Fern had no idea where she was going as she stormed out the front of the marine library, other than 'away'. The door boomed shut behind her, a little deyed, and she looked back to see Bernie following her.

  "And why are you here?" she growled, her mood already foul enough and not feeling likely to improve.

  The bodyguard spread his hands in a ciliatesture as he approached, slowing and keeping a respectful distanbsp; "Not my choice, but you're still my first priority. 't disobey my orders, y'know."

  The reminder of what Ravenna had doo him sent a tiny jab of tension into her head, and she sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Just don't try to stop me."

  "Wasn't pnning on it, ma'am."

  They walked east, back dowh the group had taken inally. It was a lot less enting the sed time around thanks to the gloomy thoughts swirling in Fern's head, and she nearly stumbled a few times until she started actively using the dark to ease her hasty steps.

  "All this time I never even knew. I must look like a plete fool," she spat suddenly, hopping over a ledge and cutting across one winding loop directly to the path below. "Couldn't even see who was standing right o me. I should've smelled my own blood on you."

  Bernie said nothing, just grunted a little as he nded a few moments after she did.

  "... Sorry," Fern added after a moment, a little less harshly, as her pace began to slow. "I'm all ed up in my own problems, I 't imagine what the experience is like on your end."

  The bodyguard scratched his neck lightly. "Mm, holy, not as bad as you might think. For someone who said she'd be less merciful than the guild, yreen-eyed dy hasn't really done anything to me, free will aside. And it's not like the guild let me do whatever I wanted, either; they just didn't enforce it in quite the same way."

  She exhaled quietly. "... Still don't like it."

  "Yeah... I get it." Bernie shrugged. "Just sayin'. There are worse things out there, I guess."

  Fern sighed. "Not something I particurly want to think about."

  The bodyguard held his peace for a moment, the out his owh. "Look, Miz Skysh - I hate to be the oo break it to you, but maybe you should be thinking about it, sidering the pany you keep, yeah? You seem a little green to me, but those two dies - hells, they make me shiver, and I ain't no coward. They're niough, don't get me wrong, but uh... they've seen a lot of the world, you know? Did you think it was gonna be all cakes an' dy if you kept hanging around 'em?"

  The question smmed into her heart like the pommel of the practice sword Crimson always used iraining. No wound, just pain. What had she expected, anyway? Ravenna was a dark mage, and half-vampire at that. Why did it surprise her that she would actually use those abilities? If anything, it was a miracle she hadn't done worse before now.

  Or maybe you just haven't been watg her at the right time, the thought came, chilling her even more. All the while she's been cozying up to you and making you nid fortable, and you hought to ask what she to while you had your nose in a book. What do you even really know about her, in the end, other than the few things she's disclosed?

  you really say you trust her?

  "I trust her not to hurt me, directly at least," Fern grumbled, in respoo her own internal monologue. "That's funny, though, I'd have thought she would - I dunno, forbid you from saying bad things about her."

  Bernie chuckled quietly, though there wasn't all that much humor in it. "My words are pretty free, for the most part. Miz Grace made sure of that mubsp; Apparently she's got a good bit of experience dealing with people who got their minds all locked up for one reason or another."

  She really didn't like the sound of that. "And what do you think of her, then?"

  He held off answering for a moment to hop down another ledge. "Miz Grace is somethin' else. Dunno if they just make 'em like that in the west or what, but she's tough as nails, even though she doesn't look it on the surfabsp; Wouldn't call it a mean streak exactly, but you know how some people got steel in 'em? Well, Miz Grace seems like she's just made of the stuff entirely, stem to stern. If she even has a oint, I couldn't imagine what it is."

  Fern pohis as she tinued making her way down and occasionally across the winding path, and before they eown, decided to swerve left and onto the beaderh the cliffs. It wasn't a particurly notable or sic spot, but it rivate, and that was all she cared abht now. The docks and the ships around them were far enough away that no one would e this way without her seeing them from a distance - or, well, Bernie would probably be watg. She didn't feel particurly vigint at the moment.

  "Was I wrong to run out like I did, do you think?" she asked quietly, after a while. "To run away?"

  He shrugged while gng around the area, just as she knew he would. "Not my pce to say. Everyone's got their own limits on what they handle, y'know? I ain't gonna tell you to be harder or stop hurting or whatever you got goin' on. I don't know your story any more than you know mine, after all."

  Fern blihen found her smile, at least a small one. "For a hired killer, you're not that bad of a guy, Bernie."

  "Aw, thanks, ma'am. Ain't often I get words like that, least of all from someone I had a job on."

  Ravenna didn't quite burst out the front door, but she definitely pushed it open with more force than normal, lightly catg it with a touch of darkness before it smmed shut so it would be a little quieter. And then she paused.

  What am I going to say to her, anyway? What even is the pn here?

  Grimag slightly, she took a moment to cast her senses out, spotting Bernie's aether first, then Fern's; making their way back the way they'd e, it seemed. Well, that was fi least they'd be hard to miss. But the question remained.

  I 't exactly tell her 'you knew what I was when you agreed to be my partner', because obviously some part of it didn't register, she mused, beginning to walk dowhway, not even really seeing it. Fern's too i. She didn't expect me to have done what I did; she thinks I'm... hat I'm a good person. Gods, I'm trying to be, too! If not for her...

  The dark mage wound her way around the curves, taking the steps mindlessly, ed up in her own anxious thoughts. Maybe I should tell her more about the way I used to be, so she knows. I've only told her my fun aertaining tales so far, but if I expin the rest of it, tell her how much better I am because of her... Are the woing to be enough? What do I have to do? Is any of it going to work at all?

  Ohing was certain, she couldn't keep Bernie around. Releasing a Bloodservant - safely - rocess she never imagined she'd o figure out, but it seemed like she wouldn't have a choi the matter if she wao patch things up with Fern (and she did, of course, that wasn't even iion). She'd probably need Ember's help again, just to make sure the 'bodyguard' didn't suffer any sting damage - well, any more than he already had.

  It galled Ravenna a little knowing she'd be even further ied to that woman, but she could hardly deny the almost miraculous skill in her possession. Seeing Berransformed body was ohing; hearing him talk, normally, casually, like her ironcd trol was hardly there - for someone who didn't even wield aether, it was a staggering dispy of mastery, one she could hardly prehend. Simply calling it a western tradition of medie and leaving it at that, without further exploration, was absolutely antithetical to who she was internally. She had to know more. She couldn't let it go.

  As she rounded another er of the path, a faint buzzing disrupted her thoughts. Hrm, that was odd; nothing around here should be making that noise.

  It grew louder, and she stopped. Then darted off the path into the grass, just in time to dodge something that would have otherwise rammed into her at high speed. She tried to turn and look at where it went, but it was already barely a dot, fading from view.

  Another buzz, suddenly, loud. Ravenna didn't have time to think about what they were or where they came from or why; she expanded her whirling shell of darkness in the space of a blink and started dang, springy circutions boostieps. The ohat tried to sm into her body got snagged ever so slightly, slowed and tugged to one side, and all she had to do was weave a little. And this time, she actually saw the thing, before it burst out the other side of her shell and buzzed off.

  It... was something like a rge , if she had to put a single word to the glittering blur, with delicate wings and a fat body and what looked like a pierg stinger. But it wasn't quite the same shape; the other, non-pointy end had a round, ft end, looking like it was built for impag... something. Me, if I don't move fast enough, she thought with increasing as another buzz sounded from a different angle.

  The things were obviously artificial; she couldn't sense a speck of aether i all, which spoke to either finely crafted and shielded artifacts, or - yet again - something out of the west. But Ember wasn't here to crify matters this time, and her own knowledge didend that far. If she wanted answers, she'd have to seize them for herself - but they were just so fast, and this was the middle of the day, when she was at her very weakest. And not a shadow to be seeher, out here on the rocks and grass. Any other time or pce, she could have swatted these damn things from the sky, torn them open - but someone knew precisely what they were doing, to take her on now, at this particur moment, right here.

  The realization chilled her. She had to act fast, or she wouldn't be able to act at all.

  But Ravenna's options were wretchedly few. She was stuck halfway between the library and the port, too far from either oo burst her way there with aether - judging from the speed of these things, at least. The treeline in the distance was likewise too far to safely reach, and behind her were the limestone cliffs and a short fall into the o - or possibly onto the rocks. If she could make it there, it might be her best option - uhe cursed things could fun uer as well, in which case she'd be pletely at their mercy.

  All these thoughts passed through her mind in a flurry of mental calcutions, and she risked another instant to pulse her whirling shell of darkness outward, making it a little rger, spreading the aether a little more thinly. It wouldn't pull quite so hard, but it would give her a moment more advance warning whehings tried to ram her from one angle or another - and that, hopefully, would be all the edge she needed. It was all she could spare right now; any more and she would be too draio resist at all.

  Well... she did have a few safety measures in reserve, of course. But revealing those now, without even knowing who she was fag, seemed unwise; and if she was being perfectly ho...

  Taking out some frustrations ohings seemed an awfully attractive prospect.