Eight Intertwined

132 - Trap

The path up to Yvon's childhood home was relatively short, much to Cyrus' relief. He trailed after Lucia silently, Therion ever at his side all the while. The thief's hand kept shifting to where he kept his dagger beneath his purple cloak, but he did his best to not betray that truth to Lucia. The last thing Therion ever wanted to do was yield the upper hand, and his suspicions against Lucia refused to let him show even a tiny fragment of weakness before her. She could have stabbed them in the back. Therion was all too aware of that fact, and he wouldn't dare to forget it.

Cyrus, on the other hand, was doing his best to try and trust Lucia. The explanation she had provided made sense. That was why someone had been waiting for them in Stonegard. She had been waiting for Cyrus there after learning Yvon was planning on coming here to pursue him. Cyrus couldn't say he understood how Yvon had gotten his hands on information like that, but it was still plausible. If the person that had been following them previously was a spy sent by Yvon, then he would have heard about all of this ages ago. As soon as Cyrus started to uncover the truth back in Quarrycrest, the spy would have told Yvon, and the preparations for getting rid of his employee would have begun. The previous stalkers had been sent by Yvon to see if Cyrus found out anything of note about the tome. Lucia, however, had been waiting in Stonegard for Cyrus to arrive. The person who had attacked Cyrus the night before had probably been one of Yvon's spies who had been sent to end all of this once and for all. 

In all honesty, it was nice to be able to trust a familiar face. After everything he had heard about Yvon, Cyrus had been hesitant to trust Lucia. Even now, he wasn't entirely sure if this was a good idea or not, though he feared part of his reasoning for thinking so came from Therion's consistent paranoia about being betrayed. Still, Lucia seemed to be telling the truth, and Cyrus wanted to believe the best in other people. She would have uncovered the truth behind Yvon's machinations as well if she was working with him for so long, so it made sense that she would choose to seek out Cyrus for the help he could provide. Everything seemed to come together in a way that made the truth click... But there was still a small piece of Cyrus' mind that nagged at him about it. He wasn't entirely certain where the sensation that something was wrong still came from, but he didn't know how to pursue the truth either. 

He wouldn't have time to do so to begin with, he soon found. Lucia had come to stand before a home surrounded by a fence made of pale wood from the nearby trees in the forest not far from Stonegard. The home appeared to have been abandoned for quite sometime, at least on the outside. There were vines spiraling across the stones that marked the outside of the house, and the fence seemed halfway tempted to cave in entirely in a few places. The stairs leading up to the home were made of stone, but many chunks had still fallen out of the steps and left to rot on the side of the road. Yvon was certainly maintaining the appearance of his home having been left to crumble for years, no doubt a cover to ensure nobody investigated what he was actually doing inside. At a first glance, the home seemed like it would be the perfect subject of folktales and rumors about ghosts lurking within. In other words, its appearance was perfect for fending off any unwanted guests. 

"This is where Headmaster Yvon was born and raised," Lucia began as she looked up at the house. It wasn't the largest home in Stonegard by any stretch of the imagination, but it still seemed massive to Cyrus, almost like it wanted to eat him alive the instant he dared to step too close. "According to the neighbors, it has lain abandoned for some twenty years now."

"Ominous indeed..." Cyrus hummed. He glanced over to Therion and found the thief still itching for his knife. It was difficult to say for certain what danger Therion was so afraid of, but Cyrus didn't want to ask as long as they had company. Instead, the scholar cleared his throat and looked back over to Lucia. "Well, shall we let ourselves in?"