They say a Blood Baron can wipe his ass with a gold coin and still have enough wealth to buy the mill that minted it, the land it was built on, and the bastard who forged it. Their children drink wine older than Bharncair’s oldest graves, their whores wear pearls worth more than a working man’s life, and their dogs eat better than most families. You could slit a Baron’s throat and drown in the silver that spills out before the blood even starts to flow.

  But no matter how much gold lines their pockets, their hearts still beat red, and their guts still rot like the rest of us.

  No survivors. All barons must bleed.

  – From ‘A Drunkard’s Gospel, Foolish Revolt’, Scribed on a tavern wall in Blacklung Alley, Blightmarch

  Nobody told Gael that the chain would be a complete bitch to untangle after a fight.

  The three of them spent the whole damn night fumbling through the wreckage of the mansion, dragging themselves over splintered tables, through shattered glass, and around mounds of rubble. Somewhere between the banquet hall and the third floor bedroom, Gael and Maeve had managed to loop their chain around countless tough furniture, and Cara—ever the helpful, reasonable, bossy older sister—nearly dislocated their shoulders over a dozen times trying to yank it free from whatever it was coiled around at the time.

  By the time they finally made it back to the banquet hall, their feet dragging, their patience shot, and their sanity hanging by a thread, the sun was already rising.

  Murky light spilled through the stained-glass windows, turning the mess of blood and broken furniture in the hall into something almost pretty. Gael swayed slightly where he stood, exhausted beyond belief, and rubbed at his eyes. His hands were still sticky with drying blood—his own, Old Banks’, the Myrmur’s. Hard to tell at this point.

  I need a fucking drink is what I need.

  Maeve, just as dead-eyed as he was, looked down at their mercifully untangled chain. Then she looked at Old Banks, who was still kneeling, still unmoving before the Myrmur carcass he’d ripped the head off of.

  She let out a small, sleep-deprived breath.

  “Maybe we should rob a different old man,” she mumbled.

  Gael sniffled as he downed the rest of his bottle of 52% alcohol, glancing around at the devastation. Tables overturned, the banquet ruined, the floor littered with shattered glass shards and streaks of blood.

  He sighed reluctantly. “Yeah.”

  No point in sticking around. He’d found the vault earlier, and there hadn’t been any riches worth taking anyway—just ledgers, documents, and a couple of heirlooms that probably meant a lot to some dead highborn but weren’t worth much by themselves. Nothing particularly useful. Nothing really worth ten thousand Marks, or worth the trouble trying to pawn off.

  So the three of them turned to leave, moving quietly towards the front door and ready to slip out before the old man could decide to make them pay for the mess—

  “Wait.”

  Gael froze.

  So did Maeve. So did Cara.

  They turned, slow and careful, as Old Banks rose to his feet behind them. His movements were stiff. Exhausted. But his calm brown eyes—clearer now than they’d been the night before—locked onto them.

  Gael flashed a quick, easy grin. The kind that’d gotten him out of executions before. “Oh, how do you do, old sir? We just heard some noise from out there and came over to check if things were going well! If you don’t want us here, we can just vacate the premises, no trouble at all—”

  Old Banks clicked his tongue. “I’m sick and weak, boy. Not senile,” he grumbled. “I remember perfectly well what happened last night.”

  Gael barely kept from sighing. So much for an easy exit.

  Well, just gotta knock him out and make a break for it.

  Shouldn’t… be so hard…

  His thoughts trailed off, though, as he watched the old man bend down and pick something up from the ground: a small vial, still half-full with a sloshing red liquid, alongside a flower-braided cord.

  “What are these?” Old Banks asked.

  “... A diagnosis, mostly,” Gael replied, scratching the back of his head.

  Old Banks frowned.

  Gael gestured vaguely up and down the old man. "I’ve been told that weak Grave-Class and Wretch-Class Myrmurs only choose to parasitize people who’re already weak and sickly to begin with, which means you—” he pointed at Old Banks’ chest “—were already sick with something before it jumped to you."

  The old man narrowed his eyes. Gael tilted his head left and right, took another good look at the old man, then clicked his tongue. “Mhm. Thought so. You’ve got Breathrot.”

  Silence.

  Old Banks’ face didn’t move, but something in the air shifted.

  “What?” the old man asked.

  Gael stretched his arms over his head, groaning as he did. “It’s a pretty common ailment among highborns who come down from Vharnveil and stick around too long. Breathe in Bharncair’s air for an extended period, and your body will turn on itself. The Vile’s not just a poisonous mist you can tough through like most of you silver-tongued folk think you can. It’s a whole damn ecosystem of airborne curses, fungal spores, and volatile compounds. Now, we locals are born in the Vile, so we’ve built up resistance over time—or we just die when we’re infants, fifty-fifty—but you?” He gestured vaguely at Old Banks' gaunt frame. “Even with a fancy mask on, your immune system took one sniff of this place and went into full panic mode.”

  Old Banks frowned. “In simpler terms?”

  “Your body's been treating the air down here like a curse. Your immune system is overreacting, which makes your blood vessels constrict, which means your cardiovascular system goes to shit, and if your circulation ain’t doing well, your other organ systems also go to shit. In particular, your integumentary system isn’t producing enough natural oils to moisturize your skin. That’s why you look like a dried-out bacon someone put out to hang in Wraithpier.” Then he paused, looked up for a second, and nodded at the old man. “No offense.”

  “And... this?" Old Banks shook the vial in his hand.

  "A simple decoction to kick your organ systems back into balance,” Gael explained, “It restores circulation, slows the inflammatory response from your immune system, and helps your body adjust instead of trying to fight a losing war. The base recipe’s old and simple as dirt, so you can brew it on your fucking nightstand if you want: mix honeyed hemlock to reduce the immune flare-up, nightbloom extract to get the blood moving again, and a bit of rockmoss infusion to reinforce your dermal barrier. Drink a full vial once every four days, and in about two years, you'll start feeling like a functional human again.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Old Banks studied the vial, his expression unreadable.

  “First vial’s on the house,” Gael added. Then he pointed at the flower cord still dangling in the old man’s other hand. “And that? That just means you were a successful patient of the Heartcord Clinic. If you’d be so kind as to spread our good name—and maybe just wear it around your wrist every once in a while when you go out so we get free marketing, I dunno—we’ll call it even."

  With that, Gael finally gave the old man an exaggerated bow.

  “Pleasure doing business with you, good sir! Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll just be on our way—”

  “Why the hurry?”

  Gael paused mid-step again as he tried to hurry the two girls out of the mansion, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Old Banks rolling the vial between his fingers.

  “... For the first time in a year, I actually feel like eating breakfast,” Old Banks mumbled. Then he looked at the three of them, his expression softer than before. “Why not join me for breakfast?”

  An hour passed. The half-destroyed dining room was brighter now, slightly gold-er sunlight spilling in through shattered windows, catching on the dust still hanging in the air. The long, rectangular table in the center of the room was set with food.

  It wasn’t much—mostly pancakes, some Vhernveil-style breakfast dishes whipped up by Old Banks that looked too delicate for the wreckage around them, and the green-coated bunny Cara hunted last night—so it was awkward as all hell.

  Gael sat at one narrow end of the table. Old Banks at the other. Cara and Maeve were across from each other on the long side, and none of them spoke as they ate. Save for Gael, all of their masks were pulled down. There was only the quiet scrape of cutlery, the occasional clink of a glass, and the distant groan of the mansion settling in its wounds.

  Cara leaned in toward him. “What the fuck actually happened last night?” she whispered. “How’d the heist turn into… this?”

  Gael shoved a forkful of pancake into his mouth. “Long story.”

  Cara narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t press the matter. There was something more interesting to behold, and that was—across the table—a certain Exorcist eating like a starved animal. Fork in one hand, two pancakes doused in syrup in the other, Maeve was practically glowing as she wolfed down one plate after another.

  Old Banks watched her with something like amusement, a faint smile pulling at his worn features.

  “You eat just like my daughter used to.” His voice was quiet, distant. “No matter how sloppy my pancakes were, she always ate it like it was the best meal in the world.”

  Maeve blinked and looked up at him, still mid-bite. “They are really good, though?”

  Gael swallowed dryly, then stabbed another pancake and stuffed it down his throat. “Speak for yourself, Exorcist. These are pretty shit.”

  Cara stabbed another one without hesitation and shoved it into her mouth. “I’ll have to agree as well,” she said flatly. “The texture is… rubbery. Are you sure you didn’t mistake ‘butter’ for something else?”

  Old Banks just chortled. “And yet you’re both still eating it like it is the best thing in the world.”

  A pause. Gael finally chewed through his mouthful and pointed his fork at the old man. “Don’t be mistaken, man. It’s shit, but free food is free food.”

  “And when you live in Bharncair,” Cara mumbled, crunching through bone as she devoured her bunny chest, “you eat what you can and leave nothing behind.”

  The old man let out another laugh, softer this time. “At least you’re honest.” Then he leaned back in his chair, exhaling. “And neither of you are anything like the Demonic Plagueplain Doctors or Symbiote Exorcists I know.”

  There was nothing Gael had to say to that, so he just kept eating. This was the kind of breakfast that’d weigh heavy in his gut. The kind that’d make sure he wouldn’t need lunch or dinner for the rest of the day, and maybe not even lunch tomorrow.

  Best to eat as much as I can.

  The three of them shared the same idea. Old Banks had whipped up around thirty plates in the span of an hour, so damn if they didn’t lick clean every last plate before they left—and while they did exactly that, Old Banks touched the messy stitches on the back of his right hand.

  His fingers ran over the healing wound, tracing where the Myrmur’s heart had once been. He glanced at Gael, eyes sharp again.

  “That… elixir you dripped onto my hand.” He tapped the spot once. “What is it?”

  For a moment, Gael debated bullshitting the old man. There were a hundred and one lies he could whip up on the spot, all equally convincing, but while he was trying to keep the elixir a secret from the dogs of the upper city for the time being, Old Banks was someone exiled from the upper city.

  Gotta tell someone eventually, especially a man as shrewd as him.

  So he sighed, reached into his jacket, and pulled out another small vial.

  The green liquid inside shimmered dully.

  “It’s called the ‘Symbiote Elixir’,” he said, rolling it between his fingers before shooting a grin at Maeve. “Secret formula. Even my dearest wife doesn’t know how I make it.”

  Old Banks raised a brow. “And what does it—”

  “Allows for the safe removal of a Myrmur heart. Also prevents most forms of deadly curses. Now, I’d like to think of it as a panacea, but I am a humble man, and the truth is, it still needs refining.” He twirled the vial once before tucking it back into his jacket. “The production process for a single vial like the one I used on you last night is still absurdly long, and three of the four main ingredients can’t be found in our beautiful southern ward, but hey—it works. You saw it yourself.” Then he tilted his head, grinning. “So far, I’ve removed two Myrmur hearts safely from their Hosts.”

  Silence.

  Old Banks stared at him, the disbelief clear on his face.

  “... And how old are you three?”

  Maeve spoke between bites. “Eighteen.”

  “Twenty-three,” Cara answered simply.

  Gael winked. “That’s a trade secret—”

  “I spent years trying to find a way to save my daughter.” Old Banks cut him off quietly. “I searched for doctors, bioarcanic alchemists, curse maesters, holy priests and bishops—anyone who could tell me how to cut that thing out of her without killing her. I never found a way.”

  His fingers pressed into the wood of the table, knuckles whitening.

  “And if I’d had that elixir of yours five years ago…” His gaze settled on Maeve—not bitter. Not resentful. Just tired. “She’d be right about your age now, girl.”

  As everyone fell silent, listening to the old man grieve, Old Banks straightened and clasped his hands together.

  “The two of you… are a married couple, yes?” he asked hesitantly, looking straight ahead at Gael.

  Maeve instinctively opened her mouth to respond, but Gael was faster. He clapped a hand over her mouth and grinned. “Happily married, yes. We run the Heartcord Clinic, the best clinic in the southern ward at the end of Asphodel Lane Number Two. It’s the church-looking building at the end of the street.”

  Old Banks nodded slowly, humming in thought. His gaze drifted across the wreckage of the dining room, dust swirling in the morning light. “As you well saw, I spent most of my fortune researching a cure to remove a Myrmur safely from a Host, so the three of you picked the wrong mansion to target with your ‘expert’ robbery skills.”

  Gael feigned ignorance with a head tilt. “Oh, good sir, but we weren’t here to rob you. We were just in the area when we—”

  “Can it, boy.” Old Banks’ fingers tightened together as he looked the three of them over sternly. “The truth is, I still have a bit of wealth left. I’d been saving it for my daughter, for when she got better, but… she’s gone now. That money’s just sitting in a pile gathering dust.”

  He closed his eyes briefly, then looked at them again, his expression set with quiet resolve.

  “If I can’t use that money to save her, then I’ll use it to save someone else. Bharncair doesn’t need more ghosts. It needs people like you,” he said. “I’d like to sponsor your clinic. I imagine the three of you aren’t doing so well on the financial side of running a clinic in this part of town, which is why you targeted me in the first place.”

  Gael raised a brow, but Cara smacked a hand over his mouth before he could say something stupid.

  “We are immensely grateful for your generosity, sir.” She dipped her head, her voice sincere. “But when you say you’d like to ‘sponsor’ us… how much, exactly, are we talking about?”

  Old Banks thought for a moment. Then he pushed himself up from the table, grabbing his greatsword propped up behind his chair and using it as a walking cane.

  “Follow me,” he said, turning toward the hallway. “I need to count the bags.”

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