It was Irene that latched onto the hunter first when the banquet ended— she fussed over the greasy patch left on the hunter's borrowed trousers, daubing at it with a wet cloth napkin.

"You're leaving an even bigger spot by smearing it around like that," Sofia said.

"Water won't help," Alanna insisted. "You'll want to use soda ash."

Irene stood back and dipped the napkin back into a cup while shooting the hunter a vexed look. The hunter took a deep breath and let it out slowly; they had already given several apologies and they weren't sure if she wanted her anger indulged with more or if she merely wanted them silent.

Elaine pursed her lips. "Wouldn't it just be best to put a new pair of trousers on? Just send these off to be laundered. You can borrow something of mine, instead," she said, and the hunter jumped when her fingers jabbed at their hips. "These don't even fit very well— see how tightly the belt is kept? And the pockets are bulging— ah ha," she said with a grin, and the hunter went rigid as she snaked her hands into the fabric and retrieved their stowed away blood vials. The injection mechanism snagged on the hem of the pocket and then clattered to the floor when she pulled them out.

Frigid panic flashed up the back of the hunter's neck. They reached out as if to snatch the vials back from her grip but she stepped away with a twirl of her skirts and held the murky glass up to the light. "How kind of you," Elaine said with a laugh. "You've contributed to the banquet by bringing us dessert."

"It's not our favorite," Irene said as she eyed the vials, the stain now forgotten and her hands holding the napkin tightly. "But it's appreciated all the same. How many are there?"

"Six," Elaine answered. "The perfect amount for our little party."

"There's five of us," Alanna said with a confused frown. "Isn't there? Me, you, Sofia, Irene, and Camilla—"

"I'm including our dear hunter in the count," Elaine replied with a sneer, but her expression softened when she glanced at them. "Really, this is too kind of you. It isn't often that we see such sweet blood from the mainland."

The hunter had been so dependent upon the healing blood for the unmaking of grievous wounds that they had forgotten the tucked away taverns, the bottled-up cocktails, and the piles and piles of abandoned deliveries. Proper blood ministration meant to cure the incurable was an artform kept tightly controlled by the Church and its clinics, but the common contents of a vial… the hunter wondered if it had supplanted water as the beverage of choice within the city.

The hunter struggled to find a way to keep the vials without drawing the ire of Elaine and the other noblewomen. "I intended to gift those to you as dessert, yes," they said. "And I would love for all of us to partake of them together. But this banquet was so rich, and I am quite full." That was partially true; they had managed to pick at their food for a while but they had drank perhaps a bit too much of the freely flowing wine. It was easy to do when the other nobles around were all drinking with the knowledge that they would soon be sleeping it off.

Because that was what Elaine had said— the banquet was all one course, because the terror of the night had ended, the hunters had all returned, and soon all the nobles would settle into their beds—

"Nonsense," Elaine said, and the hunter stared as she pulled the cork from a vial. "We'll drink it now. If you let it sit too long it'll go stale."

Alanna tilted her head. "I don't think it will go—"

"Say another word and I will drink your portion myself," Elaine snapped, and Alanna's lips were then pressed in a tight line.

The vials were distributed; the hunter gripped theirs tightly. The wine had already put a warm and uneasy buzzing at the fringes of their senses. The scent of the uncorked vial brought an additional lightheadedness that they did not appreciate.

"No need to repour amongst ourselves," Elaine said with a smile. "I think we've all picked our poison well."

The vials tilted; the women all drank deep. The hunter watched warily before lifting their own to their lips. They would merely pretend to drink it, they decided, and then palm the vial and cork it back up without any of the women noticing.

Then they would still have one last secret safeguard against harm, they thought as the deep sweet blood flowed over their tongue. They swallowed and shuddered. Wait.

The hunter had almost emptied the vial before noticing that they had been drinking it at all. They had always injected the blood, using the sharp little mechanism to slam it directly into the thigh in careful doses— but now, with the glass to their lips, the stuff begged to be imbibed. The hunter nearly gagged as they pulled back their tongue and constricted their throat. The final sip still sloshed in their mouth and twinged at their tongue. They felt the familiar heated rush of the healing blood at work, a euphoric sparking of the veins that soothed out old aches and pains that they hadn't realized were still there. The effect combined with the wine had them gently swaying. As the women all wavered and giggled, the hunter spat the remnant blood back into the vial, shivered, and then shoved it back into their pocket.

"All this talk of trading trousers and we haven't even considered how exhausted you must be," Elaine said as she drifted a hand across the hunter's shoulder. "Good morning, dear ladies, and may your rest be dreamless and deep. I'll be returning to my chambers."

"Sleep," the hunter murmured. "Where should I—"

Elaine grasped their hand and pulled them along.


"You wish for me to sleep with you," the hunter said, their disorientation leaving them blunt.

Elaine sat on the edge of the bed and huffed. "You needn't say it so scandalously," she said with a pout. "And you see the size of this bed— it would fit us and the four others with room to invite yet more." She wrested the thick quilt up and slid herself beneath it before shifting onto her side.

The hunter took a deep breath, held it, and then let it back out. In truth, they didn't expect any romantic advances from Elaine; her manner of invitation felt more like the hunter was being seen as a favored dog given the honor of warming the foot of the bed. They crawled beneath the covers and attempted to contend with the murky swirling of their thoughts.

When they opened their mouth, Elaine shifted under the covers and pulled the quilt tight against her ear. "I don't favor speaking before I sleep, I find it leads to unpleasant dreams."

The question tore out of them anyway. "Emmeline," the hunter said. "Your sister. I still haven't seen her come inside."

Elaine was silent. The hunter blinked and tried to ignore the way the canopy curtain over the bed kept swimming in their vision.

"She has someone to wait for," Elaine eventually said, and the hunter was startled back to wakefulness. "Someone to warm her bed."

The hunter rolled onto their side in order to look at the back of her head. "You don't?" they asked honestly.

"No," she replied. "Not anymore."

Their sudden surge of sympathy both surprised and sobered the hunter. They nestled their cheek against their pillow and frowned. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sleeping," she replied curtly, and the hunter watched the steady rise and fall of the quilt pulled up over her shoulder. When it eventually slowed, they closed their eyes.


The hunter wished they would have had a dream— a real one, not the drifting foggy isolation of Gehrman and the doll and the workshop, but instead a dream that could have been dissected for a little bit of clarity. Or a little bit of prophecy, even. But their sleep had been dark and dreamless and their mind had not presented any sense-wrapped-in-nonsense regarding their stay within Castle Cainhurst.

The hunter shivered and pushed their face against their pillow as they wrapped the blankets closer to their chest. It made sense for the air within a castle to run cold, but a chill had crept beneath all the comforting layers and seeped into their flesh.

"If thou'rt tired with playing the role of tightly-held doll, We will give audience to thee within the archives," a voice stated dryly, and the hunter jolted to awareness. They sat up, a struggle given the blankets they had cocooned themself in, and stared wide-eyed at the silver helm of the queen.

They glanced behind them at the empty expanse of the bed. "Elaine—?"

"Lady Elaine left her chamber a few hours afore," she stated, "on account of thee laying lordlike claim to all the blankets, it does seem. But she will soon return to dress thee up in whatever fashion she fancies."

The hunter scrunched their eyes shut and dragged a hand across their forehead. "I'm sorry. As an outsider new to both Yharnam and Cainhurst— should I be bowing again right now?"

"Kneeling," she said flatly, and the silver helm hid any response to the hunter's fluster. "But We have a deep well of mercy to draw from, and so thy new bed will not be in the dungeon. Thine impropriety is forgiven."

Ah—so the mask concealed a sense of humor; or, hopefully, that was what it was. "Audience, then," the hunter stammered. "In the archives."

"Expediency is expected," the queen replied, and as she walked out of the chamber the hunter extricated themself from the bedding and threw open Elaine's wardrobe in search of proper clothing.


Everything in the castle was built towards grandeur, but the Cainhurst archives were marginally more subdued. The columns were topped with gleaming gold and the wooden floors were shined to a mirror gloss, but beyond the occasional tapestry there was less decoration around to catch the eye. It had clearly been built as a place to facilitate study, and the two tall stories of floor-to-ceiling books showed that it had been used well.

The hunter leaned against the second floor balcony and peered down to the room below; a few of the noblewomen were relaxing there. One was reciting poetry to her friends. The lilting rhythm of her words drifted up to the second floor but the hunter couldn't quite make out what was being said. They thought one of the women may have been Sofia or Camilla but before they could place the face the queen spoke.

"I have been told of thine exploits;" she said as she took a seat at the head of a long table strewn with books and parchment, "however, the crow's-eye view is but one perspective, and a limited one, at that. Sit." She waved a hand towards the far end of the table. A few of the gray-robed servants had set up a tea, with a conspicuously large gap cleared between the silver tray and the stacks of books. To ensure no stray spills ended up on the parchment, the hunter figured; they could understand the caution but they also hoped that the incident with Elaine hadn't morphed into some over-embellished rumor about the hunter being a terribly messy eater.

"Tell Us," the queen said, and she dipped a quill into an inkwell, "of thyself. Of thy beginnings, humble or no, of thy travel to the city— of the city itself. Any detail dredged up is of value to Us, even if it seems to thee to be terribly mundane."

The hunter took a deep breath and held their fingers against their teacup; the chill had not yet left them and the heat of the tea was soothing. There was another chill, too, beyond the simple cold; every time the queen's silver helm canted up they felt the same piercing awareness of her gaze.

"At the very least, introduce thyself," she said, and there was a sharp sardonicism to her tone. "For example, I am Annalise, Queen of Castle Cainhurst, daughter of Calista, and sister of none— but I am kin to any who share my oath. We have held reign over the kingdom for many years and We shall reign for many more."

"I don't know," the hunter said, more harshly than they had intended, and they forced their tone back to a quiet calm. "I… I know I traveled to Yharnam for blood ministration, and so I must have been quite ill. And I must have come from a position where I could afford the journey, or I had others that cared for me enough to fund it. But beyond those few things I can surmise only through logic, I do not know." They dragged a fingertip over the rim of the teacup. "When I reawakened in that clinic I may as well have been born again."

The quill scratched against parchment. "Born of the blood, made men by the blood, and so on and so forth. But in the city— what of thine introduction to the long and peculiar night?"

The hunter furrowed their eyebrows. "That phrase—"

"Thou'rt familiar with the adage," Annalise said. "Used and abused by the Church, but originating in the halls of Byrgenwerth." She lifted the quill and slowly swung her arm out wide, gesturing towards the vast library. "Our own academic pursuits could never compare to the sheer outpouring of theses at the college but there was oft the trading of thoughts between us during happier times." The helm tilted. "We were told of thy victory over the lone scholar left at the college. Our Crow found it empty, as well as evidence that thou hadst passed through."

The hunter tensed at the memory of a stinging silver spray, the bladed whip lashing at their throat, and the blinding shimmer of shooting stars. They nodded.

"And the lake?" Annalise asked, and though her tone remained at the same low steadiness, the hunter could sense a hungry interest behind her words.

They had entered the lake. They could still recall the vertigo of the fall, the bloodrush of disbalance against the shifting lukewarm water giving way to flat clarity, and hiding inside—

They shook their head. "I didn't take the dive," they answered. "Whatever the college was hiding felt a little too arcane for my experience. I had found many runes by then and yet had no way to make use of them. That was why I ventured into Hemwick— rumors of the lost tools for inscription being hidden away in the witches' keep."

The lie had been instinctive. As subtle as it had been, the tiny hint of hunger in her words belied some deeper and desperate interest in the contents of the lake, and that had brought a strange and unnameable horror into the hunter's heart.

But it had been idiotic to lie to her, they thought with a rising panic; the crow knight had followed them and could have seen them stride right off the balcony—

"Runes," Annalise echoed, and her tone did not reveal if she had sensed the hunter's lie. "Thou bore witness the dear old Provost, did thee not?"

"The old man in the chair? Yes."

"Thou didst not accost him?"

The hunter furrowed their eyebrows. "I spoke to him, and he pointed. That seemed to be all he had left in him to do."

"Thou didst not attack him?"

"No?" they replied, their confusion evident. "Why would I?"

"Because he was there."

The hunter stared at her, unsure of how to respond.

"An odd hunter thou art indeed," Annalise said with a sigh, and she dipped the quill back into the well. "If runes hold thine interest, the Crow returned with one quite curious in design: a luminous star with a gleaming eye hidden inside. And if thy wish is further experience with the arcane, then consider these archives thy place of study. We may not have yet ascended to the lofty planes of thought that the college boasted of, but given the recent vacancies of the campus… twould be a tragedy to let all that research moulder. As if the ground there were not soaked in tragedy enough. The Crow hath liberated the most outstanding specimens of the work," she said, and she tapped her fingers against the leatherbound stacks of books on the table. "It is in this that I request thine assistance. Thou'rt to read— skim, really— the work gathered here, and then I shall deem it of immediate use or meant for storage within the archive. But first," she said, and she tapped the quill against the paper. "Thy recount of the night."

"The crow knight was… following me," the hunter replied.

"Indeed," Annalise said, "for all the long night. Something in thy manner must have sparkled." The quill scratched at the parchment. "I am glad of that discerning eye. Thou'rt of interest to me."

The hunter sipped at their tea, the intermixing of bitter and fragrant flavor flooding out the pervasive iron sting that seeped from the queen.


The hunter recounted their night as best they could— awakening in the clinic, the bloody path to Oedon Chapel, their ventures into Old Yharnam, the confrontation of the Vicar in the cathedral— and at that Annalise leaned back and took no notes at all, as if simply basking in the hunter's words— and then, in what had felt like the darkest stretch of the night, the hunter's descent into the forbidden woods.

"Confederates," Annalise said thoughtfully as she dipped the quill. "I cannot say I find the name familiar."

"They seem a bit… fringe," the hunter admitted. "As kind as one could possibly be, but… have you heard of vermin, your majesty?"

"Vermin," Annalise echoed. "No. Explain."

"Vermin writhe deep within all filth," the hunter recounted as they stared up towards the ceiling, as if that would help them better recall Valtr's words. "They are the root of man's impurity. Something along those lines."

The helm tilted. "Impurity."

"Little centipedes," the hunter said, and they waggled their fingers to pantomime the many wriggling legs. "I don't know if there's any truth in it. They seem much like any sort of insect one would find in the woods, but they are quite frightful looking." They sighed. "I only started spotting them once the man mentioned them. Funny how things are like that sometimes."

She jotted something down. "These Confederates seek out impurity. What use do they make of it?"

"They crush it," the hunter answered. "Right beneath the heel."

She sighed and set the quill aside. "We have spoken of thy visit to the college," she said, "and Hemwick is of little interest to Us. We will move on to the placement of the books." She brought her palm up repeatedly, motioning for the hunter to stand. "Read to me the title and anything outstanding from the preface and I will decide where they are to be stored."

The hunter approached the side of the table and gingerly opened the aged leather cover of the topmost book. Annalise seemed perfectly capable of both writing and reading with the silver helm and ribbon obstructing her sight; the hunter wondered if there was something she was trying to discover by gauging their reactions to the text.

"Optimized Mechanisms for Haze Extraction in Saccharomyces sepulcrum," the hunter read.

"Goodness," Annalise said flatly. "Place that upon the archive pile."


Much of the pile was of no interest to Annalise. The hunter's head was spinning with thoughts of dissections of the iris, maps of long-lost chalice labyrinths, and the prolific works of someone who had been incredibly adamant about the cosmic resonance of a single shifted consonant. Annalise seemed to be growing as tired of the work as the hunter was; she kept idly poking at her thumb with the quill, leaving a slowly growing spot of ink.

There was a single scrap of paper trapped between two books that immediately caught the queen's interest. "When the red moon hangs low, the line between man and beast is blurred," the hunter recited. "And when the Great Ones descend, a womb will be blessed with child."

Annalise was silent. The hunter held the paper tightly and shot her a questioning glance.

"That," she said, "is to be kept easily accessible. Place it here."


The hunter had found yet another discourse on arachnid phylogeny when Annalise sighed. The tea had long gone cold, and the hunter had felt their shiver return; they missed their leather overcoat. All the fabric available in Elaine's closet seemed so thin.

"We grow tired," Annalise stated. "The remaining tomes may await their judgement a while more. Surely thy head is now crowded with knowledge. Let us walk."

When Annalise pushed her seat back and stood, the hunter noticed that beneath the pooling length of her dress, her feet were bare.


"Thy statement about being unfamiliar with the arcane," Annalise said as she slowly walked down the hall, the intricate curves of her helm glimmering in the candlelight. "It can be unsettling for the uninitiated. Is our reading what has thee looking so upset?"

The hunter kept the same leisurely pace at her side, but they lifted a hand to their brow and paused at her statement. "I seem upset?"

"Perhaps not upset," she replied. "Afraid."

The hunter froze. Annalise took one step closer, and then another; the hunter could not help the single step they took in retreat.

"Thou'rt afraid," she said, and they blinked against the oppressive iron scent that came with her approach. Annalise carried no weaponry, nor did her thin arms speak to any strength, but the hunter felt as if all their instinct had fled them.

"There is a smell," the hunter said as they kept their breathing steady. "Like blood, and yet unlike blood. It is that which I am afraid of."

"Why?" Annalise asked, and she was close enough that the length of her dress drifted over the hunter's boots.

"Because I want to drink it," they answered.

A touch traced along their neck; surely Annalise could feel the thud of their pulse against her fingertip. "There is a smell to thee, as well," she said quietly. "Of the moon."

A shiver shook through the hunter; Annalise drew back her hand.

"I'm also just rather cold," the hunter admitted with a strained attempt at a laugh.

"This is a castle of many cold beds," Annalise murmured.

"I'm sorry that the hunt has taken so many casualties," they said quickly, as if their outpouring words would dispel the strangeness between them. "Lady Elaine told me of— well, surely you already know, you're her Queen. It seems much the same in Yharnam— like what I told you of that priest and— and his wife—"

"I think," Annalise interrupted, "that I have devised a way to warm thee, and to remind us all of the glory of our hunt."

The hunter raised their eyebrows. "...Oh?"

"A duel," she replied. "Merely to first blood, but with enough pomp to capture the interest of all the castle. Thou shalt participate. Come along."