No one seemed to have noticed that Elion had disappeared at the lake. There'd been too much else to deal with, without worrying where an unwanted hanger-on had got to. Only Fiepet had sense to recall that one of their party was missing. Planning to ask the Counsel about his disappearance in the morning, he was most put out to find him already gone.

The footman assigned to watch the doors of the Counsel's wing, had been standing by since the little master left with Remora in the early hours. The responsibility now fell to him to tend to the unusual guests left behind.

"What of the Warlock?" asked Fiepet, "Is he still at home?"

"The big master has taken ill sir," the footman replied, hoping to deter him from repeating the previous night's disturbance.

"What about Ursa?"

The footman looked puzzled. He had yet to be informed of the guest's names, but could only fathom he meant the man still passed out in the green bedroom.

"It's no worry," Fiepet announced, striding towards his room, "I will wake him myself."

First the door thrown open, and then the curtains. Ursa squinted in the irritating rays of the sun before hiding his head beneath the bed covers. His plan to doze until nightfall was quickly scuppered by Fiepet Strahl's desire for company. Had he not his stupid book to read, or his wayward brother to find?

"Come and dress yourself that we may take breakfast," said Fiepet, "There's nothing we cannot achieve if our stomachs are full and our determination unwavering."

Ursa shook his hands on the edge of the sheet.

"I waver," he told him, "And I am not hungry. There is nothing I plan to achieve today besides sleep."

Fiepet refused to be defeated. He had adopted many a technique over the years, when coaxing Delph from beneath the covers.

"If you join me before my breakfast is finished, I think I could see my way clear to helping you find a solution to your potential exile. An ally is never a bad thing to have. But, should I be done without seeing your face, I will take it to mean that my help is not needed. If that is the case then I will leave all plans for your future at Min's discretion."

Min would send him to another world without a second thought.

"Pass me my clothes," Ursa replied, "And tell them I won't eat eggs."

Fiepet smiled, closing the door to allow him to dress. If Ursa meant his brother harm, and he found a way to placate him; then Delph would be safe. Safe enough to reveal himself from whatever hiding spot he'd found. Besides, hadn't they gotten on well enough before? Piglet, he'd called him. His piglet of a brother... Fie could almost remember him as a child; a plump, pink-cheeked boy of eighty.

Eight, Fiepet corrected himself, he must have been eight.

He could only hope that the Warlock had not feigned illness to allay his creeping suspicion. He was still none the wiser as to whether or not Delph had been brought inside the palace, with every servant he interrogated ensuring him that the master had not uttered a word of there being a guest in his wing.

Rather than march to the Warlock's quarters, and risk disturbing the sickbed of a gravely ill man, Fiepet granted him the morning's clemency; determining to visit him at the end of day.

"Where's Min?" asked Ursa, noting his absence from the breakfast table, and nervously scanning every corner of the room for signs of his presence.

 "He's gone out," Fiepet replied, "Left early with... what was it again?"

"His man," the footman helpfully explained, "Remora."

Ursa put an instinctive hand to his throat. Him.

"You need not call him 'his man'," Ursa grumbled, "He is more like a guard dog."

"At least there is someone to watch over him," noted Fiepet, "The man does not take care of himself as he should. To see him so weak, it is a wonder the servants have bothered to feed him while living in the palace."

The footman squirmed.

"Rest easy," Fiepet assured him, "I have seen firsthand how little he is willing to touch, and know the fault lies with your master more than anyone. Whatever business called him away, I trust it is not being undertaken on an empty stomach."

"If Min is not here to talk to, then there is little you can do to help me," said Ursa, "I'd just as well go back to sleep until he returns."

Fiepet's intentions were threefold; improve the Strahl's relationship with the antagonistic Ursa, gather information to aid in their eventual escape, and distract himself from the contents of his father's journal. Ursa's company would be non-negotiable.

"Are you unable to function without Min or drink to guide you?" teased Fiepet, "We are in a city named for your brother, do you really not want to see it?"

Ursa's years in Relmund were spent in the confines of his comfortable yet suffocating prison. Each escape in search of hedonistic distraction was tempered by the fear that the Counsel's men would drag him back. There was little he'd seen of the city that Rel had been so excited to visit.

"Good luck leaving here without the Counsel's permission," Ursa warned, "There's likely armed guards waiting by the door."

Fiepet turned to the footman to answer Ursa's speculation.

"We have no orders to keep you here," he vowed, "Nor to prevent your return should you come back again. It's just that... well, the Counsel has banned all liquor from his rooms. Aside from heeding your orders and maintaining your comfort, the permittance of alcohol is all we must deny you."

"A sensible decision," said Fiepet, with a stern eye cast towards Ursa, "And since the Counsel has made clear his rightful prohibition in the palace, I will see it is upheld beyond these walls. If you cannot be trusted to keep your hands off the Counsel when you drink, then it is best that you stay sober for the forseeable."

Ursa blushed scarlet. What was he thinking? The footman could hear him perfectly! Did Fiepet not care how easily palace rumors could spread? Fiepet was not ignorant to Ursa's indignity.

"If you understand that your actions have been shameful, then you have begun to take responsibility for them. I trust that gives you enough incentive to refrain from repeating the same mistakes. Now, if you've quite finished with your meal, let us go and see what this city has to offer!"

Their host was already beyond the limits of Relmund. Merit Janney lived not far from the capital, on a quiet patch of farmland to the east. The Counsel had woken at dawn in the hopes of catching her at home. Since leaving the palace, Remora had ridden silently behind him without a single question. The Counsel owed him an explanation, stopping not far from the turning to Merit Janney's homestead.

"The situation has changed," he began.

"Master?"

"When I left, I did not expect the world to last much longer."

"Yes, Master."

"But I should have found a way to spare you sooner. I should have thought to find a way. I'm sorry. Know that I would not repeat such a fatalistic error if I had that time again. You never deserved to die, Remora. You have served me well."

"I do as my master commands," said Remora, "Even if that means to die."

The Counsel lowered his head. 

"Now that the Warlock has found his bride still living, the rest of us must find a way to carry on beside them. Whatever fate allows you to live, Remora, I will grant it to you. Hymm's eternal rest can wait. You may choose how to spend your time waiting."

"By your side, Master. To serve you is the choice I would make; time and again."

He was barely beyond childhood when the Counsel saved him in the wilds of the Witling Forest. His parents condemned by the laws of the Protectorate, young Remora had not inherited their magical abilities. Spared from execution, he'd been cast out alone to fend for himself. Hunting proved no issue, neither were the bandits that tried in vain to steal his catch. But the physically strong Remora was no match for the mystical Happenstance.

He'd had such luck setting traps, that he didn't find it odd at first when a rabbit wandered into one. Nor was it strange that the fire was lit so quickly with a flick of his flint. But when he chanced to think that an ale would pair quite nicely, and happened to find a bottle in the bottom of his bag; Remora knew that something was not right.

Who hadn't heard the stories? Knife in hand he steeled himself, unaware of what danger was coming.

"Mother..?"

"Remora! Stay where you are!"

Merit Kitefin sported a scar across her weathered face, a gnarled branch supporting her as she called to her son in fearful desperation. Fresh wounds marked her flesh, the prison shroud clinging to her aged body. Tears sprang in Remora's eyes.

"Your father," she told him, "He did not make it. But by Jophis's grace I found my way back to you! I will not lose you too, Remora. I will protect you, or die trying if I must!"

The wind howled, a deep growl rising above the violent rustle of the trees. Merit Kitefin lowered herself to the forest floor, hurriedly drawing symbols in the fallen leaves. She was frantic, crying, her vision blurring as she wiped at her eyes with dirty fingers.

"Mother..."

"Stay back, Remora! This spell is not easy."

The light of the fire reflected on her tear-stained cheeks as she tried to remember the words to the incantation. Broken, pitiable; Remora could not stand to see her struggle. His mother was alive? She had bested death, only to risk her precious life for a useless son? The blade fell from his hand as he staggered towards her.

"It isn't working!" she cried, bloodied fingers scratched raw against the ground.

"Mother, I'm here! You do not need to do this. I am safe!"

Remora held her shaking form within his arms, a surge of emotion catching in his throat and rendering him speechless. He did not see her hands twisting into jagged claws, her sobbing mouth deformed into a fanged and fearsome maw. The creature planned to eat him whole.

"Dispel."

A voice called out a singular word, and the fire and Merit Kitefin disappeared at once. All that remained was Remora, and the starving creature at his side. Stripped of its strength in the darkness; a weak and skittering beast no longer cloaked by the powerful magic that once consumed its human soul. Remora snapped its neck before it could run.

"Think of it as a nightmare," Min had told him, setting alight the creature's lifeless body, "Don't let their illusion infest your memory; your loved ones deserve to be remembered as they were. Not as the Happenstance made them."

"Thank you..."

Min would only go so far as to accept some foraged berries in return for his help, before disappearing into the trees. It took Remora two decades to track him down again. Joining the fight against the Protectorate, he vowed his allegiance to the Counsel, and pledged his life to compensate him as he should.

A solitary word was all it had taken to change Remora's destiny. How could he have faced his mother in Hymm had she eaten him? Or worse still, how could he meet his eternal rest had he been forced to defend against her? Knowing he would meet her in peace, he cared not when the end would come.

"To serve me now," the Counsel told him on the road to Merit Janney's, "Is to live by any means. The tides are turning; we must cast off the shackles of the past if we intend to see out the future we deserve."

"As you command, Master. But..."

"Go ahead," the Counsel urged.

"Will the drunkard be willing to do the same? He has proved himself difficult in company, and I have seen how deeply his behavior has affected you. I worry what mischief he will cause, now that you have brought him into the palace."

The Counsel had always seen something of Ursa in Remora's reckless attitude to life; but while one cared nothing for laying down his own for his master, Rel's little brother had cared for nothing at all.

"Ursa will find his peace," the Counsel declared, "Just as you will find your own. Have patience with him."

Remora obediently held his tongue, his fingers tightening on the reins in his hand.

"As you wish."

The Counsel's order was a reminder to himself as much as anything, not to act until the truth was laid before them. And so it was he had come to prevail on Merit Janney for answers; there was no other on the Madning Isle who could better speak to a person's soul. Whatever part of Rel now resided within Fiepet Strahl, she would be the one to make it talk.