We had to take a break halfway back to the castle. Even though the road was a relatively easy path, the three of us were so horribly exhausted that it felt like we were walking uphill the whole way, not to mention the pain of dragging my limp, broken wings along behind me, and suffering the sharp stabs of cracked bones in my torso with every step.

Thankfully, getting out of the city had been easier than I expected. We had to hurry out of the Chapel Ward into the Meadows, a district without outer walls full of small orchards, vineyards, and the mills, breweries, and distilleries that processed their harvests. Guards had clearly been moving in towards the cathedral, but once we got away from it, there were no authorities around to see us out in the open. It made sense; the cathedral's collapse had to be a major event in the city's history, so I bet that most or all of the guards would be summoned to secure the area, especially if they weren't personally in on Barbosa's plan.

Soon, we left the city behind, and crossed into the rolling, grassy hills that surrounded it to the west and south. The scenery was beautiful, but my mind was still filled with anxiety for the future. I was sure the other two noticed how I had been glancing at them nervously the whole way, but none of us had the energy for a conversation. No one spoke at all until I was practically dragging myself along the ground to keep going, when Grace pointed at a small boulder jutting from the ground near a signpost marking a crossroads.

"We should rest for a little while over there," she said. "We've still got miles to go."

She had no argument from me, so we circled around the rock and set down to rest for a moment. I laid down on the cool grass, letting the chill in the soil help dull the pain. Despite his own injuries, Arthur seemed too antsy to sit down. He kept looking over his shoulder and scratching at the dirt.

«Arthur—» I started.

«No, I'm not okay,» he interrupted. «Why would you think that?»

I blinked. «I wasn't going to say that. None of us are okay. I was going to suggest you lay down. You must be tired.»

He shook his head. «I…can't. I'm not tired. I have so much energy. Too much.» Now that he was speaking at full volume, his voice was no longer fragile. He sounded manic, if anything, rushing to get from one thought to the next. «It's worse. Everything's worse, now. I can hear the Fiend so loudly in my ear, it's hard to hear anything else. And I'm just so angry.»

Grace slumped against the rock, sliding to the ground. She absently touched her new horns, a pensive look on her face. "What even was that? I saw that shape, and then…well, then this.»

«Do you remember when us dragons went to the windmill village and saw carvings underneath the well, the ones Provost Dulin was scared of?» I said. «That was one of them. It's the speech of the Great Ones. Raw knowledge, and it means "Impurity". It…is the source of the Scourge, I think. When people see the carving, it brings something out in them, and they turn into fiends.»

«So…you're saying I…?» Arthur said, unwilling to finish the question. I could feel the horror in his voice.

«I don't know if it's the same thing that happens to humans, but it's similar,» I said. «I think us having Fiends in our head changes something about it. He showed it to me before, in the dungeon. It was horrible, but I didn't change. Not like, um….»

«I know,» said Arthur. «You can say it. I know what happened. We've talked about it before. I was a demon. I was afraid it would happen sooner, but I guess I had more fight in me than I thought.» He grit his teeth. «I don't know how much longer I can hold on before it happens again. It's so loud. I still want to kill something.»

I raised my head a little, afraid to ask my next question. «What was it like? If you don't mind answering.»

Arthur sighed. «Horrible. Beyond my worst nightmares. Normally when the Fiend gets into my mind, it sort of feels like my intentions are having an argument with each other. I can still feel things normally and all my normal wants and emotions and personality are still there, just harder to see. After I saw that rune, though, it felt like the real me just…disintegrated. There wasn't anything left. Whatever the Fiend wanted was what I wanted, and whatever it felt was what I felt. I could barely remember who I used to be.»

His voice grew shaky, and he looked guiltily at Grace. «I'm so sorry for what I did to you,» he said. «Back there I wanted…I hated what had been done to me, and I wanted someone else to feel it too. Just see what it was like dealing with the same problems as me. Not to understand, but just so I could see someone else suffering in the same way. It was awful. I'm sorry.»

Despite the horrible thing he was apologising for, Grace was still able to offer Arthur a smile. "I don't think you need to apologise," she said. "You said it wasn't even you in there, right? It was just the demon."

«No,» said Arthur. «No, that's the worst part. I still want that. And, now that I'm thinking about it, I think I've wanted that since the first time the Fiend took over. I–I'd never do it now! But when I've laid down to sleep, or when I'm alone, sometimes I've thought about how awful it is to be like this, and then thought about how good it would feel to make someone else like this too. The demon acted on it, but I've felt that before. Truly felt it.»

«Well…are you sure that feeling isn't coming from the Fiend too?» I asked.

«No! It isn't!» Arthur snapped. «Trust me, back then I could tell. The line is fuzzy now, but I know that desire was my own. I mean, I've thought things like that before. I've wished for bad things to happen to others in private, in my own head, even before I became a dragon. I guess we all have, that seems like something that's normal. The only difference is that now I've been tempted to act on it.» His claws clenched into the dirt. «And if I know my self-control's been getting worse, I should be able to police my thoughts better than that.»

"Hey, I don't think that's fair," said Grace.

Arthur pointed an accusatory claw at me. «She saw the same carving, and didn't turn into a demon!» he said. «You saw the exact same one I did, and somehow you're fine. If you can do that, then I should be able to handle my own problems. If I can't, that's my fault. Understand?»

«It's not like you asked to be a dragon,» I pointed out. «You can't blame yourself for struggling with it.»

«I can if me struggling hurts people!» said Arthur. «There's a lot of things we don't ask for in life, Belfry, but we still have to deal with it. I don't get a pass to murder people and turn them into monsters just because I have a rare problem. Like I said, if you can handle it, I can too, I just haven't been able to muster the strength. And if I can't fix it, then I have a responsibility to go somewhere else, where I won't be able to hurt anyone again.»

The group was silent for a moment at that. A stiff, cold wind blew in from the north, and I shivered.

Arthur sniffed. I could tell that he'd be crying if he could. «So I'll just have to figure this out,» he continued. «If I can't, I guess I'll try and find somewhere isolated in the mountains until the rest of you can find a cure. I wouldn't be able to stand myself if I turned again and actually ended up killing someone. Or worse….»

I tried to think of a response, but my head was too muddled to do it. Now I felt like I was the one failing to uphold my responsibility. I couldn't just let him wallow in this hatred of himself; he was a member of the flight, he needed support. But I couldn't come up with anything. He was right that this was dangerous, especially now if the Fiend's influence was strong enough to make him snap and yell at us right now. And saints knew that I'd feel just as bad as he was describing if I was in his position and hurt someone innocent because I lost control.

Several minutes later, I finally found my voice again. «How are you doing, Grace?» I asked. «You seem…concerningly okay.»

"Hm?" she perked up at the mention of her name. "Oh. I'm fine."

I let out a low rumbling sigh. «Okay. I need you to be honest with me please.»

"I am," she said. "Perfectly honest. I'm fine. I don't feel any difference."

«You're lying,» said Arthur. «You got a better look at that rune than I did. And you grew horns! That doesn't just happen!»

Grace rolled her eyes. "Well, obviously. It happened because of the carving. It didn't 'just' happen."

She was teasing. I could sense through the bond that she was just teasing. There wasn't any falsity. None.

«How did you do it?» I asked. «How come you didn't get affected by it at all? Sheer willpower? Was it the Lock?»

Grace shook her head, absently grabbing at her horns, evidently still getting used to them herself. "I don't know," she said. "I…I was definitely affected. There was a part of me that became agitated. Angry." She let out a long breath. "It's hard to describe. The part the carving was messing with, it didn't feel that 'separate' from the rest of me. I was angry, sure, but I get angry sometimes. Right then, I was angry at the vicar for what he did to Arthur, and to all those people in there."

«How?» demanded Arthur. «The Fiend's anger, it's not…it–it isn't that directed. It's just hate, it burns out in every direction. How did you control it like that?»

She held up her hands. "I don't know! It's not like I had time to do a lot of soul searching there on the floor when you were about to murder me. I didn't even think of it as a 'Fiend' in the moment, I didn't know that humans could even have something like that. It was just anger. And I know how to manage my anger!"

«So why the horns?» I asked.

"I don't know that, either," said Grace. "Something in me just 'clicked' when I figured I'd just keep fighting until I got Arthur back. That's when I started glowing. I didn't even notice the horns until afterward." She stood up and tilted her head to flaunt them. "They do look pretty stylish though, don't they?"

I huffed, unamused. «That's not the point,» I said. «They might be a sign of things getting worse. If you notice anything else changing, you have to let the rest of us know immediately, alright? We don't want this problem getting any bigger.»

"Fine," she said, her posture sagging. "I guess."

I stood. The pain came back immediately, but I at least had some energy to go with it. «Come on,» I said. «We've rested long enough. The others are probably worried about us. We shouldn't keep them waiting much longer.»

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"Without! Notice!" Rosalie's words stabbed into my ears like daggers, even though Grace was the one being yelled at. All sense of decorum that she normally wore like a shroud was gone as she vented her frustration. "Do you understand how stupid that was? If you had bothered to tell a single other person, things might not have gone like this!"

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«Or we would have just ended up with more demons,» Arthur mumbled.

Rosalie shot him an icy glare that made even his Fiend-influenced mine look anywhere but at her, cowed. "You don't know that. And you!" She whirled, pointing her finger at me. "If you had just waited instead of going in alone, none of this would have happened in the first place!"

«Believe me,» I said. «I know.»

It had been evening by the time we reached the castle. It was good we got there when we did, because the others were already in the middle of putting together search parties to find us. I didn't have the strength to make it up to our makeshift medical ward, and it was too small for us two dragons to be treated at the same time anyway, so the whole flight had congregated in the grassy courtyard where we'd fallen. As Rosalie continued her admittedly very justified tirade, Emrys administered a third dose of blood tonic in a syringe to my flank. I felt a little loopy from the amount of tonic that I'd taken, but I was still cogent enough to think about my mistake that Rosalie would not let go. At least the pain was starting to fade.

"You say you know, but I don't know that you really do," snarled Rosalie.

«I do,» I insisted.

Rosalie opened her mouth to keep berating me, but Grace called out from across the yard. "Leave it, Rosa!" she said. "I'm her sister. I think she knows."

Grace was sitting in the window of the alchemical lab, her shoulder covered in bandages and her injured arm resting in her lap. She had taken a step back as soon as she was done getting patched up. I could tell she was tired of answering the same questions that Arthur and I had already asked her on the road, and wanted some space. She looked up at the stars popping into existence above us with tired eyes.

Rosalie sighed. "Fine." She shoved her hands into her pockets and marched away to stand closer to Grace. "Such 'leadership'…!" she muttered sarcastically.

I felt a pang of guilt. She was right. This had been a pretty massive failure of leadership on my part. I knew for sure that the best thing I could have done differently was avoid going deeper in the sewers without a team behind me. If I had tried, I might have been able to get around the chasseurs and keep them at bay until the others arrived, and we definitely could have beaten them together.

"The matter is passed," said Emrys. "There isn't any use assigning blame any longer. The best we can do is take what we've learned and make sure to use it well."

"Indeed!" agreed Yura. "The only question now is how to do that."

Griffin had been sitting to the side the entire conversation, their eyes resting worriedly on Arthur. I hadn't had a chance to talk with them about what exactly me jumping in the lake had done to them and Brand, but by the hollow look on their face, it couldn't have been good. «Um…so did Barbosa start the Scourge?» they asked.

"He could have," said Yura. "His home village is infested with it, and filled with the carving that provoked it in the cathedral."

«He definitely didn't,» I said.

"How do you know?" asked Yura.

I paused, before going through my vision from start to finish with the flight. They listened intently, with Emrys apparently deeply invested at the whole story.

«…so his ritual he's preparing for is supposed to contact the blood moon, which he thinks is the Lantern-Light,» I finished. «And from the sound of it, he's going to need a lot of dead people to accomplish it.»

Emrys finally stopped leaning towards me, putting his hand to his chin in thought. "So, if we want to stop the vicar, we need to stop his ritual," he said. "After your stunt in the cathedral, I don't know how many willing sacrifices he'll get."

"He could just slaughter people himself," said Ingo.

"How?" asked Rosalie, her composure returned to her. "Even he does not have the manpower for that. It is not easy to kill half a city's worth of people all at the same time without extensive preparation." After a beat, she held her hands up. "Not that I have experience. It's just logistics."

"Ordinarily, you'd be right," said Emrys. "However, he has been lacing his city with a massive ritual circle for some time now, apparently. Those circles could kill thousands if activated all at once."

"It's simpler than that," argued Ingo. "Magic would need blood. He could just set fire to the Old Quarter. It's packed together and mostly made of wood, and he's been training his flock to think of the people there as worthless."

Yura nodded. "That would also add an extra layer to his plot to corrupt the Pure Serpent, since it might have been able to put out a fire he set."

I sighed, rubbing my head. I wished my headache would just go away already so I could think more clearly about all this. «Okay,» I said, ready to sum up. «So he's planning a ritual to contact some angry "Great Mind" that might be the real source of the Scourge. To do that, he needs to sacrifice a lot of people, which he's probably going to do with fire. As a supplement, he's probably spreading the Scourge for the fiend blood he can harvest from it, which he wants for its power. So we still don't know why he wanted the cathedral taken down.»

«Probably to frame us, like you said,» said Arthur.

"Also to undo that ritual in the foundation," added Emrys. "It would be impossible to determine the purpose of that spell now that the building's caved in, but whatever it was, it was clearly disrupted by fiend blood, which was likely the purpose of turning the people inside in the first place."

"It's probably about that giant fiend in the dungeon," said Ingo. "If it was in the vision, it must be important."

«Should we go back and…do…something with it, then?» asked Griffin. «Before the vicar gets to it?»

«Going there tomorrow would be a death sentence,» I said. «If there's anywhere in the city that'll be swarming with guards, it'll be the cathedral. And the three of us will still be injured.» I drew a circle in the dirt with my claw, hating the sentence I was going to have to say. «We…might need to take some time to recuperate. I'd like to be able to fly again before going somewhere that dangerous.»

«We don't have any time,» said Arthur. «The vicar could start his ritual any day now!»

«That's exactly why we should rest as much as we can now,» I said. «You, and me, and Grace, we're good fighters, and if we exhaust all of our energy every day trying to push this investigation further, then we won't have any left to fight the vicar when the time comes. We don't even know where he is right now. The most important thing to stopping the ritual is finding the Pure Serpent anyway, and we need to wait on the scholars for that.»

"We also need to find a way to fix the three of you," said Rosalie. "Or at least fix Arthur. I can barely feel him right now. If we were to go into battle right now, the two of us would be a burden on the flight. I can't coordinate when I can't hear him. And besides that, he doesn't deserve to live at war with himself like this."

«Yes,» Arthur agreed fervently. «Please.»

Emrys crossed his arms, tapping a finger and closing his eyes to think. "So…you said that there was the feeling that you could 'cut the Fiend' in your vision, Belfry?" he asked.

«Mhm.»

"Hmm…." He paused, holding still in thought until he suddenly spoke again. "The 'lake' you entered, it may have done more than grant you a vision. It may have in fact transported you to the realm of spirits."

I stared. «…What?»

"Spirits dwell partially in a realm parallel to ours," said Emrys. "Their home is said to be dreamlike, as though the manifestation of the mind. Some even believe that that is where we wander when we do dream. Perhaps, though, if it has a connection to the mind, then the thread between the two 'selves' of you dragons would become something physical, that could be broken. If that were the case, all we would need to do to free you of your fiendishness would be to take you to the realm of spirits and sever the link."

«That seems complicated,» I said. «The time I did it before needed me to jump into a magic lake that almost killed me, and made all of our problems worse on top of that. I think if we could get back to that lake easily, then we wouldn't really be in such a bad position right now.»

«It's not like "portal" is a common trait of lakes,» agreed Arthur.

"Oh, on the contrary!" said Emrys. "Bodies of deep water are specifically associated with these kinds of thresholds. In fact, I used to collect tales of such places. Now if only I had brought that collection with me, I could cross-reference right now, but I do believe there is another well-known site in the vale that possesses a history auspicious enough to have the same properties as this 'Mare Nocturn'. I just need to check and make sure, and perhaps find some directions to where it lays." He glanced up at the sky. "But that will unfortunately have to wait until tomorrow. Thankfully, if the guards are going to be all over the cathedral for a while, it should be easy to slip in just for a book or two."

«Maybe,» I said. «Just don't go in alone.»

"He won't," said Rosalie, glaring at the prince.

"I certainly will not," he agreed. "I'd rather not have a simple outing to a library turn into another debacle like today."

I looked down at the ground. I was tired of feeling guilty. Maybe, then, I should really focus on not doing anything worth feeling guilt over again.

Emrys helped me give myself one more check before the flight went to bed. Despite the healing of the tonic, standing up from where I laid still hurt far too badly for me to make it back to my room. So, as the others went inside, I elected to lay out in the yard for the night, watching the stars twist overhead, and wondering what the sky would look like with a third, red moon.

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I was woken up in the small hours by the sound of quiet tapping at the gate. I hadn't fallen asleep directly in front of the entrance to the castle, instead having dragged myself around the low wall next to the ruined stables for some privacy. I couldn't see what was making the sound, but once I registered that I was actually awake, my heart jumped into my throat. Had the vicar sent lackeys to finish us off?

It wasn't fully light out yet. The glow of the sun was only just beginning to illuminate the eastern sky, and the stars were mostly still twinkling above. I doubted anyone else was awake yet.

I slowly pushed myself to my feet, wincing at the aching pain induced by the motion, and craned my neck over the wall to see who had come.

It was a pair of people, both in long white gowns that were mildly stained from their journey. One of them I recognised after a moment as the woman who had worked at Kyrie's clinic as an assistant. Elizabeth, her name was. The other couldn't be seen fully, with their upper body covered by a long white cloth. They could have been another assistant, or maybe Kyrie themself, with the length they were going to to obscure themself.

I tentatively stepped out from around the wall. The obscured person jumped when I came into clear view, but rapidly composed themself. Elizabeth gave a curt bow beside them.

"Hello, sir dragoon," she said. "We apologise for the hour at which we are disturbing you."

«No need to be so formal,» I said. «Though, I think you just have me unless it's an emergency. The others aren't awake yet. What's going on?»

Elizabeth moved to speak, but before she could, the covered figure stepped a little closer. "We need shelter," they said. Their voice definitively identified them as Kyrie. "My clinic—there was, ah…."

When their voice gave out from anxiety, Elizabeth picked up the thread. "There was an accident," she said. "With all the commotion today, there was a slip-up that revealed Kyrie's condition to the guards. They didn't take it well. It isn't safe for us in the city anymore."

I could see Kyrie surveying the castle grounds from beneath their covering, although it was still too dark for anyone without my night vision to get the full scope of things. "I see that this place isn't in the best condition," they said. "I'm okay with poor accommodation. As long as we aren't going to get killed in the middle of the night by chasseurs."

"I am as well," said Elizabeth.

I took a long breath. We had some spare room left, but with the whole flight, plus Samson and now Walter, I was starting to get concerned that we'd run out of space for refugees. Still, they were refugees. We couldn't just turn them away.

«Find some place to settle down, then,» I said, stepping a side and gesturing with a wing to the yard. «Hopefully we can give you somewhere safer than your home is.»

"Thank you," said Kyrie. "Thank you so much. Is there any way that we can repay you? I don't want us three to be a burden on you and your compatriots."

«If you want to repay us, the best you can do is be ready to help with medicine,» I said. «We come back injured too often. Plus, if any more people come here for shelter, it'd be good to have your help in healing any injuries or disease they might be bringing with them. If we're going to be hosting the people Barbosa is endangering, I'd rather there not be an outbreak of some kind that hurts them all anyway.» I furrowed my brow, only then registering the last thing they said. «Also—three?»

"Yes," said Kyrie. "A patient came with us. After today, she didn't have anywhere else to go, and was in just as much danger from the guard as we were."

The two of them moved aside, revealing the girl from the cathedral. Her legs were still obviously wounded, but she was able to stand with the help of two wooden crutches. She gave a nervous smile.

"Hi again," she said quietly. "Thank you for letting us stay here."

I knelt down to her eye level. She couldn't have been older than eleven. Far, far too young to have her world shattered like this. It reminded me of the fire in Vandermaine, when I was around her age. I felt a gut-wrenching sorrow deep in my soul that I was able to relate to her in that way. It was unfair.

«Of course,» I said. «You'll be safe here. I'll make sure of it.» I tilted my head. «What's your name?»

"Maria."

I gave a thin smile. She didn't seem to mind how it revealed my fangs. «It's nice to really meet you, Maria.»

She nodded. Her eyes darted around before she retreated back behind Kyrie. I couldn't blame her for being stressed and nervous after the day she'd had.

"Thank you again," said Kyrie, as they and the others made their way towards the other side of the yard.

I gave them another smile and a nod as they went. Once they were gone, though, I felt a wave of melancholy come over me at the whole interaction, and I couldn't help but wonder if I failed Maria. What could I have done different that would have spared her a life like this?

It was a painful line of thinking, and one that didn't have any real answers. There were a lot of ways for the world to be different, but I couldn't explore any of them anymore, only imagine them. All that could be done now was make sure that she didn't turn out like me.

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