"I'll be keeping this," Celeste said, slipping the Babelic Fashion Trends volume under her arm as though it were a cherished letter.
"I'm sure the Baron won't mind," Yvain replied dryly, letting the door to the library swing shut behind them. "He strikes me as the generous type. Especially when he's drunk on flattery."
Their steps echoed softly as they descended the grand staircase. The party's distant hum grew louder with every level they passed. Near the second landing, Yvain's eyes snagged on a large, dust-dulled portrait hanging in a shadowed recess of the hallway.
It was a stern-looking man, square of jaw, thickly mustached, dressed in ceremonial armor ill-fitted for actual war. His eyes, rendered in murky oils, seemed to follow them. There was a harshness in the way the artist had captured the lines around his mouth, the bitterness of someone denied glory but still drunk on the idea of legacy.
"His father?" Celeste guessed, noting the direction of Yvain's stare.
"Or his grandfather," he murmured. "Whoever he was, the Baron is lucky to have inherited only the fondness for theatrics."
She looked again and nodded. "A face that enjoyed pronouncements and punishments."
Yvain didn't respond. He merely turned and continued downward, but the feeling clung to him like wet velvet.
When they reached the main floor, the banquet had reached a livelier stage. Music swelled, glasses clinked, and laughter rolled in uneven waves across the open ballroom. But the main spectacle was center-stage, a troupe of jesters and clowns performing acrobatics and juggler's feats for the nobles' amusement.
It took Yvain only a moment to find him.
"There he is," he said under his breath, angling his chin subtly toward the performers.
Seskel stood among the troupe, indistinguishable to most but unmistakable to them. The milk-white face paint was his signature, but tonight he'd added a grotesque flourish: a wide red smile painted from cheek to cheek, almost garish in its cheer. He wore the motley like the others, patched colors and ridiculous ribbons.
"A man of many talents," Celeste murmured beside him, folding her arms as she watched the eggs spin with balance.
"So it would seem," Yvain replied.
She tilted her head, eyes still on the conjurer. "Makes for a longer tombstone."
Yvain smirked faintly, though his jaw remained tight.
The performance ended in a flurry of applause and wine-stained laughter. While Celeste kept her place near the noble gathering, Yvain slipped away, ghosting through the crowd with practiced ease.
He found Seskel not far from the fringes of the main hall, still clad in his gaudy jester's garb, bells, ribbons, and all. He was sipping something dark from a chipped goblet, speaking animatedly to a minor lord who looked unsure whether he was being mocked.
Seskel's eyes found Yvain before the lord had even turned away. "Ah!" he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide in theatrical glee. "What a marvelous surprise! For a heartbeat, I feared you'd rejected my gracious invitation. My poor heart nearly cracked beneath the greasepaint."
Yvain stopped a few paces away. "That offer is still being considered."
Seskel placed a hand to his chest and pulled a face of exaggerated sorrow. "Well, a promise is a promise, and I did say I'd show you something diverting. Come along."
"To where?"
"To the source of our knightly obsession," he said with a wink. "I assure you, it's worth the trouble."
Without waiting for approval, Seskel turned and led the way through a servant's hallway, slipping past gossipy stewards and cookfires that breathed spice and smoke. The kitchen staff didn't seem to notice the clown and the cloaked stranger passing through.
They emerged into the cold night again through a side door that opened to a narrow courtyard. Crickets hummed in the distance. Then Seskel led them down stone steps to a heavy door embedded in the manor's foundation.
The cellar was cold and damp, filled with the scents of aged wood and old wine. Shadows clung to the corners like dust mites. Yvain walked carefully, half-trusting the madman's path.
"For all his pomp and puffery, the Baron's bloodline does bear the faintest whisper of power," Seskel said conversationally as he meandered between stacked barrels and shelves. "Long ago, of course. Broken and forgotten now. But once—ah, once—they had some measure of dignity. A thread, if you will."
"I find that difficult to believe," Yvain replied, eyeing a crate of ornamental wine bottles. "The man reeks of perfume and fried pork."
"And his tastes are appalling," Seskel agreed. "Belgrade, though—his grandfather—was a different breed. Vain, yes, but obsessed with reclaiming a legacy that had long since died. He bought relics, scrolls, cursed heirlooms, and employed at least four false magi in his time. None of his heirs inherited even the faintest spark."
"A waste," Yvain muttered.
Seskel stopped beside a row of dusty shelves near the back wall. He ran his hands along the stone surface, humming as he did. Then, with a push and a faint click, a section of shelving groaned open.
Behind it was a narrow stone passage, carved deeper into the earth.
Seskel produced a small iron lantern from his coat, its greenish flame already flickering inside. "Careful now," he said, grinning wide. "This is where things become compelling."
Yvain didn't move. "Is this where you lure all your victims?" he asked flatly.
Seskel chuckled. "Only the interesting ones."
Yvain took a breath, then stepped into the tunnel. The stone swallowed the light, and the air grew colder with each step forward.
As they trudged deeper into the passage, the air grew thick with damp rot, and their footsteps echoed dully along the stone corridor.
Yvain broke the silence. "What exactly is down here?"
Seskel cast a sidelong glance at him, eyes gleaming in the lantern's pale green glow. "You know that saying—play by the river long enough, and eventually, you'll get wet."
Yvain arched a brow. "That's not quite how it goes."
"Semantics," Seskel waved him off. "The point is: the old baron got wet. Paid handsomely for a relic he didn't understand. Thought he was buying power. Ended up with something... else. A wraith."
Yvain's voice tightened. "You didn't drag me all this way for some sad little wraith, did you?"
Seskel said nothing at first. He quickened his pace, the lanternlight bouncing madly against rough stone. They passed rusted chains embedded in the walls and old sigils half-erased by moisture and time. Then the corridor opened into a wide, circular chamber, its walls streaked with veins of black quartz and dead vines.
At the center lay a stone coffin, ancient and sealed, yet pulsing with a fetid presence. The air around it warped faintly, and Yvain felt the pressure of magic long steeped in rot.
Seskel gestured toward it, almost reverently. "Not just a wraith, my friend. A lich. Nearing completion."
Yvain stepped forward, letting his senses reach out cautiously. The aura it gave off was vile—neither alive nor dead, but becoming. It was saturated with death essence, thick as tar. He frowned. "It's been absorbing aura for years… decades even."
Seskel nodded. "It's practically ripe."
"And this… has something to do with Ser Hardron?"
"Indirectly," Seskel said. "He's been down here, through another passage, of course. Didn't report it."
Yvain narrowed his eyes. "Why not?"
A wicked grin spread across Seskel's pale-painted face. "Because if you destroy a lich that no one's heard of, you get a thank-you letter. Maybe some daisies if they're feeling generous. But…"
He leaned in close, his breath sweet with wine.
"...if you wait until it rises, razes half a city, and turns an abbey into a cathedral of bones—well, then you get medals, parades, songs sung in your name. Roses, Yvain. Crimson ones."
Yvain stared at the coffin, its foul presence crawling beneath his skin like a sickness. His pulse held steady, but his mind raced with possibilities, calculations, and the weight of the threat before him.
"He can't take a lich," he murmured.
"Not alone," Seskel agreed, stepping closer to the stone sarcophagus. "But his company arrives in a week or two. With them, he might just manage it."
Yvain's gaze didn't waver. "So why tell me any of this?"
Seskel turned, the false mirth gone from his painted face. "Because you won't be telling anyone else."
"And why is that?"
The jester's smile returned—tight, joyless. "You see, Yvain, the thing sealed in that coffin is more than some failed wight. It stands on the brink of true undeath. All it needs is a nudge, just a final breath, a strong one." His voice dropped, almost reverent. "Say… a powerful mage dies near it. The Breath. The aura. That would do it."
"Charming," Yvain muttered, shaking his head. "So much for that invitation to the Silent Choir. I was honestly considering it. I hear the fourteenth seat's vacant."
Seskel's brow twitched. "You didn't even know what the Choir was two days ago."
"True," Yvain admitted, his tone shifting to something colder. "But by this time tomorrow, the entire continent will know. Your Choir will be very famous, when the papers print your name among the dead."
Seskel's painted smile twitched, his hand drifting behind his back.
Yvain stepped forward, voice quiet, resolute. "Now come, let us decide whether to kill you quickly or let you scream a little."