"Do you always have to carry one of those with you?" Lucius stared down at Ethan's folded umbrella as they walked up north through the darkening streets of South Kerilia. "The sun's set, and it's not raining."

"Always good to be prepared." Ethan twirled the thing. "Pity to end up with burns just because I was unable to get back before sunrise."

Lucius grimaced.

"No high hopes on succeeding, huh?"

"I always take precautions." Ethan comforted him with a pat on the shoulder. "Out of principle."

"Not walking when the sun's out gotta suck though." Lucius couldn't help himself. It was most likely a sore subject, but curiosity won the battle. "Must be restricting. I mean, you can only be outside if it's raining... During the day, that is."

Ethan chuckled, to Lucius' relief.

"I've adapted. Can't do much else." His smile turned bittersweet. "Besides... I actually quite like rainy days."

Lucius tilted his head, waiting for Ethan to continue. No further explanation came however, so he continued instead.

"There are some perks though, it seems. Like the poofing."

"Shroud-walking, yes." Ethan's nose wrinkled as he smiled. "Not all vampires can, but some have other 'perks'."

Lucius stared at him in awe.

"Like... What?"

"Well, that friend I was talking about? He's a shifter... And while it's not an immediate perk he also can't be harmed by holy touch."

"... But you can?"

Ethan nodded.

"Can't touch harmonias or other holy objects without being burnt... Can't step on holy ground without crumbling to ash... Stuff like that."

Lucius' expression struggled between sympathetic and mortified.

"That sounds dangerous as fuck."

"Yeah..." Ethan shrugged. "... But on the bright side, few things outside of that can actually injure me. A weapon would need to be holy, for instance."

"But... You're not, like... A blight, are you?" Lucius' pace slowed, suddenly wishing to keep a distance and Ethan frowned at the insult.

"Blights are spawned directly from Scourges. I was born human."

"Huh..." Lucius nodded, still not quite following. "But you must be connected to The Waste somehow, right? Since harmonias harm you?"

Ethan shrugged, beginning to look uncomfortable.

"One way or another, not that it was my choice."

Perhaps it was time for Lucius to bite his tongue, in case he was about to anger an apparently dangerous being. He just had one thing to confirm before that.

"But... Anthony's not unholy, right?"

"No," Ethan replied, looking up at the clouds with a sigh. "No, he's not."

Lucius nodded, thinking back to the time at the sanctuary where memories of his past had attacked him. Anthony certainly hadn't seemed bothered by the holy ground underneath them.

A bittersweet smile appeared on his lips. Awful as he'd felt at the time, the memories of Anthony helping him through it still warmed his heart.

His smile quickly died out however as he noticed Ethan staring at him. It was the inquiring kind of stare Lucius should have expected sooner or later.

"I've already had this talk with someone else," he therefore said before the man could say anything.

"What talk?" Ethan asked, but his tone implied he knew very well.

"The 'do I like him' talk."

"Oh that." Ethan looked smug. "Well if you've already had it..."

"I don't know, alright? Let's leave it at that."

Ethan smiled again, though this time it didn't look so genuine.

"Well, just friends wouldn't be so bad either." Then he averted his gaze, lowering his voice into a mumble. "Probably for the best, actually."

Lucius cocked an eyebrow at him to explain, but the vampire said nothing more on the matter and besides, he'd decided not to have that talk anyway. So he let the conversation die out after that, only replying to Ethan's occasional comments about various flower arrangements in windows.

Finally they reached the outskirts of town where the manor was located, and Lucius' eyes narrowed at the huge garden in front of it. He'd seen it before when sneaking inside the first time, but he figured it deserved another glare. So much waste of space and money for just a garden. Imagine what the money could have been used for instead.

In actuality he was more than a little jealous, but he was far from humble enough to admit that.

"So what do you think?" he asked as they walked past a fountain with a four-winged swan statue. "Should I go for a basement window? It's worked before."

Ethan's face twisted into a pained grimace.

"No, the basement might actually be the worst option. Don't worry though, I know a good way in."

He proceeded to point up at the roof of the building, and Lucius stared at him in disbelief.

"The roof?"

"The attic."

"Listen, I may be skilled and all but I can't climb walls."

"Yeah no, I get that." Ethan nodded and disappeared in a trail of smoke.

Lucius looked around, feeling much more exposed in his sudden solitude, but before he could complain about it Ethan had already reappeared before him.

"This will help," he said and handed Lucius a rope. "From the tool shed."

"To get to the roof?" Lucius received it, gazing up at the tall building again. "I'm... Not sure I have the arm strength for that. And how do we attach it in the first place?"

"I'll walk." Ethan pointed upwards again, and Lucius assumed he meant the poofing thing. "I'll hold it for you. I can even pull you up if needed."

Lucius looked down at the rope again with a frown.

"Can't you just hold me and poof your way in there?"

"I can't shroud-walk with living beings." Ethan shook his head, nudging Lucius along to walk around the manor with him. "Or, I don't dare to. Took me the longest time just to get my clothes to follow. Don't want to risk parts of something living being left behind."

Lucius nodded at a rapid speed, agreeing very much with that.

"Still, maybe someday." Ethan patted his shoulder again. "Give it twenty years or something."

Once again, Lucius tried to make sense of the man's age to little avail.

They stopped here and there along the way, Ethan making sure no one was looking through the windows from the inside before continuing on. Finally, they reached a spot where Ethan held up his hand.

"Stay," he instructed and walked closer to the building. Why he didn't poof his way to most places was beyond Lucius' understanding. It had to be more convenient.

After checking the nearby window on the first floor he disappeared into smoke again, reappearing up on the roof to proceed with their plan.

Oh how the Shallow Reapers could have used a vampire during their heists.

Ethan tugged at the rope after securing it, seemingly deeming it safe and made a surprisingly gracious jump down while holding it, stopping halfway to check the second floor's window before jumping the rest of the way down.

He made an impressive bow after his performance and Lucius obediently gave him a silent applause before moving forward.

"There you go, Mr. Criminal, sir."

"If only my Reapers had given me this kind of treatment." Lucius smiled, only a little offended at how thorough Ethan was when tying the rope around him. "... You, uh... Afraid I'm gonna fall?"

"Well it happens," was Ethan's reply, much to Lucius' horror and he decided against asking how often it had occurred exactly while Ethan continued. "Also I don't know why you have several reapers coming after you because they rarely work together, but I assure you they're all assholes so don't get your hopes up about better treatment."

Lucius blinked.

"... What?"

"Alright, I'll get up there and help you." Ethan ignored Lucius' dumbstruck expression and poofed away before any follow-up questions could be asked. Soon enough, a tug shot through the rope and Lucius almost smacked into the wall as his body was lifted off the ground.

He wasn't sure if he was to blame the vampirism or the upper body strength of a dancer for the surprisingly quick ascent up the manor, but the recent appearance of both Eliza and Ethan forced Lucius to wonder how strong an average human actually was.

"All good?" Ethan beamed as Lucius finally stood up on the rooftop, the terror of being so high up finally striking him and he looked away from the edge.

"... Yes."

"Right this way then." Ethan waved him along and headed up to a dormer window before disappearing again.

"Why do they even bother locking these things?" Lucius asked as the window was unlocked from the inside and Ethan let him inside. "Who would be so dedicated to sneak in here that they would climb up on the roof?"

Ethan, who was starting to look frazzled for some reason, gave him a judgemental look.

"Just... Some people, I guess."

"I wouldn't have climbed up on the roof if you hadn't been here," Lucius objected as they moved through a dark room, Ethan guiding him so he wouldn't trip. "I would have used another way."

"Well, good thing I was here then," Ethan whispered back before stopping, and Lucius squinted to discern a trapdoor through the darkness. "The boards right below creak, by the way, so be careful."

Lucius didn't even get the chance to try his best. As soon as he'd reached the end of the stairs Ethan took a firm grip under his arms and hoisted him over the first part of the floor in a way Lucius found much too unbecoming. He didn't say anything though since they'd entered the actual living area of the manor.

A few candles were lit along the walls, and Lucius sighed on the inside. He would have hoped for people to be asleep.

Ethan didn't hesitate however and grabbed one of them, nodding his head to the left where a corridor stretched through the building. Next followed an exercise of mimicking the vampire's movements, stepping over boards where he did until they reached a door further down. To Lucius' astonishment it wasn't locked but Ethan still took care when opening it, peering inside at first to make sure the room was empty.

"Think it's in here?" Lucius finally whispered as soon as he'd closed the door behind them, looking around a large office with a huge window leading to a balcony. A desk had been placed in front of it, stacked with a tower of books and binders from the bookshelves on the left wall, and Lucius let the next sigh escape through his mouth.

"That's a lot of stuff to go through."

"You take the desk first," Ethan suggested. "Should contain more important things, I imagine."

Two of the six drawers were locked, to Lucius' disappointment and excitement. Why lock them specifically if they didn't contain something of value?

His heart stung as he brought out the emblem of the Shallow Reapers from the inside of his coat. As much as the scythe reminded him of when his gang threw him out he'd still kept it. Perhaps it was sentimental value, but his pride had argued it was solely because of the hidden lock-pick inside of it.

The first drawer proved difficult, and Lucius clenched his teeth as he tried again and again to no avail.

"Fucking fiddlesticks," he muttered under his breath, receiving a sympathetic, yet amused look from Ethan. He didn't seem to have much luck with the bookshelves either, and what was he supposed to look for when it concerned the locations of secluded members of an organisation anyway?

Moving on, Lucius tried his luck on the second drawer which only needed some light persuasion from the tools to open up, and he breathed out in relief.

To his surprise he found a folded map in between a couple of papers with too many words to catch his interest, and he quickly brought it out to get a better look. It seemed far fetched, but there was a chance the man's location was marked on there. Why would they keep secret maps if not for those kind of things?

"Illegal trading routes, I suppose," he then mumbled as he thought more about it, but still used the candlelight to scan the paper. To his disappointment it didn't look like much more than a similar map to the one he'd found in the town hall, save for what he indeed figured were spots for not so legal trade-offs.

Can't hurt to memorise, I guess.

While trying to connect the spots to nearby buildings or streets however, his eyes glanced upwards to the north of town where they suddenly stopped, and he drew a trembling breath.

It was that symbol again. The one he'd found on the map at the town hall. A flower, this time not pinned but directly drawn on the map, and something was written underneath it.

"... 'Larkspur?'... " he whispered, voice so low he could barely hear it himself, and his gaze moved on to read the word below it. He stared at it for a while, not sure what to make of it.

'Werewolves.'

His mind filled up with more questions. Were the BBT involved with werewolves? His mind flashed to Richard's family that had supposedly disappeared. Had they perhaps not? And what did they all have to do with that area? Lucius couldn't imagine werewolves would dig Mabel's corpse up. Years underground left nothing to eat even if they could track her down, and the hole had been dug by a shovel, not claws.

Then again, werewolves can assume human forms.

But did whatever 'Larkspur' meant have something to do with Mabel's disappearance? Did the BBT have something to do with it?

"Ethan?" he therefore asked, hoping someone a little closer to the people of the organisation would know something. "Does the BBT have anything to do with werewolves?"

Ethan's head turned, and it was hard to discern in the low light but Lucius was rather certain the man looked pained. Perhaps even a little disgusted.

"In a way," was the reply. "Why? What did you find?"

"Here. It's a map." Lucius held it up for Ethan to look at it. "Do you know what 'Larkspur' means? In this scenario, I mean."

Ethan's eyes narrowed, but he reluctantly shook his head.

"I'm—I'm not sure, but—"

He interrupted his sentence to turn around, and Lucius soon picked up a sound as well. The door was being opened, and Ethan quickly shoved Lucius down underneath the desk to hide behind the backboard.

Lucius opened his mouth to protest as Ethan remained where he was, but speaking up at the time seemed foolish, so he could only watch.

Another moment passed, and then Ethan disappeared from there, candlelight disappearing as soon as he did.

So he'd taken the candle with him.

Lucius remained completely still, and completely silent, and he was pretty sure he could hear a low sigh being uttered before the door closed again.

Had Ethan perhaps remained in the room for long enough to be seen so no one would guess Lucius was there as well?

He let a minute pass, and then five. Ethan didn't return, and Lucius decided it was time to get out of there on his own. He couldn't sit and wait for help to never show up. So he slowly looked out from underneath the desk to assess the situation. To his relief no one had remained in the room, and he placed the map back into its drawer before heading towards the door.

The corridor was darker than before, so someone –presumably the one who had opened the door- must have blown out the candles. Still, Lucius could backtrack his way to the attic. He had some concerns about getting down without Ethan's help though, but that was for future Lucius to deal with.

As soon as he began closing the door however, a large hand slammed down on his shoulder from the other side and he summoned all the discipline in his body not to scream.

A hulking figure appeared before him. It was impossible to see his face in the dark, but the mere silhouette of the person was enough for Lucius to be concerned about the aforementioned future Lucius.

Was there any point in calling for help? He wasn't even sure if Ethan was still around, so when he was hoisted over the large figure's shoulder his only options were struggling and kicking. It didn't come as much of a surprise that the man was much stronger than him though, and any kick or punch that landed made no difference whatsoever.

He was unceremoniously thrown down on a chair as they reached a parlour on the first floor, his captor only grunting something to what looked to be a servant passing by, who blinked at the two of them.

"I'll... Should I get Lord Hargreaves?"

There was no reply, but Lucius assumed the person pressing him down on the chair by his shoulders nodded, because off the servant went, and he gritted his teeth. Not the best outcome of the night. One of the worst, actually, but he refused to be scared. With some luck Ethan could still swoop in and get him out of there.

Unsurprisingly, Lucius had no such luck, and he found himself struggling to draw a breath as soon as Lord Damien Hargreaves entered the room. It was like breathing the air of a freezing winter night.

Damien's glare matched his presence, but he looked past Lucius to arch an eyebrow at the person pinning him down.

"Found in your office," a deep voice explained, and Damien's gaze now fell onto Lucius with the same devastating stare he'd shown at the town hall. Were his eyes just like that or did he consider a nightly intruder and Lucia to be the same amount of inconvenience?

"Thank you, Hauke." Damien gave the person behind Lucius a brief nod and turned to the servant who'd followed him back. "Go tell the others to search the house for more intruders."

The servant nodded and hurried to turn around, but just as he did Damien called out to him again.

"Oh, one more thing." His eyes turned back to Lucius, and a vague, sinister smile appeared on his lips. "Have Derek come down here as well."