Chapter 63: A visit

Chapter 63: Chapter 63: A visit

The sky crackled with thunder as rain poured down in sheets. It was an early morning, the kind where the light stayed gray and thin even after dawn.

The knock came while Lira was still working on the bandage. Allan sat on the edge of the sofa, shirt open, the wound across his side still raw under the cloth she was wrapping. He shifted back a little so she could reach better, and the two of them stayed close, the pressure of her hands steady against him.

Three knocks. Again. Deliberate. Measured.

Seris moved before the fourth one finished. Amelia stepped between Allan and the door without a word. Bela set the bottle down quietly on the side table and stayed where she was.

"Open it," Allan said, steady.

Seris pulled the door. Dark cloaks filled the threshold. The mark on their foreheads was clear even in the dim light. The scarred cultist stood in the frame, rain running off his coat in rivulets. Behind him was Diva, hair stuck to her neck, clothes dark and heavy with water. Two more figures waited just beyond them.

The cultist’s eyes moved across the room. They rested first on Seris, then on the two women farther back, and finally on Allan, who sat with one leg thrown over the other. The pose looked indifferent. It was not.

"Lord Allan," the scarred man said. "You’ve been up to something you had no business doing. I’ll find out what it was before I’m done with you." He pushed the door wider as he spoke.

All three of the men in cloaks looked sharp and thin under the wet fabric. Allan hated the situation. Seeing Diva standing there made the reason for the visit clear enough.

"Come in before the Duke’s little shadows get to you," Allan said.

They stepped inside. Seris backed away to give them room. Water dripped from their coats onto the floorboards. Allan stayed seated. Standing would cost him, and he was not about to pay that price for free. The scarred man shut the door and locked it. Something darker than rain dripped from the edge of his sleeve onto the wood.

Allan had expected Diva to speak first. She stayed half a step behind the scarred man, silent, eyes moving around the room, mostly to the women.

He watched the scarred man’s face. Something about the man sat wrong with him, a tightness around the eyes that did not match the calm voice.

"So why the visit?" Allan asked. He did not offer them seats.

The cultist did not like the direct question, but he recovered quickly. The women’s eyes stayed fixed on the three of them. Seris kept her hand near the knife at her belt. Amelia’s fingers rested near the small vials at her waist. Lira’s hands had stopped moving on the bandage; her eyes were wide and dark.

The scarred cultist looked at them in turn.

"It seems our image has been tarnished in your eyes," he said. "We ask you all to forgive us—"

At the last words a sudden cold touched the side of his neck. He turned. Seris stood behind him, the edge of her blade resting against his skin. Only after a few seconds did the other two cultists realize she was there. Even Diva’s eyes widened. The woman had moved without sound, without any shift in the air that anyone else had noticed. She was simply there, right at his back.

Allan allowed himself a small, satisfied grin. He raised one hand. Seris stepped back slowly and, within seconds, was at his side again.

"You are not forgiven," Allan said. "Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you all here, or let the Duke’s hundred-level guards crush you to pieces."

Diva stepped forward at last. "Allan, we came here to discuss the child. We have limited information. You are a player. We need your guidance."

Allan sat back against the sofa cushions. One of the worries that had been sitting in his chest eased a little. He had assumed the cultists already knew most of what mattered. It seemed he had given them too much credit.

They really did need him.

The dragon had been right in one respect. If the cult wanted to move forward from where they stood, they would need someone who could see the pattern of events before they fully formed.

"They pulled the investigators away from the silver-marked child at exactly the right hour," Allan said. "That wasn’t chaos. I could draw you the schedule if I wanted. I’d rather not draw it for the Duke."

The bait was clear. The scarred cultist understood at once what Allan was asking. He walked a few steps closer and stopped.

"So at what price are you ready to part with your future insight?"

"The price," Allan said, "is the complete noble-plague recipe and the blood-path grimoire, delivered in forty-eight hours. Your internal map first, as proof this is real. That’s the offer. Take it upward or don’t."

The cultist studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded once. "I see. This was indeed a waste of time."

He turned and headed for the door. Diva stayed a couple of seconds longer, then followed. Before she stepped across the threshold she spoke, low enough that the words stayed inside the room.

"The child is already being moved deeper. Kael is still operating on her own, spreading the disease—the plague we created. If you don’t help us, we would have no choice but to destroy everything and restart from death and famine."

Lira came closer to the sofa. "What was that? A threat?"

"An invitation," Diva said. "I just want you around, Allan."

Amelia answered before Allan could speak. "People who want to stand close to him need to bleed for him. If not, then just fuck off."

Allan had never heard those words from her. His quiet noble lady, speaking like that, the edge in her voice clear and sharp. He liked it more than he expected.

Diva was gone. The door shut hard behind her.

Allan turned his head toward Amelia. "What was all that for?"

"I didn’t like the look of it. She kept her eyes on you the whole time."

"Oh."

Amelia smiled when she saw the faint color rise on his cheeks. She came down and rested her hand on his shoulder. "What, you didn’t hear what I said?"

"I heard you," he said. "I just couldn’t decide what to say back right away."

Rain still hammered the windows. The water the cultists had tracked in began to soak into the floorboards. Lira finished the last turn of the bandage and tied it off. Seris checked the lock on the door, then the window latches, moving with the same quiet economy she always used.

Bela picked the bottle up again and set it farther back on the shelf, out of easy reach. Still not saying anything towards Allan. For some reason.

Allan stayed where he was, shirt still open, the new bandage tight against his side. The scarred man’s face stayed in his mind longer than he wanted. The way the man had looked at the women. The way he had locked the door before speaking. The darker liquid that had dripped from his sleeve which still slithered on the floor.

"Where have I seen you before...?"

But more than that, Diva’s final words sat heavier. She had said, the child moved deeper now. Kael still working and busy, and that final threat of starting over from death and famine. Not a bluff, not completely. The cult had done worse before when cornered. Their past ledgers weren’t all that good.

Amelia’s hand stayed on his shoulder. He could feel the heat of it through the open shirt. She had spoken first, without waiting for him. That was new. The vulgar edge in her voice had been deliberate. She had wanted Diva to hear it.

Lira packed the remaining cloth and salve back into the small kit. Her hands were steady again. Seris stood near the door, listening to the street outside. Still being carefully, she didn’t want what happened in the manor to happen here as well.

The rain did not ease. Thunder rolled again, farther off this time. The gray light through the windows stayed the same.

Allan looked at each of them in turn. Seris. Amelia. Lira. Bela. The room felt smaller with the door locked and the water still pooling near the threshold, but it also felt held. Secure in a way that had nothing to do with locks.

He had not stood when the cultists entered. He had not raised his voice. He had set the price and let them walk out with it. That was enough for now.

Amelia’s fingers tightened once on his shoulder, then eased. "Next time they come," she said, quieter, "I want to be the one who opens the door."

Allan almost smiled. "We’ll see."