Here's some information you might find handy. -EEM
The parchment laid before them, curled at the edges. Its ends were torn, weathered, battered, as was the man on the ground. Mulciber watched, his concentration long ago gone, taken-or had it fled?-some matter of minutes ago.
“Hurt yourself.”
The man was screaming, Mulciber was sure of it. But he heard nothing. He said nothing. He all but saw nothing. The man’s energy was draining-and Mulciber’s was, too. As hard as the man was fighting, resisting-
"And what’s he told them? Mulciber, what’s he-?”
"I don’t know,” Mulciber growled. “I only know he’s done-talked to somebody about some-“
“Stop it.”
With a quick flick, the man fell to the ground, a weak, fetal lump drenched his own blood and tears. The elder, Goyle, took his stance in front of the younger man, hands on either arm of his charm, and leaned in close. Mulciber swallowed, his nose scrunching in retreat from the odor wafting off his breath.
"We’ve got to get to the source of this,” Goyle hissed. “They won’t stop talking ‘less we get the sorry bastard weaseling it out of ‘em.” Mulciber nodded, his exhaustion crippling the frustration that might otherwise have compromised his reaction. His fingers flexed, what little anger had been sparked releasing in their returning squeeze to the wood on either side of him.
"He’s got nothing," he told Goyle. "He hasn’t got anything for us. Anything he said-didn’t realize-he doesn’t know who he gave it to."
Goyle nodded and turned away.
"Release him."
Mulciber’s eyebrows hunched, confused. “What?”
"Release him," Goyle repeated. "Break the curse."
Break the curse? He had never done, not without killing-not without death.
"You’re wasting my time, Mulciber," Goyle’s wand hit Mulciber’s temple, and every abandoned emotion sprung to the surface with unprecedented speed. "Break the curse. Or I’ll break it for you."
Concentrate. Mulciber willed himself to think, to focus, to thread through he bonds he’d forged in the past several months. One by one, he picked them away, safely tucked out of the reach of his inexperienced hands.
"BREAK THE FUCKING BOND!"
With the jab to his vein, Mulciber released his spell-broken, retracted, rolled away from his shoulders. The others remained, but those that were left-he was pleasantly surprised by how much of himself one less active curse could return to his sanity.
"Done," Mulciber spat, shoving the wand away with his hand. "He’s free. Do what you want with him."
"Get out." Goyle toed the man’s mangled form with the tip of his boot. He followed it with a swift kick. "Get out, Mulciber. That’s a bloody long list you’ve got to take care of, there.”
Mulciber hopped up out of his seat without looking back. Not for the cries for help, not for the shouting, not for the green light that splashed the edges of his vision. He had only one task on his mind, one accomplice to seek out, and no possible way of knowing what problematic danger he had unleashed across the country in conjunction with his own burdening weight.
