As Baron Varn returned to his private quarters, giddy from the sheer quantity of tobacco smoke he'd inhaled in Cephal's airtight little bubble, he found Felicia relaxing in the bathtub, her eyes closed, her hair stuck to her skin in wet ringlets. He closed the door and dropped his cane, boots and cloak as quietly as he could, got rid of the rest of his clothing, and sneaked up on her from behind. She gave no sign of noticing his arrival until he planted a kiss on her bare shoulder. She turned her face towards him for another kiss, not as surprised as she should have been.

  "Welcome back, love," she purred.

  "How good is my stealth on a scale of twenty?"

  "It would be better if you didn't smell like a charcoal kiln. Come join me while the water is hot, and wash your hair."

  The baron eased into the water rich with the scents of a summer meadow, splashing a good amount onto the floor. Felicia pulled up her legs to free up space for him, then settled back with her feet on his lap.

  "How was the footwork training?" he asked, taking her left foot into his hands.

  "Excellent for duelling, of limited use on the battlefield. I set a good example by participating, because you never know when a random skill will come in handy, but I didn't enjoy it that much. There is a reason why I didn't try for the Swordlord exam in Restov."

  "Was it because they wouldn't let you name yourself Darlac Aldori?"

  Felicia burst into laughter. Gods, was it good to finally hear her laugh. Then her gaze fell on the jade bracelet perched upon the dressing table, and her mirth died off immediately. Even her foot stiffened in the baron's caressing hands.

  "I hoped I could spend one evening without contemplating the threat encroaching upon my homeland," she grumbled. "Did Cephal give an opinion?"

  Letting the hot water suck fatigue out of his bones, the baron felt content that he hadn't walked down the street of jealousy. Felicia was as pure and innocent as the snow atop Talon Peak. It was just Cephal playing his intricate games, as was his custom.

  "We don't have to discuss it now if you don't want to."

  "Too late. It's there on the dressing table, watching me. I bet this is why Willas wanted to get rid of it."

  Maegar suppressed a sigh. It made no sense to argue with her, so he pretended to believe. He picked up a facecloth from beside the tub, and threw it on the bracelet. It was a particularly elegant and well-executed throw, covering the bracelet and a few bottles of toiletries without toppling over anything.

  "Better?"

  "Still watching."

  "But not seeing anymore."

  "Oh, it sees alright, make no mistake. A towel does little to stop it."

  "What can stop it, then?"

  "I'm not sure if anything can. And the worst thing is, it has been going on for a while. First I thought I was skittish because Willas spied on us making love on the riverbank, and I was imagining things. Well, no. We are being watched, regardless if you can feel it or not."

  "Oh, Felicia. You're breathtaking and I could rest my eyes upon you day in, day out. But this is just a simple, non-magical ancient bauble, not a scrying device. Here and now, you're as safe from prying eyes as possible. Except from mine."

  "You're welcome to pry as much as you want, love," she said, and immediately contradicted her own words by pulling up her legs and hugging her knees, blocking his view of some of her most spectacular body parts. Then she noticed the disappointment on his face. "What? I'm just helping you focus... So it's non-magical, right? Is that all?"

  "Mhm."

  "That's not a lot of information. The Chronicler couldn't tell much about its origin, either, except that it's from somewhere in the Tors of Levenies. I'll take a clay imprint or a rubbing of it, to see if we can't figure out its symbolism or something, but it would be best if you could contact Baroness Guelder and send it over to her with a reliable courier. She has an expert in her court who can dredge up memories attached to an object and tell the story of its owner. I read about him in the Nightvale chronicles."

  "And then it will be watching Guelder, not you."

  "Good point. Although I'm afraid that's not how it works. More like it will be watching her, too."

  How could he not love this woman? In two days, she'd collected as much intel on Nightvale as Genner Alevi had in six months, without even going undercover. And here she was, babbling about being watched, like a madwoman. Was there a way to speed up her mental healing?

  "Felicia, it's just a bracelet, probably full of the Chronicler's memories about buxom ladies and undead cyclopes chasing him around. Why do you want me to bother Guelder with it?"

  "Actually, I think it's a ring, not a bracelet. I mean, it comes from a cyclopean civilisation. They have fingers the size of our wrists. Anyway, that's beside the point. The main thing is that this is what the Horned Hunter was talking about! The item that was stolen from the Ancient Evil's lair and awakened it from its slumber!"

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  The Horned Hunter. The mastermind of Lostlarn Keep Felicia had faced off against, without a chance to actually fight him. If she had the ability to dream like normal people, that monster would probably be the main character of her nightmares. Alas, back then, with her stamina depleted, her body tormented and her hearing impaired, she had been in no shape to make full sense of his gloating over the last of the Varnlings. Worse, Dusty, the only person who'd been there by her side, was dead. It was hard, if not impossible, to confirm the veracity of her story.

  Maegar tried to nudge the conversation into a direction that made better sense for him, wondering if Felicia would get into a contradiction with her written report.

  "You mean, it was Willas who awakened Marquise Imbecilia?"

  "Maegar, we've been through this already. Are you playing stupid on purpose?"

  "Humour me. Why can't it be her?"

  "Because what we saw in Lostlarn Keep suggests that the fey had been active there for a long time before you even founded Varnhold. They didn't need to be... awakened."

  "How about Baroness Guelder's nemesis?"

  "The same applies. True, she is both ancient and evil, but Baroness Guelder met her well before Willas found his way to the Stolen Lands or Varnhold. Which means we have a third threat, a greater power behind the zombie cyclops sightings. A necromancer, or even worse, a lich. So what we have to do is trace the jewel back to the dungeon it originated from, and nip the threat in the bud... or at least tackle it before it grows into an issue of a size we cannot handle anymore."

  "Oh. That sounds... ominous. And here I was intending to talk to you about wedding preparations."

  "Huh?"

  The baron reached over and took Felicia's hand, looking deep into her bright eyes.

  "I want to marry you, Felicia. Don't you think we have waited for long enough? I want you by my side, now and always."

  Felicia contracted her eyebrows and came quite close to imitating an inquisitor's stern gaze.

  "Does this have anything to do with the smell of Cephal's tobacco oozing from your skin?"

  "Do you think I can't come to a resolve like that on my own?"

  "Yes or no?"

  The baron sighed.

  "Yes and no. We talked about many things, but there was this one single idea that nudged me into the direction I wanted to go anyway. Is that good enough?"

  Felicia rose and changed position, so that she could cuddle up against Maegar and rest her head upon his shoulder.

  "Would it break your heart if I said we should wait?"

  "But why?" he said softly, holding her tight, feeling her warmth against his skin. "Are you uncertain about... about us?"

  "No. I want you, and I have no doubts. Perhaps you could even convince me about a baby, when things will have settled down a bit. But... I have a bad foreboding. My mercenary gut, if you like. You see... It might be safe to ignore the fey of Lostlarn Keep, especially after you unleash your miners upon the place and raze it to the ground. As to Baroness Guelder's nemesis, she is a long-term problem for all of us, but at the moment, her attention will probably remain focused on Nightvale, which will buy us some time to prepare. But if the Horned Hunter spoke the truth, the Ancient Evil in the Tors is already active. The zombie cyclops sightings are proof of that. I don't want a wedding where giant undead trample down the guests, devour your best man's brain for appetiser, and force me to stain my bridal outfit with zombie juice."

  Gruesome as it sounded, Maegar wondered what that scene would look like on a painting, but he set the thought aside for the time being.

  "And what if the Horned Hunter didn't speak the truth?" he asked, his fingers lightly stroking Felicia's face. "What if he just spouted a bunch of lies about various dangers threatening our land, just to break your resolve and make you ask for his boon and become his puppet? Or even though you didn't enter his service, what if he is still manipulating you? What if you'll play into his hands by delving into the depths of the Tors, while he pulls his next prank on us in cahoots with that Bloom wench? He tricked you with the portal. How do you know the tidbits he fed you were not part of another trick?"

  She held his gaze with an unsettling intensity, her frantic golden eyes boring into his brain.

  "I don't know, Maegar. I cannot be sure. Once again, it's my gut against yours. Back in Lostlarn Keep, you said if there was 1% chance that the vision in the portal was real, you had to act on it. Now the chance that I'm right is a lot higher than 1%. The zombie cyclopes are real, and you know that. And where there are zombies, there is someone pulling the strings from the background. Please. Let me deal with this first. Once I have eliminated the threat, you can send out the invitations, and I'll be happy to become officially yours."

  This was madness. There was method in it, but that didn't make it any less mad. Felicia was guided by an irrational fear the defeated archenemy in Lostlarn Keep had planted in her mind as a form of delayed revenge. It would take time for her to recover, and until then, it would fall to him to keep her on the path of sanity and not let her do anything rash that would endanger her or the country. Cephal was right. Perhaps if she had to focus on different things for a year or two, her fears would be resolved on their own. Or she would become a paranoid mother, hellbent on protecting her child from a danger only she believed in, like Lady Lariana Darlac had been. Perhaps it ran in the family, under the disguise of a sane and normal mind, waiting to be triggered.

  Anyway, that was a problem for another day.

  He ran his caressing hand along her side, hoping to distract her from her dark thoughts. She pulled his head close for a long kiss, and by the time their lips parted, she noticed that his body was responding to her proximity.

  "Baroness Felicia Varn," he mused. "I like the sound of that."

  "Felicia Darlac-Varn," she corrected, positioning her knees on both sides of his waist to straddle him. "So that I remain recognisable."

  "Fine," he sighed, indulging in the sweet inevitable. His hands clutched the edges of the tub, stabilising himself for a wild ride. "After all, I can't just go and name everything and everyone after myself, or can I?"