John, Marcel, and the rest of Ethan's party stood in a haphazard circle, their silhouettes blurred by the curling mist rising from the slagstone.

  Low voices exchanged chatter in fits and murmurs, all centred around their imminent descent into the mines. Ethan emerged from the doorway of Clayton Headquarters, door slamming behind him, boots crunching softly against the packed dirt.

  “There’s the scrote,” John said flatly, without even the courtesy of turning his head. “What bobbins will you be takin’ with you, then?”

  His face bore the same hard blankness – unreadable. Ethan relied on the only consistent social compass left to him – his innate pessimism. Experience had proven it accurate far more often than not.

  He pulled free a papelate as he approached, lighting with flint, steel, and matchcord. The words that left his mouth were saturated by week-old tobacco leaf.

  “Rations and water for a full day’s march. Boiled gauze and rolls of bandages, should we sustain wounds. Elvish poultices of healing, if available. Short swords for close quarters – black iron, not steel. And finally – repeating crossbows, one per head, twenty bolts each, likewise tipped with black iron.”

  He delivered the list in a tone as clipped and formal as if read from an inventory ledger.

  John’s brow did not furrow, but his eyes narrowed as the litany wore on. By the time Ethan reached the last item, John’s mouth curled into a wide grin, displaying two chaotic rows of yellowed, pitted teeth, each one a crooked monument to years of poor hygiene.

  “Dead paranoid one, ain’t he?” John chortled, glancing around the circle. “Keep that up and I might just think yer sound.”

  Simon snorted in reply. Lyra merely rolled her eyes. Warren offered the ghost of a smile. Mary groaned and shook her head. Marcel, poor creature, blinked and turned between faces like a spaniel dropped into a chess match.

  “Apologies, lad,” John said in his Fovetongue accent. “But I’ll be burstin’ yer bubble. Scran an’ cloth? No bother. But blades ‘n' bolts? Stabby or shooty, we’re plum out.”

  “You have no weapons in Clayton?” Simon’s half-shouted, brows shooting up to his hairline.

  “Ain’t got need,” John shrugged, as if explaining why clouds were grey. “Unless you count pickaxes. Ha!”

  “But surely you must have somehow defended yourselves during the war," Warren interjected hesitantly. "The Falchovarians did reach Clayton, did they not?”

  “Aye, that they did,” John said, lips curling, nostrils flaring. “That were some ‘angin’ business, that was. But to cut it short – we plain didn’t.”

  He burst out laughing at their stunned expressions, the sound echoing off the stone walls like a tavern brawl breaking out in a monastery.

  “Stuffed the lasses and little ’uns down in the mine shafts for a two-month while the frogs camped up top. Slid ‘em some scran and a few flagons when we went down. Froggies never caught scent. When they came, we dropped to our knees and claimed we were nothin’ but a poxy ore post with our kin safe off in Crystalrock. They bought it, too – heads soft as their fuckin’ cheese!”

  He tilted his head back, letting loose another echoing guffaw.

  “Easier than bootin’ the dibble in the stones!”

  “Ya fuckin’ cowards,” Mary snapped, her voice cutting through the laughter like a broken bottle.

  Marcel turned red from collar to crown, his expression twisted somewhere between a grimace and a wince. He did not rise to defend himself or his barony. Ethan suspected he agreed with Mary’s assessment.

  “Fuck bravery,” John spat to the scree. “We’re still breathin’, ain’t we? That’s more than what can be said for a lot o’ yer banner-wavin’ heroes. If the King’s got a grievance, he can drag his royal arse down ‘ere and tell us to our faces,” he spat again. “Mad bastard.”

  Mary reeled as though slapped. Despite a youth spent wallowing in the gutters of Oaleholder, Ethan knew her loyalty to King and Country remained ironclad, forged in fire and hardened by war.

  “How can ya say that?” she demanded, finger lancing forward like a bayonet. “And you–!” the finger snapped to Marcel. “Baron’s pup or not, how can ye stand there, lettin’ him spew all this fish an’ froth without even blinkin’? Ain’t ye got no shame in yer blood?”

  “W-we, well, um–” Marcel began, the words tangling in his mouth.

  “Let me?” John echoed, his tone shedding all of its laughter. “Lass, the old baron, bless ‘im, hated the monarchy worse than an arse hates boils. ‘No better than a tick in the flesh,’ were his words. Was his bloody idea to hide below. And he were right too. Look where all that patriotic shite got ‘im in the end.”

  That revelation silenced Mary anew. She stood rigid, jaw set, her fists balled at her sides. Her breath came in short bursts, and her cheeks burned crimson. Ethan noted her posture – not defensive, not quite combative either. Merely straining under the weight of insulted conviction.

  “They did not start the war,” Ethan said, tone unchanged from the rest of the conversation. “They have no quarrel with the Republic. One cannot expect men to bleed on command for the Crown when it never has lifted a finger for them.”

  John let out a dry chuckle, the sound rasping in his throat. “Spoken like an honest traitor,” he said in that grating Sallefove drawl.

  Mary turned, casting her gaze around the group. No one spoke. No one defended King nor Country. Their silence struck like a gauntlet hurled to the ground. With a scoff, she threw up her hands in a gesture of weary surrender.

  “Come on, then,” John clapped his hands once. “Mines ain’t goin’ nowhere, but you’ll be wantin’ some hours in ‘em afore sundown takes the sky.”

  They set off down the gravelled lane, kicking up rock dust with each step. Marcel lumbered to catch up, his considerable frame shifting with ungainly momentum, each stride drawing with it the inertia of a sack of barley and the grace of an ox.

  Instead of taking a direct route, Ethan insisted they stop by the inn. John merely shrugged. “Yer tent’s seven,” he reminded, then went on his own way.

  The carriage remained precisely where they had abandoned it: parked inside the Clayton Inn and Tavern's stables beneath a sagging awning, the horses lapping lazily at their troughs and chewing through feed with herbivorous contentment. From within the coach came a sonorous, animalistic snore – more akin to a bear’s growl than anything produced by a human throat.

  Ethan tried the door. Locked. He swore – vociferously – and brought his fist down upon the carriage’s wooden frame with a thud that echoed across the courtyard.

  “Arthur! Open up!” he barked.

  The grating stertor faltered into a rapturous groan. What followed was a repulsive sequence of wet, dry-mouthed smacks – lips struggling to reacquaint themselves with a miserable existence.

  A moment later, the carriage door creaked open, and Arthur’s head emerged, squinting against the overcast sky with one hand held aloft, the other massaging his temples with arthritic laboriousness. He peered out with the vague disappointment of a man realising he was still alive.

  “Whaddaya wan’?” he slurred, the words sodden with stale liquor.

  Ethan stepped back instinctively, assaulted by a stench so vile it might have peeled lacquer from wood. A foul concoction of unwashed undergarments, rotten ale, intestinal betrayal, and gingivitis clung to the man like a mimicry of the Matresa.

  The rest of the group recoiled in synchrony – Simon audibly gagging, Lyra shielding her nose with her sleeve, and Mary swearing with feeling as they all hastily retreated. Ethan, however, stood his ground. Some burdens could not be delegated.

  “Ye utter fuckin’ boaksack,” he growled, drawing a handkerchief from his cloak and pressing it to his mouth. “Out. Stand at attention. Your liege is present.”

  Arthur blinked in stupor. “Wadiyatalkinabeet?”

  His watery eyes flitted between the faces assembled beyond Ethan. Marcel’s stood out among them – features twitching but never settling into any discernible expression. Recognition dawned behind Arthur’s rheumy gaze, and with it came the frantic realisation that he had very much erred.

  With a grunt and considerable effort, the coachman hurled himself from the carriage. He landed with a thump, staggered, nearly toppled again, and then stood – barely upright, swaying like a dandelion in an unkind breeze. A very hungover, very odorous dandelion.

  “M-m’lord!” he cried, instantly clutching at his head as the volume exacerbated his headache.

  Ethan entered the foetid compartment without another word, handkerchief still clutched across his nose and mouth. He tuned out the muffled voices outside and moved with purpose. A proper inventory revealed the truth: no short swords had been requisitioned, nor any black iron. If they wished for blades, sabres and bayonets would have to suffice. Unideal for cramped quarters, but better than fisticuffs.

  He selected six, exited the carriage, and dropped them in a clattering heap upon the ground. Dust kicked up around the pile.

  “There. One each,” he stated, choosing one for himself and strapping the sheath across his belt, next to his stiletto. The others followed suit, silently collecting their weapons without further ceremony.

  Arthur had collapsed to the gravel at some point, head buried in his hands, shoulders wracked with sobs. Marcel stood before him, wide eyes flitting everywhere but the coachman, helplessly offering his presence but not his comfort. The rest of the group observed from a distance with varying expressions. Schadenfreude – a cheap currency.

  Arthur looked up at last, his face blotched red and slick with tears. “Where’re’ee ‘eaded, M’lord?” he sniffled. “May Oi come with?”

  “No,” Ethan’s voice cut through the air like a guillotine.

  Arthur’s expression twisted. “Bain’t speakin’ to thee, rogue.”

  “Fuck off,” Ethan replied eloquently. “I am responsible for this expedition. The baroness has placed the safety of her son in my hands. I will not have a drunken liability stumbling through the dark with us in a half-witted quest for self redemption.”

  The silence that followed his declaration was cavernous.

  Ethan was already walking away.

  Arthur trembled, huffed once, then fell silent, crumbling back into himself like a collapsed tent. Marcel hesitated only a moment longer before turning away. He followed Ethan in silence, Arthur kneeling on the gravel behind them, unmoving, broken, and consumed by self-loathing.

  “That was…” Lyra began softly, falling in beside Ethan.

  “Harsh? Brutal? Shittin’ cruel?” Simon interrupted with a grin. “Nah, that’s just a Tuesday mornin’ with Mister Harbinger.”

  “He required the correction,” Warren offered, voice level. This drew a collection of wide-eyed stares. “The Good Book teaches that sometimes the truth wounds before it frees,” he hastened to add.

  “Oh, aye. Course it does…” Mary muttered.

  “Book of John, if I’m not mistaken?” Marcel asked.

  “Chapter eight, verse thirty-two,” Warren confirmed with a smile seen only on the ordained clergy. “You are remarkably well-read, your Lordship.”

  “I only know what I know,” Marcel murmured, eyes downcast.

  “Humble too,” Warren chuckled.

  They made for the mines.

  They found John waiting beside tent seven – a sagging structure of ochre canvas patched too many times to count. Without ceremony, they passed through its flaps and entered.

  The interior was dim and heavy with the metallic tang of rusting iron, overlaid by the damp reek of mildew-soaked fabric. The scent, faintly fungal, clung to the inside of the lungs. Seven sacks lay arranged upon the floor in no particular order, each filled with a day's worth of provisions.

  To the left stood a doorless cabinet of warped elm, its joints groaning beneath the weight of seven oil lanterns resting uneasily upon its shelves. The remainder – at least several dozen from the cabinet’s size – had already been distributed to the pitmen who had descended before them, swallowed up by the abysmal dark of the tunnels below.

  Opposite the tent flaps yawned the wooden hatch into the underworld. The opening was vast, wide enough for a mule cart, and framed in crude stone. Wind blew periodically from its depths, issuing up with an uncanny sigh – as if the mine itself exhaled.

  John turned toward them, his features composed into expressionless vacancy. “Right,” he said, voice low and clipped. “Before we drop, need a word on rules. First thing – this ain’t yer gaff. I don’t care if yer gentry, thief, preacher, or pretty lass. The network’s blacker than a widow’s veil, save for what light we carry in.”

  He took up the lanterns and proceeded to hand them out, one per person, checking each for fuel by shaking it close to his ear and watching the oil shift behind the glass.

  “Lantern each. No sharin’. No exceptions.”

  He did not wait to see if they understood.

  “Second thing – don’t be thick. Without light and a good head, you won’t know your face from your arse down there. It’s twisty as sin and twice as cruel. So unless you fancy bumblin’ into some korrigan’s maw or breakin’ your leg in a drop shaft, we stick together. Always.”

  The Sallefovian allowed himself a dry chuckle at that – grating and hollow. Mary and Marcel did not laugh. Both had paled.

  “Not you though, yer Lordship,” John added with a wry glance at Marcel. “Yer priority. Rest of us die if we must, but you? Our corpses will carry you out if they have to.”

  “I feel ever so reassured,” Marcel deadpanned. Simon chuckled under his breath.

  John’s lips curled into a crooked grin. “And last thing – try not to choke.”

  He turned without elaboration, leaving the threat to linger as he strode toward the hatch. As the others followed, he pulled the oaken trapdoor open, and a fresh gust burst up from below, carrying with it a stench so violent it struck like a slap to the face.

  A retching sound came immediately from somewhere behind Ethan.

  “What is that?” Lyra choked out, eyes watering as she pulled a silk kerchief over her mouth.

  “Pitmen gotta piss too, sweetheart,” Simon croaked, attempting a laugh, only to collapse into a coughing fit.

  The smell was a barrage on the olfactories, comprised of human waste, unwashed bodies, old blood, and wet stone. A combination seemingly engineered specifically to dissuade curiosity. The tunnel resembled the open mouth of some subterranean beast, its breath a foetid wind of refuse.

  No one relished the descent. But they descended, nonetheless.

  The wooden stairs spiralled downward – narrow, badly warped, and creaking with every shift in weight. They lacked handrails; only the thin beams of aged scaffolding, secured to the encircling granite, offered something to grip and steady oneself.

  Even then, with no small amount of mistrust.

  As they wound lower into the darkness, John’s voice rose from ahead, echoing from wall to wall as he launched into a tale seemingly half out of habit and half from pride.

  “Whole place started with holes,” he began. “At proper sixes and sevens, in them days, Clayton was. Popped up ‘cross the field, like moleholes but bigger. Wind’d whistle through ‘em, damp’d stink the air. Some clever bastard figured there were caverns beneath. Big ones. Rich ones. And he were right, weren’t he?”

  The group descended further, boot thuds and wood creaks echoing around them.

  “Back then, this weren’t even Clayton, really. Just tents and bonfires. But the lads started diggin’. Broke stone around the holes, built stairs, picked their way in. Then boom – iron, lead, bit o’ copper or silver. Enough ore to make Crystalrock weep with envy. Changed everythin’.”

  The darkness grew more complete. Even the lanterns seemed to shy away from its edges, their light dulled by the humid air.

  “Encampment became a village. Village became a township. And the bastard who led the dig? Maximilian Stonewater. Crown made him Baron for it. Earned every bloody bit – sure as pits.”

  John’s voice caught, almost imperceptibly.

  “...Til they got ‘im killed, anywho.”

  A silence settled over the group, brittle as glass. Marcel lowered his head, lips drawn tight. The others avoided one another’s eyes. Ethan remained impassive, as ever.

  There was no room for guilt in the dark. Guilt was a slow and insidious killer.

  He turned his focus inward, filing away the story like any other set of circumstances. Baron Stonewater’s death had not been his fault. He had done what the world required. He had been the weapon. The hand that wielded him was the greater concern.

  Lyra moved closer to Marcel and placed a comforting hand upon his arm. Her touch was brief but sincere. Neither John nor Marcel spoke, but the latter gave a small nod.

  At last, the stairs ended, and they stepped onto hard-packed stone. The air shifted, thick and moist, bringing with it an even fouler concentration of the mine’s odours – sweat, mildew, and shite. The ground beneath their boots was uneven and sharp-edged, biting through soles with each step.

  “By God, it fuckin’ stinks,” Simon muttered, coughing into his fist again.

  “Do not–” Warren began, only to gag mid-sentence. He shut his mouth tight, resolving not to tempt fate or scripture again.

  “Blood, piss, damp, rock dust,” John said proudly, breathing deep. “Like a butty on a Sunday.”

  The shaft ahead opened into a corridor, its sides supported by timber beams stained black with years of condensation and mineral seepage. Lanterns were hung at regular intervals, but the glow they emitted was pale and anaemic – slow-burning and long-lived, yes, but about as luminous as a starved firefly.

  Mary narrowed her eyes at the hanging lanterns. “If these’re hangin’ ‘bout, why’d we lug ours like a bunch o’ gulls?”

  “Cause these’d struggle to light up a strumpet’s arse in a ginnel. They’re path markers, not lamps,” John replied. His voice reverberated strangely off the damp stone, giving it a hollow, spectral quality. “Now stop yer mitherin’ and keep on.”

  The uneven lighting ensured no corridor was ever uniformly lit. Shadows bloomed and shrank across jagged walls, pooling in corners, shifting with the lanterns’ every sway. Every step crunched gravel and loose shale beneath their boots, a brittle rhythm echoing off the stone like the ticking of a slow and vindictive clock. The deeper they walked, the more the darkness seemed to move.

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  As if something unseen watched them.

  “We shall not be passing any wicked dens of monsters on the way, shall we, Mister Rock?” Marcel asked, voice pitched low, barely audible over the persistent percussion of pickaxes echoing from deeper in the labyrinth.

  John did not break stride. “Nah, yer Lordship. But that’s ‘cause the beasties don’t make dens. They roam.”

  The reply was as casual as it was horrifying. Marcel paled, clutching his lantern tighter as if sheer grip strength might shield him from the implications.

  Ethan severely doubted it would.

  Seven lanterns clutched in seven hands illuminated the subterranean party, each member absorbed in their own tension.

  Only the hissing of the oil flames and the distant clanks of iron on stone disturbed the otherwise claustrophobic hush. Occasionally, a subterranean rumble coursed through the walls – low, indistinct, like a giant exhaling in its sleep.

  Underground streams, Ethan presumed. Deep water channels hollowed by time, whispering behind the granite like veins under skin. Harmless in isolation. Potentially fatal if broken open.

  Mary and Lyra, lacking the same deductive impulse, had grown visibly jumpy at every fresh shudder. They stuck together now, shoulder to shoulder, as though mutual proximity might somehow anchor them against the enveloping dark.

  He could not fault them for it. The psychological effect of this place – the constant half-light, the writhing shadows, the odour of waste and mineral decay – it was not a question of whether it unsettled, merely how much one admitted it. It was a testament to the pitmen’s fortitude that any of them descended into this place every morning without weeping.

  Every so often, a small group of miners passed by – always in clusters of three to five, never fewer. They offered curt nods by way of greeting and trudged off without pause, their faces carved from grime and exhaustion. After thirty minutes of slow trudging, the wooden beams and their hanging lanterns ceased altogether, plunging the path into an unnatural, all-consuming blackness. Their own lanterns sputtered against it like embers in a blizzard.

  Within minutes, the light behind them vanished entirely. Ahead or behind, there was only void. Even Ethan’s darkvision failed to adjust due to the lanterns' glow. Their flickering flames cast a dim, trembling perimeter around them, a pale bubble of survival in a sea of predation. The darkness beyond seemed to pulse. Move. Breathe.

  The ambient noises had begun to warp, twisted by the cave’s acoustics until they resembled not the labour of miners, but some infernal chant. Even the soft currents of air brushing their cheeks felt malevolent – like cold fingers searching beneath clothing, testing for weakness.

  And strangely, the stench – the waste, the urine, the sweat baked into the walls – no longer offended. The terror eclipsed it. When the nervous system is overwhelmed, it prioritises. Fear trumped disgust.

  That’s the theory anyway.

  Ethan tried swallowing but found his mouth too dry. Rationalising did little to abate the dread.

  “I really do not care for how this place makes me feel,” Warren said, his voice bouncing back at him in a ghostly whisper. The sound of it made him flinch, as though the cavern had mocked him.

  “Oh, really?” Simon replied, voice rough with tension, eyes scanning every jagged edge and undulating shadow. “Why’s that then, mister deacon? Is it the quiet – like we’re bein’ tailed by the nothin’? Or maybe the pitch-black all ‘round us, just waitin’ to leap out an’ slice our legs clean off? Or maybe…” he tilted his head toward Ethan. “…maybe it’s ‘cause his eyes done gone all fuckin' glowy again.”

  The rest turned as one.

  Indeed, Ethan’s irises shimmered faintly – a cold glow, just barely distinguishable against the jaundiced light of the lanterns. Blue. Not luminous so much as present – as though light leaked from beneath the surface rather than radiated out.

  Aether. It had stirred, thickened. The quintessence was growing increasingly abundant the further from the entrance they got.

  The others could keep their superstitions and emotional responses; Ethan required only cause and consequence. The glow was a recent development. Cranial pressure had preceded it, with gooseflesh mottling his skin soon after. The same phenomenon that had incipiently occurred with Lyra, before his senses dulled to her presence through proximity. His cloak and false tooth had behaved likewise.

  It was not an omen. It was mere reaction.

  “M-Mister H-Harbinger, sir,” Marcel stammered, ignorant of these facts. “Why are your eyes… glowing?”

  John’s hand dropped subtly to the hilt of a weapon beneath his cloak. Sensible reaction. Failure to assume the worst had long been the death of better men.

  Ethan turned slowly, deliberately, until he faced Marcel directly. He leaned in, casting his pale visage into deeper shadow.

  “Because, dear Marcel,” he rasped, voice hoarse and cavernous. “’Tis all a trap. I am the Ghost of Cain, come to deliver thee unto the Wild Hunt!”

  Marcel let out a choked scream, staggered backwards, and fell hard upon the stone. He scrabbled back against the wall, hands flailing for purchase that did not exist, auburn hair falling over his eyes.

  John stepped forward, sword halfway drawn.

  But the strike never came.

  Because Ethan began to laugh.

  A deep, unhinged cackle, hollow with menace and reverberating through the tunnel. The others exploded with mirth seconds later. Mary and Lyra were doubled over, clutching each other and wheezing helplessly. Warren tried to retain composure but ended up spluttering into his handkerchief, red-faced and teary-eyed. Simon rolled onto his back, boots flailing in the air as he howled with abandon.

  The laughter echoed far, twisted by the cave’s acoustics into warped, shrieking wails. Somewhere in the distance, miners paused mid-swing, cast nervous glances over their shoulders, and crossed themselves silently. They had heard such screams before – and none who made them were ever seen again.

  John sheathed his blade with a grumble, his pride evidently bruised. “Daft sods,” he muttered, though a reluctant grin crept across his face.

  Marcel, cheeks aflame with indignation, climbed to his feet and brushed himself off with all the dignity a boy could muster after being publicly humiliated. That is to say: very little.

  Ethan’s chuckling tapered into a satisfied smirk. The joke had landed, and he had earned it. Of course, more than half the humour had come from his unnerving countenance, but he chose not to dwell on such inconvenient truths.

  Stone shifted up ahead.

  The humour died as swiftly as it had flared.

  He froze. Then pivoted, hand flying to his sabre.

  His eyes narrowed into the tunnel ahead.

  “We have company,” he said flatly.

  Marcel threw up his hands. “You shall not trick me–”

  “He speaks true,” Lyra interrupted. “Two... no – three entities. They carry aether within them.”

  “Warren, with me,” Ethan’s voice turned flint-hard as he strode forward. “Simon, cover our backs. Rest of you – around Marcel.”

  Warren unsheathed his sabre without a word, taking Ethan’s left flank with practised ease. His jovial demeanour evaporated in an instant, replaced by sharpened readiness. Three more blades whispered free from their sheaths. Simon turned and faced the rear. Mary and Lyra circled Marcel, steel gleaming in lanternlight, aether pulsing around Lyra’s hand. There was no panic, no shouted instructions, no clumsy brandishing of blades.

  Except for Lyra’s subtle slowness, the shift was seamless. Discipline born of necessity.

  John blinked, surprise plain on his face.

  “What is it?” he asked from behind, eyeing Ethan and Warren – both of whom stood three paces ahead, their gazes fixed into the gloom.

  Ethan squinted. With the lanterns at his back, his darkvision prevailed at last. The details came in clear greyscale moments later.

  “Approximately two feet in stature, adorned in the rough approximation of a pitman’s garb, and presently more agitated than we are,” Ethan murmured, his tone dry but void of alarm. “It appears we have encountered a cluster of knockers.”

  A collective exhalation of relief echoed faintly behind him. Boots scuffed loose gravel as weapons were lowered and shoulders slackened.

  “They ain’t feral, then? Mouths not foamin’? What’s their game?” John persisted, the only one whose stance remained defensively rigid.

  “We are about to find out,” Ethan replied coolly as one of the creatures broke from its group and began to shuffle forward, limbs moving with an awkward but deliberate gait.

  Ethan placed his lantern to the side, balancing it carefully on the uneven granite, and crouched with the posture of a poised observer rather than a participant. The glow illuminated a radius of fractured stone and mineral veining, catching on the approaching figure’s warped silhouette.

  “Do refrain from any abrupt motion,” Marcel interjected, voice thin but urgent. “They are known to travel in larger units, if the volumes I recall are to be believed. Frighten them, and we may soon find ourselves encircled.”

  Ethan noted the information, shifted his leg to try and scratch an itch in his foot – failed – and resumed his watch.

  The approaching knocker stepped into the lantern’s halo. It was unmistakably humanoid, almost gnomish, though rendered uncanny by its proportions. The head was enormous – bald, liver-spotted, and glinting faintly with moisture. Shoulders were sloped and narrow, arms inordinately long, fingers tapping fretfully against its own ankles. Despite its size, its musculature was defined beneath a wrinkled dermis, taut as rope over sinew.

  Two others lingered behind, watching in silence. The trio of knockers were near-identical save for minute variations in facial geometry and hair. The one before him had no cap upon its scalp but wore a pair of dense, white mutton chops sprouting from its gaunt cheeks – giving it the unfortunate look of a gnarled banker turned feral.

  “Oi, Mary,” Simon muttered, jabbing her with an elbow. “Ain’t that yer nan?”

  She exhaled slowly. Then, in a movement of precise malice, she raised her foot and brought the heel down on his toes with unspoken finality.

  Simon grimaced but managed not to cry out, thanks in no small part to the group’s unanimous glare. Mary lifted her heel, satisfied, and turned her attention forward once more.

  “Mendapatmakanan,” croaked the diminutive creature. Its voice was roughened by dust, each facial twitch causing small flakes of grime to tumble from crevices in its skin. A thin trickle of powdered dirt fell to the stones as it moved its mouth.

  Ethan neither recognised the language nor attempted to guess. He offered a small shrug and shook his head slowly, hoping the gesture held pan-species clarity.

  The knocker reached into its tattered garb and withdrew a raw, uncut gemstone – an amethyst, no less than five carats. Its rough facets caught the lanternlight and fractured it into dull, violet refractions. It held the gem with possessive strength in a single, leathery palm.

  “Mendapatmakanan?” it said again, with more insistence, almost posing it as a question. This time it pointed at the amethyst, then to itself, then mimed a biting motion with exaggerated jaw movements.

  “I believe it may be requesting food,” Marcel offered softly, positioned behind Mary and John.

  Ethan let the provisions bag slip from his shoulder, undid the clasp, and withdrew a ham sandwich. He examined it with a perfunctory sniff, took a measured bite, chewed with apparent indifference, and swallowed. The knocker watched the act with mounting fixation.

  Its stomach audibly growled. One of its companions behind it began to salivate – visibly.

  “Mendapatmakanan!” the creature – Ethan dubbed it Mutton Chops – repeated, more fervently this time, wagging the amethyst toward him like a merchant hawking wares.

  “Aw, bless. The wee gremlins are starvin’,” Mary murmured with unexpected softness. Then, louder and with rather less tenderness: “Feed him, ye tight-fisted dogfish!”

  Ethan rolled his eyes – an act lost on Mary with his back to her, though not on Mutton Chops. The knocker gave a strange, burbling chuckle – eerily human in its timbre, as though it had overheard some scandalous drawing-room jest.

  Without comment, Ethan lowered both hands: one palm open, the other presenting the sandwich. Mutton Chops approached with exaggerated caution, grasped the sandwich in one hand – and, finding it too large to envelop – reluctantly placed the gem into Ethan’s waiting palm.

  Only then did it use both hands to lift the prize.

  Ethan curled his fingers around the gemstone with care and shifted his thumb clear of the sandwich. Mutton Chops attempted to hoist it, but the scale proved still problematic; it succeeded only in lifting the upper slice of bread before panicking and stabilising the structure.

  “Hey,” Ethan said levelly.

  Mutton Chops froze, the sandwich half-hoisted, both beady eyes wide and on fixed on Ethan.

  Ethan jerked his chin toward the others behind it. The meaning was clear.

  The duo of knockers hesitated, exchanged a glance.

  Fear warred with hunger.

  Hunger won.

  Always did.

  Slowly, they padded forward with soft steps.

  Ethan raised his arm and hovered the sandwich at chest height between the trio. They grasped it – awkwardly, but with unified determination – and together they carried it off, cradling it between them like a sacred relic.

  “Mendapatmakanan! Mendapatmakanan!” they chorused in hoarse celebration, vanishing into a crack in the rock face with haste.

  “For hideously geriatric midgets, they are almost endearing,” Ethan muttered, straightening with a discomforted groan. His knees ached from the prolonged crouch.

  Marcel let out a small, involuntary snort of amusement. No one else seemed inclined to indulge Ethan’s commentary.

  “A butty for a bloody gemstone,” John muttered, shaking his head. “Un-fuckin’-believable…”

  “I cannot believe ye swapped a bleedin’ sammich for a fuckin’ gem,” Simon parroted. “Oi – fancy tradin’ me that rock for my sandwich? I’ll throw in me pickle too!”

  “Am I two feet tall, covered in wrinkles, and prone to uttering gibberish?” Ethan responded with flat sarcasm as he collected his lantern and bag.

  “Well…” Simon drawled behind him.

  “The answer is no,” Ethan snapped, resuming his pace without turning. “Now be silent and walk.”

  Laughter trickled behind him. He ignored it with forced dignity.

  They did not make the bargain. I did.

  That mantra, at least, kept the embarrassment at bay.

  “By the bye,” Ethan said, shifting the topic abruptly. “That would not have been a Clayton-forged shortsword you raised at me earlier, would it, John?”

  “What, this old bob?” John replied, lifting a corner of his cloak to reveal the hilt. “Just a relic from me merc days. Ain’t Clayton made and ain’t nothin’ noble about it, if that’s what yer sniffin’ after.”

  Ethan made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat but refrained from pressing further.

  The seven of them pushed through the tenebrous depths until they reached what was unmistakably the end of the tunnel.

  There was no wall to stop them – rather, there was suddenly an absence of one. The lantern-light ceased to reflect off stone, and the acoustics changed; the echoes lost their sharp return and fell into a cavernous dissonance, reverberating until sound itself grew thin.

  The air shifted. Colder, staler, as though it had not been disturbed in centuries. From the feel of it, they had stepped into vast space – likely cathedral-sized, if not larger. Yet the full scale remained obscured. Even Ethan’s darkvision, superior though it was to human sight, could not perceive the ceiling, nor any boundary to left or right. Just an encroaching blackness that gave back nothing.

  They continued inwards of the chamber, lanterns raised, until even those wan pools of light could find no purchase. The sense of exposure was total. No walls, no ceiling, no certainty.

  Only the black.

  “We're here,” John announced flatly. His voice hit the walls somewhere in the distance and came back a distorted murmur, strange and hollowed, like the cavern itself had forgotten how to echo properly.

  Ethan’s arcane symptoms, subtle at first, had intensified with every step into the void. The aether here felt denser, more palpable. Like air that had grown too heavy. His skin prickled; the fine hairs on his arms and nape stood rigid. The dull pressure building at the base of his skull imploded into a headache.

  Not the most encouraging precedent.

  His eyes, now glowing with a cold cerulean hue, cast a faint azure luminance over the bony planes of his face, etching hollows beneath his brows and cheekbones. He said nothing of it. Nor did John or Marcel, who both had the courtesy – or the cowardice – not to ask.

  In the presumed centre of the chamber stood a pillar. Eight feet in height, hewn from some grey mineral devoid of lustre or ornamentation. Atop it sat a cylindrical object, no longer than a foot. It pulsed with latent power, the source of the magical pressure he had been tracking since they entered.

  “That thing there’s spookier than the rest o’ these bleedin’ mines put together,” Simon muttered, shifting restlessly at the perimeter.

  The sentiment, for once, was accurate. Even those without magical sensitivity were plainly disturbed. The air was motionless – completely still. Ethan concluded no wind had touched this place in generations. The air they breathed was likely as old as the pillar itself.

  “What in Heaven’s name is it?” Marcel asked, his voice more pinched than usual. He was staring at the cylinder as if it might blink.

  “A symbol, perhaps?” Warren offered, fingers plucking mole hairs. “Some totem of devotion or ancient rite?”

  Mary scoffed. “Not every bit o’ old stone what's carved is a bleedin’ altar, priestman,” she said, brushing past him. “Looks like somethin’ pinched off some nobby showroom.”

  “No…” Ethan’s voice emerged low and distant. He was staring at the cylindrical object with unbroken focus, brow knitted. His tone shifted, as though some other tongue had briefly borrowed his mouth. The others fell silent.

  Simon, naturally, broke it first. “Uh-oh. Ya alright there, ghost-face? Don’t be faintin’ on us just yet – we’re down to one elf with a shred o’ bedside manners.”

  Ethan ignored him. He stepped closer, until he stood at arm’s reach of the pillar, head craned back, unblinking gaze fixed on the sorcerous object. The pulse of magic quickened. He felt his awareness stretch – like skin pulled taut. The boundaries of his body blurred, replaced by a sensation not unlike drowning, if the water had been made of light. Almost what he experienced when Aelielaya healed him, though not quite.

  The cylinder called to him. Not metaphorically, not poetically. A literal pull upon the self, as though his mind were being drawn into a funnel and shaped anew within its contours. No words, no symbols – just pure transmission. Knowledge not told but embedded.

  The world around him began to fade.

  “A receptacle…” he murmured, eyes dancing across the dark structure without pause. “It stores information. Somehow. But what kind of…?”

  Noise behind him – he ignored it.

  “And how – how does one access it? The matrix is woven directly into the aether. Must be.”

  Pressure on his shoulder – ignored.

  “A latticework of–”

  A crack rang out, flesh against flesh – sharp and stinging.

  He reeled back as his awareness was yanked violently inward. Reality reasserted itself with all the grace of a hammer. Lyra stood before him, yellowed by lanternlight, hand still raised from the slap.

  “Back with us?” she asked, concern laced through every syllable.

  “I – yes. What…” Pain flared behind his eyes, a crushing migraine blooming like a bruise across his skull.

  He swayed. She caught him by the shoulders, bracing his descent. Warren and Simon moved quickly to flank him, supporting him by either arm.

  “Appreciated,” he muttered, though he lacked the breath to sound sincere. “Just a headache.”

  “Right…” Lyra did not look convinced. “If your brain is once more attached to your body, might I ask how you know all this?”

  She motioned to the unassuming pillar behind him.

  Ethan blinked, then shook his head to clear the mental fog. It hardly helped, only made the pounding worse. “Ghost of Cain. Wild Hunt. You know the refrain.”

  He shrugged off both Simon and Warren and turned back to the pillar, as if the conversation had ended. “The better question is, how does one activate it?”

  She gave him a long, unreadable look. That was not the end of that conversation, and he knew it. But she let it lie, for now. She moved to the pillar and began a slow, measured examination.

  Raising her arms, she rotated her wrists with fingers outspread, tracing deliberate, fluid gestures in the air. The movements were not arbitrary – he recognised them from Aelielaya’s rituals, though perhaps more stylised. Magic as method. Pattern over passion.

  Then the wind came.

  Soft at first, no more than a breeze. But it built steadily, whispering about the chamber in a restless spiral. It stirred their cloaks and hair alike as it rose, though perhaps not as much as their nerves. The sound of it bounced madly off unseen surfaces – walls, roof, perhaps hollows beyond – until the whole cavern resonated like a struck gong.

  Lyra remained motionless as the air whipped about her, cloak snapping like a pennant in a storm. Her hair floated up around her face. She placed both palms upon the cylinder.

  The wind died.

  Then: nothing.

  A full minute passed. The wind rose and fell again is gasping gusts. The pale elf stood like a statue throughout.

  Then: light.

  A single blue flame kindled atop the cylinder, flickering like a candle caught in breath. It shivered, almost died – but held. Then it lifted free, hovered a moment in place, and reshaped itself. Not into a creature or symbol, but into a burning sphere – like a fiery droplet cutting through the air.

  It descended into her hands, and she accepted it as though receiving communion.

  “A bluecap…” Marcel breathed.

  “No,” Lyra said, her voice soft but clear in the stillness. “A key.”

  “To open what?” Ethan stepped forward again, his symptoms already receding. Repeated exposure to magic had begun to forge a tolerance, or at least a delay to the collapse.

  Lyra looked at him, then staggered forward a pace. Her knees buckled, but she caught herself against the stone.

  Ethan closed the distance in a stride but offered no support. “A key to what, Lyra?”

  She steadied her breath. Her posture was poor, but her tone retained its steadiness.

  “The receptacle. That,” she nodded toward the cylinder atop the pillar. “But it is not whole. Only a quarter segment, if my estimation is correct. There are three more, and we must find them all before it will open.”

  Ethan exhaled slowly. Of course it would not be simple. That would be far too convenient.

  “And how, pray, do we accomplish that?”

  She looked up at him.

  “Give me your hand.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow, but complied without comment.

  "Palm up, please," Lyra instructed, more curtly this time.

  He turned his hand over, presenting it as though to a fortune teller. Her fingers closed around his hand – firm, though gentle – but instead of reading his future she merely guided the flickering blue flame closer to the appendage.

  The will-o'-wisp responded like a curious animal, breaking from her white palm and leaping onto his pale skin with disconcerting agility. It spiralled up his forearm in a tight helix, tracing lines of heat across the surface of his flesh, even through layers of clothing. He noted the path it took – likely the arterial lines, bone contours, nerve clusters.

  If it was hostile, it was conducting a survey before striking.

  "Do not panic," Lyra said quickly, evidently feeling the tension in his arm. "It is harmless. Merely... examining you."

  He did not dignify that with a response. Panic was a luxury for people who had something to lose. He simply observed the flame, cataloguing its trajectory as it coiled up past the elbow, the deltoid, then crept along the trapezius like a scouting insect. The warmth it left behind was oddly pleasant – a marked improvement over the pervasive subterranean chill – but the sensation remained unnervingly intimate.

  The others watched mutely. Even Simon and Mary kept their usual commentary suppressed, enraptured by the alien dance of magic at work.

  The flame reached his throat, circled the collarbone, then began a slow, spiralling ascent round his neck. When it reached his face, it hovered an inch below his nose, bouncing lightly in place. The heat singed the hairs inside his nostrils, releasing an acrid scent like scorched meat and rusted copper. He grimaced at the stench.

  Enough.

  He blew a puff of air out of his mouth sharply.

  The sudden gust of air knocked the bluecap from its place. It tumbled backwards in a lazy arc before reasserting itself, flitting back toward him with what Ethan could only describe as affronted indignation. It resumed its motion, now darting erratically in front of his eyes like a petulant insect.

  "I think it likes you," Lyra said, suppressed laughter curling around her words. She released his hand at last.

  "Am I meant to have gained some revelation from that display?" he asked, tracking the blue flame’s orbit around his scalp with narrowed eyes.

  "Yes," she replied, reaching toward it. The ball deftly evaded her grasp, weaving between her fingers with an impish flourish. "You are to remember what it feels like – warmth, presence, its texture on your senses. Particularly those of the Ghost of Cain variety."

  She cast him a wink laced with mischief.

  He gave no outward reaction, though a pulse behind his eyes reminded him the migraine from earlier had not entirely left. “And what am I to do with that knowledge?”

  "The ritual cost me more than anticipated," she admitted, her voice betraying her fatigue. "I shall require several days to recover sufficient strength to locate the other three. Until then, you are our only means of detection. Ergo, you must hunt for them. I can provide no further assistance in the interim."

  There was a pause.

  "Wait–" Simon’s voice cracked like a bootlace snapping. “Ye mean we’ve gotta comb the entire bleedin’ tunnels lookin’ for more o’ them magic blue floaty bastards? Horseshite!”

  "That is correct," Lyra said, the warmth vanishing from her expression as neatly as a flame snuffed by damp fingers.

  "The subterranean networks extend for miles," Marcel groaned, his mouth contorting into a frown. "We have not the time, nor the provisions for a full-scale excavation."

  “Aye, we’ll be down here till the stars fall in the ocean,” Mary added, running both hands though her flaxen hair. Her voice ricocheted around the chamber, warping until it resembled the wails of condemned souls.

  John muttered something under his breath in brusque Fovetongue, indecipherable but unmistakably unenthusiastic.

  Ethan rubbed his temple and exhaled through his nose.

  “Be silent,” he waited for the echoes to settle. “We are all remunerated for our presence here. Complain on your own time. Master Stonewater – think of this as an opportunity to grow intimately acquainted with the bowels of your future barony. This is knowledge you will not find in any inherited ledger.”

  Marcel grimaced but could not refute the logic. The rest exchanged glances and muttered discontent, but none made further protest. Professionalism would compel them forward – eventually. In the meantime, they would continue to vocalise their suffering, as if it improved the outcome.

  “Enough,” Ethan snapped, voice flint-sharp now. “We are here for the long haul. Let us make camp while we still have the strength. We eat, we rest, and then – when our minds are level – we begin mapping the tunnels.”

  The others shuffled into motion, grumbling as they retrieved supplies and began setting up in the vast, black chamber. The bluecap still circled above Ethan's shoulders, content, it seemed, to remain in orbit of his head.

  He sighed and retrieved a papelate. The will-o’-wisp surged forward the moment it was in his mouth and hovered below the tip until the tobacco began to smoulder.

  “Huh,” Ethan regarded it with a modicum of warmth. “Thanks.”

  The bluecap bobbed as though nodding and returned to it’s languid orbit.

  He exhaled a puff of smoke and lowered himself to the ground.

  It was time to start plotting search routes.

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