I stared at the notification for a long moment, my mind working through the implications.
Stage two. I thought it would be a while until I unlocked one of the swords other 2 to 4 stages. Ever since I got this blade I felt like the sword was alive in some fundamental way, tied to celestial cycles I hadn't even thought to try and track. I was just going to wait until I found someone who could look more closely at it and who wouldn't ask to many questions.
Does this mean the stages unlock through the phases of the moon? I wondered, turning the thought over. Stage one, whatever triggered it originally, had probably been tied to something else entirely. But this, the new moon's light seems to be drawing out something in the sword.
Before I could speculate further, a second panel replaced the first, its text glowing faintly blue against the darkness of the clearing.
Would you like to equip this new stage? [Yes/No]
Well, I'd be a fool to say no to a new weapon.
[Yes]
The panel dissolved, and Eirael flared white in my grip, the light swelling until it swallowed my vision entirely. I squinted against it, my eyes struggling to adjust even with their enhanced tolerance for sudden shifts in brightness. When the glow finally dimmed enough to see through, what remained in my hands stole the breath from my lungs.
The sword was gone. In its place was a bow, but calling it simply a bow felt like an insult to whatever craftsman, mortal or otherwise, had shaped it. The frame curved in an elegant, hyper-extended crescent, more moon than weapon, its tips reaching back like horns toward some distant point behind my shoulders. There was no physical string stretched between them. Instead, a taut cord of pale-blue moonlight hummed in the space where a string should have been, visible but not quite solid, the way starlight sometimes seemed to hover just above the true dark of the sky.
I reached out, hesitant, and drew two fingers along the cord. It hummed, a sound like shattering ice, delicate and dangerous all at once.
The system panel flared into existence beside it.
Eirael Stage Two: Crescent Bow (Rare): By bathing in the light of the new moon, the phase where the moon is hidden and cloaked in darkness, the weapon has unlocked its "Dark Celestial" nature. It has stopped merely reflecting light and begun drawing power from the void and the wielder's own ancient lineage.
Effect: The bow has no use for physical arrows. It constantly drinks in moonlight. Can absorb or convert the properties of other skills, traits, and abilities into arrows. Absorbed properties will be lost from the host permanently.
Stage 2 Effect: +3 to Dexterity and Wisdom Attributes. Moon Touched: Anything touched by the light of the moon has a 20% chance of being critically hit, regardless of circumstances.
My eyes narrowed as I studied the weapon, turning it slowly in my hands. It felt right in a way that unsettled me slightly, the weight balanced perfectly, the grip molding itself against my palm as though it had been carved specifically for my hand and no other. Stage one's description echoed in the back of my mind, something about being meant for an elf to wield. I supposed it made sense, then, that this felt so natural. Half-elf or not, the blood was still there.
I turned toward a nearby tree, one of its upper branches catching a thin shaft of starlight through a gap in the canopy, and drew back on the cord.
The moonlight string materialized fully as I pulled, resistance building smoothly beneath my fingers, and I sighted down the length of the bow toward the illuminated branch. Then I released.
The arrow that formed, glowing white and impossibly sharp, left the bow faster than any physical arrow I'd ever fired. The sound of the shot came a fraction of a second after the arrow had already struck, that strange sonic delay confirming just how fast the projectile had actually traveled. It punched clean through the branch and buried itself in the trunk of the tree standing behind it, and a heartbeat later, the arrow itself simply dissolved, moonlight scattering into the air like dust caught in a beam of light.
That's insane, I thought, staring at the ruined branch. An arrow like that could punch through monsters and men alike like a bullet.
I spent the next hour testing everything the bow would allow, moving carefully, deliberately, cataloging every effect. My Witcher Signs, it turned out, worked seamlessly with the weapon, channeling through the moonlight arrows as easily as they channeled through my palms.
Yrden was the first test. I focused the sign through the bow rather than casting it directly, and the resulting arrow trailed faint violet light as it flew, striking the earth near the base of another tree and blooming outward into a familiar ring of glowing runes. The field seemed larger than I remembered, brighter too, the Hunter potion I'd taken weeks ago effects on my trap sign magic. I made a mental note of that. Yrden fused with moonlight arrows meant I could drop a slowing field on a target from range, without ever closing the distance first. That alone was worth exploring further.
I chose not to test Igni. Not here, not with a sleeping village full of wooden structures less than a mile behind me. My fire affinity was already a liability I managed carefully during normal combat, and testing whether it interacted with lunar arrows in some explosive, unpredictable way felt like an excellent way to burn down half of Hillstead's tree line. That particular experiment would wait for open ground, far from anything flammable.
Aard came next. I fused the sign into another arrow and fired it at a fresh tree several yards away. The impact was a powerful condensed, concussive shockwave rippling outward on contact that tore through the tree's core from the inside, splintering wood and flinging chunks of dirt and bark in every direction. The tree behind it took splash damage as well, bark stripped away in a rough circle. An Aard-fused arrow wasn't subtle, but subtlety wasn't always what a fight called for. Sometimes you just needed to put something on the ground, hard, and this would do that beautifully.
Note to self, don't use on regular humans unless in a huge crowd.
Quen was the most interesting by far. I fired the fused arrow at yet another unfortunate tree, and rather than damaging it, the arrow wrapped the trunk in a shimmering, faintly golden barrier, the same protective shell I'd relied on more than once to save my own skin.
I stood there for a moment, turning the implications over in my head.
Firing this at a pinned ally could shield them remotely, without me needing to reach them physically. Firing it directly at a hostile target could trap it inside the barrier instead, isolating it from a fight entirely, if only for a handful of seconds. And if I could stack effects, Yrden to slow, Quen to trap, then Igni to burn, all before the target even broke free... I let that thought trail off, filing it away for later, more controlled testing. The possibilities were compounding faster than I could fully process standing alone in a dark clearing.
I didn't test Axii. Something told me, some instinct sitting just beneath conscious thought, that if I could control it properly, an Axii-fused arrow wouldn't just calm a target the way the sign normally did. It would slip past physical defenses entirely and strike directly at the mind, forcing confusion or outright domination on contact. But that was a guess, a theory built on pattern recognition rather than evidence, and testing something like that recklessly, alone, at night, felt like a good way to lose control of a spell I didn't fully understand yet.
Something told me the true limit of this weapon wasn't the bow itself. It was my own imagination, my mana reserves, and how creatively I was willing to combine what I already knew. And with the new moon overhead, feeding the bow directly, I doubted I was drawing on my own mana at all tonight.
I ended the practice there and willed the bow back into its blade form. The transition happened instantly, with no delay, the crescent shape folding and reforming into familiar steel and sapphire in the space of a single heartbeat. I sent Eirael back into my inventory and made my way back toward the wall, climbing over it with the same ease I'd used to leave.
By the time I stepped back into Callidea's home, the scene waiting for me was almost enough to make me stop in the doorway.
Callum was eating like a noble. Or, at the very least, like a teenage boy who had recently and forcibly remembered he had manners.
Callidea looked up from where she sat mending something by the fire, her expression warming into a smile the moment she saw me. "Welcome back, Cain. I hope your after-meal workout was productive."
"It was, ma'am," I said, glancing briefly at Callum, who very deliberately did not look up from his plate.
"There's a washroom to the left," she continued, setting her work aside. "I've already prepared it for you. Calla's bathed already, so it's all yours. Once you're done, you'll be sleeping in Callum's room, in his bed. I'm sure my boy still has enough manners left to give a guest proper accommodations."
Callum stopped chewing entirely at that. "Mom, we're Witchers now. It's a nice gesture, but it's not necessary—"
She reached over without even looking and pulled his ear, not hard, but with enough precision to make her point. "Don't talk back to your mother in her own home, son."
"Thank you," I said, before Callum could dig himself any deeper. "I'll go clean up."
Callidea's smile turned satisfied. "Good. I'll clean your clothes with a spell while you bathe. They'll be fresh as new."
"Thank you," I repeated, already heading for the washroom.
The bath itself was, unsurprisingly, excellent, the water heated by some spell I didn't bother trying to identify, herbs floating in it that left my skin feeling cleaner than I could remember feeling in longer than I wanted to admit. By the time I'd dried off and dressed in clothes that genuinely did feel brand new, I made my way to Callum's room.
It was bigger than the rooms back at Kaer Morhen, which, given the modest size of the house from outside, made absolutely no sense until Callum walked in a moment later and caught the look on my face.
"Mom has an extension charm on the whole house," he said, dropping onto the edge of his bed. "Everything's bigger on the inside than it looks from out there."
"It's surprising you grew up in a place like this and came out so... functional," I said.
Callum shook his head slowly, leaning back against the wall, his damp ginger hair falling across his forehead. "My mother's a gifted woman. Smart, too, smarter than half the nobles in this province combined. My sister and I are bastards of the lord of this village so we weren't allowed to be regular peasant children regardless."
I said nothing, waiting for him to finish.
"I was supposed to be a backup," he continued, his voice quieter now, the easy humor from dinner completely gone. "In case his legitimate children died. Except his wife wanted us gone. She got her wish either way."
His eyes had that distant look again, the one I'd seen flicker across his face occasionally over the years, usually gone before I could ask about it. Now it lingered.
"Want to talk about it?" I asked carefully.
"No." He shook his head once, decisive. "Let's sleep. We've got work to find tomorrow."
I didn't push. Some wounds needed time before they could be touched without reopening, and I understood that better than most people in this age. We settled into the room and sleep came easier than I expected.
Morning arrived with the smell of breakfast already cooking, and when Callum and I stepped out of the room, what greeted us was nothing short of magical, quite literally.
Callidea wasn't anywhere in sight. Instead, wooden bowls and plates set themselves neatly across the table, sausage sizzling in a pan that no hand was tending, eggs cracking themselves into a bowl with practiced precision, a whole steak searing on its own. Juice squeezed itself from fruit hovering midair, the empty peels drifting into what looked like a small enchanted compost bin near the hearth. Other fruit sliced itself with tiny, precise motions before arranging neatly on plates. It looked like a scene straight out of Harry Potter.
Calla emerged from her room a moment later, looking thoroughly unprepared for the day, her hair still mussed from sleep.
"Excuse me, boys," she said, yawning. "A girl needs her morning tea before she can be expected to function like a person."
I knew needed to bring coffee to this world, I thought. If I ever get the chance. It would make a killing.
"Where's your mother?" I asked, sitting down as the food finished arranging itself.
"Probably doing her morning errands," Calla said, already pouring herself tea from a pot that had, presumably, also made itself.
"Errands?"
"She does this most mornings. Goes around the village helping people with her skills. She's the castle healer too, so she might be up there instead." Calla took a long sip of tea before continuing. "Whichever it is, she'll be back eventually."
We ate in relative quiet for a few minutes before Callum spoke, and for once, he wasn't talking with his mouth full.
"There's a tavern near the center of town," he said. "Job board there. We should check what's available."
I nodded, then glanced toward Calla. "What's next for you today?"
"Research," she said simply. "I've got several projects I had to shelve while I was traveling with the caravan."
"You going to ask Mother for help with any of it?" Callum asked, a knowing edge creeping into his tone.
Calla's expression soured immediately. "No, brother. I'm a grown woman. I've been managing my own research since I was nine years old. I know what I'm doing."
"Didn't say you didn't. Just asking a question. Don't tell me you're still upset about that thing from when you were a kid."
"I am not upset over something so petty," Calla said, though the sharpness in her voice suggested otherwise. "I was a child. I didn't know better. She corrected me. I learned from it."
I raised an eyebrow, curiosity getting the better of me. "What happened?"
Callum grinned, clearly delighted to have an audience. "She tried casting a spell she thought would give children sweet dreams. Almost summoned a nightmare instead. A literal one. Mother had to step in before it fully materialized."
"I was nine," Calla snapped, her cheeks coloring slightly.
"Don't you two have monsters to hunt?" she added pointedly, clearly done with the subject.
"Right," I said, standing. "She's right. Let's go make some money, Callum."
Callum sighed dramatically, looking down at his plate. "I barely finished my third portion."
I gave him a flat, unimpressed stare.
He glanced left, then right, then swallowed the remainder of his food in a single motion that made both Calla and me wince slightly.
"Okay," he said, standing. "Let's go."
As we walked through the village, Callum pointed out various shops and stalls, offering brief commentary on which owners were friendly, which were miserable, and which made food worth actually paying for. He gestured toward a larger building near the center of town. "Merchant's guild. We could start establishing your trading group here, if you wanted."
"Not yet," I said. "We need more monster materials first. Plus I want to see if I can get a recommendation first."
He shrugged easily. "Fine by me."
The tavern wasn't hard to find, warm light spilling from its windows even in the early morning, the smell of ale and roasting meat drifting out into the street. A woman behind the bar caught sight of us the moment we walked in, her eyes lighting up with obvious interest.
"Well, look at you two strapping lads," she said, leaning against the counter. "Witcher's, aren't you?"
"Aye," Callum said. "Any monsters need slaying in the area?"
"Quite a few, actually." She gestured toward a corkboard near the entrance, cluttered with parchment notices. "The surrounding area, the swamps, the inner forest, even the water, has been more dangerous than usual these past few months. Plus a handful of disappearances and attacks."
I stepped closer, scanning the postings with enhanced eyes that had no trouble reading even the smallest handwriting. "This one," I said, tapping a notice. "A farmer's young boy has gone missing. Says he lives just outside the village." I moved to the next. "And a hunter's wife has gone missing too."
"I'll take these two," Callum said, already sliding two other notices free. "Something in the water, sounds like drowners."
"Maybe mermaids. Have fun with that either way," I said dryly.
He chuckled. "This last one's about a man who lost his family sword at the bottom of a lake." He sighed. "Might have to brew a potion for that one if it's really deep."
"Let's meet back here at the end of the day," I said, and we shook hands before heading in opposite directions.
The farmer's cottage sat on the edge of a modest plot of land, the man himself pacing near the front door when I arrived, his wife standing beside him with red-rimmed eyes.
"My son went missing three nights ago," the farmer said, his voice tight with worry. "He'd been acting strange for weeks before that. Kept saying he'd met a girl. Said she was... magnificent. Wouldn't tell us her name, wouldn't bring her by, wouldn't say where she lived."
"We know he was always heading toward the valley past the left hill," his wife added, wringing her hands. "Across the river. He wouldn't say why."
"I'll investigate," I said. "Whether I find him alive or not, my fee is two hundred crowns. A hundred now, and two hundred more if he's alive."
They agreed quickly, desperately, the farmer's wife pressing the coins into my palm with shaking fingers.
The system window flickered into view a moment later.
System Notification: New Quest Received
Common Rank Quest: Missing Son
Objective: Find the farmer's missing son
Reward: 1 Common Equipment Chest
From there, I made my way down the road to a modest cottage nearer the forest's edge, where the hunter lived. He was a lean, quiet man, his eyes red-rimmed from what looked like several sleepless nights.
"She's been different this past few months," he said, handing me a surprisingly well-rendered sketch of a woman with soft features and dark hair. "Distant. Staring off toward the town like her mind was somewhere else entirely. Started taking night walks, said she needed the air." He swallowed hard. "She went into town a week ago. Hasn't come back since. I can't find her anywhere."
I studied the sketch, then asked a few more questions, pressing gently on the details. The distance in her eyes. The direction of her nightly walks. The exact night she'd vanished.
"I'll pay three hundred crowns," he said finally, when I'd run out of questions.
I nodded, and the system chimed again.
System Notification: New Quest Received
Common Rank Quest: Missing Wife
Objective: Find the hunter's missing wife.
Rewards: 1 Common Equipment Chest. 1 Ability Point.
My eyes caught on that last line and held there. An ability point. It had been a long while since I'd seen one of those show up as a reward, they'd grown steadily rarer the further my mutations and trials progressed, as if the system itself were rationing them out more carefully the stronger I became.
I decided to hunt the missing boy first.
The valley itself, when I found it, was beautiful in a way that felt almost deliberately so, wildflowers stretching in every direction, a river cutting through the center of it, leading toward a waterfall further ahead. Two sets of tracks marked the soft earth near the water's edge. One belonged to the missing boy, unmistakably human. The other was strange, bipedal, but the gait was wrong somehow, each step landing on what looked distinctly like a single hoof rather than a human foot.
The air here carried a scent beyond the flowers, something more concentrated, layered with heightened pheromones that made my heightened senses flare with immediate recognition. My mental Codex began pulling up information automatically, and I dismissed it before it could finish. I already had a good guess.
I followed the tracks toward the waterfall and found an opening tucked beneath the falling water, a hidden entrance leading into what looked like a small, comfortable home. Sounds drifted out from within, moaning, grunting, both male and female voices tangled together.
I sighed and stepped to the side, waiting with the patience Witcher training had drilled into me over years of tracking prey that didn't want to be found.
The sounds eventually built toward a peak and stopped. I decided that was more than enough patience for one afternoon and knocked firmly on the door.
"Who goes there?" a young male voice called out, slightly panicked.
"A Witcher," I said. "Your parents hired me to find you. Put some pants on and open the door."
A moment later, the door opened, and the woman standing there was, admittedly, striking. Fair-skinned, with a supple figure and breast from the waist up that could have belonged to any beautiful human woman, long brown hair framing amber eyes that studied me with open curiosity. From the waist down, however, her legs were covered in fine fur, ending in cloven hooves, and a pair of small horns curled from her hairline. A long tail flicked idly behind her.
She's a succubus.
She looked me over slowly, clearly cataloging me the same way I was cataloging her.
"Sorry about that, Witcher," she said, a faint smile playing at her lips. "The boy told me he was taking a break from farm life. I wasn't going to drain him, I swear."
"He's still alive, and you're clearly intelligent," I said evenly. "I just need to bring him back. If you want to keep meeting him, that's your business, but until he's an adult, keep it to a reasonable hour. His parents are worried sick."
I looked past her toward the boy, who was hastily pulling on his shirt with the particular guilt of someone caught somewhere he shouldn't be. "Go home. I think you've given her enough of your... time, and essence these past few days. Your parents are worried."
He hesitated at the doorway, glancing back. "See you soon?"
"Of course, love," she said warmly, waving him off with genuine fondness.
Once he'd disappeared up the path, she turned her attention fully back to me, tilting her head with obvious interest. "The boy's sweet, but not particularly skilled in the bedroom, but is eager to learn and has the stamina to keep up. You, though. Tall, dark, handsome. Didn't know elves, half or otherwise, became Witcher's. Thought your kind was too proud for that sort of work."
"I get that a lot," I said.
She gestured toward the modest bed behind her. "You remind me a bit of another Witcher I met once, similar hair, though he wasn't quite my type. You, on the other hand..." She inhaled slightly, exaggerated, theatrical. "I can practically taste your pheromones from here. So, pretty boy. Want a taste, or would you rather I taste you?"
"I'm working right now," I said. "But if your still around Hillstead when I'm ready to leave, I might take you up on that."
"Poo," she said, mock-disappointed, though her smile didn't fade. "Well. Be careful out there, Witcher. Something's going on in that village. Best to stay as far from it as possible, if you can manage it."
I studied her expression, catching the genuine unease beneath the flirtation. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know exactly," she admitted, her tone shifting, more serious now. "Just a feeling. Deep in my instincts. Something's wrong there, and it's getting worse. I plan on leaving myself, soon as I can."
I nodded slowly, filing that away alongside everything else I'd gathered since arriving. "Thanks for the warning."
I made my way back to the farm, where the boy's parents were waiting anxiously by the door. Relief flooded their faces the moment they saw their son walking beside me, and the farmer pressed the remaining crowns into my hand without hesitation, his gratitude spilling out in a rush of thanks I accepted with a simple nod.
The system pinged as I walked away from the property.
System Notification: Common Rank Quest: Missing Son — Complete
Reward: 1 Common Equipment Chest
The hunt for the hunter's missing wife proved considerably harder to start. I spent the better part of an hour showing her portrait around the village, but no one had seen her, or at least, no one was willing to admit they had.
Fortunately, her husband had given me something more useful than memory. A piece of cloth carrying her scent, faint traces of a particular perfume mixed beneath it, distinct enough for my enhanced senses to isolate from the general noise of the village.
I followed it through the crowded streets, tracking the scent as it wove between market stalls and side alleys, until it finally led me to a small home near the edge of the forest. The trail stopped abruptly at a shed behind the house, and a different scent replaced it there.
Blood.
I approached the shed carefully, senses fully extended, and pushed the door open with my sword already loosened in its sheath.
What I found stopped me cold. A blonde woman crouched over the hunter's wife, straddling her in a way that could have been intimate if not for the fangs bared in my direction the moment she noticed me.
She hissed, sharp and immediate. "Witcher."
A Bruxa. The classification surfaced instantly in my mind, cataloged alongside every relevant weakness and tactic I'd memorized during training.
I drew my silver sword in a single fluid motion, and she vanished, blinking out of sight entirely.
I knew this was bad. She was fast, faster than I could track properly, and I needed every advantage I could get. On instinct, I decided to test the Aspect I'd claimed from that demonic wolf, the one I'd never actually attempted to use. I raised my hand, snapping my fingers in the gesture meant to activate Misfortune Manipulation.
The moment I did pain exploded through my entire body.
I keeled over, confusion warring with agony as the system window flared into existence directly in front of me, blocking my vision entirely.
System Notification: Warning!
Due to your Hunter pathway being incompatible with the Darkness Pathway Aspect, you are unable to use this skill without severe backlash. The System has acted as a stabilizer to hold the Aspect for the user, and nothing more.
My eyes widened.
Are you fucking serious, I thought, the pain making it hard to think clearly at all. Why now of all times to tell me this and nowt when I got the damn skill I can't even use?
The Bruxa reappeared instantly, pinning me to the ground with terrifying speed, her claws digging into my chest just deep enough to draw blood, the sharp sting oddly grounding against the deeper, more disorienting pain still radiating from the failed skill activation. Her face twisted into something far less human, fangs extending further as she leaned toward my throat.
"Lucia, stop! Please!"
The Bruxa's face shifted back toward something more human at the sound of the voice, her attention snapping toward the hunter's wife, who was pushing herself upright despite the visible bite marks along her neck.
"He's a Witcher," Lucia said, not moving off me. "He came here to kill me. Your husband's doing, no doubt."
"No," the woman said quickly, shaking her head. "He doesn't know about you, I'm certain of it."
"Even if that's true," Lucia said, her eyes never leaving mine, "he's seen me now. He'll kill me regardless."
I used the opening, channeling Warp the moment her attention wavered, and felt my body wrench sideways out from beneath her claws, reappearing several feet away, back on my feet, sword still in hand. Both women stared at me with obvious surprise.
"Can someone please explain what the hell is going on," I said, breathing hard, "before I decide anything?"
The two women exchanged a long look, some silent conversation passing between them, before the hunter's wife spoke, her voice unsteady but resolute.
"I met Lucia one night at the pub, months ago. I fell in love with her. We've been... together, ever since."
I let out a slow breath. "And you telling your husband wasn't an option?"
"Telling a cuckold of a husband she's leaving him for a vampire, and a woman?" Lucia said, arching an eyebrow. "I can already hear the witch hunt forming."
"Then why are you both still in the village?" I asked.
"We're waiting for the next boat crossing the continent," the wife explained. "It's safer than risking the open road."
"And she wants to convert," Lucia added, gesturing lightly toward her. "You interrupted the process, actually."
I sighed, running a hand down my face. "Fine. Just... hurry up and disappear."
The hunter's wife blinked. "You're letting us go? Even after she attacked you?"
I sighed more frustrated from the pain of the backlash and not knowing I could even use the damn skill.
"I honestly don't care enough to stop you. I will look past you attacking first this one time. Good luck, both of you." I turned to her specifically. "A letter would've been better than just vanishing, though. He deserves closure. He's terrified, thinking you're dead somewhere."
She nodded slowly, guilt flickering across her features. "You're right. Can I write one now? I'll have you deliver it."
"Fine I'll wait," I said.
While she wrote, Lucia and I stood in slightly awkward silence for a few minutes before I finally asked, "Do you know anything about the strange feeling settling over this village? The eerie sense that something's wrong here?"
Lucia's expression sobered. "No really. But I feel it too. It's part of why we want to leave as quickly as possible. Something's building here, Witcher. I don't know what. But my instincts are rarely wrong about danger."
The hunter's wife finished her letter and handed it to me, along with a small pouch. "A hundred orens, for your troubles. I'm sorry for all of this. Please tell him I'm sorry for all this."
I nodded, accepting it, and left without another word, making my way back toward the hunter's cottage.
He read the letter in silence, his hands shaking slightly, tears eventually spilling down weathered cheeks as he processed whatever she'd written. He pressed my payment into my hands without really looking at me, his mind clearly elsewhere entirely, and I left him to his grief.
The system pinged once more as I walked away.
System Notification: Common Rank Quest: Missing Wife — Complete
Reward: 1 Common Equipment Chest, 1 Ability Point
I want to drink after today, I thought, heading back toward the village center.
The tavern was warm and loud by the time I arrived, evening settling fully over Hillstead outside its windows. Callum and Calla were already seated near the back, mugs in hand, and Callum waved me over the moment he spotted me in the doorway.
I dropped into the seat across from them, and Callum leaned forward, grinning. "So? How'd your investigations go?"
I picked up the mug already waiting for me and took a long drink before answering.
"Enough, for me to say one of these is definitely not going to be enough."