When Idris emerged from his tent, it was full dark, but Willard was laughing and joking as if he was a summer lunch banquet, admiring Lila through the flames as if she was the sun and moon all at once.

“Ah, Master Dead-Talker!” he said, slapping his knee. Lila stripped a rabbit from its skewer and smiled at Idris.

“You look much better, if I do say so,” she said.

“I have felt better,” Idris said, settling himself and his crutches down onto a chair Lila had pulled from the farmhouse, “but a few extra hours has done me wonders, thank you. Willard, it is good to see you.”

“And you. Miss Lila has been entertaining me in your absence.”

“He has been entertaining himself,” Lila corrected, testing another rabbit’s flesh.

“How can I be entertaining myself when a vision such as you is here to keep me company?” said Willard. “Idris, I’ve told her, I don’t know much, but I know a classy young miss when I see her and Miss Lila is a truly perfect woman.”

“I have told her the same,” said Idris, shrugging, “but if she does not believe me, she will not believe you.”

“Why, the Fairy Queen would cry and curse to see an angel such as Miss Lila,” sighed Willard, putting his elbows on his knees and propping his chin with his fists. “I shall see her face in all of my dreams from this day forth.”

Lila bit her bottom lip, blushed, and held out a rabbit for Idris.

“Sir Idris, dinner?”

“Thank you, Lila.” To Willard, “I do think you are embarrassing her, Willard.”

“Forgive me,” said the hedge witch, looking affronted that such a thing could happen. “This is polite company and I don’t know myself in polite company. Usually spend all my time a-talking to pigs and plants, not proper people.”

“We are all friends here,” Idris reminded him, pushing his hair behind his ears. He was not used to having it hanging around his face. “How was your walk?”

“Useful.” Willard patted the sack on his waist, now bulging with the delights of the countryside. “Um, Idris… Miss Lila said I should call you ‘sir’. I’m a-guessing you’re more important than I first figured and I do not want to disrespect you.”

“Idris is fine.” He picked at the leg of his rabbit. “And truthfully, ‘sir’ is half-an-insult insofar as my position.”

“Oh.” Willard’s face fell.

“An aria magician of my calibre should be addressed as ‘lord’, with his family name. But I do not have a family name and that makes ‘lord’ awkward, so my superiors decided ‘sir’ would do.”

“But,” Lila added, attempting to save his pride, “he was awarded a district near his ancestral home to call his own. Gleesdale.”

“What’s a family name’s importance anyhow?” said Willard. “Sure as fae is fae I don’t have one.”

“I have never been to Gleesdale but I am assured it is a pleasant place,” said Idris. “I rarely leave the palace complex.”

“You… you know the Queen?” Willard said quietly.

“I do. Yes.”

“King and Circle. Well, I’m rightly embarrassed at my conduct, then,” he said, shuffling on his seat of broken stones from the fence.

“Please, don’t be,” Idris insisted. “I… I was raised amongst folk like you. It has been a while, but I know your type. I do hope you are not upset at my deception.”

“And this… Kurellan?” said Willard, glancing at Lila. “He’s palacefolk, too?”

“Judge Kurellan is Sir Idris’s boss,” she said.

“He is not my boss,” said Idris, tutting slightly. “He thinks he is my boss. The Queen is my boss.”

“How are we going to get him to meet with us?” said Lila, frowning. “He told me plain – if I left the inn to find you, we would not be welcomed back.”

Idris nibbled at the meat on the tiny leg bone, considering their plight. He knew what he had to do; the trick in it was making sure Lila and Willard were not harmed by his actions. The benefit of working as the only necromancer in not only this kingdom but the next three over was that he did not have any peers to bother him and he was used to working largely independently, which right now was a boon he had not expected. Lila was wonderful and Willard had been a great help. He did not necessarily need them. He had to protect them.

“I must speak to him directly,” he said. “And if he will not let me into the inn, then he will have to come to me. I must offer him the respect and courtesy he is due.”

“But begging my pardon,” said Willard, “he ain’t respecting you, blaming you for the mess in the barracks.”

“Judge Kurellan is a traditional man and he respects hierarchy and the old ways, not upstart necromancers who joke with monarchs and wear civilian clothes,” said Idris. “He has seen my work and he knows what it is, how it functions. I cannot blame him for jumping to this particular conclusion. My magic and I do not operate in ways he understands and he is frightened and threatened by both of us. He saw something disturbing. The Queen’s men died on his watch. He acted in the way he saw would protect the survivors.”

“If it is necromancy, sir,” said Lila, twisting her mouth, “what brand of necromancy can do such a thing?”

“If it is necromancy,” Idris said softly, “it is necromancy I do not know.”

It was quiet, save the crackling of the flames. Idris thought further on it, reminding himself of everything he saw in the barracks.

“I do believe it was some kind of necromancy,” he offered. “I read a lot and study every day. I have never seen anything of its like before. But it has all of the hallmarks of my craft and it left traces of death arias in its wake.”

“I thought necromancy was rare,” said Lila, frowning.

“It is,” Idris said, “which is why this is concerning. I should be the only practicing necromancer for five hundred miles around, if not the only necromancer who could do something so… dramatic.”

“Then the suggestion is that there’s another powerful dead-talker around these parts,” said Willard.

“Correct. One nobody knew about.”

“And that’s bad,” he said, as if checking he was on the right path.

“Necromancers are valuable assets,” said Lila. “Usually they serve palace courts, if a kingdom is lucky enough to find one. A rogue necromancer is a concern because they know their power and their worth and they do not need much to wreak considerable havoc. Without another necromancer to oppose them, they can do incalculable damage.”

“And I fear I do not know enough to oppose this particular necromancer,” Idris finished. “If the kingdom is relying on me to protect it from this menace, it is imperative that I have my allies in court to assist me. Kurellan is that first step. He can get me back to the palace easily and vouch for me to the Queen.”

“But if they don’t believe it wasn’t you, then…” Quietly, Willard connected the dots. “Then you’ll be cast out. Aye?”

Lila nodded solemnly. Idris chewed the inside of his lip.

“We will discuss this further when the sun comes up,” he said. “Right now, we are tired and hungry. Let us dine and sleep in peace. In the morning, I will raise one of these horses and we can travel to the inn together.”

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“The carriage?” said Willard.

“Ruined,” said Lila. “But with the three of us, and with a new boot for Sir Idris, we can carry the rest of our belongings on our shoulders.”

“New boot? Oh, the fancy foot.”

“I, uh…” Idris wiped his mouth, shrugged. “I would thank you not to mention my missing foot to anyone outside of this group, Willard. It is not something I would like to be common knowledge.”

“Aye.”

Lila insisted that she would sleep out in the wrecked carriage with a clear view of the road, but Idris would not hear it. The tent was big enough, and, selfishly, if she slept outside, his plan would be foiled. Willard was not used to sleeping in tents and much preferred to snooze beneath the stars, but when Lila said she would take the tent after all he jumped at the chance to sleep inside. Idris said he wanted to take some time to clean up one of his prosthetics while they settled, so he would wait outside in the light of the fire. He bid them both goodnight and kept an ear out for any sounds which might hint that they were still awake.

He did as he said he was going to do – he waxed and polished the straps and buckles on his prosthetic, remedicated the cup. Then, certain Lila and Willard had fallen asleep, he propped the boot against the chair and set his stump into it. He couldn’t ride without it, after all.

Once the prosthetic was tight and secure and he had strapped his specially designed boot around it, he finally stood unaided for the first time in a full day and checked his bearings. His casting hand was still thick and scarring, but he was confident he could do what he needed to. It was a shame his clothing and hair was in such a state. Kurellan would have to deal with it.

Idris walked to the dead horses, identified the one without any broken bones and knelt beside it, placing a hand on its flank. There was a lilting, animal death aria still pulsing around it. He could use it.

He breathed deep, pulled the sounds through his lungs, prepared his hand in the usual shape, and focused on horse anatomy. Sinews and tendons, muscles and bone, cartilage and hoof. The heart, the size of a human head, still and quiet in the chest.

The sweat came. The aches that were deep-set in Idris’s bones by now resurfaced, as if his marrow was grinding against the muscles in his arms and neck. Already, he felt his right hand prickling and aching, the skin ready to burst its scarring.

“Rise,” he whispered.

He placed his left hand on the horse.

It twitched, but the aria was reluctant to raise the whole beast with the slow breath Idris had given up to it. He gritted his teeth, right arm shaking.

“Rise,” he said again, in an undertone.

The neck beneath his hand jolted. The aria bulged; Idris held back a curse as he felt sticky, hot blood on his palm again.

Please, he thought as the music swelled in his ears, please not again.

And then, as if by wishing only he had directed the aria, the horse snuffled and snorted and began to struggle up.

Idris heaved in breath and watched the beast come back to its feet. Hardly even wanting to, he looked at the pool of blood collected on his right palm.

Blood and arias were not kind to each other. It would be better if he did not raise anything again, until his hand was healed.

He shook his hand dry, watched his horse standing, stoic, waiting for his order. The grey fire in its eyes burned bright. Living horses were a bother. Dead horses behaved much more predictably, in that he told it what to do.

The first order of business was climbing onto it without falling. He picked up the farmhouse chair and mounted that before he mounted the horse. Bareback, he knew it was going to smart, but his discomfort did not mean much. The horse would obey his every whim.

He put his left hand on the cool head of the horse.

“Obey,” he whispered through the aria, and imagined the inn. Then, “Run.”

The horse navigated out of the farmhouse courtyard, onto the road, and got running.

Idris gripped the mane, his eyes watering as the horse galloped away from his friends. If he went to the inn alone, talked to Kurellan, then he could guarantee Lila’s reputation would stay intact. Outside of her attending to him, she needed a future – she was too good at what she did to flounder at the bottom of the food chain with him. A good word from a man like Kurellan would make sure that if he was expelled from the kingdom, Lila would flourish. And Willard? He did not know how to handle himself in front of a court judge. The hedge witch deserved to stay anonymous, so he could return to his little house and his pigs and his fae songs.

Idris had been abandoned by people he thought were his family once before. He could do it again.

He thought of Marbury, of its cool temples and dappled light. His little bedroom, just off from the garden, where he could watch the healers gathering herbs over the top of his textbook. Uncle Haylan… Uncle Haylan would be so disappointed. After all he had done to ensure Idris’s prosperity and health, now this?

It did not matter. By the time he reached the inn, the sun would be coming up, and Lila and Willard would likely be hot on his heels. He had to do his work quickly.

Riding on a risen horse was a stranger sensation than on a living horse. Noctis’s gait was steady but not mechanical; this horse thumped continuously on and on and on, as if nothing could deter it from its eventual purpose. Idris tried to follow its rhythm so as not to hurt his groin or buttocks, but it was too much. By this point, he assumed his body was never going to feel the same again, anyway, so he might as well ruin it all. His jaw clenched, his gaze on the road, he thought instead of how he was going to ruin his social standing as well.

He was not far out from the inn when he saw Kurellan’s soldiers guarding the periphery. Panic surged through him all at once. Perhaps they had been told to engage him immediately, or apprehend him if possible. Riding up on an undead horse was likely going to be treated with contempt. He considered calling to them, just stating his intentions, but if he stopped now, he would not get where he needed to be.

Instead, he hunkered down, lying almost flat on the horse’s back so he would not be seen, and he wished beyond wishing that they would not see him in the early morning darkness. He was not a large man, no imposing shoulders or towering height – reasonably average, save the coppery hair. He had never been more grateful for that until now.

The horse powered on, determined to reach its predestined end. Idris heard one of the soldiers shout, “Hail,” then stop when he saw no obvious rider. It was not until the horse barrelled past when he said, “Hey, wait –” but by then it was too late. Idris had already sped past him.

The inn was ahead, its windows aglow with candle-light warmth. Idris caught his breath, heart racing, knuckles white as he gripped the mane. He pressed his left hand to the flank, took a breath of the aria, felt its tune in his bones and the choke of tears in his throat, and said, “Stop.”

The horse slowed and, without a sound, stopped.

Idris had not planned for how to dismount, so he threw caution aside and jumped. His false leg immediately buckled beneath him; a stab of iron-sharp pain pierced from the base of his stump up through his knee, and he cried out and fell onto his hands, blinking stars from his eyes.

“Stupid,” he hissed at himself. But there was no sense in stopping now.

He clawed his way back to his feet and hobbled to the door of the inn. Beyond getting here, the plan was a sketch only. The prerequisite of ‘not getting stabbed’ had been achieved. Now, all he had to do was face Kurellan, as dirty, sweaty, bloody and exhausted as he was.

Idris balled up his fist, stood as tall as he could and pounded on the inn door.

“Judge Kurellan!” he shouted. “Judge Kurellan, open up!”

There was shuffling and whispering beyond the door. Then, footsteps.

“Judge Kurellan!” Idris shouted again.

The door opened and immediately, a gloved fist came right for Idris’s face.

He had the presence of mind to raise his arms and guard, but the blow was so fierce that it knocked him right over, back into the dirt.

“I am unarmed,” he managed to say, still scrambled, and was then staring down the length of Judge Kurellan’s broadsword.

It had been a long time since Idris had truly been afraid of Kurellan. In his youth, the judge had been a knight, and travelled the kingdom righting injustice and fighting the king’s wars, and while Court Judge was not a military position, Kurellan was no slouch. Idris had no doubt that the old man could beat him bloody if he chose, with his meat-cleaver sized hands and thick shoulders. In the half-light pouring from the open inn door, the look in Kurellan’s coal grey eyes was murderous.

At that moment, Idris was certain that he was about to die. Each breath made his throat touch the cold edge of the blade. Why wouldn’t Kurellan kill him?

Kurellan curled his lip.

“Three minutes,” he said bitterly.

Idris tried to shuffle back from the sword, but the judge pushed it closer every time he moved.

“Please, Your Honour,” Idris whispered. “Please, I need you to listen. I came alone, I am unarmed. I have no desire to hurt you or the Queen’s men. I only wish to talk –“

“Two and a half.”

“You have seen my work,” he insisted, raising his right hand in protest. “You know. That, what you saw? It is beyond anything I can achieve. I –“

Kurellan grabbed Idris’s right wrist and the sour look on his face became sourer still.

“Blood magic?” the judge said. “Is that what you’re doing, now?”

“Blood -?” Idris repeated faintly, and with a stirring in his gut he realised. “Black bells, no. I… I fell, I cut my hand open –“

“It is a mighty strange coincidence,” said Kurellan, his voice a slow growl, “that when an army of undead spirits assaults the border wall, our only necromancer is conveniently absent.”

“I saw a black figure and I –“

“Then you send your servant girl to do your dirty work, to plead your case, while you vanish.” He released Idris’s wrist, thrust the sword forward; Idris threw himself backwards onto the ground to avoid being cut and lay, gasping, with the sword at his throat. “One minute.”

“I love the kingdom,” Idris said, tears running down his cheeks, now. “Judge Kurellan… Kurellan, I respect you and I respect your work. I have no desire to attack the Queen or her lands. I have no ambitions for power or wealth. Together, we can find out who did this, who is sending thieves to court. I still want that. But you know I cannot raise spirits, Kurellan.”

“What, one of your big books can’t teach you how to conjure ghosts?” the old man sneered. “Please. I may not be an aria magician, but I am not deaf to the melodies when they are played so brazenly to me.”

“Please let me go.”

“Why?”

“If I die, we will not be able to fight this menace.”

“The menace is currently at the end of my sword.” Kurellan straightened up. “The Queen will be pleased that this has been dealt with so swiftly.”

“Please,” Idris begged, still silently crying. “I thought you would help me.”

“Help a traitor to the crown?” Kurellan spat. “Not likely.” To the soldiers in the gloom behind him, “Take this whelp into custody. We ride at dawn.”

“Kurellan, no!” cried Idris, as soldiers closed in with chains. Kurellan watched coldly while manacles enclosed Idris’s wrists. “If I was guilty,” said Idris, “why would I have come?”

Kurellan smiled. “Guilt is a marvellous motivator,” he said, as the soldiers put a gag in Idris’s mouth.