I awoke to a cool sunny morning, with a brisk breeze chasing away the clouds from last night's downpour. I could practically feel an early winter on its way, only a couple days into autumn. We might even get snow before the month was out. I shivered at the thought of having to walk through heavy snow in these scales again.

I was surprised to find the kitchen empty, save for Samson, who was busy messing with the oven, which had already been lit. He nodded his head towards me as I entered.

"The others are outside, sir," he said. "This should be ready in thirty minutes or less."

«Are you…making breakfast?» I asked. «Have you made a decision, then?»

"I think this is the best arrangement for now. At least until such a time as I can return to Yorving without being summarily executed. I do thank you for providing me shelter, but…." He spread his hands. "I'm afraid I'm not much good at things other than management, and a place as large as a castle would require a fuller retinue to work. Still, I will do my best."

«We were thinking about hiring people to help, but then the whole…you know,» I said. «Maybe there'll be an opportunity at some other point, but until then, just try not to work yourself to death.»

Samson chuckled. "Yes, sir."

I stepped out of the kitchen, meeting up with a tired Juniper who had limped from her bed to the front door of the hall before heading outside to find a hastily-organised long table, around which sat Grace, Arthur, and Yura.

Grace gave me a wave and a smile when she spotted me. "Good morning!" she said. "Glad you're awake. We have stuff to do."

«Oh, already?» I said, wryness slipping into my words. «After being up so late last night?»

Grace's smile faded. "Yeah. I'm sorry I couldn't have been there with you. Arthur already told me everything. It sounded hard."

«It's my job,» I said. «It's everyone here's job, actually. Sometimes we'll be separated, but I can take care of myself. So can they.»

Grace shrugged, looking down at the table. "I know. Still. I wish I could have done something, you know?" She steepled her hands. "So…how are you feeling? Arthur mentioned you had seen some kind of 'infectious carving'? Is it…messing with your head? Or hurting at all?"

I folded my wings and slipped to the side until I was laying down at the table. I tilted my head upwards, though I wasn't paying attention at all to my surroundings, and I fully honed in on my mind. Nothing felt different. Except the Fiend, who was still absent. I called out, tried listening for the fuming bubbles of thoughts that normally rose from the dark corners of my mind. But there was no response. I felt a heat in my chest when I focussed on that absence, like the way I felt right before breathing fire, and decided to stop.

«I'm fine,» I said.

Grace's mouth pressed into a thin line as she raised a concerned eyebrow at that. "Just 'fine'?"

«Just fine,» I reiterated.

She sighed. "Well, alright then. If that changes, please tell me. I don't know what you're dealing with when it comes to those carvings, but if it's causing a problem, I want to help."

«I will. I promise.» I tapped my claws against the table as more people arrived. «So. You know what happened with us; what happened with you in town?»

"Irritatingly little," Ingo said as he sat down beside us.

"Yes, it was rather quiet considering the events that happened the previous evening," said Yura. "We attempted to speak with some of the people in the Bellflower and Goldenrod Wards, but as we were warned, they weren't terribly interested in answering the questions of outsiders. At the very least, we did notice some odd markings around the parts of town we crossed. Small glyphs that even Prince Emrys couldn't identify, all engraved in bricks or stones, and all facing towards the canyon."

«That's…ominous,» I said. «Are they preparing for a ritual?»

"Most likely," said Yura.

"You forgot about the other thing," said Grace.

«What other thing?» asked Arthur.

"Chasseurs," said Grace. She jammed the hilt of her spear into the ground beside her and stood up, suddenly too emphatic and energised to stay seated.

«Those people again?» I said. «What were they doing?»

"Nothing," said Ingo.

"Nothing that we saw," amended Grace. "Except, of course, they were taking the lifts down to the Old Quarter. We saw eight overall, each in two-person pairs. All of them heading the same way. There's something going on down there, I know it. The vicar's talked about the Old Quarter like it's a gangrenous limb every time he's brought it up. They might be preparing for a massacre!"

"You're escalating this," said Ingo. "We don't know that."

"If it's a risk that big, we can't afford to gamble," Grace argued. "Barbosa has spoken repeatedly about a 'flame', a 'winnowing'. It's got to involve a lot of death, and if he's targeting anyone, the people of the Old Quarter are already people he doesn't like. We have to at least investigate."

"We don't even know if the chasseurs are working for him," said Ingo. "This is speculation."

«It's warranted,» I said. «Grace is right. The situation is bad, we can't afford to let anything slip through the cracks when there's lives on the line like this.»

"We also can't chase every thread," said Ingo. "We will run out of time that way."

«We aren't exactly spoiled for leads, here,» I said.

"No, but caution—"

«Ingo,» I said forcefully, cutting him off and looking him in the eye. «I've heard the arguments, and decided that looking into this is necessary. We're going to town and figuring out what the chasseurs are up to. It's time we actually learn something we can use.»

Ingo took a deep breath, but didn't respond, focussing on eating the slightly-burnt food that Samson had just brought as quickly as possible.

Yura leaned forward, stroking his chin as he glanced to me. "By 'we', do you mean 'you humans', or…?"

«No, I mean "we".» I nodded to the other dragons. «Rosalie and the rest of you, you're going to take Emrys to meet the college. Check in on their progress, and maybe see if they can tell us about these mystery glyphs around the city. Grace, you, me, Yura, and Ingo are going to go into the city and track the chasseurs down.»

Grace bit her lip nervously. "Are you sure you want to come with us?" she asked. "You're a little too big to hide. If the guard spots us, it'll be a fight in the streets."

«I have an idea about that,» I said. By that, I meant that I had just had the idea. It sprang into my head right as Grace was asking the question, as though it were a thought I'd already had that I had just remembered out of the blue. The odd thing was, despite it being a way of using my curse that I had never tried before, I was confident that I could make it work. «Besides, I'm the only one in this flight that knows how to pick locks. I have a feeling that'll be useful.»

Yura shrugged. "If you're certain, I'll assume you know what you're doing," he said.

Grace didn't seem as convinced, but by now I was used to her worrying about every little thing I did. I knew it was possible, even though I couldn't explain why or how.

"Why me?" asked Ingo. "You know I'm not good at sneaking around."

«If a fight does happen to break out, I want you with us,» I said. «You're the best fighter here. If those hunters have some kind of special training or alchemical enhancement, like we do, I want to be able to rely on something other than our short training and the Key.»

For some reason, Ingo seemed mildly annoyed at that, but didn't protest any further until he finished his food and abruptly stood. "I'm going to get ready," he said curtly. "I'll be waiting at the gate."

Rosalie watched him march away with an acidic look. "I still can not believe they thought he would be able to function on a team," she muttered once Ingo had shut the door behind him.

"He is rash," said Brand. "He speaks like a man in pain, though."

"Pain, hm?" said Yura

"As if his words are driven by memories that he wishes he didn't remember," said Brand.

«I don't think any of us have no regrets,» I said. «I'll have a talk with him about not being so thorny once I get a chance, but unless he does something that actively hurts the flight, I should hope that I don't need to direct the rest of you not to badger him about this.» I gave Rosalie a pointed glance.

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She nodded with the rest of the flight, and we split after eating. I led Juniper to a place in the garden where she could nap in the sun and enjoy the cool breeze at once. Being a mountain dog, I knew she must be missing the cold temperatures of the Fountainheads, and only now were we able to experience similar weather to how it had been up there a month ago. Once I got her to lay down and watched her wearily close her eyes, I went into the keep's stripped-bare lower hall for some privacy while I enacted the idea I had.

I focussed in the same way I did when I shifted normally. By now, I had gotten past needing to send myself back to that endless sea in my mind every time I wanted to return to human form, but this time, I went back there. I felt the rush, like a dam being opened, but rather than pulling up the line, I just gave it a little tug, ten let it lay. I felt an odd sensation of buoyancy briefly flow through my body before the changes happened.

They were rapid, even more so than normal shifting. My bones popped as they shrank, taking a couple feet off my height as my wings folded into my back and merged with my body again. My head and neck itched, and my hands were stretched by an invisible force, and then it was done. I opened my eyes to see the interior of the keep seeming much larger all around me. I sat down and tried to feel out what had changed.

I was still quadrupedal; it seemed like the only change to my body structure was the loss of my wings. My face was still the same, but I had hair again. It was really more of a mane than human hair, going from the back of my head to the base of my neck, but I was hopeful that as long as it didn't look so human-like as to be freakishly out of place, it would serve to disguise me from any of the vicar's men. My hands had changed only a little with my fingers having gotten a little longer and more dexterous, more like how they were as a human.

I stopped and stared at my hand. "How the hell did I do that?" I muttered. It took me a moment to realise I had spoken out loud, and not even in Valish Draconic. My voice was back, albeit deeper and more gravelly, and with a slight lisp from my forked tongue.

Needless to say, having things just pop into my mind was deeply concerning. I was still worried about that carving, and the disappearance of the Fiend. I was sure I'd be thinking about it either until the situation resolved itself, or until I managed to completely forget about it. Still, for now, I was not complaining about gaining a little more control over my curse. Being able to speak human language even though my head and throat had barely changed was very heartening, and I wondered if I could use this newfound control to be able to speak human language when I was fully in dragon form.

My robe was no longer the right size, but thankfully it now fit over me like a cloak, and I made sure to tie it in such a way that a few strands of my mane were visible. Hopefully the guards wouldn't be stopping just any dragon they saw, and all of this would keep me from getting their attention. I headed out into the yard.

The other dragons were already flying away, and Grace, Ingo, and Yura were waiting by the gate. Grace and Yura were shocked to see me.

"What happened to you?" Grace asked.

"I think I would call it a 'breakthrough'," I said aloud. "My control is getting better, I think."

"That's good," said Grace. "That's great, actually! Do you think you're any closer to turning fully human again?"

"I…don't know about that," I admitted. "Maybe? I didn't even think to try."

"Oh," said Grace. Her face fell. "That's okay. Um…well, if you're ready, we should go. It doesn't look like you'll be carrying us there like that."

"Absolutely not," I agreed. "I wouldn't even if I did have wings like this. We want to avoid attention on this trip. Remember that."

In the days since we arrived in Yorving, this was the first time I'd actually walked from Elderstone Castle to the city. It was a couple miles' journey, and with my now shorter legs, it was a tiring one. I could tell the strength and endurance that I had as a dragon was degraded in this form, though still a little better than it was as a human. Thankfully the road was clear of people, but I could still feel my trepidation rising as the walls and buildings climbed up over the hills ahead and the canyon came into view.

The only true gates were to the city's north and south, but as we approached, I ushered the group off the road and through the western fields. Ingo scowled as soon as he felt grass under his feet. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"There's a smaller entrance on the west wall, north of the river," I explained. "I've seen a few people coming and going when we've flown over the city, but there's much less traffic, and I doubt it's guarded as well as the main two."

"The guards didn't stop us yesterday," said Ingo.

"They might stop me," I pointed out. "This shape is a lot better for being quiet, but if we had to pass an investigation at the gate, there's no form I can use right now that wouldn't raise suspicion."

"Which is why it would have been wise for you to stay out of this," Ingo grumbled.

I pointedly ignored that comment, stoking my confidence in my decision. It was worth it for me to be here, I knew that much. We got closer, leaving the fields and walking through the small groves of trees that split off from the Witchweald that bordered Yorving's northern wall until we approached the soaring stone edifice. At first, I was worried I might have been wrong about what I had seen on my flights. I hadn't done a thorough inspection, and with what appeared to be a solid wall of cut stone in front of us, there wasn't any indication of even a door, let alone a city gate.

I pressed myself against the rock at the sound of people patrolling the battlements overhead, and the others followed suit. It didn't sound like there were a huge throng of guards, but there were enough to raise an alarm if they spotted us illegally entering.

"It doesn't seem that we can find entry here," said Yura. "Perhaps you saw people walking through the river gate? I'm sure they must have a process to let people in there if they're not on a ship."

"No, I definitely saw them right here. We're too far from the river for me to have made a mistake like that." I stepped a few paces away and held up one hand against the stone. There was something about the imperfections in the surface that seemed…familiar. The divots were aligned in a way that wasn't natural. Three sets of small holes and gouges were clearly arranged like they were a message.

"There's something here," I said. "These depressions, someone must have made them on purpose. But I can't tell what it means."

Ingo abruptly held his cane out, herding me back. "Move," he ordered, and felt the wall himself. His hand passed over the holes in succession, and then he ran his finger along the mortar beneath the last cluster until he stopped and pushed on a specific spot. A tiny piece of rock that I hadn't noticed in the mortar pressed into the wall like a switch, accompanied by a grinding sound. Then Ingo heaved against the wall with his shoulder, and it swung open on a hinge, revealing a tiny, rough passageway beyond.

"Impressive," said Yura. "I didn't know you had knowledge of secret codes."

"It isn't secret," said Ingo. "It was written in Somatic Script. It's a way of writing Lundenian with holes so that you can read it by feeling it instead of seeing. Except that thieves use it to leave messages for each other, since almost no one knows how to read it if they aren't blind. Many don't even if they are."

That's where I was remembering it from! I recalled some of the messages my old crew had left to mark out stash or ambush locations on the roads around Vandermaine. They didn't seem to know that it was an actual script, though. I never would have thought that we were leaving abbreviated messages rather than abstract symbols.

"I'm glad you know it, then," said Grace.

"Thank my father," said Ingo. His voice grated against that sentence. "He was always insistent I learn. Come on. We should hurry."

We quickly stepped through the doorway, and shut it behind us. From this side, it was an easy-to-find wooden lever that sealed or opened the door, and I made sure to shut it before we went on.

The narrow tunnel that took us through the wall soon opened into an alleyway in the city proper, but it was difficult to tell where exactly the transition was because of how cramped even this intentional street was. Buildings, all stacked atop one another, pressed against the wall, and almost any available space was filled. Even over our heads, rooms jutted off of the structures around us to completely cover the road. It was a lot like the Old Quarter, with the road seeming to incorporate parts of the buildings around as it meandered haphazardly through tight corridors and around small towers.

"This is the Bellflower Quarter," I said. "At least, I think it is. It'll be a walk to where we need to get to, so just keep your heads down."

Grace looked all around us at the jumble of buildings. "Yeah, this doesn't look anything like the ward we found that doctor in," she said. "This is a lot more…."

"It's a slum," said Ingo. "In a city this big, I'm not surprised the Old Quarter isn't big enough for everyone the rest of society doesn't want to see."

"Harsh way of putting it, but you're right," said Grace. "I wouldn't be surprised if Barbosa has it out for this area, too.

It was a struggle to navigate our way eastward. A sign helpfully informed us that this area was known as the "Ducal Cross", but there were few identifiers other than that simple name. There were even fewer people on the street, and those that were out hurried with their heads down, giving us frightened glances as they passed us by.

More so than any place I had been up until now, this place smelled overwhelmingly of human scent. Not blood, not filth, not any form of cleansing item, just the strong scent of human people. Occasionally there were other scents mixed in—a dash of floral and herbal spice as we passed by a shadowed herbalist, a whiff of coal as we walked around a corner dominated by a nail smith, and every so often a faint smell like a fresh spring breeze mixed with salt that I didn't recognise. Although the streets were mostly empty, this place was very lively behind its walls.

It was almost enough to lull me into a sense of safety. Then we went down a set of stairs, where the city cut into a hillside next to the smoky Parapets district to the north. A large square stood empty and vacant next to an inner wall that separated the Cross from the rest of the quarter. Twelve streets split off from the plaza, with each corner having a different kind of shop taking advantage of the traffic. A lone tunnel went through the wall, connecting this little enclave to the rest of the city.

The air turned bad the moment we approached the plaza, though. Death was in the air, and its source wasn't hidden. On either side of the tunnel, hanging from nails driven into the wall, were four human corpses. They were all of a similar age, young adults that would have had plenty of life left in them had it not been cut short. The bodies couldn't be more than twenty-four hours old, but they had already been bled dry, from slash wounds and bullet holes that had torn their threadbare clothes apart. There wasn't anywhere in the square that you couldn't see them. Each one had a wooden sign hanging from around their neck, and I had to tiptoe closer to read them:

The Luminary Church condemns this WARLOCK. Let all who see their fate know the cost of dealing in dark magics. WARLOCKRY such as this must be reported when witnessed. Only speak Truth, only know Light.

"Oh no…" Grace whispered as she stepped to my side. "That's horrible."

"Do you think they were innocent?" asked Yura. "Warlockry is a rather damning accusation to make, from what I understand."

"It is," I whispered. "But it's also an easy accusation. I bet Barbosa isn't even giving people like this a trial. His marauders probably just shot them dead."

"We should ask if anyone here knows who killed them," said Grace. "If it was the chasseurs, it might give us a lead on where to find them."

"Good idea," I agreed.

I stood, making to turn towards the friendliest-looking shop off the square, when something blazing hot hit me square in the side of the head, right where my horn met my skull. It wasn't enough to hurt, the impact didn't have much force behind it, and it wasn't hot enough that it got through my resilient scales, but it still made my head jerk to the side on instinct.

"Hey!" Grace shouted, and I heard her boots slam against the ground as she sprinted away.

I whipped around, patting the hood of my cloak to get rid of the cinders before they could catch, and watched Grace disappear into a side alley. "Grace, stop!" I hissed, but she didn't listen. Yura took up the chase behind her, and I growled and followed, sprinting as fast as my legs could take me after my unseen assailant.

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