I found Anabeth at the edge of a shallow ravine, where the ground dipped just enough to shelter stubborn little plants from the wind. She was crouched with her back to me, humming to herself as she worked. Silvermane slowed at my unspoken cue.

  She had a small basket beside her, already half-full. From where I sat, I could see sprigs of green and dull violet, some with serrated leaves, others with bulbous nodes near the stem. Herbs, then. Sensible and responsible. Exactly the sort of thing a thaumaturge might collect after letting her rock monstrosity steal a man’s kill.

  I dismounted quietly. She didn’t notice. She was too busy plucking something from the soil and holding it up to the light.

  I cleared my throat.

  She startled slightly, then relaxed. “Oh! Sir Henry. You’re back already?”

  Already? I’d slaughtered an entire herd and ruined one hide. How long had she been out here?

  “I am,” I said. “We need to talk.”

  “Mmh,” she hummed, clearly not listening. She pinched off a root, shook the dirt free, and added it to the basket. “Just one more cluster…”

  I glanced down.

  The herbs were… not culinary.

  I recognized one immediately. Sir Roland had once pointed it out on a campaign march, voice grave as he’d said don’t touch that unless you enjoy screaming. Another I’d seen sketched in a bestiary margin under volatile catalysts. Not sensible.

  Anabeth stretched her back and spoke to herself in a pleased little murmur. “Ah… this will make Durand the best battering ram.”

  My blood ran cold.

  She turned then, smiling brightly. “Did you need something?”

  I commanded, “You are to cease your creation of stone golems this instant before—”

  She laughed nervously. “Ah—wait, just a second—”

  I stopped the second I saw her left hand had turned palm-up. There was a faint swirl of milk-colored magic pooling there, slow and viscous, like cream stirred into water but never quite mixing. It clung to her skin in soft spirals, luminous and disturbingly calm.

  Ah, by the flaming ballsacks of the Saints.

  “Cease—” I tried again.

  The ground bulged.

  A patch of herbs puffed, roots snapping with obscene little sounds. Pebbles rolled aside. Soil sloughed off in damp clumps.

  Then a head emerged. Two arms followed, pushing free with the slow confidence of something that had never once doubted it would succeed.

  The golem hauled itself upright, shedding dirt and greenery, and stood there, shorter than Durand, broader through the shoulders, its surface veined with pale mineral lines that echoed the glow still curling around Anabeth’s palm.

  It blinked.

  I stared.

  The golem tilted its head at me.

  “I was just reinforcing Durand,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to make another Durand. That was more of a… reflex.”

  “A reflex.”

  “I get rather nervous around you, Sir Knight.”

  “Speak now. Do you call them all Durand, wretched witch?”

  She brightened at once, relief spilling into motion. “Oh! No, no, he’s not going to be Durand. I wouldn’t reuse a name, that’d be confusing. This one’s different. See the striations? They’re denser along the shoulders, so he should be better at—”

  “Lady Anabeth.” I stepped forward, towered over her, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  She stopped and stared up at me. Then she stared down at my codpiece and blushed. Then she laughed even more nervously. “This reminds me, you are at quite a convenient angle, Sir Knight.”

  “We will speak in utmost seriousness. Now.”

  She took in a breath. “Oh. All right.”

  “First,” I said, “do you have a dagger?”

  I drew the leaf-shaped blade down, slipping through hide and connective tissue as if the ox had been assembled incorrectly and I was simply unmaking a mistake. The resistance I expected never came.

  Plus 15% Dexterity, my arse. This was cooperation.

  I glanced down at the weapon. It had twenty-five base attack. Twenty-five. Sir Roland’s longsword only had 22 even after the first upgrade. How in the Saints’ names was this even possible? By every principle of arms I had ever been taught, this dagger should have been inferior.

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  “So,” Anabeth’s voice came from behind me. “What did you want to talk about, Ser?”

  From afar, Durand had squared off with the newly formed golem, apparently christened by mutual agreement, and the two constructs were engaged in what could only be described as an argument conducted entirely with their fists.

  I watched the two golems collide again in the distance. Once, not long ago, I would have launched straight into a lecture, but the rage had burned itself down to embers.

  There was no point. The damage was already done. So I wiped the dagger clean and turned to her. “You promised me your backstory. I am here to collect.”

  I had expected hesitation. Deflection, perhaps, accompanied by another nervous laugh. Instead, Anabeth studied me for a long, thoughtful moment. The nervousness drained away and now in her eyes there was nothing left but the usual type of cunning you’d see when she’d found an angle. She reached into her basket, adjusted the herbs so the more volatile specimens were no longer visible, and rose smoothly to her feet.

  “Very well,” she said. “But I believe you’ve misunderstood something, Ser.” She tilted her head. “You did not come to me merely to collect my backstory.”

  I said nothing.

  “You demanded answers,” she continued calmly, “because you are beginning to suspect that I know more about you than I should.”

  She was spouting nonsense again, but I was determined to see the end of this.

  “You invoke Saint Merin with remarkable frequency,” she said. “You wield steel like someone who understands its conversation with force, not merely its weight. And you are travelling toward Mostenstein at precisely the same time the Ferrum Animus stirs. I daresay there are a great many things you can do with steel that you are currently obfuscating.”

  I had not heard of any movement regarding whatever Ferrum construct she was talking about. If she believed I could leverage steel binding, Ferrum resonance, or whatever obscure art she was circling—

  Then perhaps I could.

  At the very least, I could learn. There would definitely be skills for that in the Aura Market.

  She folded her hands neatly in front of her. “So before I tell you who I am,” she said, “why don’t you tell me of your origin, Sir Knight?”

  For a heartbeat, I considered giving her a half-truth, but lies still sat ill with me.

  “No,” I said. “I will not.”

  “I am not so desperate for answers that I will barter my name and history for scraps,” I continued. “Nor will I permit you to leverage me with information I already possess, Anabeth von Silberthal.”

  Anabeth regarded me with renewed interest. “So you know my name. That much is hardly impressive. The von Silberthals are not obscure.” She took a step closer. “What else, Sir Knight? I doubt a man of your standing took the trouble to trawl through genealogical registries or academic abstracts on applied mineral thaumaturgy.”

  Her tone was almost professorial, and the smile that followed it unsettled me more than any of her theatrics ever could. When Anabeth played the fool, her expressions were busy. This smile did the opposite.

  I said nothing.

  “As I thought.” Then she reached into her satchel. Not the herb basket—this was a separate compartment, carefully warded. She withdrew a thin, leather-bound volume, spine cracked with age and pages stained with the glimmer of preservation sigils. This must’ve come from the Grand Library earlier.

  Of course. Common theft. She seemed to have no instinctive reverence for custodianship, no understanding that knowledge carried obligations as well as power.

  “You will return that volume to the Grand Library at once,” I said.

  “I have asked for permission, my good Sir,” she said. “The volume has been untouched for three spans, and it is of no immediate consequence to any active inquiry.” She tapped the book with one finger. “Hardly a loss, I assure you.”

  But had she received permission?

  “Three spans ago,” she continued, opening the book before I could form a response, “an entity was registered in Mostenstein under a provisional charter. Its name is… adjacent to the Order of Saint Merin. It used similar heraldic language. Yet, it was not registered as an Order.”

  Her finger traced a passage.

  “It was listed as an auxiliary institution. A civic instrument. Useful for enforcement, arbitration, and—most intriguingly—doctrinal enforcement where secular authority proved insufficient.” She glanced up at me. “It remained active for several spans.”

  Once she had seized the narrative, she could shed her harmless exterior like a discarded shawl and step into a razor-edged cunning so sharp it dissected your defenses with exacting efficiency.

  “It was dissolved,” she went on, “by decree of the Twelvefold Flames.” She closed the book. “One wonders, why an organization so devoted to Saint Merin would find itself unable to call itself an Order at all.”

  I had not known this. None of the Knights had ever questioned the legitimacy of the Order. Was this the truth?

  “And yet,” she said, slipping the book away, “here you are. Bearing the manners, vows, and habits of something that officially does not exist. And one further wonders why a man of your… capacity would require a companion at all. If you required force, you would not need me. If you required knowledge, you could extract it. But bureaucracy?” Her lips curved. “You lack access, Sir Knight. And so, you take on a thaumaturge with an impeccable academic pedigree, a flexible moral compass, and a talent for persuasion. You tolerate my excesses.” She tilted her head. “You even indulge my affections.”

  I stepped into her space. “Attempt to rewrite me, Lady Anabeth, and you will learn precisely why men pray before they draw steel in my presence. I have broken stronger wills than yours without raising my voice. Do not mistake my restraint for permission.”

  She did not retreat.

  Instead, she laughed, soft and delighted. “Oh. You are so very charming when you threaten annihilation with a saint’s patience.” She placed a finger on her lower lip. “But we both know you do not wish to follow through. If you did, I would already be on the ground.”

  I couldn’t find anything clever to say.

  “Which raises an uncomfortable question,” she said gently. “Why did you yield?”

  I felt it then—the pressure, subtle and insidious. Taking my doubts and silences and arranging them until her conclusion felt inevitable.

  She was not trying to deceive me.

  She was trying to author me.

  I drew a breath to object—

  —and she stepped closer, until her robe flirted with the plates of my armor. One hand lifted toward my chin, and I caught it, holding her wrist just enough that she could no longer lean in. Our eyes met anyway, unflinching, closer than either of us had intended.

  “Tell me,” she whispered, her voice low and unguarded now. “What is it you are truly thinking, Sir Knight?”

  Her thumb brushed my jaw, almost absent-minded.

  “What are we?”

  I was, to my own quiet irritation, fond of her.

  Not because she cornered me well. Not because proximity and shared danger have a way of forging shortcuts the heart mistakes for inevitability. I was aware of those mechanisms. And I deeply resented the way she tried to drag that fondness into the light and demand it declare itself on her terms, like a witness pressed under oath.

  I did not answer her question.

  Instead, I released her wrist, reached up, and lifted my visor halfway.

  I saw her eyes travel to my mouth before she could stop herself.

  Good.

  I closed the remaining distance and pulled her in.

  I was already leaning down when... her stomach rumbled. We both stopped.

  Her expression shattered in real time. Her poise collapsed. It was at that moment that I caught myself.

  Saints preserve me. I had almost been conned. I had come looking for answers, and I had nearly paid in intimacy.

  I studied her for a long breath, then asked, “Are you hungry?”

  She did not answer. She would not meet my eyes. Her ears were red clear to the tips.

  That settled it.

  I lowered my visor and stepped back. “You will stand where you are. I will make us dinner.”

  I turned away before she could recover.

  Behind me came a small, strangled sound.

  “No—wait—” she yelped, then I heard a sound of hand clapping over mouth.

  I did not stop.