Page 47 of How to Seduce a Slender

Smith glanced up at the ogre inspecting him with curiosity. He couldn’t help it. Austin opened up to him. It was only fair. Smith exhaled heavily, “Her name was Elyth.”

“The Rosemont girl?” Austin asked as the pair cleared half the forest. The city rose before them, clean of winter’s kiss, but still just as cold. Wind whipped around them.

“Yes. I think—no, I know I was in love with her Austin. And I would have done anything she asked. Even as she told me to leave and never come back.” Smith tried not to let the sound of his voice hold a hint of the pain it caused. His chest clenched; muscles tight around the mockery for bones he was made with. A stomach, ever hungry, twisted into knots. He could still hear her shriek of panic as she tossed him out of her room.Never come back here! You traitor! You bastard!

“But you did come back?” Austin whispered.

Smith let out a wheeze of a laugh, “Well, if I’m quite honest, I hadn’t for a while. But then I just couldn’t stay away any longer. I’d hope maybe to find forgiveness. And, well, I found you two instead. Just one of the many lost things that wind up at Sebastian’s feet, huh?”

Austin chuckled, throwing an arm around Smith’s shoulders. He tugged the Slender into his side, hugging him tight for a moment. “And now you’ve helped find Melody! But I think we should find a brain for Lord Rosemont first before investigations. If we end up on the run for shenanigans, he’ll be a bit mad.”

“Indeed,” Smith nodded his head. “To the morgue.”

Smith knew what he did wrong last time. Smith would do better this time. Smith would keep the woman he loved safe this time…

“Ah,Mr.Smith,whoelse would be here harassing my morgue staff,” Aravis Blightwood grumbled as the large Fowlst stepped into the room. He took up the entirety of the doorway, before sliding up beside the Slender in the waiting area of the morgue. Austin was in the back, speaking with the attendees about the brain. When they first arrived, both necromancers and the healer on duty stopped to stare at them with confusion. They didn’t quite act like they wanted to give either of them their request until Smith threatened to call Sebastian. Like a petulant school child ready to call their parent at the slightest inconvenience.

“There has been no harassment, just a simple exchange of understandable concerns, I assure you.” Smith slid his hands back behind him, giving Aravis a slight bow. As the Lord Commander, Aravis was due a certain level of respect he never demanded. Smith believed it almost peeved the large, black-feathered man more to have Smith bow to him than not. Which, of course, gave Smith great joy. He didn’t hate Aravis or wish him ill…but the man was always so serious and dower. “Lord Commander.”

Aravis squinted at Smith, a twitch of ire in his pinched features before he released his face. “What does Sebastian want with a brain?”

“Oh, an accident occurred, and we require a fresh specimen for his latest project, is all.” Smith beamed as Austin came frolicking back into the main room with a jar in his hands. “Found a good one?”

“Well,” Austin grimaced, his eyes darting to Aravis then to Smith with concern. “I didn’t want to make much of a fuss, what with us having barged in and everything so I kind of just picked one and hoped for the best.”

“Isn’t that what you do normally?” Aravis huffed, raising a brow at the ogre blocking the other doorway. The morgue was a long rectangular abyss made of obsidian marble floors and stainless-steel walls. Rows upon rows of refrigerated doors seemed to never end beyond Smith’s sight. There were a handful of slabs every few feet, some already full of patients, some still awaiting preparation.

One would think in a world of magic and heroes, such as this one, that death wouldn’t occur. Smith knew better. Death came for everyone; it was just a matter if death was the end or not for some.

“Not particularly,” Austin curtsied, and Smith swore that Aravis nearly blew a blood vessel. The ogre tucked the brain jar into a sack he’d tossed across his torso for carrying things in town. “We do try to maintain scientific integrity with a project, matching up parts to their ideal mates. Hard to build a vessel with bad parts.”

“Uh-huh,” Aravis immediately put his claws to his temples, tenderly touching them as if they throbbed. “We’re not summoning another god, are we?”

“No!” Smith and Austin wheezed sheepishly.

“Good, I have about had the maximum amount of eldritch shenanigans as I can take.” Aravis motioned for them to leave through the tunnel doorway he stepped out of with a sweep of his arm. “Besides, before you go digging around my city and harassing people, I have some updates in the case for you.”

“Perfect! I was just about to ask where the owner of the diner scurried off to? Was he caught? Have you questioned him yet?” Smith followed Aravis into the larger hall leading up a steady incline back to the main floor of the council building.

The massive white and golden building, from the outside, looked relatively contained until one dug into its underbelly. A sprawling maze of tunnels and hallways leading throughout the underside of the city. From water maintenance, sewer access, magic panels, and all the switches that kept the city running, there were tunnels that led to other pockets of the council that the general public did not know about. The morgue was one of the forgotten parts of the city’s infrastructure. What happened to the dead was something the general masses did not care to know about. People still died in King’s Fall, murders still happened, bodies still decomposed, and some illnesses were still incurable. Age was still the number one cause of death. But what happens to the bodies? And the answer was the morgue redistributes most of them. For those who still hold cultural value with their dead, the bodies are tended to with instruction given by the family. For those who don’t, well,nothing’s wasted in the city.

But other things in the depths beneath the building were the hall of records, all those too important or classified to be accessible by the public. And the vault. Something most did not know existed. A tight, magically protected vault deep in the earth, beyond where most people can reach without knowing the way. It was the promise all the founders made to the city. A family heirloom, an enchanted journal, anything that would keep the family from trying to start a coup. Anyone who insighted violence or a riot against the fragile democracy they had would lose their donated artifact.

Sebastian’s soulstone was in that vault. The only difference between him and the other founding families who signed away their souls to the city, was Sebastian could summon back his stone...and it was over. The walls around the city would come crumbling down.

And so, the city did their best to keep Sebastian happy and he kept his promise of protection.

Aravis cleared his throat, leading them away from the morgue and up into the main halls. What little life there was in the tunnel up until that point cleared immediately. The walls, carved out from the earth with jagged tools, filled with shadows as Aravis led the two into a small offshoot.

“He’s dead.”

“What?” Smith blurted out. “How? In the chase?”

“No, we were tipped off to his location as he was trying to flee the city. We closed in on his location and he ran once more. However, he headed into the haunted forest. And when we found him, all I collected was his head. And a couple of fingers. The rest of him was destroyed or missing.” Aravis pulled out photos from his cloak, handing them to Smith. Austin loomed over the Slender’s shoulder, both studying the gore captured in the photographs. Smith memorized the sinew draped across the tree branches, blood soaking into the snow, and the head sat where it had been chopped off. Handing the photos to Austin, he returned his attention to Aravis.

“We were attacked today by more eldritch beasts, this morning, leaving the artist emporium. I’m assuming not a singular bystander reported it?”

Aravis eyed him, a bone chilling silence filled the room for a long moment. Then he answered through gritted teeth, “This? Morning?”

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