Greg’s skin was still crawling from the macabre exhibits when he ducked into the smaller crowd outside, where people were watching the new steam engine chuff gently in the early summer warmth. It wasn’t just the show itself, but the way people were staring: with that languorous horror of the safe spectator.

“That was gross,” Thoko pulled him out of his head. “Want to go sit down someplace?”

Thoko’s question made Greg jump. He hadn’t noticed that she had followed her. He blinked at her. “You aren’t staying?”

She shrugged. “I doubt I’ll learn anything new here. And I’ve seen enough of people revelling in the pain of others.”

She reached for his hand, giving him a small smile. “Let’s get out of here?”

“Right. Right,” he repeated. “Uh, Gustave’s club is close by. We might be able to find something to drink there?”

“Sure.”

She didn’t let go of his hand. That was nice.

The street was mostly empty, the lunch crowd dispersed, the evening revellers not yet out. Greg walked in long strides, Thoko keeping pace. She didn’t comment on his flight.

“Think Gustave is around?” she asked instead.

“Maybe. I have no idea what his schedule is these days. And maybe it’s better if we don’t visit quite the same club. I don’t know how much he told his friends after I dragged him through the fog the other night.”

“Maybe we can find a cafe? How do you feel about some cake?”

That sounded good, Greg thought, but before he could answer, someone called their names.

“Lord Feleke. Miss Banda. Fancy meeting you here.”

Mr. Smith held out his hand in greeting. “What brings you here?”

“We had a look at Prof. Audenne’s show at the library.”

Smith grimaced. “Ah, I see. Quite a show. Perhaps you’d like to join my colleagues and I for a drink, to chase down the aftertaste? I know I didn’t find it very palatable.”

Greg looked at Thoko to gauge her reaction. She seemed more eager at the suggestion than he felt himself. Not all of Smith’s colleagues were comfortable in his presence, and he didn’t feel like watching them jump every time he moved.

Still, he claimed: “That would be quite welcome.”

Mr. Smith’s companions sat outside one of the many eateries and pubs, both of them smoking pipes.

“I believe I mentioned Prof. Martens to you, Lord Feleke? And you know Charles, of course.”

Charles, from the Lour bridge. That was a relief to Greg. Charles had felt the Rot’s influence and appreciated a werewolf’s protection.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Prof. Martens, the Honourable Greg Feleke, and Miss Thoko Banda.”

Martens was an old man, with almost no hair and a scanty little beard. He looked frail, dwarfed by his own coat. A scarf in the colour of Loegrion covered half his chin. He wore a pin on his lapel, a flower over two crossed swords.

“I am glad to meet you both, Lord Feleke, Miss Banda,” he said, and rose with creaking joints to shake their hands. “I saw your picture in the papers, Miss Banda. Well done on those Valoisian bastards, I say. Well done and to hell with unsanctioned magic.”

“I—there was no magic involved,” Thoko said. “No human magic, that is.”

“Of course not,” Martens agreed, smiling. “Of course not. And you, Lord Feleke, I have heard much about. Thank you for bringing my best apprentice back.”

Greg was worried that if he grabbed the old man’s hand too tightly, he would crush some fingers. Martens let go abruptly and fell back into his chair with a wheezing cough.

Charles and Smith watched with worry.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go—” Charles asked, but Martens interrupted with an angry wave of his hands.

“I sit inside all day,” he wheezed. “Fresh air! Or, to see the new Savre bridge with my own eyes. Just once…”

He coughed again, then cleared his throat, focusing on Greg. “Is it true that a werewolf-bite cures all illness?”

Greg sighed inwardly. The question wasn’t surprising, but he wished he had a better answer. “In theory, yes,” he said. “In practise, there’s lots of reasons it may not work. Magic messes with it, so does certain alchemy. And we get old just as any other living being.”

Martens took a drag from his pipe and promptly started coughing again, which turned into swearing as he caught his breath. “Should have listened to the doctor twenty years ago,” he growled, glaring at the pipe in his hands. “So if a healer already tried to heal someone, it’s too late?”

What was he supposed to say to that? The few surveys that had been done in the field had hardly been comprehensive. And if Martens was suffering from what Greg thought he was, fifty-fifty probably looked like good odds.

“There are other ways that werewolves can help,” Thoko said before Greg could make up his mind. “Not Greg,” she added. “But we could get you in contact. If your healer who would be willing to work with a werewolf.”

Martens nodded slowly. “I’m sure I could find someone, if the man attending to me won’t help. Seems like all he’s doing is telling me I should have come to see him five years ago anyway. Claims that no one has enough magic to help me now.” He looked from Thoko to Greg. “Much like how I heard no human healer could possibly cure death cap poisoning.”

“No human healer, no,” Thoko said.

“I told you, professor,” Smith added,

Martens nodded again and finally put his pipe down to look at Greg. The direct gaze was rather unnerving, so Greg turned towards Smith and asked: “Told you what?”

“Smith alleged that some of the wilder rumours regarding the events at the palace may not be as exaggerated as I thought,” Martens said. “I had assumed it may have been a botched dose? Too few mushrooms split between too many people? Or not death cap at all? Perhaps arsenid?”

“It was death cap,” Greg confirmed. “And it would have been quite deadly, without some of the more powerful werewolves there.”

Was there even any point in keeping the secret of age hidden at this point? But it was one thing for the higher nobility of Loegrion to know that not all werewolves were equal, and a different matter altogether to tell them how exactly that difference came to be. Right?

Thoko smiled at Martens. “As I said, we could get you in contact with someone with far more magic than any human healer,” she claimed. “And perhaps,” she added, before Martens could say anything, “you could help a werewolf get into university in return?”

Greg opened his mouth, turned to stare at her, then closed his mouth again. Martens, however, started to laugh. Which of course resulted in more coughing. Greg thought he saw some blood before the old man managed to cover his mouth with a handkerchief.

Cancer. Or just possibly consumption, though the professor’s comments on his condition made Greg think it was probably the former.

“Quite a woman you have there, Lord Feleke,” Martens finally said. “And I can’t make any promises, but I will be quite happy to do whatever is in my power, should you ever tire of the palace and its intrigue.”