ripped it out of its frame and set it to one side, just like he had earlier.

There wasn't a lamp in the room and the curtains were still drawn, so Lissa summoned a baby fireball to her hand, which bathed the dark room in an orange glow. The remnants of a silencing curse drifted into it and died.

The rats ran first. Two of them shot for the edges of the room, ducking behind a dresser and a bookshelf. Three fled instead for the walls back in the hallway, one of them even going so far as to leap off a banister and disappear downstairs. And the last, Henry's little guide, made her way patiently toward the bed on steady little paws, climbing up a sheet and ending up on a threadbare bed.

Also sitting on the bed was a girl, maybe…about the age Morgan looked. Fifteenish, sixteenish. Her surprised expression was only halfway there, like she'd been distracted by the rat and the fire and now wasn't sure what to do. She looked honestly like she was dressed for bed, except for a black shackle around one ankle that stank of the same dark magic that permeated the rest of the house.

She was definitely still the same shadowy blot they'd been tracking, though. Nice to finally put a face to the spirit.

"Hiya!" Henry raised a hand in a little wave, unable to keep a grin off his face even if he tried. "You seem like you don't wanna be here, so how about a jailbreak? All the animals are rooting for you to say yes."

The girl squinted into the light, looking between Henry and Lissa in turn. "You…followed rats into the house?"

Wasn't that weird. Honestly, a mage with that kind of affinity for animals didn't deserve to look so skeptical.

"Yep! Hard to ignore 'em, given how much they were yelling for someone to help you." Henry pointed at the rat sitting up in her lap. "Especially that one."

"Before we get that far," Lissa said, "how about we get you out of this tiny room first? Don't worry about the people in the house. They won't wake up if we make a little noise."

The girl's eyes darted toward the wreck of the door. She nodded to herself, then kicked out her shackled leg as she stood up. "I can't leave the house anyway. Why not?"

Padding out into slightly better light on bare feet, with the rat trotting after her, the girl didn't let Henry or Lissa get too close. She was a little darker than Henry was, even judging based mostly on magical light, and had big red eyes that turned down at the corners and matching hair that stuck out everywhere. Her arms were marked with crisscrossing scars and a pair of oozing welts, and there were dark rings under her eyes that didn't look like recent additions.

"I'm Henry, and this is Lissa. Nice to meet you, Mystery Girl." Henry even remembered to bow, even if he didn't remember what country he was supposed to use for reference. All the head-bobbing was basically the same.

"It's Hapi," the girl said in a glum voice.

And that was ironic. Henry decided not to comment on that; people tended to get touchy about names. Instead, he said, "The shackle there has a doozy of a curse. Any hints?"

Her frown got a little deeper. "The lady who keeps me here said she'd give me more if I tried to run. After it took my foot off." Hapi raised a hand to her neck. The back of her hand had little punctures, like insect bites, which were swollen and purplish. Two more marked the insides of both elbows. "I didn't ask where she'd put the next one."

Sounded more inventive than Henry usually saw in other dark mages. Usually it was just "whoops, you're dead now!" But sometimes they'd mix it up and try to sneak in under his nose, like it ever worked. There'd been a real lack of creepily awesome or awesomely creepy curses since the war ended. It really did feel like he, Tharja, and Aversa did all the innovating. Carrying the whole field by themselves was hard work!

"Sounds challenging. I like it." Henry folded himself up until he could sit on the floor in front of her, still outside of grabby range. "Do you mind if I take a look?"

Lissa mimicked him, also giving Hapi a chance to rush down the stairs or back into the room if she wanted. But she also held out her hand, palm-up. "And while he's doing that, you look like you could use a bit of healing. Is that all right?"

Hapi looked between the two of them like she suspected a trap. Maybe one of the ones with teeth. Then she looked at the rat, which squeaked at her and walked right up onto Henry's bent knee to get a marginally higher vantage point.

Hapi shrugged and sat down between them. She was doing a pretty good job of acting like nothing bothered her. "Sure, whatever. What have I got to lose, right?"

"The curse. And maybe the house," Henry said immediately, taking his grimoire out again and flicking through the pages. By the looks of things… Henry tapped the book a few times against the floor and a pair of wicked steel hooks fell out of the gap between the stitching and the spine. He'd packed for plenty of tricky problem-solving.

Hapi paused, right in the middle of shifting her foot into easy reach of a curse-breaking ritual. She'd been moving about a finger's width at a time, and now her progress stopped. "What?"

"Oh, once you're in better shape, I was gonna offer to let you burn the place down. As a treat." Henry glanced up and smiled when she still looked at him a little like he was a feral dog. People did that a lot. "I would've wanted it when I was your age."

"…You're weird." Despite that, Hapi seemed a little more like her namesake. Just around the corners of her mouth, but that was an improvement.

"We get that a lot," said Lissa, already bathing Hapi's arm in healing magic. Cuts and burns washed away like they were nothing more than dirt. Her Mend staff wasn't gonna be retired anytime soon.

"Good weird, though."

Henry dug under the shackle with the point of one of the hooks, then blew a raspberry. Once he had purchase—and was pretty sure he wasn't about to catch Hapi's skin in the crossfire—he channeled enough power though the tool to blow a Risen's whole head off its doughy shoulders. The shackle popped open with a sad little fizzling noise, spitting a stream of black smoke. "And good riddance!"

There was still a curse or three bubbling in her blood, but they seemed a little too well-established to tackle while sitting on the floor in the enemy's house. Aversa could deal with them when they got Hapi to her.

Hapi stared at her now-free foot, pulling it back so she could feel the welt the shackle had left behind. It was gone seconds later, thanks to Lissa's healing. She kept running her hands over her ankle like she expected the bruise to come back.

"We're gonna need to find you some clothes and some shoes," Lissa remarked, hooking the top of her staff over her shoulder and glaring back into the dark room.

"I don't have any shoes," Hapi said, shrugging. She glanced back over her shoulder to follow Lissa's gaze, then grimaced. "No point, right? She was never going to let me go outside."

"Well, how about we go fix that?" Lissa shot to her feet, stalking back to the last fallen servant and going for their boots.

"Oh, so you're both like that," said Hapi, while Henry put his stuff away.

"Haha, yep! Also, we don't actually need to steal shoes, but one of us would probably have to carry you." Henry was pretty strong, but he'd make Glenn do it. Glenn was the knight, so clearly he needed to be the one carrying a rescued maiden off her captor's estate. Before they burned the place to the ground. "We have a pretty long walk back to the house."

"I'd rather walk," was the flat response. Completely fair.

"Ah-ha! Sorry these almost definitely don't fit, but it'll work for now." Lissa plopped a pair of unlaced boots at Hapi's feet. "If Creepy Lady didn't give you any shoes, I suppose a cloak or other outdoor clothes were also banned?"

"Yup." Hapi tugged the boots on and started on the laces.

"Then we'll get you something once we get out of here," Lissa pronounced. She stood again, taking a minute to pace in circles for a bit to get her temper back under control. "Glenn definitely could spare his cloak…"

Once Hapi had shoes securely on her feet, she allowed Henry to help her up from the floor. She also accepted the Duscur scarf being draped loosely around her shoulders, as a precaution against the cold. Her barely-a-dress still only reached her knees and elbows, and the boots didn't have socks to go with them, but she was at least a little bit readier to travel than before.

Henry waited for a few heartbeats for Hapi to test the result, then he waved at the abandoned room, still dark and foreboding as a chasm. "Thoughts?"

"Oh. Right." Hapi's mouth worked like she was thinking over a problem.

Henry waved for Lissa to stand back. He'd be able to counter whatever she did, but it was still a good idea not to stand between a young dark mage's first act of cathartic vengeance.

Hapi raised her hands above her head as she stretched, slowly swaying from side to side. There was a crack as something in her back settled. And when she was done, she swung both arms up to cross in front of her face. With maybe a little less speed than ideal, a glowing pink runic circle formed in the empty space between her hands, and a black ball of magic followed in its wake like an indecisive bubble. Both arms sliced forward and down through the air and the rage-fueled curse shot down the hall to land squarely on the mattress.

It exploded, the bed exploded, and then all the feathers in the mattress caught fire at once. This fire then spread as they settled all around the room, spilling sparks into the hall, and the curtains also exploded. The curse on them, it seemed, didn't really like being disturbed. Or broken!

Probably a good thing they were half a dozen paces down the hall. And that there hadn't been any servants in there.

"Nice," Henry told her, as Hapi turned away from the room and tightened the scarf around her neck. He raised a hand for a high-five, which she stared at blankly until finally mirroring him. He tapped his palm gently against hers. "Congratulations."

"Thank you?" Hapi pulled back, baffled.

Ah, well. She'd learn quick. "Hapi, does Creepy Lady have any notes or things like that?"

"…Maybe. Not here, though."

Henry flicked a curse at the burning room that swept most of the embers back inside, then beckoned with the same hand to jam the door back into its frame in a burst of golden rune-chains and purple flame. That would either contain the fire or concentrate it, and honestly Henry didn't care which. It was officially not their problem.

Hapi and Lissa were halfway down the stairs by the time Henry caught up. He slid down the banister after them, because he could, and bounced on landing.

"You really did take out the whole house, didn't you?" Hapi asked, as they passed a guard passed out in the foyer. She tapped his leg with the point of one boot, just to test the spell, and got no response. "Just like that."

Henry nodded. "So, what about these notes?"

Hapi led them to a locked room on the ground floor, so Henry put Gaius's teachings to work this time. It didn't take very long.

Thankfully. The building was a bit on fire, after all.

Henry went in first, committing all of it to memory. The fact that he'd be the best meatshield, too, was a footnote.

The room was a deliberately unadorned space with a stone floor, laced from the ceiling down with curses. There were inset torch sconces and strange lights that hummed when activated, revealing old stains ground into the floor. A strange, sharp smell hung in the air, almost like vinegar from the wrong angle. Under it, there was the persistent coppery tang of blood and the smell of unwashed humans, common to dungeons. The sharp smell might've been to clean the worst of it, but it hadn't done the job.

Burning the place to the ground was going to be a better option than painstakingly taking all the spells apart, even before dealing with the miserable aura of the place.

But there were still things to search, so the only thing to do was get to work. Desks with drawers and entire bookshelves full of heavy, strangely-bound books and wire-pierced reams of paper. Some of the spell notations were hidden behind charts mounted on the walls, describing things Henry had only seen hinted at in Miriel's notes while they were working on the easing-childbirth curse. A lot of it was just numbers with barely any plain writing.

And yet, the more Henry flipped through pages, the more he got the sense there were people behind the data. And a lot of bones in the foundation of this house.

With one grumpy exception so far.

Lissa shivered, and not because it was cold. Because it wasn't. "This feels wrong."

"This is where the magic happens, she said," Hapi muttered. She rubbed at her arms, going slower where her injuries used to be.

Henry considered the mess. "Hey, Lissa?"

"Yeah?"

"We can take like…five things and then just curse the room shut like a king's tomb, so Aversa can go over it later. Nobody will even remember it's there to break into!" Henry waggled his fingers. He didn't make sparks again, just in case something in here reacted to that tiny push, but it got his point across. "And I figured out how to make people lose hands if they try!"

"I think I'm worth five things." Hapi shook off whatever mood followed her like a stormcloud. She jutted her chin out stubbornly. "If your boss wants to take Cornelia down, I'll help."

"Not our boss, but sure!" said Henry. He clapped his hands together and grinned. "Pick something that looks fancy. We just need a couple of examples to get her really angry."

"I don't think we'll have to try that hard," said Lissa, and they got to work.

Notes:

Bonus:
Lambert, fifteen minutes into the explanation: "Wait, you burned down Lady Cornelia's townhouse?"
Henry: "Only a little bit! You'd see the smoke from here if it was the whole thing."
(They can, in fact, see the smoke from the castle.)

1. Yes, the canon Tragedy of Duscur now makes up Dimitri's nightmare. Waste not, want not.
2. Archsage was a perfectly fine unisex class. Give it back.
3. Noire's supports with her father (Gaius, in this continuity) indicate that Tharja keeps a selection of cursecrafting tools. There's no reason why Henry wouldn't, though his set doubles as lockpicks.
4. If I had to describe the difference between the Slitherers' and the Shepherds' approaches to dark magic, it's roughly the equivalent of arts and sciences majors having an interdepartmental screaming match over different methodology. And probably the budget. Swap "arts" for "religion" whenever the Grimleal are involved. Both get to the same endpoint (i.e.: stuff blowing up), but their approaches clash.
5. Dimitri doesn't have the world's highest Insight bonuses, but anybody can roll a natural twenty and get a decent read on people. It helps that he's been hanging out with these people in high-stress situations for the better part of a week.