“I didn’t expect to see you here, of all people.”

Tyron leaned back from the lens he was looking through, putting his pliance down as he turned with a smile to greet the newcomer. Short, dressed in a humble-looking shirt and pants with an irritated scowl on her face, Master Willhem’s greatest apprentice looked much the same as she did the last time he’d seen her.

“Back at you,” Annita Halfshard scoffed. “Have the Magisters really grown so desperate they’d bring in a barely qualified hack like you?”

“Well, if I’m good enough to fix your conduits, then I must be good enough to fix theirs.”

“You didn’t fix my conduits.”

“I improved them, then.”

“Fine.”

She rolled her eyes and approached his bench to look over his shoulder. The other Arcanists in the workshop had reacted strangely to her appearance, almost recoiling as she drew near.

Master Halfshard did have a… mixed reputation within the profession. An undoubtedly top class expert, but irascible and prickly. There was no need to draw her ire if it wasn’t necessary.

“And of course it’s transmission work,” she chuckled, leaning closer to peer at his work through the lens. “Oh, shit! Is that an error there? This rah glyph. It’s misaligned.”

She smirked, pleased to have found an error. Tyron only shook his head.

“I’m transmitting fire magick with this array.”

“So?”

“So, if the rah was placed any closer…”

“It would burn out. Damn you, Lukas Almsfield. Can you fuck up one time?”

“At this? No. If I attempted to do any of the thousand things you can do better than me? Absolutely. Endlessly.”

Much like he did while working with his more advanced death magick constructs. There had been many, many mistakes, but also a great deal of progress. Failure was a teacher, as Master Willhem had often said.

“Well, get up off your backside, I need you for something.”

Tyron pushed his seat back and rose, glancing around until he found Regis Shan standing nearby, looking bored.

“Do you know anything about this, Magister Shan?”

It takes a second for the lordling to get his bearings, standing around watching Tyron work had been unspeakably dull, and some days he almost fell asleep on the job.

“Is this… Master Halfshard?”

“Yes. She wants me to go and work with her. I wanted to make sure I cleared it with you first.”

Annita rolled her eyes before jabbing a thumb at Tyron while she spoke to his handler.

“I’ve been asked to go upstairs and work on some stuff. Without a capable assistant,” she emphasised the word assistant, prodding Tyron in the chest, “it’ll take twice as long. This guy is good enough that I trust him to handle transmission and conduits for me.”

Another magister hurried into the room, wheezing. It appeared as though Annita had rushed off, leaving the poor fellow, who appeared to be… advanced in age… gasping in her wake.

“Master… Halfshard…” he gasped, “we… have… just one… moment.”

He gathered his breath, sweating heavily in his robes.

“We have arranged for… our best Arcanists to assist you. There should be no need… for extra help.”

Master Halfshard frowned.

“Did any of them graduate with a recommendation from Master Willhem?” she asked forthrightly.

It was a pointless question. Only two people had ever received Willhem’s blessing upon completing their apprenticeship, and they were presently standing next to each other in this workshop.

“Well, no. They haven’t,” the old man muttered, reddening in the face, “but their skills should not be dismissed. These Magisters work on the most powerful and secretive enchantments in the empire.”

Tyron’s heart slowed in his chest. He was talking about the brands. He had to be talking about the brands. Everyone suspected that they were controlled from somewhere within the Red Tower, but other than the Magisters themselves, who could confirm it?

“Obviously, they know things I don’t, but it’s the level of execution I question. I’ve been commissioned to work on very specific things, none of which involve your… particular duties as magisters,” Annita pointed out with some distaste.

She wasn’t here to touch whatever the Magisters used to control the brands, there was no chance they would allow anyone, not even Master Willhem himself, to touch something so sensitive. That meant it was probably more trap work, or dampening, or energy gathering, or any of the other thousands of enchantments built into the stone around the Magister’s tower.

The senior mages in the tower hemmed and hawed for a while before they reluctantly agreed… to ask even more senior mages, who also delayed. It wasn’t until Annita started visibly fuming that they got their act together and granted permission for her to use him as an assistant for the work she had been commissioned to do.

Of course, it wasn’t that simple, it never was with the Magisters. There were more checks, additional security, yet more supervision and scrutiny before either of them were allowed anywhere near a staircase. Yet, to his surprise, Master Halfshard got her way. That went to show just how highly she was regarded, only a half-step lower than Willhem himself. If the magisters were willing to bend this far to accommodate her wishes, then they were serious indeed about securing the best possible talent.

“Do you have any idea what’s brought on this… flurry of work here in the tower?” Tyron murmured as they marched up the steps. “I’ve asked a few questions, but nobody seems willing to give any answers.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” she replied, eyes hard. “The only reason I agreed to a commission with the Red Tower is because I was getting bored pumping out high-end toys for rich children who don’t deserve them. My skills aren’t improving, so I need new challenges. That’s it.”

Tyron had, of course, been doing a lot more digging, and he didn’t like what he’d found. The Magisters were active in a way they hadn’t been for decades, but that wasn’t all. Marshalls were being recalled, imperial soldiers had been seen outside the castle, even the priests were acting suspicious.

There was a shakeup coming, a big one. Perhaps someone had gotten wind of the fomenting rebellion and were looking to crack down? It was plausible. Which would mean his manipulations of Magister Poranus were dramatically less likely to slip under the radar. Another problem on his list.

Finally, the small group crested the end of the stairwell and found themselves in an open, relatively sparse part of the tower. Tyron had never been this high up before, this had to be almost halfway to the top. Strange fluctuations and magicks could be felt thrumming in the air around him, and excitement coiled in his belly. Who knew what secrets he might glimpse up here? What he might be able to get his nimble fingers on?

“Shall we get to work, then?” he suggested, smiling at the dour-faced, red-robed magisters standing around them.

“A workshop has been prepared,” the old man wheezed, gesturing for Annita and Lukas to follow him.

Now that she had a chance to do some enchanting, a change came over Annita, one he had seen before. It was almost comical how much she resembled their Master. Surly and irascible almost all the time, but almost childlike in their enthusiasm for the Arcanists’ art.

Tyron himself felt like he was bashing his head against a wall with his current projects; he simply didn’t have enough experience handling the levels of power he needed. Not to mention fitting so much magick, performing so many different functions, into such a confined space without interfering with each other. His speciality was maximising trickles of power, combining them, preventing loss, until they formed a stable flow.

What his current ideas required were rivers of arcane energy. Wrangling such rich streams of magick into arrays was exactly the kind of high-end enchanting he had avoided.

He was making progress, but it was slow. Too slow.

He eyed Annita sideways as she strode toward the workshop, a slight grin on her face.

She was looking for a new challenge, was she? Perhaps…

~~~

“Yor.”

“Tyron, a pleasure as always. What brings you to my humble abode today?”

As if there was anything humble about the Red Pavillion. He’d deliberately made sure to arrive as close to dawn as possible, to avoid the worst of the crowds, and ensure his host wouldn’t be at her most… energetic.

He’d never actually seen where she went during the day, had never laid eyes on her at rest. Quite a deliberate choice on her part. Given the current mood between them, were he to find a sleeping Yor, she would be likely to wake up in the middle of a bonfire.

The Necromancer glared at her, openly hostile, not caring to conceal his anger. For her part, dressed in an alluring red dress with her midnight black hair pulled back to reveal her neck and shoulders, the monster appeared as ravishing as always. Seeing his anger, she merely smiled.

“Why, that’s quite a passionate look you are sending my way, Tyron. I don’t recall doing anything to deserve such ire.”

The way she stressed the word recall, openly mocking him for being unable to remember what had been done to him. It was infuriating. It was also bait.

“I remember I’m fucking pissed, Yor, that suffices for me.”

“Such a shame. I felt we had developed a special bond.”

“I didn’t, and you proved me correct. Can we move beyond this posturing? Whatever you managed to leave in my head is there until I figure out a way to get rid of it, and in return, you have earned my enmity. It is what it is.”

The vampire hesitated for the briefest possible moment, perhaps taken by surprise he was willing to be this forthright.

“I have to admit,” she said slowly, “I didn’t expect to see you… quite so soon.”

“So soon after what? Yor?”

She smiled thinly.

“What brings you to my door, then, Tyron? More blood tablets? I hear they are bleeding you dry over at the Magister’s tower. So many status checks. Whatever could they be up to?”

“Information,” Tyron said. “I know you’ve snaked your fingers into every crevice you can reach in Kenmor. You know a lot more about what’s going on than I do.”

Yor blinked, then sat back in her seat, the colour of her eyes shifting from a lighter ruby into a deeper red, like carmine.

“A trade, then? What are you proposing?”

Once again, she did him the courtesy of letting the mask slip, setting free the unfeeling monster who sat behind the facade. It was chilling, sitting across from her. There was no emotion in this creature, nothing real. Except, perhaps, her thirst.

“There’s something big going on in the city. The Magisters are acting like a hive poked with a stick. Security is bordering on paranoid around every secure area in Kemor. Something has spooked everyone from the nobles down. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know what they intend to do. You can fix that.”

She smiled, revealing her fangs.

“I can.”

“I presume there is a price.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“It’s rather bold of you to come in here, into my lair, with such a contemptuous air about you, Tyron. I would have thought your recent experience would have taught you a little fear.”

Tyron grinned humorlessly in her face.

“I’ve seen what dealing with you respectfully will get me. No thanks.”

“If you thought that was bad, you are mistaken. It can be so. Much. Worse.”

Tyron pressed his hands to the table and stood, sighing.

“Clearly, this was a waste of time. If you aren’t interested in giving me the information I seek, then I will have to find it elsewhere.”

Now, Yor allowed herself a slight smirk.

“You think you’ll find someone as adept as vampires at hunting down secrets? I know everything that goes on in this city. Everything.”

The Necromancer turned to leave.

“Oh, I agree with you, vampires are certainly unparalleled at ferreting out secrets from mortals.”

He would never forget just how easily the creature in front of him had woven the nobles around her fingers.

“I just need to bargain with another coven,” he finished, smiling over his shoulder. “After all, you aren’t the only bloodsuckers in town.”

The atmosphere around Yor changed instantly. No longer icy cold, she became furious.

“There is no chance you have found them,” she snarled, rising from her seat.

Tyron turned back to face her.

“Oh?” he said, brow raised. “I take that to mean you haven’t located them yet? How… odd.”

“Think very carefully before you take this step, Tyron Steelarm,” she said. “Getting between two factions of the Scarlet Court is far more dangerous than you can possibly imagine.”

“Oh, so I should remain loyal to your faction? After all the care and consideration you’ve shown me? Don’t be ridiculous.”

She watched him warily, like a beast assessing its prey.

“Have you really found another coven? If you have, then I’m willing to trade information. I will tell you what you want to know in exchange for the location.”

In truth, he hadn’t located them, not exactly. However, a few things he’d noticed had clicked together. The rats in the sewers around his study had continued to grow, an anomaly which eventually led him to investigate one. The whiff of blood magick had been oh so faint, but it had been present.

As his explorations of the nearby tunnels had widened, he found other clues. Small rodents, exsanguinated and left to rot in the putrid sludge had been a major find. Who else could be bleeding rats dry in the sewers beneath the city? Or employing blood magick against the rodents?

Tyron grinned.

“I’m not sure you’re going to like the answer, but I accept the terms.”