Name: Mikhail Vaughan (mee-khah-EEL VAWN)

• Nickname: Mitya

Theme Song: Elegie, by Secret Garden

Age: 18 years of age

Race: Fylgja (plural: fylgjur) A living shadow; the sum of a soul. Fylgjur pass through two stages in their lifetimes:

• Vörðr, or the Warden (deragatorily known as fetch): A fylgja follows and guards a human for the duration of that human's lifetime. The warden takes on the form of an animal while its human is alive, and remains invisible. Only when it comes time for that person to die does the warden takes on its human’s exact form, and allows itself to be seen.

• Valkyrja or the Choosers of the Slain (known also as Odin's Crows*): Fylgjur vanish into the Undercountry after their mortal’s death, and may only leave that place if invoked in the name of Morae, the goddesses of the Undercountry. Invocation binds fylgjur to the service of the mortal or immortal who summoned them; while conscripted, the fylgja is forced to take on the body and appearance of the deceased human they served as vörðr. A fylgja cannot return to the Undercountry unless its master releases it from service or it or its master is killed. However, if a fylgja kills its master or is in some manner connected with its master's untimely death, that fylgja is damned to remain on earth until it's own violent demise. Such a fylgja is called a "rogue", and trades the authority of its deceased master for the authority of any man or woman who asks its help.
  
  Fylgjur, as long as they remain on earth beneath the Invocation, never age in any capacity, be it in appearance or mental agility. What intelligence and skills they possess they absorb from others. Some of that intelligence seeps into their muscles; the rest passes from them, and their minds become again as blank slates. Too much stored information (skills, knowledge, habits, etc.) robs a fylgja of its powers, reducing it to slow movement and vulnerability. Fylgjur must continually purge themselves, either by way of a potion called the Lethe Broth, or via Dúrr, the Valkyrja's Slumber (see Skills, Magic). If a master is wise, he will not allow his valkyrja to sleep and regain its full strength in the Slumber; rather, that master will sustain his fylgja upon Lethe, giving it just enough strength to perform its duties, but not enough to fully purge and empower it.
  
  When Fylgjur die, their bodies desintigrate, releasing their soul back into the Undercountry.
  
  *It is said that when the god Odin lived, before he was slain at Ragnarok, the valkyrja took dead warriors from the battlefield to Odin's Hall (thus, the etymology of valkyrja: "val" for [slain] and "kyrja" for [choose] [taken from the Etymology section of Wikipedia's article on Valkyries] and the name "Odin's Crows"). But whether this is true or not is beside the fact; in truth, the name valkyrja is a misnomer. The fylgjur do not spirit the departed to heaven as myth says they once did, but rather are the ones dealing death... if their master so commands.

Sex: Male

Hair: Coal black

Eyes: Inky black

Weight: 102 lbs

Height: 5' 1"

Appearance: Mitya is slight and slender of body. His face is small, his features regular, his skin the deep brown of a pecan shell. Smiles and laughter flit incessantly across his mouth, crinkle the skin about his eyes. His eyes are black, like fresh ink, and so large that the whites are hidden. His eyelashes appear to be an extention of his irises. His hair reaches several inches past his shoulder blades, curling in the loosest of ringlets; he keeps it bound in a ponytail.

He wraps himself in several layers of garments. There is first the white, long sleeved dress shirt, with a collar that brushes his chin and opens at the throat. The glint of a chain, on which he carries his ear dagger, can be seen encircling his neck. Over his shirt is thrown a light gray, sleeveless tunic that comes to his calves in length. Over this is a vest some shades darker than the tunic; he wears a belt over vest and tunic, into which he sheaths two of his five daggers. Beneath his vest and tunic, Mitya wears slacks of a silver gray. The hems of the legs fall well past his ankles, and are bunched into shin-high boots gone greyish-brown with travel. Over this whole ensemble, Mitya wears a cloak twice his length and several times his width, wrought of alepine (mixed wool and silk or mohair and cotton fabric, according to the Phrontistery) and dyed forest green. The hood is deep. His hands are gloved in soft green gauntlets.

Armour: None

Weapon: Mitya carries several daggers: an ear dagger he salvaged from the body of his departed mistress and mentor; a pair of cinquedeas (picture from myArmoury.com) that are well and truly his own; a rondel; and a dirk (picture by Tomasz Steifer, Gdansk). Mitya wears the sheathed ear dagger around his neck upon a long silver chain. He never intends to use it, rather, only to keep it safe and as near his skin as is possible. The sheaths of the cinquedeas form an "X" at the small of his back and are hidden by his cloak; he wears the rondel and dirk at his hip. He also carries a crossbow and a quiver of arrows, all hidden beneath his cloak.

Skills/Magic:
Absorbtion: Mitya can absorb the strengths, weaknesses, skills, magic, and appearance of any one person whose company he is in, and can project a pale imitation of those traits. He is always absorbing the traits of other people, but only ever purposely uses Absorbtion when in a threatening situation. He can also absorb the negative energies given off by any threat to him or anyone in his vicinity within a one mile radius; this skill allows him to sense danger (as it approaches) and anticipate attacks (several seconds before the attack is sprung).

Mitya possesses two other primary abilities: Brenna, which channels the negative energies gained in Absorbtion into his battles and enhances his skills; and Dúrr, the state into which he must fall after every threatening encounter in order to recuperate and purge any excess negative energy that might remain in his body.

• Brenna (Known also as the Omnistrain) - Mitya passes into this state when he is in a threatening situation (high stress; life-and-death; involving offensive/defensive measures). His Absorbtion skill is strongest when in brenna.

• Haltra (the name by which Absorbtion is known in brenna. Mitya absorbs a small measure of the skills, abilities, and weaknesses of his opponent, as well as the negative energies in the atmosphere, which he then turns into energy to fuel barátta and flýja. Mitya thrives in stressful situations. But the skill is double-edged: if he does not use the energy he absorbs, it will eat him up from the inside. While in brenna, Mitya's senses sharpen expotentially, and the whites of his eyes vanish completely.)
  
  
• Barátta (The energy gained in haltra boosts Mitya's offensive attacks. Thrusts from his knives have behind them an increased power; he throws and wields his weapons with greater accuracy.)
  
  
• Flýja (The energy gained in haltra boosts Mitya's defensive attacks and methods of escape. His reflexes are quicker, and he runs with increased speed.)

• Dúrr (Known also as the Valkyrja's Slumber) - Mitya passes into this state following brenna. This is his recuperative state, as well as the time he takes to transfer new skills and new knowledge to his muscles and purge himself of extraneous information. It takes Mitya an hour to pass through each stage of the Slumber, four hours to complete half a cycle. Therefore, it takes him a total of eight hours to complete one cycle, and a total of 24 hours (3 cycles) to fully purge and recuperate. Mitya's soul can slip its body in two of the four stages, and can guard, feed, and water the mortal body it leaves behind. If that mortal body is killed while Mitya's soul is not occupying it, the soul goes untouched, and grows another body to encase it (though every trait that distinguishes Mitya from the next fylgja is lost in the process, unless Mitya has stamped traits on both his body and soul. The soul's new body would have flashbacks of Mitya's other life). But if his body is killed while the soul is within, Mitya will truly die, and return to the void of the Undercountry.

• Beta (The first stage of the Valkyrja's Slumber, the portal too and from sleep. This is one of the more dangerous stages, as fatigue paralyzes Mitya, captures his soul within him, and disarms him for his coming slumber, leaving him entirely vulnerable. Mitya can be wakened while in the beta, but his reflexes are sluggish, his vision bleary, his brain muzzy.)
  
  
• Alpha (The conscious and the unconscious brain interact. Mitya pinpoints everything that must be fixed in his weary body, every scrap of information that must be worked out of his brain and into his muscles. Mitya's soul can slip free of its mortal shell in this stage. And while this is a difficult feat to accomplish - Mitya is still tired, and requires every bit of strength with which to purge himself - it is an improvement over the beta, in which his soul cannot move at all.)
  
  
• Delta (Anything that Mitya has learned that will later be useful to him is stamped upon his muscles at this stage; his mind is purged, and excess information disposed of through his dreams. Delta is where the major restoration occurs. However, this stage is the most dangerous of the Valkyrja's Slumber, for there is no waking Mitya from it, and his soul is once again trapped in his body.)
• Theta* (Bubble of consciousness within unconsciousness. The major work has been done, and Mitya takes a respite. His soul can slip its shell in this state and take insubstantial form - a ghost of Mitya, drifting about until its two hours of liberation ends, draws it back into the body, and returns to delta.)
  
  * Sometimes Mitya does not pass into the tranquility of the theta, but descends into a stage for which he has no name. He is visited by night terrors in this state, chillingly vivid nightmares that cause his body to jerk about and sometimes even rise to act out the dream. This is the most dangerous of the stages, as Mitya, in acting out his dreams, can seriously hurt himself. Mitya never knows when the night terrors will take hold of him. He lives in fear of them - the injuries mysteriously sustained, the sense of foreboding, as he rarely remembers anything of the terrors, only the fear they engendered. Sometimes he does remember bits and pieces of the terror, for when he passes again through the stages back into beta, his body salvages images from the terror and stamps them upon his memory. If he wakes up before he has completed another cycle, and thus wipe the memories from him, he will recall it with terrible clarity.)

Strengths: Mitya is a quick learner, and absorbs knowledge like a sponge absorbs water. His intelligence and skills are not merely mental, but suffuse his limbs; ergo, his muscles possess an acute memory. His reflexes are fast; he is graceful and quick on his feet; his powers of observation are keen. His magic allows him to absorb and palely mimic the skills, strengths, and appearances others if he is in their presence for a long enough period of time (3 hours to observe and memorize, 3 hours to adapt himself to that which he wishes to emulate). He is highly attuned to his body, to the point he hears it speaking to him as a companion by his side might: with perfect clarity.

Weaknesses

• Obsessive-Compulsive: Mitya binds himself with rituals, all born of compulsions: the need to methodically wash his hands; always stepping first with his left foot, and then with his right; counting objects and counting steps; making sure both sides of his body are even (if he steps on a leaf with his right foot, he must step on the next with his left). He performs all these rituals out of the fear that if he fails at them, he will suffer night terrors. He is so dedicated to his rituals, and so dependent upon them (whether or not they are truly useful), that to miss or incorrectly perform one weakens him. His body tenses, almost to the point of paralysis; his throat closes up and his vision darkens. He must drink of the Lethe Broth to erase the memory of his failure. But as the broth is not available to him, his only other option is to plunge himself into the fourth stage of the Valkyrja's Slumber. The process is time-consuming, for it takes Mitya four hours to reach the fourth stage, and then four more hours to recuperate and finally pull himself out of Slumber (if, of course, he has not fallen into the Slumber by way of narcolepsy – see below four paragraphs).
  
  
• Transfer of Authority: Because Mitya is a rogue valkyrja, he is obliged to help anyone who asks his assistance in any matter, no matter the state of his health or the strength of his reluctance. As a rogue, Mitya relinquished his master's authority for the authority of the world. He also gave up his master's protection, for when a master is alive and strong, every fylgja in his or her service is beneath Aegis: that is, they are saved the pain of absorbing the ills of other people, and have access to the Lethe Broth, which purges them on a regular basis. Rogue valkyrja have no such protection or access, and must learn to purge itself through the Four Stages.
  
  
• The Dangers of Over-Absorption: As a result of his rogue state, Mitya cannot remain too long in the company of others, for he will always be absorbing and replicating their traits. Alongside the strengths, skills, and appearances that Mitya takes on, he also adopts the sicknesses, weaknesses, and problems of other people. Beyond the obvious danger - any problems and illnesses (be they physical or mental) he absorbs will eventually manifest within him if he does not purge himself - Mitya sometimes overreaches the limit of his capacity for absorption. When this happens, the sensation is akin to having sandbags tied to his limbs: Mitya's movements grow slow and ungainly, and he tires easily. He must give himself over to the Valkyrja's Slumber to purge his body.
  
  Slow, ungainly movement; decreased acuity of the five senses; and lowered sensitivity to the world and himself are also symptoms of a lack of sleep after brenna. It is vital that Mitya sleeps after he has absorbed and expended negative energies; avoiding sleep or being denied it results in the loss of his faculties.
  
  
• An Abudance of Unused Negative Energy: If he does not release the negative energies gained in haltra, a venomous headache will build, one that feels as though liquid poison is washing through his brain, eating it away. The energy, in fact, is eating away at him, and if he does not release it through action or purge it through slumber, Mitya will be literally eaten up from the inside out.
  
  
• Narcolepsy: Sometimes, if the flow of negative energies in the Omnistrain is too thick and strong (for example, Mitya is in a highly threatening situation and cannot control the speed of the negative current), his body shuts down and Mitya falls asleep without warning or preamble. This also happens when he is feeling strong emotions, absorbing the strong emotions of others around him, or is missing vital hours of the Valkyrja's Slumber . Mitya is also highly susceptible to hypnosis, as his powers of absorption are so strong.
  
  
• A Rather Lame, But Nonetheless Crucial, Last Note: His cloak, ridiculously large and billowing as it is, often hinders his movements and how quickly he can draw his weapons. But he's far too much in love with it to give it up.

Personality: Mitya is excessively cheerful, and always willing to see the best in life and people. He's bright, blithe, and optimistic; he finds it easy to both love and adore any and everyone he comes in contact with. While he is far from well-versed in the art of being sociable, he loves and thrives in the company of other people. He does not talk much, as he often forgets human speech and must ever re-accustom himself to it; he is like a blank slate after Slumber: much of what he learned before the Slumber has been wiped from his mind, and he must relearn it all. But there is no sense of loss, only the sensation of the eternal lesson, perpetual learning. He thrives on learning, whatever the source. He is an excellent listener.

For Mitya, all things are extreme: he has obsessions, compulsions; he never likes or dislikes but must love or hate. It hurts him that his powers of Absorption keep him from being in company for too long, and he is ever defying his own body, though he is so keenly attuned to it that he knows when enough is enough of being in society.

But Mitya, for all his ebullience, is given to moments of agony, He sometimes remembers his night terrors, and cannot function for the crippling memory of their horrors. When he is visited by a night terror, he experiences flashbacks that plunge him back to the time when his mentor, Felicitas, was murdered. He is often so involved in these memories that he forgets real time, and when he emerges again into real life, he is staring and haggard. Mitya's cheerful personality takes on a hard edge when he is engaged in battle.

History:
Mitya's history contains a spot of violence near the end; reader discretion advised.

Mitya was vörðr for only eighteen years when the young human he guarded died of the sweating sickness. Mitya remembered little of those eighteen years, only that he had taken on the sinuous form of a cat until the day when a voice whispered to him in the murk of the sickroom, “Assume your master’s form, fetch.” And in doing as he was bid, Mitya revealed himself, and his human perished.

Mitya's spirit passed into the Undercountry, where he dwelled for longer than he could ever hope to fathom. Time no longer existed beneath the crust of the earth, in the land of the dead; he was held in abeyance for perhaps a day, a week, a thousand years.

And then came the Invocation, summons from the land above. Mitya was drawn from the Undercountry into the blinding light of the upper world, where he assumed the appearance of his deceased human. The transformation was painful, and the cold treatment of his new master, a petty and impoverished magician named Lord Vaughan, did not help in any way the fylgja's adjustment to his new state as valkyrja.

Lord Vaughan wished the fylgja to take but one task upon himself: that of watching over the magician's wife, Felicitas, and wheedling from her certain secrets she had promised to tell him, but in five months since their marriage, never had. The magician ordered Mitya to extract memories of a certain woman who, hundreds of years ago, had learned to traverse the Undercountry. He did not reveal why he wished to know of this woman, or why his wife knew so much about her; he only issued his commands, informed the lone, drunk charwoman that “his wife wanted a serving man and this was the man Lord Vaughan had employed; do be sure to leave him alone and for God’s blessed sake, woman, if you’re to be drunk, be drunk out of my sight and while you’re on leave, not on duty”, and sent Mitya on his way.

His master's wife, for all her smiles and laughter and intimacy—for she took instantly to Mitya, isolated woman that she was; her husband’s house, teetering on the very edge of the rural country of Nashmeir, afforded neither society nor friends, only the intoxicated charwoman and her only on Wednesdays; Felicitas was fascinated by everything Mitya did—for all her affability, Felicitas kept her silence. Mitya made several attempts to coax information from her. But it seemed she had caught on before he had even assumed the task: she only laughed at him and would not speak.

And after a while, Mitya began to forget his duty.

He was mesmerized by her, for her attentions were as quick and hot as the touch of her fingers, her skin upon his. Her interest was keen, her mind and tongue like twin blades. Her breath was cool and smelled of peppermint, the closer she leaned when she talked with him—and their conversations were long and deep, solemn at times, giddy at others, like tangible rapture always. The scent of her skin was so fresh it was like ice. Her face was soft and serious, dark and sculpted as if by an artisan god, and her eyes were large, her gaze attentive. Never had someone gazed at him with anything but disdain and inattention; in her face, he saw neither cruel emotion.

She consumed him, filled him, washed through him like the spring tide. He breathed her, craved her, loved her.

And she seemed more than happy to return his love.

She told him—one dusky Wednesday evening when the charwoman had “gone on leave” six hours earlier than she was supposed to—the reason why her husband sought her secrets. Felicitas was not human, but fylgja, and she had once been vörðr to the woman the magician yearned to learn about.

"This woman," said Felicitas, "she was always sleeping and dreaming and in her dreams, tearing her soul from her mortal body and coming to speak with me as Spirit, hugr, not as the woman she was. And she loved me well, this woman. She was always crying, always sad. But she called me her daughter, her darling; she said I was kind to her as no other person was. She showed me how to scoop up the world in one hand and drink it, how to bind everything I knew into my body and soul. 'So that when I die,' she told me, 'I will still live in you, and you will not dwell in the black nothingness I must pass into when I am dead.' And when she died, and I passed into the Undercountry, I found she was right. I did not forget, as fylgjur do, the world they had left.

"And he wants this power, my Vaughan does. He wants to scoop the world up in his palm and drink it, for to know the world as intimately as that—that is power, my Mitya. And he wants it."

"But he does not deserve it!" Mitya cried, revealing an animosity he had not known existed in him.

"And are we to say what men do and do not deserve?" Felicitas replied, laughing. "But yes, yes, yes, my love, in this you are right. He is a cur, my husband—he would be a wise man, a powerful man, but he would have others— you—take him to that wisdom and power. And when he is finished with you, he will hand you a chalice filled with purple wine and say it is for celebration, come, let us drink. But when you put the cup to your lips and you have drunk deep, you discover the wine is not wine, but poison. Lethe. The Lethe Broth magicians make their fylgjur drink, to wipe them of their memories, to erase their minds so that they may use them again and again and again to do their bidding. This he will do to you, when I have told you my secrets - if I tell you my secrets. But I cannot let this happen to you, my love - no, I cannot let this happen."

He felt her pain, her urgency, as though both had originated from within himself.

"Then you must never tell me your secrets," he said, quietly, seriously.

"But my love..." She brushed his hair, his mouth, his cheek. "I have realized that you must know. For my knowledge is the only way you will live in this world."

"But I am tied to the magician. I live only because... he says I may live."

"For now."

"For now?"

She did not answer. He ventured, "But how am I am to learn your wisdom, my lady?"

"I will not tell you my secret," she said, "for then my husband can steal your knowledge - force you to say what I have told you. No, Mitya, I will not tell you. You will take my wisdom yourself. Take me, Mitya. Absorb me."

He gaped at her and said, "But... what do you mean?"

"What do I mean? What do I mean?" She threw back her head and laughed, and the daylight, thrown through the uncurtained boudoir window by a sinking sun, gleamed upon her ebony throat. "You will not conceive my meaning, then?"

"I will try."

"Love... you will know of what I speak if you only apply yourself. Is your body home to but one soul - one spirit - a single hugr? I do not think it is."

He felt a stirring in his belly, one that came as she brushed her hand across his cheek, and he knew she spoke truly.

"Just so." Her smile was slow and sly. "You are not alone—yours is not the only soul in there." She pressed her fingers to his chest. "You have not been your body's the only occupant, not since my husband sent you to me. Not since I claimed you as my own.

"You have been absorbing me for too long now, Mitya, for you to not understand my meaning. Perhaps the conscious Mitya does not understand, but the unconscious... he understands. Close your eyes, now, and look for him. He is there, he is waiting. You have ignored him, Mitya. Too many fylgjur have ignored this one that lies so deep inside their minds—that is why the magicians can erase us as they do. Find him, my love. Find that deep and silent Mitya. Let him swallow you. And once you have done that, come back and absorb me."

Mitya obeyed her order, shutting his eyes and reaching, at first, only as deep as he dared. But the darkness was a relief, rich as good cream, sweet as new milk, and he began to fall more deeply into it, until he was no longer consciously reaching but simply floating. He had not slept since his summoning, for the magician had kept him from slumber. He plied the fylgja with a bitter liquid that suffused Mitya's body with artificial strength, just enough to keep the fylgja on his feet. But just beneath the surface of the elixir, Mitya felt a weight pressing upon his limbs and innards, constricting him. He had always thought it was merely the pain that came with life above the Undercountry. But he soon learned otherwise.

Mitya fell into the Valkyrja's Slumber, an experience so wholly alien that when he became conscious in the alpha and found he could not move, he was terrified. But the terror passed, as he grew acquainted with the inner life and workings of his own body. It was as though he were two people instead of one: his soul, that had know nothing of the beautiful house in which it resided; and his body, suppressed by the magician's elixir since the Invocation. Mitya was fascinated, and flowed in and out of conscious as he passed first through one stage, then another.

He slept for a long time, and passed once through a cycle of the Valkyrja's Slumber.

It was when he was leaving the alpha for the final time that he became aware of someone battering at the door.

Mitya surfaced into the shallowest part of the Slumber. His body would make him sleep, before he awoke well and truly, but the banging was growing louder, and Mitya was curious. He thought, perhaps, that he heard a woman screaming. His muscles were growing tight of their own volition, and he felt a weight and a darkness beginning to press on him, like a heavy coverlet lowered over his body.

He awoke to the teal darkness of Felicitas's boudoir and found himself sprawled across her bed. He was alone, and any warmth or depression her body might have left in the mattress was long dispersed and long gone cold. Someone was smashing a fist against the bedroom door, and Felicitas was shouting.

Mitya slipped from the bed, curiously, inhumanly calm.

He suddenly realized who battered at the door: the magician, who was screaming just as loudly, just as terribly, just as hoarsely as his wife.

"What have you been teaching him, you fetch?" he shrieked. "What has he been doing? What has he been doing? Unlock this damned door!"

Felicitas’s shouts and invective turned suddenly to laughing, a cruel, mocking swell of laughing. The magician screeched and flung his body against the door; she laughed again and cried, "You won't have him! Not while I'm alive, you won’t have him and what I've told him. And you'll have nothing of me, either. You can't get him, you'll never get him, and you'll never get me, never get—"

"Hold your damn tongue, woman! Hold your damn—!"

His shadow vanished from the crack of light beneath the door, and then something smashed – solid glass on flesh, broken glass on wood – and Felicitas was cut off mid-scream. The light winked out from beneath the door. And then there was the whisper of satin and a thump, as a body fell to the ground.

It came to Mitya that he could see very well, here in the dark, as though a light were on.

He listened to the silence, and after a while he could hear Lord Vaughan's breathing, trembling and thick; he heard Lord Vaughan fall to his knees, and that whisper of satin across the wooden floor, bunching up. His hearing had improved, Mitya thought, his sense of smell alongside it. For he could smell Felicitas's peppermint scent wafting about him as though she were in the same room.

He crossed silently to Felicitas's dressing table and slid open on of its drawers, where her pair of ear daggers lay, the pretty ones with their oddly-shaped pommels; she had sometimes shown them to him, when she wasn’t telling him of Lord Vaughan’s ancestral crossbow and how she wished to hunt something with it.

"My Lord Vaughan bought these for me," she had said, fingering one dagger, replacing it in its sheath, from which hung a long, silver chain. "He bought them for me before we were married. When he thought he could bribe me to tell him the secrets of my human."

Mitya drew the one of the daggers from its brocade sheath and stepped toward the door.

The door was locked from the inside. He removed the key and turned the knob, then stepped back so that the door swung wide. The hall was dark, but the darkness, to him, was blue and filled with a kind of light. He looked at the man crumpled upon the ground, clutching the satin-robed body of his wife to his chest, his fingers gripping her back hard enough to bruise it. The two were surrounded in shards of coloured glass. What identifying ruins of the lamp remained lay in Felicitas's lap, as though the magician had set it there, like an offering to a goddess. He was whispering something, over and over and over again. It might have been an apology. Or perhaps a denial.

"My master," Mitya whispered.

The magician started and swung blindly to face the direction of the door. His mouth worked. "Mitya?" he said, hoarsely.

His eyes sought Mitya's figure, and when they had adjusted to the darkness and found him, they widened.

"Fylga can't die, no matter what's done to them," he blurted out, clutching Felicitas more tightly. "They only die when their master dies and I'm not dead so she's not dead, just unconscious, just unconscious, she's just unconscious, that's why the old gods used them—"

And then Vaughan seemed to register Mitya for what he was for the first time.

"You know," the magician breathed. "You have Slept—my wife—she's sleeping, she's sleeping—she wouldn't say what you were doing, what she had told you. But I know you've Slept, I know you have Slept—let me, fylgja… let me Sleep—"

"My master should not clutch at corpses so," Mitya replied.

"You have it… her secret… the secret of her human…" The magician's hands grew weak, and Felicitas slumped to the floor like a broken doll.

Vaughan stumbled to his feet, his eyes wide and wild and his mouth working with words that were hard in coming. "Give it to me!" he whispered, hoarsely, "Give it to me! Tell me how you Slept, how you entered the void and freed your soul, tell me, fetch, tell me—"

"Why did you never ask her? She whom you killed?" Mitya's voice hardened—either that, or it would break.

"Fylgjur can't die," Vaughan gasped, flinching back from the accusation.

"But she has," said Mitya, and lunged.

His dagger caught the magician in the softness of his belly, and he tore the blade up until the steel collided with bones of Vaughan's ribcage; he wrenched the blade free and sank it into Vaughan's throat, plunged it deep, ripped it down until it broke on bone.

He caught the magician's corpse as it fell forward, dragged it to the staircase, and shoved it down the steps.

And when the magician lay prone at the foot of the staircase, Mitya returned to Felicitas, took her up in her arms, and carried her into her boudoir. He laid her on her bed and straightened her lovely satin dress, took down her hair and arranged it over the ruined part of her face, where the magician and his glass lamp had smashed it in. And then he laid himself down beside her, kissed her, and rested his head upon her breast; he curled his arms about her waist, shut his eyes, and slept.

The Valkyrja's Slumber took him so deep that he might have been drowning. He slept for three days. And when he awoke, the Slumber had wiped his memories of Felicitas’s and Vaughan’s deaths from him.

He found himself lying upon a bed, clutching a dress of satin to him like a lover. When he rose and left the room, he found a man stretched out in death at the foot of the stairs, with dry blood spilled all about him. Mitya thought the sight very curious.

The house was empty but for himself and the man on the stairs with his throat and belly sliced open. Mitya took a day to wander about, to collect oddities, to wonder why the boudoir in which he had awakened pulled him so. He found several knives during his exploration and held on to them. The knives were as alluring as the thought of the boudoir, but they didn’t satisfy the strange emptiness in the pit of his belly that he knew, instinctively, that only the boudoir would satiate. But he was frightened of the room now. He could not understand his hunger for it, and so he avoided it.

But the boudoir was a benign lure, and he finally gave in to the impulse, once he had taken a lovely little crossbow with its quiver of arrows from the drawing room, where it had been tacked up on a wall as though they were showpieces. The thought of leaving the ensemble there had saddened him. It seemed careless.

He carried his acquisitions to the boudoir. His eye caught upon an open drawer as he entered, and suddenly the pit in his belly filled with a wild fluttering. He set the crossbow aside and peered into the drawer. Lying there was a dagger with an oddly-shaped pommel, sheathed in brocade. From the sheath hung a long, silver chain. His heart leapt at the sight of it.

He took dagger and sheath and hung the chain about his neck, tucked the dagger into his shirt, felt the sheath brushing his skin. A quiver of joy ran through him. The room seemed suddenly much brighter, and the heaviness of the atmosphere dissipated. Mitya was complete.

In the end, the house was much too heavy for his taste. He accoutered himself in his weapons and donned a vast cloak he found in a closet. Wrapping himself in the soft fabric sent another thrill of pleasure through his body. It's whisper on his skin was like the touch of someone very close to him, someone very sweet.

Someone, it seemed, that had existed. That wandered upon the edges of his mind. That left on him the icy scent of peppermint, and whispered, “You never did as I asked, Mitya. Help me. Find me. Come back to me.”

He felt the whisper sink into his soul, and he knew he would obey it.