A wise man once said: you eat your best meal when you starve. Or maybe Elderstead’s honey-buttered briar loaves were in fact as splendid as Anabeth said they were. Or, more likely, I was just giddy from my newest enchantment:

  Gelid Fragment Infusion (Enchanted)

  Effects: Grants +7 END against slime or getinous attacks

  Slightly increases cold resistance

  Durable, semi-permanent infusion that can be removed and reapplied to other armor

  Master Derevin had agreed to perform the infusion for a ceremonial price of 100 Kohns. One hundred Kohns. You would never, ever find such a deal anywhere else. He had even told us to come back to Elderstead whenever we needed crafting work, and he would do it at half the market price for the inherent difficulties of working with rare fragments.

  How nice it was, really, to have Anabeth around—someone capable of turning a crusty old master artisan into a friend, or at least a willing ally. Without her, I would never have walked in the door, never have learned about fragment crafting, and never have my Silver Armor humming with semi-permanent magic against slimes.

  The eight-hour cooldown on my Voice Recmation still hadn’t ended, and Anabeth was still holding on the money from selling our dungeon loot earlier, so naturally she was the one negotiating for our tavern room. In fact, if there was any true relief left in this accursed world, it was having Anabeth handle my speaking duties. Her enthusiasm alone could shield me from an otherwise unending mountain range of catastrophes I would’ve blindly marched into.

  As for the downside...

  I found myself staring at the tavern room key Anabeth was presenting to me while she smiled up at me with a kind of gentle, luminous innocence that should have been illegal.

  “The innkeeper told us this was the only room left for the night,” she announced. “A king-sized suite, no less. Incredibly fortunate, isn’t it so?”

  Fortunate. Yes. That was one word for it.

  She continued, “Apparently there was supposed to be a caravan of eight merchants, three guards, and one retired bard checking out tonight. They were all packed, saddled, and ready to leave at dusk.”

  So far, so normal.

  “But!” she said, “just before they departed, one of the guards heard about a rumored outbreak of Aetherlung on the northern road. A respiratory fever caused by an invisible aetheric micro-organism called Spectral Drifters. They float around old stone settlements... like this one. These nasty little things are highly contagious, and the cure is costly, so it either cims your life or your estate.” Then she suddenly wiggled her fingers at the figure behind me. “Oh! Evening, Durand!”

  Currently halfway up the side of the oversized pannier strapped to my back, clinging to the leather like a cheerful barnacle, Durand waved back its left hand.

  “Anyway... So naturally,” she said, “the entire caravan refused to leave. They all ran back inside and begged the innkeeper to extend their stay until the ‘spectral risk index’ drops—which, according to the innkeeper, is not a real thing but the caravan insisted they could ‘feel it in the air.’” She nodded earnestly. “And because they’re still here, they kept all their rooms. Every single one of them. The only room left was a small king-bed corner suite that one guard got food poisoning in earlier, and thus was the very st to be released.” She pushed the key closer to me. “Thankfully, I spoke to the innkeeper before anyone else realized the room had reopened. Truly, Sir Henry, fortune has never been kinder.”

  The level of detail was concerning. Surely she couldn’t have made up an entire scenario like this in her head. As she spoke, my gaze drifted past her shoulder to the wooden pque hanging over the tavern counter.

  MANY ROOMS VACANT, it read in cheerful, freshly painted lettering.

  I stared. Then I stared harder.

  Anabeth followed my line of sight, stopped speaking, and made a very small, very squeaky noise.

  “Oh. Ha. Well—that sign is, um—actually incorrect,” she said quickly. “It hasn’t been updated since... since before the Aetherlung incident! Yes. Exactly. The innkeeper simply hasn’t had the chance to, because she’s been too busy sanitizing the rafters. For spores. Invisible spores. You heard the Parasitic Resonance Detector creaked earlier. We know the spores are within a one-mile radius.”

  She had, in the span of two breaths, committed what I believed schors called a false equivalency: equating a creaky brass contraption detecting ‘aetheric organisms within a mile’ to proof that the tavern’s vacancy sign was a lie perpetrated by spores.

  I opened my mouth to challenge this, then remembered I currently possessed all the speaking ability of a stunned fish. So instead I merely stood there, processing the sheer acrobatic madness of her logic. It wasn’t even wrong. It was... adjacent to wrong. Wrong from a creative angle. Wrong with artistry.

  [Stamina: 38%]

  [Proper resting recommended]

  At this point I wasn’t even bothered to check whether her logic was right or not. I needed a bed. A horizontal surface. Any horizontal surface. And really, what was the worst that could happen? I doubted the universe had the energy to smite me any further today. Besides, Anabeth was a schor. Schors had codes and principles about intellectual restraint and the responsible handling of personal information.

  Nothing would go wrong.

  The suite itself wasn’t bad, either. In fact, it was probably the nicest rentable room in Elderstead, far nicer than the sort of pce I’d expected we could even afford tonight. I didn’t know the exact total Anabeth handed over downstairs, but judging from the carved bedframe, the thick drapery, and the polished ntern sconces, it was definitely more coins than what remained in my purse. Which meant she’d used her own money without saying so.

  And then there was the tub.

  It had been at least two years since the st time I’d seen a proper in-house tub. I paused in the doorway, staring at it as if someone had left a wyvern egg in the room by mistake.

  Sir Rond once told me that back in the Pre-Order era—the period where magic was primitive and different disciplines had not been established—taverns never had private bathing tubs. If you wanted a wash, you found a bucket, a river, or the mercy of a charitable stableboy. The logistics of hauling boiling water upstairs were too back-breaking and too time-consuming for the average establishment.

  But these days, a half-decent water hedge mage could lift a barrel up a staircase in two gestures. Heating was even easier. All you needed was a cheap Embershard, one of those dull red crystals infused with a trickle of aether. The lowest grade barely held a charge longer than an hour, but it was enough to heat a tub of water from cold to steaming in minutes. Inns loved them. Travelers loved them. I would love them too.

  Anabeth csped her hands together. “Well then! I shall excuse myself for—ah—roughly half a bell. Personal business. Do make sure to finish whatever private business you need as well, Sir Henry. It’s best to handle such matters before one gets too tired.” She promptly swept off down the hall.

  Thirty minutes was more than enough time to bathe, dry, breathe, maybe even remember what my own limbs felt like without armor compressing them. I could get a full wash in well before Anabeth returned. Unless, of course, she decided to come back early. For a brief moment I imagined what she could possibly hope to extract from me by catching me mid-bath. Nothing, obviously. I had no secrets worth scheming over. And besides, Anabeth wasn’t exactly subtle. Even if she tried to sneak back, she’d end up pausing to chat with the innkeeper, and by the time she actually started up the stairs, I’d hear her coming from a hundred steps away, bright-voiced and conspicuous.

  I set the pannier down, easing it to the floor so Durand didn’t thump against the boards. The little construct stared at me with its soulless eyes.

  I don’t know if you understand human nguage, I tried to mutter, but do you fancy the idea of a hot bath?

  “DO YOU DESIRE IMMERSION IN SCALDING PURIFICATION?” I roared.

  Durand wiggled in what I chose to interpret as enthusiasm.

  Heating a bath had become a kind of ritual art in post-Order taverns, and I followed the steps as reverently as any acolyte at a shrine. I filled the tub first, then fished the Embershard from its little tin box with a pair of long tongs. The crystal was unimpressive to look at: dull, brick-red, barely the size of my thumb, and worth less than a mediocre breakfast. But the moment I dropped it into the water, it struck the bottom, then the water started bubbling.

  Aetheric heat radiated through the water in rolling waves. The surface trembled as steam began to rise in ghostly ribbons, and within seconds, the entire tub fogged up like a kettle left unattended. A warm breath of air washed across my face. My muscles practically sighed.

  Time for the armor.

  Removing my gear was a multi-stage ordeal, like disassembling a portable fortress with nothing but weary determination. First the pauldrons with their stubborn straps, then the pted sleeves that always pinched my skin if I wasn’t careful. The chestpiece followed, then the sabatons, then the greaves. Each piece nded on the wooden floor with a progressively lighter ctter, until I was down to the mail shirt and the weighty gorget biting at my neck.

  I hesitated before the helm.

  Even alone, even exhausted, even with Durand the only witness, habits held fast. But the steam rising off the water tempted a moment of rebellion out of me.

  Just a moment.

  I lifted the helm, set it aside, and ducked my head over the tub for a quick, desperately overdue scrub. My hair felt less like hair and more like a bramble patch someone had pstered to a skull. The warm water loosened it enough for me to rake my fingers through. It was blissful.

  And then the helm went right back on.

  I couldn’t risk Anabeth returning early. She’d only need half a gnce at my actual face to realize I was just a mortal man beneath all the pting and posturing. Then the illusions would colpse, the respect would wither, and I’d be left expining why my hair looked like something a wolf had slept in.

  Finally, I eased myself into the steaming tub. The heat enveloped me from toes to shoulders, and the wood creaked under the change in temperature.

  Durand plopped itself beside the tub, watching with its gssy, bnk-eyed stare. Then, with all the deliberate thoughtfulness of a child mimicking a parent, it raised both small stone arms and set them on the rim as well, tiny elbows out, posture matching mine perfectly.

  I stared at it.

  It stared at me.

  I wasn’t entirely sure it understood the concept of rexation—or any concept, if I was being honest—but it looked... almost cute like this. Cute and harmless. Just a miniature golem enjoying a bath with a man it’d almost murdered.

  Rexation sted about twelve seconds.

  My mind, traitorous thing that it was, decided that now was the perfect time to contempte the future. The very distant, very intimidating, very shapeless future.

  Restoring the Knighthood.

  A grand goal; beautiful in theory. Nonetheless, restoring an order wasn’t like mending a broken sword. An order only existed if people believed in it. And people only believed in something that... well... existed. Legally, and preferably with a headquarters and a banner and a sense of purpose.

  I had none of those things.

  I didn’t even keep my old Order’s crest, nor did I carry any papers of legitimacy. I had no lineage records, no sponsorship, no squire, not even a ceremonial ribbon. My entire ‘order’ could be stored in a broom closet with room left over for a mop.

  I briefly considered returning to Mostenstein—to what scraps of history remained there. But I didn’t even know where Mostenstein was, only that the general area was supposed to be hundreds of miles northward, well beyond what my coin purse could afford. And Anabeth... Anabeth would surely sooner bite off her own quill hand than travel that far just because I felt nostalgic for a fictional nd buried under snow, taxes, and bad political decisions.

  Still, even if Mostenstein was out of reach, there had to be a beginning somewhere.

  Sir Rond had once said that a handful of old registries, training rosters, and oath-ledgers had been deposited in a minor administrative depot known as the Westris Provisional Archives of Knightly Affairs. . If memory served (and Rond insisted that a knight’s memory must always serve), the records were held somewhere within Aurelienth itself—or at least had been, at the time—filed away under one of the city’s countless secondary repositories. The exact location was unclear, but if the archive still existed in any recognizable form, it would almost certainly be indexed through the Grand Library. That was where everything in Aurelienth eventually surfaced, one way or another.

  Of course, by now the depot could have been renamed, subdivided, or absorbed into a broader civic or historical collection. Half the archivists alive today wouldn’t even recognize ‘knightly affairs’ as anything separate from the usual assortment of hired guards and ceremonial escorts. Still... it was a pce to start.

  I spotted a smear of dirt on Durand’s head. Of course, it had to be right there, in the most irritating pce possible, perfectly positioned to bother me if I pretended not to notice. I reached for one of the long wooden tongs the handlers use to move Embershards. They were the only tools long enough to keep a safe distance. If I tried to wipe a stone golem’s face with my bare hand, Durand would absolutely try to headbutt me for no good reason.

  But still, Durand had just enjoyed a proper hot soak in the emberbath. Letting a freshly bathed construct walk around with dirt on its crown would be... illogical. An affront to basic maintenance.

  So I lifted the stick-tongs like a nervous zookeeper, and leaned in to gently scrub the dirt off Durand’s head before the little menace could homicidally nuzzle me.

  Durand went perfectly still as I leaned in. I didn’t even know it could sit there so still. It lowered its head a fraction, as if presenting the dirty spot for cleaning.

  The little stone menace let me scrub its stone crown without protest. For a moment, everything was peaceful.

  Then the hairs on the back of my neck rose.

  I felt a presence.

  Someone was watching.

  I turned my head.

  Anabeth stood frozen in the doorway with some folded pieces of parchment she didn’t have with her before. Her mouth was halfway open, and her pupils dited.

  I may as well have been caught serenading the golem.

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  What a sight to run into now.