Finally! Lorelei laughed low in her throat, the twitch in her shoulders traveling down her arm to her pointed wand. As her wand shook, the skeletal hands that held Hermes shook him in the air.

She stepped aside at his Reducto, glad for the shout that acted as a warning, glad to see some backbone at last. Lessons like these were difficult, she knew. But he would learn.

Go on, the pentral urged her.

The floor creaked and protested as she stalked past the hole in the wall that Hermes had made. Roots dangled, exposing the framework of Tawse's pub.

Tawse's pub! A voice of sanity whispered from a distant corner of her mind. Tawse's pub!

Her hand twitched, and the skeletal grip on Hermes' arms and legs tightened. Lorelei ducked under his arm and stopped before him, her wand raised to give another twitch.

"Talk," she locked eyes with him. She wasn't laughing anymore.

"About what!" Nate demanded, his resolve breaking. He was truly confused. Was there something in the water? First Bagnold now Hunt asking absolutely unhinged questions with a violent chaser. Why was everyone in this town so insane? Couldn't people just go about their lives of crime without making everything an interrogation? For fucksake.

The thought occurred to him too late that he'd just blasted another hole in Cinead Tawse's pub. It wasn't his fault this time either, but logic hadn't worked last time with the young, dangerous Ex-Azzie. For now, however, he was focused on not getting dismembered.

This was it. This was the last time. The last time he expected any shred of decency or sanity from any of these people. What did he have to do to get a little space? Kill someone? Maybe, this was the last time he walked into this cistern of a pub and so much as farted in anyone's direction. Hell.

"Here's how this works, you batshit maniac. I warn you. You say thanks. I bugger off. There are no other steps!"

He tightened his grip on his wand, his fist a vice.

Hermes did not talk.

He hung like a puppet and said a few things, but he wasn't saying the right things. He wasn't saying pretty things. He wasn't saying true things. Meanwhile, truth and questions and laughter sounded from the pub proper. Someone would likely interrupt them soon.

Batshit!

Her eyes widened in mock indignation.

Lorelei glanced at his hand, at the fist he made around his wand, and wished simply that if he weren't talking, he'd cast another Reducto. He could try. She was standing right there in front of his face. Her heart rate had slowed to its usual thump thump thump. Too slow.

Her eyes locked on his face again. He was at least a little bit scared, a little bit upset. Yet still boring her.

She reached for his hand that gripped his wand. She rested her hand, always cold, and her fingers, always chilled, around his warm hand. If he flinched, her hand moved with his in a little dance.

"Finish your story and I'll let you go," her voice lilted sweetly.

For a moment, she believed it. She imagined swinging him into the pub and allowing him to scamper out. In a corner of her mind, the thought became a pretty truth, a vision of the future. Her wand hand remained steady, concentrating on the skeletal hands that had lifted him in the air.

Her other hand betrayed her, betrayed Hermes.

Her other hand tightened, attempting to lift his fingers from his wand.

Hunt this close Nate noticed something he hadn't before. Something was deeply, hauntingly wrong with her eyes. It wasn't even a thought, but some twisting in his gut where legends said magic lived. But it was wrong. Like she wasn't alone. But there wasn't time to catalog all the ways Lorelei Hunt was worse than he'd imagined.

Nate had been disarmed before but this time he felt real fear. Without a wand, there'd be nothing to stop her. She wanted to hear more about Bagnold and even though Nate would love to sic this nutter on the other, but nah, time for scheming was done. Hunt was nor more capable of ratting them out than she was of babysitting. (Probably)

No, it was time to act. This was going to be messy.

He shut his eyes and grit his teeth and...

CRACK

Nate Briggs disappeared and the vacuum of his space snapped closed. The skeleton hands found their grip empty, but Lorelei Hunt kept a prize. A lonely finger.

CRACK

Lorelei stumbled forward into thin air, her grip fumbling. She righted herself as skeletal fingers grazed her shoulders and grasped greedily at her cloak. Something wet plopped onto the ground. Her concentration faltered, and the skeletal hands vanished one by one.

Her head snapped up.

Gone. He was gone. Leaving only the stench of fear in the air and a streak of blood across her palm. Still warm.

Lorelei stared at her hand, then looked down at her feet.

A single finger seeped blood into the stones.

A gift! He'd left her a gift.

Once she'd picked it up, once she'd smiled at the white bone wrapped in fat and skin, she turned and walked past the hole in the wall, Hermes' blood dripping from her hand.