Death to the Grand Guild

9

The father never was there for his son, Mercruxes, so he sought that comfort from the priests to fill the void, after all, one was his half-sibling.

He was eager to impress them; he was the son of Xarl, the father, the all-powerful, bewitching them with the knowledge of magic which was forbidden.

They became drunk upon it, and he became drunk for their adoration. Their secret created a dark union, and the mother, ever preoccupied, was astonished when the word reached her ears.

She tried to correct the error through penance, but the father condemned the son as an abomination. Mercruxes, in his grief, then came upon the smiling one, who was a bigger devil than he. The partnership between them became the undoing, and the toll was the extinction of the Grimm.

The Journal of Peregrine Haldock

Camille

Camille was breathing heavily after she passed through the gates of Lonoke that morning. She did plan some of it out, keeping a change of clothes tucked away in a place in case she needed to alter her appearance.

She didn’t expect to have to run through the alleys nude, luckily very few eyes noticed as she put on her familiar garments along with her blades.

The blade she had was lost in her escape. It didn’t bother her, she had many back home.

Hours of walking in the morning fog she pondered as she made her way to a farm north of Lonoke, and was greeted by a farmer who expected her arrival. His name was Nicodemus Gaithers. There have been many Nicodemus Gaithers, Peregrine had informed her.

The men who play him wear the same falsehood; it was the way her race could blend into the outside world.

She was wearing hers at the moment, growing tired of it, toiling in it for too long since Peregrine had her accompany him to that wretched city.

How excited she was when the master told her they were heading home, even though the strain he had put upon himself in the prior days had incapacitated him. Her thoughts were back in the lands of Grimm.

She was fostered under the care of Master Haldock from birth. Peregrine granted her to do things Grimm women were never allowed. She was educated beyond most and tutored by his side to learn the skill of the plant.

Peregrine never said an ill word, allowing her to shoot with a bow until she was as good as any man of the twelve clans.

He observed her swinging with a sword in the practice yards for years, a look of pride on his face, she recalled, as she learned to wield it against stronger and heavier men, earning a reputation for her courage and her loyalty to him.

Camille hadn’t felt such vulnerability since she was a little girl. She was a Grimm, was all she could tell herself as Nicodemus led her to the well house of the farm he owned.

Inside the timbered structure was a cave within a bank where a spring was.

The envoy handed her an oil lamp to find her way. It was a cramped, crevice that lay ahead, and after crawling through a narrow hewn tunnel supported by many timbers.

The crevice opened into a natural cave that wound through the earth and under the huge wall that guarded her home and out the other side and into the land of Grimm, away from the barbarians she had loathed.

They had come this way when they began, and in hours she would be in the comfort of her home, finally, and forget this whole experience as some bad dream.

The man who wore Nicodemus tried to be courteous with her, complimenting her beauty. He was of low-bred and barely considered a Grimm in her eyes.

Paying him no mind, she handed the lamp back to him, avoiding the light. She was as close to pureblood as you could rise, with the ability to see in darkness as if it were midday.

When Camille walked from the other side of the small cave, she was met by a rider, a simple envoy that served her master.

He had a palfrey with him and she mounted it for the ride ahead, feeling sore from her meeting with Edmund, and flustered on how she had to flee from that lummox brother of his. Peregrine ordered her to flee if trouble happened, but it still bothered her to run like a coward.

She had rehearsed with her master before he left ahead of her, and she could recall the whole instruction. He had a young girl under the Taint from Lonoke; he was showing her how the barbarians kiss, and what indecent things they do to women.

Though confident she could do her duty, the task set before her was the most difficult he had ever requested. To Camille, it was easier to kill a man than have to copulate with them.

He told her it was of dire consequence for the realm. If she succeeded, then he would grant her a manse, let her be free of his service, and pursue a life for a lady of her allure, he told her.

She could marry a man if one wanted her. He would have to marry her for love and not out of ambition for a family, she was barren from being too pure. The whole request had bothered her from the start.

When she laid eyes upon Edmund in his quarters that evening, he looked at her in yearning, just as her master claimed he would. He told her that the lad was infatuated with her, and would comply with ease when he saw her nude.

The master was right. He accomplished everything the master said he would, then things went much further.

He didn’t get weary like she was told; she had not expected that. It was painful until she got accustomed to it, then he used his mouth in a way that the master never informed her of.

The quiver that shot through her was so intense that moment that she lost her wits. Screams escaped her tongue, and it wasn’t in agony, it was out of an impulsive pleasure and she couldn’t manage it and only wanted more.

Peregrine told her it may happen, but they were just words, and there wasn’t a word that described such a thing.

He held her close afterward, a comfort, and his body felt warm. It felt like it belonged next to her. An impulse filled her to tell him everything, to talk about more than her duty. She thought it was sorcery, feeling so insecure and doing her best to just say nothing.

She was sore, lost in deep lust, and then pity gripped her. It was time for her to go; it had to be then, or she would waiver and fail, but she wanted him for a while longer and lingered, only to pleasure herself one more time

Then the lummox brother offered what she needed, the enchantment to break, and the motivation to flee and jump from the window.

Running hastily through several alleys until she felt alone, stopping to catch her wind, the guilt ate away at her.

She had succeeded in her mission; it was time to forget what just happened. Time to claim what was owed to her, but why it was owed to her, she didn’t understand or care.

The envoy that rode with her asked her about the other side, jolting her thoughts back to the present.

They galloped under the endless canopy of trees, winding among the thickets of chestnut, white pine, and silver queen trees that enclosed so tight you had to slow the horse’s pace to a trot.

“It is a dreadful place. The rumours are worse than true,” she wanted to say but her words were trapped. Most Grimm her age had a curious wonder about life beyond the walls.

The Clan elders instilled fear of living alongside the savages. Defying was as good as death, and if you went over there to fulfill a tickle or a wandering itch, they would send someone after you and bring you back as a corpse.

“You must have a story to tell, I hope to one day serve our people as you did.” the rider commented to be courteous. Camille ignored him. There was a tale, but she wouldn’t share it with his likes.

Every eager male yearned for her to tell them anything, especially the low-breds, who envied her. She knew others in the temple gossiped, they wanted to know why she served the master all these years.

Many believed she was his lover — the other priests had one. The lot were hypocrites when it came to the laws they expected others to follow.

Peregrine never laid a hand on her, no one had until Edmund had his way with her. She began welling tears as her mind was rebelling, working against her, over what, she had trouble explaining as they entered the master’s lands.

The rider showed concern when he noticed, but she motioned for him to leave her be.

They stopped to rest as she collected herself against a Haldock tree. Her thoughts raced, detaining her until she could refocus and continue. She was looking back on her master’s instruction when she was tasked to follow Edmund.

Peregrine tried to instruct her that the savage men could not control their emotions. They were only carnal animals, and he tried to warn her.

She had lost her composure against Edmund, lost control of her soldier’s bearings, and it made her feel weak. Cursing to herself, the act was an abomination, but her master said it was vital.

Her task was to be discreet, and say nothing of it until we are in private quarters he told her firmly.

Camille was spiteful of the word discreet. It was a word Peregrine used when she had a question he didn’t want to answer.

Grimm was a land buried in secrets, a forest that served as a fortress, with no coastline for a ship to harbor on. They had sewn seeds of trees so thick they lacked sunlight in some places and convinced the savages that neighbored them into believing they were phantoms.

The race of Grimm are cursed souls haunting the forests, killing anyone who dared to risk finding a way over the wall, the cretins believe.

Only the Minoans knew they existed, and they had their secrets to keep hidden. They at least had the sand to make their presence known, even though it was a single envoy on the Guild’s side of the water.

The Minoans had manipulated the barbarians centuries ago, and she found it remarkable how they had the fools desiring a shiny metal they consider a nuisance.

Several moments passed as she collected herself and travelled ahead, glimpsing the hive of wooden yurts that dwelled there.

Many of the lower births had migrated there because of her master’s kindness. Peregrine was the most endearing of the priesthood, the Nine, even though only four remained counting her master.

He wasn’t as godlike as his peers and was mocked by the other high priests for weakness. They didn’t make a fuss when he suggested hiding in the wards of Breeston.

This was a job for his subjects, trained doppel gängers, shifters who dwell and collect secrets in the barbaric lands.

The others rarely noticed Peregrine, finding him odd as he buried himself in roots and scrolls as they coveted dominion over the low breds in their lands.

Vaschon, the high priest of the Grimm found Peregrine annoying, and lazy as he judged him, mocking him with backhanded compliments when they were summoned to an audience.

They owed their existence to her master, it was him that saved the Grimm, and sometimes she wondered if that is why the others seemed to spurn him.

They were cursed, the gods left them and showed fortune on the other races of men who populate like rabbits while they can barely keep their numbers.

Only six thousand of them exist in the forest lands, and most are low-breds. A true Grimm is rare, only the nine are pure in the gods’ blood.

Peregrine discovered by some of his own who escaped from the forest that the male Grimm can copulate with the barbarians, but too much Grimm blood leaves the womb barren. The irony of the gods’ people, the Grimm, were not true Grimm at all, just half breeds which adds to the farce.

The tribal leaders, if you can keep a straight face when mentioning the word, are as pure as can be bred. Peregrine mentioned that they would be six-tenths pure if blood purity could be measured, a little more than they would simply die out.

The lower births that dwelled mostly in the southern lands in Grimm were barely over half, which could harbour a family of one child and a second was considered a blessing from the mother Lupretia herself.

As she saw the manse in the distance, she cursed the days she was living among the barbarians. Peregrine was foolish to go there, it was more suited for a spy, a doppelganger, or the common term ‘snatchers’.

Snatchers are taught to enter thought as if they are dreaming. They use a mild poison that induces a stupor and a long sleep.

They find their prey in public gatherings, single men who may hold a position or a beautiful woman who is a servant. Pour the powder in his horn or food, then help the thankful fool home.

The victim dreams for days as the snatcher learns their thoughts. What they love and hate, and their acquaintances, and then when satisfied, they kill them and then assume their place.

Peregrine found the practice too devious and unnecessary. He swore to her that he wouldn’t do that, and he didn’t.

He used sorcery instead, “tainting” the weak minds to pass through anyone barring their progress, and into the wards as they looked for quarters, finding a fool who was young and tainted them into selling their miserable home for thirty falcons.

It was a night terror in that rotten hovel. She suffered there and only walked the wards at night. A routine of watching Peregrine examine pregnant women, and curing those who were depending on that poison they called “the mist”.

The master was obsessed with those walking-dead men, who were starving themselves to bones while drifting in a fog.

Reflecting on the whole ordeal, it gnawed on her. She wanted answers from her master and was tired of being put in her place when she questioned him.

He owed her an explanation for this assignment, and her temper simmered as the manse was close ahead.

Camille loved the place. It was always home to her, and when he was summoned to the temple, she loathed having to accompany Peregrine there.

The great dead tree at the heart of Grimm was the dreariest place she had ever seen. Why Vaschon lingered there was out of a penance he felt compelled to endure.

It was where the gods came to them for the first time, and it was written in the histories as a utopia; nothing had been seen of its like.

When the gods Xarl and Lupretia abandoned them after the great deception, it was that hallowed ground that went into rancour as if the steps they walked upon had died when they left them behind.

As Camille approached the manse’s entrance she glanced upward. It was an old, bronze Haldock tree that was bred by generations of Peregrine’s ancestors.

When the tree matured, they would cut it at the desired height, then carve chambers into its massive trunk. It was the size of several of those deplorable tenements she witnessed in Breeston.

The tree would petrify over time and would stand like a mountain, never yielding. The master’s manse had stood for centuries, and it stood before the great civil war that tore the Grimm asunder, beginning its decline into a shadow existence.

Two servants greeted her cordially but offered no emotion as they didn’t care for her. They all thought she was a bitter snob with an inflated measure of pride.

Camille complained about them to the master, and that was what he told her. You can’t always be the brute. Camille, you can’t get respect through intimidation and fear, you have to put away the vinegar and lure them with honey.

She heard those same words along the journey north after they hired those four savages that ruined the whole thing.

Those goons were just cretins, they couldn’t follow directions, drinking like the animals they were spawned from, except for Edmund. She had to forget him, no matter if he was the only decent one of the lot.

Angry with herself for failing her master, she fought at her worst when those brigands broke down their door. Though quickly cutting one down, she was slow to dodge the second’s dirk.

She was humiliated when Peregrine had to save her. If it had gotten any worse, he would’ve had to use blood sorcery. She’d never have forgiven herself if he had used that power.

The master had used his gifts more than she could remember. He must have “tainted” over a hundred people on that sojourn.

Almost killed himself trying to read the mind of the dead snatcher that perished in the ward’s square that evening, shocking her and putting grave concern on Peregrine.

Who was that man, and why did he mortify the master so? Peregrine withheld every thought about the strange Grimm from her, he rarely kept things from her, becoming bitter towards her when a question was asked.

Her master was disturbed by his presence, and after he slew so many that morning, she could understand why. The man’s death made Peregrine sad. He had wept that day and shunned her when she tried to comfort him.

The master was restless, taking a risk as they stole his body from the morgue. If those four idiots knew they were toting a dead man’s bones in that chest, she wanted to forget about that.

When the brigands attacked them in Faust, the bones spilled out, she wondered if Edmund saw it. Peregrine wasn’t concerned, saying that the trauma would probably make him forget, and in hindsight who would believe him?

Why did those brigands attack us? she wondered. Her master mentioned gold, but it made little sense. She felt determined to find out though, as the servants escorted her to his quarters.

They were on the second floor. It was very spacious, and its furnishings were as old as the tree itself. Everything was a relic here: the tapestries, the plush carpets along the floor, woven centuries ago.

Her master’s thoughts always looked behind him. She had found him weeping many times when he let his mind wander too far in his past.

It was easy to forget he was a priest of the Order, the most revered of the Grimm. The last true survivors of the Grimm’s glory, and with a mere word could kill a man.

Peregrine never flaunted this. He wasn’t like the other priests who made the Clan Chieftains revere them. That was his flaw, Camille thought. That’s why he was always overlooked.

He would never have them quiver in fear like Vaschon could. They were men of the gods’ blood, bound to immortality, and Peregrine lacked the vanity to exploit it.

Her master was at his desk writing on parchment as she was summoned to his quarters. She assumed that he was planning to journey to the temple and meet with Vaschon on what he had discovered.

The high priest would have demanded it from him, and if she weren’t in Lonoke yesterday, she would be in charge of making the arrangements. She felt torn while watching him as she approached.

He was her father — to her he was. She’d been discarded by her true one because she wasn’t a boy, the female half of twins, her birth was the first set of twins in centuries.

Peregrine felt pity and made her his apprentice while being mocked behind his back. Never seeing her brother — well, not up close, as he inherited the mantle of the chief of Whitealder Clan once their father died.

It didn’t matter to her anyway, the clans offered little a reminder of an ancient order, when their numbers were great.

The true leader was Vaschon, and they complied with his word or were made irrelevant, cowing to him and hanging on to the relic of what they once were because that is all they had to remember themselves by.

“Camille, you are back.”

Her master’s words had put her mind back in the present. “I have completed the task you sent me to do.” She was thinking about Lonoke and Edmund, and a fit of shakes fell upon her as she shuddered.

“I’ve been waiting in agony for you to return,” he said to her. “I have to leave, but you’re aware of that.”

“Will you manage? Should I aid you one last time?” she asked him.

“The other apprentices have it well in hand. I know how you hate the temple and I would have spared you this journey, anyway. It will sadden me that you will not be at my side.”

His eyes were back to their smoldering blue. Peregrine had shed his ruse, he was the Nuhrish man no longer. His hair was a reddish copper, his skin was the colour of pearl as the light from the sconces illuminated it like he was a living jewel.

Soon, she would be like that again, going through the ritual of the cleanse after she briefed her master one last time.

“I was a burden to you, you don’t have to endure me any longer,” Camille replied. It was hard to find words.

“You were never a burden. Stubborn to many faults, but you have served me well. You know how dear you are to me.” Her master wore a smile. She always found courage when he smiled.

“That is why I granted you Pevensey. It was my cousin’s small manse. You always admired it even though it is a ruin. It will take a lot of work to restore it, so I will send servants in your charge to support you, they will belong to you now.”

“It is too much.” She found the reality of freedom a hard thing. She would have been content with a room in his manse, his beloved Wallingford, the only home she knew.

“It is past time you were elevated to a castellan. Have your comforts and nurture that place back to productivity. Do you think you can provide yields from that ruin again?” He always had confidence in her and that’s why this was so hard. She loved him.

“I don’t deserve the honour.”

“What do you think you deserve, then?” Peregrine asked in curiosity. “What do you wish from me, if I can make it true then ask?”

Camille lost her strength, feelings were stirring up but it was more than the venture that was bothering her. It was this dismissal hidden under a ruse of a promotion, nothing made sense to her and if she was not by his side then what did she have?

“An explanation. I want to know why we went to Breeston. I want to know everything.” She was finding her courage, then she was finding her anger. “I don’t need a manse to feel vindicated for what I went through. I can live in a simple yurt as well as a place like this.”

“For the last time, no!” he told her in a cruel tone. Then apologized for his sharp words.

“Send your servants away. I want a private audience,” she demanded, trying to stay calm.

“Very well.” He motioned to the ones that led her here, her replacements, she wondered, as they left the two of them alone. “These are the affairs of the temple; they are not privy to your ears, our affairs are discreet.”

She felt rage build up inside her. The anger compelled Camille and she slapped her master, disturbing his reply. She heard what she wasn’t privy to for far too long.

Camille slapped him again, and that one stung. It had brought blood. Peregrine was stunned, looking back at her. “You are dismissed, now go to Pevensey and enjoy your life. That is my final order,” his icy reply was like a knife gutting her and felt much colder than steel.

Peregrine rose from his desk, circling it to approach her, and thanked her once again. Camille pushed him away, hitting him this time with a balled fist, sending him backward and over his desk.

Quickly grabbing him, then slinging him to the floor, he fell with a hard thump, sprawling prone on a fine rug. She kicked him hard, and he winced out a pained grunt. Another followed as she dug the boot out of his side.

“You drag us to a pit of a city, hole us up in a rat-infested, dung-smelling ward dealing with unclean, ignorant people. Then a mysterious stranger shows up, frightens you into losing your wits.”

She stomped the heel of her foot into his hand. “You then distanced yourself from me, and hired a bunch of cretins to watch over us, who gawk at me and insult us.” Camille kicked him in the jaw, sending his head sprawling to the floor.

“You then send me back, let the one you blinded bed me to see if he healed. On a hunch, you had to have it confirmed. ‘Scratch his back, Camille,’ you ordered, ‘and collect his blood so you can examine it,’ as I’m underneath him.”

Her anger was blinding her thoughts, as she stomped his head, then again, and another hard stomp. “Now you are giving me a manse, tossing me aside, and you want me to be discreet?

“You do what you need to do, say what you have to say, and kill me now because I will kill you if you think I’m not privy to the temple’s affairs.” She could hear a hard knock on the door. It was servants who could hear the parley from outside, barging inward with steel drawn.

“Let me send them away!” Peregrine spat out from his heap.

“What?” She was still in a frenzy when he begged her to heed him.

“Let me send them away,” he murmured again. His mouth was pouring blood.

“Master.” Two servants had blades pointing her way. “What do you want us to do?” They were alarmed, and shaking uncontrollably, but duty compelled them to engage her.

“I want you to go. Close the door and don’t enter until I call you! No matter the ruckus.” They had eyes filled with terror, but they complied and shut the doors behind them.

“Alright.” He looked at her with a battered face. “You want to know? This information is complicated. Look at what you have done to me!” He spat into a linen kerchief from inside his tunic when he stood back up. Rising slowly into a stagger, nearly falling he pointed.

“Can you hand me that chair?” His finger motioned to the one she always sat in, then Peregrine fell back on his arse.

He was battered severely, she noticed, with his left eye swollen shut. Camille lifted him, then walked him over and sat him down.

Peregrine focused back on her. “Give me a minute, let me put myself in order.”

She waited as his body began to work. His wounds would not hinder him for long. Peregrine rubbed his eyes, and she started weeping again. It was uncontrollable.

“Did that lad hurt you? I will deal with him if so.”

“No, I wasn’t perfectly prepared.”

“I know.” He was getting upset. “I’m ashamed of myself for asking what I have asked of you these past weeks, and I mean that. I need his blood though.”

“Why?” she asked impatiently. “Do you mean to kill him? The Order would want him dead if they knew of his—!”

“Don’t say another word. You are speaking too loud, and I don’t know which of my servants are loyal and which ones are planted here by Vaschon,” he told her.

“C’mon, let’s sit near one another and I will tell you some things you should never repeat,” he said faintly.

Obeying her master, she picked up a chair and placed it beside him, embracing him, and fear gripped her. “I don’t know what is wrong with me.”

“Nothing is wrong with you, it’s emotions pulling at you.” Peregrine held her close, as Camille gathered herself.

“I put you through too much the last several days. You were not ready to leave beyond the walls. Who is? When you live in such a dreadful place.”

His words made her look at him oddly. “What do you mean, master, we are Grimm.”

“This place is a tomb. I have grown to despise what this land has become.” He was whispering almost. “Do you know how old you are?” He asked her such a stupid question.

“You know the answer to that.” She looked at him like he lost his wits as Peregrine stood there, waiting for her answer. “I’m one hundred and eleven. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You are his age, you know, as that lad Edmund if you were Nuhrish.” He scoffed. “You were born before they built the outer walls of Breeston when it was just a village. The people were more ignorant back then if you could believe it.

“We were enlightened by the gods, we were just as uncivilized as them long ago, thousands of years before me. Their grace evolved us in such a rapid way.

The barbarians on the other side of the wall don’t have a sniff of what we built here once. This manse you adore was one of thousands, now ruins covered in vines. Hidden reminders for you to marvel over, they are just tombstones to me.

Peregrine began to weep and she was taken aback. “I took the journey to Breeston because I feel dead here,” he admitted to her as he wiped away a tear. “I am sorry. I wanted to treat people like I used to when I was young, before the downfall.”

“The truth about those barbarians, is they are gradually becoming us. We weren’t created out of magic or Xarl’s will.” Peregrine says, shaking his head in annoyance.

“He didn’t pick up a sapling and make us into Grimm, nor from a rock did he create the Minoans, that is a legend we were told as children because the gods never told us.

“Then what are we?” Camille asked sharply as Peregrine quieted her, leaning in to speak in whispers.

“The gods were just more evolved than us, immortal, yes, but they suffered from emotions themselves, and in the end, their emotions ruined us all.” her master says with a pained look.

“Xarl wanted children, something to pour his energy into so he found female creatures of whatever lived on two legs and mated with them, and with blood magic, we were born.”

“I can’t believe this, this can not be true.” Camille rebuked him, thinking he was trying to anger her further. Peregrine said nothing, waiting for her to ask if he should continue.

Peregrine imagined that before the first Grimm was born, men-like creatures were unable to build, who even knows if he understood fire? They gave them intelligence and soon other two-legged creatures were pushed far away or simply left to survive.

“We built cities and sculpted most of the lands hundreds of leagues here, the trees and crops in these lands we developed, and as far as Ankirk our villages once stood.” her master said. “Those remnants are either now buried or have been taken down as centuries passed while our women’s wombs become barren.”

“We stopped because we betrayed the mother and father,” Camille says as she had heard it all her life. Peregrine nods, and lets out a painful word-“yeah.”

“The city of Breeston is wretched because it doesn’t have faith, and without faith, is like death itself,” Peregrine says with a sorrowful look.”

“We Grimm are in the shape we are in because we lost our original faith, and what we have now is a twisted abomination that serves in its stead.”

Peregrine was speaking in blasphemy as if the scripture she always believed was false. He tells her it doesn’t matter now, because knowing the truth now would do more harm than living in the present lie.

He went on a sojourn to Breeston to be around life, and even if it was lost and limited in its existence, it still hungered for the pursuit of ambition. Camille felt lost to his words, they were riddles and she never was good with them.

He could see gratitude in someone’s eyes there, he couldn’t help any Grimm, they never had illness and pain was fleeting unless it was fatal. They could die if an arrow went through their heart, but Camille could live over three hundred years before natural age would take her.

The sojourn gave him a mystery, the poison that had crept into the outer wards amazed him. “It takes advanced knowledge to make something that potent, a skill none in Breeston possesses.” her master told her.

“There is a craft being cultivated somewhere, but I didn’t have time to find out. Somehow, they have gained knowledge that only we could develop.”

Peregrine had to find out who was bringing it into the city, then dispatch a man to take care of it. “I only got as far as an owner of the apothecary to which I sent Julius for things daily.”

“I “tainted” the lad into running our errands, you knew that.” He was going to have Julius invite him, so he could’ve “tainted” him and found out much more.

“That killing in the ward, he made your priorities change?” Camille was now understanding some of this. “Was he Vaschon’s shifter? His ruse was much better than many.”

“That was one of his skills. The man has complicated my life,” Peregrine cursed. “He was more than a doppelganger, he was a true Grimm that served Lupretia before the deception.”

Her master’s words shocked her, surely he was mistaken. “I am confused, you are saying that a pure Grimm other than the Nine existed outside our walls?” Camille asked.

Peregrine’s reveal was hard to believe, only the Nine survived, it was all she knew, and so did Peregrine at that moment, now it awakened old questions, and that is what had been bothering him.

“I wasn’t strong enough, I could only learn so much, Camille.” he cursed at himself.

“I’ve gotten so lazy with my gifts, I nearly killed myself trying to read his thoughts as he was dying after we took his body in the night.” Peregrine sighed aloud. “If I wasn’t so weak I could have saved him.”

“I had questions and maybe he had answers, everything I ever wondered or doubted is now a “what if”.” her master continued.

Peregrine only had fragments, remnants of things that were on his mind. He saw visions of cult-like men, balding with brands burnt into their flesh that disturbed him.

“There is a grave out there. I collected its whereabouts from his memories. He had just enough left in him for me to coax its location. I don’t want to tell Vaschon of this, never speak a word, Camille.” Peregrine had a sly look on his face.

“I have to tell the high priest about the poison, and that I want to return to find its maker. It will allow me to further my search.”

“A search? What are you seeking? Camille asked as her mind was racing in several directions.

“I need to find this Lucius Vanderlay, he was in his visions, a connection to this “mist”, perhaps, I must study it first before I depart to this grave, it is in Loreto and you can not reach it by walking.”

“Who is in the grave?” She was direct. The master gave her a disappointed look.

“I could only feel misery when I asked him, he was near his last thoughts before he left us,” Peregrine whispered.

“Why do you need Edmund’s blood?” she demanded to him in a plea, she couldn’t understand this connection she was feeling.

Peregrine looked at her deeply, and she found it disturbing. “I have to find out why he has his eyes. They should’ve burned out in their sockets. He should be dead, Camille, but he isn’t dead at all.”

“I’ve got to find out why I couldn’t “taint” him. He has evolved past the barbarians. His brother, too, as when I prodded them on the journey to Lonoke, they looked beyond my words and spoke in lies.” Peregrine told her with a serious look.

“I don’t want him harmed,” Camille said. “He is naïve to this.”

“You sure he got the bow?” Peregrine asked her, it was important to him, which baffled her.

“You said yourself, the Order need not discover it. We had to discard it, and what way would be better?” she said, defending her decision.

She had to retrieve it herself after Peregrine sent her to the inn he was quartered when he probed his mind. There couldn’t be any trace of him, his obfuscation would end and the barbarians would see a true Grimm.

“You enjoyed his company, didn’t you?” Camille became defensive at the master’s question. “You softened to him after he ran in after you with that dirk. The fool didn’t do it for me,” Peregrine said, smiling at her.

She wasn’t amused at his jape and sat stoically, not sure of what he was getting at.

“Do you want to see him again, if I could arrange it?” Peregrine said, catching her off guard. “If I asked you to go back to the wards, make it possible that you could keep an eye on Edmund, would you do it?”

Camille was hesitant to answer him. She tried to look away from him. “The manse?” she said.

“You don’t want it, and I granted it to you because I may be gone for a long time.” her master confided in her as she stood, pacing as her nerves felt heavy. “You wore the ruse, can you live in that again?”

“If you asked it of me.”

“I’m letting you volunteer. You will do it because you want to. I was going to send a lad to keep an eye on him.” His proposal was dreadful, she hated Breeston, but her thoughts were back in his arms.

She was weak, and she was shaking, just the thought of him compelled her.

“Do you want to keep him safe?” Peregrine asked. “Then you keep him safe. You never tell him where you come from, gather information about him, let me know anything unusual.”

“Vaschon?” she asked.

“Bugger him,” he replies like the cretins. “If you decide to go, you will get with Vallance, and he will help you learn, and teach you how to be cordial, how to find and gather gossip, and hopefully teach you how to smile,” Peregrine told her bluntly.

“You are going back as you are now. He is familiar with this falsehood.”

“I can’t go back as this. He will find me, they will wonder.”

“Vallance will provide you with a cover. You have to convince them that what you say is true.”

“He can’t see me like this again. What am I to do?”

“Hold a conversation with him. I’m not asking you to go back to him in flimsy linen and throw it off when he lets you in the door. You have to keep an eye on him.” Peregrine gave her a long look, and she felt embarrassed and wanted to turn away.

“You do what you want to do — that is freedom. Be friendly to him, let him court you if he desires it. Whatever you have to do, you have to find a way to keep in contact. If he opens a store, be a customer. I don’t care. You give me nothing, you are coming back.”

“I haven’t accepted yet, anyway.” She scowled back at him.

“Then don’t,” the master replied curtly. “It would be a favour to Vallance. I almost feel sorry for him if you accept.”

“I don’t need some boy fawning around my door. He just wants to — to…”

“You’re permitted to do that as well. Most snatchers do. It is an effective way to gather information.” Peregrine rose to walk away.

“It’s a request, and it remains discreet; you think about it for a while. You know where Vallance is. When I return from seeing Vaschon, then you can give me an answer.”

Camille sat, mortified while watching her master leave. It was the first choice she had been allowed to make. At least, she thought she had a choice.