“Come on, just put your hand in this,” Tallah asked Vergil as sweetly as she could manage to twist her voice. She even tried giving the boy an encouraging smile. Something must have shown on her face because he refused the lure.

“I really don’t want to touch it.” He moved further away from her, keeping Sil’s high-backed chair between them.

“I could simply throw it at you. I guarantee I wouldn’t miss.” She had to chase him at her slowest pace lest she lose the thread of concentration. It allowed the boy too much freedom to dodge her.

She held her hands out and thin strands of black lightning arched between her fingers. They ate light with every pulsation, erratically dimming the room as she stalked him. It took a lot of concentration at that stage of testing to keep the effect going. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t actually hurl it at him. They could barely manifest and keep it coherent and Vergil had unwittingly called the bluff.

Her chest burned when channelling. Pain lingered even when she didn’t. It took a real effort of will to force illum into this new form and the blasted boy refused to help her test it.

“But electricity could fry the chip in my head,” he excused himself again, moving in circles around her work desk. “You wouldn’t set your own research on fire. Would you?” He sounded a lot less sure when she vaulted onto her books and files, scattering them.

“I know you’re lying, bucket-head,” she said. Her control slipped and the lightning licked back at her, unruly and wild. She cut her illum flow and started again, forcing herself through the white flashes of misery. “Blast you. Sil had me electrocuting you exactly five times so far and your thing is still chirping away.”

There was a sound from Sil’s room and the large black door opened with a slight creak. A nearly nude, bleary eyed Mertle walked out, stumbling over Vergil’s small bed in the main hall. She stopped in the doorway to the study room and stared at the cat and mouse game.

Vergil hadn’t noticed her walk up. His attention was solely on keep at least out of Tallah’s arm-reach.

“I really don’t want to touch that,” he said, backing away. Nimble little critter when he wanted to be. Tummy’s teaching must have been sticking somewhere for the boy was getting cheeky with her.

“It won’t hurt,” Tallah replied, smiling as he backed into Mertle.

“I’m sorry, but I-I-I really don’t believe that.”

“…’s privy?” Mertle asked, two steps behind him, in a quiet, sleepy voice.

“What?”

He turned for a moment, surprised, and Tallah pounced on his moment of distraction, getting both hands around his throat for direct skin contact. Nothing happened for a heartbeat and then he collapsed, frothing at the mouth, body convulsing violently. He did not make a single sound. Huh. That was unexpected at least.

The elendine looked at him, then at her, and frowned.

“Why?” she asked, eyes squinting.

“Door opposite this one, Mertle,” Tallah said as she walked around the convulsing body. “Vergil’s helping me test some things. He’ll be fine. Probably.”

She crouched next to the boy and inspected his fluttering eye lids. The spasms came and went and he curled up into a tight ball on the floor to gibber away in a language Tallah couldn’t understand. That was also unexpected. He seemed to be cursing at her.

Mertle shrugged and swayed softly from side to side, a large grin plastered on her sleepy face. “Sil’s not upset with me. Yay.”

“That’s nice. I did tell you so.”

“Thank you.” She hugged Tallah’s back and then walked away to the bathroom. After a while she walked back to Sil’s room and closed the large door behind herself.

It took some time for Vergil to regain use of his limbs, and then a few heartbeats more before his gibbering stopped. Tallah poked him in the cheek with the quill.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“What’s your head-thing say?” she asked, excited, notepad prepared.

“That you’re a horrible person,” Vergil muttered and tried to pick himself off the floor. He could move but coordinating seemed particularly challenging. He managed to get up on his knees and hands but crashed back on his face in a tangle of limbs and cusses.

“I’d like to know what I did to deserve this.” Another attempt to rise. This time his nose burst bloody when his face hit the floor, a palm’s width away from the soft carpet.

“Born under an evil star. Stepped in shit once too many times as a child. Broke a twig by sitting on it and didn’t toss it over your shoulder. Ate an egg yolk raw. Spilled salt on the table and didn't collect it back. I can name about sixty other things you may have done in life to earn your wonderful luck.” She poked him again. “Head-thing report. Now. Or I zap you again.”

“I quote,” he groaned. “‘Your body is afflicted by alcohol poisoning. You are now confused and dazed. Motor skills, vision, speech, reason, and sexual drive… Really? Sexual drive may be impaired and respond erratically. Do not operate heavy machinery. Seek medical aid.’”

“Sexual drive? What?” Tallah barely contained her laughter as she wrote down Vergil’s interpretation. Basically what she expected and hoped for, with some flourishes. Much work to be done still on refining the thing, but its first test was successful enough.

“It thinks I’ve drunk myself stupid, and it’s exactly how I assume it feels.” He kept trying to get up. “I wouldn’t know.”

He failed again and dropped down on his face. Tallah made no effort to help.

“Did it endanger your life in any way? Does it say anything about organ damage or anything similar?”

“Nothing like that, no. It doesn’t even hurt.” Something sparked in his eyes as he finally managed to get some semblance of coordination back. He got up in a sitting position and tried to pull away in a panic.

“What?” she asked, more and more excited by the results. Vergil looked horrified.

“I’m seeing three of you.”

That earned him a smack over the head and another face plant on the floor. He half chuckled, half groaned, sound muffled by the thick carpet. Blood pooled under his face and stained the fluffy rug. Verti would be upset with her again.

“I think I’ll put down impaired judgement,” Tallah said and left him to manage on his own.

She headed to and closed the heavy oak door to the study as Mertle’s soft giggles could be heard two rooms over, and a bit more than that. Sil got self-conscious about those things and it’d make her more comfortable if she found the door closed when they’d inevitably come out for food. Sometime in the tenday, maybe.

Vergil had managed to find his feet and he wobbled his way into a chair in front of the fireplace. If nothing more, he made for the perfect test subject. It helped to have someone that could somewhat accurately describe what he was experiencing instead of simply whining.

“You can create fresh magic?” he asked as he sat down heavily, head held in his hands with his elbows propped on his knees. “Isn’t magic all in dusty tomes and…” He gestured to where his helmet lay on the mantel piece above the fireplace.

“New channelling effects are easy to produce. You need a bit of imagination and a great deal of understanding of yourself and the natural world.” She finished her notes and began copying them more neatly in her grimoire. “Repeating this by instinct is the hard part. Takes practice.” She gave him a level glare. “And a willing, cooperating subject.”

It was Anna’s mastery over her Flesh Dolls that had sparked the need for this particular variation of Christina’s stunning bolt. To kill a doll with fire took a lot more illum than it did for Anna to make new ones and keep up her assault, especially in her overfed Sanctum. A way to disrupt the connection between maker and creation would simplify the problem in the future. It could also make things easier to manage when she needed a quick exit and not wish to leave a trail of bodies behind.

With nothing of any real worth gained from the boy, she had all the time in Winter to either sulk or work. And working kept her mind off other things. Rhine’s wraith even now threatened intrusion and she was determined to avoid it.

Spending so long in one place felt odd, all at once liberating and panic inducing. For every day that passed of Winter her goals flitted farther away, the Empress just as terrifying on the event horizon of her plans. Vergil, poor creature that he was, hadn’t offered anything that she could readily use.

What worth were details of wiring and batteries to her?

What worth was it to know of worlds turning alone in the vastness of the night sky? She could no more reach them than she could wrap her fingers around Ort’s throat and survive the attempt.

An entire Winter spent in idiotic idleness. Ludwig’s tome was as useful to her as a doorstop to a tent’s flap. She’d teased it open, got Vergil to read some pages for her, and got bored with the attempt. Secret knowledge of the ancients… what a joke. Everything there was old theory to modern illum channelling, basic reading for absolutely anyone seeking to gain a spot at Hoarfrost. That whole song, dance and comedy routine hinging on something so pointless that she almost felt embarrassed for the heartbeat of weakness when she’d been ready to accept the fool’s errand.

Are you going to start picking lint out of your belly button next? May as well. Christina even provided the temptation with an unpleasant itch. You’ve moped for so long that you haven’t even noticed the boy talking to you.