The shuffling grew louder, closer. Jadwiga folded the letters with deliberate slowness, tucking them into the front of her apron. The crypt smelled of pulverized limestone and dried marrow. A shadow fell across the narrow archway, then Grzegorz himself, his face a pale, papery mask. He held a flickering oil lamp, its light dancing across the carved epitaphs. “My lady,” he said, his voice raspy, a performance of concern. “I heard… a disturbance. Is everything in order?” Jadwiga met his gaze, devoid of the usual pleasantries. “In order? Hardly. I found what I was looking for, Grzegorz. And more.” She patted her apron, the crinkle of the letters a subtle accusation. His gaze dropped to the pocket; his fingers rattled against the tin base of the lantern. The lamp tilted, casting his features in stark relief, then plunged them back into shadow. “I… I don’t understand, my lady.” “These.” She held out one sheet, flat against her palm, exposing the spiky brown ink. “Your correspondence with Witek Głowacz. Detailing your plan to ‘euthanize’ Lord Olgierd during the final alignment. For his own good, you wrote.” Grzegorz stared at the letter, his face crumpling. The polite deferral drained from his posture. He sagged against the doorframe, the lamp nearly slipping from his grasp. “You… you found them.” His voice was a thin whisper, thin as dry parchment. “I did.” She kept her tone flat, observational. “It seems your loyalty has a rather fatal interpretation.” He pushed himself upright, a sudden, desperate energy in his frame. “Fatal? You think I wish him harm? I raised him, Jadwiga! I changed his swaddling clothes, taught him to ride, watched him fumble through his first lessons in governance. I was there when the curse took his father, and I watched it begin to take him.” His voice rose, cracking. “Do you know what it means to see the light drain from someone’s eyes? To watch them lose themselves, piece by piece, until nothing but the monster remains?” Jadwiga remained unmoving, her expression unreadable. “He is an unmanaged estate owner with an acute systemic disorder.” “A condition that devours his mind, twists his spirit, until he becomes a mindless beast!” Grzegorz gestured wildly, his face contorted. “The Gloomfang is not Olgierd, my lady. It’s a prison, a torment. What mercy is there in allowing him to become *that* permanently? To devour everything he once protected, starting with you?” He stepped forward, spit catching in the corners of his mouth. “Witek Głowacz, for all his foolishness, has silver bullets. A clean end. It would spare him the ultimate degradation. It would spare *you*.” “And you filed that under pest management?” Jadwiga asked, her tone even. “To murder him? Based on your own assessment of his quality of life?” “It’s not murder, it’s… an act of love!” Grzegorz pleaded, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks. “A final service. He would thank me, if he could understand.” A low growl echoed from the main crypt, a sound that vibrated through the stone floor. It was Olgierd, drawn by the rising volume of Grzegorz’s voice. Damp air rushed through the doorway, thick with wet pelt and spoiled meat. Grzegorz stiffened, his knuckles white against the doorframe. “No! Not yet! He must not see!” He whirled, fumbling with a loose brick near the archway, pulling at a hidden lever. With a grinding groan, a heavy, iron gate, covered in centuries of rust and faded sigils, slammed down, sealing the passage between them. Jadwiga was trapped in the inner chamber, Grzegorz on the other side, blocking Olgierd’s access. “Go, my Lord! Flee!” Grzegorz shrieked through the bars, his voice high-pitched and frantic. “I will delay her! She has discovered everything! Go! Save yourself!” The growl deepened until grit trickled from the vault ceiling. Olgierd was close, very close. Jadwiga heard the frantic scuffling on the other side, then a sound of tearing fabric, splintering wood. Grzegorz cried out, a sharp yelp of pain, followed by a deeper, guttural roar. The iron gate shuddered violently. Jadwiga took two measured paces back and checked the clearance. It was old, but solid, meant to deter grave robbers. Yet, the force on the other side was not human. A monstrous snout, wet and dark, pressed against the bars, followed by an eye, glowing with an infernal light. The Starfall Curse had fully taken hold. The Gloomfang filled the archway. He snarled, flecks of gray foam spraying against the rust. His paws, ending in obsidian claws, wrapped around two of the thick iron bars. Jadwiga watched corded tendon bunch beneath charcoal fur. With a deafening screech of tortured metal, he wrenched the bars apart, distorting the gate, bending the thick iron as if it were soft lead. His head, then his shoulders, forced through the widening gap. The gate groaned, buckled, and then, with a final, protesting shriek, tore away from its stone moorings, sending a shower of ancient dust and mortar raining down. He burst into the chamber, a hulking, terrifying silhouette against the faint light from the main crypt, his eyes fixed on Jadwiga. His shoulders crowded the stone vault, eight feet of matted bristles and muscle, eyes locked straight on her apron. He sniffed the air, then turned his gaze to the shattered remnants of the gate, letting out another deep growl. Grzegorz was nowhere to be seen. Jadwiga pointed to the gaping hole where the gate had been. “He’s gone. Fled. Presumably to Witek. He knows the manor’s secret passages, every bolthole and hidden route.” Olgierd let out a frustrated huff, his massive head lowering. His spine cracked as bone shortened back into human proportion. Muscle shrank under folds of shedding black fur until he dropped onto his knees, naked and wheezing on the flagstones. He squinted through the limestone dust at the ruined iron, then at her. “Grzegorz knows every tunnel under the cellar,” Olgierd croaked, wiping paste of sweat and soot from his cheek. “The alignment culminates at midnight. He has the ring, and without it, the cellar will not hold me past moonrise.”

The Majordomo's Gambit