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The cup remains where it has always been. I still cannot explain its presence or the impulse that keeps it here. Its human proportions challenge everything else in the room merely by occupying space designed for demon hands.
Beatrix has accomplished the same thing within an hour of entering my house.
I gave her rules. She forced those rules to defend their own purpose, then altered every one that failed.
The result should feel like lost authority.
Instead, I look at the closed study door and recognize the return of an adversary capable of making command interesting.
9
BEATRIX
The southern solarium looks less like the beginning of an apothecary than the remains of one abandoned during a siege.
Red dust covers the floor in drifts deep enough to bury the toes of my boots. Rows of metal planters stand beneath tall storm-glass windows, their sides rusted through or split at the seams. Dead bronze leaves cling to black stems. A collapsed watering channel hangs from the upper wall, and three support braces have pulled away from the ceiling.
I step around a pile of shattered shelving.
The single guard inside the entrance follows me. His armor scrapes against the doorframe, and his breathing carries a faint rasp beneath the sound.
The room spans two levels as I estimated from outside. A narrow gallery circles the upper walls, reached by a curved stair whose railing leans toward the floor. Most of the storm-glass remains intact. Filtered silver light reaches the abandoned planting beds despite the clouds surrounding Galmoleth.
It could work.
The assessment requires imagination and a tolerance for filth, but neither is new to me.
Against the far wall, a stone basin waits beneath the broken watering channel. Its drain remains clear when I pour a little water from my flask into it. Three narrow alcoves could hold drying racks away from direct storm-light. The service entrance is wide enough for carts carrying soil, glass jars, or bundled herbs, and the distance from the residential levels would keep strong medicinal vapors away from sleeping rooms.
The damage is extensive, not fatal. Clear the debris, repair the channel, reinforce the gallery, and the room will offer more space than the apothecary I left behind. It will also place my work inside a noble house whose servants already need it.
I cross to the nearest planter and press one finger against its rim. Rust flakes beneath my touch. The planter itself may be useless, though the stand supporting it remains sound. Some of the intact bronze plants could be cut back and tested for new growth. The wall channels will require repair before they carry water.
“Do not touch that.”
The command comes from the doorway.
I turn.
Grolm enters with two more Volvath guards behind him. The captain is shorter and broader than Draxon, with rough bone-white carapace and crimson eyes fixed in a permanent scowl. His horns curve outward from his temples like the points of a heavy crown.
He examines my hand on the planter.
“The southern solarium is structurally unsound,” he says. “This area is closed.”
“Lord Obsidius granted it to me.”
“Lord Obsidius ordered an inspection.”
“Then inspect it.”
His scowl deepens. “I have.”
“You entered less than a minute ago.”
“I inspected it when the upper braces failed three years ago. No one has used this room since.”
That explains the dust but not his presence with three armed guards. Draxon sent him to determine whether the space can be made safe. Grolm arrived prepared to prove that it cannot.
