His years in school had not been entirely wasted. Melitas knew few true spells, but he had carefully honed his talents in arcane lockpicking while living in the neophyte dormitories. The boys were always stealing each other’s things, breaking into their rooms, swiping their valuables. It was a dubious talent to have in warfare. But when it came to adventuring, thievery always had some place.

He locked the door to his own chamber and put the key away in his pocket. It was time to see if he still remembered what he had learned.

He focused on his Essence. He pictured the pins inside of the lock in front of him, and he exhaled force to depress their springs, probing to find the correct combination that might match his key. Soon he had done it—he felt it with his sixth sense, with a sense of touch that was not physical but mental, as everything fell into place.

He held it.

He tried the knob.

It turned, and he pushed the door ajar.

He sighed in relief as he let the spell go. That was step one. He could open any lock in this place, silently, just as he thought he would be able to.

Next came the harder part. What to do after the door was open?

He hadn’t quite figured that out yet. But he would; as the days went by, he worked on his plan, scheming at night and while out of sight. He knew Eris could read his mind, if she had a reason to, so he filled his thoughts with the vilest lust he could. That was easy in her presence, and it would surely distract her from his nefarious ideas.

They passed each other in the hallway when he went to fetch dinner. Melitas worked hard to imagine her without her dress, to picture her as she had been after transforming herself from a bird and back into a woman, to visualize what he would certainly have done to her if given the chance....

If she noticed him at all, she did not show it. She passed by him.

He wasn’t discovered yet.

When he had retrieved a sweet roll from the kitchen and returned to his room, he sat cross-legged on his bed and schemed. He would strike at night. He would douse the torches in the halls. He would neutralize both magicians. Then the Shadow Man could deal with the rest, and then it could take the boy.

Only: how to neutralize the magicians?

He made no progress on that front.

After days of idleness—spent mostly gorging on sweets—he awoke to red eyes standing over him.

His room was lightless.

A freezing black hand was on his cheek.

“Why do you wait so long to act?” said the Shadow Man.

Melitas gasped and shook at first, but he managed to calm himself after a moment, staring upward. It had woken him up. He considered banishing the monster with a flame as punishment, for he was incensed to be stirred at so late an hour. Yet the Shadow Man seemed a creature best kept as an ally.

“I—I’ve been planning,” Melitas said, squirming upright. “If it were so easy to take care of them, you would have done it already.”

“It is easy. You go to the small one while she sleeps and use a knife to make her sleep much longer. Then you do the same for my little crow’s mother, and I can come and take him away.”

The Shadow Man meant to kill them. With a blade. To slit their throats while they slept. The thought had occurred to him. He would do it to Eris—that miserable bitch was a monster, she deserved far worse, and he wouldn’t regret it. She had killed dozens of people. If what they said about the Kynigos was true, the number was more likely thousands. But Aletheia…

The Shadow Man sensed his trepidation.

“The little one mocked you. Did she not lead the others in laughing at you, the great Melitas, around the dining table?”

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Melitas shook his head. “You saw?”

“I was there watching. In the shadows. I saw everything. She is no better than the little crow’s mother; she only hides her contempt. And she stands in our way.”

“But—she healed me,” he said softly. “She’s—I can’t—” Even the word was hard to say. “Kill her.”

The idea disgusted him. That pretty face, those golden eyes, that flowing hair—he tried to picture Aletheia, her throat slit by his hand, and the image nearly made him throw up. He had never killed a human before, and certainly not a woman. How could he start with her?

“Remember how she rebuked you. Remember how she teased.”

Melitas remembered. And the more he remembered, the more pleasing the picture in his mind became. She had healed him, and brought him along, but she had also underestimated him. She had teased him, mocked him, laughed at him, taunted him….

“A spell would be easier,” he said. It was less personal. A knife was messy.

“Your magic is too loud. You will wake the others. The small one must be killed silently.”

“Can’t you do it? Why can’t you do it?”

“The mother of my little crow keeps lights on at all hours to drive me away. The little one is quick, and she will make light the moment I appear. She taunts me by sleeping in the dark, yet she is ready to conjure the sun should I touch her. But you cannot be driven away by light.”

He could be killed by other magic, though. But he knew defensive techniques. He wasn’t totally vulnerable to retaliation, unlike the Shadow Man. So he nodded cautiously.

“Do not hesitate now. Aletheia chose this, not you. You wanted to be friends. She made you her enemy.”

That scene on the battlements outside Bahaty repeated through his mind. Then at dinner, again. He had done nothing except be himself, and how had she treated him?

He made himself angry with recollection. Yes, he realized, he could kill her. It wasn’t about her anyway. It was about Eris. She simply stood in his way.

Like the Hydra had stood in his way. That alone was enough to warrant killing it. Aletheia was no different.

“Once the magicians are dispatched, keep all dark, and there will be nothing left to keep me from my boy. I will deal with the others.”

Melitas nodded. “Where will you take Corvo?”

“Somewhere very dark. Where we can play together, forever, in peace.”

“You know he’s—human, don’t you? He needs to eat. And drink. Or he’ll die.”

The Shadow Man said nothing. Instead he regarded Melitas in silence, staring at him, before lowering his head.

Their eyes almost met.

The Shadow Man disappeared.

Melitas spent the next day shaking. He avoided meals and remained in his room. Twice he decided that he couldn’t do it. But always he would think hard enough for some reason to be angry, and he would imagine the power Eris’ staff might bring him, and his mind would change. Then waiting until nightfall was the hardest part. He wanted to act now. To get it over with.

But he had to wait. So he waited.

Then it was night.

He would kill Aletheia first. Silently. A knife to her throat. It wouldn’t hurt her. It would be instant. Eris would be next. Ideally her son wouldn’t have to see—but that wasn’t his concern. Melitas expected nothing good would happen to Corvo once he was in the Shadow Man’s hands, but he had never liked children anyway. He would sacrifice a dozen more five-year-olds for power like that of Eris.

Then, if a fight were to break out, he would defend himself with a shield of mana. He would be able to overcome either surprised woman. They were mere adventurers. Runaways. But he was a wizard of war. This was within his power.

He still needed hours to work up the courage to step out into the corridor. Torches had been lit, and he walked along the rooms as he procrastinated, putting every source of light out as he came upon it. A simple breath of mana smothered the oxygen from the fire and doused it like water.

Then he reached Aletheia’s door. He stared at it for a very long time.

He tried the handle.

It was locked.

He put his ear to the mechanism and did as he had practiced. This time he was nervous, and he found it hard to concentrate his Essence. But with a small blast of energy there came a click, and he pushed the door open.

He cringed as it creaked on its hinges.

He waited in the doorway for any sound that the woman within had woken up.

No sound came. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

A single candle burned on a vanity’s desk. It gave off just enough light to see blonde hair tucked beneath a pillow on the bed. The rooms of this castle were small and cramped, and he only needed a few steps to find himself standing over Aletheia.

His dining knife was in his hands. The blade shook in his grasp.

He was revolted at what he saw. She was on top of the covers, it was always hot in the castle, and had undressed for the night. She wore nothing but linen around her hips and breasts, and a small jade bracelet on her right wrist.

Her entire torso was covered in burn scars. She was disgusting. Disfigured. Any ounce of attraction he had felt withered away in in an instant.

He realized that this would make it much easier to kill her. He clutched his knife tight against his chest.

Still he stared at her for a while yet.

He almost didn’t do it. He almost left. But then he remembered Eris’ staff, and the power he had seen her wield so effortlessly again and again. That would be his, if only he did not second guess himself.

So he lowered the knife to her throat. Positioning the blade. He would drop it on her neck with all its weight, severing her jugular, destroying her vocal cords. Then only Eris would be left.

He took a deep breath, and he plunged downward.

But the blade didn’t hit her neck. The tip deflected to the side at the last moment, veering off as if pushed at its flat at the last moment, and the point instead sliced into a feather-filled pillow. It became lodged to the hilt.

Aletheia’s wrist, the wrist with the jade bracelet, jolted to the side—and her eyes shot open.