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“Would that you woke me sooner," Gram said in a level tone as they assembled, Lidia checking the last of his straps. The pair had set about their plan in a hurry, the little changeling once again proving invaluable to her martial allies in the girding for battle. His eyes tracked to Morgan, whom haunted the background with those wide, unblinking eyes watching with unabashed interest, “Seeing as we had guests."

Morgan'd head tilted slowly at an uncanny angle, and she smiled just a little too wide.

“S'fine loverboy," Lidia said, fitting one of his long, segmented tassets in place with a click of plates, “We had time tae talk a wee bit."

“Talk?" He pursued as he worked himself at his vambraces, gauntlets tucked into his belt. Lidia arched her eyebrow in return.

“Womenfolk talk," was all she offered, giving him a little wink that only sent his brows further into his hairline as she fitted the second tasset, threading and looping the buckles and slotting riveted studs with her nimble fingers. She reached for his supplemental armor, greaves and heavier mittens for the gauntlets — extra plating for foot combat Gram's cavalry harness rarely needed — but the soldier waved her away.

“Leave them, between the caves and the hard march we have after, I will be glad of the lessened bulk," he said, taking his bec-de-corbin in hand thoughtfully and then nodding to himself, he snapped his helmet on pointedly, Lidia's arms slid around him from behind, her hands fitting his swordbelt in place, perhaps a bit more intimately than needed, the sharp, steely smell of the soldier's armor an odd comfort as she settled his saber and rondel on his hips. Both of them met Morgan's eyes, her own flaring in acknowledgment as they settled their small packs as well.

“You are prepared then? The hour draws but moments away, there will be no time for hesitation once I pass beyond this threshold," she purred, seeming to flow like mist along the floorboards on those inhuman limbs until she stood before the door, another stroke of lightning suddenly, dramatically illuminating her against the heavy door. Gram twisted his gauntlets decisively, Lidia, tugging on the straps of their day-pack with a little curt nod. They had supplies for a lean week, no more. It would be a hard push.

“Aye, let's go."

Morgan smiled wide, too wide, a mouthful of razors and broken glass gleaming as she threw her arms dramatically — and with them the doors blasted wide behind her.

The world turned to black.

Inky nothingness, flowing in like billowing smoke, devoured the light. It seemed to eat the very idea of light, covering and engulfing them in unnaturally seeking tendrils of shadowy nothingness.

Lidia nearly screamed, a primal urge as the sudden surge of blackness engulfed them, Gram's armor clattered with similar restrained alarm as they were both swallowed into the sudden wall of Murk. Lidia felt a drowsiness overtake her, a cool, inviting relaxation washing past her senses, down her spine — like a soft breeze off a cool pond, she felt her eyes grow heavy and peace tugged at her senses… just take a rest and be at ease…

Suddenly, the solicitous, embracing blackness seemed to recoil, and there was a furtive sense of agitation as a vortex of invisible, intangible force swirled about them — and the Murk yielded to it, pushing back from them a scant span at most, not a finger more. Lidia caught Gram's arm, their protective bubbles in the seething blackness merging as they stood closer. The area beyond a seething wall of infinite, cloying darkness.

“How are we to navigate in this fell soup?" Gram hissed from behind his raised visor, and Lidia grinned fiercely.

“We count."

Lidia had always had a head for figures, was the way of the world for a cutpurse. Coin weights, measures, watch timings, and most importantly of all — paces. The City Watch had been tenacious bastards, and it was purely by knowing their territory better that the Tanner Street Redcaps had always been ahead of them on their much-shorter legs. So they paced their territory, learned it blind. Ten paces at a run to the bolthole, twenty at a walk to a blind alley. All memorization and figures. She'd done it before on their adventures, counting their paces to track how far they were underground back in Lachheim's guts, and she could do it again now. She'd already subconsciously been counting her way through the buildings, it was a habit — from Tanner street to Fort Ivory — anywhere she was for more than a sundown she counted. Taking Gram's hand with confidence, she set out into the Murk as if she could see plain. Gram's fingers squeezed hers.

“You remain full of surprises, Little Redcap," Gram mused frankly, hurrying along after her.

The Murk was all-consuming. It had simply appeared in a rush, presently they'd been able to see, pressed against the far windows it filling the compound like a particularly tenacious fogbank rolling in. Blacking out windows and doorframes one by one until every last light had be snuffed, plunging the whole of the duchy into unnatural fae darkness.

“Puts a chill in your blood," Gram noted from their vantige point, pressed to a narrow window as they watched, Lidia nodded.

“Mum's listenin', let's be quick. I dinnae like the idea o' this misty shite sittin' too long on th' Keep," Lidia answered, to a curt nod of assent from the armored cavalier.

They made good time, Lidia's mental map forming out of habitual pacing, her eyes flicking rapidly over nothing as she silently navigated the grounds one step at a time. She wasn't perfect, and a few times she bumped square into a vase or end table here or there, but they managed. The whole time they found the remains of the Murk's efforts — soldiers of Karnov's colors lay sprawled as they passed, weapons askew, simply fallen in place where they stood, sound asleep. The snoring became a beacon all its own as she moved them towards their goal.

“I feel a wee bit o' shame fer not askin' about this part," Lidia said as they paused, huddled close in their protective bubble within the swirling, impenetrable mist. Gram raised an eyebrow as he leaned on his polearm, flicking his gaze nevertheless around the edges, alert and agitated.

“It does seem an oversight, I suppose she expected us to find our way by scent," Gram mused, and Lidia perked up a moment with a tilt of her head, and she drew a deep inhalation… she detected at first, what she expected — musty wood, damp stone, the wet scent of rain-slicked grass… and something else. She raised her nose and followed the scent, a heady aroma, sickly sweet and familiar that drew her a few steps ahead, she took another breath and set her teeth.

“Oh Lady's Teats," she swore to Gram's cool, skeptical gaze, “I'm here countin' an' pacin' and Mum left a trail plain as day iffin' I was thinkin'…" she drew up short and frowned, Gram raised an eyebrow.

“… if I was thinkin' like a sidhe," she finished, tapping her nose. “Breath deep, loverboy."

Gram took a breath through his open visor, his brow furrowing but even his human senses able to detect it by its edges.

“… Is that, flowers?"

“Aye, Red Hibiscus" she said with a grim undertone, “Talkin' wit' Richart, that's th' flower in the brandy Khanenko gave mum an' I," she said, and Gram followed her as she began pacing forwards more and more confidently, her mental map of paces overlaying with the scent trail to give her an even more sure path forwards, “Had him show me a few sketches o 'em," she said and set her teeth again, before turning to Gram. That evening with Richart and his pencils had been one of shared joys… and a few shared sorrows as well.

“It's th' flower we saw on Papa's body, th' one I thought was some kind o' wild rose. Whole place was full o' th' scent o 'em," she said and swallowed hard. “Mum made sure I wouldn't miss it."

“I do not like her." Gram stated simply at that revelation. Lidia grimaced in kind.

Closing her eyes a moment, she took another deep breath, letting it fill her lungs and play through her sensitive nose and across her teeth and tongue. She had often tried to describe scent-tracking to her comrades, but what was it to describe sight to the blind? She could taste as much as smell things, her mind filtering dozens of scents and humors from the air — the traces of Karnov's men nearby, the plants and flowers in vases, the smoke of torches and candles snuffed by the Murk — the taste of Gram's sweat mixing with the scent of the rosewater he washed with and the steel of his armor. It all came in with clear, distinct granularity, individual threads picked apart like splicing a rope. The scent of flowers, heady and bright was easy to pick out of the bundle — like a glimmering, red cord suspended in the blackness of her shut eyes, winding and running through the Murk-obscured halls.

“This way," she said soberly, taking Gram's hand anew, his fingers squeezing hers back as they pushed through the halls.

It was a surreal experience, the Murk was as solid as a wall, the swirling substance like silt kicked up from a riverbed. As they walked, they kept in contact, their joined fingers joining their protections into a larger swath of visibility that revealed more and more to them as they went.

“Mind your footing," Gram observed as they continued on at a pace, spying a limp hand peeking from the fell fume choking the corridors, Lidia peered closer but her nose already told her what it was before their bubble of safety fell over it's supine form — one of Karnov's men quite soundly asleep, having fallen in mid-stride as the Seelie magicks overtook him.

“There's more, I can smell 'em," She said, inhaling pointedly as she guided them around the unconscious solider.

“This Murk doesn't foul your nose? I can't smell anything in particular in this cloud of ink," Gram noted, and Lidia spared him a tight grin.

“Not fer nothin' loverboy, but yer hard-pressed tae smell anythin' o' note in that armor tae begin with," she said, wrinkling her nose a bit, “Oil an' Steel 'ave a nasty way o' drownin' out other smells."

They paced quickly, passing more unconscious bodies as they went, all Karnov's men — she only hoped that stayed true, and the commonfolk were safely ensconced in their quarters. The silence was the worst part, all the sound, the life of the Keep was gone — replaced by an eerie stillness only broken by their furtive footfalls and the occasional crash of thunder, the rain pounding an unearthly background cadence on the slats and windows.

“I recognize the tiles here, we're near east exist to the yard," Gram said as they slowed, Lidia looking up as she scented the air again with a nod,

“Aye, rain's louder, should be a door right… here!" She said, feeling along the wall until their little magical bubble revealed the occluded portal, she grinned and pushed it open, and her eyes went wide.

“Oh, shite."

The door to the inner green swung clear, and the Murk shrank back from the open portal — the pounding din of the rain suddenly a dull roar, the mist spattering their faces and pattering in tinny music off Gram's armor.

The green was clear. Not a single tendril of Murk to be seen, Lidia exchanged a wary look with Gram, before his face hardened in realization.

“The rain," he stated plainly, and Lidia looked up, and then back behind them at the retreating cloud of unnatural darkness.

“Runnin' water…" she said with a quiet oath, looking out over the open green and the driving rain. The cloudburst had washed the Murk clear, leaving the entire green an open field all the way to the entrance to the Navel's deeper caverns where the icehouse was. An entrance that was still under guard — two men stood adjacent the door, huddled beneath the overhang with sour expressions as the rain continued to fall — clearly, having drawn the short straws on storm watch. Lidia and Gram ducked behind the door frame as they spotted them, the downpour limiting visibility enough that they remained unnoticed.

“Shite again, that's exactly where we need tae go," she hissed as Gram leaned subtly around the corner to peer at them.

“The storm covered the Murk's progress I wager, neither of them looks particularly concerned," He stated, Lidia frowning as she looked back into the foreboding wall of inky blackness, turning her gaze back to Gram, gnawing her lip in thought.

“Is there another way into th' larders?" She asked, and Gram shook his head.

“One way in and out, save the tunnels to the rear by design, to keep the food stores safe and secure the would-be escape through the caves before they were ruled too dangerous," he said in a cool tone, his fingers tightened noticeably around the haft of his polearm.

“An' yer not thinkin' they'll just let us pass out o' the goodness o' their hearts," she observed hesitantly, and Gram shook his head.

“Past midnight, in the driving rain? We would be lucky if they did not raise a general alarm after our mutual antagonism towards Karnov's plans," he answered mechanically, eyes still fixated on the men as he raised his bec-de-corbin and pointedly lowered his visor, locking it in place. Lidia swallowed, but drew her saber in kind.

“Hard an' fast then, iffin' we're careful they won't see us til we're on 'em," she offered. Gram nodded approvingly.

They pushed out into the rain, Lidia sucking in a breath as she was immediately wetted down to her smallclothes, the rain icy and practically suffocating, past the door visibility plummeted to at most a few feet and even breathing without sucking down a lungful of water became a challenge. Gram seemed not to care as he stalked through it, his wicked polearm at hand, steady as the masonry he trod upon even as the rain sheeted down, pouring off him like a steel-clad gargoyle. The pair crouched in the shadow of the stairway that they'd climbed earlier that day, the wan light of sputtering torches above the two sentries flickering weirdly through the downpour as they struggled to stay lit beneath their thinly-shielded sconces, the moonless night offering no other reprieve from the darkness.

“Follow behind, three paces. I will discombobulate them," Gram said, setting his bec-de-corbin to both hands as they edged around the steps, still not spotted. Lidia nodded, blinking water from her eyes as she held her saber close to her body. There was a beat, Gram was waiting for something. A flash of lightning split the sky, and behind it came a truly deafening crash of following thunder, loud enough to shake Lidia's guts in her belly — and like a shot Gram was off, charging up the stairs with his blade set ahead of him like a lance, the rumble of thunder covering the clatter of his plates until the very last moment. The two guards eyes flashed and they both readied their halberds as Gram seemed to simply materialize out of the rain, the wicked point of his polearm leading, Lidia but three steps behind.

Neither party got the chance to strike.

Behind the men, the doors swung open inwards, and within the swirling blackness a pair of unnatural, glowing green eyes snapped open. Both men stiffened suddenly, a chunky, wet noise of impact coming to the ears, doubled as each man jerked suddenly.

Dame Morgana leaned down from the shadows of her Murk to both wide-eyed, trembling soldiers.

“Come now, Mine Child — I said I would guide you safely through the caverns, and I take my oaths quite seriously," she chided Lidia conversationally as she and Gram skidded to a stop on the rain-slicked stones. Lidia blanched as closer inspection saw what had halted the sentries so soundly.

Morgan's long, taloned fingers had driven nearly into each man's spine, just below his ribs, curling upwards. They gaped and gasped with mouths that made no sounds from lungs well-punctured, the Seelie Queen glanced at the two quivering men and then back at Lidia and Gram, her lips turning into a savage smile full of jagged teeth.

“A minor obstacle, easily removed."

She whipped her hands upwards in a flourish, and Lidia blinked as hot, fresh moisture suddenly misted her, she jerked away reflexively, wiping at her face. Horror seized her as she looked at her hands.

Blood. So, so much blood.

Both men simply fell apart. Dame Morgana's talons had raked upwards like a stiff wire through a block of soft cheese. Their halberds clattered to the floor from where they'd held them across their bodies, wooden hafts neatly bisected… and the rest of them followed. Bloody red lines appeared on the staring, glassy-eyed men's faces, chests, and bellies as they simply… peeled apart, their upper torso falling away from the four hair-thin, impossible slashes that ran up their bodies from hips to crown. Unfolding like some hideous, fleshy flower around the grisly stamen of an exposed spinal column still spasming with their death throes. They fell apart like butchered cattle, four neat slabs of quivering flesh simply flopping dismissively to the floor, sloughing out their innards like so much refuse from the butcher's block. Lidia felt her gorge rise and she only by sheer temerity alone managed to keep from adding her own insides to the pile of viscera upon the ground in the horrid remains of the two equally horribly slain men.

With the idleness one might use to brush a crumb from one's shirt, the Seelie Queen casually stepped back over the gory remains, fading into the Murk again until her unblinking green eyes were all that could be seen.

“Do not dawdle Mine Child, time grows short."

The silence left behind in her vanishing was heavy, Lidia had stopped feeling the rain as she looked at the remains of the two ruined men. They weren't monsters, not Ghuls or Plagued Men, just… Men. Men who'd stood against them. Men should not be discarded in such a way. Taken apart like so much meat. She swallowed a sudden, unreasonable sob… these men would have killed her, hurt her at least, she had to remember that… but as the blood mixed with the rain, pouring down the stairs in a crimson flood, she could only think of Marshal Shkuro, of Franc's smiling face, Gil's beautiful voice she'd never hear again. They were just men.

“Come, beloved. We must go."

Gram's voice was soft, and his hand gentle as she snapped out of the grim reverie, suddenly the cold and damp reasserted itself, and violent trembles rocked her body as she nodded, stepping carefully past the shredded corpses. The rain washed the blood from them both, but it didn't mean she felt clean.

“How d'ye an' Bart do this?" She asked in a small voice as they entered the Murk again, closing the doors behind them — if only to shield them from the rain. Shivering and dripping, Gram raised his visor.

“Faith, mostly," Gram said honestly, “I've killed men, mercenaries — soldier to soldier. It is… different, than fighting criminals or monsters," he explained as they began to once again follow the path, now that they were in the inner larders, Lidia didn't need to pace or follow her nose, the path was direct enough just following the walls — a good thing as well, all she could smell right now was blood.

“Ye're right about that," she agreed as they continued at a quick pace, leaving puddles in their wake as they went. She'd never killed an innocent man before. She'd killed of course, she'd been a thief and with that came other, nastier men who thought they could take anything they could put their hands on. Money, goods, children. Never someone like this though.

“It gets easier, and that is the worst part," Gram stated, his face stony, impassive. “God will judge me for the men I have slain some day, I can only endeavor to make sure those who fall at my hands were deserving of their end."

“God's got a whole lot o' things tae judge me for already," she said quietly, and pushed ahead of him. Closing the topic. She had been made miserably aware of the many uncertainties of the world since she left, everything had been simple and easy when it was just her little gang against the world. No time to worry about it now, this was her family, her 'gang' now. She couldn't save one home, but she could save this one.

They found their way to the icehouse and Lidia recoiled from the door as soon as Gram pulled it open, hissing a strangled cry of displeasure at the blast of icy air.

“Nae, nae fookin' way!" she chattered, soaked through as she was, merely standing before the freezing room was torturous, her body shivered uncontrollably and Gram himself seemed not much better, his teeth chattering as he responded.

“W-we do not have time to dry nor warm ourselves, the remains of the sentries will draw attention before long, Murk or not." He said and swallowed, clenching his jaw. “It will be bitter," he said, even as he stamped his feet to push the chill back.

“N-nae way, I cannae handle th' cold like ye can!" She protested, her fingers and lips already turning blue and her soaked clothing sapping her of warmth even just standing, Gram pushed the door closed again, Lidia huddling back against the wall. “I… I cannae d-do this wet as a drownin' rat, s-so cold…" she shivered in place. All their plans, and they were halted by wet clothes. Both lovers sank back against the wall, Gram grabbed one of the heavy woolen smocks from the wall, bundling her in it tight as he could. She looked up at him, and he down at her.

“M'sorry, loverboy… I… the shock, Mum just…" she shook her head, leaning against him for a moment, “I'm nae used tae it still… I dinnae know if I'll ever be. Killin' monsters, seein' monsters kill. I can be brave, I can do it for ye an' Bart, an th' Lady… but it doesn't sit well ever."

“And that," Gram said as he rubbed her to warm her frigid frame, “Is why I love you. Why I fear not the shape of your eyes or the nature of your blood. In defiance of your very nature, you remain apart from my grim world, just that little bit." He smiled at her, there was a sadness to it.

“You, born of monsters, yet again continue to choose to be anything but."

She smiled at him, it was earnest and raw. He was too good for her, and she was a greedy little Redcap, and would hold tight to him like golden treasure.

“To my earnest disappointment, the Black Dog is correct," came that susurrant tone from the darkness. Slitted eyes blinked open above them, the murk parting around Dame Morgana's face as she leaned down into their sphere of protection, a pensive sort of frown on her lips. “She has proven to be incalcitrant in her methods and manners, she uses her Sidhe-given gifts as a mortal would," she said and turned her nose up a moment, before a faint smile graced her lips.

“Her father would be proud."

The Seelie Queen took a moment to regard their shivering forms before putting on a show of tsking at the two of them and fluffing her hair away from her face.

“Ah, such frail things you are to extremes. Truly, you were canny to ensure my aid this night," she purred and drew her hands up before each of them, there was a weird shimmer about her digits, almost as if they were vibrating so fast as to blur. It hurt the eyes to look at too closely — and with a flourishing gesture she pulled.

Out from them, every strand of hair, fiber of cloth, and fold of leather was immediately wrung dry — as if a great, invisible sieve was passed over them — and from that, a mass of undulating, rippling liquid, clear and glassy was drawn out from them in misty bubbles that coalesced into a glimmering, solitary mass between the Sidhe woman's talons. It spun and whirled through the air between them like a tiny cosmos before she clapped her hands together with a crack of seething energy. There was suddenly a blast of heat that washed over both of them, immediately stealing the chill from their bones and pinking Lidia's fingers and nose up quick and clear. Morgan spread her hands, the mass of water reduced to naught but steam and vapor wafting up from her sizzling palms.

“I could have done as such with all of the water in your bodies, were it my wish." She observed in a conversational tone, as if such a horrific fate were merely a bit of hapless trivia. Gram stared at her with stony disdain, and she drew her lips back in a wicked grin.

“Come, Black Dog, there is a gate to open."

The trio advanced back into the icehouse, the spot they had been standing at damp and dripping from the flash-melted rime near the door. The cold was still sharp, but without the soaked clothes it was easy enough to ward away with a brisk pace and a stiff jaw. Morgan waved her hand with that eye-straining blur and the Murk receded, sucking back from her dismissal into the hallway beyond, her too-long limbs allowed to fully stretch out in the vaulted space of the storage. Gram strode past her with purpose, setting about opening the gate. Lidia stood off to one side, ear cocked to the door, standing sentry.

“You know, I could aid you with that." Morgan offered as Gram set his bec-de-corbin aside and hefted one of the small mattocks hanging near the gate just for this purpose. The tall cavalier paused with the glinting steel tool firmly grasped in his hands and that distant, flat look in his eyes that chilled Lidia's blood more than the ice and rime.

“I would prefer to handle it myself, Dame." He stated in a stolid tone, “Respectfully, I would very much enjoy hitting something at this moment in time."

Morgan folded her claws together with a curious expression, her eyes wide with interest as she simply nodded, Gram returned the gesture and set about swinging the mattock at the ice around the hinges. She casually reached to one of the casks, twisting the spigot with a delicate motion, she filled a cup of brandy from the shelf and swirled it before her — all with her gaze nor face leaving Gram's working form.

“Oh, I am beginning to see what you fancy in this one, Mine Child," she purred.

“Please dinnae ogle my betrothed, mum." Lidia asked in an exasperated tone, for a moment the entire exchange was almost… normal. That was weirder than any of the bizarre tricks she'd done yet.

A few heavy blows of the mattock and Gram grasped the gate and planted his feet, and with a grunt of effort and a surge of lean, knotted muscle he wrenched the hinges free with a scattering of ice and rime, like shards of shattering glass. Gram ducked his head in a ways, peering into the cave and it's narrowing passage before turning back with a frown.

“Somethin' wrong, loverboy?" Lidia asked, and he nodded.

“I know a bit of the caverns from the opposing end, I know how they snake about," he said and frowned, hefting his bec-de-corbin. “I will have to leave my weapon, it seems." he said, the nine-span long pick-backed spear held up quite pointedly.

“Oh, aye guessin' that'd get a bit tangled up in us in tight spaces wouldn't it?" She said, Gram nodding in agreement.

“Sabers it is, we shall match." He answered, putting his weapon aside and gathering the small cache of supplies left there for them by Khanenko and his plans: A tinderbox, oil and a stout bullseye lantern. “You two may be able to see in the dark, but I am regrettably still quite mundane and require assistance." he said, striking flint and steel.

“I enjoy your little inventions so, I have often been the catalyst for them." Morgan cooed as Gram hefted the lantern, Lidia joining him in ducking into the grate behind them. Gram paused after Morgan slinked down, dipping her head and snaking her way through the small gate with a boneless, liquid grace that was as unnerving as it was fascinating, striding ahead of them with unearthly balance like some great, sinuous heron. The soldier took the mattock up again and pulled the gate shut.

“Apologies, Mister Khanenko," he murmured, and then drove the awl-end of the pick forcefully into the lock around the gate. With a savage twist and wrench, he snapped the spike off inside of the lock, tossing away the ruined tool. Lidia gave a low whistle. Gram took back up his lantern with a shrug, “No sense in making it easy to follow us."

“Why say sorry tae Khanenko?" Lidia asked, and Gram smiled wryly in the light of his lantern.

“He's the one who's going to have to oversee the new locks, he hates the cold."

The little changeling winced.

~ ~ ~

The trio moved with careful purpose through the narrow chute, Gram having to duck his head nearly double, and Morgan herself seeming to simply bend and twist her impossible frame around the curves of the tunnel until it opened up into the pure, unworked stone beyond. Up she flowed into the spaces of the gallery, the darkness embracing her in stark, contrasting shadows as Gram raised the lantern aloft.

“Such sorrow in these stones, and its taste is familiar and well-liked…" she cooed, laying her fingers over a dripping stalactite.

The lantern's light flooded into the low chamber, the narrow tunnel was maybe only two men wide but it's ceiling vaulting up into a hanging gallery of stony spires and glistening limestone clusters, growing all unerringly down in a mesmerizing harmony of form out of total chaos.

“God's Teeth," Lidia gasped, the light playing across the mantles of stone and their seemingly wax-like structures, the cavern walls seeming to have melted together over eons, stone running like water, dripping, stretching, hanging frozen in time. She had not truly been underground since the battles at Fort Ivory, and a sense of dreadful unease set into her mind. The caves there had been different, smoother, drier. Granite and murky quartz had dominated them, but this… this was almost like walking through a living thing. The thickest strands of the running stone stalactites fused wholly into the walls at random places, putting rib-like curves and outgrowths around the tunnel, like a rippling throat… or something more perverse. Gram however, remained sharp as a tack.

“You profess to guide us, yet you speak as if you've never laid eyes upon these passages," He challenged and Morgan's eyes flicked to him, folding her hands beneath her chin as she dipped low to peer at him again.

“Oh you are quite astute, Black Dog. The Astral is not so small that I have explored every inch of every realm yet, even ageless as I am — I am not immune to wonder, if anything I crave it ever more voraciously," she cooed and swirled back around them, spreading her too-long fingers at the end of too-long arms to the glittering shadows of the forest of crystalline nails.

“The wonder of mortals is my choicest of delights, my purpose, my being, Black Dog… and as to your other question," she purred and alighted upon a spire, raising her hand up into the darkness past the light, and down came her talon again — upon it squirming a strange, pale, blind centipede, some cave-dwelling insect. It heedlessly crawled in circles across her hand.

“I am Queen of Blood and Darkness, and both are here in vast amounts. Mine own element I need not have seen with mine own eyes, for it has already been glimpsed by the myriad thousands who pay me fealty." She delicately placed the cave-bug back into the nook she had taken it, swooping down the narrow, tall gallery again to stand before Gram, folding her hands together and propping her chin upon them.

“Is that satisfactory, Black Dog?"

Gram set his jaw, and gave a curt little nod. The Sidhe Queen did not move, seemingly waiting for something, inclining her head inquiringly even.

“Yes, Dame Morgana," Gram answered stiffly, the Seelie smiling with gratification as he did. It seemed the Black Dog had started to pull too hard at his leash for her mother's tastes.

“Why d'ye call him that?" Lidia asked suddenly, apropos of nothing more than getting her mother's too-sharp attention away from Gram, the tension growing dangerously thick. The fae woman turned her unblinking gaze with a fresh, curious tilt of her head.

“The Black Dog?" She inquired with a tap of her fingers, and a tilt of her head. She flowed forwards down the narrow gallery, as if listening to voices just outside of human hearing, beckoning them to follow. They were still tasked with a timetable. Lidia could walk and talk, she'd gotten mighty good at it lately.

“Aye, and his papa, 'Little Bird', 'Hatchling, an-"

“Mine Child?" Morgan cut in with a hiss and a little titter of laughter. They loped along through galleries of even more assorted stone nails, pouring like a thousand streaking candles from every facet of the vaulting roof and damp-slick walls. They followed on the Dame's heels as she flowed liquid-like up small shelves and outcroppings, picking out a careful path for her mortal charges, Gram's lantern limning everything in its wan glow.

“Yeah, an' that one," Lidia said, Morgan's tittering coming from ahead again as she darted through a narrow gap, peeking down from a higher shelf through a fence of hanging stalactites.

“Names are powerful Mine Child, you know this. Mine own voice carries with it the weight of aeons strange and deep." She hissed, Lidia and Gram mounting the shelf haphazardly after her, the gallery having slowly climbed upwards as they went, the shaft not so much raising as narrowing to a higher point, the ferocious points of the thousands of glittering nails slowly growing closer as they finally were forced to kneel and crouch through the same gap Morgan had simply flowed through like water rather than flesh.

“Much like the purpose my Seeming, I am gentle with those I wish to converse with safely, mine own voice spoken from even this seeming's tongue carries a powerful weight to something's name," she explained as they passed through to a new cavern, the little aperture widening out again to a yawning, organic cavern, an astonishingly still stream running through its middle, more of a river, its entire surface smooth as glass, black as the murk itself save for the warm glow of Gram's lantern. The ceilings were low and the dripping stone teeth many, the water standing in some places in perfectly carved bowl-shaped depressions, made by the drip-drip-drip of water downhill for centuries upon centuries. Morgan's face lit up as she ghosted ahead along the edges of the still stream, peering down into it like a cat seeking a lazy carp.

“Th' Lady dinnae seem tae 'ave much problem with it," Lidia challenged and Morgan looked up with an arched eyebrow.

“Did she? Think carefully, how often does the Pale Lady address you by name only?"

“She calls Bart by his name all th' time," she answered, and the Seelie Queen grinned wider.

“Is that his proper name?"

Lidia's eyes widened.

“… Nae, nae it's not. Bart's th' short form."

“The Pale Lady loves him, and does not wish to harm him by uttering his Name with the weight of her voice," she purred and slunk back up to the pair as they picked their way to her along the rocky embankments, swirling around them in a flurry of motion contrasting the eerie, mirror-smooth waters and their tranquility. “In as much as the Little Bird interests me, and his Hatchling does as well, The Majordomo too — all terribly interesting men I wish to preserve."

“But what harm is there in sayin' me name? Th' Lady did it an' all it did was make me feel… warm an' safe," she said, hugging herself as the sidhe loomed down from above them, teeth and gleaming eyes wide.

“In that moment, she altered you — if only a mote."

Lidia's eyes widened and defiance welled up in her like the Lady's Light, and Morgan only smiled all the wider, pointing directly at her — at the coiled response it had — and Lidia felt herself come up short. Her mouth, opened to give her what for — closed. The Seelie Woman tittered softly, eyes upturned in predatory amusement.

“It needs not be a terrible thing, but she is as I am — unable to fully yield our immense presence away from those we are interested in. She named you, and that wonderful, warm feeling was her marking Her belief of you onto you," the Sidhe Queen stated, her tone turning instructive and a bit teasing, a tone she remembered from times she was small. Her eyes flashed again. “She loves you as all her children, and wishes you to be strong and feel safe, and lo — in naming you by an infinitesimal fraction of a measure you have no words for in any tongue of mortal kith nor kindred, she altered what you were to be more in line with that." The Seelie Queen slid closer still, her breath stirring their hair at the napes of their necks.

“She Named you, and the great weight of her being defined you just a mote, by her will."

Lidia was humbled by that revelation, the Sidhe could not lie, therefor it had to be true in a fashion… and truly, she'd never cared much for religion… but meeting The Lady — meeting Cithara — had changed that… but that had been changing already, she realized, eyes flicking to Gram. There were a few big, strong men who'd shown her that path, made it look fine and true.

Yet and still — she had not truly believed as they had, until she had met The Lady in White.

“If the Lady wishes to define me by her love by a mote or a mile, I say let her write upon me as were I parchment," Gram's voice came in quiet defiance, his face turning slightly to Morgan, “Better to be defined by the Queen of Love, than the Queen of Want." The Sidhe's eyes widened, and Lidia believed in that moment that Gram had truly insulted her in that moment, the way the Lenansidhe's pupils dilated, from narrow to wide and full. Like a predator tracking prey.

“Do you doubt the danger of such meddling?" She challenged him, her grin returning but it's edges had edges, was it so biting. Gram shrugged indolently.

“A mote is but a mote," he stated simply, and the Sidhe tilted her head down in incredulity.

“Well then, if a mote is but a mote Gram , then its weight should be bearable," she hissed, leaning into the word as if she could chew the word hard enough that he himself would feel it — and feel it he did. The Cavalier's face immediately paled, and his entire being went both rigid and slack at once, as if a great, inevitable fatigue had set upon him, and he glared at her with murder in his eyes.

“What did ye do tae him?!" Lidia hissed, sliding her hand over to touch her beloved's pale cheek, the Seelie Queen rounded on her like a viper, eyes and fangs flashing in a fresh, sharp smile.

“I simply altered him a mote, Lidia."

The sensation that struck her was like someone had pressed her teeth to a still-ringing bell. As if she'd been dragged through miles of frozen razors, as if she'd never know what sunlight was again. Horror beyond recognition, the horror of inevitability. Of the dark.

“Have no fear, Mine Child," she purred, reaching down to stroke her cheek and as well cup Gram's face, turning his face up to hers, “There is the limits of the power a Name has heard second-hand, so pay careful attention to my next words, dear children — they will save your life."

She leaned in close, so close that her inky, smoke-like hair swirled around them, that her face was all but the totality of their vision.

“Never give an immortal your full name from your own lips." Her words bordered on command, her tone dire, “This grants them power over you, great power. Even something as small as a name overheard allows beings of particular might to affect your humors, your mood, imagine how easily I could coax you into agreeing with anything I said, if I made you feel so very terrible as you both do now out of control, and then…" she trailed off, and cupped both their cheeks, turning them up to her face, a sated gleam in her eyes. “… After you have wrung yourself out for me, I praise you both, my dear sweet Lidia , and ever stalwart Gram , doughty and true…"

Like a switch thrown, the doldrums wore off. The sensation of depression sloughed off her like sunlight warming the rime from a cold autumn morning, Lidia took in a sharp breath and Gram's mustaches bristled with alarm as he blinked through the abrupt shift in mood. Morgan smiled at them both, and there was a genuine warmth there.

“I said worry not Mine Child, it is a tiny mote and it is nudged to and fro by any number of other beings you meet, those of my stature can simply nudge it harder than most," she cooed and flowed around the pair again, “Guard yourself against those immortals who would mean you ill, you are lucky thus far to only have garnered the attentive care of such benevolent beings as the Pale Lady and I."

“Point… well taken," Gram said with an audible note of humility, Lidia felt that. One never truly got accustomed to being so close to power. Reminders were always jarring.

The undulating tunnel wound readily ahead, and Lidia began to see the dangers that Richart had been so terrified of. The dangers of the still waters were many, Morgan cautioning their deceptive depth, and invisible currents that funneled down into water-locked chutes and tunnels without air nor light, waiting to drag an unaware swimmer to their demise.

During the trek, even at the rapid pace they maintained, she'd noted bits and pieces of what had to be the old escape path. She'd first spotted them once they'd climbed into the first chute, places where the stones had been hacked away, the tunnels cleared of dangling spires and smoothed for feet and hands to safely find purchase on. Markers too, places where torch sconces had been driven into the stone, long eroded or simply gone with sections of the walls. Rockfall was a common occurrence, according to their dear host, and she could see evidence of it here and there.

The passage twisted and narrowed again, Lidia having grown slowly accustomed to the strange environs, able to detect the sweet scent of fresh air, it had teased her nose the entire time, but this deep it was easier to pick out from the scents of the ice-kept larder. Abruptly, Morgan veered them away from the slowly climbing path, the narrowing passage forking off into a series of water-filled steps where the too-still stream broke apart across a wider, shallower room where it's cutting course broadened and spread into a wide, still pond that spread across the floor of the cavern like a great glistening mirror, casting back ghostly reflections by Gram's lantern's glow.

“Hey!" Lidia called as they descended again, the pair of mortal skipping from ledge to ledge, avoiding the pools of still water standing in each tiered shelf, “Ye're takin' us deeper? I can smell the fresh air, it's comin' from on-high!" She said, pointing up at the vanishing, higher passage. Morgan tilted her head, and flowed up the steps of stone in a flickering series of motions, birdlike and graceful she alighted directly before the pair, looming in close to them.

“Oh yes, there is a passage to the surface that way, your senses are astute away from the miasma of mortal society, Mine Child," she cooed, and reached out another long, stretching finger into the dark. Gram's hand tracked her motion with the lantern, and saw as a long-limbed, translucent spider of some sort skittered up her hand, climbing with jittery speed to perched at the tip of one of her talons, she smiled at it with a little rock of her shoulders. “If you were the size of the little sister here, you may even be able to fit through it."

Lidia frowned, and Morgan tittered, turning the alien arachnid over in her hands, it spinning a thread down from her talon's tip to the floor, vanishing anew into a tiny crevasse.

“Figures," Lidia grumped, Gram nodded.

“We were cautioned about playing in the woods above the ridge, the entire range is littered with chimneys and vents like that, it is probably no more than a handspan wide," he answered, raising his lantern and peering back further down the wide, low-roofed cavern they were traversing now, Lidia's eyes followed his past the perching Sidhe Queen.

“… I dinnae see a way out, do ye?" She asked Gram, who shook his head.

“My eyes are not as keen as yours, but I see naught but water and stone."

“Your eyes do not deceive you, there is naught ahead but water and stone," Morgan said, coaxing them forwards with beckoning claws, springing between perches as she dropped from shelf to shelf like a child skipping along a stony riverbank, coming to rest at the edge of the seemingly endless pool, the roof narrowing with them as they went, a veritable forest of stalactites. Along the edges, she spied more of the markers, a corroded torch sconce sticking up like a rusty, scabrous bone from the mirrored surface of the water.

“The path lies beyond, or rather it once did."

The series of dished, stony shelves abruptly ended in that mirror-polished pool — a small lake, really — and as Gram's lantern cast more light, the water intersected with the narrowing ceiling, forming an abrupt, sudden wall, the water having filled what was clearly a stepped passage beyond.

“A rockfall some ways away opened a channel that feeds this stream, sending it from a mild trickle to a great torrent, and now at balance again — it fills the path once trod, though its markers yet remain." Morgan explained, deftly springing to the rusted sconce protruding from the pool's surface, not even creating so much as a ripple as her strange finger-like toes grasped the metal fixture, balancing her perfectly upon it with impossible poise. Gram extended his arm, letting the light cast down on the glassy surface.

“I do not fancy the idea of a swim in these circumstances," he said with a deadpan voice, Lidia audibly ground her teeth.

“Th' idea o' tryin' tae hold me breath through that is fookin' terrifyin'," Lidia said, and Gram nodded, his mouth a flat line.

“Our supplies will be wet-through as well, it will be a hungry walk."

“An' cold, we'll be wet-through as well, an' nae mentionin' yer armor…"

Morgan rolled her luminous eyes as the two carried on, heaving a great, dramatic sigh.

“Mortals, such frail things. Presented with but one frigid swim through total darkness and you quiver and quail, really," tsked the towering sidhe, leaping from her perch, she landed on the surface of the water, a single taloned toe perched on the glimmering sheet, its impact sending a slow, perfectly circular ripple out from her before she pirouetted in place, and reached down with one more dainty digit and tapped.

A singular tone resonated, like a silver bell struck firm — and out from her the water simply shrank away, with a whirl and spread of her arms, the glassy surface bowed away in a great bowl-like shape, exposing the once-hidden steps and shelves, leading further into the darkness beyond.

“Tarry not, little ones," she chided them briskly, the pair forced to scramble as the bubble of protection followed their Seelie host, already threatening to swallow the path beyond in resurgent waters. Hopping down after her, Lidia looked up to watch the waters swirl back into place above them as they descended, the barrier of the Queen's influence creating a perfectly spherical pocket of air, as if the water itself simply moved aside out of respect.

“Wonders upon wonders in your company Little Redcap," Gram murmured as he raised his lantern, the stones beneath them completely dry, so total was the reversal of the flow. The edges of the sphere were crystal clear, and the cavern around them faded away from the reach of the light into murky darkness.

“I am iffin' nothin' else, boundlessly entertainin'" Lidia said in her own muted fascination. Morgan tittered softly.

Dame Morgana proceeded at a brisk but stately pace both mortals had to keep a steady march to match, the glossy orb around them drawing the attention of the miniature lake's natural residents, odd blind fish and pale worm-like salamanders swirled by the protective bubble, drawn by the light and motion. Lidia couldn't help but reach out and poke one tiny reptile's completely translucent belly as it ghosted close to the barrier's edge, her finger coming back still-dry as the startled creature darted away in a wriggling burst of speed, its tiny heart fluttering visibly through it's gossamer flesh as it vanished into the blackness. Even Gram, still humbled by his rough lesson in manners, raised a gauntlet-bound hand to a school of albino fish, that nipped and nibbled curiously at his leather-clad fingers, not immune to the majesty of the display.

Quiet ruled in the tiny bubble as they continued, Gram lowered the shade on his lantern until it was but a gentle glow, the darkness seeming more total but drawing more of the curious cave lifeforms out to where they could be seen. All strangely pale and translucent, lives spent scorning the sun deep down here in the bowels of the earth. Odd, glassy-shelled shrimp darted about, chased the odd, pink wriggling salamanders in a predatory dance by the light of the lantern. Lidia pulled Gram close, the two of them still shaken by their recent traumas, her arm looped through his and her fingers threaded around his gauntlet-clad digits. The smell of the steel and oil was harsh, but welcome as she turned her gaze outwards. Morgan turned her gaze to the pair of them, her eyes bright and inquisitive but she uttered no words as she lead them further through the briny underpass, the already low ceiling dropping lower, a forest of stone spikes rising up in the murky depths, the water peeled from them as they passed through the transparent sphere of influence.

Lidia trailed her fingers along them, and her eyes drew upwards as the light of the lantern played off a new series of shelves and steps of stone, rising upwards slow and steady. The surface's reflections scattered and danced across the light in scintillating patterns across faces and hands as they clambered after Morgan's spritely, bird-like step. They wound through the forest of stalagmite column, in them a few of the resident creatures clung, disoriented as their watery home briefly disappeared. The light and shadows of the stone pillars and water played a surreal scene of overlapping shadows and watery reflections that dazzled the eyes.

Up, up, and up they went, the forest of stone trending gradually upwards, climbing the stone shelves like over-sized stairs in skips and hops, and the top of the sphere breached the surface without fanfare, simply parting as its influence surpassed the water level. Morgan walked from the still lake surface with regal grace, swaying her sinuous frame as she turned to watch her charges follow her up as the last traces of the path were reclaimed by the cold waters and their ghostly inhabitants.

“Father would have loved that," Gram said as he gathered himself, settling his gear after the brief clamber, but he couldn't keep the smile from his face, “Even beset by troubles he would have been enraptured by the beauty of this place."

“Perhaps I will return, and bring the Little Bird…" Morgan cooed in quiet contemplation, a shiver of delight passing through her, “His passions for his land befit a mantle of lordship… and I do find such passion so very, very attractive…"

“Please dinnae molest me father-in-law, mum," Lidia begged in that same exasperated tone as she adjusted her pack's straps, “Ye know he's married, an' it means somethin' tae him."

“Pity."

Free from the water's chilly vaults, Lidia immediately picked a strong scent of fresh air again, and the steep grade of the caverns continued, many more of the torch sconces and cut markers in the stone visible as they progressed — the cave was still by and large wild, nothing close to the efforts in the keep proper had been done here, but moreso now than in the waterlogged cavern, she could at least make out how one might be expected to get past.

“They were jus' getting' from sconce tae sconce," she said as they passed another, counting out the paces. She looked back behind them — each sconce was more or less at the extreme end of the light Gram's lantern cast, easily inside the reach of a blazing torch. Gram nodded.

“Stories say there were torches kept in the larder for such reasons, and the servants would simply run ahead, lighting a new one off the old at each post, leaving a trail for the escaping nobles to follow," Gram explained with a shrug, letting his hand fall slack to his hip, “So the stories say, as far as I am aware the tunnels were never properly used. Baudelaire Keep has never fallen."

“A shame for such a long-standing record to be spoiled," Morgan remarked idly as she lead them up the slowly-widening path, it was less of a tunnel now and more a wide, low-roofed gallery of thousands of tiny, sharp-edged stone teeth oozing and connecting between the floor, the ceiling here and there simply dipping and forming solid walls, so thick were the masses of the stone strands in some places. Gram's mustaches bristled at the Seelie woman.

“Baudelaire Keep has not fallen, not as long as my father draws breath. Karnov plays master of a house not his."

Morgan's lips twisted into a pleased smile at that, but offered no rebuttal.

The trip rapidly became more of a climb as the gallery’s grade steeply increased, Morgan sprang easily up the cavern’s rapidly increasing verticality, and Lidia had little issue as well — Gram however, for all his soldier’s grace and effortless poise, was still woefully mortal and weighed down with armor and equipment besides. He made a valiant effort, but quickly found himself falling behind.

“Here, loverboy, let me help,” Lidia said, taking the lantern from him as he mounted a particularly high ledge, the stiffness of his cuirass limiting his motion just enough to make it an effort.

“I have trained for this for quite some time,” He protested lightly, even as the free hand allowed him to simply swing himself up to her, and she smiled at him, handing lantern back, “I am glad I thought to dress lightly,” he added as he straightened, his helmet had long since found its way to his belt opposite his saber, leaving Gram wearing naught but his padded coif beneath. Bart, Gram, and many men at Fort Ivory together as examples, seemed learning to don and doff the helmet right quick was a trait of the career soldier.

“Aye yer a pragmatist tae yer teeth, jus’ doin’ what I promised yer father,” she said, grabbing him by his swordbelt and tugging him forwards, earning a grin from the soldier as he followed after her up the shelves and steppes of dripping, running stone.

“A wife covers her husband, same as he does her,” She said, and took a moment to flash him a promising grin before they continued their trek. Lidia’s tiny frame springing back and forth between the steppes, providing handholds and hand-ups for Gram’s greater mass and bulk, and after a fashion — the pair had created a sort of symbiosis, an unspoken rapport that followed them from bedchamber to battlefield, the two working seamlessly to lever each other up the increasing grade of the climb. At some points Gram bodily thrusting the tiny changeling beyond her natural reach, others Lidia clambering with her inhuman flexibility between odd angles, providing a hand-up for her lover. They stopped, for a time, being two individual beings and became a singular unit, concerned with naught else but their own forwards progress, and in that they rapidly caught-up in pace to the Sidhe Queen, unobstructed as she was by any natural barriers. She turned her gaze on the pair from a perch far above, propping her chin on a curled claw.

“So the lioness does the lion, the she-wolf her mate,” she cooed speculatively, dipping her head down to grin at the pair with wide, curious eyes, “For all the talk of civilization I find forcing your ilk back to your most primal places to be far, far more virtuous than any pretense at it you make with towering fortifications and endless rituals,” she hissed with malicious delight flashing across her eyes.

“In the crush of conflict red in tooth and claw — you show who you really are.”

They were given no time to answer, the grinning sidhe flitting away up the incline once again, leaving daughter and consort alike wary.

The grade evened out after a fashion, cracked and broken columns becoming more prevalent, the ceiling craggy and irregular, as if the stone were thinner. Truth was not as far from her perceptions, as the pair mounting the last shelf before the floor found its way to an even footing for most of its surface again, Lidia’s nose detected a familiar, sweet scent — strong and close by.

“Fresh air!” She hissed, eyes lighting up as she roundly grasped Gram’s hand, providing him an anchor even as she never lost step, pulling her beloved up the remaining ledge in the same motion she hopped forwards to catch up with her mother, the tall sidhe having come to a stop some paces ahead, watching the pair with diligent interest.

“I think I can see a light ahead,” Gram said, moving fluidly forward with Lidia’s loaned momentum, he caught up to her easy step after only a few beats of the heart, closing the hood on his lantern pointedly.

Surely enough, even plunged into sudden all-consuming darkness, in the far distance, the utter black faded to a sable gray, and the faint gleam of edges beyond. Not quite daylight, the gleam of the moon and stars bright compared to the void that was the deep places of the earth.

“Finally,” Lidia breathed, the words perhaps a touch too earnest. She was wont to be far from the bowls of the earth for some time yet again. Wonders and beauty aside, she preferred open sky and swaying branches to unyielding stone.

Forwards they pressed, Gram’s light low but not snuffed, Lidia and he practically hand in hand as they moved with renewed motivation towards the rapidly brightening light, soon the very caves began to glow with the wan reflections of the night sky beyond, and Lidia felt her heart soar.

Beyond, there was a familiar rumble — thunder crackled and rumbled in the distance, audible now. They were close, and it showed in Gram’s face as much as hers, neither was keen to spend a moment below ground more than needed.

“Our time together grows short, Mine Child,” Morgan cooed to them as she slowed, above the faint brightening was a clear, obvious beacon now, even the dead of night brighter than the bowels of the earth. “My contract with your sire reaches its conclusion, the mouth of these caverns puts an end to my arrangement,” she said, drawing her hands together as she alighted upon a squat mount of smoothed stone, her teeth spread wide in an edged smile.

“We will be apart until you seek me in the Black Forest, if there is anything you have left unsaid until then, now would be the time. Once we pass the threshold above, I am no longer beholden to provide you with succor.”

Lidia drew up short, her hand still threaded into Gram’s, his thick gauntlets made it harder than she’d like, but he felt her grip his hand all the same, tightening his own in return as she looked up to her mother with a confused look.

“Ye’d nae help me, even as yer own blood?” She asked, and the Sidhe woman raised her eyebrows, folding her hawk-like talons together contemplatively.

“I could be convinced, but Mine Child — you know I am no common matron. Your love moves me, but I am not of mortal heart, soul, nor mind. I am not as you are, love alone is not enough to goad me to action,” she explained, and her tone was neutral and somewhat apologetic — but as one would be to a slow child. Lidia felt herself grate against the tone, but she weathered it with a gnaw of her lip.

“But… what… what if I need ye?” She asked earnestly, the low light of lantern and stars beyond only adding to the mood, as Morgan’s glowing green eyes were the most clear of all her features. Crisp, stark, and unyielding.

“Mine Child you will always need me, I am your mother,” she answered with astonishing pragmatism, leaning down to gently tap Lidia’s nose with the tip of a talon; “However I am Queen of Blood and Darkness, Summer and the First Face of Seelie before that… as much as it may pain us both, I am telling you now as a kindness — ask of me as you would, for only now can I be easily compelled to be as either of us wish.”

Lidia paused, and looked to Gram, who as usual offered her naught but his quiet support. She was lost for a thousand questions to ask, and yet she found herself stuck with two, a pragmatic answer… and an emotional one. Emotions won out.

“What am I mum, really? Changeling, Sidhe, or as th’ people call me, some kind o’ monster?” The questions came tumbling out, and Morgan took a deep, rueful breath, laying her face in those long-fingered hands with a wistful expression on her alien visage.

“Oh, Mine Child… you ask what all children of the sidhe ask… and really, what answer can I give?” She began, leaning forward and cupping the tiny girl’s face. “Would you have me lie to you and say you are a whole person? You know I cannot. You are a thing I made, an intentional structure. I built you with purpose and I cannot lie to salve what hurt that causes.”

Lidia’s eyes set, and she fought back tears as she reached up and touched her mother’s hand, pressing it to her cheek. Monster, Sidhe, Seelie Queen or not — she was her mother, and she wanted to be wanted by her.

“Tell me then mum, I dinnae know… tell me what purpose ye made me for…” she begged, her voice quiet. Gram squeezed her hand, and she was glad for the anchor. Morgan closed her eyes for a long moment, the gesture almost exaggerated, how ever-present the gleam of those unblinking green eyes had become.

“… To be loved, that was your purpose.”

The answer was simple and direct, the dark faerie’s eyes opening again, bright, staring and intense. Lidia shook her head.

“Loved… by who, mum? Loved by who?”

“Lachlan.”

Lidia subsided with wide eyes, Morgan said the name in a quiet, private tone. She found herself moving forward a step. Lachlan. Her father. Nothing else, no embellishments, no fancy language, no bendable truths. Just a single word. A direct, absolute, unerring truth spoken by the being unable to lie.

“Mum…”

“You were made to please him, made for him to love in the ways he could not get from me. Made to fill the gaps in his heart. I made you for him, because I know mine own limitations, mine own distance from mortal souls,” The Lenansidhe explained in a quiet, terse voice, irritation… or perhaps, pain creeping into her tone. “I resolved to grant him what he desired most in his life: a family.”

“So you loved him…” Lidia said, and Morgan’s mouth quirked into a faint smile.

“Yes, Mine Child. I loved him as I was able.”

That was enough for her, she swallowed another sob. Her mother’s dangerous hands had not left her tiny, heart-shaped face as she looked up and asked one last question.

“Why did ye tell us about th’ names, mum?”

Morgan’s eyes lit up, and her smile went from winsome to satisfied.

“That my dear, is a very good question.” Morgan stated, her grin suddenly turning too-wide, her jagged teeth seeming to glow in the wan light.

“GRAM! BROTHER, I KNOW YOU ARE HERE! SHOW YOURSELF!”

The party froze. Gram’s spine went rigid, and Lidia’s eyes went wide. Morgan however, seemed unsurprised, even eager as she leaned down close to the pair.

“Names have power, Mine Child. Listen to how the Young Hound above speaks the Black Dog’s.”

“GRAM! I KNOW IT IS YOU, SHOW YOURSELF!”

Louis. It was Louis’ voice far, far above them.

“He invokes you, even now I see in your eyes Black Dog, that you will go to him in defiance of all logic nor sense,” she purred and slid away, turning to the last of the wide gallery, more of a crevasse really, a wide gash in the side of the mountain more than what would expect from a cave mouth. Morgan’s lips turned into a smug smile.

“For he speaks your name as only a brother can, however will you answer?”

As they looked, the thunder rumbled again, and lightning flashed in accompaniment. In the distance the far opening of the cavern was barely visible, but the flash of light illuminated a silhouette against the night — a single man, standing defiant at the top. Gram’s face went flat.

“How…?” was all that Lidia could manage, but Gram had already pulled free from her hand, walked past the Sidhe woman, though he managed a pause as he passed her, not meeting her gaze as he plucked his helm from his belt. Eyes forward.

“Thank you, Dame Morgana. Your counsel is timeless and wise,” he said and casually latched his helmet about his head, visor raised.

“I will answer him as a brother, and as a soldier of God.”

Morgan’s expression was curious, but pleased. Lidia blanched at her.

“Louis’ll ruin th’ whole scheme! He’ll ‘ave th’ whole o’ Karnov’s men straight up our arses the minute he gets back tae tell!” The little changeling protested with gusto, Morgan’s eyes widening in that aggressive stare, her teeth showing behind her smile.

“Oh quite, the Black Dog even now goes to set such events in motion, but I am afraid this is all quite beyond me,” the fae woman said, holding up her hands in a gesture of helplessness, Lidia’s eyes bulged.

“How th’ bloody fook d’ye figure THAT!?” She all but shrieked and Morgan’s titter was soft and knowing.

“My dear, I made a deal signed with blood and soul that I would safeguard yourself, Gram, and those members of dear Lord Richart’s delightful household,” she said raising a finger and gently tapping it on Lidia’s brow in an infuriating way that set her teeth on edge, turning her gaze back to the distant mouth of the cave. “Something that the Young Hound waiting us atop the gallery, still very much is.”

Lidia’s eyes widened and she ran a hand over her face in exasperated fury, Gram turned his head back to her, slowing his advance as Lidia threw her arms up.

“So ye cannae jus’… put ‘em tae sleep with some Murk? Bump him on th’ noggin’?” Lidia asked, exasperated and impatient.

“No Mine Child, I cannot lift so much as a nail against the Young Hound even if I cared to, I am bound by my oath made in good faith.”

Lidia’s manner turned frustrated, her fingers curled into claws of helplessness as she leaned around the towering sidhe woman to watch her beloved walk slowly, determined and stoic, up the gallery to where Louis waited. Perhaps alone, perhaps with a score of men. It was a brief jog at best, hardly enough time to fight, hardly space to run. She looked to Morgan with pain in her eyes.

“Mine Child, you will soon come to know a great many things, a great many truths, and these things are safeguarded only so long as you are safe. From everyone, even myself,” Morgan cautioned suddenly, her eyes serious, almost feverish as they demanded Lidia meet them deep. “Even I am not safe for you Mine Child, I am still a Queen of Seelie, there are things that demand much of me even beyond station and kin. I only now can speak warning of such, bound as I am to aid you.”

“What does that mean, mum? Are ye warnin’ me tae… be suspicous o’ ye?” Lidia hedged, and Morgan’s eyes flashed bright.

“Yes, yes, a thousand times yes ,” she exhorted, leaning close to the changeling, taking her face in her hands. “Mine Child I love thee but I am Sidhe , that comes with it demands upon my very being, what I am, what I define. I am bound to the rules as much as any cosmic force, and unlike the lesser trolls, boggarts and pixies — I am aware of my limitations. I see the shape of my chains, as all Sidhe do.” Her voice throbbed with anguish, and her eyes, so bright and inhuman, for a moment were full of motherly anguish.

“Mine Child it is only now, bound by the Little Bird’s good, naive heart, that I may aid you without thought, speak to you without bit nor bridle to slow my tongue, and it is there I tell you — in spite of my nature, in spite of what and who I will be when next we meet — that names have power ,” her voice was intense, she grasped Lidia’s face and drew her close.

“I am Dame Morgana, Morgan, and Morrigan, The Lenansidhe and Queen of Summer, Blood and Darkness, remember these names Mine Child, remember them from my lips as I have said them. It is the only weapon I may arm thee with…” She trailed off, and slowly drew her hands away, her teeth gnashing, razors and broken glass behind red rouged lips.

“… against myself.”

Lidia’s eyes went wide, and she pressed forwards, reaching for her mother, who shied away

“What does that mean, mum? I dinnae understand!” She protested, finding no purchase, no comfort as the lithe sidhe slid from her touch, folding upon herself as she shook her head.

“I cannot say, I have given you a great gift, you may ask of me anything until the Black Dog reaches the mouth of the cavern, and then my contract expires,” she insisted, eyes and expression earnest. Lidia realized what she was doing, the entire point. The realization dawned in her eyes, and her mother’s head tilted with that curious, bird-like expression.

“Mum?”

“Yes, Mine Child?”

“… What did Papa call you, when you were alone?”

Morgan’s face was blank a moment, but then she smiled. It was the first, earnest smile she had ever seen on the impossibly perfect face of the alien woman, no hint of fangs, no mocking undertones. She smiled, and there was genuine, unabashed joy in it as she leaned close, almost kneeling to speak it to naught but Lidia, even the mute stones left out of the loop.

“… He called me Moira, a name none but he has spoken, and with a power only he wielded as my… my husband,” she whispered, and before Lidia could speak, she stifled her with a taloned finger over the soft, pink bow of her mouth.

“No, Mine Child… do not speak it, not yet. You will know when… when I am not as I am now. When I am rent asunder, you will know when to speak that name.” She said, and then she looked up, towards the pale light of the stormy dark above, rain and thunder accenting the silence of the great caverns.

“Mine time here is at an end, go to your beloved, Mine Child — I will not be here should you return,” she said and gathered Lidia’s face once more in her hands.

“I am a greater thing than even your Pale Lady in truth… but know, even as I am wrathful, untamed and incalcitrant with station, know that I love you, as I loved your father. Were I as other women…” She intoned one last time… and the darkness around her became more real, more perfect as she let her hands slowly drift from the changelings face.

“If I were as other women… alas, I am Sidhe.”

With that, she simply melded to the shadows, first details, then outline, and last, in their shining, gleaming hue, were the great, green eyes. Staring unblinking as the deeper darkness claimed them.

Then she was alone, with only the shadows to comfort her.

“I love you too, mum…” she breathed softly, a single tear all she had time for. Gram needed her.

She lit out of the shadows at a dead run. Ghosts and regrets left in the dark.