The outcast's face blanched at seeing the approaching creature meander towards her recovery bed with a hopeful smirk on his mechanical face. Despite having replacement plates added to repair his craggy exterior, just knowing that this “person” wasn’t a real human frightened Khazmine immensely. The effect was worsened by her inability to detect any signs of life emanating from the creature, further convincing the outcast that he was foreign and possibly dangerous.

“W-what do you want?” Khazmine stammered as the outcast found enough strength to curl her legs closer to her body to shield herself from Banebury’s approach.

“I mean you no harm, miss,” Rowyn replied earnestly. “I just want to learn more about your <Guardian Stones>.”

“Are you with the human colonies, or with the Outsiders?” Khazmine asked, unsure if this creature was affiliated with either faction.

“Your world’s territory squabbles do not concern me,” the false marquis responded with a defeated air. “As I said, my chief interest is in the collection of medical research, particularly treatments utilizing your Guardian Stones. They have applications that would be useful for—”

“Stay back!” Khazmine snapped as the false marquis edged closer.

“Fear not. I am only interested in information at present,” Banebury said as he took a step backwards. Khazmine relaxed as he backed off but failed to drop her guard entirely in the Invader’s presence.

Looking at Banebury now, the outcast couldn’t help but wonder how she'd been fooled by his appearance before. The false marquis had an eerie, uncanny bearing that betrayed his artificial heritage. His movements were far too fluid and steady for a human of his apparent years, and Banebury maintained a curious, unblinking stare that Khazmine found unnerving. Unless he took special pains to blink and rustle his plates to imitate breathing, one could see through Banebury’s façade once they knew what to look for.

“And what if I don’t have it, or don’t know anything?” Khazmine whispered through clenched teeth, desperately trying to master her fear. “Will you kill me, or my little brother here?”

The false marquis was fortunate that his current form was incapable of detecting scents, or else he surely would have winced at the stink of fear wafting from Khazmine as she cowered on her hospital bed. As it was, he didn’t need a sense of smell to estimate the level of the outcast's dread; Khazmine’s elevated heart rate and distressed breathing were convincing enough for him.

Marquis Banebury pulled his fractured hands back until crackled thumbs grazed his shoulders. His expression and posture softened as not to terrorize the half-breed further. “I will not hurt you, Deceiver. You have my word.”

“H-how do you know?” Khazmine stammered while her eyes locked with Banebury’s. “How do you know that I am a Deceiver?”

“I can hear you, miss. You sound just like the others,” Banebury replied with a tilted head and piercing gray stare. Realizing that Khazmine was only more confused by his cryptic response, the marquis continued. “Your magic, your core, gives off a certain frequency that I can detect on my internal sensors. If you had properly masked your—I guess you would call it a ‘signature’—I couldn’t sense you at all.”

“I don’t understand,” Khazmine admitted. She had no way to contextualize sensors, masks, or signatures as the marquis had explained them. Still, the outcast had a relentless curiosity that demanded satisfaction. Knowing how this creature could detect Khazmine’s magic was essential to blending in properly in Old Sarzonn going forward. “Can you show me?”

The false marquis winced where he stood, clearly uncomfortable, and shifted his weight from one heavy leg to the other. “I could show you, but I am afraid it would only frighten you. Are you sure?”

Khazmine nodded, more curious than afraid at the moment. At her consent, the false marquis clicked and whirred several plates on his newly repaired face, detaching a mass of them near his ear. The plates fanned out of their spindly wire tendrils, giving Banebury’s face the appearance of having exploded in front of the outcast as chunks of false flesh hung in the air, suspended in all directions.

Marquis Banebury directed Khazmine’s attention to a buzzing electronic hub within, covered from top to bottom with blinking lights in an endless nautilus of complex machinery. Still put-off by his foreign appearance, Khazmine grimaced at the sight of hollows, chambers, and recesses where flesh and bone should have been.

Closing his eyes and tenting his brows, Banebury concentrated on activating the electronic organ which Khazmine could see behind exposed plates. The misshapen mass’s lights flickered in unison before the outcast inhaled deeply from her position on the hospital bed. All around her, the half-breed could feel something vibrating in her ether core. It was as if this technology golem were a real person, emitting real ether, and he wasn’t some clattering monstrosity from parts unknown.

He's… He’s resonating…

Khazmine’s mouth gaped open at the sensation of coming face to face with another “Deceiver.” Just like a blind baby marshpup identifying its mother in the wilds, the outcast drew her ears back at recognizing a magician of her own kind. The marquis had proven that certain wavelengths—frequencies—could impact one’s ether signature. It was so revolutionary an idea that Khazmine would never have conjured an explanation for it. The outcast swallowed hard at the implications of this knowledge, as Banebury opened his steely-gray eyes and ceased emitting the frequency.

“The principle is the same to hide one’s ether signature,” Banebury admitted as he retracted his plates halfway. “I could teach you, if you’d like…”

“What are you suggesting?” Khazmine whispered with a quirked brow that indicated her increasing interest.

“I’m suggesting that we could be of use to one another,” the false marquis explained. “I am, for all practical purposes, tethered to Banebury Hall. I shan’t overburden you with details now but suffice it to say that I have great difficulty leaving this dwelling. I need your help to allow me to be free.”

“But… you’re an Invader, a monster, a—”

“I am an Augment, Miss Khazmine, and I do have feelings…” Banebury’s shoulders drooped as he sighed without breathing. The outcast met his gray eyes, and she flinched at seeing his gaze fill with sadness. There was a longing to his expression that looked every bit as human as she would have expected. “Believe me, I want to leave just as much as you want to live.”

“But you’re—”

“My current race is converted, not born, miss. I was once an organic, much like yourself, long ago. I had a home, a mate, I sired children, survived adversity…” Banebury paused as he sifted through memories of ancient, bygone years. “And lived a full life, until disease came to my world…”

Khazmine allowed her shoulders to lower, and weakly scooched forward on her hospital bed to get a closer look at the false marquis. The Augment retracted his plates back into their positions, giving his face a wholeness that made him look more alive than ever. A hitch in his breathless voice drew Khazmine’s attention and she shifted even closer, waiting for Banebury to elaborate further.

“Millions of us perished…” Banebury confessed as he stared dead-eyed at the floor below, then to the sleeping Pavo on his own hospital bed. “I was helpless to aid my friends, neighbors… I watched my mate wither away in agony… my daughters sickened and died without mercy or relief. By some miracle I survived long enough to draw the interest of The Makers. They came to my world, plucked my weary body from the ashes, and deemed me worthy of Conversion… I served at the pleasure of The Makers…”

The false marquis dredged through his painful memories as Khazmine offered him a place to sit on the edge of her bed.

“Until your Marquis Rowyn Banebury summoned me accidentally with his magic… Ripped me away from my mission, and called me here to Chromaldus,” the Augment continued bitterly. “I heard his voice in my head and begged The Makers for it to stop, but I obeyed the call and was shredded to pieces upon my untimely arrival. Now I am trapped here, too weak, and low on power to return home. It’s been almost ten of your years now, and you are my only hope, miss. I don’t have much longer to live without repairs from my home world.”

“Repairs?” Khazmine asked, though she immediately wished she hadn’t.

Banebury frowned at her question but permitted Khazmine to see the depths of his impairment. The false marquis unhooked the front clasp on his fresh robe to reveal a staggering chasm of damaged plates and a flickering, mis-firing void of lights in his battered torso. It was no wonder the “old man” wore such thick, heavy robes; he needed to conceal the gaping hole that went directly through the Augment’s body, all the way through to the other side. Tiny tendrils of metal around the wound jerked at being exposed, spasming to drag non-existent plates to protect the vulnerable mechanisms within. The false marquis tugged his robe back into place and reattached the toggle to hide his deformity anew.

“But your mansion, this hall—couldn’t you use some of these machines to repair yourself?” Khazmine tilted her head as she asked.

The Augment pursed his lips together and frowned as he dug deeply to find the words to clarify for the outcast. “Your metals and I are—incompatible. Rowyn had tried to repair my damaged systems before he died, but… It was no use; the pieces refused to bond. I am nearly out of auxiliary plates and emergency components, miss… I am… dying…”

“Couldn’t you call them for help? The, uh, The Makers?”

“I do not know how. And anyway, I imagine they would not come all the way to this backwater place just to rescue a damaged unit.” Banebury released a hollow, empty chuckle as the words fell from his lips. “I doubt very much anyone would come for me unless they wanted to scavenge my chassis for spare parts. No, The Makers will not come unless they had a better reason to. I am… alone…”

Well, not truly alone, Khazmine thought as she glanced at the closed door to the main room. As if reading her mind, the Augment smiled weakly before averting his eyes.

“The child… He does not know,” Banebury admitted with a hint of urgency in his voice. “Ellory is an organic—one of you—and he does not know… about what I am. I would prefer it if you did not frighten him by revealing my identity. He is… my friend.”

In truth, Ellory Langford was the only companion the Augment had since the late Marquis Banebury passed away nearly ten years ago. The child was a refugee from a fallen noble house, ejected into the world at the age of six to perish in the backstreets of Holloworth near the mansion. Crying and miserable, Ellory would have succumbed to the elements if the synthetic marquis hadn’t risked incurring further damage, taken pity on the child, and raised him in Banebury Hall. In all that time, the Augment had concealed his identity, lest he drive off the only connection he had to the outside world.

As Khazmine listened to the false marquis relay Ellory’s tale, a twinge in her conscience took hold, reminding the outcast of her own humble beginnings. It was no great difficulty to keep the new Banebury’s secret, and Khazmine was just about to assure the ersatz marquis of that fact when she spotted him jolt to attention.

Banebury’s head swiveled toward the door and his mechanical ears strained to pick up a faint noise in the distance. Without warning, the Augment stood up from Khazmine’s bedside and clicked several unseen plates into place before striding toward the closed chamber door.

“What is it?” Khazmine asked with a raised voice.

“Someone is at the door…” Banebury countered before his eyes darted around the room and landed on Khazmine. “Please, do not leave this room. I will investigate and return. Remain where you are… Acknowledge.”

Khazmine tilted her head at the concerned marquis and managed to look back at him in confusion before nodding. Shortly after the Augment departed with his hood drawn up and limbs covered, little Ellory Langford entered the infirmary, carrying a silver serving tray with snacks and tea for Banebury’s guests. His decadent tray rattled in the lad’s hands as he approached the workbench the marquis had perched near and laid the platter down with a jittering clatter.

“Are you all right?” the outcast asked as Banebury’s fetch-and-carry struggled to pour a cup of tea for her. Poor Ellory was so distraught that he dropped a small spoon into Khazmine’s cup, spilling tea all over her saucer. “What’s wrong?”

“T-there’s a man, miss…” Ellory stammered in time with his trembling body. “A big, scary man, all in black… He was b- banging on the front door…”

Khazmine’s eyes narrowed as she stooped low to comfort the frightened boy with a calm, gentle whisper.

“He’s not here for you, little one… He’s come here for me.”