“So, where does this Keeper of yours live? Inner city, with all the rest of the exploiting, governmental types?” Raesh asked, faux-sweetly, as she and Hector walked together down the pathway away from the safehouse, in the opposite direction of their Chantry friend.

“Middle ring,” Hector responded, short and to the point before glaring at his companion slightly. “She doesn’t exploit anyone.”

“Except Surgebinders who did nothing wrong except move here from the West, you mean.”

“Dahl’s the one who had you arrested, and, besides, I looked at your file after Ehud mentioned you’d been arrested. You’ve hardly been completely innocent during your time here.”

“Why, because I spoke to some entrepreneurs in their fields?”

“They’re theives and smugglers! And you went straight for them.”

“They wouldn’t need to be smuggling if your city didn’t have such outrageous tariffs on any exports that weren’t conducted by the Transportation Guild.”

“It incentivises–”

“A monopoly?” Raesh inserted innocently.

“Worker protection!” Hector snapped back. “Tell me, are there any age limits on who works for your smuggler friends out in the slums? Or do they have ten year olds loading and unloading goods for massive chunks of the day?”

“You think ten year olds can’t use money?”

Hector spun on her and just stared for a moment. “Are you defending child labor?”

“Are you defending taxes?”

“Those are not the same thing!”

“At least one is voluntary.”

“Ten year olds can’t consent!”

“Maybe you couldn’t; I could see you being that mentally impaired.”

Hector made a wordless sound of frustration and annoyance before taking a deep breath. “You’re taking an extreme position to screw with me.”

“Well, it’s what you get for immediately jumping to child labor to make your point.”

Hector sighed. “Alright, I guess that’s fair. Smuggling is still bad though.”

“Cause it’s against the law?”

“Well. Yes.”

“If that’s your only reason for why a thing is wrong, I think there’s something wrong with your definition of morality.”

“It’s wrong because… they’re cheating the hard-working people out of their earnings by stealing their market and undercutting prices due to their willingness to break the law and avoid the tariffs that more honest citizens have to pay.”

“So the natural solution is to get rid of the tariffs entirely so that honest, hard-working citizens don’t have to deal with an undue government burden.”

“You understand that governments need money to function, right?”

“Do they really though? Maybe they should provide a service that people actually want to buy for them to get that.”

“That… means laws would be instituted by the highest bidder! I thought you didn’t like rich people?”

“Oh, rich people are great when I can steal their money.”

“That is neither here nor there to the point.”

“Maybe you’re just not keeping up.”

“You are insufferable.”

“What’s your problem with Surgebinders?”

Hector looked like he had just gotten whiplash. “What?”

“You reacted poorly specifically when Kazere pointed out that I was a Surgebinder. What’s your problem?”

“Maybe I just don’t like you and am not keen on someone with your obvious lack of moral standards walking around with the power to summon fire from your fingers or whatever.”

“So, you’re jealous?”

“No.”

“Liar; everyone wants to be able to shoot fire from their fingers– even me, since that’s not a thing I can do. So what’s your problem again?”

“I don’t have a problem!”

“Come on, spill. Did a Surgebinder kill your parents or something?”

“Wow, that’s insensitive.”

“Have I seemed to have an abundance of sensitivity so far?”

And then Hector looked at her for a moment– and laughed.

Raesh blinked as he started walking again. “Wait, hold on. How was that funny? What was funny about that?”

“Bothers you that you don’t know, doesn’t it?”

“You overestimate my interest.”

“Alright.”

They walked in silence for a bit longer.

“Now you’re just being boring,” Raesh told him.

Hector breathed a laugh. “You remind me of Leon.”

“What, cause we both have darker skin? You know, that’s kind of–”

“Yeah, whatever, do you want to know or not?”

Raesh rolled her eyes. “If only so that I can have more material to poke at you, fine.”

“He basically did the same thing when we met, except I got even more prickly. It was pretty much my first time away from the environment where I grew up, and there weren’t a whole lot of people like him in the army– most of them were more like me. I don’t know why he decided that I was the one he needed to go poke fun at, but I’m glad he did.”

Raesh considered that for a moment. “Why would you tell me that?”

Hector shrugged. “I felt like it. We’re almost to Ialdi’s House; you should probably hide or something.”

I found a comfortable place to land, taking my perch on a tree nearby where the pair of them had stopped, and watched the way that Raesh gave Hector a scrutinizing look before nodding and stepping into the shadows of an alleyway next to Ialdi’s house.

I hadn’t received an order to watch them, but I was curious. Besides, it would be entertaining when, later, the little warlock wondered what his friends were doing and I was able to provide explanations and updates. My Rift-enhanced avian eyes focused in on the door as Hector knocked on a it a couple of times, uncertainty momentarily crossing the knight’s expression before he forced it to clear.

The door didn’t open.

Hector frowned heavily and then knocked again, louder and more insistent.

Still nothing.

Curious, I fluttered down a little closer, landing on the roof of the house next door to see if maybe I could see through one of the windows.

Below me, Raesh looked up and spoke, “Did Kazere send you to spy on us?”

I most certainly did not startle, nor did I nearly fall off the roof and be forced to flutter my wings in an undignified manner to maintain my composure, but I did glare pretty heavily at the black-haired woman as she successfully gained my attention.

She looked a little uncomfortable, a little nervous about talking to a bird, but she had seen me channel my master, I remembered, so she knew. Still, I could have been a normal raven.

I ignored her and went back to trying to catch a glimpse of movement through the window.

“Hey.”

I sidestepped as she started to poke at me with a stick she had picked up from the ground, making an indignant cawing sound.

“I’m talking to you,” Raesh insisted.

I couldn’t see even a shred of doubt in her eyes, a hint of hesitation, so I sighed. “What do you want?”

Raesh dropped the stick and jolted back slightly. “I… didn’t actually expect you to talk.”

I stared at her some more.

“Did Leon send you?”

“No. You should go tell the knight that someone is definitely in the house.”

“Are you just trying to get rid of me?” 

I didn’t dignify that with a response, flying off instead and landing back in the branches of the tree across the street, waiting as the Surgebinder gave up and then walked back over to the front of the house, where Hector was also trying to peer through the front windows, looking close to giving up.

“Someone’s inside,” Raesh said.

Hector jumped. “Fates, woman. You should wear a bell.”

“Would kind of defeat the purpose of me being kept out of sight,” she pointed out wryly. “I saw someone through the window, though. They appear to be avoiding us.”

Hector sighed heavily. “I wanted to do this peacefully.”

“Well, they didn’t.” Raesh shrugged and then walked over to the door, reaching up into her hood and removing a couple of lockpick tools that had either been hidden in the hood of the shawl itself or used to pin up her hair underneath in some way. “Cover me.” She knelt down in front of the door and got to work, while Hector sighed and put his body between her and passersby on the street who could potentially notice a problem.

A few moments later, the door clicked open, and Raesh stood, holding it open for Hector with a smile on her face.

He entered, hand on the handle of his weapon.

Raesh held the door open a moment longer, and I realized she was doing it for me. I flew over, accepting the invitation as offered, landing on her shoulder.

Raesh smiled at me somewhat smugly and then entered the dark house, door clicking shut behind her.

In the darkness that prevented the humans from seeing, I flew over to a hidden place up high in the corner of the room to have a good view of the situation as it unfolded.

“Tiana,” Hector called out, soft but firm, “I know you’re here. We need to talk.”

“I didn’t expect it to be you,” Ialdi said softly, and the lights turned on, orange, lavasliver generated illumination flooding the room.

She was seated in the corner, her gun resting on the armrest. “I sent Don away. He never would have run, so I made up some excuse to be angry with him, kicked him out. Between Kazere and Dahl, I figured someone was probably going to show up to kill me. I just wasn’t sure who.”

“We’re not here to kill you, Tiana,” Hector said quietly, removing his hand from his heavy blaster altogether. “Just to ask where Leon’s team was put, when they were moved and where. Why would we want to kill you?”

“Kazere might as well have said as much!” Tiana snapped. She looked so old in that moment, I thought– her brown hair seeming more gray than it ever had, the wrinkles on her face appearing almost sunken, demonstrating so clearly the frailty of humans. “We betrayed him. We all did. Let him go to jail on Rufais’ whims. The Highlord, the High Inquisitor, and the Hero of Ildanach– which one were we supposed to pick? I should have known better. I’ve seen him fight. I should’ve known better. Death incarnate.”

“Ialdi,” Hector snapped slightly, “you’re losing it. We’re not here to kill you. I doubt Rufais has any plans to kill you. Dahl is another question, but you’re not going to make any headway with him with insane ramblings.”

“If we were here to kill you,” Raesh spoke up, “I would most definitely have done it already.”

Tiana’s eyes flickered over Raesh momentarily. “You’re the girl Dahl arrested, the one he had put in the cell. The one Kazere wanted to talk to. I suppose you would have,” she determined, and then looked back at Hector. “His team was in my dungeons for a day, if even that. Then those monks came to get them, all covered in cloth, wrapped like for a burial.”

“Monks don’t cover their faces,” Raesh pointed out, voice sharp. “They just wear robes. Those were the kidnappers, the zealots being used as agents for their schemes.”

“Then they are in the Chantry dungeons,” Hector said quietly.

“We already knew that,” Raesh snapped and turned back to Ialdi. “How long exactly were they there? Do you make a habit of handing over your prisoners to strangers wrapped in cloth?”

“He’s the Inquisitor! What was I meant to do?”

“The right thing,” Hector said softly. “You were meant to do the right thing.”

“He’s the High Inquisitor of the Chantry, of the highest covenant, sworn to Palados. Following him is meant to be right.”

“If your morality is bound in a human person, tyranny is unavoidable. Why do you think Akuma made himself a god?” Raesh said, disgust evident in her tone.

“I am sworn to obey the Highlord, the Highlord says jump when the Chantry says jump. You have no evidence that anything bad is happening outside of the law.”

“We have a Chantry official who was shown a jar of blood and viscera from the victims, actually, so yeah. I think we do,” Hector snapped.

“There’s no point in telling her that. She’s going to keep hiding behind others, claiming she was only following orders. I bet that’s what the agents of the Purge said as they fed their neighbors and brethren to the Rifts in a mass genocide. Do you think it mattered to their consciences or to death when it came?” Raesh demanded. “When, exactly, where they taken from your authority?”

“The log book would have the date. They told me not to write it, but I did,” Ialdi said quietly, meekly. “I’m sorry, Hector. I…. Tell Leon, I’m sorry.”

“I would imagine he’d tell you the same thing I’m about to– sorry doesn’t mean much if you’re going to do it all over again next time,” Hector rebounded, and they turned to leave.

“I won’t,” Ialdi said, quiet, and then with growing strength as she stood up. “You’re right. He was right. I made a mistake out of fear, and then I was reduced to a paranoid rambling—” she cut herself off and shook her head. “I forsook everything I was meant to stand for when I let him be arrested for nothing. I don’t expect you to accept my apologies. But if you need anything else, I won’t make that mistake again. I swear.”

Raesh looked floored.

Hector was similarly surprised, but he slowly smiled. “I believe you.”

“I’ll call off the hunt,” Ialdi continued. “I can’t guarantee that everyone will listen– Chirone in particular seems to have something personal against Leon. But most should let it go. He can walk as freely as I can let him. You all can.”

Hector hesitated and then walked over and, to Tiana’s surprise based on her reaction, hugged her. “Good luck.”

“You as well,” she echoed quietly.

The pair of them left her house, Raesh still apparently shell-shocked.

“We should go get the log book,” Hector said, “for that exact timeline, make it easier to question the Chantry officials when we get there, see where they were taken specifically.”

Raesh nodded mutely and then shook herself. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t stick around to keep an eye on them, instead flying off to the other matter of interest, though getting inside of the Cathedral of the Chantry wasn’t likely to be an easy feat.

After circling the massive building a couple of times, I decided to do something else, something I was far less keen on doing, but would get me the results for which I was looking. I landed on a branch outside of the Cathedral, and closed my eyes, extending my consciousness and drifting through the stone walls, looking for Sryes.

She had been intending to explore the dungeons and the catacombs beneath the Cathedral, I thought, so I went downwards, and discovered the unused and dusty prison cells she had mentioned. I went to the end of them and found Keric Thurien’s lab, with him inside of it.

It was reminiscent of an herbalist’s lab, but with a far less medicinal feel to the liquids being brewed, bubbling away in their flasks after having been distilled. There was a large, old and rotting wooden table that took up the majority of the middle of the cell on which the glass and tubes of distilling equipment rested; it was also littered about with different colored flasks and the occasional scrap of paper with alchemical formulas or anatomical graphs upon them.

What had once been the cell bed had been elevated by wooden blocks shoved under its legs and seemed to function as a poor excuse for a desk, books stacked high upon it along with more sheafs of papers and writing implements. Finally, a narrow bookshelf, just as old and rotted as the desk, was crammed into the corner, holding yet more aged books on a number of scientific subjects. Also resting on that bookshelf were jars filled with fluid and body parts– eyes, a heart, and others.

The man himself was standing near the bed turned desk, peering intently at a book and muttering nonsensically to himself under his breath while he occasionally scribbled on a piece of scrap paper that rested at the side. He wore all black clothes, but they were faded enough to appear gray at the joints. It was difficult to tell if his hair was graying quite early or if it was simply accumulated dust and ground stone that peppered the black– likely a combination of the two.

Once I had finished my cursory sweep, I drew closer to the bookshelf, peering at the titles. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to the way they were crammed onto the shelf, nor even a cohesiveness to their topics. Books about biology and medicines rested next to history texts on the time of the Purge. A chronology of the heretical prophecies of a Turyn who had been a young girl during the geocide, and a far more recent history on “Notable Figures of the Akuma-Nyorai War” were all in prominent positions and appeared to have been recently removed based on the half-hazard way they were shoved back into a space too small for them.

Leaving the shelf, I went to look a little closer to the flasks and fluids, but it was hard to make heads or tails of them, not only because I wasn’t well versed in such things but also because I was limited to only two of my senses– sight and hearing. I could not smell their contents, nor could I pick them up and examine the way they moved, or try to test them on an object.

“It’s rather rude to come in and look at all my things and not even say hello.”

I startled, maintaining my concentration for just long enough to redirect my attention and find Keric Thurien’s shadow speaking to me, before I snapped back to awareness of my physical body, shaking slightly.

Humans couldn’t do that.

My master’s words to Leon echoed back through my mind, You might not be the only one around with a deal with higher powers anymore. We had both assumed he’d been talking about Dahl, but thinking back… it had been right after a conversation with Keric that he had said it.

A deal with higher powers, I wondered, or was he a higher power himself?

I ruffled my feathers and steeled my nerves to head back inside of the building, to avoid Keric and find either Jesne or Leon’s teammates– or perhaps to head right back to Keric, a significant part of me deeply drawn to try and figure out his secrets. That was foolishness, though, an imprudent and unwise action. Ah, but the temptation was so strong.

While I sat contemplating, the decision was taken from me entirely, as none other than Keric himself exited the Cathedral, looking around casually.

“Why did you run, little spirit?” he called out, drawing stares from a few random travelers in the courtyard. “You seemed so interested in my work. I’d love to show it to you.”

I hesitated, but only for a moment. Then I flew down and landed a little closer to him.

Keric turned almost instantly, though I kept my eyes on his shadow– it moved with him, short considering the early time of the day, seemingly entirely normal. “Well, hello there.” He extended his hand.

I looked at it for a moment and then hopped onto his wrist, my talons digging into his skin.

He either didn’t notice or didn’t care as he stood, lifting me up to his height unflinchingly. “Do you serve the White Church, little bird? Sent to see our progress?” he asked me, petting me with his other hand.

I shook off his fingers, pecking at him briefly.

He smiled slightly as he stopped.

What was the White Church? Lying probably would have gotten me more answers, but that wasn’t an option, so I tried something else. “No. But we heard you did.” I may have only heard it just now, from him, two seconds ago, via an inference, but it wasn’t a lie.

Keric’s eyebrow raised slightly. “Is that so? Well, isn’t that interesting. Tell me, are you from their land?”

“We have similar but opposing interests,” I said instead of answering, once again, the words mostly inference and guess work, but anyone called a “church” and working with the Chantry was likely not to be our friend, and we were definitely interested in this.

“Fascinating. And tell me, little bird, do you have an offer for us? An attempt to turn us against our dear patrons? Or are you just a spy?”

“Right now? Obviously I’m just a spy.”

Keric looked at me for a moment and then started laughing. “You are a delightful little thing, aren’t you? No lies in you at all.”

What was it Jesne had said? ‘He has this uncanny knack for spotting lies’. And he seemed to value truth in consequence, not unlike my master. “I can’t lie.”

Keric’s eyes widened; he looked, suddenly, utterly besotted in a strange way– obsessed. “You cannot? Tell me, little bird, why is that?” There was barely bridled excitement in his tone, as though I had just offered him a plate of gold rather than a simple statement on my obligatory truthfulness.

“It’s part of the nature of my existence.”

Keric’s eyes glowed with intense enthusiasm. “Tell me, are you a servant of some higher being? A being from beyond? Who also cannot lie?”

“And if I were?”

Keric laughed delightedly. “I would ask what I can do for you! I would very much like an audience with your master. Come with me! Let me show you around, show you our work. You seemed interested.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked back into the Cathedral, me still on his arm.

“Does the Church not frown upon deals such as mine? Would your overseers not be displeased to hear you showing your work to an opposing force?”

“Bah! They’re a temporary employee, aware that I am here for my own interests. My own interests are, I think, more aligned with yours. I seek the Great Gods that speak no lies.”

Was he just talking about Riftlings, like my master? Or was he talking about something else? I supposed it didn’t actually matter for my purposes. “To what end?”

“To serve them! They are the Great Ones, the ones beyond comparison or comprehension. I have no greater desire than to be their servant, to pledge myself to them. I have spoken no lies in years, bound myself to their truth,” Keric sounded slightly wistful as he spoke. “I have hoped that someday they would reveal themselves to me, and I would show I had been faithful. Will you tell your master, little bird? Of my dedication?” He was taking me down a flight of stairs now, down to the dungeons below and his laboratory area.

“I think it’ll come up,” I said, feeling a bit apprehensive as he took me back to where we had first encountered one another, only this time I had all my senses at my disposal.

The smell was poignant, like a million spice bottles had all been broken and mixed with the overpowering smell of a rotting corpse or two. It was overwhelming, overpowering, and awful. I nearly gagged.

Keric, though, seemed entirely unaffected by it, walking over and picking up a flask with dark green, viscous liquid. “See this? It’s the most effective poison that has ever been made– to humans, anyway. If they ingest but a single drop, they will die an excruciating painful death as though burning alive. If it gets on the skin, it eats away at it like acid and can burn a hole straight through a limb!”

“I… see….” I swallowed, trying to recover my nerve, to ignore the overwhelming smells and my conversation partner’s sadistic excitement. “Did you test it on a human subject, then?”

“Oh, several. Or, at least, they were mostly human.” He chuckled to himself. “The High Inquisitor has been most lax about what I do with the failures.”

“The failures?” I repeated.

“Oh, you haven’t seen! Come, my little friend, let me show you!”

Keric left his small laboratory and moved to the cell across from his, just a normal, dusty, unused prison cell among many, but he moved into it with a purpose. “It’s been a real annoyance having to try to keep the place dusty. Every day or so I sweep up a bunch of it in the hallway and let it resettle. Always gets dust on all my things too.” He walked over and reached under the low cell bed, activating some kind of trigger that remained out of sight for me.

A trap door simply dropped open in the furthest corner from the main entrance to the dungeon, directly across from the bed, and, peering into the darkness, I saw a staircase descending into the black abyss.

Keric smiled broadly, his own eyes glowing suddenly, brighter than they had been, the brown gaining a tinge of silver. “Tell me, little bird, can you see in the darkness?”

“Yes,” I said, quiet, almost numb.

“Wonderful. Then we won’t need a torch.” With that, he plunged into the darkness, taking me with him.