If everything Bezel had been up to constituted a bad time then he really couldn't imagine just what in Hell--literally--Ira had been doing. Despite all Bezel had faced since they had last spoke, one of them seemed war torn and it wasn't the Prince. The Bishop had nestled himself into the left seat of a hideous green sofa, blinking his baby blues slowly. His arms, which he had opted to fold over his rising chest, were stained brownish red up to his elbows. At first it looked like he'd gone rolling in clay but the dirt had a barely there iron sting to it. For whatever reason, the muck clinging to him had been diluted with rich blood. There was broken stick bits, crumbled leaves, and dried mud tangled in his straw-golden hair. The rams horns Bezel had placed there as a temporary disguise were half dissolved, flickering in and out like the last few spurts from a dying heart. No doubt reflecting how Bezel's own source of magic was feeling at the moment. 

Mayvalt was fairing only slightly better. She stunk more of corpse than blood and her black leather jacket had seemed to absorb most of the mud leaving her tawny skin clear. 

"What happened to you two?" Bezel asked, head cocked wearily. He had found an old yellow milk crate in the mess his sister had amassed and had perched himself atop it to fit at their odd table arrangement. The fragile porcelain cup in his palm billowed up tea-fragranced whisps into his face. The metal of his sword a heavy but steady presence across his legs. The weapon had been returned to him since any and all interest in the artifact had been quickly bled out by its common gray blade. As much as it pained any older brother to admit--his little sister had been right. Eadrom had been a fine blade. A very fine blade. One capable of killing even Bezel. And they had expected him to still have it? Worse, to have left it with the Progeny? Bezel had been willfully negligent in many aspects of his life--but not in aspects that could end his life. He wasn't so far gone. Or, he should say, he hadn't been at the time of his poetic and symbolic surrender to the Progeny. 

Is that really the truth? 

Bezel shoved the nosy voice aside and lifted his eyes from the cold metal. His caution was perhaps over played, but he couldn't shake the notion that his lies were reflected in the surface of the ordinary kris. 

Mayvalt glanced at Ira, something like amusement reflected in the dark brown pools of her doe-wide eyes. Bezel didn't know how he would feel, if he could, about the alliance clearly brewing between the two. Had they always been so buddy, buddy--or, buddy, bovine? They had elected to sit together on the sofa, elbows close enough to brush. The last thing he'd thought they'd knock around being just that. He would have betted on skulls or knuckles. 

"Ira offered the Fifth Prince anything she asked for if she'd tell us about Avernus." Mayvalt said with a laugh. "Like, seriously, an open ended devil deal. Brilliant." 

When Mayvalt said things like that, Bezel's next move was to feign an act of shock. He knew it was surprising--or, it really should have been but this was Ira Rule she was talking about. He had promised his willingness back in New York. He had proven it many times before that, actually. "Huh." He mumbled instead. His golden gaze was reflected in the swirling surface of his brown tea. He found himself watching them--peering into his own familiar gaze. It was better than staring at his own kris, remembering how close he had come to losing it to his pesky sister. 

"You seem rather calm about the deal, Belzebuth." Astaroth said coolly. "Not even a little astonished?" 

He lifted his sight to meet her. His little sister, the Fifth Prince of Hell. She was somehow making a neon pink bean bang seem as ethereal as the Richathaoir. A fancy and outdated word that meant the chair his--their--father had sat on when he went about playing god. Bezel would have liked to scoff and roll his eyes about the notion of naming a chair, but even he knew how important the throne was. It was the epicenter. Where everything in the universe and the three realms collided. It was how the All-King casted Trammels large enough to divide the worlds. It was also why Bezel was here now, in Hell. With his sister and all his other siblings that had been cruelly tossed out to protect the lineages of holy chair hoggers. But back to the topic of siblings. Only one was currently gawking at him with lips twisted into an amused smirk. No doubt she knew--no doubt they all knew by now. Bezel had been afflicted with his curse after they had gone back to Avernus. The last time they had spoken, Bezel might have cried to say goodbye. Her interest, for that reason, wasn't shocking either. 

"That they'd do something stupid or that they'd pull it off?" Bezel asked. No harm in playing along, he figured. 

"Both?" Astaroth suggested after a slight pause. 

"Well," Bezel said back, adding his own mockingly thoughtful pause, "not at all. It would be more suspicious if they'd actually listened to me." 

Astaroth, or as he had first known her, Astarte laughed airly. "You advised them to stay away from me, I suspected as much. No sibling of mine would willingly send their allies to me. It was foolish--but I do not entirely regret that it has happened now. My Faun will sleep a little deeper tonight knowing there is one less hungry Beast beyond the walls." 

"Oh, yeah," Mayvalt snarked sharply, "'cause everything is perfect now. Looks that way to me--and the blind." 

Ira casted Mayvalt an equally sharp glance. Bezel perked up at that--at the first taste of electricity between their budding new friendship. 

Astarte sighed heavy as irons and shrugged pointedly. "Yes, yes. You are displeased with my town. You have done nothing but make me aware of it since you arrived." 

"It's not your anything!" Mayvalt snapped, flinching forward on the green sofa. "Except for your delusion, maybe." 

"Mayvalt." Ira winced, dragging his palms over his face in exasperation. Bezel couldn't help but watch the exchange between them. He was quite used to being the thing that vexed Mayvalt, it was odd to see the roles so easily swapped. "Let's just focus on what we came here for, alright? We need information on the Ze'ev-" 

"I agree." Bezel blurted before he could think better of it. Ira stilled at being interrupted. His eyes narrowed in blue-tinted suspicion. It was a look Bezel had grown very familiar with. It was the same look Ira had leveled at the tea offered to him by the Faun pouring cups earlier, the same look he often gave Bezel when he offered up his aid. Usually, Bezel thought it a pointless waste of time to look for tricks where there so clearly weren't any; despite widely held beliefs, Bezel very often meant exactly what he said. Usually--because this time it was warranted. "I agree with Mayvalt, I mean." 

The fire in Ira's eyes could have rivaled Eadrom's spark. "Do you?" He choked through clenched teeth. Heimrians, much like Faun, didn't have fangs--and yet Bezel could not shake the idea that if he strayed too near the Bishop he would tear out his jugular with a pearly white set of them. 

"I spent much of my exile in Heimr but I did not spend all of it in Heimr." Bezel said calmly. "I remember some things of this place. I remember the smell of salt on the South Sea, the sight of Mountain Mojaere against the sunrise, the tall dark oaks of the Sikker, the blizzards in the Speir, the ritualistic drinks they pour along the coastal cities." 

"Careful, Belzebuth, you almost sound sentimental." Astarte warned sarcastically. 

"It's Bezel now." He corrected. "And you know what I'm saying, Astarte. This place has changed. It's rotted. What happened? When I left-" 

Astaroth made a choking sound in the depth of her throat that Bezel pointedly ignored. He knew his siblings opinion on that particular choice of his. Unsurprisingly, it hadn't made him popular. He was sure all of them thought his bitter fate was well earned. 

"-it was almost peaceful here." He finished. 

"When you left, it was during war. The wolves had turned to blood lust, the Beasts had begun to overrun Avernus." 

"I heard it got better." Bezel shrugged. "Our brother placed the Beasts in the Tachtadh, the wolves followed. It was peaceful again." 

"Peace is relative." Ira said. "I'm sure the Ze'ev didn't feel at peace." 

Bezel raised an eyebrow. The surprise he was guessing at reflected most in Mayvalt's eyes. She twisted to face him, mouth popped open. "You're team wolf now? I thought you killed Ze'ev." 

"I do--I did. . . I-" Ira groaned and pressed his fingertips to his lips. "It's complicated, okay?" 

"Sleeping with the enemy always is." Mayvalt sighed wistfully. 

Ira turned fire hydrant red. It made his usual skin-burning glare come across softer. "Melchior isn't the enemy! Not to me. And we didn't--I mean we couldn't--I mean I'd never even thought about--angels! I'm not going to sit here justifying myself to a group of literal demons." 

"Knock it off, Mayvalt." Bezel ordered. He wasn't really the ordering type of boss but something compelled him to save Ira from the gentle ribbing. Maybe it was that wide pitiful look in his sea blue eyes. The Bishop often carried himself in a way that conveyed how untouchable he felt he was. But Bezel had survived a long time, and despite his best efforts living so long come with the unfortunate side effect of lessons learned. One of which being: the most untouchable things were labeled so only because of their fragility. If the Bishop across from him had been placed in a museum, it would have been behind six-inch glass and armed guard. A single breath threatened to ruin him. 

"I didn't mean anything by it." Mayvalt said. 

"I know but you're distracting from the important part. What we can do to change Heneth back to how it was. A safe place for Faun." Bezel dismissed. He didn't really care beyond his promise to a helpful stranger, but he knew Mayvalt did. It had always been in her nature to look out for her kind. A slight nudge was all it took to have her eyes narrowed and her spine stiffened. Ira seemed to recognize Bezel's trick well enough that he didn't interrupt to rearrange the topics of discussion by his standard of importance. Which Bezel knew would have played the wolves at the top and everything else miles below it. 

Astarte shifted on her bean bag and gulped needily at the tea cup clasped between her fingers. "You cannot even begin to understand what it has taken to keep this place from ruin, Bel--ugh, Bezel. I am sure you have noticed by now. The Trammel our eldest placed over the Diereadh all those centuries ago has taken to rot. Beasts have been pushing their way back into Avernus. We are entering a cycle of rebirth, brother. Avernus is returning to how things used to be." 

"When the wolves hunted the Beasts and kept things safe?" Mayvalt growled with a generous helping of sarcasm. 

"Before." Astarte hissed. The air in the room become electric. Mayvalt turned pale and sucked in a lungful of tea. Bezel tapped his fingers along the surface of his blade, listening to the soft patter it made.

Ira seemed weary to place himself back into the line of direct fire but he did so anyway, likely a helpless servant to the whims of his deep curiosity. "Why doesn't that sound good? If that was how Avernus used to be, it can't be all that terrible. I mean. . . can it?" 

"Avernus has seen many states, Ira. All things from dark ages to golden eras. It's like Heimr in that way, but instead of dinosaurs we had Beasts. They were the first Avernians--sap, they were Avernus. Everything in this place belonged to the Beasts. Do you know how demons--I mean the Faun, the Ze'ev, the woodland folk--came to be?" Mayvalt spoke slowly to make sure Ira understood her every word. He seemed to until she posed her unnecessarily difficult question. He shook his yellow hair and stayed silent for her to continue. "Ely." 

Ira's eyebrows narrowed momentarily before a slight look of recognition slipped into the forefront of his sea-toned eyes. "Right, like the Halflings? They're half angel. And the Ze'ev come from Alukah--a daughter of Mammon. So, wait, all demons come from angelic roots?" 

Mayvalt shrugged. "So they say. But don't get it all wrong. Us Faun--well, to be totally accurate Faun come from a wilder less evolved line of devils called Satyrs--have no angelic blood. Unlike Halflings and unlike Silver-Tongued wolves. Satyrs were made. Not born, not bred for. Just poof--like banana bread." 

"Banana bread," Ira echoed dizzily, "uh, why?" 

Mayvalt shrugged. "Boredom? Why do Ely do anything. Avernus was a dumping ground for bored Ely experimentation. There's magic here--enough to manipulate. Plus it used to be a barren wasteland of giant fire breathing lizards. Why not mess around?"

Ira sat up straighter in his seat, his interest palpable and adorable. Not that Bezel thought it was adorable--it was just an observation. The serious mask he had always worn as he blabbered on about his duty to the Progeny had slipped. His eyes filled with childish wonder and his hands wrung together nervously in his lap. "Right, so they made a bunch of weird stuff?" Mayvalt raised her eyebrow, likely objecting to being grouped in with said weird stuff, "but Beasts kill Faun. Probably other stuff, too. So something had to change for the power in Avernus to shift." 

"The wolves." Mayvalt answered. "Mammon's daughter Alukah created an army. They hunted the Beasts into a number manageable enough for real life to take root in the ash." 

Ira lifted up his palms to pause her. "Wait--but Mammon didn't come to Hell until after the banishment in Heaven, right? So how could his daughter have shaped this world out of the dark ages?" 

"Daughter is a generous word, Heimrian." Astarte shrugged. "She was just a plaything. Something my brother made out of curiosity and a lump of clay. He tossed her aside here centuries before we were forced from Elysium. The fact she took on such a life of her own shocked all of us." 

"That's. . . cold." Ira said, distaste clear in his eyes. 

"Creation often is." Astarte laughed darkly. "It's a petty Heimrian belief that creation is an act of love. A foolish one at that. Do you think my father cared for any one of our Heimrian mothers? If he had, he would not have left them to be burned as witches for birthing devils. He would not have planted us in the first place." 

Ira's eyes fluttered towards Bezel--rather randomly the Prince thought until he recounted on what his sister had said. Was it pity? That shimmering look twisted into the center of the Bishop's pupil. Bezel lifted his head and shook it. "My mother wasn't burned at the stake." He said--because it was true and because he didn't want Ira pinning that doe-eyed gaze on him any longer. 

"Ah," Astarte mocked, "and was her fate any kinder, brother?" 

Bezel glanced down into the surface of his shining silver kris. The face that stared back at him was eerily alike to that woman's. They had the same olive skin common on the island he had been born, the same dark as night hair, narrowed almond eyes--although her's had not been catlike and monstrous. Bezel's jaw was sharper, the angles of his face harsher. She had been soft, warm. Until she had been cold--cold as stone and already starting to rot. He met Astarte's knowing look. She hadn't missed the acknowledgment that he was near identical to his Heimrian mother. She was, too. All of his siblings were. It seemed they had leached off something more than life from inside their wombs. Though Bezel was sure she looked at her own reflection with much more emotion than he did. 

He had never met any of his siblings' mothers. None of them had lasted long or lived content lives. But he knew Astarte's mother had been an Egyptian woman born in Canaan--a land that no longer existed. She carried the features still. Her sharkish eyes the only thing out of place. That Bezel could see anyway--he knew what else she was hiding behind a layer of illusion. Because Bezel was attempting much of the same with a borrowed old cloak. Granted, for different reasons he was sure. 

"No." He said finally, dryly. "But that was a long time ago. Rarely did Heimrians have good lives. Disease too common, food too little, nights too cold-" 

"People much too unkind." Astarte drawled. 

"It wasn't like that, Astarte. Don't twist it up to be like your miserable childhood." Bezel warned. 

She coughed a laugh and raised her dark eyebrows. "Was it not? How did she die again? Starvation? Disease? The elements? Actually, it could have been any matter of animal now that I am thinking back on it. Heimrians are weak, Belzebuth, but much weaker without their primitive packs. She stood no chance once her village tossed her out." 

"Like I said." Bezel said into the brim of his tea cup. "It was a long time ago." 

"Perhaps too long." Astarte agreed readily. "Seeing as you have forgotten the lesson her hardship was meant to serve." 

Bezel brought the cooled tea away from his lips without taking another sip. "Her suffering was pointless, sister. She was chosen at random by a madman. There is no lesson to be taught--no wisdom to gleam from other's pain." 

"I disagree. I see the teaching being carved out of flesh and blood." Astaroth snapped. "Although, it is entirely clear to me that you do not. In fact, you are so blind you can not see the universe mocking you to your face." 

Bezel leaned forward on his milk crate and placed the unappealing tea back on the plastic tub between them. He spread his emptied hands impatiently, his breath coming out sharper to convey annoyance. "Go on and tell me, then. You'd clearly like to." 

"I heard you had taken a Heimrian lover." Astarte snarled, her disgust as crystal clear on her tongue as it was in her eyes. Mayvalt inhaled a sharp gasp somewhere unseen to Bezel's side. Ira Rule made no noise at all--except for the upticked speed of his pounding heart. Bezel narrowed his gaze at his sister, tuning out all of them and the piles of chaos around them to see her and only her. 

"You heard correctly." He said tonelessly. 

"I heard they died horrifically a short time later." Astarte said again. Her face was carefully schooled but the satisfaction crept into the edges of her smooth voice anyways. 

"Do you have a point?" He drawled. He sounded more bored--more empty--than he usually allowed his voice to be. Even when only speaking to Mayvalt, someone who knew him better than stars knew space, he tried to keep life funneling into each of his movements. He made no such effort now. He didn't want Astaroth to pick into each of his ticks in an attempt to find something. Especially if that particular something had died in the dark a long time ago. 

 "Why can you not see it, Belzebuth?" She hissed. "Your touch is poison! Your attention scalding. You will destroy everything you hold dear. Nothing can last beside your light. It will all be turned to ash." 

"That is an interesting concept, sister." He said. "You are aware that my ability to hold anything dear has gone dormant, correct?"

If Mayvalt's heart stuttered a little louder than normal, Bezel paid it no attention. He knew the reminder was painful to her--but truths often were the most agonizing. He wished he could tell her sometimes that if he still could, he knew he would return to caring for her. Her presence at his side had always eased his tasks. She tended to the emotional needs Bezel often overlooked amongst their charged group of Faun, after all. 

"Dormant." She smirked. "Not gone." 

Bezel could sense her claws drawing near the weaknesses in his hardened shell--because his curse was nothing but a weakness. Hadn't his youngest siblings realized the same? When they had plucked his Soul from its rebirth cycle and stuffed it into hiding. Something Bezel still struggled to wrap his mind around, actually. It was hard for him to accept defeat, as it was for most Ely, but this one had the potential to sting. His Soul as he called it was in fact a Heimrian vessel in which had had hidden all of his emotions, fears, desires, lusts, hunger, exhaustion, love, anger, boredom, contentment--everything that made a creature a living thing and not a mindless Beast. And it had been stolen from him. More importantly, the draw that had always pulled them back together had been cut. Bezel had attempted to feel for the tether last summer when Mammon had revealed his Soul had been on Heimr for nearly two decade but the line was simply gone. He had no map to lead him back to his buried treasure. It was out of his reach. Bezel would remain cold and dead--locked in the painless agony his curse offered--for the rest of eternity. 

If his Soul had walked right up to him and slapped him, Bezel would never be any wiser. That was unlikely actually. Not the bit about being clueless--that was true. The part about any Heimrian gathering the wits to place a hit on his handsome head. Well, beyond one. Bezel's eyes fluttered towards the pale Bishop on the sofa. He seemed the exception. If Ira Rule punched him, Bezel wouldn't have been all that shocked. 

Ira seemed uncomfortable under his scrutiny, likely due to the nature of Astarte's pesky conversation. It must have unsettled him to hear all that talk of Heimrians dying brutal deaths after short lives. Because Astarte was right. Each brief reprieve that came from his curse was just that--brief. Each reunion he had with his Soul lasted less and less. The longest had been a little more than two Heimrian years. Likely because Bezel had never made it very close to that one. The love he had hidden inside the Heimrian was not always returned to him. Heimrians were complex. They had minds of their own, wants Bezel remained firmly on the outside of. He didn't talk about it much. Maybe for a reason akin to embarrassment? He didn't know why though. Punishment was meant to be cruel. So was it anything other than expectation that his was as well? 

Astaroth seemed displeased by the longevity of his silence. She preened on her bean bag and lifted her chin. "You are an Ely, brother. Do not forget what Ely do best."

"Suffering." Bezel guessed, his eyes snapping back towards Astarte. Ira exhaled at the release Bezel offered from his inspection. Mayvalt did too. Maybe she was thinking of the first life Bezel had shared with his Soul. Or the first death. She had been partly responsible at the time--he knew it still ate at her from the inside. "So, that's it? Why you're playing such a heavy role in the damnation of Heneth? To honor our ancestry of death bringers and war mongers?" 

Astaroth scoffed in disbelief. "A heavy role? I am removing myself from the situation! As you should try sometime. It is our meddling that brings pain, death, and agony." 

"This is sitting on your hands, is it?" Bezel quipped, raising a lazily flicked wrist to indicate the piles of junk Astarte had collected in her hideous castle. And he truly meant that--the gothic cathedral was a blight on an otherwise fine town. If he opened one wicked glass door and found a room adorned with popcorn ceilings it would have seemed completely in place between the random assortments of outdated furniture, trash,  and collections. 

Bezel found fashion pleasing. It operated under set trends made by a large enough splash of opinion. And that--doing exactly as told and being rewarded with approval--greatly appealed to his nature of doing nothing. It was how he maintained his businessman facade in the most business city in Heimr. How he kept his club, despite how long he had been doing it, new and exciting to a large cluster of both Avernian and Heimrian guests. 

"Sitting here is resulting in suffering." Mayvalt pointed. "The Faun are trading safety for happiness. If you would just step forward and take them all under your protection--in a non-creepy cultish way-" 

"It's pointless." Ira interrupted sharply. 

Bezel's golden eyes whipped to him. "As most things not concerning your wolf likely are to you." 

Ira glared at him, shaking his head in disagreement. "This isn't about Melchior--although I'd be lying if I said I was fine just sitting here talking ourselves into circles."

"Than it's about?" Bezel pressed as gently as he could. He filtered warmth and what he hoped seemed like understanding back into his naturally ice-cold voice. 

"It's the Trolley Problem." Ira said as if that did any sort of explaining. Bezel lifted one black eyebrow, pushing Ira into a heavy sigh and a few more words. "She'd rather sit in her castle doing nothing, even knowing that suffering unrelated to her is taking place outside, because putting in the work to fix the suffering may have consequences--and those would be from her hand." 

Astarte tilted her head in contemplation before laughing her astonishment. "I would say that is an accurate enough telling. So you agree, Heimrian? You see what I see." 

Ira bit at his bottom lip. "There's no clear answer, is there? I mean the Trolley Problem is just hypothetical. It's existed for decades and will continue to torture high school social science students for many more." 

"How would you solve it?" Bezel asked. 

Ira snorted roughly and shrugged. "I'm not anyone's compass for morality. I'm literally in Hell." 

"That's your answer, Ira." Mayvalt said softly. Her eyes had glazed at some point. They'd fallen to her hooves and stayed there, distant and foggy. "You'd take action, you would take on the consequences." 

Ira bristled defensively. "On myself, sure. I'm quite Catholic when it comes to self punishment--but it's something else entirely to place others at risk." 

The conversation reminded Bezel of the dark cellar where they had reclaimed the Vestige. Back in New York, beneath the Progeny's winding tunnels. The Cardinal had said something or other about all this. About Ira's future potential and his ability to be a leader. He'd told Ira that he had the ability to trance soldiers into their own death, tying men to the front lines as easily as he could lace up his oxfords. Bezel hadn't been deaf to the sour spike of Ira's rapid heart at the time. It had upset him. He seemed upset now, too. His throat bobbed nervously and his fingers picked at his pants. 

"Where are the Faun from Heimr, Astarte?" Bezel said loudly, switching the topic to one that could not be so easily ignored or redirected. 

Astaroth groaned wearily. "That troublesome lot? They are here." 

"Here?" Mayvalt coughed. "In the castle?" 

The Fifth Prince sighed drearily and rubbed at her shut eyes. "Unfortunately. They are between place at the moment--we do not have the infrastructure to suddenly accommodate them. Something you might have considered before shuttering the gates." 

Bezel rolled his eyes in an act of long suffering silence. 

"Not much choice on that front." Mayvalt grumbled.  "I'd say you should just go open your own but," she shrugged pointedly, sarcastically, bitterly. 

Astarte flashed her sharp teeth at her in an overly sweet smile. 

"So, that's just it?" Mayvalt pressed. The edges of her tone flared out into desperation. "You won't help the Faun here--and now everyone from New York is going to have to pick between a deal with the devil or a devil. Sap, and I pushed them to come here." 

"Mayvalt-" Bezel stirred. He wished to reach for her shoulder, pull her to her feet and give her a stern talking to about that pesky habit of hers. The one where she put everything on her own shoulders and sank under the weight of it. 

Ira was quicker. He pressed his shoulder gently into her's and matched her heavy gaze once it was turned to him. "Someone braver." He whispered. Bezel didn't really know what that meant--but clearly she did. She stiffened and paled, her lips popping open in surprise. 

"No!" She hissed back. "No, I'm not-" 

"Living for ourselves, remember?" Ira smiled wistfully, his blue eyes slanted in gentle challenge. 

"Letting go?" She muttered in a daze. "I don't know if I can." 

"You're not going to fall." Ira promised. "You're just going to hold on to something else." 

Mayvalt turned to Bezel, something in her eyes searching. She seemed to be reaching for him--to what end he had no clue--but it didn't matter. If she needed him there, a steadying guide though what she couldn't navigate herself, he would be there. Without question. As she had for him. He met her eyes and nodded. She sighed, her shoulders momentarily slumping in relief before she sat up straighter. The lost look was gone--replaced in a bursting flash by a hardened new resolve. 

"I can't leave the Faun behind." Mayvalt said, chin tilted defiantly. "I'm going to stay until every last devil has been ripped from their deal and tossed out. If they're scared, I'll show them how to use it to their advantage. We'll stand on our own two hooves. We'll defend ourselves from any Beasts. We're Faun--I'm done letting it be synonymous with weak." 

"Arysmic is going to be thrilled." Ira laughed, earning him a final hard knock from Mayvalt's elbow but they were both laughing. Astaroth groaned in less than silent suffering, clearly displeased at the idea Mayvalt would be poking around for some time longer. 

Mayvalt turned to look at him, her vulnerability slightly returned. "Boss?" She murmured gently. 

He blinked his golden cat eyes and plastered an understanding smile to his blank expression. "I'll be fine,  Mayvalt. Believe it or not--I can handle some things on my own." 

Her frown wasn't lightened by his dismissal. He sighed and tried again. 

"I will miss having you close." He said. He would have liked to sound more convincing but it came out cardboard dry, horribly mocking and emotionless. 

Mayvalt flinched tightly. "You promised me-" 

"To never say things I do not mean." Bezel finished. "I know." 

She laughed. Which he didn't understand. A sob seemed more fitting to the twisted up despair on her familiar face. She nodded, a small smile breaking through the stormy expression she wore, like the sun rising after a long night. He tried hard not to think of her departure as sinking back into darkness. With his curse lodged firmly into place, there was no way for him to reach the truth of how he felt about the matter. So it was useless to pretend to himself that he was bothered. It wasn't as if she was going forever, right? No, no of course not. 

"Well," Ira cleared his throat, "then it's settled. Mayvalt will stay here and we'll find the wolves-" 

Astaroth shifted noticeably in her chair, her face pinched in a way it hadn't been even when realizing Mayvalt would be bothering her further. Ira's gaze snapped to her. She stilled before shifting again, her lips opening and closing lazily like a fly trap plant. 

"Oh, so, well," Astaroth muttered. She stood from her place nestled in the pink fabric and paced slightly back and forth across the room. "The thing is--when you set your price. . . I didn't really think you two would be coming back to collect it so-" 

"What?" Ira snapped hard enough the sound of his teeth clacking echoed across the small room. 

"What are you saying?" Mayvalt sputtered. "Are you saying you don't actually know-" 

"If you are about to suggest that I have no idea where the wolves went and I set you up to die against an enemy I thought was undefeatable--well that would be. . . correct?" Astarte winced playfully. "Oops." 

Ira leapt to his feet quick enough to knock the plastic tub table back several inches. Cold tea splashed over the rim of cups to dribble down the sides. "You better be joking, Prince, or I swear to the angels I will be coming right back here when I get the Vestige working again!" 

Bezel swiftly clambered up to his borrowed boots. Since rising tensions and bodies seemed to be the direction the space was headed towards. Mayvalt followed his lead, placing her shoulder between the ferally snarling Bishop and the cold Fifth Prince. 

Astarte rolled her wrists dismissively, shrugging as if she'd only told them she'd run out of sugar for the tea and not that she had tricked them both. Bezel foraged his expression into one he was quite familiar with--disapproval from an older brother--and glared at her. 

"Devil deals are to be honored, Astarte." He reminded her frostily. 

"And I am honoring it!" She placated, lifting her palms in humble surrender. "Ira will kill the Beast and be rewarded with everything I know about the Ze'ev--sound familiar?" She turned her taunting gaze to Ira. He had gone still, wide-eyed. 

"And!" Mayvalt added quickly. "Everything you know about Mammon!" 

The Fifth Prince laughed, "Ira never asked me for that--you did. You both should mind your words when making deals that rely on them." 

"You said everything, Astaroth." Bezel warned coldly. "So you'd better tell us everything."

"And I will tell him everything I know." She promised smugly. "But no one knows where the wolves have gone. There's only one way to find the wolves and it's to be taken to them." 

"Taken?" Ira seethed. "By who? Or what?" 

"By a wolf, of course." Astaroth cackled coldly. "Only a wolf can find the other wolves." 

"Oh, perfect." Mayvalt muttered sarcastically. "We--you two--have to find a wolf to find the wolves--yeah, oh yeah, that's just perfect." 

"How do we find a wolf if we don't know where they are?" Bezel asked calmly. It helped that he was incapable of falling into the tailspin both his comrades had seemed to, or maybe it was his time and experience dealing with tricksters. Astarte was playing with them, waiting for all the right combinations to unlock her next secret. 

She smirked at her victory. "Find someone who can, obviously." 

"Find someone who can find a wolf who can find the wolves." Bezel repeated slowly. "Do you have a suggestion, sister?" 

Astarte turned away and tapped her fingertips over her lips. "A few nights before your Faun arrived, there was a visitor." 

"The one who can find the wolf." Bezel said knowingly. "Who is this person?" 

"His name is Mahan Raj." Astarte said. "The Hound of Hounds." 

"He's a wolf hunter?" Mayvalt gasped. "Sap--what's going on here? No one really likes the wolves, sure, but hunting them? It's barbaric!"

"Wolves are beings of Mammon. They chose a bad time to rise from the pit, when sentiments are most stacked against them." Astarte said. 

"How do we know he can really find a Ze'ev?" Ira asked, his lips in a worried frown.

"He's already on the scent of one." Astaroth said simply. "One he's been chasing for quite some time. He came through here following the trail of it. The wolf has been running him all across Avernus but the hunt will end soon--Mahan Raj has quite the reputation. No prey can escape him. Not even this one." 

"This one?" Ira inhaled sharply. "This Ze'ev is it. . . is it different?" 

"So say the rumors." Astaroth agreed. Ira's heartbeat picked up at that idea. "Mahan's crew was fragmented as they reached my doors. The tear of the hunt has been excruciating, apparently. This prey has been more challenging than most. Some of the crew had even begun to think it was all a bitter trick--a trap to eliminate them." 

"A trap from who?" Mayvalt shivered. 

"The benefactor. This hunt was one for hire." Astarte said, her voice quickening in excitement. "One of Mahan's crew elected to stay behind here, a Halfling charmed by our town. He told all sorts of stories--all of which made it back to me of course." 

"Great." Mayvalt snarled. "He'll be the first to go."

"Did he say who the benefactor was?" Bezel asked, eyebrows pinched.

"No. The benefactor never gave them a name--only said they were to trap the wolf and take it to the Wolfking. Alive--but that order is likely to be ignored. By no accounts is Mahan Raj a patient creature. This wolf has become more than a payout, at this point it has become a matter much more personally gratifying." Astarte said. 

"He's going to. . . kill him?" Ira whispered tersely. 

"Him?" Bezel caught. "No--it. Them, Ira. This wolf could just be a wolf." 

"Or it could be-" 

"No." Bezel said firmly. He didn't need the panic taking root in Ira's wide blue eyes any more than he would need the inevitable despair if they found this wolf and it turned out to be nothing but an ordinary one. He dragged his fingers through his black hair and groaned, softening the edges of himself. "Calm down, brat. Either way, we need this wolf alive. We'll get there first." 

Astaroth was glancing back and forth between the Third Prince and the Bishop in a way that had Bezel's imaginary nerves set on edge. Unaware of the predatory way he was being gawked at, Ira exhaled shakily and nodded. 

"Yeah. Okay. You're right--and enjoy that 'cause I'll make a point of never saying it again." Ira said. 

"Noted." Bezel said sternly before turning back to his little sister. "Any idea where they've headed now?" 

She shook her head, a darkly amused glint in here eyes where it hadn't been before. "Northeast." 

Bezel bristled, scoffing before he could quite stop himself. "There's nothing northeast. It's all flat farmland from here to the Sikker. Well, granted you don't stray to far north and end up sunken in the swamps. Brothers--please tell me we're done with mud." His eyes flickered to Ira Rule's ruined clothes. 

"Kett, brother." Astarte said. 

"Who in Hell is Kett?" Bezel grumbled. 

She rolled her inky eyes. "Kett is a place not a person. It's the last town before the flats become the Sikker. The Half-Blood seemed quite sure they would head for Kett. Said the wolf was staying to the woods. After so long traveling the flats, it's instincts will drive it into the Sikker. But be wary, brother. Rumors flowing in from the east say the Sikker has changed." 

"Of course it has." Bezel groaned. 

"They say the woodland folk who once occupied it have been run out. By Beasts--or perhaps something worse."

"Well given our luck," Ira groaned. 

"Yep." Bezel agreed. "It'll be worse."