“Gods sake, Wrighter. You look like shit,” was Edever’s greeting as he slouched into the booth opposite Jalen.

Not that it wasn’t a valid observation. Jalen knew what he was referring to; his skin had paled, making the dark circles under his eyes more prominent. His body had leaned down to the point of gaunt, cheeks sunken in and energy levels along with them despite eating whatever, whenever he wanted. Lately, that had been red meat a few degrees above raw and not much else.

Like that diary is taking a pound of flesh from me every time I access the memories, he mused, tossing Edever a rueful smile.

“Good to see you too, Cons,” he replied back tiredly.

“Guessing since you reached out to me you’ve made contact finally,” he groused, ignoring when the bald-headed owner slammed two mugs down in front of them hard enough they sloshed onto the table. He paused though, his one beady eye studying Jalen to the point the young man squirmed in his seat uncomfortably before finally giving up and tossing an acidic glare right back.

The man’s lips thinned as if he had said something offensive, and he removed Jalen’s drink without a word before heading into the kitchen.

“About a month ago, actually.”

Edever sputtered, choking on his beer. He pounded on his chest, coughing the liquid out of his lungs as he glared wide-eyed at Jalen, unable to speak immediately.

Jalen merely shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “There’s been no word on when I’d be introduced to the circus, so didn’t really see a point in contacting you until now.”

“How long,” Edever managed to croak.

“Two weeks.”

“Gods damn it son,” he bit out, wiping his mouth across his sleeve as he sat back. His eyes were distant, lost in thought before he shook his head. “It’s not enough time.”

“For?” Jalen asked, dragging the word out as he raised his brows in mock-interest.

“Did you think that you’d just be inducted into a secret society without a trial? Maybe a nice gathering at a smoke bar to discuss your opinions on the latest dress trends over brandy?”

Honestly, Jalen hadn’t given it much thought. Other issues had taken over most of his time, namely continuing to attend classes he had zero interest in any longer and hours transcribing records when he was so exhausted he could barely hold the pen in his cramping hands or see the blurring pages.

Saraf’s life had consumed his, pulled his attention away from his own to the point he was constantly making errors. Already his professors had warned him that his scores had fallen below passing, and he wouldn’t have really given a damn except if he was expelled it would’ve meant no more access to their library.

He was burning the candles on both ends, using his free time to scour the city records on where that cemetery Saraf had left the Orick-who-wasn’t-Orick could possibly be. Five hundred years was a long time by any stretch though, the city and castle having grown, absorbing land as they had expanded over the years to make way for a budding population. All the markers from Saraf’s time were long gone, and so he had accessed the diary once again, hoping for more clues.

But the memory instead had been of Saraf disguised as that old woman— Athrioclites for Gods sakes— and he had woken up in the middle of the night on the floor, his whole body aching. It hadn’t taken him very long to discover he had actually been unconscious for two days, though luckily his father had been away on a hunting trip with friends. Who knows what would’ve happened if Darl had found him before he had come to.

Beneath the table, Jalen’s knee started bouncing, irritated by Edever’s sarcasm. The man was usually so stoic that Jalen had assumed nothing could shake his poise, but apparently waiting so long to contact him had.

“I assumed it’d be some sort of indoctrination ritual fiction books wax poetry about. A blood oath or a— uh— virgin,” Jalen coughed, his face burning as he looked up at the blackened ceiling so he didn’t have to face the older man’s scorn.

“This isn’t a sex cult,” Edever replied back flatly, not even mocking the fact both knew Jalen was still a virgin himself. “It’s a death cult.”

“So I’ll have to kill a pig or goat and sacrifice it to some dark god or something?”

When his question met silence, Jalen glanced back to the constable. His knee fell still at the raw pain on Edevers face.

Not an animal, Jalen realized with sickening dread.

“How do you know all of this,” he found himself asking, inwardly cringing at his insensitive tone but desperately hoping maybe the Constable was just bluffing, or assuming.

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Edever rubbed his mouth roughly, unable to meet Jalen’s gaze now as he stared at nothing for a long while. Jalen remained quiet, waiting for him to relive whatever memory was plaguing the man.

“I was married, once. A farm girl who had found her way to our city, and into trouble. I was young back then, full of piss and vinegar with something to prove, but she swore her father’s donkeys were bigger asses than I was, so I married her. Her pregnancy was easy, just like her Ma’s had been for her nine siblings. We were expecting no issues at birth, but still it was our first, so we had a mid-wife from the Physicka present rather than have her family come in.”

He looked down, gripping the tankard of beer but not raising it to his lips.

“It was a son,” was all he managed before his voice cracked, head bowing as his shoulders caved in under the weight of such loss. His exhale was jagged with emotion as he fought for control.

“Even after all these years,” he whispered with an uncomfortable huff, palming the wetness out of both eyes before lifting the tankard and setting it back down once more, untouched. Jalen could feel his own eyes prickling as he watched Edever struggle, knowing he had more than likely drowned his sorrow initially in alcohol, and was fighting to not do it again now.

“Something inside her tore, right as they pulled him out. So many things happened all at once I didn’t— but she swore. As she lay dying in my arms she swore the baby was healthy, that they were killing him. To please save him, but I couldn’t save either of them. One wail, that’s all I heard from my son, and then he fell silent. They both fell silent.”

“The midwife wouldn’t even let me look at my boy. Just wrapped his tiny corpse in the swaddling and hurried out, leaving me with her body and so much blood. When they came for her, it was an old friend. A blessing and a curse, because I asked him to look.”

Edever met his eyes then, his own insistent, trying to relay to Jalen what he didn’t want to say out loud. What Edever had asked his friend to look at, where he had asked him to look.

“She hadn’t ripped, it was a tiny, clean cut. Right where it needed to be to bleed her out.”

“They killed her,” Jalen surmised, his stomach roiling in dread. “But, wh—”

Warlock infants are not prevalent, but stillborns or complications while giving birth are quite common, Edever had once told him. It’s easy to masquerade their death and the parents would be none the wiser.

“I tracked the midwife down, and— and I did things to her to find out why,” Edever mumbled, ducking his gaze down in guilt. “Sh-she told me everything. Why she had killed my son, why she had taken him, and for whom.”

“Getting in was easier than I expected. I had made this position, taking on the role as Constable to start connecting the dots and find them, all while getting paid for the effort. They knew my mission had put them at risk, and so they reached out to me. I did the little errands they demanded to prove my loyalty to their cause. Almost all of the tasks gave them blackmail to use against me, but I was so far gone in my sorrow, so blind with revenge I hadn’t cared at the time. Then the night of indoctrination came. One final step, and I would be in deep, to finally see the face of the puppeteers, but what they asked of me…”

He shook his head, staring into his beer as if it had the answers to his failures. “A little baby girl. And I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t kill her. They asked me why and I said I couldn’t take an innocent life.”

Jalen grimaced, nausea threatening to bring up the stomach acid boiling in his empty guts. “They kicked you out?”

“There’s no getting out once you’re in, and my position is too valuable to them. A way to dead-end those looking for their missing children, to put them on the wrong trail, to destroy their hope before they dig too deeply. I’ve kept the guise going, in hopes of finding some way to destroy them from the inside.”

“Gods above,” Jalen whispered, raking his fingers through his hair nervously. What the fuck was he getting himself into?

“You don’t have to do this,” Edever managed, rubbing his lips together in trepidation. “This is too much for you, too much for anyone really—”

“No,” Jalen blurted, surprised by his own resolve. “No. If this is a chance to do good in this world, then it’s worth it.”

It sounded so flimsy, so false in his own ears, but Edever clung onto it like a drowning man. Saraf was long gone, but perhaps he could honor her memory in this way and free the future generations of Warlocks— no, Soulcasters from this genocide.

The kitchen door shrieked open, which seemed counter-intuitive based on how everything in the place seemed covered with grease, except for those hinges apparently. One-eye set beef stew in front of Edever, and before Jalen a plate of fried liver. The tankard he set down as well was a frothed pinkish-red liquid, the scent of ginger so strong he could smell it over the food.

Their host grunted, motioning to the drink and Jalen complied, if just to get rid of him. Sweet notes of beet and carrot flooded his mouth, the bite of ginger nearly covering the bitter turmeric and other herbs. It was, in all honesty, delicious.

A tense silence settled between the three, neither touching their food after such a macabre conversation. One-eye sighed shortly, placing his giant hands on his hips.

“If it gets cold, it shall taste like shit,” he said.

Jalen’s mouth dropped open, shocked by the cultured accent he had not expected from the giant man who looked more apt to be a backcountry blacksmith rather than what sounded like educated nobility.

“Eat; the iron in the liver will help you recover faster.”

At that he walked away, and Jalen stared wide-eyed at Edever. “What just happened?” He squeaked.

His companion huffed a laugh, picking up a bent and battered spoon. “That’s Aldren. Once a Physicker, now a humble bar owner.” He took a mouthful of stew, enjoying the perfect flavors and beef so tender he had been able to cut it with the spoon. “And one damn good cook.”

Unable to help himself, Jalen cut a piece of his meat and speared a few of the browned onions onto his fork beneath it. Taking a bite he let the caramelized flavor of the onions roll over his tongue, the fried organ cooked just enough to not be rubbery.

“And another bitter member of the secret society?”

“And another bitter member of the secret society,” Edever confirmed, saluting him with the shittiest beer Jalen had ever tasted in his life.