There was a lesson to be learnt from this whole dreadful experience, and it began with “Never trust a scholar.” The Sisterhood were supposed to be neutral, professional and unconcerned with anything save the preservation of knowledge, and Evelyn had put her faith in that reputation, right up until she woke up, bound, gagged and head throbbing from the drug slipped into her tea. If she got out of this, it was a lesson she would apply going forward.

Of course, that was looking to be a particularly big if…

“Mmmmpggghh!” the ashen-haired elf cried out, lithe, athletic figure still flexing and straining against the ropes keeping her bound to the chair, striking features red with shame. A century serving the Seven Houses of Midnight as an assassin, not to mention the several decades since, had seen her tied up and helpless more than once, but never so easily. I should have seen this coming! she chided herself, the humiliation of her plight eating away at her like a canker, and once again, she flexed her wrists against the bonds, hoping that her constant struggles would have loosened them by now.

For she wasn’t the only one in peril. The scholar Lia sat transfixed by the map, eyes glazed over as she stared into the glowing symbols that decorated the parchment. That was another lapse of judgement. The idea that the map could be cursed in some fashion never occurred to Evelyn, but she could sense the magic radiating from it now, growing stronger and stronger with each passing moment and deepening the scholar’s enthrallment all the while. Drugging Evelyn might have been a spur of the moment decision, a poor choice when faced with the temptation of something rare and historic. Now… now the scholar was rank with the stink of sorcery, her mind utterly subsumed by it, and Evelyn intensified her struggles, fear growing like a pit in the stomach.

Because this wasn’t any ordinary magic. It was vile and bizarre and intimately familiar, and the elf began to shudder uncontrollably, blue eyes wide with barely constrained terror. She’d discovered the truth behind the Seven Houses, a lesson that led her to breaking the blood oath she’d sworn, and in that quiet study, she felt that same presence swirling about the enthralled scholar. Something evil was making itself known, pushing and straining against the fabric of reality, and the elf thrashed against her bonds in a wild panic. Nothing gave; not the ropes binding her wrists behind the chair, or those securing her ankles to the chair legs or her coil wrapped beneath her breasts keeping her pinned against the backrest.

“MMMPPPGGGHHH!” she screamed, hoping against hope that the sound of her voice might jolt the scholar from the enchantment placed upon her. “MMMPGGGHHH!”

And then a voice that was not Lia’s own rumbled throughout the study. “Ahh, yes, Evelyn Silverthorn, I remember you. Fate has a sense of humour if you’re caught up in all this.”

“MMMPPGGGHHH!” the elf howled, blood turning to ice in her veins. “MMMPPGGGHHH!”

“You swore a blood oath to the dark powers, elf. Did you honestly think that you could evade our judgement forever?” Above the map, the magic gathered in a cloud of pitch-black malice, teeth and claws emerging out of the smoke. “It seems you are in need of a lesson. A very harsh lesson indeed…”