Master Pie straightened his wig and looked over his shoulder. He couldn't shake the strangest feeling, that a bad omen was coming to the Sirrup House. The night of disruptions in his precious little theater had delayed the second act of the Zauber Play, and with the actors too tired to travel onwards to their homes in Relmund, they had slept in the back rooms at Master Pie's insistence.

When morning came, and the comfort of their beds called out to their aching bodies, Master Pie insisted once again that they stay and earn the keep he'd so generously offered them the night before.

"Cuttle, hand me the broom if you haven't the inclination to use it yourself," cried Stoat, "I cannot afford to spend another night in so expensive a lodging."

"Do you think the Counsel would have seen him by now?" asked the melancholic lead.

"Your roadside soldier? I shouldn't think so."

"I'd never seen a man so determined," sighed Cuttle, "More passion in his speech than I've witnessed in the entirety of Marlin's career."

"You want him for the show?" asked Stoat.

"I want him..." Cuttle muttered to himself.

Vole and Marlin continued to clean the glasses in a trough outside, and when the Brothers Wren returned from throwing the wood ash into the backhouse, they set about laying the fires. All had reached the same conclusion; they would not be performing at the Sirrup House again.

Master Pie looked upon the the tasks fulfilled with satisfaction; unaware that the dedicated Zauber Players were cursing his name beneath their breath. He often appreciated the inherent teamwork that came with working in theater, where no part was too small and no chore too demeaning. This was where humanity converged at every level to make dreams a reality! To make his dreams a reality...

"Splendid!" he cried, seeing his theater returned to its glory, "Come, come now, I am not so thoughtless an employer that I would not think to feed you. Come and eat! One cannot move hearts and minds on an empty stomach!"

The hospitality afforded to the players was nothing more than the leftovers of the previous night's stewpot. Cleaning the pot had coincidentally been next on their list of 'helpful suggestions' from Master Pie.

Forcing grateful smiles and under the influence of their hunger; the men set down their tiredness and picked up the bowls. If nothing else, at least it was free. The kindly proprietor was thankful he'd found an excuse to keep them longer. The lingering feeling that last night's casual kidnap would come back to bite him was not so easily remedied.

It was better to not be alone when danger threatened to knock on one's door.

Hen's frown as they sped towards the Sirrup House had been entertaining Lyre for the last dozen miles. Happy as she was to watch her deep in thought, she was in equal parts curious as to what was dividing her attention from their first journey together.

"Are we going too fast?" Lyre asked her.

"I just don't understand," Hen replied, "If Fiepet Strahl has gone with the Counsel to the theater, not only are we likely to meet him there, but the Warlock will not be far behind us. Surely if we are to remain beyond his grasp we should not have been so foolish in our schemes."

Lyre was surprised to be taken for a fool.

"Do you trust me?" she asked.

Hen's skeptical eye could not be mistaken.

"We'll work on that," said Lyre, "But for now your trust in the Innate will have to suffice. It is unfortunate to say the least, that we might risk a run in with the Counsel at Pie's; but since meeting you, I think that luck has finally thought to favor me. If we're fast enough, we'll be gone before that ghost and the eldest Strahl have even arrived."

"But... what of the Warlock..?" asked Hen, "If he's after Fiepet Strahl-"

"Dear sweet Mistress Hen," purred Lyre, "You don't really think I told him where to find them, do you..?"

While five set out in the direction of the Sirrup House that day; there was another that forged an independent path. After his encounter with the servant girl, the most powerful man on the Madning Isle went in search of a ring, and a reason to vent his anger. The witch's words played in his mind as he rode against the wind towards Fintersbahn.

He could never have imagined the extent of the witch's ambitions. The man he knew was humble and kind, and even content to face imprisonment if it meant no other would be harmed. The thought of thieves eclipsed by his unanswered questions, the Warlock slowed his horse. Dismounting by a turnstile, he took a seat on the splintered wood of a broken fence, and pulled out the second journal.

'Farbecke is dead. My own hair is painted with streaks of gray. I am alone again.

Why does he not come? Why must I bear this solitude?

The Printworks is mine, and with it, the lake. Every ripple on its surfaces catches my attention. I curse each creature that makes it its home and forces me to the brink of delusion. Come! Please! Save me from my memories..! Save me from the loneliness...

There is no one I wish to make my wife. Fortune seekers circle me as though I am a prize to be won, and yet I have no interest in the women of Grunterbad.'

The Warlock's fractured heart was stirred.

'No matter how many lovers I have taken, they cannot compare to those of my homeland.'

And broken all over again.

'My apprentice heard a noise as he was cleaning the rollers last night. He thinks there is a stray nesting in the storehouse. I hadn't thought to raise a cat, but quiet company may do me good; someone to talk to of the life I left behind in another world. 

A plate of offal in hand, and a string with which to tie it and lead it into the house; I found not a cat, but a skin and bones child. Cowering in the corner and wrapped in scraps of paper, a small boy stared out from the darkness and looked at me in fear. 

'Follow me inside and I'll cook this for you,' I said, brandishing my plate, 'If you remain alone in the storehouse, the Happenstance may find you.'

The boy knew not of what I spoke, but he followed me all the same. After feeding him and giving him clothes to wear, he slept by the fire on the floor of my parlor. The magistrate learned nothing of his parentage, and there remains no answer as to how far he might have traveled from. I asked the boy myself; and yet he cannot speak. Barely a whimper issues from his mouth.

I have named him Fiepet.

But for the clothes he wears and his propensity for cooked meat rather than raw, he is none too dissimilar from any other pet. Quiet and timid, he keeps to himself unless summoned. It is just as well the child is mute... I could not bear to hear him call me 'father'.

The house is too silent. If only he came, there would be someone to converse with. I would not be forced to listen to the echo of my own voice within these vast and vacant chambers. I think I should give the child a brother; an heir apparent to continue my legacy.

In the years in which I thought to make the effort, no woman here has borne me a child. There is something in the air of this place that ages me beyond recognition; siphoning the vitality I once possessed. Why? Why has he not come to take me from this hateful place? Why must I live alone in this world with only a sniveling creature for company?!

I will find another. A child I can bear the sight of.'

The Warlock recalled the young man he had met at the witch's house. The words he spoke were now a blur, but he remembered them spoken all the same. A second son. He took comfort in knowing they were not his by blood; that no woman had made so intimate a bond with the man he'd planned to make his wife.

'Hymm forgive me!'

The journal took a turn the Warlock could not fathom.

'What have I done?! My soul is stained with a wretched filth I cannot clean! Please! Please forgive me! When I saw the shift in the lake I could not contain the villainous greed within me... I thought of nothing but to claim it. At last, the velvet water came once more to Grunterbad, and it showed me the reflection of my tarnished soul.'

The Warlock turned the page, but the end of the journal had been reached. What did he mean? The velvet water came to him? But how? He himself could not have found the way to Grunterbad without the Witling Woman's help. In his years of searching, he had met no other with the power to transcend worlds. What had he missed? 

If there existed another, then there existed a threat to his plan to end the world. The final journal lay in wait at the Velvet Palace, the Witling Woman to the west. Mounting his horse and cracking the reins, the Warlock went in search of answers. 

Five miles from Fintersbahn, Merit Fox tapped on Ursa's door with a bowl in her hand.

"You'll finish it if nothing else," she said, handing him the half-eaten stew.

Ursa sat on his large wooden bed; chewing in silence as Merit Fox watched. With a final slurp and the empty bowl as evidence, Ursa reluctantly followed her command. As the old woman turned away from him, he could no longer keep his secrets.

"The Madning Isle..." he told her, "The Warlock means to destroy it."

Merit Fox nodded calmly, and sat beside him on the bed.

"Is that what you came to tell me?" she asked.

"I wanted to bid you goodbye. You kept me alive long enough to see the end of the Protectorate, and now the witch is dead, there's no reason left to keep on living. The end is coming for us all."

"You chose the wrong person to say your farewells to," she told him, "Your family is waiting for you. Not in Hymm... but in Hofingrad. Ursa, my little one, they await their final offerings for the after life."

"Offerings are made there."

"From strangers," said Merit Fox, "From those that seek to placate the Warlock, from those that pity the innocent and detest the enforcers that sent them to their graves. But not from their family. Not by those that knew them."

Ursa's guilt rose to his cheeks. Without a drink to steady his nerves and numb the grief that welled in his heart, he was on the verge of crumbling.

"I've readied the cart," she told him, "With all that's needed. But only you can do what's right with it."

"There isn't time," said Ursa, "I may not make it there in time."

"What else will you do with your final days?" asked Merit Fox, "Drink them away? Or something worse..?"

He meant to keep the witch's spawn from their escape to freedom.

"There is nothing more noble, than paying the respects your family are long overdue. You tell me we are to die. Fine. But this, my boy, is my dying wish."

There was nothing that Ursa could argue with.

Returning together to the table, they found that Delph had already cleared it. He was fiddling with the ends of the purple silks, and tucking them awkwardly into his breeches.

"You wouldn't happen to have something else I could wear?" he asked them.

"No," said Ursa simply.

Merit Fox sighed, but was not prepared to contradict him. That he was finally taking the difficult steps to mend his grief; that much was enough.

"Ah," said Delph, "No matter. I'm sure Fiepet will find me something when we meet. Are we leaving soon? Or is there more that must be done?"

Ursa looked to Merit Fox. For the first time in the years they had known one another, she beckoned him to lower his head. Pulling a comb from her pocket, she smoothed the knots from his dark, tangled hair.

"You'll want to look your best," she told him, "That is how I'll remember you."

Only the tremble of his lips betrayed the storm of emotions that brewed inside him. A simple bow, and he was ready to leave. He could have left the witch's spawn behind, but he did not trust him. More than that, he wanted Delph to see, the immeasurable scale of his father's sins.