A wave of trembling fear fanned out from Khazmine in all directions. Detecting the outcast's discomfort, the sedated D’jabarese child in Khazmine’s knapsack squirmed uncomfortably against her back. A rush of heat from the sleeping southerner’s body blossomed against the outcast's spine, yet she still shivered in place, obscured in the alleyway.

Khazmine listened well to the warning of her choir and remained still, concealed behind a large, ragged crate. The voices demanded that the outcast wait and informed her that “they” were coming.

Heavy, armored footfalls landed a few feet away from the alley where Khazmine was hiding. If she had to guess, it was a pair of men walking in concert, their steps a regular pattern that mimicked a quickened heartbeat. Sensing more than truly feeling it, the outcast shuddered at an unexpected “imprint”—a vague trace from an approaching ether user. She listened carefully with ears drawn back and breath held when one set of footfalls halted in front of the alley’s opening.

“Hey, what’d you stop for?” a smooth-voiced man asked, filling the air around him with a musical quality as he turned back to face the other half of his pair. “Mister Hallem? Sir?”

“A moment, corporal,” Mister Hallem sneered. The armored sergeant swaggered several steps into the alley, kicking debris out of his way as he strode towards Khazmine’s hiding place. Hallem crushed a stinking, flat-sided glass bottle on the ground mere inches from where the outcast had avoided it moments ago, muttering to himself as he did so. “Bloody rot back here.”

Khazmine gritted her teeth behind tightly pursed lips, begging the Ancients silently for that horrid man to lose interest and go away. The outcast’s brows furrowed to match the rest of her tensed body, and Khazmine couldn’t bring herself to open her clenched, frightened eyes. A pervasive, metallic taste of fear haunted the outcast, who wanted nothing more than to escape the cruel tyrant’s notice. If Mister Hallem caught her skulking back here, if he discovered little Pavo…

I don’t even want to think about it, the outcast shivered.

“Sergeant? There’s a strange wagon up ahead, sir,” the curious corporal broke the silence to address his superior. “Looks like a corpse cart, sir… A big one. Should we investigate?”

Yes, please, just leave… Khazmine urged in her head.

“Don’t bother,” Hallem scowled as he turned slowly and stepped away from the powdered glass bottle he’d crushed underfoot. “This far out’s probably just another load of nobodies from The Dregs. None of our concern, corporal.”

“Understood, sir.” The pair reunited and resumed their rhythmic pacing, which carried their voices  away as Khazmine strained to listen. “There have been several reports—”

Khazmine waited for an eternity before permitting a rush of air to fill her lungs and start a fresh spurt of aggravated coughs. Once her raspy wheezing had subsided, the outcast sighed with utmost relief that she’d had sense enough to bathe at a public bathhouse instead of back at camp. The scent of brambleberries from either the Solanai’s soap or the potent drink that had stained her not long ago would have certainly given Khazmine’s position away. As it was, the lingering odor of a salt-bath wasn’t strong enough to tempt or interest a roving brute like Hallem.

That wretched man… Khazmine scrunched her nose at the foul creature who would have certainly tormented wee Pavo if they’d been found out in this dingy back-alley. The outcast lingered on an errant thought as she reached into a pocket to retrieve a folded arm sash that was thankfully spared from a brambleberry dousing earlier. Would that stupidity and ignorance were fatal…

The outcast tugged on the arm sash, straightening the bronze band over her new walnut-colored jacket. It was an admittedly opulent, attractive band, embroidered with an array of vibrant blue and black crystal shapes arranged like a spiky fan of points reaching for the heavens. Such an exquisite adornment was perhaps worth as much as Mister Hallem’s ruby-stoned rank insignia pin and would prove far more useful than the malignant bully’s jewelry.

Khazmine licked her dried lips, took a deep breath, and strode confidently into the light of the twin suns. Little Pavo’s body trembled inside Khazmine’s knapsack, and the outcast winced at the sensation of the poor child suffering within. Whatever sedative Rida had used was uncomfortable and perhaps painful for Pavo to tolerate, but it was necessary to suppress any sparks of wild magic from being released, especially now that the half-breed was exposed and vulnerable in an open street. With no sign of Mister Hallem around, Khazmine made for the last obstacle between inevitable despair and a promising cure for Pavo’s shattered ether core.

The white, tangled gates of Holloworth glittered under the early-afternoon suns and were proudly protected by a pair of guards who had lately started their shift. The pair were in the midst of permitting entry to a peridot-studded carriage emblazoned with glittering gold leaf trim. Khazmine lingered an easy distance away from the carriage to try and get a good look at the guards before she approached.

To the outcast’s relief, these men were different from those who met “Sergeant Khazmine” during her first foray into Holloworth. With courage and luck, Khazmine might make it through without rousing either man’s suspicions. The outcast plucked up her nerves, smoothed her arm band, and strode forth. Fortunately, Khazmine had the benefit of practice before—now was the time for perfection.

Remember, you do this every day, Khazmine thought to herself as her throat threatened to close at the gate guards’ curious stares. This job is boring, tedious, and you’d rather be at The Blanched Hart than making deliveries to a bunch of spoiled nobles. Look bored. Come on, PRETEND…

“Delivery for Marquis Banebury,” Khazmine stifled a fake yawn and sniffed pungent city air that had the stink of undertaker’s perfume wafting over from the distant corpse cart. “Gah, another one? How many’s that this week?”

“My count’s six,” an equally disturbed guard volunteered. “All from The Dregs, every one.”

“How perfectly awful,” Khazmine blanched at the horrible smell. The familiar stench was a potpourri of rotten Evermonth blossoms, which still managed to turn one’s stomach even at such a distance. The outcast echoed the attitude she’d just overheard from Hallem in the alley, channeling his despicable turn of phrase. “Bloody nuisance…”

“That isn’t the half of it, miss,” the other guard added. He shared his partner’s disdainful attitude and deigned to share his thoughts with this handsome half-breed delivery girl. The guards’ manners towards Khazmine were all things gentile and friendly once they recognized the familiar sigil from Banebury House. If this courier made frequent deliveries there, she was likely better off than them financially, half-breed, or not. “I’ve heard they’ve taken to digging holes outside of town… Mass graves, miss. I wouldn’t stray near The Dregs if I were you.”

“I’ve no plan to,” Khazmine smirked and batted her eyes at the enchanted watchman. The outcast flinched imperceptibly as a warm and uncomfortable sensation snaked down her back. “Not while the marquis keeps requesting more deliveries anyway…”

A searing slash from something sharp shot into Khazmine’s lower back and the outcast’s vision boggled at the bracing sensation. With eyes watering from an unexpected ether spark, Khazmine forced herself to play pretender, ensuring that all was well. Everything in her body desperately demanded to cry out from Pavo’s errant energy discharge, but the outcast shrugged off her welling tears as a lingering after effect of the stinking corpse cart that was slowly rolling away to bury its passengers.

“Are you all right, miss?” the more observant of the two guards noticed Khazmine’s discomfort and reached out with a kindly hand to support her.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” Khazmine replied as she forced a smile and steadied herself from the southerner’s wild magic. “Must have been the cart. I ought to get back to my deliveries before that horrid stink sends me downstream.”

The two guards gave the courier a friendly chuckle before opening the gates for her to enter. Khazmine plodded along, hoping that the growing patch of moisture seeping through her new jacket wasn’t what she thought it was. Alas, a frightfully dizzying headache and lingering pain assured her that Pavo’s thrashing energy had punctured something back there.

Don’t run, Khazmine. Don’t give them any reason to suspect…

The outcast trudged forth, forcing one foot in front of the other, with each step a fresh bloom of agony. Khazmine’s throat parched, vision blurred, and muscles ached as the wounded courier diverted at the Holloworth crossroads. Rows of shops, decadent dwellings, and a paved footpath all led Khazmine to the narrow mansion of Banebury Hall.

“Marquis? Ellory? Are you in?” Khazmine wheezed as she rapped her knuckles against the heavy front door. A distant, rhythmic clacking echoed from within the house, filling Khazmine with urgency to call out again and ensure she’d been heard. “Marquis? Master Banebury? It’s me, Khazmine. Please, let us in.”

Poor Khazmine was dizzily leaning against the frame when the front door opened unexpectedly on her. The outcast hadn’t heard the clacking of Banebury’s cane signal the marquis’s proximity, and pitched backwards when the tall, ancient man flung open the door to admit her. On instinct, the half-breed rolled her body to shield wee Pavo from their backwards fall, but the ground never reached up to greet her. Instead, only the thump of rattling wood echoed around the outcast as Banebury’s exquisite cane landed on the floor.

Faster than sight, Khazmine found herself in Marquis Banebury’s arms, backing into the entryway and missing the door frame by inches. With a quick twitch of the master’s head, the heavy front door swung silently on brass hinges, closing by itself.

“M-marquis? Sir?” Khazmine mumbled in confusion. “What, wh-what happened—”

“You are damaged,” Marquis Banebury asserted with a steely-cold voice as he strode easily with the outcast nestled in his arms. She was positioned such that Pavo wasn’t crushed by the encounter, but she still worried for the southerner and the old man in equal measure. Khazmine had expected Rowyn to shamble and teeter at having to walk without his precious cane, but here Banebury was, unbothered by its loss. “Remain still, please…”

“Don’t strain yourself, sir,” Khazmine pled. “I must be heavy, and I don’t want you to hurt—”

“Your weight is negligible to me,” Banebury assured the outcast as he removed Khazmine’s knapsack and laid her face-down on a long, metal table in a strange, windowless room without any familiar furniture or fixtures. Khazmine turned her head to the side and glanced up at what she thought was a skylight, but the rays of light seemed cold… unnatural… false. “Please remain still on the table…”

The old marquis reached underneath her jacket and shirt, pressed an icy hand against the painful patch on Khazmine’s back, and stared at the outcast with an unblinking, gray-eyed gaze for a full minute before she spoke up again.

“W-what are you doing?” Khazmine asked while shivering at the unsettling coldness of Rowyn’s touch.

“Running diagnostics,” Banebury replied effortlessly. It was a curious, cryptic response that the outcast didn’t understand. Was she in danger of dying? Was Pavo also in need of diagnostics? “…Laceration of latissimus dorsi… severe ether burns at injury site… repairable with proper care.”

Did he just say, “ether burns?”

“Remain calm. You will be fine,” Banebury assured her as he reached back to press on a small, round disc attached to the surgery room wall. “Ellory Langford… Respond.”

“Yes, Marquis?” Ellory’s voice echoed in the sealed chamber, filling Khazmine with uncomfortable dread. She knew of no magic such as this and blanched at the disembodied voice from parts unknown.

“Retrieve Suspension Seven-One-Three-Six from the laboratory and combine with the substrate,” Banebury commanded. “Prepare for immediate deployment.”

“Acknowledged, sir. Another experiment?”

“Negative. A patient,” Banebury replied, finally removing his finger from the mounted wall disc.

“Very good, Master. On my way.”

Something very strange was going on in Banebury Hall, which Khazmine couldn’t hope to understand at present. All the outcast could manage was to prop herself up on one elbow and watch as Marquis Banebury carefully extricated Pavo from the battered knapsack and tugged on his meager wrappings to free the tiny magician.

“You must take care, sir. He has wild magic,” Khazmine beseeched Banebury, but the old man seemed undaunted by the outcast’s concerns and continued to try and wake the sedated child. “Marquis, wait!”

“Fear not, miss. I have everything under control.” Marquis Banebury hoisted Pavo’s limp body from the last of his wrappings and set him on an adjacent table, exposing several cuts that had bled through Rida’s carefully wrapped luminescent bandages. Horror pulsed through Khazmine’s body as Rowyn began stripping the bandages off poor Pavo.

“STOP, PLEASE!” Khazmine shouted as she hastened to shift upright. “He needs those!”

The half-breed forced a palm into the table to ready herself to rescue Pavo from the frigid clutches of this frightful healer but paused with a jolt when Pavo’s eyes opened unexpectedly. The sickly southerner squirmed in Rowyn’s hands, struggling to free himself amid swells of tears.

“—hurts! Ari, Kiss-Me, help!” Pavo cried out. Swirls of potent, red-tinged ether circled around Pavo and his captor as Khazmine scrambled up, leapt from the table, and staggered towards the endangered pair. “Pleece! Help!”