"Fine," I sighed, the word tasting like defeat mixed with dust and the faint, lingering scent of ozone from Quillfin's portal. It felt heavy, irrevocable. "One night. Maybe two. But you pull your weight." My gesture encompassed the cavernous, debris-strewn lobby, a monument to neglect. "And find somewhere for... Bartholomew." My own companion, Murk, pulsed faintly in my pocket, perhaps sensing the resignation.

  Pip beamed, relief washing over his soot-stained, earnest face so intensely it almost seemed to push back the grime. "Thank you! Thank you! You won't regret it! Bartholomew is very low maintenance. Mostly quiet. Unless he sees something shiny. Or edible. Or vaguely threatening." He quickly led the ostrich towards a relatively sheltered archway draped in thick cobwebs, which might have once led to stables or perhaps a carriage house. Bartholomew eyed the damp, questionable straw piled in a corner with undisguised avian skepticism but seemed resigned, likely too tired and wet to argue. He immediately began pecking speculatively at a loose stone in the wall.

  Practicality, a harsh tutor honed by years spent navigating the precarious edges of survival in Ashgate, kicked in immediately. We couldn't live huddled amongst the ruins like frightened mice. We needed a base, however small. "Right," I declared, pulling my perpetually damp hood tighter, a familiar gesture like girding for battle. "We need a defensible position against... well, dust bunnies and despair, for starters." I pointed towards the massive, dark wood reception desk, its bulk mostly shrouded by a grimy white sheet like a forgotten corpse, and a sturdy-looking door set into the wall behind it, likely leading to an office. "That corner. We clear that area. Make it habitable. Ish." The word 'habitable' felt ludicrously optimistic given the surroundings, but it was a starting point.

  Pip nodded eagerly, shedding his outer layer of frankly absurd wooden armour with a series of clatters and scrapes. It landed on the dusty floor looking even more forlorn and slightly charred than before. Underneath, he wore simple, travel-stained clothes – a tunic that might once have been blue, patched breeches, and worn boots that looked only marginally better than my own. "Right! Habitable-ish. Command Central! Where do we start? Sweeping? De-spidering?" He looked around, his enthusiasm warring with the sheer daunting scale of the task.

  Thus began the awkward symphony of mismatched cleaning. Pip, bless his seemingly inexhaustible, if undirected, well of energy, attacked a pile of fallen plaster near the desk with a broken chair leg he’d salvaged, wielding it like he was storming a goblin fortress. Predictably, this raised choking clouds of ancient dust that tasted of decay and secrets, making us both cough violently. I, meanwhile, favouring a less chaotic approach, focused on the reception desk itself. Carefully, I began rolling back the heavy, stiff sheet. It resisted, stiff with age and grime, before finally revealing surprisingly solid, dark wood beneath. The surface was scarred and stained, bearing the ghosts of countless check-ins and hurried notes, but it was fundamentally intact. A small victory.

  Murk drifted out of my pocket, no longer content to just lurk. He hovered near my shoulder like a small, personal thundercloud, his usual mournful chime replaced by a low, inquisitive hum. He seemed genuinely interested in the proceedings, or perhaps just the novel influx of Pip’s slightly frantic energy.

  "So," Pip began again, pausing his assault on the plaster between coughs, wiping dust streaks from his face with an equally dusty sleeve. "You, uh... you live here now? All alone? Or did you just get here too?" He glanced around the vast, shadowy space, his gaze lingering on the cobweb-draped chandelier skeleton high above. "It's... quite something. Impressive, but also, you know..." He lowered his voice slightly. "Impressively creepy?"

  "Just got here," I admitted, my voice flat as I wiped a thick layer of gritty dust off the counter with my already filthy sleeve. The sheer weight of the place pressed down on me. "Inherited it. Apparently." The word still felt foreign, unreal.

  "Inherited?" Pip's eyes widened, making him look even younger. "Wow! A whole hotel! Like, a real hotel? That's… big." He looked around again, taking in the looming shadows, the peeling paint, the distinct feeling of being watched by empty windows. "And yeah, maybe just a bitspooky? Did your Great-Aunt leave any warnings? Like, 'Don't go in the third-floor linen closet after midnight' type things?"

  "She left a note," I conceded, recalling Morwenna's looping script. "Less warnings, more… cryptic encouragement about making it bloom again." I snorted softly. "Seems more likely to collapse than bloom right now." My gaze drifted towards the single pale flower I'd coaxed from the vine on the pillar; it looked impossibly fragile in the gloom. "And you?" I countered, diverting attention from my own precarious situation. "What exactly did the hay wagon and the goose doto earn your Knight Errant wrath? It sounded rather… dramatic."

  Pip flushed slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Ah, well, the goose definitely started it!" he insisted defensively. "It had unjustifiably claimed dominion over a public bridge near Puddlemarch. Demanded a toll! A shiny button, specifically. I tried reasoning with it, but it was terribly aggressive." He demonstrated with a fierce flapping motion of his arms that nearly sent him stumbling into another pile of debris. "And the hay wagon... well," he mumbled, avoiding my gaze, "I may have accidentally set it slightly aflame during my strategic retreat from the goose's rather numerous and equally aggressive cousins. Things escalated. There was shouting. Pointing. Possibly a pitchfork involved, though I didn’t stay long enough to confirm." He picked up a loose plank from the floor and began examining it intently, as if it held the secrets to avoiding arson charges. "Sir Reginald always said I had more enthusiasm than tactical sense. Or common sense, sometimes."

  "Sir Reginald?" I prompted, picturing a long-suffering, armour-polishing mentor.

  "My mentor! A proper knight! Well, mostly proper. Bit fond of naps. Taught me everything I know," Pip confirmed proudly, then his face fell slightly. "Mostly about polishing armour, which," he added glumly, glancing at his scorched wooden monstrosity lying nearby, "isn't proving very useful right now. Wood doesn't really take a shine, does it? Just gets more… splintery."

  He seemed so utterly harmless, a walking collection of minor calamities wrapped in unwarranted optimism. I almost smiled. Almost. "And the wooden armour?" I asked, unable to resist poking that particular point of curiosity. "Standard issue for knights who lose arguments with geese?"

  "Ah. Right." He looked even more sheepish. "Lost my proper set. Bit embarrassing, really. There was a… misunderstanding. Involving a mimic disguised as a treasure chest in the Sunken Crypt of Borrowed Doom. Looked exactly like treasure," he insisted. "Very convincing woodwork. Anyway, it ate my helmet and one gauntlet before I made another strategic retreat. Had to improvise this suit from an old shed door and some barrel hoops."

  As he recounted his tale of woe, my hand, still absently wiping the reception desk, brushed against something textured beneath the deepest layer of grime. It wasn't just dirt. Intrigued, I rubbed harder, my fingertips tracing faint, deliberate lines etched into the wood. Strange, looping symbols intertwined with sharp, angular marks. Runes, perhaps, but unlike any I recognized from the bureaucratic scrawls of the Seventh Circle or the flowing, natural script sometimes used in Dryadic lore. They felt… old. Ancient. And they pulsed with a barely perceptible energy under my touch, a faint thrum like a dormant heartbeat.

  "What's this?" Pip leaned over my shoulder, abandoning his plank, squinting in the dim light filtering through the grimy windows. "Weird markings. Kind of like the ones on the Whispering Stones near Oakhaven? Old magic stuff?"

  "Maybe." I traced one complex knot of lines. "They feel different, though. Colder. More… purposeful." A shiver traced its way down my spine that had nothing to do with the damp air. What had Morwenna been involved with here?

  Pip, his attention span apparently resetting every few minutes, noticed the reception desk drawer was jammed shut. "Ooh, locked? Maybe treasure inside this time?" He wedged his fingers into the slight gap and pulled, grunting with effort. It wouldn’t budge. He tried jiggling it, rattling it vigorously. Nothing. "Stuck fast. Probably just old papers anyway."

  Then, Murk, who had been observing Pip's struggles with what might have been faint amusement, drifted slowly downwards from my shoulder. He flowed like liquid shadow around Pip's straining fingers, extending a thin, impossibly fine tendril of gloom into the tiny gap above the drawer. There was a soft, barely audible click from within, like a sighing tumbler falling into place. Murk retracted instantly. Pip pulled again, tentatively this time, and the drawer slid open smoothly, gliding on silent runners. It revealed… nothing but a thick carpet of grey dust and a few desiccated beetle carcasses, looking startled by the sudden intrusion of light.

  Pip stared from the empty drawer to Murk, who had already drifted back to hover impassively near my head. "Whoa! How did he do that? Thanks, little guy!" He looked at me, his expression a mixture of amazement and slight trepidation. "Seriously, what is he?"

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "Murk," I said simply, deciding against a complex explanation of sentient misery elementals. "He's a Gloom Wisp. Sort of… collects ambient misery. Helps him stay substantial."

  "Huh." Pip reached out a hesitant finger towards Murk's shadowy form. To my surprise, Murk didn't recoil. He pulsed softly, a low thrumming vibration in the air, allowing the briefest contact before Pip drew his hand back, looking thoughtful. "He's kinda cool. Gloomy, definitely, but cool. Does he, like, eat sadness?"

  "Something like that," I hedged. Pip's easy acceptance of my strange, shadowy companion was… unexpected. And strangely comforting. Most humans, and certainly most demons, would have reacted with fear or disgust.

  We turned our attention to the office behind the desk. Pushing the sturdy door open revealed a small, windowless space, blessedly dry compared to the lobby, but smelling strongly of mildew and forgotten things. A rickety wooden desk dominated the room, alongside a moth-eaten chair that looked liable to collapse if glanced at too sternly, and shelves crammed with thick, leather-bound ledgers coated in fuzzy grey mould. We dragged the precarious chair out into the lobby, swept the floor with a half-rotten broom found leaning in a corner (which promptly shed most of its remaining bristles), and wiped down the desk surface. This would be my space. It offered four walls, a solid door, and a semblance of privacy – luxuries I hadn't known in a long time. Even in the near-darkness, my eyes adjusted quickly, picking out the shapes and details, a trait inherited from my father's side that humans often found unsettling.

  Just as Pip was proudly dusting off his hands and declaring the corner "Habitable-ish Level One Achieved!", a sharp, sickening CRACK echoed from high above in the lobby's shadowed ceiling. Louder than the house's usual groans. It was followed instantly by an ominous drip… drip… drip, the sound unnervingly clear in the relative silence. The dripping rapidly escalated into a steady trickle, then a messy cascade of rusty, foul-smelling water, splashing onto the floorboards perilously close to our newly cleaned island of semi-order.

  "Oh, for the love of sulfurous pits—!" The words burst out of me before I could stifle them, hot and sharp. Frustration, raw and potent after a day of upheaval and uncertainty, surged through me. My hidden tail gave an involuntary, angry thump against the inside of my tunic, a painful reminder of its presence. For a split second, I felt the air around my clenched fist crackle with faint, dark sparks, and my vision tinged red at the edges. A low growl almost escaped my throat. Not now! Control it! I mentally slammed the feeling down, shoving it back into the box where I kept the less palatable parts of my heritage, but the effort left me trembling slightly. Not before Pip, who had jumped back from the expanding puddle with a yelp, glanced at me, his eyes widening slightly with alarm, not just at the leak, but at me.

  He saw it. Or sensed it. The flicker of something not gentle Dryad, something sharp, fiery, and fundamentally other. I sagged, the brief flare of Impish anger draining away as quickly as it had come, leaving only bone-deep exhaustion and the familiar, cold sting of exposure. There was no point hiding it now.

  "Right," I said flatly, turning away from the relentless leak to face him, unable to meet his gaze directly. "There's something else you should know. Since you're… here." I took a shaky breath, the confession sticking in my throat. "I told you my mother was a Dryad." The green magic, the connection to the vine – that part felt natural, easy to share. This part wasn't. "My father… wasn't. He was an Imp. From the Seventh Circle." I finally looked up, bracing myself for the inevitable reaction – disgust, fear, maybe even him scrambling for his ridiculous wooden sword. "So, yeah. Half-demon, half-plant creature. An aberration, according to both sides. Take your pick." The silence stretched, filled only by the drumming of water on the floorboards.

  Pip just blinked, his gaze shifting from my face, perhaps lingering on the shadows under my hood where my small horns were hidden, down to the spreading puddle, and then back to me. He seemed less shocked, more… processing. "Half-Imp? Huh. So that explains the...?" He tilted his head, indicating my horns without naming them. I gave a curt, grim nod.

  He chewed his lip for a moment, looking genuinely thoughtful. "Well," he said finally, shrugging his thin shoulders with surprising nonchalance. "Okay."

  "Okay?" I stared at him, bewildered. Years of scorn, suspicion, and outright hostility had conditioned me to expect far worse. "Just... okay? I'm literally part demon. Hell-spawn adjacent."

  "Yeah, but..." He gestured towards the ever-worsening leak, then vaguely around the vast, decaying hotel. "You're not exactly breathing fire or summoning legions of torment, are you? Mostly just seem stressed about... advanced plumbing failures." He offered a small, slightly goofy, but undeniably earnest grin. "Besides, I'm supposed to be a Knight Errant, right? Sir Reginald's Rule Number Three: 'Protect the Innocent, Vanquish Evil Monsters.' But," he added, lowering his voice conspiratorially, leaning in slightly, "between you and me, I usually lose. Badly. Especially against the monster part. And you definitely don't seem like the monsters I usually lose to. Plus," he finished simply, "you gave me shelter when I was wet and being potentially pursued by pitchforks. Seems pretty not-evil to me."

  His simple, unwavering acceptance, devoid of judgment or fear, hit me harder than any insult ever had. A strange, tight knot I hadn't even realized I was carrying loosened somewhere deep in my chest. Maybe… maybe not everyone would see me as just an impurity.

  The leak, however, cared nothing for emotional breakthroughs. It was rapidly turning our 'habitable-ish' corner into a shallow, rusty pond. I tried focusing my green magic again, reaching out towards the ceiling, willing the ancient, corroded metal pipe hidden above to somehow seal itself, knit itself back together. But it was like trying to patch rusted iron with woven grass. Useless against inanimate decay on this scale. My Dryad side felt frustrated, my Imp side just wanted to blast the offending pipe into oblivion, which likely wouldn't help.

  As rusty water rained down with renewed vigour, Murk drifted upwards again, seemingly drawn by the sheer concentration of failure and decay. He paused beneath the gushing crack, assessing the flow with his non-existent eyes. Then, astonishingly, he spread, his shadowy form expanding, thinning, flattening against the damp ceiling like a living patch of mobile darkness. He flowed over the jagged crack in the pipe, conforming to its shape. The torrent immediately slowed, choked back, reduced once more to an occasional, heavy drip. He pulsed rhythmically against the ceiling, a deep, resonant thrum replacing his usual faint chime, absorbing the 'wrongness' of the break.

  "Wow," Pip breathed, staring upwards, water dripping from his hair. "He… plugged the leak? With gloom?"

  "He's absorbing the 'misery' of the leak, I think," I guessed, watching Murk with a mixture of gratitude and unease. "The decay, the faultiness, the potential energy of collapse. It feeds him, sustains his form. But," I added, frowning as another fat drop escaped the edge of Murk's shadowy bandage, "it won't last. He's not solid. It's like trying to hold back a flood with mist." Was this draining him? Or changing him in some way? Gloom Wisps weren't exactly known for structural repairs.

  "Still, better than nothing!" Pip declared with relentless optimism. "Buys us time! Right! Let's get properly set up before the next thing breaks. Or falls down. Or sprouts tentacles."

  Working with renewed, if slightly damp, determination fueled by the temporary reprieve, we finished clearing the small office. I laid out my worn, thin bedroll on the relatively clean patch of floor. Pip scavenged a couple of surprisingly plush, albeit faded velvet, cushions from a sheet-covered sofa in the lobby, placing one near my bedroll with a nod. "For Murk," he explained seriously. He then wrestled a surprisingly sturdy-looking folding cot out from behind the reception desk, shook out a truly impressive cloud of dust and what looked suspiciously like fossilized moths, and set it up for himself in the corner of the lobby, just outside my office door. A strategic position? Or just the driest spot he could find?

  Exhaustion, heavy and bone-deep, finally settled over me. We had carved out a tiny island of semi-order in a vast, indifferent sea of decay. A leaky ceiling temporarily patched by a sentient blob of misery. A half-Imp owner with no idea what she was doing, a disaster-prone boy-knight with wooden armour, and somewhere nearby, a grumpy ostrich likely contemplating escape. The Grand Morwenna's first residents in who knew how long. It felt both utterly pathetic and strangely significant.

  I retreated into the small, dark office, pulling the heavy door mostly shut, leaving just a crack open. The ability to see in near-total darkness was one of the few unequivocally useful traits I'd inherited from my father. Murk pulsed softly on his cushion, a small blob of deeper shadow in the gloom, still holding back the worst of the leak high above in the lobby ceiling. Out there, the single moonlight-coloured flower I’d coaxed to life on the lobby pillar seemed to glow faintly, a tiny beacon of defiance against the oppressive decay. Curling up on my thin bedroll, the inherent sounds of the ancient hotel settling around me – the creaks of old wood, the groans of stressed stone, the low sigh of wind finding its way through countless cracks – felt less threatening now, more like the sleepy murmurs of something vast and dreaming.

  Just as my consciousness was beginning to fray at the edges, drifting towards sleep, another sound intruded, cutting through the building's natural symphony. Faint, but distinct. From somewhere high above, on one of the unexplored upper floors, came the soft, rhythmic creak…of a single, loose floorboard. Creak… pause… creak… pause… Like someone pacing slowly, deliberately, back and forth in the darkness. Was it the ghost my aunt’s letter hinted at? Or just the house settling more noisily, protesting its new occupants? A chill traced its way down my spine despite my exhaustion.

  Too tired to investigate, too overwhelmed to care just yet, I burrowed deeper into my bedroll, pulling my cloak tighter around me. Sleep claimed me quickly.

  But later, in the deepest hush of the night, some internal sense – perhaps the lingering Dryad sensitivity to movement, perhaps the Impish awareness of shifted shadows – pulled me briefly from sleep. Through the crack in the door, using the faint residual light my eyes gathered, I saw a silhouette detach itself from the cot in the lobby. Pip. He didn't light a candle, didn't make a sound. He simply sat up, then moved quietly to sit on the floor, his back against the wall, facing the grand staircase that swept upwards into impenetrable darkness. He wasn’t trying to be seen; he likely thought I was sound asleep, oblivious in my dark little room. He just sat there, a lone, slightly singed, utterly unexpected sentinel, keeping watch in the echoing dark of the Grand Morwenna Hotel. Why? Protecting me? Or just too spooked by the creaking upstairs to sleep? I didn't know, but the gesture felt… strangely grounding. We weren't entirely alone in this vast, crumbling place.