Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Yes it’s a Severance crossover, no I’m not sorry, life is too short and Alectopause is forever and we’re doing Severance.

“Who are you?”

The voice was soft, appealing, and the words wrung over Naberius like a sponge.

He found himself sprawled on a table in a brightly lit room. His head ached, but his stomach felt far worse; he pressed a hand over his middle as if to push something back inside, or out the other way.

“Who are you?”

It was a damn fine question to be asked by an anonymous voice, even one with a refined, authoritative click to it (that was trying hard not to sound too authoritative, to sound friendly and personable instead. But Naberius knew that type well; it was utter Fifth House grubbery and he wasn’t going to stand for it.)

Naberius said, “Hello?”

There was a sound like rustling, and then a long pause. “I’m sorry. I got ahead of myself.” The person coughed. “Hello there! You on the table. Er… I wonder if you wouldn’t mind taking a brief survey?”

“Who the hell are you?” Naberius demanded at the ceiling.

A new voice chimed in: ethereal and sweet, a crickety chirp. “Five questions! We know you’re sleepy, but I just bet it’ll make you feel right as rain.”

Naberius pushed himself fully upright and did not allow himself to groan. His middle hurt. “Who’s speaking?”

A pause, and then, in undertones above him, the voices began to confer:

“Perhaps it should just be one of us, dear.”

“One is confrontational; two is welcoming.”

“He’s still disoriented.”

“I take your point. One, then. Go ahead?”

“Oh, no, I was thinking you.”

“But your voice is so soothing.”

“But you spoke first.”

“True. Consistency, to build trust.”

As this went on, Naberius finally pushed himself off the table—a very small, pained noise made it out through his teeth and he wasn’t proud of that, but clearly there was no one important listening—and he stumbled to what appeared to be a door and began pushing at it.

The refined voice said, “Oh dear,” and then, “We’d be just thrilled to chat once we’ve run the survey. Shall we begin with question one?”

Naberius gave up on the door; he began inspecting the walls. “I’m not taking your damn survey,” he muttered.

The sweet voice pitched a nervous little laugh. “Shall we begin with question one?”

Naberius had made it all the way around the room. The walls had no markings, the door was impenetrable, his rapier and offhand were gone, and, belatedly, he realized that Coronabeth was nowhere in sight.

He panicked.

They came in at last, once he’d finished—well, finished—and they sat at the table he’d barely made a dent in with his rage and invited him to sit with them so they could explain it all properly.

She was pale, with her hair done up sensibly and covered with a scarf. Her posture was a dream, and her smile was the glory of mornings. Naberius would have pegged her for Seventh but her clothes weren’t nearly frilly enough; layers of loose cloth, but simple. (Later she would launch into an astonishingly lengthy prayer, revealing herself to be Eighth, and he would be summarily laughed at for his confusion.) Her name was Cristabel.

He was warm, exactly the style of Fifth House courtier Naberius had pegged him for from his first words. He wore dark neat clothes that Naberius was irritated to admit were well-tailored. But when he sat, he slouched toward the table in an attempt to look like a casual person, which he fundamentally was not. Naberius hated him. His name was Alfred.

Alfred offered kindly that they were sorry that Naberius was feeling afraid and disoriented. He promised that this would no longer be the case, as Naberius was now at an orientation. (Cristabel laughed at this.)

Naberius demanded to know why, in the survey, they had asked him if cows watch sunsets and what the hell a cow even was. Cristabel looked unhappy about the swearing, but Alfred smiled and promised to explain it later. 

But first, they needed to explain Lyctorhood.

Alfred began. Whenever Naberius interrupted him, Cristabel took over, and they did this back and forth every time Naberius tried to get a word in. They did this smilingly, as if the three of them were already friends.

They explained that Naberius was not dead.

They explained that he had taken part in a miracle, which had delivered him to an altered state.

They explained that his altered state was one which now existed within his necromancer, because he had done great service and answered a higher calling.

At this Naberius finally made a successful interruption, and they had an argument about whether he had done something or had something done to him.

For the first time, his hosts appeared rattled. They took a moment to confer between themselves as to what changes had been wrought out there upon the work. Naberius didn’t like it; he didn’t like the words they used. They kept saying “sacrifice.” They kept referring to “duty.” They kept talking about “enthusiasm” and his lack of it, rather than his “murder” and who the hell did it.

But that was the point they would not let go; regardless of the means by which he had arrived, they kept insisting he wasn’t dead.

Finally, Alfred announced they were going to “put a pin in that for later.” This indicated the presence of sharp objects somewhere, and Naberius comforted himself by imagining getting his hands on them.

They regathered to explain that Naberius would be undertaking a new kind of work. They both sounded quite excited about the work.

The work, they said, was mysterious and important.

Chapter Text

I am delighted that this fic is introducing TLT fans to Severance, but I am begging you people to go watch the show immediately! It's so good! The vibes are so close to TLT! Feed yourselves in these Alectopause times!!!

Naberius demanded another explanation about “the work.”

To make a demand required a particular tone of voice, which required an abundance of vigour and a lack of shame, which often had to be maintained over an extended period of time. One might wear down with prolonged effort. One might become embarrassed and retreat. One might grow fatigued and give up.

Naberius wouldn’t. Naberius would make demands for years if he had to, and he was beginning to think that was indeed the task in front of him.

He decided this was fine. In a very real sense, he had been training for this his entire life. Most of his job was—had been—making demands on behalf of the princesses of Ida because they couldn’t. No Third House courtier had ever been impressed by a crown heir who had to resort to demands. So Coronabeth had never made demands in public, ever; Naberius had made sure of it.

(Ianthe could have gotten away with it, but she had never got down the trick of maintaining demands. Her tendency was to give an order once, get bored, and then threaten acid. The end result was the same: she gave the order, Naberius made the demands.)

The problem, of course, was that his opponents did not appear to be fussed by this.

In fact, they kept looking back to each other fondly, all calm and smiles. Alfred shrugged at Cristabel in a genial way, as if to say, Shall we indulge him? No harm, is there?

Naberius wanted to kill him, but he was still not convinced that the three of them were alive.

“Soon, you’re going to be overcome by a feeling,” Alfred repeated. “And you’re going to pick up the sword and fight.”

“A strong feeling,” Cristabel amended. “A compulsion like love. That’s your necromancer calling on your skills. And that feeling will come with an emotion!”

“It might be joy. It might be fear. It might be rage—perhaps that’s why you’ve gotten into such a state. Shall we arm you and see?” Alfred gestured invitingly. “It would be a great chance to show off your skills—we’re sure you’ve been training hard for this.”

Naberius glared at the wall of fencing pieces adorning the frankly gorgeous training room they had led him to. There were hundreds of weapons there, stunning rapiers of every make and length and balance, elegant off hands he’d never considered in his life. The actual space was similarly perfect for use, with flawless sprung floors and convenient seating.

People he hated were inviting him to humiliate them in a fencing duel while using the most beautiful weapons in the universe. Ordinarily, he would have deemed the situation heaven.

“Fight what?” he said instead. "What am I supposed to be fighting?"

"Whatever it is your necromancer is fighting."

"And what is that?"

Alfred shrugged. “You’ll never know.”

“And I have no choice.”

Cristabel gave a bright, alarmed laugh. “Well, you’ve found yourself here because you chose to come here.”

This was back in the territory of their first argument, about whether or not his current state was something he had done himself or had done to him. 

“But we’ll help, of course,” Cristabel added quickly. “We always pair up. Otherwise you’re just waving your sword at nothing, and that’s no good for your necromancer.”

Naberius demanded that they explain, again, how any of what they were doing was any good for anyone.

They smiled at him quizzically. Then they turned to each other.

What transpired was a conversation entirely conducted in micro expressions: lip corners and eye crinkles and the occasional flexed eyebrow. Once again, Naberius was infuriated. It was fair game when he and Ianthe resorted to eyebrow quirks with each other at public functions where they couldn’t speak openly. But between anyone else, silent conversations were astoundingly rude.

When they were finished, it was Cristabel who took the lead.

“We’ve been remiss,” she said, voice dripping with contrition. “We’ve been so eager to welcome you that we’ve hardly asked you a single question.”

(“You forced me through an entire idiotic survey when I got here—“)

“Can you tell us more about your training?” Alfred leapt in. “Maybe it’s different than we—of course, it must be different than what we—”

“Understand, we invented the training,” Cristabel supplied. “We originated the process. Those that followed made a few contributions, but the core principle came from us. And our necromancers!” She added conscientiously. “One flesh, one end.”

“You know the oath,” Alfred stated rather than asked.

“Or has it taken on some additional nuance with the Third?” Cristabel plunged on. “We’ve always…admired the Third House’s creativity. Oh, you must meet Valancy! You’ll cheer her up immensely—”

“Sudden transitions are not unheard of,” Alfred suddenly said more seriously, and Cristabel quieted next to him. “Ours was hardly a measured process. Considering the ideal we were aiming for, it was… a bit out of order. But you would have had a discussion, surely, once you began to understand the nature of the work.”

Naberius snorted. “Ianthe never explains anything. And Corona wouldn’t know.”

Alfred smiled, uncomprehending. “And who are they? Your teachers? Advisors?”

“My necromancers.”

This, at last, had real effect; Naberius’ hosts went perfectly silent. Cristabel’s eyes went wide as plates. Alfred looked ill.

“Necromancers?” he echoed at last, pronouncing the pluralization uncertainly.

It was always the way, every time they’d been introduced to anyone at any party. The shock, the expressions. No one could ever actually articulate an objection—because there wasn’t, technically, anything wrong with having one cavalier serve two necromancers. But first you had to go through the agonizing process of watching them figure that out for themselves, waiting to see if you were going to have to make them accept it, demand they get over it. Naberius had always stuck it out for Corona’s sake.

Corona wasn’t there. Naberius spun on his heel and left the room.

Behind him, Cristabel began speaking quickly, fervently. Praying for guidance, understanding of that beyond her knowledge. Alfred sounded like he might be trying to do math.

Outside the room was a hallway, which connected all the other rooms in their strange location. Alfred had given a half-explanation about the nonbuilding they were in being a mishmash of memories between himself and Cristabel.

The hallway was long and full of unmarked doors. Naberius stormed down it, hardly bothering to explore. He and the girls had spent their first days at Canaan House scouting the absurd building and it had yielded nothing of import. If his new location was based on some combined memory of the original inhabitants of the House, it was probably useless to try to make sense of it.

But as he stomped on, there was an odd chime, and the sound of metal scraping on metal. Naberius wouldn’t have bothered to turn back to look except that a confused person-noise also followed.

Further back in the hall, a double set of doors had slid open and then begun to slide shut again. They revealed a stocky girl in shabby clothes. She had thrown one broad shoulder between the sliding doors to try to hold them open, and with her other arm she was frantically pawing at something inside the door—a control panel or buttons perhaps. She swore loudly and turned her head up to glare at something above her.

Her face was brown and bare, unfamiliar to him. But her stupid short hair was very red, and her stupid big eyes were very yellow.  

“Nav!” Naberius barked. He whipped round so quickly he nearly fell.

His voice didn’t attract her attention; she snarled ferociously against the door. Around her, the room, or the chamber—the cell, really—juddered and jerked. Gideon lost her footing and fell back, and the doors slammed shut.

The door chimed again, and there was a sound of something rushing up and away.

Chapter Text

Eventually he attracted their attention, though he wasn’t sure when. It must have happened sometime after he ran out of words and resorted to just screaming, screaming, screaming as he threw himself at the doors.

It was definitely after he doubled back into the training room and ripped the ornamental targe off the wall. He had the idea that he needed something solid to pry the doors open since his fingers weren’t doing the job (had he lost nails? He had felt a ripping sensation, but when he looked his hands were whole).

He was not consistent in his strategy, even with the addition of the targe. Sometimes it was just a matter of hurling himself bodily at the doors for the pleasure of feeling them rattle under him, as if they just might give if he just kept trying.

The other two didn’t argue or interfere; they didn’t seem worried about property damage.

“Now who does this remind you of?”

“Oh, don’t. I was so relieved when—but I shouldn’t say that.”

“I’ll say it: I am overjoyed for Loveday’s fortune. She has moved on to a better place.”

“Kindly put!” Alfred gushed admiringly. “You always find the right words.”

Nothing was working. Nothing was making the doors open or bringing the little box room back down to his level. Nothing was bringing Gideon Nav down to where he could rip her limb from limb, or demand an explanation, or make her do something, be there, make him not be the only one dealing with those affable, innocuous morons.

“It’s wonderful he’s got a friend on the way! It will ease the transition.”

“I do hope so,” Alfred said, sounding doubtful.

“Get down here, you bone-faced peasant!”

“…healthy competition can also be of benefit.”

“You sacramental shit heel!”

“Now that is true.”

“I can’t—think—of anything bad enough to call you!”

He didn’t know how long he went on. Naberius wondered why he wasn’t feeling tired. He wondered why his hands didn’t hurt or show marks. He gripped the edges of the targe so hard it had to draw blood, so why didn’t it?

“I love how much he feels about everything,” Cristabel enthused.

“Ye-es,” Alfred shifted his weight to his other hip. “Now we just need to learn how to help him feel more…productively.”

But they still didn’t interfere.

By that point, Naberius was continuing in his efforts mainly for his audience. He knew the second he slowed down they would try to talk to him again, and he couldn’t bear it.

But mercy came at last: the little bell went “ding” and the rushing sound announced the tiny room returning to him once again. Naberius paused to straighten his hair. He readied the targe.

The doors slid open and just as quickly began to slide shut. Naberius rammed the targe between the sliding doors, effectively wedging them open and biffing Gideon Nav in the mouth: great success.

But she wasted precious seconds swearing about it instead of grabbing his hand or ducking under the barrier to join him in the hall. The targe shook and slid against the sliding doors, barely holding in place. Naberius swore and braced it with his arms; at last the great lunk noticed and braced the targe from her side as well.

“Come through, you idiot!” Naberius snapped.

This, for some reason, was different or serious enough for Alfred and Cristabel to get involved. Alfred attempted to slide between Naberius and the door; Cristabel slipped a hand on his shoulder.

“Not like that,” she warned. “You can’t force it—Naberius—”

Naberius couldn’t quite bring himself to shove her off; he head-butted Alfred expressively instead. The Fifth courtier’s head smacked back against the wall in a highly pleasing manner, and Naberius lunged for Gideon’s arm.

“Something’s happened,” Cristabel was saying. “If they’d done it right, there wouldn’t be a struggle—oh, the Ninth never had the trick of it, this is Samael all over again—”

“Tern, let it go.” Alfred had made a tactical retreat and was pulling at him from behind. “You need to—oh, hell—"

There was a soft noise, like a deep inhalation then let out slow, and then someone said, “All right.”

A great arm descended and reached over the targe. It pushed Gideon back.

Then it took the targe and tossed it aside, letting the great shield roll all the way down the hall and out of sight.

And as the doors slid closed once again over Nav’s stupefied face, the arm pulled Naberius back to safety.

Naberius glared at the closed doors. He hadn’t liked the look on Nav’s face; it was too like the cross-eyed, slack-jawed, grotesque expression on her maw every time she’d gotten too close to Corona, utterly incongruous with their situation.

But the arm turned him round, and then he understood.

Before him stood a Principality like he’d only seen in the best paintings, statuesque and solemn. Her burnished hair spilled over her shoulders and caught the strange over-intense light of the hall; it haloed her whole being. Her eyes were perfect lavender and smoldered over his soul.

She said dully, “Oh, heaven. You look just like my Cyrus.”

Then she leaned down to kiss him—on the brow, the right eyelid, and then the mouth—and then wrapped him up in her arms. This was ancient protocol, stuff from his history lessons, the Third House greeting of some eons past between blood-sworn intimates. Naberius understood he was being embraced by a deity possibly dating back to the prehistoric.

“Valancy,” said Alfred. He sounded unhappy. “Thank you for your help.”

“Valancy, it’s so good to see you,” said Cristabel warily.

Valancy did not seem interested in them (they who were both also ancient, Naberius realized, they who must both be some thousands of years in age each). She finished squeezing Naberius—a proper hug, the kind only one of the Shining Dead could deliver, with a full understanding of where the arms ought to be placed and how to brush the nape of the neck—and now had his face in her hands. She stroked her thumbs down his cheeks over and over; Naberius shivered.

“They don’t know,” she told him.

“Oh—what?”

“They never gave fully of themselves before. Service, but not sustenance.” Her lips curved. “Now they scramble to catch up, as if provision is a race.”

Naberius understood her instantly. Cavalier doctrine varied from House to House; Idan philosophy was superior in its completionist conception of what a cavalier owed their adept—the labor of the flesh in addition to the flesh itself. No other House’s oath was as thorough. The Eighth came close, perhaps, but stumbled in delivery. They wasted the flesh in favor of some intangible, unmeasurable offering of spirit; ridiculous.

“It’s harder for us,” she told him. Centuries of sorrow thickened her voice. “They only just realized their full work, where we have sacrificed part of our service. Cyrus has my sword and spirit—but I will never fully sustain him again. He cannot have me.”

Naberius didn’t know how to tell her that he was sort of fine with that part, actually. He didn’t know how to correct the misunderstanding, the assumption she too had made about his wanting to be there. He couldn’t imagine confessing the base, unpolished facts of his confused loyalty to his two adepts to her. She looked too much like Coronabeth; she was too close to his idea of God.

She lifted her chin a little, but she did not look away from Naberius. “Loveday understood, a little. Where is Loveday?”

There was a long, awful silence, filled with clearing throats and guilty nudging.

“Gone, Valancy,” Cristabel said at last. “She’s gone Titania’s way.”

Valancy’s lavender eyes abandoned him at last to fix on the other two cavaliers. Naberius nearly died with relief.

“Oh,” she said. “So quickly.”

“Yes,” said Alfred, sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”

Valancy blinked at this slowly, stupidly. Then she turned her gaze back on Naberius and lost herself there in him for a while.

He couldn’t look away—she was too great—but the novelty of being held in the hands of quite possibly literal God was starting to wear thin. He thought uneasily of how long he had been throwing himself at the doors and how well he still felt; he flexed his fingers and felt a complete lack of pain despite the wounds he must have incurred. He fumbled for details from Alfred and Cristabel’s explanations of what his service in Lyctorhood would be. He started developing questions about time and energy that even Ianthe might have found interesting.

“I wonder what he’s doing,” Valancy said finally.

Who was the question for? Naberius opened his mouth and then closed it; Ianthe had been in the habit of voicing rhetorical questions too.

“Valancy, my love.” Out of the fringe of his peripheral vision, Naberius thought he could see the white of one of Cristabel’s sleeves. “Thank you so much for your help. We should be getting back now.”

There was a hand on his back; Alfred, perhaps, trying to introduce to possibility of extrication from Valancy’s grip on Naberius’ face. Her thumbs continued to worry at the hollows under his cheeks as if she had all the time in the world to admire him. Maybe she was really going to keep him there for eternity.

“Come with us, of course,” Cristabel continued. “You’re right, you understand far better than we could ever hope—he needs someone of his own—”

Valancy dropped her hands abruptly; Naberius rocked back on his heels into Alfred’s arm.

“Come see me if you get tired of them,” she said. "If you need a wellness session."

And then she drifted down the hall, away from the training room.

Alfred and Cristabel waited until she was completely gone before they began to guide Naberius back to their territory. Alfred’s arm stayed on his shoulder and pressed him close to his side; Cristabel wove her hands through Naberius’ free elbow and squeezed.

“Well done,” she whispered kindly. “You did very, very well with her. That’s the most we’ve heard her speak in—well, a very long time! Your second miracle. Well done.”

“What happened to her?” Naberius squeaked.

Cristabel patted at him; Naberius remembered suddenly that she was very old. “Oh, nothing. Nothing happened to her. But something may have happened to Cyrus.”

“Her adept. But we don’t know that,” Alfred amended.

“Something happened,” said Cristabel. “He hasn’t called on her in years.”

Chapter Text

Naberius was perambulated back to the souped-up training room with its beautiful weapons and beautiful company. His new keepers gushed that they were keen to see him in action. They were already pretending nothing had happened in the hall. This was fine, as altercations in the Idan Court had functioned similarly: fight hard, forget quickly.

They kept a steady lock on him. If Cristabel wasn’t rubbing his arm in her fretful way, Alfred was squeezing his shoulder insistently. For what? To keep him from running away? There was apparently nowhere to run.

Naberius didn’t quite get the trick of it until Alfred stepped away to place the targe back on the wall. Before he’d even finished one last squeeze to Naberius’ shoulders, Cristabel stepped in to wrap her arms all the way around him and rest her chin on his head, making icky little soothing noises all the while.

Lord help him, they’d decided his love-language was touch.

Alfred said, “What about you, then? Your off hand? Don’t tell me we don’t have it; we have everything you could imagine.”

“Everything we could imagine,” Cristabel corrected mildly, nuzzling at him. “Everything we ever trained with and all the ones we didn’t think of until after we arrived.”

Naberius scanned the walls crowded with weapons. He was reminded again how old these cavaliers were.

When they found a trident knife at last, Alfred had the audacity to look amused. “No, I suppose I can see the value,” he amended at Naberius’ look. “You just seem to anticipate that your adept will face such intelligent opponents. And only one at a time? Are you sure there isn’t something else you’ve used on your busier days…?”

Naberius had no idea what Alfred was getting at, and he hated him.

Alfred’s preferred offhand was a smallsword; Cristabel’s a net. They began commenting, in their two-headed way, on the value of working with every off hand possible to avoid stagnating or getting lazy. They had ideas about constant training and improvement. They had frankly unholy standards for excellence in the form, which on an ordinary day would have thrilled Naberius.

But then they put him—and his new rapier, and his new trident knife—into the center of the room and made him just…stand there.

“You need to get a feel for it.”

“For what?”

“The feeling.”

“…I need to get a feel… for the feeling?”

“Your necromancer is going to need you soon,” said Cristabel.

“Or necromancers, apparently,” Alfred began, but Cristabel shushed him smilingly.

“Best we don’t muddy the waters from the off,” she continued in a firm voice. “Learn the feeling so you understand what you need to respond to. You’ll know when they’re drawing on your skill.”

Naberius demanded once again that the pair explain what the hell that meant.

“Everything comes from… upstairs, so to speak,” Alfred supplied. “Your necromancer will have done all the conscious thinking.”

“Then how do I know what to do? If she’s doing all the thinking?”

“You just have to feel.” Alfred said this as if it was perfectly reasonable. “You’ll feel the feeling she—she, yes?—is responding to. Just to warn, the first feeling will probably be fear. So it will feel scary.”

Naberius took a deep breath. “So my job is to stand here, rapier and off hand drawn, waiting for things to feel scary?”

Cristabel dimpled. “It sounds odd, and Alfred said it oddly.”

Alfred acquiesced to this criticism with good cheer. “It doesn’t make sense until it happens, and it might take a while. You missed the first one—”

“It’s already happened?”

“You hadn’t fully crossed over yet, that’s all.”

“So can I cross back? Am I trapped here?” Naberius demanded. He flicked the sword point down. “If it turns out I hate this and I want to quit, is crossing back an option?”

This prompted more looks between Alfred and Cristabel.

Then Cristabel said, “Well, quitting would effectively end your service to God. In so much as you’ve served God yet.” Then, “Surely you don’t want to stop now. It might already feel like you’ve served God a great deal, but really, you’ve hardly done a thing.”

Naberius nearly retorted that he’d died, which seemed plenty, but he knew it would just start another not-argument about whether or not any of them were dead. It would also make it sound as if he’d intended to serve God at all. (Cavaliers did, in a roundabout way, serve God via the adept, but Ianthe had Views about the whole chain of command in question. Naberius wasn’t honestly that interested in trying to explain one of Ianthe’s Views to complete strangers, whether they were destined to spend eternity together or not.)

The conversation moved on anyway. They were encouraging him to think ahead to other off hands he might try. They plucked odd things off the walls, weapons he’d admittedly rarely seen, and talked through how much using them could alter one’s technique. Cristabel called working with these new weapons ‘progression’; Alfred referred to them more candidly as ‘perks’.

The more perks they covered, the more they spoke to each other, forgetting him by degrees. They still narrated their steps and movements, but their words devolved into shorthand. They took up position across from each other and fell into step. Then they began correcting each other’s form in single words: “Up”, “Shoulder”, “Pronate”; “Volt.”

Watching them move, seeing how much they saw in each other, one could believe they had been training together for eons.

And on an ordinary day, it all really would have thrilled Naberius. It really would have. He was witnessing an unprecedented mastery of craft. They performed with the perfect efficiency and faultless technique to which he had dedicated his life.

But he was angry, still, and confused and indignant. And he was bored. And he recalled he was meant to be feeling scared by something.

At last, to break the tedium of their rhythm, he gasped, jerked his shoulders and jumped as if something had happened.

Both turned; delighted, startled. Cristabel had something barreled and mechanical in her hands, while Alfred was working with an odd, hooked contraption. On her own gasp of surprise, Cristabel’s hands squeezed, and the barreled thing in her arms exploded and shot a fistful of iron into Alfred’s chest, blowing a wide hole in the flesh.

His anticipation of mirth died on impact. Naberius dropped his new rapier; his new trident knife clattered next to it. He watched with open-mouthed horror as Alfred fell back, gargling blood.

“Drat,” Cristabel said. “Well, that’s why we save this for later. Nasty thing just goes off.” She set the barreled thing back in its holder and then registered Naberius’ expression. “Are you all right?”

Naberius stammered that they had no adept to fix Alfred, no flesh magician to knit up the damage in time. His thrashing was already starting to still. It already seemed too late.

“Oh, never mind that,” said Cristabel.

Alfred lay very still on the floor.

“But you killed him,” Naberius said stupidly. “He’s gone.”

Cristabel broke out in dimples once again. “Darling, don’t be silly. Where would he go?”

And Alfred sat up, and his chest was whole.