Anabeth continued to stand there, utterly still. Her eyes were wide, fixed on me with an expression that hovered somewhere between scientific fascination and whatever a person felt upon witnessing a myth get caught shampooing a golem.

  But then another, far more concerning detail struck me.

  She looked... different. Not dramatically, not in a way that made sense, but in the way a person who absolutely should not have had time for anything had somehow found time for at least four unnecessary things.

  For one, there was dust around her eyes. A stony-grey shimmer traced along her upper shes like the world’s most academic attempt at eyeliner.

  And she was wearing a choker. A crystal one.

  It was clear, faceted, and reflected the lights from all sources back at my face. Where in the accursed halls of rationality had she found the time to acquire a crystal choker in the st twenty minutes? Had she bought it? Mugged someone for it? Smelted and carved it out of ambient mineral particles?

  And why?

  I watched the realization that she was watching me scrubbing a golem’s scalp with tongs dawning across her face. And then, with no change in her facial expression whatsoever, her hand drifted up to her cheek.

  She brushed a fingertip against the dusted eyeliner and checked if it had smudged. Then she checked her makeup.

  “Oh, ah!” She forced her face into a grin. “I didn’t realize you had… flesh. That’s… good, actually. That’s great. That’s in accordance with the lore.”

  What? What lore? I didn’t know she had constructed a lore about me.

  “But don’t mind me,” she added briskly, lifting her chin in that oddly professorial way she had. “I must admit your mortal form is conventionally attractive, my Good Sir, but I’m not vulnerable to the typical… corporeal distractions.”

  Well.

  There went my st, desperate attempt at pretending I was a god-wrought, inscrutable, ageless figure of legend. I supposed this was bound to happen sooner or ter.

  She sounded convincing enough, and for a fleeting second, I actually believed her. It wasn’t that I thought I looked out of shape or particurly undesirable, but I certainly wasn’t hiding the sculpted body of a minor deity beneath the armor either.

  Enough. Time for decency. And armor.

  I rose from the tub and made the grave mistake of immediately reaching for the nearest armor piece. Which was fine in theory, except I had absolutely no peripheral vision inside the helm. Turning my head was useless. I could see forward and slightly down, and that was the entire spectrum of my sensory existence.

  Re-armoring with my helm on was technically possible.

  Technically; in the same way that juggling knives while blindfolded on a rope bridge was technically possible.

  I managed to locate a pauldron by sound alone, and promptly whacked my knuckles on the wall while trying to grab it. The helm muffled my curse into a hollow metallic sigh.

  The sabatons would be doable. Greaves, probably. Bracers, eventually. But the gorget?

  The gorget was a problem.

  I stared down at it. Or rather, stared down at the vague blur that I assumed was it. The bsted thing had to be fitted before the chestpte, but it also had to be positioned beneath the lower rim of the helm’s colr, which meant I somehow needed to slide it under my own chin while not being able to see my own chin.

  To put the gorget on, I would have to remove the helm.

  To remove the helm, I would have to expose my face.

  To expose my face, I would have to do so in front of a schor currently adorned with stone-dust eyeliner and a mysterious crystal choker she absolutely did not possess twenty minutes ago.

  I risked a gnce in Anabeth’s direction. She lifted a hand and pced it delicately on her own shoulder as she said, “As I have said, Sir Knight, feel free to proceed however you must. I assure you, your state of undress will not sway my equilibrium in the slightest.”

  She looked genuinely unaffected, and there was no intrusive notification from Ceralis warning me of ‘spiking seduction interest detected’ or anything equally catastrophic. So I supposed it was fine.

  I turned my back to her, orienting myself toward the wall, and attempted to angle the gorget beneath the helm’s colr by moving the helm as little as physically possible.

  By some miracle, I managed to get the gorget into the correct approximate region of my neck. The rest of the armor came next. Sabatons, then greaves; The bracers were trickier, but eventually, the weight of myself reassembled around me. I hooked the chestpte off the floor, giving it a brisk pat to shake off lingering moisture from the hot steam. Then I wiped a streak of steam off the visor with my thumb, then traced along the pauldron joint to confirm the csps had seated properly. A good shoulder roll settled the piece the rest of the way.

  “Right,” I muttered under my breath, mostly to myself. “That’s better.”

  At least, that was what I thought I said.

  What actually emerged from my helm was a reverberating baritone procmation that shook the tiles underfoot, “MY ARMOR FOUND ITS PERFECT FORM. I SHALL CLAIM THE REST OF MY SHELL WITH ABSOLUTE DOMINION.”

  [Tone Optimization: Knight-Commander of Subjugation – Achieved]

  [Seduction Successful!]

  [Romantic Interest: 124%] → [Target Overwhelmed – Duration: ???] → [Cognitive Function: ?47% (Overload)]

  Caution: Adjust your behavior to avoid emotional overload

  What in the bloated arse of the First Padin? Emotional overload? From what? I’d merely wiped steam off my visor.

  I turned around.

  Anabeth hadn’t moved from her spot—but something else had. A glistening line of red traced down from one nostril. She made no effort to wipe it.

  “It appears I am… susceptible to certain corporeal distractions after all.” She dabbed under her nose with the sleeve of her robe without breaking eye contact. “It feels rather humid in here.”

  Right. Of course.

  She was a weirdo.

  Anabeth cleared her throat. “I believe,” she said, voice only a hair too high, “I should… give you space to complete your preparations.”

  You should have done that before you bleed!

  Anabeth turned. And walked directly into a column behind her.

  She froze upon impact, and said to the column, “My apologies. I misjudged your, ah, your trajectory.” Then she clipped the same column with her shoulder.

  Then she apologized again—this time over her shoulder, to me. “My apologies, Sir Knight. I assure you, that was not representative.”

  She attempted a third departure. Only when she cleared the column entirely did she gather what scraps of composure remained and more or less swept toward the door. She paused, fumbled at her satchel, and set the parchment she’d brought with her on the floor.

  “I saw you… ah… look at it earlier,” she said without turning fully around. “I thought you might need it. For reference… I’m leaving now.” Then she dashed out the door.

  I waited until her footsteps finally faded before I dared cross the room.

  The parchment y where she’d dropped it, partially unfurled in a careless swoop of vellum. I bent to retrieve it.

  It was the map with the catalogued dungeons I’d practically salivated over earlier like a starving gremlin. She’d noticed my fascination with it.

  I wanted to thank her, but she had already vanished to Saints-knows-where, presumably to go walk into more architectural features on the way. Maybe I could wait for when she returned and my Voice Recmation had cooled down to—

  The Aetheric Parasitic Resonance Detector creaked. Then it creaked again. Then again, louder, like wood compining under the weight of a titan.

  That was bad. Then I remembered Anabeth’s story about Aetherlung parasites and spectral micro-organisms. Were the stories real after all?

  The detector screeched a fourth time.

  Or worse—

  A far nastier memory rose uninvited. The most dangerous invisible aetheric organisms known to the Order. The ones even the hard-boiled Sentinel Corps refused to fight without six yers of wards and a st will already signed.

  The Vesper-Hollowed.Ghostlike resonance predators, they were, silent and untraceable unless they wanted to be. These creatures could murder an innocent person and they wouldn’t even know they’d died.

  The map in my hand glowed, possibly with residual aether from being handled by her or Master Derevin.

  [Task Received: Where the Hollow Calls]

  Objective: Find Anabeth before the conclusion of her encounter with the mysterious entity.

  Boon: Path of the Earthen Aegis – Foundational Boon

  Oh no.

  Lady Anabeth could not be alone.

  I grabbed my sword, nearly took out the corner of the tub with it in my haste, and charged for the door.