"I've been through a fair amount," Bastien says, holding his free hand out for Byerly's as he leads the way from the middle. "More than Byerly. They chained him to that chair, you know. They would come in with cuffs every day and come back again to release him in the evenings. But he is free now."
They're free now. He angles a smile up at By for that. He knows it wasn't all for him—the quitting—but it was enough for him for him to be grateful.
"Anyway—there is nothing to be worried about. Before we had to walk all over the place to reach the eluvians and we might run into things, but we've moved them all now, so they are close together and we can have a look around without needing to wander off very far. And even the things we would run into were usually more annoying than scary."
A short jaunt across the cold, windy courtyard, a borrowing of a key, and they're inside. The eluvian nearly reaches the ceiling of the storage room. It looks, for the moment, like a dingy, normal mirror.
Keeping the passphrase from Fifi is, on the one hand, absurd. On the other, they did share a dream once where she worked for the Dread Wolf. So Bastien takes the minimum precaution of asking her to cover her ears and asking Byerly to sing at the top of his lungs as Bastien unlocks it.
Wakened, it shines brighter, the light on its surface shifting like a swarm of silver fish just beneath the surface of shallow water. He steps out of the way to bow and gesture: ladies first.
Men close behind, though. Probably there aren't demons or Venatori lurking on the other side, but it's never impossible.
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They're free now. He angles a smile up at By for that. He knows it wasn't all for him—the quitting—but it was enough for him for him to be grateful.
"Anyway—there is nothing to be worried about. Before we had to walk all over the place to reach the eluvians and we might run into things, but we've moved them all now, so they are close together and we can have a look around without needing to wander off very far. And even the things we would run into were usually more annoying than scary."
A short jaunt across the cold, windy courtyard, a borrowing of a key, and they're inside. The eluvian nearly reaches the ceiling of the storage room. It looks, for the moment, like a dingy, normal mirror.
Keeping the passphrase from Fifi is, on the one hand, absurd. On the other, they did share a dream once where she worked for the Dread Wolf. So Bastien takes the minimum precaution of asking her to cover her ears and asking Byerly to sing at the top of his lungs as Bastien unlocks it.
Wakened, it shines brighter, the light on its surface shifting like a swarm of silver fish just beneath the surface of shallow water. He steps out of the way to bow and gesture: ladies first.
Men close behind, though. Probably there aren't demons or Venatori lurking on the other side, but it's never impossible.