What's the Catch?

[Glenn]

Did Cinnabar see now? Jirai and Suede. Lamai. Dhrin. Glenn's own absence. Kacela. And so, so much more to come. Oh yes, the former governor was uniquely suited to help with Catch, to help Catch, to help all of them against Catch, if it came to that, but in the telling, the history of Myrken over the last two years could be canvassed. Moreover, so much of why Glenn had been unable to fully deal with the madman: if he had to spend weeks unraveling what happened at the ball and then tracing potential linkages to Dhrin, how could he manage much more than he had?

"Another good question. I was not there, but from the sheer amount of testimony I gathered, it seemed as if the Wolf was not present at all, that Catch went from agitated to a complete unveiling of his power. More tendrils than before. More violent. More powerful." Not knowing Cinnabar had thought of this analogy on his own, Glenn would outright say it. "If what Lamai did was redirect the water, to dam it off, to push it away from the Wolf, what happened at the ball broke the dam, shattered the floodgates, even as the river was still redirected. In a lesser situation there would perhaps have been more signs of control from within, but here, no, none. Dhrin inspired so violent a reaction as that."

Direct action, then. "I decided upon two courses of action. First and foremost, I needed to know more." When he was at his most desperate, Glenn Burnie always thirsted for information. "Lamai was injured in the chaos of the ball and thereby shuffled back to Thessilane. I needed another mentalist and could still not call upon Rhaena. In town, there had been an associate of Bromn's and then later some sort of... ward of Treadwell's. A strange creature, a fae, though our size, of the name of Zilliah. Generally an untrustworthy and irritating wretch of a fop, a troublemaker, but mentally powerful. I tried to get what leverage I could upon him and sent him into Catch's mind to gather information. I cannot say it went smoothly, and I learned far too little from the gambit. Namely that Catch was some sort of ancient creature and that," a slight clear of his throat, "others more powerful and wise than I have tried to contain or destroy him." It may have been only been a hint of true knowledge, but it changed the game completely. Still, Glenn seemed none too pleased about any of it. Using Zilliah had been a mistake, albeit a necessary one.

"Second, I lodged Catch with a pair of constables, the Jacobs brothers. Not the most competent or .. savory pair, I'll admit. but hardy enough to keep an eye upon him and to hopefully dissuade others from trying to take advantage of him."

[Cinnabar]

"Dhrin deserves every violent reaction he encounters." His final words on the matter, still too raw to consider further. Even years later. Still, the comparison to rivers and dams made sense, tallying with the descriptions he'd heard - power as flux, magic as movement, a flow of energy to be drawn out and directed.

"That, at least, is encouraging. That it was Catch rather than the Wolf." Better to be able to focus on helping the man without the interference of whatever... other shared his skull with him.

So, action. The fae was an unknown, though clearly not rating highly in Glenn's estimation. Cinnabar privately mused on whether only the erratic and unstable were drawn to the use of arcane power, or whether it was the use of that power which made them so. Likely some combination of the two.

Ancient creature.

"No further details of his nature beyond that? No... hints or impressions?" The possibilities were scarcely narrowed by that revelation, given the range of such entities roaming Myrken Wood or lurking beneath it. "How did Catch take this examination? He remained cooperative, even after the Ball?"

And... that next measure, the choice of words. The choice of men. "Expendable, you mean." Capable enough to stand a chance of doing their job, yet not so capable that they might be sorely missed. "How long did they last?"

[Glenn]

"Zilliah would soon give us more information, but for now, that's all we had to work off of." Again, he kept it as a steady narrative, a story of their trials and tribulations working through this mystery. There HAD to be some reason for that, but Glenn had been tight-lipped about it up until now. Perhaps Cinnabar would understand when just what Catch seemed to be was revealed.

And after the ball? And ... with Catch apparently in control and not the wolf. A good thing, no? "Yes and no. Catch had certain.. desires that perhaps a fear of the Wolf held back. Having more direct access to his power opened up certain avenues to him." Perhaps there was a balance which they, with only the best intentions, had disrupted, or perhaps they had prevented a darker force from coming to the forefront, but still had to deal with the repercussions of empowering a more innocent and naive being, a creature of pure childlike desires.

"For instance, he became more hostile and violent to Treadwell. Moreover. He outright attacked me. I might have been a bit too harsh with him or again, he might have continued to see some .. stench of my imprisonment upon me. But he tried to open me up in an attempt to heal me, as if that makes any sense. Thus having him in a loose custody for both his safety and that of others around him."

An even glance for Cinnabar as he spoke those last words. "Yes. I hadn't wanted to.." well, that was a good sign, right? That he was concerned about what Calomel thought, or that he might somehow be offended or even hostile in that any Constable would be considered expendable. "expandable, yes. In the end, I do think they minimized the damage over the next few months. Eventually, though, the powers at play became too large and they were no longer safe in their roles. Catch started to come and go as he pleased and I did not have them contest it.

"As I said, though, his intentions were often good. For instance, he healed Rhaena's hand as best he could." The hand that had been severed by the very drow whose name Cinnabar could not remember before. "And in doing so restored her power. That opened up another option, but before I could make use of it," and was that not cold? Saying that his lover was but an option? Still, there was fondness in his voice as he mentioned her, so perhaps the former Governor should not worry overmuch, "Zilliah proclaimed something more, something outlandish but that made a surprising amount of sense."

[Cinnabar]

That was often the problem with such individuals - magic-users, monsters, those with innate abilities that allowed them to act as they willed, unimpeded. One of impulses and gratification, without the consideration of whether it was right to act on such desires. A disregard for the cares of others without the strength to oppose them.

"What wound was he attempting to heal?" Suspicions again, plucking almost casually at this or that thread of the narrative; he followed the primary line of the Governor's account, but also subtly strove to tease out further details of his time with the Drow. A clue here, a hint there, tiny fragments of the truth.

He nodded, though, when Glenn told how he'd not needlessly put the Constables in harm's way, had not sacrificed them for the sake of his own curiosity, had not ordered them to stand in Catch's path. That at least was encouraging. Myrkentown's Constabulary faced the threat of injury or death as part of their job. They knew it was not without danger, but wore the uniform nonetheless, and as such Cinn had ever been loth to take chances with their safety. Not unless the need was truly dire.

Option. No, not cold. Practical. He would take pains to assess the risks, to make her similarly aware. Neither of them were fools, and both knew the cost of keeping Myrken safe. Both had paid it, again and again. They would do what was needed, using the skills to which they had access.

"Go on."

[Glenn]

Cinnabar pushes again at Glenn's wound. He had tried to dismiss it twice as simply the stench of underdark, but Jirai had been mentioned and there would be more on that soon. "It's a trivial thing, Cinnabar. Annoying." And yes, Glenn did look annoyed now. "Somehow Catch had got it in the head that there was WORMS within me." Was that the answer he had expected? Not quite. "Maggots actually. He wanted to get the maggots out. All he found instead was my stomach and... well, anatomy was not my strong point, but no maggots. Certainly no maggots. He did break my walking stick which I had been quite fond of though."

It said something that he put he himself at risk with the experimentation. It said something that he had been willing to put Rhaena at risk as well. He did not ask anything of the Constables that he would not do himself, and moreover, he asked far, far more of himself at that.

"Zilliah and Catch became enemies of sort, magical antagonists, but in petty, maddened ways. Around this point, Catch began to speak of the lake, of a giant eye opening up there. And Zilliah, when pressed by Rhaena and myself, claimed that it was not an eye at all, but a HORN, the missing piece of Catch, the object that drew him here to Myrken. Sitting at the bottom of the lake." The healing blood. The scar upon his head. The animal tendencies. "He claimed that Catch was no less than a unicorn." And here, a pause WAS in fact needed. Cinnabar needed to process this, for if anyone would believe such a thing, well.. the silver-haired man had good reason to. Not too long to process it, though, lest he start to think this all an elaborate joke. "And, before you through your hands up in exasperation, think of what we've seen here. Many different sorts of demons. Various dragons, some more human, some less. Magicial beings are not always what the stories say. Having encountered no other such named creature, it's impossible to say how twisted the old stories had become. It fits in its own way."

[Cinnabar]

"But he still maintained he was helping by doing so, yes? It was an attempt - albeit misguided - to render aid, rather than lashing out as he did against Treadwell?" No less dangerous, of course, but at least the motive was positive. And perhaps he was correct in perceiving some subtle but deep-rooted wrongness about the Governor.

A unicorn. The silver-haired man paused for only a moment, considering the idea before his pen began to move once more upon the page. He'd made previous such deductions, had the once-mapmaker. He'd gathered a skein of observations and hints and suspicions with the swordswoman Ariane Emory, had presented them with something between concern and accusation, depending on which of them spoke at the time. And Calomel had first believed, then rejected, and then deliberately ignored. Perhaps selfishness, perhaps self-preservation.

"How did Zilliah come by this understanding? From looking into Catch's mind? Through his own investigations? Or just conjecture?" He certainly didn't reject the theory out of hand - his time in Myrken had taught him the foolishness of that - but nor did he take it as fact without some kind of corroboration. He'd need more than the word of a fae, for a start. "He might be correct, or he might only have part of the truth - there are any number of things Catch could be."

But there were ways to find out the truth of things - especially now, after earthquake and emptied lakebed.

"Is the horn or eye or what-have-you still there? Has it been possible to..." a flick of fingers beside his brow, shorthand for the various options at Glenn's disposal. "...to detect it? Or anything that might be it?" Amongst all the things down there in the lightless silt, though, the lost and the hidden and the damned, how would one know?

[Glenn]

"Yes, he was trying to help." Joy of joys. After the assault and forced healing, Glenn stopped walking with his limp, so there was that. Granted, the limp had rather come and gone as the situation warranted, so perhaps it wasn't that much of a help.

How did Zilliah know, Cinnabar asked. "From being some sort of wretched Fae? I assumed seeing within Catch's mind. He was deranged at the time, much as he was after when I first had him enter. He whisked himself off into the lake, but we scared him off with iron tipped arrows. I posted a guard after that. The last thing we wanted was for him to possess the horn."

"Cinnabar." Glenn began once more, frustration entering his posture in a far sharper way than the man across from him had seen since his return. It took quite a bit for Glenn to get riled these days, but thinking back to the months of trying to obtain that horn seemed to do the trick. "You spoke of our resources before. How limited they were. I have endless faith in humanity, in what we can accomplish with ingenuity and determination but getting something at the very bottom of the lake." He actively groaned and looked up at the ceiling. "Here is the very sum of what I accomplished. I found out that there was something down there."

His smile was slight when he looked back to the former governor, but at least it was there. "A criminal. A prisoner. The brother of one of my employees. He claimed that a SHAPESHIFTER (no not the werewolf) took his form and framed him. Kidnapped Treadwell. It's about what it sounds like. Moreover, he admitted that he was her accomplice previously. It was a dubious story at best, but there was a need and I offered him the chance to prove his innocence if he participated in an exercise to help us, to help Myrken." THAT, Cinnabar, is the definition of expendable. "We encased him in a large glass dome and sent him down into the lake, dropped down by boat. It was a huge undertaking; Roschen had poisoned the lake, you have to understand." And he had not mentioned Catch's assistance in helping to foil the plot to drug the chocolate. It was a strange omission, likely due to the sheer amount of facts in this case. Why else would he leave it out? "Once there, he saw the horn, yes, though it was stylized, almost like jewelry and attached somehow to a statue of a face. Before a further examination could take place, the dome was assaulted by the same sort of tendrils which came from Catch's scar. We barely got him out alive."

Burnie had been proud of his undertaking, of his experiment, of submerging a man so deep. It had ultimately told them to keep looking, to keep searching and driving towards that bottom. Unfortunately the month to come would be full of failures. "It's gone now, though I have the statue, but again, we'll get to that. We're getting towards the end now, though. I sent Tennant down just a few months ago." A deep breath and another brief closing of his eyes. "Everything was happening quickly now. This is about the time where I learned of Matron Faeryl's interest in Catch."

[Cinnabar]

"No, detect." Fingertips pressed to his brow, a frown of concentration in crude parody of the various mentalists he'd seen ply their arts. He shrugged a moment later, and continued to write as he spoke.

"That in itself is worth noting. That the thing didn't seem to influence things around it - no shared nightmares, no dream-haunted questors searching for the thing. No premonitions, no feelings of indefinable doom to afflict those who strayed too near." But for Catch's talk about the Eye and what knowledge the fae had gleaned from the madman's mind, no one might ever have known where it lay. No telling how long it had been there already. "Until your man in the bottle went down there, of course. Which itself gives us a fair gauge of how near is too near, hm?"

That some relic of the expedition had been retrieved was certainly of interest. "I'd like to see the statue, if I may. Recovered after the lake emptied?" He'd seen the aftermath of such, the gaping hollow of stinking, part-frozen mud being gradually refilled. He could only assume that it was not the Governor's doing, given that aforementioned issue of resources.

But then the Matron's name entered the story and it was Calomel's turn to groan in frustration. There was nothing, no situation that could not be rendered more dire by the interference of the Drow, no calamity that did not draw them like bloated flies to filth.

"How much harm did she cause?"

[Glenn]

A long glance for Cinnabar as he made his little pantomiming. In another setting, it'd be rather amusing, but they were well in the depths of Burnie's frustration here. It took a great deal to make him feel much of anything these days. This was on a very short list. "Rhaena helped us communicate with Tennant during the expedition. Otherwise we wouldn't have known to pull him up when we did. Past that, I wasn't going to risk her lightly. Given Catch's ominous comments about the eye, I thought it best to send down someone I wouldn't miss." Harsh, but this was a criminal, and one that was earning a chance for both freedom and justice with his efforts. More than that, he had the privilege to participant in so execting an experiment, the sort of thing he could tell his grandchildren one day, especially since he somehow lived through it.

Cinnabar's request was more than reasonable. "I have the statue here. Trust me, we weren't about to lose it when the waters returned." There was no good way to get to the bottom of a lake without magic. It drove him mad. "We built a closet for it. When the horn was attached to it, its eyes were shut. Now they're opened, which yes, is exactly the reverse of what you'd think. After we talk, you can see it. I'd appreciate your opinion of it, anyway."

Then onto the subject of Faeryl. "I.. overreacted, perhaps, but before she could do too much obvious harm." A moment of doubt for the next disaster that occurred? Hardly. Glenn Burnie was not capable of such things anymore, nor did he need to be. His gaze became even more piercing, even sharper, as he spoke of the drow matron. "No, I didn't, not at all." A very firm shake of his head. "I will admit to a level of desperation at this point, Cinnabar. I learned that Faeryl was courting Catch and his power, and that he was quite open to her blandishments. Think of it: if we were to ever come down on him too harshly, he could run underground to her, just like that. Moreover, he was increasingly out of control. He attacked Aloisius more fiercely than before, and this was only shortly after the good Councilor was recovered from his kidnapping. He's a hardy old fool, but he cannot take strains like that in such rapid progression. "

"Some of my staff, one of them being Mary, who you met yesterday, helped me execute a plan to deal with this. We needed Catch properly distracted, at which point Rhaena would enter his mind and reverse his feelings for Faeryl and Treadwell. He'd fear her and befriend him." It was almost devilishly simple. "It came quite close to working too, but something panicked Catch by chance at the last moment." Best not to mention that it was an illithid puppet, really. The gist was all they needed. "He went wild and attacked me with healing energies once more. Rhaena took the brunt of it, though she came out of the experience rather.. purified. She's fine. Serene." Not uncomfortable in the least and doting as ever, even though his beloved was walking around Myrken as if she was a storybook princess.

"Catch seems less afraid of Treadwell, though still more hostile than I would like, and I think that fear HAS transferred to Faeryl, so it wasn't a complete failure." And none too soon. "It may be due of the discovery of the horn or the opening of the eye or just a natural increase of his power, but Catch was becoming increasingly bold. Dangerously so." If he had gone to Faeryl at that point it would have been disastrous for all of Myrken.

[Cinnabar]

"So the horn was removed between your expedition and the lake's draining. Possibly by someone with the magical means, while the lake was full, or more likely after the lake emptied. How soon did you have someone on the scene?" Thinking aloud more than anything, as it was a basic deduction to make. "Do you have any indication as to who might have taken it? Or who was behind the emptying of the lake, for that matter? If your people found the horn missing soon after the water drained, that strikes me as more than coincidence."

Cinnabar listened quietly as Glenn outlined the threat that Faeryl posed, and his response; the scratching of nib upon paper broken only occasionally by a dart of his pen for the inkwell close by.

"No over-reaction; a risk, yes, but absolutely justified. What upset him during the distraction?" Valuable information to have, if he was to interact with Catch at some point in the future; a brief glance through his notes allowed him to begin composing a more condensed list of such triggers. "Treadwell incenses him, though Faeryl now shares that response; Dhrin even more so, either in his own right or by the threat he posed to Lamai Carver; you he insists upon fixing, but I'm not sure it counts as hostility. What else?"

[Glenn]

Cinnabar's curiosity on the horn's eventual disappearance was natural, but there was a threat of the narrative coming undone so close to its completion. "A request for just a bit more patience, if you don't mind." Before he had interwoven certain elements out of order. Now, though, there was simply too much value in continuing onwards and hitting everything at its proper point. "We're almost there. To the lake drying up, to today, even." Cinnabar would get his answers about the small window when the horn might have been taken, about how quickly a man would come on the scene, about the man himself even. "And anyway, we're about to get to the dragons."

"He is self-conscious. Perhaps this is due to how we have stressed the importance of humanity to him. He does not like to be called a monster, to be likened to something like the Baie, to be reminded of the tendrils. It was a chance thing. He saw something that looked like a squid. It set him off. That simple." An oversight, the enthusiasm of a Myrken farmgirl gone a bit too far. And such things changed that day because of it.

"Around this time, we had a few newcomers to Myrken. Aleksei, Renea. The first was an educated man, a man of science and arcane learning, the sort of resource we rarely have here. He reminded me a bit of Alistair Savoy." Another young man who had once been Burnie's closest friend. Another man that Myrken destroyed. "I immediately retained his services to research Catch and try to obtain the horn from the lake. He came up with a plan to block off part of the water, but it would take more power than we as of yet had at our disposal. Renea was a swordswoman, interested in the militia. Elements of Agnie to her, of Quincy Randall, of Ariane. She took to Catch immediately, wanted to protect him, from himself and everyone else. It reminded me a bit of Ariane and the Ashfiend's urn, I'll admit, but her heart was in the right place." and help was always welcome here in Myrken. Scowled at occasionally, but ultimately welcomed.

It was time to start to bring all of this to its conclusion. The first dragon, then. "And Drache, a dragoness, half dragoness. Enchanter. Prickly sort. She has been here in Myrken for far longer, close to a year I'd guess. Mostly keeps out of trouble, though obviously after the attacks a couple of years ago, people remain wary. Catch loves babies. Loves small animals. She was of child." Every word was spoken SO carefully now. This was important, but more than that, it was... personal. Cinnabar Calomel was a relatively new father. That was the whole of it, no? Such care, then, as the governor stared at the silver haired man across from him. "When that child was born, Catch desired it with all of his being, to hold it, to touch it, to have it, and he now had the power and the confidence, the abandon. He took it."

[Cinnabar]

"Very well." He nodded, grinning briefly at that call for patience. Keen to put the pieces in place, to draw together the facts given into something better approximating a whole. The Governor had done well so far to unravel the thread of events, to present them in clear sequence one after another. One thread out of many, crossing and tangling and interweaving across the whole of Myrken.

More names were added to those notes, each accompanied by a line of context, of role or ability. Individuals with whom he'd likely become acquainted in time. Perhaps tracking them down to ask about their experiences with the madman. Later. A nod as Glenn described them in terms of others who'd come before, and a faint smile of recollection. Good people, clearly. Myrken always had need of such.

Talk of dragons, then, which held his attention. Talk of a stolen child, which had him lifting his pen for a moment as he returned the Governor's gaze, wary of where the account might lead from here.

"I cannot imagine that went well in any way."

[Glenn]

To be brutally honest, Glenn was rather surprised by Cinnabar's lack of reaction. He expected something more visceral. Had the situation been just a little different, it could have been the former governor's own child that was taken. It was impressive, then, how he maintained his composure throughout. "As you can imagine, yes. She confronted him in the Dagger." Where else, really? "And a number of other individuals including Zilliah and Renea became involved. From what I gathered, it was quite the free for all." Everyone had conflicting interests and grudges and in the end, no one came out of it better off.

"The child was recovered and Renea, who had been given a modicum of responsibility over the militia by this point, saw it fit to imprison Catch in the gaol until something further could be decided. She went so far as to stay with him in his cell until the matter was settled." For one of the first times in this conversation, Glenn would actually frown. "I'll admit that during this period I was again distracted. Kostroma had delivered his missive. I had to put together a Council and become Governor. I had to delegate certain responsibilities, even if I had strong misgivings about imprisoning Catch so formally. Moreover, we were still desperate to get the horn. I had even begun to explore magical avenues, not to procure it, but to help enable Aleksei's engineering plans, all with little success. I'm not even going to tell you about the interview we had with Zerdali on the matter." That had been downright embarrassing for everyone involved.

The frown had been for his inaction, his inability to move more quickly on the matter of the horn, to personally intervene in Catch's imprisonment. "Tension continued to build, more and more. With nowhere to go, with no release, the madness and power within Catch festered and grew, reaching a boiling point. And then, all it once it was released, sundering the very earth around him. The gaol was destroyed. Only few of the guards were hurt, but numerous people either waiting trial or serving sentences were killed. Fire broke out throughout Myrken, with dangerous gases escaping into the air. We were prepared for such a disaster after the dragon attack, but it was still a terribly damaging evening." Glenn couldn't help to think back to his encounter with Kerrak and how much worse things had almost gotten. "It rather goes without saying that Catch escaped."

Here, though, he could answer one more of Cinnabar's questions. "In the midst of the terror, Aleksei rushed towards the lake. The fumes were at their most deadly and dangerous there, but he knew to go. He has.. certain magical instincts about these things, I suppose. The fumes in the air were at their worst, but the lake itself was pure, clean, clear. Before he had to flee, he could see the statue, could see life brimming in the lake where it had once been almost completely putrefied and destroyed. And across the lips of the statue, clear and unmistakble, was the horn. The lake was still there that night and the horn remained within it."

[Cinnabar]

"But the child was unharmed, yes?" Catch was clumsy. Brutish, even. The death of the rabbit Chamberlain was clearly grounds for concern. But for all that Catch had been wrong in taking the infant, there remained the fact that he had not done so out of malice, but out of want for... what? Affection? Something to care for, to cherish? The methods were deplorable, but the motive? Absolutely understandable.

There was also perhaps a touch of... not satisfaction, but perhaps vindication. His withdrawal from Myrken affairs was not an easy thing for those left behind, no; he appreciated that, and would likely come to a deeper understanding of how hard it had been as time passed. But in doing so he had protected his family from such horrors, such assaults. And for that he could feel no regret.

Back to the matter of the horn, though; an object coveted by many parties, undoubtedly. Of Catch's imprisonment, and then escape, and the damage wrought in the process.

"Catch is powerful, that's a given, but to make use of it one must contend with the vagaries of a madman. Presumably the belief is that the horn is invested with similar power? To heal, to restore?" That the lake had been cleansed of poison and corruption seemed evidence of that. Certainly desirable, and perhaps more controllable - a power to be wielded directly?

"How many were aware of the horn's existence? Of its location?" Thinking like a Constable, assembling a list of possible suspects; no doubt there were those with the means to scour the lakebed, but no reason to do so - until made aware of the treasure hidden there. A self-conscious grin followed a moment later. "You've made your own inquiries, no doubt. More patience?"

[Glenn]

"The child was unharmed, to the best of my information. The Dagger was a bit banged up." Though then again, when was it not? "That said, Catch IS capable of ill intent, especially as he has become more attuned to his power. Especially now." They were almost to the current day. "The last time I saw him, I was there, with Agnieszka, with Renea, with Aleksei. Catch was oozing some sort of darkness, muck. He seemed to have more awareness than before, though not necessarily more lucidity. I attempted uh.." and for the first time in this entire conversation, Glenn Burnie would be at a bit of a loss.

He laughed, a soft, very self-aware thing and finally put the words together. "I have a tendency to attack with words, to overwhelm with truth. You've seen me to do it in years past, I imagine, to the Ashfiend, perhaps. I gave Catch my best, and the result was that he snatched up a nearby orphan with his tendrils." It wasn't funny, not really, but the sheer futility of it, perhaps, and the admittance of what he did, what came so naturally to him. "Then he told me, simply, that he needed the horn and that I must not let him have it. Two thoughts, one voice."

Back to the issue at hand. "if it is what the legends say, it's a powerful object, yes. I've thought of it MAINLY in regards to Catch, though." No mention would be made of the dagger it might make and the drow that it could be used upon. "I'm sure others would have different uses for it. Not Zilliah though. I'm sure he sees it as a weapon against Catch. I thought the drow might have learned about it and drained the lake through under ground connective tunnels but Aleksei went down there with Niall and there was no sign of that. Of course the drainage might have happened naturally with the earthquake, but then whoever took it was an opportunist."

Still Cinnabar had asked who knew, so he would list of the names. "I had begun to call in... specialists to assist me. Zerdali as I said." Though why a gypsy would be useful would be anyone's guess. "Tebrin and Bloodmoon. I spoke briefly with the former and sent a note to the latter. Tennant, Aleksei, and Rhaena. Most of my researchers only knew bits and pieces though some are smart enough to work it out. Not many knew of its presence from me. I can't be sure who Zilliah did or did not tell though, or who else might have sensed it."

"Understand, Cinnabar. I meant to give it back to Catch. I meant to restore him, make him whole. At that point one of two things would have happened. Either he would have been restored, sane, and a positive part of our society, or else he would have continued his ways and have become more dangerous and more of an animal, but at the same time, whole and aware. At that point we would not have been judging a child, someone incapable of control, but a magical entity that was responsible for its actions. At that point we would have done what was necessary." He would have empowered a dangerous creature just so that he could be judged fairly. Again, for a soulless man, such sentiment. Or he was just lying, of course. That was always a possibility. Maybe he just wanted the thing for himself or to use it to CONTROL Catch, but his eyes were clear and his voice steady. Every indication was that he meant what he said, or at least he thought he did. "Now, I think we are well past that point. In this, you are something of a last resort and a judge all in one."