Twilight settled over the northern forest. Pine and spruce swayed, their scent hanging thick in the cooling air. Below the branches, the crunch of boots through the fallen conifers.

A man in a collared robe stepped out ahead of the hooded ones.

His clothes marked him apart, his eyes wizen with age while his face still held the smoothness of someone barely past youth.

His gaze landed on Giovanni, a disciple he had long since presumed dead, and saw that it was truly him.

His brows eased a fraction, a quiet satisfaction showing at how tenacious the boy had proven to be.

"What is this uproar? All of you, lower your blades. This man is a brother of your cult, is he not?"

Weapons hit the ground instead of finding their sheaths. They knew the man was no man at all but a madman who would take offense at any command he disliked, even from the one who ran Ashlime Crag itself.

"Enough. Time presses us, and that charm is no toy. Put it away, before some poor soul is hurt by accident rather than war."

Radeon staggered forward, each step dragging. His breath smoked in the cold air, but he did not shy away from the man in the collared robe.

He knew this figure from birth. For Giovanni, this was the closest thing to a father.

He raised the bamboo shaft. His hands shook so badly that his knuckles popped and his joints crackled loud enough for those nearest to hear, the simple motion selling the image of a body on the verge of breaking.

"Master Jekyll… this disciple took it from the enemy camp. I served in their ranks for a time, then fled with it."

Hearing him out, Jekyll did not quite believe a word of it. Doubt sat plain in his eyes. Yet his clean hands still reached for the soiled bamboo.

He cracked the shaft open and slowly unwound the thin papers hidden inside. His gaze moved over crude array diagrams, supply numbers, ship records. He checked the bamboo again and found more. Pages covered in tighter script. Seals from array masters whose names carried weight even now, and had done so back when these were first signed.

Jekyll folded the documents with care and slipped them into his chest, close to the heart he swore he no longer listened to. Then he pushed the empty bamboo container back into Radeon's shaking hand.

"Sleep now, disciple. You have done your part."

Radeon fought to keep his eyes open, but his mind was too worn to hold the line. Darkness slipped in at the edges and then closed over him.

The robed man moved the instant he sagged. He shot forward like a streak of shadow, lifting his disciple with effortless strength as their bodies rose from the forest floor and floated away through the thinning light.

The men left behind stood staring after them. Heads bobbing, as if asking what to do next.

Radeon woke in the dark. The ceiling was low and close, shadows pooled in the corners. The mat under his back felt stiff and tacky. When he lifted his hand he found it smeared with old blood.

He turned his head slowly. Row after row of mats lined the room, each one stained the same way. The sight tugged at something dull and familiar in him. This was not new. This was home of a kind.

He did not stand. Not yet. He lay still and let his mind walk the space instead of his feet, tracing exits and cover and where a watcher might sit.

Examining himself, he discovered that his qi moved clean inside him. Blood essence no longer scraped the bottom of the well. Vitality sat full and heavy in his limbs.

Somewhere in that fall and fever he had broken through to cornerstone stage.

Radeon let the knowledge pass through him without celebration. For now he only asked what he could do with it.

'I need enough vitality to rebuild a body from scratch. Looks like the right place.'

He remembered this place. If his memory of Giovanni's scraps was right, this hall sat close to an alchemic room. That's what he's after.

For now he chose patience. He stayed in the bloodied bed where he was a thinned his presence.

He shut off his other senses one by one and let only his hearing work.

With that single thread he began to unravel who walked these halls and when. Giovanni had never bothered to listen this way.

In his ears it was simple. Those who dragged their feet had no business with combat.

Alchemists, almost certainly, wrapped in their own thoughts and fumes.

Those who tried a little too hard to soften their steps, but still left uneven weight and a faint clink of tools, would be medical workers.

The ones whose strides came in silent, measured beats, heel and toe in perfect rhythm, had trained martial arts.

A day slipped by. During that time he steadily pushed his cultivation to the middle stages of cornerstone, all while keeping his eyes closed and his breathing slow, a patient corpse among many.

He did not idle. The cult had fed him a rare blood panacea for his so called meritorious service and he squeezed every drop of benefit from it.

He rose from the blood stiffened mat as if climbing out of a grave. Limbs light, steps steady.

The caretakers fussed at his side, hands hovering near his shoulders in case he toppled.

Radeon dipped his head to them, let his eyes shine with a wet gratitude Giovanni would have worn.

"My thanks for your care, my lord. I'll see that what you've given me is not squandered."

"Best you thank Master Jekyll, lad. Was his own panacea you tasted, not my poor draughts."

Bowing once again to the old medicine practitioner, strode out into the corridor. Word had gone ahead of him.

By the time he reached the courtyard his peers were already drifting in his direction, pulled as much by curiosity as by the story that had begun to grow in their mouths.

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