"Huuh... Ahhhh..." Meiling tried to hear herself speak. Hear herself think.

The bullets broke and bounced off of the stone fountain that she'd slipped behind, the kinetic force banging on the ensorcelled stone to slap at her shoulderblades. If it wasn't for Patchouli's fortifying magic...
It wasn't going to last. The hail of hard rounds had chewed through the reservoir wall to spill its water across the path, the bullets chipping and stabbing as they weakened the rune-toughened stone. Meiling had fought through storms of swords and moved through clouds of arrows, but the sound and the fury of this devilish invention, the neverending chatter, the harsh crack and hiss of bullets whizzing past... it damaged her calm and disrupted her breathing. It was impossible to advance against it, too terrifying to even move away from it, from the safety of cover.

As one gun focused the fountain Meiling hid behind, the other sent a stuttering trail of fire across the front of the mansion. For all the magic imbuing the architecture, the bullets made their mark. Windows splintered and blew apart. Brick and mortar cracked and caved. Wood warped and snapped.

"Please..." Meiling couldn't hear her own plea as the face of the Scarlet Devil Mansion was raked with suppressive fire and the fountain she hid behind deformed and cracked under the weight of the bulletstorm, "Please, stop..."

"Reloading!" Wilson screamed, competing with the howl of his neighbour's maxim gun.

They gave no sign of hearing, maintaining their fire across the mansion's front. The doors had been demolished, along with the overhanging brickwork and the windows, revealing the statues and the arch of the balcony within.

Beneath them on the cobble-strewn road, the Russian and the witch observed the devastation.
"Direct your fire on the Chinese girl, for goodness sake." Lady Midday sighed from the courtyard, lounging back between Sergei's shoulder blades.

The Russian shook his head, disappointed. There was little resistance. Barnes' lot had sprung this surprise attack well. To either side, mercenaries and Barnes' enforcers - who had no scruples with midnight intrusions and murder - waited for the maxims to tear the face off of the mansion before they stepped in to subdue the little sister and slaughter the rest. Sergei imagined that the gatekeeper - the charming red-head - was going to die without ever being able to fight. Once upon a time, he might've been able to identify the wrong in this more quickly, perhaps feel it more keenly.

"It's a shame, isn't it?" Lady Midday murmured. Sergei lifted a brow, glancing over his shoulder at the ghostly shape that lay across him.

"With all this iron in the air, we can't partake in this purge." She sighed. Sergei stared at her for a moment before he shrugged wordlessly and returned to observing the maxim guns at work.

Loader Wilson's ears pricked up as the other maxim suddenly stopped. That was strange; the plan had been to alternate, with one gun reloading as the other laid down fire.

"What're you playing at?!" Wilson shouted, throwing a glance to his gunner, Davies. Davies nodded, hurrying to the door that led across, opening it.

The silver haired maid in the ruined dress stared up at him, wide-eyed. Behind her laid Davies' fellows in pools of their own blood, knives sticking from their coats.
He began to swear, but the words fell apart as the steak knife entered his throat.

Wilson heard the alarmed gurgle, turning in time to get a good look at the knife the maid flicked his way.
It was the last thing he ever saw.

For all her wards, she felt the blade bite.

Patchouli Knowledge screamed as she staggered back, her left sleeve now burning and bloody as she raised her right to stop the next blow. Alhajin cried out in mad delight as his sword swung down to carry out his patron's murderous wish.

The blade - still covered in the burnt, rust-coloured blood of the mage - stopped dead in the air. Patchouli's unblemished palm was transfixed into a rigid claw as it confronted the sword, her sliced arm hanging uselessly at her side. Sweat broke across Alhajin's brow, the bright white rat-tails of the magician's hexes sparking as they clung to him, holding him back. The both of them wrestled without touching, their limbs shaking with the tension. It was a contest of wills, of their very beings, and it was close fought. Alhajin oozed raw strength and his devilish imagination - so used to inflicting devastation and torture - turned its inexhaustible cruelty to breaking her down. The witch was skilled in the mysteries of magic, however, her own daunting intellect and stubborn resolve refusing to let the blade move.
But it did move. Inch by painful inch, the sword point lowered, the djinn grinding past the drag of Patchouli's bindings and against the push of her determined resistance. A relieved and unrestrained grin broke across Alhajin's face as he brought the sword to bear. One prick of her flesh would ruin her concentration, and the vessel of his murderous will would pierce epidermis, slice muscle, sever bone before plunging into her chest and bursting her heart. Alhajin snorted forcefully. "Puzzling, I intended the gatekeeper to be my first. Your magic has conflicted with the way of things, witch."

More than conflicted, I'm afraid." Patchouli whispered, forcing a strained smile. Alhajin furrowed his brow as a cough left his mouth. He cleared his throat. Again, another cough, the taste of smoke. He felt a burning sensation within his core, his eyes widening as he struggled to get the words out. "What did you do...?" He asked.

"You've done this to yourself." Patchouli replied quietly.

Alhajin's coughs wracked him, though he did not ease on the pressure, nor did he offer Patchouli a route to the red stone behind him in its golden cradle. "Speak plainly." He managed between spasms.

Patchouli swallowed, resisting the urge to look. She would have to play for time. "You struck at Koakuma first, whether you intended to or not. Everyone else's poppets were built to negate you. Hers was a lure and an amplifier," Patchouli explained, keeping her focus on the djinn, "and, in combination with the right magicks, that deathwish of yours was returned to you tenfold."

Alhajin glared at her, his sword at last lifting. "What magicks?" Alhajin bucked as he sputtered, careful to remain on his feet, remain between her and the stone. There had been a reason why she had gone for it.

"With herbal magic being what it is, we had to eat a lot of the stuff." Patchouli told him, smiling unpleasantly as she began to force a gap between them with splayed fingers. "Wormwood to protect Sakuya and the others. Vetivert to fracture your attack on myself and Koakuma. Dragon's Blood and Solomon's Seal for myself, to take the edge off... and what is it that causes the very seat of you to burn up, that eats away at your essence with that same arrogant, reckless malice you might've visited on us?"

"You dog," Alhajin spat, struggling to breathe, "You mewling..."

"T'is Patchouli! The returner of harmful magic! The very herb your killer was named after!" Patchouli declared, swallowing when she saw that Alhajin had begun to calm. Both hands had returned to his blade.

He sawed the scimitar down through the air until it bit hard into the invisible shieldwall Patchouli's will held aloft.

"You think you've killed me?" Alhajin's arms bulged with muscle as he surged down with the astral blade. Patchouli lost her footing as he made the air move, hitting the carpet with one knee, the wound in her arm blooming with pain. That loss of concentration nearly killed her, the blade stopping scant centimetres from her good hand. "I am a projection, witch. I will come here in full force, and I will pull your limbs off of you, pin the remains in the hall of my palace like the insect you are." He hacked, his expression furious from the burning in his centre.

"...I should probably not tell you what the Mugwort is for, then."

Alhajin said nothing, his own rasping coughs the only sounds audible then.

"Look up for me?" Patchouli chanced, knowing she invited disaster. If her prayers had gone unanswered...

The djinn looked up. Painted on the ceiling of the library was a vast pentacle. He saw the amateurish Sanskrit written there, and knew that the librarians had discovered his true mythology. That revelation turned to fear when he read the words. 'I am Nairrata, vanquisher of Muchukunda. Face me or be called a coward.'
That wasn't a prayer, that was a lie. A taunt. This pentacle wasn't meant to protect, it was meant to project. To invite.
To summon.

"You are both demon and djinn! For too long you have enjoyed the anonymity and strength that your duality affords for long enough!" Patchouli declared, "You are revealed to the heavens by our research and our magic! You are trapped here, demon-soldier, but the creature of Araby might leave yet! Shed your skin or be banished from this plane back to your master!" She demanded, feeling the heat of the devil's blade on her hand.

Alhajin felt the edge of panic then. No-one had figured him out before. No-one. No knight of Britannia, no fugitive god from the east, not even the ancient charlatans of Rome had discovered his identity, let alone survived him, threatened him, forced an ultimatum on him like this, to abandon the power his heritage afforded him.

He paused, looking again, seeing the faint, idling glow of the sigils.

The pentacle wasn't ready. His chin lowered, his pupilless eyes drilling into hers. "Or... I shall kill you before they notice me."

At that, Patchouli lost her smile. He could still win. Without the stone, she could not hurry the ritual. Without exploiting Koakuma's sacrifice to the fullest, she'd left him enough strength to finish the fight.
Alhajin piled on the pressure, hungry to see the light leave the magician's purple eyes when his sword sliced her open.

"Where's the ammunition?!" Megane bleated.

"Quit screaming, I can hear you just fine!" Sandee shouted back, lying on the carpet of the hall, keeping her head down.

Penny blinked as she clung to an intact chunk of balustrade. The firing had stopped.
Then she saw the shape looming above her fairy friends. "Megane..." She whimpered.

The figure turned, Meiling's tensed up body clinging to the girl that carried her, the girl who held Penny's gaze.

"You know how to operate this?" Sakuya asked airily, lifting her chin to indicate the instrument attached to the railing.

"Yes, we do!" The normally timid Megane declared as Sakuya took a knee, setting Meiling down. For a second, the gatekeeper did not relent, hanging tightly to her before the maid whispered something to her, something none of the fairies caught.

Meiling let go as Sakuya took her shoulder. "Where is Patchouli?" The maid asked.

With her life's breath restored and her equilabrium already recovering, Meiling could sense the alarm that gripped the denizens of the mansion, the exhilaration of the humans outside - and the titanic struggle within Voile. "The library. She's been attacked-"

Sakuya was gone in an eye-blink, leaving a hastily retrieved ammunition box where she stood.

Penny was already moving, lifting the lid. "Megane, run these to the others!"

Patchouli felt tears sting her eyes as his brimstone-hot breath gusted over her face. She would have liked someone to be there with her, at the end. Remilia. Meiling, maybe. Even...
"Koa." She choked, the hot metal grazing a nail.
"She's not coming to save you." Alhajin rumbled, preparing to lead with his shoulder. Break her guard. Split her open.

In a flash, she disappeared, the sudden break in resistance sending him stamping forward.

"Bring me to the stone!" Patchouli's explosive gasp sounded behind him. He turned on instinct, moving at the speed of thought to put himself between the magician and the red rock that sat in its cradle.

She saw that the witch - now white with blood-loss - was being carried by the maid, the one his cohorts called 'dog'. She'd snatched her from him, so very quickly.

"This is not the time to express your unhappiness with your master, girl." Alhajin sighed, feeling the burn of his recent exertions.

"This is the only time when it will matter." Sakuya hissed, her teeth barred.

"Perhaps... though her time," He pointed the blade towards Patchouli, who clutched at her bleeding arm, "is almost at an end. By all means, move as you do, knowing that she won't survive another lurch through time and space."

"Do it." Patchouli rasped.

Alhajin smiled condescendingly. "She wants you to risk her life. How noble. Will your newfound mistress understand her sentiment? Or will she blame you for her death?" Alhajin grinned, seeing the doubt begin to take root. Sakuya furrowed her brow, her grey eyes glancing to one side, a glimmer of relief there.
Was that a bluff? Like he'd be so stupid-

"I heard shouting-" A small voice piped up behind him.

Like a whip, Alhajin turned and threw his scimitar spinning towards the newcomer's brow. The stranger jumped, shocked, raising her arms reflexively, and the weapon she held along with them.
The wand of Loki suddenly concaved, the ends forming jaws as teeth sprang from the stave and snapped down on the astral blade. Flandre's expression turned poisonous at the abrupt surprise, raising her free hand. The djinn prepared to move on Flandre, to deliver one cutting-

"INDRA!" Patchouli shouted, the word alone tightening Alhajin's throat. Alhajin turned and swung to sweep Patchouli's head from her shoulders.
But she was already at the crystal, her hand lost in the blazing light.
As the flash dissipated, he saw himself - not the him of London, not Alhajin, but the creature beneath the facade, the Nairrata. The sight alone inspired such sensations. He could feel the tremors of the ground as he rampaged with his comrades through the Devas. He heard himself bellow Kubera's name, his voice amongst millions. He could smell the blood of the humans that thought to confront the Asura, exulting at how it drenched the field. He recalled the defeat. The rout. He remembered closing his fist over his treasured identity to escape persecution from the defeat, taking on the trappings of the inscrutable djinni of Araby.
His inhuman heart was pounding as the memories fell away, his sightless eyes staring up through the tunnel of light. The beacon became a portal, the portal became an eye, a host of eyes, familiar, arrogant, cold.
He saw the Devas in their heavens, splendid in their majesty and frightening in their anger, and they saw him in turn.
Alhajin heard the rumble first. He heard that chilling, terror-stricken scream, only realising it was his own when the light reached for him.

The blinding light of the pentacle faded, the few remaining candles guttering out. Sakuya's screwed-shut eyes flickered open when she heard a phlegmy cough scrape its way out of the girl in her arms.
"Miss Patchouli..." Sakuya stuttered when she saw the dark stain where her chest and Patchouli's sleeve met. The magician breathed shallowly as she raised a shaking, sweat-sheeted hand, thumb and fingers closing into a beak before they slipped past each other in a weak and muted click.
It was enough. A ball of black smoke opened from nowhere, her familiar surging from its depths with her imp's fork in hand. "You third-rate, pompous mutt, I'll-" Koakuma raved, her enraged expression melting when she saw the absence of a foe and recognised the blood-wet bundle in Sakuya's arms.

"Oh God, no." Koakuma whimpered.

"Is Patchouli going to be okay?" Flandre asked, the strain in Koakuma's voice a spreading, contagious thing.

"Miss Patchouli?" Sakuya asked quietly, lifting her a fraction. Patchouli's eyes stared numbly into her own lap, her arm shaking as she managed a single word.
"Jellyfish..."

"Eh?" Sakuya asked.

"Jellyfish Princess!" Flandre declared, her gaze flitting to the already moving Koakuma.

"Help me get her to the desk, miss Sakuya?" Koakuma asked.
Sakuya could see the little devil's glassy eyes and heard her fractured voice. "Certainly." She agreed hurriedly.

Together, they bore her weight towards the desk, easing her onto its surface.

"How's the gate?" Patchouli asked weakly.

There was a pause, none of the girls present knowing. Then there was a flicker of movement, a rush of air, and Sakuya spoke up.

"Meiling has regained her composure and is standing her ground. Should I go and assist her?"

Patchouli sighed deeply. "No, no. Stay here and plot with me.
Let her do her job."

The first indicator that something was wrong was the deafening silence, broken only by the uneven crack of dislodged bricks settling on the garden flagstones ahead of them. The second was that the thudding chatter of the machine guns never resumed - instead they could only hear the erratic whizz and pop of ammunition catching fire.

The third had been the incredible volume of blood drooling through the floorboards of the machine gun nests.

After leaping the staircase three steps at a time, they'd barged in and found what was left of the maxim operators. One had a knife in the eye, the wound obviously fatal, whilst another had a small, ragged incision in his throat. The others were similarly dispatched, killed cleanly, clinically, without struggle - which contradicted the gorey display that had been made of their chest cavities. Serrated blades had run rampant through the flesh, catching and scraping bone with enough strength to chip and fracture. Nothing had been taken, and killing them had not been satisfactory on its own.

Sergei wished he hadn't let his lieutenants see the mess. Rumours rippled through the gangs assembled on the street now, the men now suddenly superstitious and uneasy about going into this scarlet mansion. They talked of devils and monsters, that hell's denizens guarded this place. Others claimed it was none other than the Ripper who had done for those men.

"Who claims I killed those men?" Edwin's voice carried across the road, his teeth visible beneath the brim of his hat. "You work for the Ripper, gentlemen. Rest assured that there is no darker entity on this street than myself."

His words did not reassure them, but the fear was of him now. That satisfied him.

"Boss." Sergei lowered his head as lord Ripper turned on him. He did it to show deference. It was the way of things. That's what he told himself.

"Sergei," Edwin replied, "I don't see the sister gripped in those paws of yours."

Sergei swallowed, letting his forehead lower further, "Ammunition cooked off by a saboteur. Gunners, also killed. Wondered if you wanted we wait. Costly to go in without support-"

"Look at me, Sergei."

Sergei hesitated before he looked up into that fearsome, inhuman smile. "Send in the first wave." He demanded.

"Da." Sergei inclined his head again, before turning to the major. "Take them."

"Platoon, fix, bayonets!" Evans turned, his voice cutting through the night.

Fifty blades rasped from their sheaths, clicking onto rifle lugs. Evans took some satisfaction in lazily drawing his own sabre out from its scabbard and across his paunchy stomach. "At the walk! Fire at will!" Evans commanded as he waved his sword, leading his screen of rifles across the demolished garden.

"You didn't arm them with silver." Sergei noted quietly, his eyes scanning the darkness of the mansion's entrance hall.

"No," Edwin replied, "I did not. Exhaust their defenses with our fodder. What say you to that?
Sergei?"

On the ground floor, Sergei had spotted the beret-topped gatekeeper clinging to cover, her friendly face locked in a scowl. He was not the only one to see her. Some of the keener soldiers took aim, the whip-cracks of their weapons punctuating the click-stomp of a hundred boots.
She began to raise her arm. The gesture cocked his brow, his eyes scanning the darkness a second time as he saw the soldiers lazily raising their weapons. There. He saw the dull sheen of smooth, black iron, the bright glow of...
Of the burning end of a fuse.
The gatekeeper chopped her hand down through the air as she called out a single word.

"Fire!" Meiling roared over the rifles.

The Scarlet Devil Maids relayed the shout as they touched the burning matches to gunpowder. In a flash and puff of smoke, the powder was gone, the expelled gas ejecting down the barrels.

As the small arms of Edwin's mercenaries began to spit, the swivel guns bellowed back.
Rounded lumps of metal - each the size of a fist, travelling shy of a hundred miles per hour - pounded down the path. Men were hatcheted apart, hammered down or blown clean through. Cannister rounds supplemented the solid shot, lashing the lines with waves of shrapnel. The formation staggered, dark tracts of wounded and broken-open men marking the passage of the fairies first volley, the whole advance stalling because-
Because they hadn't expected such resistance. They had been told this would be an easy job. Subdue a foreign princess, kill the girls guarding her. They'd been told they had an armoury of medieval weapons, but nothing that could challenge them.
But here, on a civilian street, they'd demonstrated they had the capacity to field cannon, and the will to use it. Against such opposition, the line buckled. It began to break.

"Steady, men!" Evans wailed, his own spirit shaken by the enemy artillery. "Loosen up! Skirmish formation, focus your fire on the gunners!"

To his gratitude, his men rallied, returning to him, spacing out and returning fire. He saw one trooper drop to a knee and fire up at the darkened balcony. That was good. Inspired. They were suppressing the enemy gun crews. So long as they kept the pressure on-

The crescent blade of the guandao swept down and severed the barrel. The trooper fell back, startled, but Meiling followed him with polearm in hand.
Rare were the times she had to kill to protect the mansion. The strong passed through the gate to deal or be dealt with by Patchouli or the mistress herself, whilst the weak, the wilful but the ultimately worthy were enlightened by her fists.
The mercenary beneath her screamed in feral frustration, pawing and scraping to get away. His comrades were rushing to them, coming for her so they could plunder their home and kill them all.
Meiling glared sternly at her target as she swept her blade through him, turning in time to see the muzzles of a half-dozen rifles lift to meet her.
The world exploded into fire, gunsmoke and rainbow light.

Her head rocked forward before thudding against the steel slope of the trundling wheelbarrow.

Remilia's ears pricked up at the sound of a muted pulse. Her eyelids drifted open, suddenly widening when she saw the dozen monsters and goblins looming over her. She struggled to raise her remaining arm, the weight of the body atop her pinning her down.

"Oh, my God, she's still alive." A human voice whispered.

Her eyes focused on the faces, realising they were human after all, the monstrous aspect ending at the chin or the nose. The masks they wore were glittery, flimsy things that covered the eyes, the glittering jewelry and the tailored and fitted finery they wore telling her they were nobles of this city. She began to open her mouth, to speak, to beseech them to help her, though the next words spoken stopped her dead.

"Shouldn't you... put her out of her misery, just to be kind?" One noblewoman asked. Remilia's head still swam from her altercation with the sigil-beast, and to hear all these nervous heartbeats around her when she was so famished left her light-headed.

Jill spoke up, out of view but perfectly audible, "You're rather new to these functions, miss Egerton. Trust me when I say her current condition heightens the experience."

"Here's hoping she lives until the main event; no fun in pursuing prey that's already hung their hat, eh?" A man spoke up, the murmur of conspiratorial laughter tightening Remilia's stomach. She silently craned her head, seeing-
The open doors of the Chateau Obscura, a line of gentry waiting to enter the golden-red glow within.

"Oh, no hunting tonight, sir George," Jill said, the mention of the man's name making him recoil, "She'll be one of the objects of the feast."

"The old one as well? Why, he's already dead. Overripe, wouldn't you say?" A young brunette asked, to the chagrin of the older gentlemen there.

Remilia felt her jaw tighten, on the cusp of speaking up when Jill purred, "Oh, he's still alive, and there are some like myself who believe life betters with age."

The elderly nobles were assuaged, but Remilia had stopped caring, turning her head to awkwardly press her ear towards mister Osbourne's back.
He was alive. It was a thin and waning beat, but it was there.
He was bleeding. Bleeding all over her. Bleeding the dark, rich stuff of life-
She shut her eyes and bit her bottom lip. She couldn't think like that, not now. Her remaining hand awkwardly went around his middle, taking in a breath as his blood coated her fingers. She staunched the wound as best she could.

"Be so kind as to make way?" Jill asked. The wheelbarrow moved forward past the queue. One pair of nobles turned away from the line, put off by seeing a bloody wheelbarrow filled with a dying man and a girl shorn of an arm.
The rest simply cried out in surprise, some made sly remarks about Jill's lack of decorum, and a choice few expressed their excitement about the live sampling.
Such comments only brought a sneer to Remilia's face, knowing she was being paraded.

The dark, open sky was replaced with the opulent, gold-and-green ceiling of the Chateau's entrance hall. Then came the banquetting hall, where the tittering of the queue gave way to the muted rumble of half a hundred voices. She lifted her head to try to see past Jared's body and the rim of the wheelbarrow. She saw the men and women seating themselves, some already established at the tables. Some looked back at her without reaction, unwilling or afraid to recognise what they saw.
Some smiled back at her, their eyes like dark glass behind the colourful masks that afforded them anonymity.

As her red eyes searched the room for entrances, windows and tried to keep her bearings, she saw Olivia de Vere, lying on the table and on her back in a white gown, a pair of carving knives laid around her.
There was a grill set beside her.
Remilia buried a dismayed growl into mister Osbourne's back, her fingers clutching his ruined belly tighter.
Olivia's head lolled drunkenly, her eyes briefly latching onto Remilia, her gaze glassy and far away.
As the wheelbarrow trundled on, a shape watched her go from the ceiling, its yellow teeth grinning beneath the smoggy light that covered it.

"You couldn't have used the servant's entrance?" A thin, rasping voice asked.

"I imagined our guests were feeling antsy, so I thought I'd give them proof that we mean to entertain them. Shame can get in the way of wickedness if left- what in God's name happened to you?"

"The witch ruined me," A creature of coalescing smoke and shadow whispered as it hove into view, its fingers falling through the rim of the wheelbarrow, "I go to finish my work. The little ones still remain."

They must have meant Patchouli. Remilia stared up at the ghost as it glanced down at her. "I bled your little friend dry for taking my body, vampire. She squealed like a pig. Know that as they make a meal of you."

Remilia felt tears brim her eyes as she showed her teeth. The djinn turned from her in time for a drowned woman to loom into Remilia's face, her fair features smiling darkly. "Hello, sweetie. My, things are taking a turn for the disastrous for you, aren't they?" Morgen beamed.

Remilia said nothing, her red-eyes staring hatefully up at her.

"Nothing to say? I don't think she likes me. Say, why haven't we done away with her?" Morgen gabbled.

"Edwin's orders. Keep her here until the delegation from Wallachia arrive. A bargain has been struck, apparently." Jill said.

"Ahh, but that is a shame." A man's voice intoned, a cultured, delicate sound. The butler floated into view, with his strong jawline, his grey-streaked hair and possessing a face as lined as mister Osbourne's. Remilia might have guessed at him being an approachable and kind-hearted sort, but for the words spoken and the light in his eyes.
"Was rather curious if the dog could do anything palatable with live vampire." Prosechtikos drawled.

"Now you've got me curious. Suppose they'd be willing to part with the flesh?" Morgen chirped, her fingers drumming the wheelbarrow's lip, "Present her head to the Wallachians, that's the bit they're after, isn't it? Or is it a vampire's heart that's the key-"

"Kill you." Remilia heard herself slur, interrupting them all.

Morgen and Prosechtikos shared a surprised look, as though spoken to by a piece of furniture. Then they began to laugh at her.
Remilia felt the cold burn of humiliation, a raspy growl rising from her throat, a sudden grip on her wrist stopping her from saying more.

"Don't." Mister Osbourne murmured.

The initial shock at hearing him speak made her stop.
She ignored the derision the butler and the water spirit directed at her, focusing on keeping her hands locked on the wound in his belly. She noticed that Jill didn't partake in the teasing. She realised the werewolf was watching her warily, only speaking up when Remilia held her gaze. "Tilghman."

"Yes, miss." A familiar shape skulked into Remilia's view. The rifleman she had let live, after Trafalgar.

"Take them to the dungeons. Be sure to keep them apart. Different blocks." Jill said.

"Your will, miss." Tilghman's voice was a hollow thing as he took up the handles. Jill's attention was still on Remilia as the vampire and the tutor were carted out of the hall and into the dark depths of the Chateau's west wing.