The fact he was uncomfortable was unmistakable so I decided to cut through that reluctance and get to the point. “When the Fall began, the Lords from the southern frontier lands were called in the homewood’s defense. Lord Cahir answered that call and fell, as far as I’m aware, defending the Homewood. The remainder of the Glade’s forces spent themselves fighting a delaying action at Annesport.” As I drew in a short breath to steady myself, a phantom feeling of betrayal welled up in me. When I spoke again, it was with far more cold menace than I’d intended, and the tinkling of a tiny church bell danced just on the edge of my perception. “Did Lord Selyn not receive a summons as well?”

  Cathal sucked air through his teeth as he grimaced. “Not that someone as unimportant as myself would know for certain, but it’s my understanding the edict was a point of disagreement between Lord Selyn and my former masters.”

  What? With the sinking suspicion I’d only dipped my toe into the fuckening earlier, I tried to avoid gritting my teeth. “Did I hear you correctly? One generally does not have disagreements with the House, much less refuse a royal edict, Cathal.”

  The elf nervously nodded. “I am aware. Those sorts of decisions tend to be of a rather terminal sort.”

  Or as we’d say back in the Army, not a career-enhancing decision. I sipped my tea, hoping it would thaw some of the ice forming in my gut. “And yet Lord Selyn somehow avoided that fate.”

  “He did. He justified his decision by stating he couldn’t muster his army fast enough to make a meaningful contribution to the homewood’s defense. If I might be allowed to offer my opinion?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, a month earlier, there had been a hobgoblin host rampaging on Longreach’s southern border. Most of the Lord’s forces were still returning to their homes. Stocks hadn’t been replenished yet. By the time the Lord’s forces had mustered, we got word of Cahir’s fall, so Selyn wasn’t exactly wrong.”

  I blinked. Something seemed off about the degree of obsequiousness. How would a simple associate have access to this facility after it’d been abandoned? How would a low-level associate be aware of half of this? No. There’s no way.

  I didn’t bother to temper the irritation in my voice. “Cathal, enough with the bullshit. You weren’t a low-level associate. If you were, you wouldn’t know half the shit you do. I might not know many members of the House, but Aine and Cailleach aren’t nearly this fucking sloppy.”

  Cathal froze in place. “Are they who swore you in? What about their senior?”

  A distant memory flashed through my head, the discussion I had with the twins about the House’s pursuit of gunpowder. “Which one? Keefe or Torin?”

  A slow smile grew on Cathal’s face as he visibly sagged with relief. “Oh, thank the Lady. Here I was worrying I’d have to kill the man who saved me.”

  I resisted the urge to squint at the elf as it dawned on me I’d just passed a test. “Trust but verify.”

  Cathal nodded. “You have to understand, Samuel, in my day we only ever used humans as low-level associates. Messengers, cats paws, mostly. The particularly bright had to earn the trust we gave them.”

  Suspecting I was now somewhere ankle deep in the fuckening, I distracted myself with more tea. “So what was your actual role here?”

  “Designated stay-behind for Longreach stationhouse, though you have no reason to know what that means. Stay-behinds aren’t officially assigned to any station. It’s usually a retirement position or a reward, a vacation really, for a job well done.”

  “Huh.” I took another sip. “Like a Professor Emeritus title.”

  Cathal grinned. “Yes, exactly like that.”

  A thought occurred to me and I eyed the tea. “This isn’t poisoned is it?”

  The elf barked a sharp laugh. “Oh gods, no. If it was, I would’ve made sure the guard captain kept it. I was telling the truth about saving it for a special occasion. Things here are much worse than you know, probably worse than Keefe or Torin knows. Speaking of which—”

  “They’re dead,” I interrupted flatly. “Died at Annesport along with the rest of the column, other than the twins.”

  Cathal blinked a few times before his eyes fell to his tea. A heartbeat later he slowly lifted the cup to his lips. “Like sand through a sieve, so our lives flow when the Bell rings.”

  After a few quiet moments, he looked up at me. “Well, that explains why no one showed up until now, I suppose. Sooner or later, it’s going to occur to you to ask about the lights, and no, I can’t use them. Stay-behinds are excluded from access to ensure no trace of their touch can be found on the enchantments. That, and if they’re somehow suspected, they can’t be forced to provide proof they’re with the House. Considering we’re well past such precautions, I’d appreciate it if we fixed that, soon. I can show you how.”

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  I demurred by draining the rest of my cup. After setting it on the table, I commented, “So you don’t look nearly old enough to retire. What’d you do to get assigned here?”

  “There was a particularly troublesome cult in the far north. There isn’t anymore.”

  “Ah, much like the Trickster cult Aine and Cailleach cleared out,” I noted while Cathal refilled our cups.

  “The same cult, actually. The home sect, though. So, you have the right of things in that Selyn refused the edict. At the time, his reasoning was sound. It wasn’t until our agents started disappearing that we suspected the problem was more than political. We sent for aid from the nearest stationhouse, but then the Infested started showing up. Instead of marching on the Homewood, Selyn defended the river crossings and kept them on the far side of the river.”

  I stared at the elf while retrieving my cup. “How? They should’ve been on both sides.”

  “Before any significant number could cross, the bridges farther down were burned. Their advance was contained to the far bank. Numerous as they were, remarkably few made it past the war golem platoon.”

  I breathed in slowly, eyes closed, and fought off a deep sigh. “War golem platoon?”

  “Aye. Recent invention. Nasty things, but there’s only the one left to worry about now, though I doubt the two of us could do much to it even as damaged as it is.”

  I looked up. “If they’re that tough, what happened to the rest?”

  Cathal shrugged. “One fell at the river crossing north of here. Then there’s the ones that fell fighting where the rift is now. Other than the one still active, the rest had issues replenishing their cores, so they’re technically not destroyed.”

  “Just offline,” I added with an unamused frown. “What’s up with this rift?”

  Cathal sighed and finished off his tea. While he poured more, he answered, “I wasn’t there to see it happen, but I’ve talked to witnesses, civilians and a few soldiers. They all swore something enormous flew over the river and landed in the warehouse district. Some claimed it was a dragon, others a dragon-sized griffon.”

  I pursed my lips as I eyed my tea. “A dragon-sized griffon?”

  “To be fair, the closest survivor was about a block away, but he swore it had the head and feet of a griffon, scales like a dragon, and stood as tall as one of the warehouses. At any rate, the golem depot wasn’t far from where it landed so the response was quite quick.”

  “Let me guess, long valiant fight, golems pull out a win at the last second?”

  The elf’s eyes rested on me as his lips twitched. The words that followed were cold, almost emotionless. “No. They were completely ineffective. Their ranged spells simply dissolved mid-air and the three golems that managed to close in evidently shut down when they crossed some threshold distance.”

  I blinked. “Oh. Well shit.”

  Cathal nodded gravely. “That is the correct response. Whatever it was seemed to be able to drink magic straight out of the air, even focused spellforms. This would be less concerning if the House wasn’t supposed to be the only organization with that sort of capability.”

  “So considering the creature isn’t still rampaging around, that implies something killed it.”

  The elf grinned, leaned forward, and poured more water in the pot. After placing the strainer with the used leaves back inside, he noted, “Second steep for this blend tends to be better than the first.”

  Somewhat annoyed by the delay, I pushed the point. “So what killed it?”

  Cathal shrugged. “Honestly, nobody knows. One second, it’s demolishing half the district to get at the golems and the next second the entire district erupts in lightning from every surface. Every magic sensitive within three blocks went into convulsions and promptly died. Some ninety souls in total. Blood leaking out of ears, eyes, nose, and mouth; signs of burns to the same. That by itself would be a rather curious event on its own if the lightning storm hadn’t produced the rift at its origin. It is, as far as I can tell, a literal fracture in reality.”

  Trying to wrap my head around what was just said only produced a grimace. “Wait, you’re saying something punched a hole in reality where this thing was rampaging?”

  The elf chuckled darkly as he retrieved the plate of snacks. As he held it out to me, the smile gracing his face held no joy. “Try one. I believe you’ll enjoy the flavor. Humans tend to be fonder of sweets, on the whole, than us.”

  Without taking my eyes off the man’s face, I reached out and lifted the nearest off the plate. The crust cracked almost immediately, revealing a thick red filling underneath. Okay, so, not crackers. More like an elven pop-tart.

  As I bit into the surprisingly flaky outer shell, Cathal spoke. “The filling is a mix of fruits. I’ll apologize if the flavor is a bit off, they’ve been in storage for quite some time. Enchantments can only do so much for so long. To answer your question, I’m more than saying it happened. I’ve been there, been inside the rift, and explored some of the ways within.”

  Instead of asking the questions popping into my head, I settled on chewing. The pastry’s primary flavor was certainly sugar, but I caught hints of cherry, strawberry, and something else that eluded me until a feeble burn showed up. The Syr are certainly fond of Kain fruit.

  “That was about the time a new wave of the Infested showed up, this time from the south. They’d evidently found a shallow between here and Annesport,” Cathal noted while spooning sugar into his cup. He removed the strainer from the pot and glanced over at me. “Half the city was on fire before Selyn’s forces contained the attack. More tea?”

  I held out my cup. “Sure.”

  Once my cup was full, Cathal sat back with a wistful look on his face. “I really am thankful for your patience. I’ve spent the last fifty years pretending to be someone else. It gets rather trying after a while.”

  Leaning forward to grab another pastry, I acknowledged the comment with a nod. “I bet.”

  “Right, well, at any rate, Selyn locked down the district and then eventually the rest of the city. This was about the time the last of my contacts here went dark. Clerical magic stopped working roughly then, as well.”

  I shot the man a disbelieving stare. “I guess that explains why you thought the gods were dead, then.”

  He nodded. “It seemed better proof than proclamation Selyn issued shortly after, that our neighbors had fallen and we were beset on all sides by a newly hostile world. Then refugees came from the surrounding countryside, but there weren’t many. They all spoke of sudden attacks from rampaging beasts, groups of monsters that appeared from nowhere. Even the neighboring sprites had turned hostile.”

  The elf eyed me when I breathed in sharply through my teeth.

  “Yeah, about that, Cathal. I had some sprite-related complications on the way here. Wood sprites? Dryads? I don’t know what you call them, but they hit me with some weird compulsion. I woke up in their camp.”

  Cathal’s face tightened with subtle shock. “How did you survive unscathed? They usually— well, do things.”