Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 11 Pt. 1

 Notes: Let's move things right along, shall we? Gossip=plot in my world.

 Title: Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 11 Pt. 1

 ***

Chapter Eleven, Part One

Photo by Kelly Sikkema
 

The Thread

 

Hiram had worried that his reputation in Lollop would be irretrievable after what happened in the Temple of Melemor. Making the head priest cry and sending the rest of town into a tizzy over a little old memory—the ideal way to ingratiate himself to his new home. He was sure he’d have Uriel the Pustulant banging on his door in no time, insisting that not only were his fees lacking, he was also a heretic in the eyes of the local gods and they were sending for an exorcist. Which—thank you, but no. He’d been exorcised a time or two in his childhood by people his well-meaning but ignorant parents found, and that had been painful enough.

Fortunately, none of his worse fears came to pass. In fact, he seemed caught in a state of more respectability than he’d had before, which…

“Why?” Hiram demanded of Tilda a few evenings down the line. He’d fielded plenty of visitors in the days since Lares, and while curiosity seemed to be peaking, they’d all had good reasons to visit an herbalist as well. He dispensed medicinal teas for indigestion, sleep aids, soothing ointments for skin issues, and several internal aids meant to either increase or decrease fertility depending on what the person wanted. He was questioned, very gently and mostly by older woman, about how he was settling in to town, and after being assured that he liked it very much, he was patted on the shoulder and… “Why aren’t I being run out of town for what I put everyone through?”

Tilda smiled over a cup of tea—rosehip and yarrow, with a hint of licorice because she liked the flavor as she said, “Honestly, Hiram, you’d think you wanted to get run out of town. Have you considered that sharing your private pain to the rest of us has made you more relatable rather than less? And I have to say, as bad as that was, it was far from a unique experience. Just stronger than we’re used to.” She tilted her head, silver strands amongst the brown catching the light from his fireplace. “And I think few of us minded seeing High Priest Melemor in a state of true understanding, for once. He’s always been a very…formidable man, but not a very compassionate one.”

Hiram stared at her. “So people like that I made him cry?”

“From what I’ve heard, they feel it’s only just, given that he insisted you undergo the ritual in the first place.” She shrugged. “Be wary of testing one’s spirit, it might just test you back.”

“Huh.” Well, that was a bit of a relief. “What about—”

A blunt head pressed against his shin, and Hiram smiled down at Knight, who was doing much better with his hopping these days. “There you are, my dear,” he said indulgently. “Did you have a nice nap?” The rabbit nosed at him again. “Feeling hungry? Or would you prefer a bit of a cuddle?” Hiram set his cup aside, reached down, and heaved the rabbit into his lap. “Oof,” he grunted. “You certainly haven’t gotten any lighter since you’ve been with me, have you? Let me have a look now, there’s a good lad…”

He inspected the wound on Knight’s leg. “Much better!” he praised. “And your fur is growing back in and everything. You’ll be healed up beautifully by midwinter, love.” He stroked over the rabbit’s back, and Knight stretched out to give him more room to work, eyes closing in bunny bliss.

“Goodness,” Tilda said archly. “Such politesse, and to a rabbit no less! No wonder Master Surrus thinks so highly of you.”

Hiram blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Master Surrus, the school teacher. Handsome gentleman, a bit retiring, and oh, yes—he swept you off your feet onto his horse and carried you away into the sunset the other day, from what I hear—”

“There was no sweeping,” Hiram insisted. “And no sunset, it was barely past ten in the morning.”

Her eyes twinkled as she said, “But you did go somewhere with him.”

“Well…yes.” Hiram felt oddly reluctant to talk about it. He wouldn’t have said anything prurient, even if there was something of that nature to say, and yet…something about Avery made him want to keep their time together private. It wasn’t so unusual—Avery was a private person and Hiram was lucky to have been invited into his home.

“Don’t worry,” Tilda said. “I won’t pry. It’s not my place and I get the sense you wouldn’t tell me anything anyhow. I just think it’s nice, that’s all.” Her smile dimmed a bit. “His social circle is even smaller than yours, and he’s been here for years. Before you, the only person I ever heard of visiting his cottage was Master Spindlestep.”

That correlated well to Hiram’s impressions of the younger man. Still. “He should have more friends. He’s young, well known to the people here, talented, a good conversationalist…”

“And I’m sure, with all these charms, that if he wanted more friends he would have them,” Tilda said. “That he doesn’t speaks to a quirk of his character, not a fault of the people of Lollop. Most would welcome him into their social circle, if only to gossip about their children, but Master Surrus defies that sort of convention. As is his right,” she added. “We’re all wildly curious about him, of course, but Lollop knows how to respect the privacy of the individual.”

“Most of the time,” Hiram agreed.

“Yes.” Tilda sounded a bit tired. “Most of the time. More lately, in fact—everyone is preparing for the Thread to come through in a few weeks.”

“The Thread…” Hiram had encountered the Thread numerous times in distant villages, but only in his former persona. They were a search party, in a way, a group of individuals who represented the interests of gods and temples who might benefit from fresh blood.

For children who tested positive in their local temples for magical ability but lacked the means to get to a capital and go into training on their own, the Thread was their last hope. If a member of a Thread party could vouch for your ability, they would take you along with them to the practice that you fit best with no cost to your family. It wasn’t a foolproof system, but it was a bit of hope for the gifted children of poor villages who had no other means of promoting their sparks and talents.

Every Thread party contained a wizard or sorcerer of some kind, a cleric or paladin of some god, and either a bard or a druid—both if you were lucky. Between those specialties, almost all the basic spark manifestations were covered.

Sparks were almost always inherited. Hiram was one of the very rare cases where neither of his parents showed any signs of magical ability, and neither did any family members going back three generations, which was as far as anyone he was related to could remember. His parents had thought he was cursed, hence the exorcisms gone awry, but here…

“Is there any spark to speak of in Letty’s family?” he asked.

Tilda sighed heavily. “Did Letty talk to you about having a spark?”

“No. Not directly,” he said. “Not quite. She said something about being tested and not showing enough of an aptitude for Lollop to invest in her education there.”

“It’s true. I don’t know much about Letty’s situation personally, but her mother…” Tilda shook her head. “That was a woman with a spark. For healing, believe it or not. Celiane was actually apprenticed as a Cleric of Melemor for several years before she met her husband Granth.”

Wait a second. “Clerics of Melemor are required to take vows of chastity.” The healing arts in particular could be a little finicky depending on the god, and Melemor didn’t like to come second to anyone else when it came to his priests and clerics.

“Exactly. They met at a harvest festival. Granth was very charming, and she got very drunk, and the next morning, well.” Tilda shook her head. “They were found naked together in the back of the Brew’s stables. Celiane tried to plead for forgiveness, but the head cleric at the time refused to take her back. Then she turned up pregnant, and it was a quick wedding to Granth at that point. It’s not been a happy marriage, we all know that,” she said. “I can’t speak to the state of her spark, but I daresay it’s atrophied at this point. None of their children have tested highly, so far—Letty is the only one who came close.”

Well. That was abhorrent. The blank-faced woman Hiram had seen on the porch, surrounded by children and shouted at by her awful husband—she might not have a spark anymore, but she surely remembered a time when she did. Remembered how it felt to be so close to a god that you could borrow their power and do good in the world. To be tied to such a man, gods, she must have felt so awful that morning.

All the more reason to get Letty out of there if he could. He only had three more weeks of her time. He needed to coach her spark up as bright as it would go and get her in reach of the Thread, and then hopefully she would escape the fate that seemed laid out for her.

“I think there’s more to Letty than meets the eye,” Hiram said, careful to keep his voice light. “I’m no spark myself—” more like a conflagration “—but I’ve seen enough of them over the years to have a good feeling about her. And everyone deserves a chance to change their situation, especially when it’s one like hers.”

“I don’t control the Thread’s choices,” Tilda said, “but I’m sure we could get her a meeting with them if you think it’s worthwhile.”

Hiram smiled brightly. “I think it just might be.”

 

Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards: Ch. 10, Pt. 2

 Notes: Let's finish our little tea party, hmm?

Title:  Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards: Ch. 10, Pt. 2

***

Chapter Ten, Part Two

 

Delicate Subjects

 

“So,” Hiram said after a moment. “Now that you’ve experienced some of my tragic past, tell me some of yours.”

Avery quirked a smile. “What makes you think I’ve got a tragic past?”

“Oh, I can tell that sort of thing from the first second,” Hiram assured him. “Very insightful, me.”

“Indeed?”

“Absolutely.”

The smile only got broader, and Hiram was delighted to realize he’d found someone who was willing to play a bit—to indulge his silly side, as it were. Phlox had no time for that sort of thing, and Esme often confused silly with simple, which led to numerous her attempting to bat him about the head and “knock some sense into him” with her rather dangerous paws. There was hope for Tilda, but still. He was used to being part of a group of people who could joke with each other, poke and prod and jest without getting too personal about it. He missed his friends. He missed Misha. Hells, he even missed Andy sometimes—no one could quite muster up an “I’m not going to let on how impressed I am” face like his former lover.

Sure enough, Avery arched one eyebrow. “And what does a tragic past look like, exactly?”

Hiram took advantage of the implicit invitation to look the other man up and down in a measuring manner. Avery Surrus had been attractive at first glance—now he was downright captivating.

That said…

“It’s something in the face,” Hiram mused. “A certain twist of the brow, an expression on the edge of either a glower or a good cry, if there’s a sheen to the eyes. You can see it in the posture, too—slightly stooped, like the world is just a bit too heavy for those shoulders. It’s evident in the color palette as well—blacks and grays and dark browns, perhaps the occasional blue if the person is feeling particularly splashy on that day. Just one of these things would be inconclusive, but put them all together and you get…well.” He gestured at Avery. “Yourself.”

“Or you could have simply talked to Mistress Tate.”

“Oh, I absolutely did that as well,” Hiram said, and Avery actually laughed.

“And yet,” Avery said after a moment, “you yourself don’t fit the pattern you just described, and yet you can’t deny that you have something terribly tragic in your past.”

Hiram shrugged. “I live to defy expectation, and don’t think you can change the subject so easily, young man.”

“Avery.” His blue eyes were very bright and very intent on Hiram’s face. “I want you to call me Avery.”

For the first time in a long time, Hiram felt rather…well, enthralled wouldn’t be too strong a word. He’d felt desire for plenty of people, before and even after Andy had become his world, but desire was a fairly cheap commodity. This, now? This was downright intriguing. “Avery.” He took a sip of tea to avoid having to clear his throat. “Go on, then.”

“My story isn’t very exciting,” Avery said after a moment. “I never knew my father, my mother died when I was young, I left town via an apprenticeship and finally fell in with a group who had use for my skills.”

“Mm. Thievery, I assume.”

The teasing light left Avery’s face. “Excuse me?”

Shit. “I don’t mean to accuse you of anything specific,” Hiram said quickly. “Only—I know what children who are experts at shimmying down chimneys often become, in cities at least. And I have no particular animus against thieves or rogues, either; everyone has to make a living, after all, and they tend to target people who have more than enough to live on. So…” He shrugged. “It’s just a guess. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am.”

Avery stared at him in silence before abruptly sighing. “You know, you’re the first person in my experience to just outright say it like that. I think a few others in town have wondered, maybe even suspected over the years, but no one’s ever even implied such a thing before, much less said it straight to my face.”

“Ah.” It was rather rude of Hiram, in that light.

“But you’re not wrong,” Avery went on, the stiffness leaving his back as he relaxed once more. “I did learn the trade of a rogue, for a time.”

Hiram could picture it perfectly. Avery had a certain sinuousness about him, a confidence and steadiness that was both highly attractive and indicative of strenuous training. “I bet you were good at it.”

He smiled. This was different from his earlier smile; there was a challenge in it, a cheeky hint of wickedness that was utterly alluring. “I was,” he said before hiding his smile behind his teacup. “But I eventually decided to give it up and return home. And before you ask, Master Spindlestep is an old friend I originally made during my earliest wanderings, but the fact that he settled here after an accident stole his vision seemed like fate calling me home after I decided to retire.”

“And you went into teaching.” Hiram whistled admiringly. “Not exactly a profession that travels lock-step with the path of the rogue, is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Avery demurred. “After all, being able to keep track of dozens of noisy, potentially dangerous individuals at once while maintaining your own internal quietude and focus is certainly shared between them. And I can’t say I’ve never had call to pin a child’s sleeve to the desk using their own quill, but I try not to trot that little trick out unless someone’s really acting up.”

Hiram laughed as he pictured such a thing in his mind. “I daresay they love you.”

Avery’s face softened. “I think some of them do. I certainly didn’t expect to enjoy teaching as much as I do, but it’s…it’s a good fit for me. A path I’m grateful to be able to walk down, given…everything.”

Everything being his tragic past, but Hiram had already concluded that he wasn’t going to get any more details from Avery about that today. It was fine. He’d pushed his luck as far as it could go, and he wouldn’t make his host uncomfortable. “We should all be so lucky.”

“You are, aren’t you?” Avery countered. “No matter what you were doing before—and as long as we’re being honest, Hiram, I don’t believe for a second that you’ve spent decades of your life as a simple herbalist—you’ve settled into this role with great success, I’d say. Almost everyone in town speaks well of you, particularly after last Market Day.”

Hiram scratched his jaw for a moment, needing the distraction as he pictured the absolute scene he’d made in the temple. “We’ll see what they have to say after today’s fiasco,” he muttered.

“Who could speak ill of you after knowing what they now do about your past?”

“To some, pain is nothing more than a doorway to manipulation,” Hiram said.

Avery stared at him steadily. “Indeed,” he agreed. “But you’re clearly already on your guard. You won’t let them corner you any more than I would.”

There was  a vagueness to that phrasing that made Hiram wonder how Avery meant it. He chided himself for his hopeful heart. You’ve had your great love; all your adventures are in the past. You’re meant to live a quiet and peaceful life now, and that doesn’t include brewing up a romance. Especially not with a man like this. A man with secrets. A man who was far more dangerous than he looked.

A man who saw through Hiram like crystal and pushed, ever so gently, against the façade until he was tempted to let it start falling away.

But he couldn’t. This was important, damn it. Hiram needed to lay low if he wanted to survive, if he wanted to be there for Misha someday. He smiled affably. “Thank you for the tea.”

Avery paused, then nodded, as though acknowledging that certain subjects had been taken off the table. “You’re welcome. Would you like me to run you back to town?” Not back to Hiram’s house, but back to town. Hmm, perhaps Avery was just as reticent to allow himself the opportunity for romance as Hiram was. Naturally, that made Hiram want to push.

Stop it. Take the out. “Thank you, I’d appreciate it.”

“Of course.” He took both their cups and set them on the scarred wooden counter by the washbasin, then headed for the door. “It will only take me a moment to saddle Buttercup.”

Hiram grinned. “You named your mare Buttercup?”

“She came with the name,” Avery informed him airily. “And I think it suits her very well. She’s as sweet and delicate as a flower.”

“You’d expect a horse named Buttercup to be yellow, or at least light tan. She’s uniformly brown.”

“I don’t have to sit here and listen to your imprecations about my horse’s name,” Avery said warningly, but he was smiling again. “She’s a perfect Buttercup.”

Hiram held up his hands in an assuaging manner. “Of course she is. I never said otherwise.”

“Nor should you.” Avery stepped outside and Hiram followed, moving away from the door as the other man locked it, then headed for the little stable. It was warmer now that it was later in the morning, and he shed his cloak with a sense of mild relief. The sun soaked through the thin fabric of his shirt, a lovely rich red color that Master Spindlestep had assured him would look well with his complexion, and Hiram closed his eyes and stretched his arms over his head for a moment, then gently rolled his neck from side to side until it cracked satisfyingly.

Thus relieved, he ambled a little farther down the path until he had a clearer look at Gemmel’s Tower. The entire thing, transubstantiated…what a miraculous wonder. What a terrifying horror. Gemmel must have been exceedingly assured of himself, and the fallout must have been exceedingly final for Hiram to have never heard of such a place before. Perhaps he could ask some of the local dwarves about it, dig a bit deeper into the legend. Not that he intended to go to such a place, but it wasn’t impossible that the tower could be a source of illness, and if it were close to a waterway…hmm. He might have to do some further investigation.

He absently smoothed his free hand over the small of his back and down his hip, tapping at the side of his thigh with his fingers in an errant rhythm as he considered his options. Dum-dum-dah-dahdahdahdah-dum-dum-dah—

“Hiram?”

He turned back to Avery, who was holding Buttercup’s lead and looking a bit poleaxed. “Ready to go, then?”

“Um, yes.”

“Wonderful.” He gestured to the horse. “After you, darling.”

Darling? Where did that come from? Better knock it off, he won’t—

Avery recovered his aplomb enough to wink. “Of course, dearest.”

Oh, Gods. This man was dangerous in more ways than one. Hiram wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to resist such charms.

He wasn’t even entirely sure he wanted to.

 

Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards: Ch. 10 Pt. 1

 Notes: On we go! Let's have some tea and backstory, shall we?

Title: Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards: Ch. 10 Pt. 1 

 

***

 

Chapter Ten, Part One

 

Photo by Juho Luomala

A 360º View

 

They rode for long enough that Hiram wasn’t even really sure they were still in “town” when they finally stopped. The horse had confidently made its way through the heart of Lollop and out a smaller street, past several tanneries from the smell of it, then a few farms—one rabbit, one pig—and finally up a trail that climbed a sweet, round little hill to a cottage at the top of it. The hill really wasn’t that high, but Hiram found he could see for miles in every direction up there. “What a lovely spot,” he said as Avery finally reined his mare in.

Avery smiled. “Thank you. I find I like the solitude of it.” He dismounted and patted his horse on the nose, then gestured toward the small building at the back of the cottage that must be his barn. “I’m going to put her away, but you’re welcome to go in—”

“No, no.” Hiram held up his hands, smiling to take the sting out of his refusal of hospitality. He did want to go in, but he wasn’t going to take that step without his host’s presence. It just seemed rude to do otherwise, and he knew he’d made the right choice when Avery’s shoulders relaxed. “I prefer to take in the view.”

“I’ll be back in a moment.” Avery left with the mare, and Hiram looked back down the way they’d come. The trail led westward, back toward Lollop and his own home on the far side of it. A day’s ride beyond that was the imperial highway, where his doom would come from if it ever caught up to him.

He grimaced and looked south, where he could see the cut in the fields that indicated the main road into and out of Lollop. That road stretched across the entirety of Oribel, connecting it from north to south and running right through Orivode, the capital, some hundred miles hence. The next closest towns were around the size of Lollop, though, small country villages. East was more farmland, forest, and the sluggishly winding Plunkett River that fed most of the streams and fields nearby, and north…

Hmm. Hiram squinted into the distance at the stick-like speck on the horizon. It was too slender to be a mountain, too dark to be a temple—at least a temple of Melemor—and too straight to be anything but purposeful.

“That’s Gemmel’s Tower.”

Hiram didn’t jump, but it was a near thing. He turned to face Avery, who walked up beside him with a pensive expression. “Who was Gemmel that they built such a tower?”

Avery raised one eyebrow. “You’ve never heard of him before?”

Should I have? Hiram had come across a lot of towers in his day, most of them built either by overly arrogant wizards, dark lords looking for trouble, or the occasional dwarven magnate who decided to built up instead of down. “I’m afraid I haven’t.” He glanced out at it again. “It must be immense, though.”

“It is,” Avery confirmed. “It’s almost three hundred feet high.”

Damn. That was tall even for a wizard. “What’s it made of?”

“Blackstone.”

Holy hell. Blackstone was the hardest rock in the world, one that could only be worked by dwarves or trolls. Actually, there was a higher proportion of dwarves in Lollop than Hiram had expected, given that Oribel’s population largely consisted of humans and gnomes. “Who in the hells could afford to bring in that much blackstone?”

Avery nodded toward the house. “I’ll tell you about it over a cup of tea.”

Hiram wasn’t about to refuse hospitality a second time. “Thank you.” He followed his host to the front door of the cottage, which bore a rather thick lock, and then inside. It was a small building, a single story tall, and with three rooms to it—a good place for a bachelor. The front room was large enough for a table and two chairs, a rather roomy fireplace, and a food cabinet. Two windows were enough to let a good amount of light in, and it was surprisingly warm.

Avery stoked the embers in the fireplace until he had flames going, added a few logs, then hung a kettle on the hob. “My tea selection is rather poor compared to yours,” he said in apology as he got down a teapot, two small ceramic cups, and a jar of honey. “All I can offer is raspberry or lemonmint.”

“Lemonmint would be welcome.” Something to soothe the senses after the morning he’d had. “Thank you.”

“The kettle should be boiling soon,” Avery assured him, then sat down and gestured to the other chair. “Please, sit.”

Hiram joined him at the table, the floor creaking rather noticeable with every step. The chair was comfortable, though, and when Avery uncovered a bowl of roasted nuts and offered them to him, he accepted. “It was kind of you to help me back there,” he said before popping a hazelnut into his mouth.

“It was the least I could do, after giving you such poor advice,” Avery replied.

Hiram frowned. “What do you mean? Your advice was perfectly sound.”

“But it clearly didn’t work for you, since you had to relive such a tragic moment in your life in order to satisfy Melemor.”

Ah.  “Don’t worry,” Hiram said. “That was far from the worst thing I’ve been through. I do hope the High Priest recovers soon, though.”

Avery’s eyes were wide. “Are you being—are you serious?”

“Yeeees,” Hiram said cautiously. “Why is that a problem?”

“Because that was—Hiram, cleansings, even for people who’ve suffered the loss of a loved one or who’ve been badly hurt, never feel like that. Not in Lollop, at least. Nor in Orivash, from what I remember of services there, or in—other places.”

There was little Hiram could say to that except shrug. “I’ve lived an eventful life,” he said.

“You say that like you’re an old man.”

“I am an old man.”

“Please.” Avery scoffed. “You can’t be more than fifty.”

Hiram smiled. “Forty-eight.”

“Barely into your middle years, then. You’ve got a lot of life left ahead of you.”

“And I hope it will be much less eventful than the life I left behind,” he said in a tone of finality.

Avery, thankfully, took the hint. “I think the water is beginning to boil, give me a moment.” He got up and fussed with the kettle and the teapot for a bit, then set down their mugs, two small plates, and tiny, delicate spoons for the tea. They were slightly tarnished, but…

“Silver?” Hiram asked.

Avery smiled tightly. “A gift from a friend.”

Either his friend was very wealthy, compared to the area, or they had a fear of being poisoned. Spelled silver spoons were commonplace among the powerful, one more way to evade assassins, but Hiram would never have expected to see something like that here. He spooned a little honey into his cup, then poured the tea. The smell of lemonmint rose up in a cloud, wreathing his face in comforting warmth, and Hiram closed his eyes and sighed with satisfaction at the scent of it. When he opened his eyes, he saw Avery looking at him like he was trying to decipher a forgotten language.

“The tower,” he said after a moment. “It belonged to a dwarven wizard named Gemmel. He fought in the Deyrian heights during their war with the serpentkin for decades, apparently, but eventually he was driven out of their homelands. He, and many other dwarves, settled into these lands about a century ago. Oribel was a new member of the Vordurian Empire at the time, and that made resettling easier than it might have been otherwise.”

Because so many people were lost to the ambitions of Andurion’s great-grandfather. “I see.”

“Gemmel’s magic was unique,” Avery went on, “in that it was almost entirely limited to transubstantiation.”

Hiram blinked. “That’s an unusual specialty—from what I understand,” he tacked on to the end.

“I wouldn’t know,” Avery said with a shrug. “But I do know that’s how he got the blackstone. It was originally built out of wood, I think, and he changed it layer after layer after layer.”

Oh hells. Wood to blackstone? Hiram wasn’t an expert in transubstantiation, but even he knew that wood to blackstone was a bad idea. The two substances were different in every way—most successful transformations happened between two things that had similar origins, like granite to marble, or carrots to turnips. Wood to blackstone…what was that tower truly made of?

“Gemmel began a magic academy, but it only lasted a few years. Written sources reference him as a dwarf who seemed to be slowly going mad—perfectly sane one day, confused the next, frothing with rage a third.” Avery swirled the tea in his cup. “He drove everyone who ever tried to help him away, but several of them reported that his tower was full of treasures he’d created—mostly gold, but also magical items, gems, and some heritage pieces from his clan as well.”

Hiram saw where this was going. “He was targeted for his wealth, I suppose?”

Avery nodded. “Imperial troops, led by their own powerful wizard, laid siege to the tower. They weren’t able to make a dent in the blackstone, but the wizard managed to do something to get them a way inside. They attacked during the night, but none of them ever emerged from the tower again, and neither did Gemmel. He laid some sort of spell on it to keep anyone from being able to get inside, whether they’re trying to go through a door, a window, or even all the way to the top and going through the roof. After a few decades, people stopped trying.”

“Fascinating,” Hiram said. “And tragic for everyone involved.”

“It is.” They sat in silence for a moment, then Avery nudged Hiram’s foot under the table. “Drink your tea.”

Hiram drank. It tasted like sunshine.