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Ambrose did. It had felt momentous as a marriage, at the time.

They’d written one another’s names on old vellum, sealed in twine made from the hair of anyone who’d known them.

They’d burnt on an aspen wood fire, and in that instant, Ambrose had forgotten the girl’s name he’d been given at birth.

He’d wanted nothing more than to be parted from it, and there was old magic which claimed power over those whose names you knew, so the witch king wanted to be rid of his, too.

Once we have the phrase from the grimoire, invoking our names and using the enchantment from my corpse will resurrect me.

That explained why he hadn’t wished to use this spell in the first place. It was a great deal more complicated, and opened him up to vulnerabilities by reclaiming his true name.

But the history books had already written his true name in their pages. Someone had found it. In all likelihood, it had been Ilonara Thorn, the woman who’d killed him and replaced his statue in the park. The security of sundering his name was long gone.

“What should I do with this in the meantime?” Ambrose asked, holding up the vertebrae.

Keep it safe and on your person until the opportunity arises.

The spell attached to the bone made him shiver, but he preferred this to the alternative. He tore a piece of cloth to wrap it with and tucked it obediently in his trouser pocket, where he could feel it through two layers of fabric.

The witch king instructed him to return the rest of his remains where he’d found them, and so Ambrose descended back into the cellar to do just that. After crawling out and closing the door, he placed the broken padlock so that it looked just as it had when he first stumbled across it.

He tried not to acknowledge how eager he was to return to his original task, not yet ready to confront why hunting for leeches in a bog had become preferable to resurrecting his king.

He roamed farther into the woods, testing the distance of his tether carefully. Still within sight of the ruin, he sensed it straining. For a moment, he stopped and held his chest, for the way the leash pulled felt a lot like heartache.

By then he’d come to the edge of the bog.

He didn’t wish to go far enough that he might fall through a peat mat again, so he kept to the shallows, swirling through algae and leaf litter in search of leeches.

Eventually, he recognized the futility of searching with his eyes rather than using the more obvious method of fishing for them via bait.

He took his shoes and socks off at shore and, gritting his teeth against the cold and awful sensation of mud and silt between his toes, stepped into the bog barefoot.

After going a few steps, he lifted a foot.

Sure enough, a slimy, sluglike body clung to his ankle.

He filled the jar with water and pried the leech off into the jar, then continued his search.

The task was grim, so his mind wandered.

He’d spent a good deal of time in this bog by now, but the last time, it had been to bury Morcant.

He wondered how the necromancer had looked crawling out of the water, choking up lungfuls of mud and peat.

How did it work to return when your body had been so thoroughly maimed and drowned?

He’d only seen the witch king revived twice, and neither from deaths so … final.

They would need to uncover the exact mechanics of Morcant’s immortality if they held a hope of defeating him, but somehow Ambrose doubted he would have employed the same spells as the witch king.

He may have idolized him, but the witch king had died in the end.

Morcant would want a more secure means to eternal life.

He peeled another leech from his big toe and stuck it in the jar with the rest. Fortunately, a life of bloodshed left him immune to squeamishness, but as he peeled the engorged parasite from his skin, he considered the blood it contained. Blood made for powerful tithes.

How much more powerful a tithe would an entire human sacrifice make?

Morcant must have made use of Craig Kendrick’s death somehow, and all the sacrifices that came after. It didn’t take a distant leap to assume that might have something to do with his immortality.

It was a good place to start looking, provided Emery survived his fever.

With that thought, Ambrose headed back, but as he paused to pick up his discarded socks and boots, he felt the disconcerting touch of someone’s gaze upon him.

He paused. Holding still, he scanned the trees for anyone hidden. Then he heard a low hiss.

He whirled and beheld the creature menacing him—

A goose.

It was not like any goose he’d seen, with its brown plumage, black head, and white cheeks. He’d also never seen a goose look so serpentlike, arcing its long neck as if preparing to strike.

Then it lowered its head, spread its wings, and charged.

Ambrose had faced bandits, assassins, and legendary warriors, but all of them had shown him due respect as an opponent.

There was something far more alarming about a creature so small charging fearlessly toward him.

He had no wish to fight it and find out this world had venomous bird snakes, so he scooped up his boots and ran.

It gave chase, flapping, honking, and hissing.

The ruin was within sight, but the goose had the advantage of flight. Ambrose let out a yell and ducked as great wings beat around his head. When he righted himself, still running, he spotted movement in the window of the ruined chapel.

Emery held open his curtains, staring in bewilderment at Ambrose fleeing the monster. The monster in question must not be deadly, or else it was very cruel of Emery to laugh so hard. And while he was ill .

Ambrose ran round to the front door, where the goose harassed his ankles. Feinting a kick toward it, he sneaked through the door and slammed it behind him.

Emery’s laughter rang through the ruin like the chapel’s lost bell brought to life. He stood in the entryway, still ensconced in his blankets and looking halfway to tears.

“What—” he said between gasps for air. “What were you doing?”

“Your world has snake geese.”

“What? That’s just a goose.”

“I assure you, it is not.”

“It’s a North Kadian goose.”

“It’s a menace.”

“Well,” Emery choked, “that part’s true.”

Ambrose might have felt very foolish, but he’d never heard Emery laugh so heartily before. Hearing it felt like basking in ticklish sunlight, and he found he didn’t mind embarrassing himself a little to bring Emery joy.

“You should be resting.”

“I was until I heard goose honks and someone running. What were you doing?”

Ambrose held up the jar. “We have to balance your humors if you’re to survive the fever.” He sloshed the murky water around. “Leeches can aid you in that regard.”

“Leeches!?”

“They’re effective.”

“Absolutely not.”

A note of real worry wormed its way into Ambrose’s voice. “They look unappealing, but I’m sure I’d have died without them when I fell ill, and we can’t allow your fever to worsen or—”

Emery’s morphing expression stopped him. For a moment, he looked dumbfounded, then his face cracked with a smile Ambrose had never seen before. Teasing and endeared.

“I think I prefer paracetamol.” His smile turned sheepish. “Sorry. I keep forgetting how much has changed for you. Colds aren’t as deadly as they used to be, so I promise you, the leeches are unnecessary. But it’s kind of you to worry.”

Ambrose did feel foolish. He’d stood barefoot in a bog and been assailed by a goose for no purpose besides Emery’s amusement.

Yet he found Emery’s amusement prize enough.

Emery looked at his muddy feet. “Please tell me you didn’t catch them by—”

“Yes,” Ambrose said, skipping over it to the more important bit. “And it gave me an idea of how Morcant might be achieving his immortality.”