Moreau grinned. She’d pleased him. The bastard. And damn that part of her that was proud for having accomplished it. Squirm, she reminded herself. He would squirm.
“I-I just,” the beast said, speaking quickly, tripping over its words. “J-just didn’t want to go b-back. Be back. Not back but back. To not thinking. To—it was a fog in my head. And hunger. Lots of huger. And then there wasn’t and you were there and you took away the fog and the hunger and I-I-I….”
“Oh, stop babbling,” Loretta said, waving a hand. “You’ll give him a bigger head than he already has.”
Sir Moreau cleared his throat. Loretta’s stupid tail shot up and her spine straightened. She glared at him when she realized that he’d called her to attention. He hadn’t even used his anima. How had he managed to make her leap so quickly to his call?
“You’ll not return to that state again,” Moreau said to the beast. “Be obedient, be good, better yourself, and we’ll get along great.”
The beast gave Loretta a nervous glance, but her attention remained on Moreau. “Yes, sir.” She bit her lip. “Do I have a name, Sir? I think I used to have one, but I don’t…don’t remember.”
“Not yet,” Moreau replied. “We have an appointment with a wizard shortly. You’ll both be examined and evaluated. After that we’ll see about naming you.”
The beast blinked very quickly a couple of times, as if surprised that her new keeper had access to a wizard, but accepted it all quickly with a nod of her head. Loretta just about snorted. Pitiable, indeed. This creature had been so badly broken that she was utterly malleable to just about anyone’s will.
She caught herself. Had she really just thought of the beast as “she?” Loretta could not allow herself to do that. She steeled herself and moved to wait by the door.
“And what are you about?” Moreau asked, pulling his shirt from the chair.
“I am going to wait right here until you are ready to see the wizard. The sooner we get to him, the sooner we are evaluated.” And the sooner my humanity is restored me, she silently added.
Moreau slid his shirt on. “You intend to see Master Jacquemin dressed like that, do you?”
Loretta cocked her head, then looked down. She was still dressed in her sleepwear. A simple nightgown that did not even reach the knees. And she’d been perched outside Moreau’s window dressed like this.
She bolted from the room, followed by the sound of Moreau’s laughter.
He. Would. Squirm.
~ ~ ~
At first Loretta thought that Moreau was taking them back to the hot spring, and she found herself struggling to reconcile her desire to slip back into those purifying waters and her desire to see the wizard. Moreau did not lead them down, instead taking them to the engine room above the hot spring—the heart of Kerkenhal itself that powered its lights and defenses. The entire room was the engine, the walls comprised of countless pipes and wires. Enormous gears rose up from parts of the floor to slowly turn in place with a groan. Steam filled the air, slipping up from below and from places where the pipes were loose.
A pair of human guards kept nominal watch, their coats open in an effort to combat the room’s heat. Neither of them bore a firearm, which Loretta supposed was just as well. If any of this machinery were damaged, it could severely hinder Kerkenhal’s defenses.
Over it all was a massive circular window, positioned high above a narrow doorway. It was to this door that Moreau led them. Inside was a hall so narrow that the three of them were required to travel single file. Moreau took the lead, followed by Loretta on his heels, and the as yet unnamed beast trailing eagerly behind her as if afraid it might be left behind.
The pair of them were in such a rush that when Moreau came to a sudden halt, Loretta nearly bumped into him, and the other beast did bump into her. Moreau gave them both a look that made Loretta’s tail stand up.
The embarrassment lasted but a moment. They were going to see a wizard. He was going to fix her. Very shortly she’d be human again.
Moreau turned his eyes from them and to a pale beast standing before a flight of stairs. She was lithe and powerfully built. Feline, like the thorny beast that Sir Gunter had kept with him. Only, referring to this beast and that one as feline was akin to referring to both a sword and a dagger as blades. Technically true, but it did not accurately describe the distinction of power this beast carried within her frame. Lethal and beautiful.
A long, white tail with a tuft of glittering white fur swished lazily behind her and her eyes, solid gold orbs with piercing pupils took them all in with such casualness that Loretta could hardly believe she was looking at a beast and not a lady. Everything about this beast was disconcerting, from her authoritative posture to her inhumanly white flesh. Her attire was simple yet elegant, consisting of silk tunic and trousers cut for ease of movement and to emphasize her feminine attributes. Black with thread of gold embroidery.
Loretta realized that she had been staring at the beast, and that the beast had begun staring back, like a bored predator waiting to see just how stupid its prey was. Loretta bared her fangs. She was not prey. This beast was bigger than her, but it could still bleed.
The beast raised a white eyebrow, then looked away from her to Sir Moreaue. Loretta sensed a feline insult in the gesture, as if dismissing her as too unimportant to register as a threat. Human, she reminded herself, she was going to be human again. She simply had to hold herself together long enough for the wizard to examine her and prove that her condition was artificial.
“I am Gegenteil,” the beast said to Moreau. “I am the head of Master Jacquemin’s menagerie.”
She spoke as one soldier might to another, Loretta thought. Not disrespectful exactly, but…there was something there. Not dismissive. Not denigrating, Loretta thought. This beast spoke as if to an equal.
And Sir Moreau allowed it! She found herself glaring at him as he nodded.
“I am Sir Sigmund Moreau. We have an appointment with your keeper.”
The beast’s ear twitched. Loretta thought she sensed the faintest hint of a feline smirk at the creature’s black lips. “You had one yesterday as well, and for only one beast.”
Moreau nodded. “Circumstances changed.”
The beast made a sound in her chest that might have been a chuckle. Or it might have been a purr. “They do that. Come. I’ll announce you.”
She turned without permission and guided them up the stairs, glittering white hair and tail trailing her like a raiment. Loretta decided that she hated this beast, Gegenteil.
The stairs, like the hallways, were narrow, and spiraled around in a circle upward into what Loretta thought might be an indoor tower, stopping before a metal door. That made Loretta raise her eyebrows. “Is that door made of iron?”
“You’re an observant one,” Gegenteil remarked.
“Your keeper is one of those wizards prone to making things explode, isn’t he?” Moreau asked, face and tone perfectly serious.
Gegenteil performed that purring chuckle of hers again, but did not answer as she knocked on the door. It rang as only metal could, only it sounded heavier. Was the iron reinforced with wood? What exactly was the wizard trying to keep out? Or in?
“I’m working!” called a voice from the other side. A young, irritated voice. It almost sounded like a child demanding a few more moments with his toys.
“Sir Moreau is here to have his menagerie examined,” Gegenteil called.
“I’m working,” the voice called back. “I am not to be disturbed while I’m working!”
“They have an appointment,” Gegenteil called back.
They, Loretta noted. Not him. Gegenteil had included all of them. Interesting.
“Who the hell set their appointment?” the voice on the other side demanded.
“Grandmother,” Gegenteil called back. “Now open the door!”
Loretta did a doubletake. Not from the tone the beast had just taken with her own
keeper, though that certainly warranted one. This Gegenteil was the granddaughter of Vizcondesa Velasquez? Now that she was looking, Loretta could certainly see some of the resemblance, especially in the beast’s posture. There had been something predatory about the Vizcondesa’s movements as well.
One of the Vizcondesa’s children had married unwisely. Loretta filed that away, along with the fact that this beast thought her relationship with the Vizcondesa entitled it to greater standing than it should possess.
A series of clicks followed by a long, low hiss sounded from behind the door. It slowly swung open and a small cloud of steam washed out over their feet. A steam powered piston door, Loretta thought, circling around it for a better look as they entered.
“It’s like the gate outside,” Loretta mused. “What on earth does anyone need with a….” she trailed off as she turned and caught sight of the rest of the room.
Electric lights hung from the ceiling in great strands illumining a chamber full of tables covered in books, parchment, and machinery. More books, diagrams, and machinery lined the walls. It might be more accurate to say they replaced the walls, Loretta mused. There was not a single unused space climbing from floor to ceiling. She could not tell what half of the gizmos did. There was only one empty patch of wall where she found the circular window she had seen from the engine room. From his workshop, the wizard would be able to look out and see the larger machines of Kerkenhal at work.
A pang of frustration stabbed Loretta in the sternum as she tried to read the titles of some of the books overflowing from the nearest bookshelf and couldn’t. She clenched her teeth. That particular horror was just one among the many about to be corrected.
A ladder in the middle lead up to a loft that covered half of the workshop. Loretta could make out the edge of a well-made bed and several more bookshelves but little else beyond the railing.
A young man stepped away from one of the gadgets on the wall. As he did, the door closed behind them with a mechanical groan.
“I need five minutes,” he said, hurrying over to one of his tables where a series of beakers bubbled with green liquid over a small, tightly controlled flame issuing up from a nozzle that looked as if it were a part of the table itself. “Unless you want the castle to go up in flames?”
“Take your time, Master Wizard,” Sir Moreau said.
Loretta gaped. This was supposed to be The Company of Golden Sword’s wizard?
Master Jacquemin was blonde and young. Very young. If he was in his twenties yet Loretta would jump out the window. He wore a blue robe with heavy sleeves, unbelted and rumpled, with simple tunic and trousers beneath. Without the robe, she would never have given him a second glance had they passed one another on the street. The sleeves, she noted, were riddled with what looked like burn holes.
Moreau eyed the bubbling beakers. “How likely is he to actually blow us up?”
Gegenteil shrugged. “Hard to tell. That’s his favorite thing to say when he’s interrupted.”
“They do not need to know that,” Master Jacquemin snapped without looking away from his work.
“You’re a wizard?” Loretta asked before she could stop herself, disbelief saturating her words.
Gegenteil cuffed her upside the head hard enough that Loretta stumbled and likely would have fallen had she not been so practiced at recovering by now. “Mind yourself.”
Loretta glared at her, but again, bit back the words she wanted to say and simply gave a nod. A few more minutes. That was all she needed to mind herself for. She eyed the youth at the beakers and uncertainty coursed through her.
The wizard all but leapt up from his beakers, extinguishing the flames below with a quick turn of a dial, and came around the table in a billow of robe, revealing several ink stains on his hands, and even a smudge on his face.
Gegenteil made a motion with her finger, trying to give him a subtle hint to wipe the spot next to his nose, but the wizard completely missed it.
“Caspar Jacquemin,” he said, extending a hand to Moreau. “Wizard.”
“Sigmund Moreau,” Moreau replied, shaking the offered hand. He seemed to tower over the youth like a villain in his dark clothes and severe expression. “Knight keeper.”
The wizard laughed. “Yeah, I figured. So, you need your girls looked over?”
Girls? Loretta wasn’t sure what set her teeth on edge more. Being referred to as a “girl” by a man who was more likely her junior than not, or the fact that he referred to beasts with a feminine pronoun. The church would not care for this one. Of course, if he restored her humanity, she wouldn’t care how peculiar or young he was.
“I do,” Moreau replied. “I have some notion as to the seeds they carry, but they’re both new to me. I need more information.”
The boyish mage nodded his head and clapped his hands together. “Alright, who’s first then?”
Before Loretta could reply, Moreau’s hand fell upon the new beast’s shoulder. “Her. Her previous keeper was...unskilled. I don’t know how long he kept her trapped in a partially Rampant state.”
Gegenteil flinched, and Master Jacquemin sucked air in through his teeth. “She’s been to the hot spring?”
“Last night,” Moreau replied. “It was, in large part, what caused our delay.”
Jacquemin nodded. “I’d planned to hold your rescheduling against you. It appears I’ve misjudged you, sir.”
Moreau inclined his head.
Loretta sensed that an entire conversation had just taken place between the two men that she hadn’t been privy to in that single brief exchange. She glanced back and forth between them, all but bouncing on the balls of her feet. When she realized this, she made herself stop. It was hard. Like resisting the urge to scratch at a poison ivy rash. She would not behave like a child, especially not here, amidst all this delicate machinery and before the wizard who could set things right. She had to be still, if only for a few more moments.
“Very well.” Master Jacquemin then addressed the nameless beast. “Please disrobe.”
The beast blushed.
Loretta was between her and the wizard in an instant, tail upright and fangs bared. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted Gegenteil lower into a crouch. The beast would come at her from the side if she struck. It dawned on her only then what she’d done. If she struck? Why on earth would she even consider harming a man over the mere suggestion of impropriety toward a beast?
“She is newly Fallen,” she heard Moreau say from behind her. It was difficult to say, but she thought she might actually feel a sense of pleasure from him, despite the dry tone of his voice. She hoped to Goddess that their obnoxious bond severed when her humanity was restored. Assuming that she was restored. If she did not allow the wizard to do whatever it was that he intended to Moreau’s new beast, would he still restore her?
She found she couldn’t bring herself to move away. Did the beast remind her so much of Sirena with her age and shorn hair?
“Sauvage,” Moreau said. “Yield.”
His command flowed along their connection—the roots—and she felt her body relaxing. She tried to fight it and could not. She fought harder, throwing her will against his. She could sense her strength. Sense his pressing back against hers. They were both strong, but strength had nothing to do with it. It was like they were locked on a hillside, each pushing against the other, with him on the upward side pushing down and the ground all turned to mud beneath her feet. No matter how hard she pushed, she could not gain traction, and so she slid back and back until, seemingly of her own volition, she took a real step back, allowing the wizard a clear path.
She bared her teeth and glared at Moreau.
“Willful thing,” Gegenteil said dryly. “Isn’t she?”
Master Jacquemin laughed and waved a hand. “You’re one to speak of being willful.”
That earned him a glare. He ignored it. “I mean your menagerie sister no ill will…Sauvage, was it? This is to be as
much a medical examination as a spiritual one.” He gave her a sad look. “You are newly Fallen, so I imagine you might not know this, but the leading cause of death for beasts, outside of accidents and active duty, is breast cancer.”
Loretta blinked. Cancer? Beasts could get that? “But the hot springs heal beasts,” she found herself protesting.
The wizard nodded. “Some things. Not all. Not that.”
Loretta slowly nodded. Of course, there would be a valid reason for his request. She felt foolish. She had just risked her chance as restoration to protect the modesty of this nameless creature.
She glanced at the monkey beast. The thing offered her a shy smile. Loretta glared and the smile faltered. There. That was better.
“No more dawdling, if you please,” Master Jacquemin said, clapping his hands.
The beast stepped forward, and, with barely a glance back at Sir Moreau, disrobed. The wizard stopped her before she could remove her undergarments, so at least she was spared that indignity. Aside from that, the beast was bare to them all. Loretta had been nude with the creature last night in the spring, but she’d made it a point not to look at it. She couldn’t not look now, and what she saw filled her with quiet fury.
The girl was skin and bone. Malnourished, and scarred. She had so many scars. Loretta remembered their fight in the alley. The girl had not tried to defend herself against Loretta’s attacks. She had been as wild and aggressive as Loretta would have liked to have been, with no regards to her own well-being. How many times had she come close to dying by another’s knife? Then Loretta’s eyes found the burns. Most of them were centered upon the girl’s back, just above her tail. Small and round. Someone had used her, multiple times, to put out their cigars.
The wizard had the beast hold her arms up and to her sides and ran his hands along her body. He produced a stethoscope and listened to her breathe from both the front and the back. Her had her bend over and ran a hand along her spine, then down her tail. Finally, he felt her breasts for the tell-tale lumps, though apparently found none.
“You may dress,” the wizard said, ducking into a cabinet.
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