The Threads of Memory VI - Unmasking
Editor's Log 5/24/25 - More gore in this chapter now - Made some changes to names - More scenes w/ Velim's family
TW: blood/gore, surgical gore, minor self-mutilation, non-consensual drugging, kidnapping, captivity
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Gale slammed the desk drawer, then kicked the table leg. Mystra’s statue teetered towards the precipice. Tara tried to will it the last millimeter over the edge, but the goddess stood firm. Gale cursed at his stubbed toe and tore his coat off the rack.
“Mr. Dekarios, slow down,” she huffed, trotting up beside him.
He yanked his boots on. “There’s no time, Tara,” he massaged his chest, the ache of the orb more present than ever. His stomach growled too, but he ignored it and Tara’s protestations as he hurried out the door.
Tara dogged his steps. “Mr. Dekarios, it will kill neither you nor Velim to take care of yourself. They would not want you running yourself ragged on their account.”
“They’re a doctor, Tara, they would have to say that,” he lengthened his stride, “Gods, if I just walked them home when they asked.”
Tara sprang from the ground. Gale lurched forward as she landed on his shoulders and made new runs in his coat. She anchored her claws in the fabric and hunkered down, ears pinned back. “Velim would mean it,” she insisted.
“Tara, please.” Gale considered brushing her off.
“Gale, please,” she hissed back.
“Come with me if you must, but we cannot waste time,” Gale pinched the bridge of his nose and forced a deep breath into his lungs, pushing the orb back.
Tara kneaded his shoulder. “I’ll make another loop of the Sea Ward. Promise me you’ll eat when you return?”
Gale released the breath in a truncated sigh, misting in the cold air. “I promise.”
“Very well, Mr. Dekarios.” He winced as Tara flushed off his shoulder, her wings ruffling his hair.
The townhouse door swung open before Gale could knock. The kobold saluted him, dropping the rope she used to reach the doorknob. “Jada saw you coming!”
A violet tiefling made a beeline down the hallway and Jada scrambled out of his way. He glared at Gale, dark red eyes suspicious in the way that teenagers are of most adults. “You Gale?”
“Yes it’s a pleasure to --” Gale attempted a greeting.
“Come on,” the tiefling cocked his head down the hallway and slammed the door behind Gale, “don’t bother taking your shoes off.”
Gale hesitated to step on the carpet, but the muddy footsteps tracked up and down the hall indicated that the floors were the least of this family’s worries at the moment.
Jada tugged at his coat when he waited too long. “Velim’s wizard should hurry.”
Helena held up her finger when Jada ran up to her, and Jada bounced from foot to foot waiting for her to finish her hushed conversation with one of her older children -- a human girl, maybe 15. The human girl looked Gale up and down as she passed, flipping her box braids over her shoulder as she passed him by. Helena smoothed the plaits in her graying beard.
“Velim’s wizard is here!” Jada chirped.
“She can see that, Jada.” The tiefling scowled down at her. Jada stuck her forked tongue out at him.
Helena shook Gale’s hand, her palm warm and grip stone-solid. “Mr. Dekarios, a pleasure to finally meet you. I wish it was under better circumstances.”
“Like a wedding!” Jada chirped, and the tiefling shushed her.
Helena cleared her throat. “You’ve met Jada. This is my son, Garus. Kitty has been running messages to Georgie all day,” she gestured after the human girl, “Have you met Georgie?”
The barrage of names left Gale’s head spinning. “Is Georgie another one of your children?”
Helena shook her head. “No, no, Georgie is Velim’s fledgeling. She’s working with Harold on the council to find a man named Unger the Gold. Did Velim tell you why they were on leave?”
“Yes, they mentioned Unger the Gold in passing once or twice,” Gale said, “I have my tressym doing flyovers of the city, in case they’re out and about.”
Helena shook her head. “Oh dear, Velim doesn’t vanish like this on a whim. Your tressym isn’t likely to find them.”
Gale’s chest spasmed, pins and needles running up his arms. He excused himself and sat down.
“Are you well, Mr. Dekarios?” Helena asked, thick brows knitting together.
“Yes, fine,” Gale choked out, “please continue. How may I help?”
Helena looked at him skeptically. “I understand you’re tenured at Blackstaff Research Institute?”
“I am.”
Helena produced a Vulture’s badge from her pocket, four black stars marking over a decade of service. “Jada found this in the grass beneath Blackstaff Academy.”
Gale studied the badge, his heart dropping. “I’ll ask around, but I don’t know what they’d be doing there.”
Velim reached inside their open chest cavity, hooking the blade of their scalpel beneath the aorta and slicing through with a hollow pop. Their heart slipped free of the pericardium and into their hand, sputtering blood onto Gale’s pale skin. They held the organ out and let it drop from their palm and into the maw of his chest. Gale’s face twisted in pain as the teeth ground their heart to slivers.
“We’re gonna run out of ether at this rate,” Unger’s voice grated.
“Looks like someone’s tried to get at it’s heart before,” a woman said.
Velim bit down on the gag, gasping around the sweet chemical stench of ether. Their vision swam, eyelids heavy. They lolled their head aside to see their captors better and the echo of pain radiated up their neck. The needle snapped off in their throat, a gush of blood splashed hot then cold on their bare skin.
“Awake again.” Another voice, one Velim recognized but couldn’t place. Like Unger’s, but softer.
A hand grabbed Velim’s hair and wrenched their head back. They choked on the flood of ether soaking the gag, their lungs and throat burning. The skin around their mouth cracked and bled.
The maw yawned. Velim wrapped their finger around the back of their pulmonary artery, the pain coming half a second after they sliced their finger on the way through the rubbery resistance of the vein. They tipped their heart off their bleeding hand and into the mouth again.
“I don’t mean to cause you pain,” the maw said.
Pain is just pain, Velim tried to say, but heard only the wet inflation of their lungs.
“We have opium,” suggested the woman.
Velim’s eyelids fluttered, searching for the sound of her voice. The leather straps firm on their upturned hands strained against the weak twitch of their limbs. Their back ached like they’d been skinned. They winced as Unger plucked off another scale.
“Couldn’t spare opium for me,” he grunted. His legs clanked on the polished tile.
We had no opium, they wanted to say. The gag still stank of ether, burning their eyes and tearing down their raw throat.
“Try this,” the voice that was Unger’s but softer said. Velim couldn’t see what he held up, but felt the slice of a scalpel in their arm and rough fingers pushing a hard seed beneath their skin. They whimpered.
Unger ripped out another scale and laughed when their body twitched.
They cut the inferior vena cava and fed their heart to the seething black void in the middle of the room. It floated off their hand, coaxed forth on black tendrils that blackened the muscle. Their claws cracked and crumbled away to ash. The scales peeled back, the skin beneath blackening and muscle withering. The bones of their hands charred, each fragment drawn into the void. It smelled of afterbirth and vinegar.
Gale put his head down. No trace of Velim but their badge in the grass beneath the infirmary. His head pounded, the ache in his chest demanded attention. Security checked the watching eye on the bridge, the wards on the doors, no sign of Velim or anyone else that night. He found himself walking the Sea Ward, and almost didn’t recognize the stairwell or the worn wooden sign for Lonzok’s Arcane Supply. He opened the door, the familiar warmth of magic and incense greeting him.
Lonzok looked up from the bookshelf he was stocking, his spectacles shining strangely in the gray daylight filtering in through small windows set high in the wall. “Surprised to see you in the daylight,” he grunted, “in for the usual?”
Gale sighed. “Yes. No time for browsing today, I’m afraid.”
Lonzok presented the tray to Gale. It rattled with its usual selection of odd trinkets. Gale looked at the offerings, each a pittance for the waxing hunger of the orb.
“Do you have anything… more?” Gale asked, “something with a greater charge.”
Lonzok smiled knowingly and tucked the tray away. “As a matter of fact, I do. Came into it not long ago.”
Gale leaned in. “What do you have?”
“If it’s concentrated magic you need, I can get you a pint or two of black dragon blood. The genuine stuff, not some swill from a caged dragonling. Fresh from the source, it’s potent if you know how to process it for extraction. I’d cut a deal for a repeat customer,” Lonzok explained, setting a vial of blood on the desk.
The orb lurched for the viscous red-black liquid. Gale picked up the vial. The orb throbbed, hungry.
“That’s already purified,” Lonzok explained, “fresh from the living beast.”
Gale felt the power of it, the weave primed for extraction. The orb lashed. Gale considered the things in his tower he hadn’t yet sold -- ancient tomes, the statuette of Mystra, the artifacts and trinkets he couldn’t bear to be rid of. Dragon blood of this potency may silence the orb for a month, time enough to search for Velim unimpeded.
“Very well,” Gale conceded to the hunger, “let us deal.”
Dim light filtered through the slats between the boards of the crate. Splinters dug into Velim where the wood wore their raw skin ragged. They ached like a bug shoved in a box. They willed their leaden limbs to move. Their right arm throbbed numbly where Lonzok drove the seed beneath their skin. The sutures pulled tight, professionally done. The woman must be a surgeon, whoever she is.
Gods, they put some faith in that thing, Velim thought as they tested the flimsy hempen binds on their wrists and feet. The cloth gag still stunk of ether, stinging the cracking skin of their lips. Magic buzzed discordantly outside the thin barrier of wood. The moans of another trapped creature echoed forlornly. A storehouse or a warehouse, not the place with the operating table.
Acid dripped from their claws and onto the rope. Sulfurous smoke billowed up from the burning fiber. They winced at the heat on their scoured skin as acid pooled on the floor of the crate. Sulfur fumes choked Velim’s senses as the wood beneath them eroded. They closed their eyes against the sting and woke again with a gasp that ravaged their scorched throat and sent them into a coughing fit. The ripped the gag out of their mouth and retched.
Heartbeat loud in their ears, they ran their hands over the rough floor of the crate until their claws caught in the deep gouges the acid left behind. Another dose of sedative coursed through their body in response to their adrenaline, dragging them back under. Velim focused on the creaking pain in their shoulders and shifted their weight against the side of the crate until it tipped over and they crashed into the floor, unconscious.
The creature moaned again, morose at the sound of the padlock on the heavy door clicking open. Velim’s arms buckled as they tried to push themself out of the twisted position they’d fallen into. It clicked and howled in indignation, drowning out the clanking footsteps approaching Velim’s crate.
The storehouse sat third in a row of identical boxy brick structures set back from the docks on the Sea Ward and invisible in the hustle and bustle of ships and sailors. The steel service door was locked with a padlock that whirred with wards Gale felt over the hot seething of the orb in his chest. The keeper, a tall elven woman, grunted with the effort of turning the key. A series of locks tripped inside, clicking in the static silence of sleet pattering on the ground.
She hauled the door open, putting her full weight against it to get it moving. The swing of the door passed over four wards carved into the concrete floor, each glowing in turn as they activated.
“Quite the advanced security system you have there,” Gale commented in an effort to fill space, “the circuit goes all the way around the structure of the building?”
“You'd have to ask Lonzok.” The keeper held the door for him.
Gale peered down the long brick side of the building until the keeper gently nudged him inside. The trilling of the manticore caged on the far wall drowned out the sound of sleet on the roof. It paced, howling at them through the narrow slots between bars and working a single large claw through like a cat pawing at the crack beneath a door.
“Don’t worry about Milo,” she nodded at the beast, “we're holding her for a menagerie. She's loud, but pretty girl wouldn't hurt a fly.”
Gale lowered his voice, doubting her assurances. “What a treasure trove this place must be, have you worked for Lonzok long?”
She nodded. “Old School friends, he calls on me when he has a beast he needs kept down.” She stopped at a wobbly wooden table and simple chair with a heavy leather coat draped over the back and picked up the pry bar leaned against it.
Gale stared at the coat. Even in the dim warehouse, it seemed familiar. The wear on the shoulders and cuffed sleeves nagged at his mind. He looked at the coat, and at the tall woman. “Are you working with a Vulture?”
“That’s mine,” Unger clanked out of the stacks of crates. He crossed his arms, his brass legs shining, “took you long enough.”
“And you are?” Gale held out his hand.
“Unger the Gold,” Unger crushed Gale’s hand in his grip. He sniffed, his crooked nose twitching, “used to be a Vulture.”
The coat still bothered him, and he stared at the oilcloth hood until his guts dropped into the void. “It’s a bit small for you.”
“You callin’ me fat, wizard?” Unger scowled, then laughed and slapped Gale's back, “I'm kiddin’. Let's get set up. And just so you know: it looks like a person, but it ain't. You seen the product for yourself already, so you know.”
“Come on, Unger, while the sedative still works.” The keeper handed him the prybar.
Unger approached a crate, askew from the others surrounding it. As he wedged the prybar beneath the top, the crate exploded with a thunderous crack that sent the broad man flying into a wooden barrel. It split open, spilling a viscous silvery black substance over his head. Unger wiped at the oil clinging to his face.
Gale covered himself against the hail of splinters that rained from the shattered crate. He blinked the dust out of his eyes and grabbed the Vulture’s coat, holding it up like a shield as the dragon uncoiled from the crate and fell on Unger.
Unger’s body convulsed as Velim’s weight knocked the wind from him. They snarled with jagged teeth, a screech rolling from their ragged throat. Unger thrashed, but the acid dripping off Velim’s claws sizzled in the mechanisms of his brass legs and they seized. The stench of burning flesh filled the room as they dug their fingers into his throat, the tissue coming away in strings of charred flesh.
The keeper readied a spell, but Velim flung their’s faster. A flash of green streaked between rows of crates, and the keeper screamed as her face melted away. She pawed at her curdling flesh before falling.
Velim staggered back from Unger’s body and collapsed. The concrete floor leached what remained of the warmth from their body. The sudden brightness from the lantern on the table drove a blade of nausea into their stomach, and they hissed as they leaned heavily on a nail lodged in a shard of wood. The nail pierced their right palm, and they yanked it out as they forced themself to their knees. The room spun and their hand throbbed dully, the sedative blunting the pain as another dose surged into their bloodstream. They gripped the wood shard like an anchor, spine curling over and pressing their forehead to the cold concrete.
Velim braced their right arm against the floor. Their vision resolved on the neat stitches between quills and scabs, and they drove the nail beneath them. Blood welled up and obscured the site, but they continued levering the nail up until the sutures broke. The sedative numbed the pain as they clawed for the little metallic seed and ripped it out of their skin. They shook it off their claw and it made a hard little splat on the floor in the moment before they finally doubled over and vomited stomach acid onto the concrete.
“Gods, Velim!”
The sound of their name pierced through the nausea and they rose on their knees as footsteps approached them, meeting the voice with a clumsy lash and wordless snarl that connected weakly with the stranger's shoulder. The familiar voice yelled as Velim doubled over again and a violet woolen coat dropped to the ground, an acid burn eating away at the sleeve. They blinked hard against the onslaught of the sedative, but their muscles went rubbery despite their resistance. Heavy fabric settled over their bare back, pushing them further into the concrete.
Warm hands held them steady, their leaden head lolling back. The stranger pulled the coat around their shoulders. Their coat, they knew it by the smell of the beeswax they sealed the leather with, deadening the sharpness of sweat and blood clinging to their body. He cradled their face, pushing mats of hair out of their eyes.
“Velim, can you hear me?” Gale asked, his voice low. The manticore howled at the commotion.
Velim grimaced at his question, flashing their teeth. Gale thought they might try to bite him, but they just lurched forward into his shoulder. He cradled their head against his heart, their body shivering.
“That’s alright, just listen to the sound of my voice,” Gale’s heart slammed against his chest. The orb reached out for them, caressing their face with burning filaments of weave. He could have them. Right now, drain them away to nothing and feed the orb a piece of Tiamat so powerful, a meal so satisfying, that it might not bother him for the remainder of his natural life.
The thought arrived so quickly and so selfishly that a knife twisting between his ribs may have been less painful. He pulled Velim closer.
“I’ve got you,” Gale counted the steps he’d taken around the building, how many steps to the intersection closest to his mother’s house, “just hold on to me, I’ll get you out of here.”
“Please don’t…” Velim stammered, their voice giving out to ragged breathing.
“I won’t -- I-I’m --” Gale checked his calculations one more time, “I've got you. Just hold on, I’m getting us out of here.” He adjusted his grip, hooking his arm around their waist and adjusting their arms over his shoulders. They held onto his neck, the tips of their filed claws grazing his shoulders.
“Complicare viam,” he spoke, the words becoming truth in a gust of cold wind.
Sleet dripped down the back of his shirt and melted on Velim’s hair. He held them until the vertigo of traversing dimensions subsided, then hauled them to their feet. They stumbled, knees buckling beneath their own weight. Gale propped them against the wall of the alley to button their coat and pull up their hood. He thanked the gods that the scabby black skin on Velim’s legs looked like boots in the dark.
Velim blinked up at the cloudy sky, letting Gale ease their arms through the sleeves of their coat. He took their weight again, stooping so Velim could rest their arm across his shoulders. They struggled to lift their legs, each step half-dragging through the mud until they found a stumbling rhythm with Gale pushing them forward.
“Almost there,” Gale panted as they turned the corner into his mother's neighborhood. The gas streetlamps flickered eerily off the sleet melting into the gutters.
Velim’s knees buckled as they lost consciousness, bringing them both down in the cold street. Velim blinked back awake with a low groan, ice chilling their skin. Gale glanced down the street at his mother’s stoop, just a half block away. The orb throbbed in his chest, still reaching for the dragon in his arms.
“Not far now,” Gale pushed wet hair out of Velim’s eyes, “I’m going to carry you.”
Velim nodded, letting Gale sweep his arm beneath their knees. He staggered back to his feet and shifted their weight against his chest, each step fell forward harder than the last until he reached the short staircase leading to his mother’s stoop. He braced himself for the final exertion, breath wheezing through his teeth, and surged to the top of the stairs where he let Velim down gently, holding them until they found their feet again. Once he was sure they wouldn’t fall, he reached for the knocker and slammed it against the door until someone answered.
“What?” Charrel’s anger dropped away as she took in the scene on the front step. Her long ears fell slack in surprise as the frustration that had rocketed her out of bed dissipated in a cloud of inert steam. “By the Gods, Mr. Dekarios,” was all she could manage in a small voice.
“Prepare a room and wake my mother, it’s an emergency.” Gale mustered his most authoritative voice, but Charrel was already helping him drag Velim across the threshold and lower them down on a bench in the foyer.
Velim traced the designs carved in the velvet upholstery, watching Charrel and Gale bicker. Gale locked the front door, then warded it, and stormed up the stairs past Charrel yelling for his mother. The commotion faded into footsteps above them. The feeling came back to their toes with a prickling sensation. Their arm and hand throbbed.
Gale and Charrel rushed back down the stairs, and Velim’s stomach churned as they were hoisted to their feet and carried up the stairs. The patterns in the wallpaper morphed, birds stretching their feathers and turning to watch Velim pass by. Gale and Charrel carried them into a bedroom lit with the low glow of an oil lamp on the desk and set them on the desk chair.
“Get out,” Charrel demanded of Gale.
“Get out? What do you mean ‘get out’?” Gale’s voice didn’t rise above a harsh whisper, but his grip on Velim tightened.
“I mean what I say, Mr. Dekarios, now get out and let your friend some modesty,” she hissed, but her hands were gentle in prying Velim away.
Velim noticed the callouses on her fingertips as she eased them onto the bed, and thought dimly that she must play some kind of string instrument. Gale’s vigor dissipated as he released them, holding their hand. They left a smudge of blood behind on his palm as they finally slipped free of his grasp.
“Gale,” Morena lingered in the door in her housecoat. Beside her, Delores and Dorothea blinked sleepily through curtains of curly brown hair mussed from sleep.
Gale hurried out of the room and closed the door behind him so Del and Dot couldn’t see inside.
Dot blinked up at him, her stormy gray eyes narrowed suspiciously as she pulled her curls back into a messy bun. “Who’s that?”
“Is that who the matchmaker set him up with?” Del asked through a yawn. She wiped the tears out of her cloudy eyes.
“Go back to your rooms,” Morena said through her teeth.
Her daughters looked at her skeptically, but both turned back on Gale in their own time.
“Go back to bed, it’s none of your concern,” Gale snapped.
Del blinked, full awake. She ran her hand through her hair, but it fell back into place. “What’s none of my concern? Don’t you have your own tower to bring your dates back to, or would you rather spend the night in your childhood bedroom?”
“Delores,” Morena snarled.
Del matched Gale’s confrontational stare. Dot grabbed her sister’s arm and dragged her back to her bedroom. She waved to Gale as she slipped back into her own bedroom across the hall and closed the door. Morena walked past Gale, gesturing him towards the sitting room. She pinched the bridge of her nose. Gale followed, shoulders slumping under his mother's scrutiny.
Morena sat in her rocking chair and folded her hands in her lap. Gale sat on the long sofa across from her, avoiding her stern gaze.
“Gale, would you like to tell me what happened?” She asked, her voice measured.
Gale shrunk, his body responding to a tone of voice he had known before his feet reached the floor from the couch he was sitting on. He gripped the brocade upholstery and blinked back tears. When the onslaught didn’t stop, he buried his face in his hands. His mother waited.
When Gale looked back into his mother’s stone eyes, the words spilled from him in an unstoppable tide. He stared at the blood smear on his hand as he told his mother about his search for Velim and what he intended to do with the dragon. He covered the aching black scars beside his eye when he explained the reason for his drastic measures. He sobbed outright when he begged her forgiveness for all the time he’d been gone. He was still crying when Morena sat down beside her son. She rubbed his back and leaned against his shoulder, humming a soft lullaby beside him until he stopped sobbing.
The throbbing in Velim’s arm woke them. They rolled over and covered it with their palm, pressing down on the flimsy bandage until the scab slipped. Daylight streamed through the gaps in the curtains. Velim squeezed their eyes shut against the light until the stinging pain drove them out of bed. They leaned on the wall, picking up their coat from the back of the desk chair on their way to the bathroom, and closed the door behind them.
The water inside the tub steamed, the washbasin full of clean water. Some kind soul whose face they couldn’t recall left fresh clothes and towels on the table beside the bathtub. They dug for the bag of holding sewn into the lining of their coat and removed their surgery kit and a roll of gauze, dropped it on the table, and peeled away the stained bandages. They dunked their wounded hand and forearm into the washbasin and scrubbed with soap until both injuries were red and raw, then studied them.
One all the way through puncture and one gash too open to stitch up. They turned their hand over and flexed it where the nail had pierced their palm, matching the two holes dorsal and palmar. They tested the movement, touching each fingertip to their thumb in turn. It ached when they moved, but like a bruise and not a ruptured tendon. When they turned their forearm over, some of the quills sat at odd angles. They opened their surgery kit and picked out a set of forceps and one of the clean towels, then leaned their forearm on the table and plucked off the skewed quills. They blotted at the blood welling up from the base.
They stripped the night dress and clambered into the tub. Their body ached in the hot water, and slipped under the surface and let the world go thick and quiet until their lungs burned for air. When they surfaced, their fingers were wrinkled. They combed out their hair and washed the blood and sweat from it, soap clouding the water. When the water cooled, they stepped out and scrubbed until the raw skin bled from the pinprick scabs where the scales were plucked.
They reveled in the feel of clean clothes and properly tightened bandages, the shirt supple from years of wear but missing the tie so it sat wide over their collarbones and left the scars down their chest plainly visible. They held the collar closed as they approached the bedroom door and paused to listen for strangers in the hallway.
“Oh, good! You’re awake,” Tara exclaimed, emerging halfway through a porthole above the wardrobe.
Velim startled back into the bed, knocking their already aching legs on the bedpost.
“Oh, my apologies,” Tara sat primly on top of the wardrobe, “I should have announced myself. In any case, no need to listen for danger. Morena sent the girls away this morning, and Gale received his scolding last night. It’s only myself, Mrs. Dekarios, and dear Charrel. Mrs. Dekarios sent me up to check on you.”
“Where is Gale?” Velim asked, rubbing their aching shin.
“Taking urgent meetings with his colleagues at Blackstaff,” Tara explained, “he’s been making calls since before dawn, I expect he should return past lunchtime.”
“I see,” Velim fussed with the fresh bandages on their arm.
“Fear not, doctor, I’ve been keeping vigil since I heard. No ruffian is getting through that window without a good deal of scorching,” she flicked her tail at the closed curtains, “Mrs. Dekarios is expecting lunch downstairs. I would appreciate it if you joined us.”
Tara disappeared back through the porthole and Velim heard her soft landing on the hallway carpet. Velim followed Tara’s flagging tail down the hall until she vanished around the curve of the main staircase and left them alone on the landing. Velim hesitated, tracing the carpet runner down the sun-dappled stairway -- much like the stairway in the Hazelight home, with windows set into the eaves letting the light in. The stairs Everon chased them up with a kitchen knife. They were whipped for it when they got the knife from him and chased him back down and into the arms of his waiting mother. The chill of her hateful glare waited just around the corner.
Velim ignored the way their stomach clenched and took it one stair at a time until their hand passed into a sunbeam on the railing. Their remaining scales flashed, inky black and glossy. They pulled their hand away as though the gentle warmth burned and crossed their arms tight across their chest as they turned on their heel and walked quickly back to the bedroom.
The door clicked closed. Velim sucked in deep, hungry breaths while their heart slammed against their ribcage. They blinked back tears, and repeated against the tight wall of their throat, “I’m safe. No one is going to hurt me here.”
The panicked animal at the back of their mind railed against them with worst-case scenarios. They looked for a place to hide, some dark and tight corner of the room, and found the nook between the bed and the far wall. Their head swam, body swamped by hyperventilation and the aching twitch in their fingers threatening to throw open the windows and jump out.
Velim staggered into the corner and curled up, digging their claws into their knees and focusing on the pinpoint pressure on the joints. Panic hammered at their defenses, tremors climbing up their spine. Hot tears ran down their face, tracing odd patterns between the scales on their cheekbones. They sucked in deliberately slow, stuttering breaths through their clenched teeth.
“Oh dear,” Tara mewed from her perch on the wardrobe. She sighed and shook out her wings with a soft rustle, then left again. She landed softly in the hallway.
Velim’s heart was just beginning to slow when Tara returned, gliding off the dresser and trotting up to rub against Velim’s knees. Velim peeled their claws off their legs and scratched behind her ears.
“Doctor, I’ve arranged for lunch to come to you,” she explained.
A knock came at the door.
“Come in, Mrs. Dekarios,” Tara called.
Velim’s hand stilled, their body freezing tight.
Tara pushed her head up into their hand. “You’re okay, Doctor. Morena already knows, and I’m afraid this conversation must occur while Mr. Dekarios is still out making his calls. And besides that, we really must get some food in you.”
Morena set the serving tray down on the desk, the smell of hot coffee mixing with her rose perfume. She pulled out the chair and sat across from Velim, taking her own cup of tea from the tray and sipping it.
“Gale tells me you prefer coffee, Charrel brewed it with cloves and ginger for their warming properties,” Morena said, studying the tea leaves drifting to the bottom of her cup, “she insisted I tell you that.”
Velim pressed their thumb into their injured palm, still stiff and cold despite the hot bath and now clammy with panic. They swallowed the fear in their throat. “That’s kind of her.”
Morena waited. Velim felt her eyes on them, studying their loose hair and the pattern of scabs on their arms. The scrutiny sent their heart hammering again. The frigid hatred of Ulana Hazelight haunted the chair Morena currently occupied, as though she was hanging over Morena’s shoulder with her chestnut hair pulled back in a tight weave of braids and whispering all their horrid actions into her ear.
Tara leaned against their knees, but they made no move to pet her. The shade of Ulana Hazelight froze them in place, but she dissipated as Morena got up from the chair and took a seat on the unmade bed beside Velim. She leaned down and offered Velim a handkerchief.
Velim flinched at the movement. They wiped their eyes and blew their nose, then balled the handkerchief up in their palm. “Thank you.”
Morena sat herself on the bench at the foot of the bed, adjusting her skirts and pulling her embroidery project from her pocket. She hummed quietly as she worked the needle through.
Velim’s heart calmed and they unwound themself from the corner. They leaned against the wall until they found their balance, then relocated to the desk chair and picked up the coffee, warming their hands on the mug. The warm drink settled their stomach enough for them to realize how ravenous they were. Morena continued her embroidery.
“I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.” Velim balanced the fork on the empty plate.
Tara jumped into their lap with a huff and balanced herself in an indignant loaf on their knees. “Far more trouble had you died, Doctor. Do you have any idea what kind of state Gale was in when you didn’t arrive for dinner?”
“I’m sorry for that, too, then,” Velim sighed.
“Are you done?” Morena asked without looking up.
Velim watched out the crack between the curtains at the empty courtyard below. “Yes.”
“Come sit, please.” Morena moved to one side of the bench and patted the empty seat beside her.
Velim sat, crossing their arms across their chest as though they would stop being a dragon if they just hid enough of the evidence from sight. Tara had enough of that, though, and followed them from the desk chair to the bench. She settled in Velim’s lap, pushing under their folded arms until they reluctantly extracted a hand to pet her.
“Thank you for bringing Gale back,” Morena said, her stern face drawn, “last night, he came home for the first time in more than a year. I am grateful to you, and glad to finally meet you, although I wish the conditions were within your control.”
Velim traced the timeline in their mind. One year previous Gale had his run-in with the Netherese magic, and then vanished from public life. They wondered if he had to take desperate measures to control the parasite from the beginning.
When Morena noticed that Velim was lost in thought, she continued with a small smile, “Gale is working to secure another option for disguise. Until then, we will keep the blinds drawn. You may stay here for as long as you like, but I believe it would be best for both of you to leave the city while the investigation runs its course. I can only turn away your visitors so long.”
“He hoped he would return in time for lunch,” Tara sighed, “I always tell him that bureaucracy takes time. When Mr. Dekarios hurried out the door this morning, he was so hopeful that he would return and prepare breakfast before you woke.”
Velim smiled at that. “He knows he doesn’t owe me for dinner, doesn’t he?”
“Oh please,” Tara scoffed, “he talks about repaying the favor all the time.”
“Has Gale told you much about us?” Morena asked.
Velim began to relax, the tension easing out of their shoulders and leaving a throbbing ache in its place. “Some, mostly about his sisters. I understand he’s much older than them?”
Morena nodded, working her needle through the eye of the crane in her embroidery hoop. “By ten years for Noelle and fourteen for Dorothea and Delores. He helped raise them after his stepfather died.”
“Stepfather?” Velim echoed.
“Yes, stepfather,” Morena confirmed, “I met Gale’s father when I was still very young. He fled his familial responsibilities in the Silver Marches, but he had to return shortly before Gale’s birth,” Morena trailed off, studied the stitches of her embroidery, “ten years later, I received his will as the only surviving inheritor for the family.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Velim watched her work the thread back through, pulling a downy gray feather into the bird’s body, “he never mentioned that.”
“He never met his father, and I don’t speak much of him. He doesn’t have much to tell you,” Morena pulled another feather into place, “I’m sure you’ve had more than your fair share of losses.”
“Yes, haven’t we all?” Velim tried to shake the oppressive memory of their years at the Hazelight home from their mind, a shadow cast over Ortheon Hazelight’s proud expression at their first amputation. Instead, the hurt pinged against the memory of Luz’s body in the mass grave at Ulivin during the smallpox outbreak. They settled on the grief of that memory instead.
Morena waited for Velim to elaborate, but they stared down at the tortoiseshell patterns in Tara’s fur and said nothing. She set her embroidery in her lap. “Is your family aware of your condition?”
Velim shook their head. “Only Jada. Peiotr and Helena don’t know.”
“Have you considered telling them?” Morena asked.
Velim shook their head again. “The less who know, the better.”
Morena angled her body toward them. “I have a proposition for you, and I would like to put it to you before Gale returns so that when he brings it up, you already have your answer.”
Velim waited for her to continue.
“I’ve staffed his father’s ancestral home in the Silver Marches with a skeleton crew for years to keep the place functional. Willowdarn Manor, it’s been in the Halavar family for ten generations, and Gale is the last of the line. It rightfully belongs to him, but I’ve never extended the offer because of its remote location. Now, it seems a blessing,” Morena laid a hand on Velim’s shoulder, “I would send you both out there while the ruckus dies down and rumors of Tiamat’s Spawn running rampant among the townsfolk dissipate.”
“Does anyone else know about Willowdarn?” Velim asked, anxiety churning in their chest.
“Just myself and Gale, as the home is his birthright,” Morena assured them, “if you decide to go, we must make the arrangements quickly before the roads become impassable.”
Velim considered their options, glancing at the curtains and imagining the city beyond boiling with talk of another sacking on their doorstep at the hands of Tiamat’s own black dragon. It wouldn’t be long until a mob with torches and pitchforks made their way to Morena’s door intent on tearing them limb from limb. A desolate swamp sounded like paradise in comparison, but perhaps that was the dragon talking.
Morena gathered her embroidery and stood up to leave. “Take your time and consider my offer,” then a small smile crossed her face, “I can't hold Peiotr off for long, so while you may remain in here until supper, I must insist that you join us for the meal.”
“Then I thank you for the warning,” Velim smiled, and felt a buzz of warmth as Morena returned it on her way out the door, “Tara, would you be joining us at Willowdarn?”
Tara hopped off their lap. “No, Doctor, someone must care for the tower while Mr. Dekarios is away. I’ll keep an eye on your flat, as well, but it would just be the two of you.”
“And the staff,” Velim clarified.
“Yes, and the staff,” Tara echoed, flitting up to the top of the wardrobe, “get some rest, Doctor, I’ll send Gale up once he’s home. Is there anything you’d like me to retrieve from your flat?”
“There’s a journal on my desk, if you can carry it,” Velim requested, thinking of the magical circuits scratched into the pages, “do you know where it is?”
“I absolutely can, and I do,” Tara purred, then was gone through the porthole.
Velim wondered how long Tara had been watching and how much she had known. They had never heard of a familiar keeping secrets from their wizard before, but as they sat in Gale’s childhood bedroom wearing his sister’s old clothes, they figured there was a first time for everything.