The words did not register with Wesley.

“He did well?” the Nocturne asked.

“My head is not attached to my body, is it?” the rider asked excitedly. “He got me. Little trick of the light. One second I had him, the next I was holding my head in my hands. He will make a good addition.”

The Nocturne grunted.

“You will send him, yes?” the rider asked, his voice straining hope. “To get the map?”

“He will go.”

“Arrggghhh,” Wesley tried.

The Nocturne looked down at him. He drew his wand and pointed it at him. His mouth began to work.

“Speak.”

Cold trickled down his spine. “Where is Maronie?”

“Who?”

“The girl,” the rider said.

“Ah, yes,” the Nocturne said, nodding his hooded head. “We’ll get to her. But first,” he pointed his wand at Wesley’s torso. “I need you to get up. I’ve a gift for you.”

His body was his once more, save for his hands, which were numb. His fingers useless. He still managed to stand but almost keeled over from the blood rushing to his head.

The Nocturne’s gloved hand reached to steady him. His touch was like a jolt of ice. As if a freeze spread through Wesley’s body.

“Is this elm?” the Nocturne asked.

Wesley looked up. He held his wand lightly in the man’s fingers.

“Yew tree,” Wesley said. “From a branch on my family’s property.”

He bent it slightly. “Ah, yes. It has…lasting magic.”

Wesley hated that this monster had his hands on his wand. He was staring at the Nocturne with a murderous rage. His heart thundered and he thought about leap onto the man and digging his teeth into his neck. He was sure he could get a good chunk even through the robes.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, his voice shaking.

The rider slapped him on the back of the head. “You do not question him. Would you question god? Or a king?”

But the Nocturne, that pitiless dark hole of a face, studied him. “Gallos, please put your head back on,” he said. “It's unbecoming.”

The rider, rather gingerly, placed his head on back on the shoulders, twisting it gently. There was the sound like suction and as if a snake slithered through a muddy swamp. The lacerations at the base of the neck began to smoke.

“Are you going to answer my question?” Wesley asked.

“You want to talk about your mother?”

Gallos burst out laughing, his neck twisting unnaturally, the sound a vicious rasp. “You fool! The–”

The Nocturne held up a hand and the rider snapped his mouth shut, a brief visage of fear crossing his features.

“I did not kill your mother, Wesley. I wasn’t even in the country when she died,” he told him.

“Your mark. Your signature,” Wesley said.

“Copy cats. I never would have been so sloppy.” There was a long drawn out sigh from the man. “I’ve only ever killed one person in my life.” A small beat of silence before he continued. “My father. And that was an accident. It happened when I was a young man. Not even out of school yet. Magic was bursting from me. He beat me back then. That night he started in on my sister. What would you have done?”

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Wesley did not know why the Nocturne was telling this lie. “If it was an accident then there was nothing you could have done.”

“Indeed. The police did not think so either. So they locked me up.”

“And I should believe you why?”

The Nocturne laughed, a wretched sound, deep like a basso drum. “I do not care if you believe me. You’ve little choice in the matter of your employment.”

Wesley swallowed. “My employment?”

“I told you, Wesley, you are marked. Few like you exist in this world. The magic they put on you when they killed your mother, it is like a tether. It strafes the boundaries of this world. It is a powerful thing to be connected to the Other World. The Breach as many of our kind call it.”

Wesley was lost. Dumbfounded, even. What the hell was this monster talking about?

The feeling was stretching back into his hands and he wanted to use them. They were aching for some violence. He hated playing the puppet.

“You have latent powers, my son,” the Nocturne continued.

“Don’t,” whispered Wesley, barely recognizing his own voice. It was deep, viciously rageful.

“Ah, but you are my son. If only in magical strings. We are bound. Us three. And many others. I was there first, I believe. I can’t be sure. But when I began my crusade. I wanted to uncover their malevolence. Nothing else. Show the world so they could be humiliated. But alas, life is not so simple.”

Wesley shook his head. “Who killed my mother then?”

“That,” the Nocturne said mysteriously, “is the question.”

“You don’t know?”

“I have an idea. They call themselves the Court of Nine.”

Gallos hissed.

“Never heard of them,” Wesley said, flexing his fingers. He was growing weary of this conversation. He’d rather take his chances and go for it.

London still burned around them. But it was as if they were in a bubble. No sound was reaching them any longer. Not even from the dragon, which picked at its teeth near the fountain.

“No,” the Nocturne said, amused. “You wouldn’t have. They aren’t the kind to go around calling attention to themselves. And yet,” he said, raising his arms in a grand gesture. “They touch everything around you. Weavers of great magicks. I’ve done much to find them in the last many years but my search has yielded nothing. They are hidden. But I see their traces.”

“One does not move as much magic as them and not leave traces. Their machinations are boundless. Spells of such magnitude it would cripple the mind to even fathom it. I can see now their marks on this world. It is filthy what they have done to us.”

Wesley narrowed his eyes. “And what exactly have they done to us?”

Something glowed beneath that hood. “In time, my son. In time.”

“I am to work for you but not know our aims? To know the evils of our enemies?”

Gallos chortled behind Wesley.

“I do not need you to know. I need you to follow my orders,” the Nocturne said. It almost sounded as if he was smiling. “I need a knight. Will you be my knight, Wesley?”

He took a moment to mull it over. As if he had a choice. A shallow grave, or perhaps the belly of the dragon. Though his hands were now his again, he felt a vague, distant curiosity. He would not trust either of these men with his life. But he would bide his time.

“Doesn’t seem like I have a choice, now does it?” he asked.

The rider cackled.

“You always have a choice. But what are your choices, you must ask. A meaningless death? Or a vengeful and judicious existence?”

“Before my obvious, and inevitable answer, will you give me a truth?”

The Nocturne raised his hands. “You may ask.”

“You told me I had latent powers. What were you talking about?”

He could definitely hear the smile now. “Ah, yes. I was hoping you might ask.” He stepped forward and touched the side of Wesley’s head with a hand. Warm energy pulsed, it felt like an extension of his hand was fishing around in his brain. “One does not come in contact with the Breach without runoff. I am able to read the glyphs on your aura. You, more likely than not, are able to imbue objects with magick.”

Wesley rolled his eyes. “Yes, I can cast spells.”

“The effervescent jester.”

Gallos slapped him on the back of the head.

“I do not mean a simpleton spell. You can imbue ordinary objects, to their fundamentalist nature, with magic. This is not to be taken lightly.”

Wesley shrugged. “We’ll see.”

“I need to hear you say it, Wesley,” the Nocturne said.

A man of his word, albeit, heavily threatened. Wesley said, “I will be your knight.”

“Wooohoooo!” Gallos shouted.

While the Nocturne clasped his hands behind his back and said, “What grand news! Our power grows.” He held out his hand. Which Wesley begrudgingly took. “Welcome, my Nocturne Knight. Let me give you your first quest.”