Lord Cheryl Fane was not a cunning man. His mind turned like the wheels in his beloved machines, operating in practical patterns that were easy to predict.

This was not something Ira had learned from Chervnik's residents, or Orlova's sly mouth. Her own observations of Lord Fane and his habits provided the necessary insight. Ira's ability to read people was honed over a decade of work as a soldier, and rarely steered her wrong. At present, seated across from Lord Fane as the man feigned regret at their oncoming departure, she only grew more confident in her initial conclusion.

"The letters were delivered successfully. Three of the nine lords sent back replies immediately. I am certain that the rest will follow in a reasonable span of time. Are you certain that you wish to depart tonight?"

Lord Fane posed this question with utmost sincerity. So great was the man's effort to appear genuine, in fact, that he forgot to blink. The nervous thrum of his fingers over his wine glass were equally telling.

"We cannot delay," Ira replied gamely. "I do thank Lord Fane for his consideration."

Lord Fane's smile held a trace of true warmth. "It is no trouble. I only regret that our time together was short."

Ira nodded politely. The room Lord Fane had prepared for their dinner was not large, and neither was the table around which they gathered. Chervnik did not allow for the same luxuries that other lords of Fane's rank would enjoy. This was another reason for Ira's skepticism toward the man. Lord Fane did not appear motivated by material gains, or political desires. His attempts at subterfuge were juvenile at best. Ira suspected that the man would have long perished due to some political machination or another, had he not hidden himself in a pile of metal miles underground.

"Is the meal not to your liking?" Lord Fane asked.

Ira turned her eyes to the meal in question – or rather, the intricately carved goblet filled with some poor soul's blood. "I prefer to abstain when I can," she replied.

"That is unfortunate," Lord Fane sighed.

"Whose blood is it?"

Valeri had not spoken much during the polite small-talk that preceded the serving of their dinner. His tone was decidedly unfriendly now, and the single glance he spared the goblet placed before him was twisted with disgust.

"Does it matter? It was freely given," Lord Fane replied calmly.

Valeri snorted. "None of the men in this forsaken city are free. What alternative do they have, but to bend to your will?"

Lord Fane stilled for a moment. His smile remained, but thinned into something much colder. "There is no free man on this earth, dear Val, but there is always a choice to be made. Those who remain in Chervnik's halls do so at will."

Ira seized the moment to turn the conversation to more productive paths. "That does appear to be the case. There are few vampires in Chervnik's ranks." This was an understatement. Humans were a minority in Chervnik, but vampires were even scarcer. It went against reason that a Dvor outpost governed by a Vampire Lord would allow a power composition unfavorable to the ruling kind.

"There are happenings at the Dvor. I temporarily lent my officers for a common cause," Lord Fane answered smoothly.

Ira nodded in understanding. Her eyes moved to Orlova, who had not joined them at the table but acted the part of a butler instead. The woman was in her human form. Ira was uncertain whether her twin was within her, or elsewhere in Chervnik.

"Is Alia not back?" Lord Fane asked. His attention was on Orlova as well, and the tightness around his eyes betrayed his disgruntlement.

"She is distributing supplies," Orlova answered.

"Food and water, as well as other necessities. Chervnik has little capacity to support living beings, and so we must purchase what our guests need from the outside," Lord Fane explained for the sake of his guests. To Orlova, he said, "You may go," and did not look the woman's way again.

Orlova left without another word.

"They are one and the same," Valeri said once the door closed behind her. His words bit. The man had been angry since he set foot in Chervnik, Ira thought.

"They are not," Lord Fane said coldly. "One is a miracle; the other, a parasite. It is regrettable that their fates are so irrevocably linked."

"What is humanity's sin, to have you detest mortal men so utterly?" Ira asked.

The fire in Lord Fane's eyes dimmed. He sighed lowly, and did not speak for some time, perhaps arranging his thoughts.

"Your father and I," he began at last, "We were of one mind, once. When war broke out between the Dvor and the Queen's Court, we sought to mitigate and when diplomacy failed, offered protection to the innocent fleeing an ever-expanding battlefield."

"An honorable undertaking," Ira said.

Lord Fane laughed softly. "Honor? Humanity does not know the meaning of the word. The terror men invoked – on us, who sought to help them; on their own kin. The horrors that we witnessed," the man shook his head, face grim, "they bear no repeating."

Ira could guess what it was that Lord Fane had seen. The war was well-recorded, its more savage moments taught in terms of strategy within the Army. History was naturally skewed in favor of the Queen's Court; there was no record of aid of the kind Lord Fane described, and most of the documented war atrocities were ascribed to supernatural creatures.

Even so, there were exceptions. Guerilla tactics used by civilian fighters in remote regions were driven by desperation, and their methods were often self-destructive. Ira recalled a particularly ugly story of a village poisoning their children and leaving them behind as bait while they fled. The assumption was that the enemy would partake in the blood of the young victims and suffer as a result, slowing their momentum. It proved to be a faulty belief; the survivors were summarily rounded up and slaughtered by the Dvor's forces. The incident was passed down as a lesson on building strategies upon sound intelligence.

Lord Fane's mistrust of humans was not entirely illogical. The severity of his reaction and his refusal to differentiate between individuals in the way he would for those of his own kind was however indicative of paranoia, and underlying mental scars.

"What is Orlova's sin, then?" Ira asked. She wanted to hear how the man justified his fear when the object was someone he knew personally; more than that, she needed to learn more about Orlova and her strange Spark.

"Alexandra has done nothing wrong," Lord Fane said. "Her transformation is simply... incomplete. You must be aware of how rare such things are – one in a thousand humans awaken successfully, if that. Most die in the attempt, or twist into some rotten creature. Alia is truly extraordinary. Once she distances herself from her human shadow, I am certain that she will truly come into her full potential."

Ira marveled at Lord Fane's self-delusion. The man detested Valeri for his human origin, but excused that flaw in Orlova by assigning all of his disdain to a part of the woman he falsely perceived as a separate entity.

"Where do you plan to go, after you leave Chervnik?" Lord Fane asked.

Ira accepted the change of subject. "It is uncertain as of yet." This was only partially a lie. The goal of their mission remained the capital, and Dimitri. The precise route they were to take still required some thought.

"You may find this of use, then."

Lord Fane placed a ring on the table. It was as ordinary silver band, adorned by a pale stone Ira could not name. She raised her eyes to Lord Fane in question.

"It is a space ring," Lord Fane explained. "A magical item, of sorts. Once keyed to an individual, it allows its owner access to a space between worlds that can be utilized as needed. This ring contains my personal library and a number of trinkets that may be of some value in your journey. There are maps of the kingdom, as well."

Ira glanced at Valeri, and found the man studying the ring with great suspicion. Ira shared his hesitance.

"Items of this kind were forged by dragons, when they still lived among men – or so legends say," Valeri said. "How have you come upon such a thing?"

"A chance discovery. We do stumble upon the strangest treasures, so far underground," Lord Fane said. There was likely far more to the story, but the man did not appear willing to share.

"This is too fine a gift," Ira said.

Lord Fane waved her off, unconcerned. "I have no need of it. Do forebear from storing any living things within the ring – they tend to mutate," the man added. It appeared that he was speaking from experience. Ira shivered to think of the fate of whatever unfortunate creature Lord Fane had attempted to tuck away between dimensions.

Lord Fane either did not notice or did not care for their lukewarm reception. "To bind the ring, add a drop of your blood to the stone. You will then be able to access all it contains."

Ira took the ring with some caution. She examined it closely, but could not discern anything unusual in its make. "Can it be bound to two masters at once?" she asked.

"Yes," Lord Fane said shortly. He did not seem surprised by the question, although his expression was far from pleased.

Ira offered her thanks. She put the ring away, unwilling to test Lord Fane's claims with the man present. The attempts at polite conversation that followed strained everyone present. When the time to part arrived at last, even Lord Fane seemed relieved.

"I wish you a safe and triumphant journey," the man said. He seemed sincere in that, and Ira thanked him in the same manner.

Orlova's human twin saw them to their rooms. She hesitated at the doorstep, Ira and Valeri already inside. In the end, she simply bowed and bid them good night before taking her own leave.

"Lord Fane's gift worries you," Valeri said once they were alone.

Ira produced the ring. She handed it to Valeri, and watched the man turn it over in his hands, long fingers as pale as the metal and just as cold.

"The stone is unusual," he said. "I have not seen its kind before."

Ira had no knowledge of gems, but she also knew the stone in the ring was not simple. The pale crystal seemed almost sentient – Ira felt as if it were an eye, conscious of their every move.

"I thought dragons beasts of myth," Ira said, recalling Valeri's conversation with Lord Fane.

"I do not know whether they truly live or not," Valeri admitted. "The records in my Sire's library spoke of them, but only in passing. Their kind is said to have ascended to the havens several thousand years ago. Any true knowledge of their time on earth has been lost."

Ira nodded, distracted. The ring gleamed in Valeri's hand.

"It does not matter whether Lord Fane spoke the truth or not," she said. "This gift of his is not a good thing."

"Why is that?" Valeri asked, sounding a bit cheered at the notion. The man's dislike of Lord Fane truly transcended logic.

Ira opened her mouth to explain. As she did, she tasted something strange in the air – a subtle sweetness that she recognized only too late.

"Do not breathe!" she called out by habit, even as she knew the warning to be futile. Neither of them needed to breathe. The poison that pervaded the room hardly required their cooperation to seep through their skin and into their blood.

Ira caught Valeri when the man stumbled forward. She fell to her knees slowly, Valeri a solid weight in her arms that grew heavier and heavier as her strength waned. Darkness ate her sight until there was nothing left. Distantly, she heard the door open, then footsteps, stopping close.

"You should have consumed your dinner, my lord, and the poison it contained. Do you enjoy causing me trouble?" Orlova sighed.

Brat, Ira thought, before the world tipped to black.