A recap for the party. Read this before we begin again.
You did not win at the windmill. You survived it, which is not the same thing, and you know the difference now.
The hags barely bothered with your steel. One look at Sirius in all his terrible winged glory and Bella turned him into a frog — a small one, with wing markings and a hairdo. Osric followed a heartbeat later. And into the middle of three cackling horrors ran Lily, claws opening her back, to scoop up both frogs and sprint for the road. Morgantha crushed Clover into scrap almost as an afterthought — and take your toy, too — and then the three of them stood in their doorway and laughed as you fled, dragging a bound woman in a silver net behind you, two knights of the realm croaking in Lily’s pockets.
Her name is Vasha. Bitten, not born; her mate Radu — born to the curse, still master of it — is chained inside that mill. And around your campfire she told you the thing you will not unlearn: werewolves regrow any wound not made of silver or magic. The hags hack off their arms. The arms come back. The pies are made of the arms. No missing children. Just two people, harvested over and over, forever. You burned every pie you carried and called it a cremation, and it was.
The hook is still in Lily. Every dawn, for one hour, a pie matters more than air — a little less each day. She lets you tie her to the tree at night. Sirius has himself tied beside her, dagger in hand, out of solidarity. She hasn’t slept properly in two days. She is carrying it.
Then the road produced a dire wolf standing in broad daylight with roses in its mouth. It set them down, trembling with restraint, and fled. The note on very fine card stock was addressed to Ireena. My love, why do you tease me so? He calls you ruffians. He promises that she need only speak his name three times and he will appear — to whisk her away to our castle, Ravenloft. Signed: your destined future lover, Strahd von Zarovich. He is still, Fëanor pointed out with desperate optimism, in the gift-sending phase. That night the raven found you again — the same raven that watched you in the village of Barovia, days and miles behind — and when Lily reached out with her gift for speaking to beasts, nothing answered. Because whatever wears those feathers is not an animal.
A farmstead full of shambling dead slowed you for all of one minute — Sirius’s black wings froze them where they stood, and steel did the rest — but it cost you something anyway: Ireena saw the wings. She is on her knees now. She believes an angel of the Morninglord walks beside her, and Sirius, who cannot imagine why anyone would think such a thing, knelt down and prayed with her.
And then: Vallaki. Real walls. A gate with forms to fill in. Are you now, or have you ever been, agents of the devil? Every weapon registered down to a broom handle; the devil’s name a punishable offense; a guard on every corner; three citizens in the stocks — one for missing a festival while his mother died. The Festival of the Blazing Sun is in seven days. Attendance is mandatory. Failure to attend is punishable by punishment. Say it with a smile: all will be well.
At the church of St. Andral, Father Lucian showed you the town’s secret before the town has learned it: the hidden crypt beneath the altar is empty. The bones of St. Andral — the relic whose holiness kept evil from crossing this threshold for centuries — were stolen six days ago, right after the groundskeeper Milivoj came asking little Yeska, out of the blue, about secrets hidden in the church. The sanctuary you promised Ireena is just a building now. She doesn’t know. You haven’t told her. Tomorrow, you find Milivoj at the orphanage he keeps.
The day ended at the Blue Water Inn — warm light, wolf steak, the Martikov boys underfoot, a musician dressed as loudly not-Vistani as cloth allows. And at a corner table, an old, old man staring at the five of you, white as a sheet, as if the mists themselves had walked through the door.
His name is Roger. He is what remains of the last people who ever walked out of the mists — the ones from the bad times, a lifetime ago. There were more of them once. There is only him now.
The wine is bought. He is waiting. We begin at his table.