The sky over the Queen's Tower was overcast, promising rain. Kelwyn looked up at it with a faint frown.

"Think you can be there and back without getting wet?" said Harun, standing beside him on the balcony. He looked just as he always did, which was to say too good to be true. He currently had his fiery mane of hair pulled back in a ponytail, tied with a jade green ribbon. He was on duty at the moment, so he wore a coat of scale mail with a surcoat in the royal gold and blue over it. His hand-and-a-half bastard sword, a weapon that Kelwyn could barely lift, rode at his hip.

"Of course!" Kelwyn was on duty as well, so his tunic was in the same colors, though the trim was golden yellow, not metallic thread as the embroidery on Harun's tunic was. The messenger bag slung over his shoulder bore the royal seal, too. He no longer looked malnourished, nor unkempt, though his hair was still a bit of a tangle, it had something of a minds of its own. He had grown almost a foot over the last three years, too. Of course this now meant that he finally looked like a sixteen year old boy...at the age of nineteen, much to his continued annoyance. Harun was still more than a head taller than him, though the were-cat was taller than most humans too.

Harun raised an amused eyebrow at Kelwyn's confident declaration. "You may overestimate your speed, or underestimate the rain, I suspect it will rain quite soon."

"I'll bet you that I make it." Kelwyn flashed Harun a bright, cheerful grin.

"And what shall you wager?"

"Give me a kiss if I win?"

"Kelwyn!" Harun's cheeks flushed brightly and Kelwyn laughed.

"I don't know how you're still resisting my obvious charms," he said, his tone light and teasing.

Harun snorted. "You're far too young for me. Now get on with you. If you don't want to get wet, you need to go."

"I could argue about that, if you'd tell me how old you are. But fine, fine, I'm going." He spread his wings and jumped nimbly atop the stone filigree that made up the balcony's railing. He flashed Harun another wink and a wave, and then with a leap he was off into the clouded sky beyond.

He thought about Harun again as he flew. He thought about Harun a lot. The who-knows-how-much-older man had nearly literally pulled Kelwyn out of the gutter, gotten him work as a royal courier attached to the Queen's Own, and had been his closest friend and confidant for the last three years. Yet there was always a certain space between them. No matter how much Kelwyn flirted, Harun always kept things scrupulously platonic. They barely so much as touched, much to the young avian's frustration.

It was particularly frustrating because once in a blue moon he got some little sign that suggested Harun wasn't entirely disinterested, like the blush that had colored his cheeks just now.

Kelwyn shook off that thought and concentrated on flying. This particular message wasn't going far, just to one of the city's many temples. There was no official state religion in the Eternal Queen's kingdom, but she often worked closely with clergy in her various humanitarian projects.

Though "humanitarian" was a funny word, in a kingdom ruled by a non-human, where nearly thirty percent of the population was non-human in some way. But there wasn't another word for it. Language was odd like that sometimes.

Kelwyn reached the temple, delivered his letter, and was back on the Tower balcony just as the first misty drops of rain started sifting down from overhead. Harun was still there, and Kelwyn grinned broadly at him as he folded his wings. "See! Made it. So where's my kiss?"

"I do not recall actually agreeing to your wager," said Harun, though his cheeks colored faintly again.

"Geez, welching on me. That just ain't right."

"Just isn't right," said Harun reprovingly. Kelwyn's street dialect wasn't as bad as had been, but Harun still sometimes couldn't resist correcting it.

"Exactly, it isn't right," was Kelwyn's still-grinning reply.

Harun rolled his eyes. "Come, let us report your successful delivery." He set off through the vast tower, which tended to involve climbing a lot of stairs. The officials of the royal government were in better shape than in many kingdoms, given the amount of climbing involved in their duties. The tower was truly massive, being over twenty stories tall, and each floor of it large enough for several office rooms or lodging suites. Most of the official business was conducted lower down, admittedly. Her Majesty lived at the very top, with a few official rooms taking up the floors beneath her, and then those of the Queen's Own who didn't own their own homes in the city living on several of the floors beneath that. The the assorted government offices filled the remainder of the tower.

"You gonna to be free tonight?" asked Kelwyn as he bounded up the stairs at Harun's heels. However frustrated Harun might make him, he always valued time they spent together.

"Sadly no. There's a Queen's Own meeting shortly. The southern border situation is getting dire, and there have been several confirmed sightings of undead aiding the bandits there now. There's a long-distance courier who arrived from the south earlier today, I assume with further news about that situation, and we'll probably be discussing a mission to find and take out the necromancer behind it."

Kelwyn nodded, sobered by the reminder of who exactly Harun was, and what he did. Kelwyn was not part of the Queen's Own, he was only a royal courier, a glorified messenger boy. Harun, on the other hand, was one of the small group who were constantly being asked to track down black mages, deal with rogue gnoll clans, and do anything else for which ordinary diplomacy or conventional armies weren't suited. "Guess I can find something to occupy myself with this evening, then."

Harun gave him a long look and said, "Stay out of trouble, Kelwyn."

"I will, mother," said Kelwyn, with a roll of his eyes.

That got a chuckle and a smile from Harun. "Good."

"Unless I get bored, then all bets are off," added Kelwyn, just to twit Harun a bit more.

"If I have to bail you out of jail again..."

Now it was Kelwyn's turn to blush. "That was just once."

"Once is once too often," said Harun, sternly, though he was still smiling. "But here's the mail office. I'll see you tomorrow." He gave Kelwyn a wave.

"See you tomorrow."

---

With his heart pounding, Kelwyn hung upside down from the edge of a roof and peered in through the window of a fine mansion well up the hill. It was dark and silent inside, and after waiting for some time and seeing no signs of life, he grabbed the edge of the roof, flipped himself over, and found a foothold on the window's sill. A moment later he'd eased the window open and was inside.

It was astonishing how many people didn't worry about upstairs windows and balconies. Admittedly avians were rare here, most of them lived in Aerievale, to the east, but there were enough in the city that it really should have been more of a consideration.

He grinned as he began to move around the darkened suite of rooms, examining the contents by the dim light that filtered in through the windows. The sky was still overcast, so the city's lamps and torches made the low-hanging clouds glow, casting a diffuse light over everything.

Kelwyn began opening drawers and cabinets and sifting through their contents. He was keeping an eye out for a nice bit of nondescript jewelry he could steal without it being recognizable by the owner, but mostly he was just enjoying the adrenaline rush of being somewhere he absolutely shouldn't be. He didn't need the money he got from selling stolen goods anymore, after all. He had a respectable job.

Before Harun had found him he'd made most of his his living by what was called "rooftop work" and he had been very, very good at it. Purse-cutting was just an occasional side line when the opportunity presented itself. Flight was a nearly unfair advantage when it came to slipping in through upstairs windows. If he'd been a little bit physically tougher, and hadn't had constant troubles with other street kids taking money off of him and fences cheating him, he'd have done quite well for himself. Unfortunately the storybook idea of honor among thieves or thieves' guilds was far from reality. You could get knifed for a copper penny in some parts of town, and yet a scruffy vagabond like he'd been would be run out of the nicer, safer areas.

Those days were well behind him, but he had been unable to bring himself to completely give up this thrill. He hadn't really meant to go out tonight, he'd been honest when he'd told Harun he would stay out of trouble. But his joke about getting bored had been honest too. He had a little room in one of the subsidiary government buildings near the tower, but it was tiny and empty and very boring.

A flight over the city had seemed like fun, and then he'd noticed the mansion and remembered a bit of overheard conversation. He'd happened to deliver a message there a few days ago, and while handing it over had heard a servant say something to another about their master being gone for a week, and to be sure he was given the message that day or he wouldn't get it.

Knowing it would be empty and therefore safe had proved too much of a temptation, so now he was here, sifting through a jewelry box hidden in a cabinet in the parlor attached to the bedroom and considering if there was anything in it worth stealing.

Hearing footsteps outside the door, Kelwyn suddenly froze, his heart racing even faster. The house was supposed to be empty, especially the upper rooms. The servants might still be here, but there was no reason for somebody to be approaching an upstairs suite. Yet somebody definitely was, and he spun and started moving towards the window he'd left open behind him. It was in the bedroom, though, so he had to go through the whole of the parlor and cross the bedroom as well to get to it.

Even as he turned to flee the door swung open, and a male voice called out, "Who's there?"

Kelwyn mentally cursed and dove for the door. He'd been being quiet! How had the stranger known he was there?

He was half way through the bedroom, sprinting now with no care for the noise, when somebody grabbed him from behind with impossibly strong hands and bodily swung him around to pin him against a wall. He yelped in shock, eyes wide as whoever it was held him in place. "Who are you? What are you doing-" The man holding him suddenly stopped, staring at him.

There was just enough light for Kelwyn's dark-adjusted eyes to make out the general features of his assailant. He seemed to be a human, of about average height, which of course made him taller than Kelwyn, with straight, light-colored hair, probably blond, and very dark eyes. He was dressed richly, but in a foreign style, with a heavily embroidered surcoat over a long tunic rather than the doublets and hose that were currently in fashion with the upper class here.

"Maltheus?" The man's voice was shocked as he gaped at Kelwyn.

"What?" Kelwyn gaped back. What was going on here?

"It's you. It's you! Oh gods, I can't believe it." Suddenly the hard grip pinning him to the wall loosened and the strange man lifted one hand and ran it down Kelwyn's cheek in a startlingly intimate gesture. Kelwyn had been about to try and make a break for it, but he froze, confused and more than a little unnerved.

He got even more confused, and much more unnerved when the stranger suddenly pressed close to him and kissed him hard. Kelwyn stiffened in utter shock, his whole body going rigid. Somewhere in the back of his mind a tiny voice expressed massive disappointment that the first time he'd been kissed should be like this and not something, someone else. Kelwyn twisted his head to the side and tried to break away from the obviously crazy person. The man tightened his grip, though, and he seemed freakishly strong, Kelwyn could feel the man's fingers digging into his upper arm, keeping him firmly pinned to the wall.

"Maltheus? What's wrong?"

"Look, you're obviously mistaken, I'm not this Maltheus, my name is Kelwyn. Please let me go."

"Don't talk nonsense, my love."

"Love? Woah, okay, this is going too far here. I'm not Maltheus, I promise. I'm Kelwyn, I've been Kelwyn my whole life. Let me go, please. I'm not your love."

"I've waited so long to find you again, Maltheus." The man completely ignored Kelwyn's protests, and tried to kiss him again. Kelwyn managed to get his wings spread, and tried to use them to shove the man off of him, since his arms were being pinned.

The man suddenly snarled an angry curse and pulled Kelwyn away from the wall, shoving him down to the floor. Next thing he knew, Kelwyn was lying flat on his back with the man straddling him, his knees on Kelwyn's secondary feathers, pinning his wings down, while the man held his wrists in a firm grip against the floor. Kelwyn felt a knot of terror forming in his stomach. The stranger was frighteningly strong, utterly deranged, and had him completely helpless.

The stranger pressed another kiss on Kelwyn, and the only thing he could do was to turn his head to the side, away from it. That didn't really help at all, for the man started kissing down the side of Kelwyn's now-exposed neck, and Kelwyn felt an entirely different sort of fear spike through him when the man nipped him there, and Kelwyn felt the sharp prick of fangs. Oh gods. The man was some kind of non-human, a were-creature or a vampire or something of that sort. That was why he was so strong.

"Oh Maltheus, it's been so long since I tasted you..." The man's fangs pricked again, and Kelwyn started struggling in earnest, his boots scraping against the carpet as he fought futilely to get free. Then the man bit down, sinking in his fangs, and Kelwyn arched under him, letting out a shocked cry of pain.

The man let go of Kelwyn's wrists as his lips fastened on Kelwyn's neck and he started to drink there, but Kelwyn found he still couldn't escape. A strange paralysis, a lethargic weakness ran through him, keeping him lying limp on the floor as the stranger took his blood. He whimpered softly, still feeling a stinging pain from the bite, yet there was a weird pleasure that joined it as the vampiric man kept drinking. It was a gentle euphoria, a dizzy lightheadedness that enfolded him completely, washing through his whole body from head to toe.

Kelwyn whimpered again, trying to reject that pleasure, managing to find the energy to lift his hands, to try and push the vampire off of him. His shove was feeble, though, and did nothing at all. The vampire still pressed close atop him, drinking deeply of his life's blood.

He lay still, then, giving up as the unwelcome euphoria grew steadily in him. He moaned softly with it, his eyes rolling back, his head spinning, his mind dazed. The dazed feeling grew, and the world started fading, the already-dark room growing darker still. Then blackness closed over him and he knew no more.

---

He came back to himself slowly, still dazed, feeling a sense of motion, and an odd pressure against his body. He blinked his eyes open and found that he was being carried by the same stranger who'd assaulted him. It was still dark, and the man was just coming down the stairs in front of the mansion's door, so Kelwyn probably hadn't been out long. It was a city home, and not quite wealthy enough to have grounds of its own, few places here did, so the door simply let out directly onto the street. A carriage was parked in front of it, the horses and driver waiting patiently. Their livery was unfamiliar, the design foreign, as the stranger's clothing had been.

Kelwyn didn't fully take this in, though. All he knew was that he was being taken somewhere he almost certainly did not want to go. He started struggling, flailing with all his might, and, startled by his sudden return to life, the man carrying him dropped him. Kelwyn staggered to his feet, feeling dizzy, weak, confused. The man grabbed his wrist in a grip tight enough to hurt. "Maltheus, be still. I'm only taking you home."

"I'm not Maltheus! No! Help! Let me go!"

"Here now, what's going on?" Kelwyn's heart jumped, hope thrilling through him as a guardsman in uniform approached.

"Help, I'm being kidnapped!" he cried.

"Sorry, sir, my friend is very drunk, and I think it was a bad batch, though he does get paranoid fits at times. I'm only trying to take him home, so he can recover." The stranger kept his grip on Kelwyn's wrist, but smiled charmingly at the guard. Though it was a close-lipped smile, not showing the fangs he must have.

"Of course, sir." The guard gave a little nod, and Kelwyn's heart sank.

"No, that's not true, he's kidnapping me, I swear! Please, help me!" Kelwyn's head still spun, and he couldn't think, couldn't focus. He knew if he were better composed he'd come up with some actual argument, but all he could think to do was to insist that he wasn't going willingly.

The man let go of his wrist for a moment, and he stumbled, staggering dazedly. Then he felt the man's arm around his waist, just below his wings, supporting him. "Come along," he said, "Let's get you home."

The guard gave a little nod, and turned away, and Kelwyn's heart sank further. He was being kidnapped by a deranged vampire, and nobody was here to help him. If Harun was here, he would help. Harun!

"Hey! Hey! Hey you guard!" he shouted as he was being shoved through the carriage's waiting door. "Tell Harun! The Queen's Own! He'll come looking for me! You have to tell him!"

"See what I mean, sir? Hopelessly paranoid," said the man. "Just raving. Sorry to bother you." Then he shoved Kelwyn into the carriage and shut the door behind him. Kelwyn immediately tried to get to the door on the other side, but the man grabbed both wrists and pinned him to one seat. In this small space he couldn't spread his wings at all. He tried kicking, but his feeble blows had little effect.

"Stop fighting," snapped the man. "You don't know what you're doing, you're confused. I'm only taking you home. I hadn't wanted to do this..." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a length of rope. Kelwyn kept fighting, but the man was so much stronger that he couldn't keep from being bent over the carriage's padded seat, with his hands pulled behind his back, crossing over his wings and pinning them too, and then firmly tied together.

"There. Now be still," snapped the man.

Kelwyn went limp, despair sweeping over him. There was no escaping. He let his head fall, his face resting on the seat. The man rapped the window at the front of the carriage, and the driver outside flicked the reins, starting the horses moving. Then he moved to lift Kelwyn, laying him more comfortably on his side on the seat. He couldn't sit upright on it, even without being tied up, it wasn't designed for avians. He didn't really care about comfort right now, though. He tried not to think too hard about the situation he was in, but his heart was hammering and his stomach was knotted tightly with terror.

"Who are you?" he asked, finally managing to focus on at least one of the hundreds of questions that were rattling around in his confused mind.

"My poor, sweet love," said the man, giving Kelwyn's cheek a soft caress, which Kelwyn flinched back from. "You don't remember me?"

Kelwyn shook his head slowly, reluctantly. He felt like giving that answer was somehow giving in to the lunatic vampire's delusions, but he wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"I'm Lucretious. I loved you, deeply, intensely, for all your mortal life, but you died almost a century ago. You died and you didn't come back. I thought I had given you the seed of change, yet you never returned from your grave. But you're here now. You're here. You've been reborn for me, I just know it."

"Lucretious." Kelwyn tried that name out on his tongue. It was utterly unfamiliar to him. "I'm not Your Maltheus, though, I swear."

"You are. You are his very image. You are...are..." The vampire's voice shook with intense emotion. "You are Maltheus reborn, returned to me. Fate has brought us back together at last."

Kelwyn shook his head in fervent denial, but Lucretious kept stroking his cheek gently, staring at him with a soulful gaze. Kelwyn turned his head away from the touch, and Lucretious scowled at him, putting his hand under Kelwyn's jaw and turning his head back. "Don't deny what you know is true."

"You're mad," said Kelwyn, still terrified, and sure even as he said it that it was a bad idea.

Indeed, Lucretious snarled at him, fangs bared in sudden rage, pinning him back to the seat again. "I am not mad!"

Kelwyn cringed back from him, as if he could sink into the seat cushion and get further away. Lucretious glared down at him for a long moment, but then his expression relaxed. "You're only confused, because I took too much from you just now. Forgive me, my love. You'll come back to your senses, and we'll be happy together soon."

Kelwyn shook his head again, in frantic denial. "No, no, no, no. I'm not your Maltheus. I will never be happy with you. Please let me go."

Lucretious acted like he hadn't even spoken, bending to nuzzle his cheek. "My sweet love... It's alright. You'll see. It will be fine."

"No..." Kelwyn tried to hold on to self control and not weep with fear. This situation was utterly terrifying. He was being taken who knew where by a madman.

Lucretious kissed him again, and Kelwyn whimpered, trying to squirm away from it. The vampire gave up the attempt and sighed. "You're going to continue to deny the truth, aren't you? I'm going to have to fight you all the way to Jorland."

Kelwyn's eyes went wide. Jorland was hundreds and hundreds of miles north, across a sea, even. That was where this lunatic was taking him? He started tugging on the rope that held him, seeking some weakness in the knots. He had to get out somehow.

"Be still!" snapped Lucretious, his voice hot with anger. He cuffed Kelwyn across the face, the blow stunningly hard. Kelwyn stopped struggling, trying to gather his wits back together again. Meanwhile Lucretious slid the window at the front of the carriage open and said something to the driver, who nodded and turned the horses. By the time Kelwyn had recovered from the slap the carriage had stopped, and the driver climbed off his seat. Kelwyn couldn't see terribly well from his position, since Lucretious was holding him down again, but he thought they might have stopped at a market. The sky was beginning to grow lighter, it was almost dawn, so some places would be in business now that many of the city's workers were beginning their days.

After some time the driver returned, opening the carriage door. Kelwyn tried to lunge for it, but Lucretious kept his grip, and Kelwyn only succeeded in ending up on the carriage floor rather than the seat.

The driver put a sack on the seat. "There you are, master."

"Excellent." Lucretious reached into the sack as the driver swung up and started the carriage again. He pulled out a stoppered bottle. Then he pulled Kelwyn up from the floor to lie on the seat again and took a hold of his hair, pulling his head up. "Now, Maltheus my love. We can have a fight again, and I can eventually force you, and make quite a mess, or you can just drink this. Either way you will be taking it."

Kelwyn looked at the bottle, and saw the neatly inked paper label. Laudanum. He felt despair washing over him. He was going to be drugged, and taken to another country, to live with this madman, and there was nothing he could do to escape.

"Alright," he said, bleakly, and he opened his mouth when Lucretious put the bottle to his lips. He took one swallow, then turned his head away. It was a small dose, but he knew he was a small person, and it would be more than enough.

Lucretious let go his grip on Kelwyn's hair and sat back on his own seat, stoppering the bottle. Kelwyn let his head fall and his eyes close. He lay still, dark despair filling him, until finally the laudanum began sending its creeping numbness over him and he escaped willingly into the darkness it offered.

---

"Harun, come on. We're leaving at noon." Velanis, the royal mage and more or less head of the Queen's Own made a beckoning gesture. Harun had just left his room, and it seemed Velanis had done the same, he'd just shut his neighboring door behind him.

"I'll be right there. I just expected Kelwyn to come see me off, and I haven't seen him all morning. I'm going to check in on him and make sure he's okay, and I'll be right there."

"Kelwyn is an adult now, you know. If you're late, we won't wait for you. This mission is too important to delay." The mage's lined face was serious, his tone chiding.

"I know. But I'm not all that vital to it. And adult or not, Kelwyn needs a keeper. He's far too good at finding trouble."

Velanis smiled a little wryly. "I understand. Do what you must."

"Thank you." Harun slung his travel bag over his shoulder, touched the hilt of his sword, and then set off down the stairs, toward the base of the tower.

When he reached Kelwyn's room he knocked loudly, expecting the young avian to be still in bed. He kept late hours and tended to sleep in whenever he could. So when Harun didn't get an immediate response he only knocked again, a little louder. Loud enough that the next door down swung open, and another young avian, one of the other couriers that shared Kelwyn's job, poked his head out. "He's not in," said the dark-haired young man.

"Do you know where he is, then? He's not on duty today."

The avian shrugged. "He left about midnight last night, wasn't here when I woke up. He probably is still out somewhere." He youngster grinned. "Maybe he finally found him a pretty girl to stay the night with."

Harun blinked. "He's been gone all night?"

"Far as I know."

Harun sighed. He hoped it was merely a case of Kelwyn having found a lover, but he suspected it probably wasn't. He'd probably lapsed back into thieving again and had gotten caught.

The head offices of the guard were here in the tower, of course, but all the real work got done at the central station out in the city, so that was where Harun went next. Noon was approaching, and he knew he'd be late for the expedition, but he could always catch up later.

At the guard station Harun got the immediate attention of the Guardsman General, the head of the city guard. Being in the Queen's Own had certain benefits. He usually tried to not take too much advantage of that status, but in this case he'd make an exception.

Kelwyn wasn't in the central jail, that was easy enough to discover, but there were holding cells at many of the local stations, so it would take a while to find if he'd been taken in last night. Harun gave a good description of him, and it was copied out and sent by runners across the city. Meanwhile Harun sat and waited, and resisted the urge to pace. He could be glad, at least, that Kelwin was very distinctive. There weren't that many avians in the city, and fewer still were cute, freckled ginger boys.

Noon came and went, and Harun sighed, accepting that he'd be late.

Then one of the runners came back, with a guardsman in tow. The man saluted the Guardsman General, looking more than a little nervous as he did so. He was in civilian clothes, apparently having been off duty but still at the guard station when the runner had arrived there.

"Report," said the impassive senior officer.

"Yessir! I saw the avian in question, 'bout an hour before dawn. Didn't take him in, sir. He was with a gentleman who said he'd had too much to drink, and was being taken home. He looked drunk, sir, he was staggering about and shouting nonsense." The man swallowed and shot Harun a shamed look. "I thought it was nonsense. But he said that some fellow from the Queen's Own would come for him, and I guess he was right, so the rest of it..." He trailed off, and Harun noticed that he was actually sweating just a little.

"Well, spit it out, man," said the Guardsman General.

"Yessir. He said he was being kidnapped, sir."

Harun felt his heart skip a beat. "Where was this?"

"In front of a house on Pering Street, sir."

"Show me."

Twenty minutes later Harun was standing in front of a marble-faced town mansion, like many in the richer parts of the city. It butted up against its neighbors using every bit of its lot, though it was taller than any of them.

"You're absolutely certain it was right here?" he said to the guardsman.

"Yessir. The other fellow, a gentleman, dressed very fine, but kinda of foreign, was carrying him down the steps right there, and he started to kick up a fuss, and the gentleman kind of dropped him. He shouted to me, and the gentleman told me he was drunk, and he was staggering about like it, I swear, and slurring, and the things he was saying sounded like total nonsense. I'm sorry, sir."

"You didn't know. Then what happened?"

"The gentleman put him in a carriage, one with some foreign livery, blue and white, and they went off down the hill, there." He pointed.

"Thank you. You can go now."

"Thank you, sir." The guard saluted, which was a bit absurd, he was out of uniform and the Queen's Own didn't have any military or police rank, but Harun was used to such treatment. He looked around the street. It wasn't as bustling as the more mercantile areas of the city would be, but there were people enough moving about their business on it. He needed a moment of privacy.

Fortunately even the wealthy parts of the city had dark little alleys connecting them in places. Harun found one, making certain it was completely unoccupied, and began to swiftly strip. He tucked the clothing neatly into the empty pocket in his travel bag designed for just that purpose, putting the scale mail shirt in as well and strapping his sword to a pair of loops on the bag made to hold it. Then he slung the bag over his shoulder again, positioning it carefully.

That done, he began to shift.

It always felt a bit strange, in a way that bordered on pain. He could feel bone and muscle and skin stretching, contracting, changing proportion drastically. His balance changed and he fell forward onto his hands, but they weren't hands any more, they were paws, with velvety golden fur that hid razor-sharp, retractable claws. His whole body was covered in the same fur, except around his neck and shoulders, where his mane of curly red hair had become a literal mane of deep crimson.

His eyes were still the same, a deep emerald green, but his face had a long, square muzzle, and behind him swept a tail that was tipped with a literal brush of flame, magically burning with no fuel to feed it.

He was a fire-lion, a particular and very unusual species of were-cat. This was his true form, and not the human shape he normally wore. He lived among humans, and their world was more easily navigated with hands, yet it always felt good, comfortable, to return to this shape.

Harun gave himself a shake, settling the bag, which fit snugly around his chest and shoulders in this form, then padded out of the alley to the front of the mansion once more. He inhaled deeply, and immediately caught Kelwyn's familiar scent. A hint of masculine musk, more than bit of damp feathers, a touch of sesame cakes, a favored snack that he'd no doubt eaten recently, it was a unique combination that was impossible to mistake.

The scent accompanying it was less familiar, the details those of a stranger, an unknown, but Harun immediately recognized one thing about it. It was the blood-heavy scent of a vampire. His nose wrinkled, his muzzle crinkling up, long ivory fangs showing. A vampire. Kelwyn had been kidnapped by a vampire. Harun tried to suppress the surge of fear that ran through him at that. It would be fine. He'd catch up with them soon.

The paired scents went from the doorstep to the street, where they were largely covered over by the scent of horse. Moving at a brisk pace, he followed path the carriage must have taken down the road, tracking it largely by that pungent, animal scent, like the scent of dozens of other horses that also used these streets, but just unique enough for him to follow this specific pair. He got a hint of both the vampire's and Kelwyn's scent at one spot in the merchant quarter, where the carriage had apparently halted, and the scent of an ordinary human led both away from and back to it, no doubt the carriage's driver.

The trace continued on from there to the edge of the city, and then turned onto a road leading out into the countryside, going north.

At that point Harun halted. If Kelwyn had been held within the city's limits, Harun was confident he could mount a rescue and still catch up with the others of the Queen's Own on their way south. But the carriage had better than half a day's lead on him, and while he was certain he could catch up with it eventually, he didn't know how long it would take. They might use a horse-changing station, which would mean the carriage wouldn't have to stop, while Harun definitely would require at least a little bit of rest. It might take days to make up the distance between them.

So he halted at the last post station at the edge of town, much to the surprise of the postmaster there, and dictated a message to be sent to the Tower, and from thence on to the party already making their way south. He would not be coming, they would have to do without him.

It twinged at him to do so, yet he knew that his particular skills were of little special use against a necromancer, so he felt less guilt than he might have otherwise.

That done he continued down the road, moving at a steady lope. He could run faster at need, lions were capable of extraordinary speed over short distances, but the guard had mentioned foreign livery, and that meant he was probably in this trip for the long haul, and shouldn't exhaust himself.

A heavy, leaden weight of fear sat in his gut as he ran, and part of him wanted to sprint, to rush as quickly as possible to Kelwyn's rescue. The youngster was being held by a vampire, and it was entirely possible that he wouldn't survive the coming night. Yet if Harun exhausted himself now, he'd do Kelwyn no good at all. So he ran on, pacing himself, and desperately hoped that he'd catch up in time.