“Don’t you fucking talk to me about Ingeb
“Don’t you fucking talk to me about Ingebretsen,” Cutler says, more sober than anything. He thumbs a match out of the box, snaps it against the side like a master guitarist. The room becomes incrementally brighter. Mercedes waits. “Lafayette saw him drown, you know. Montblanc’s a sadistic asshole, even for a magician. Cut both of them up. Went out on the lake afterwards, saw his blood smeared all over the ice. He’d been dragged under by something abyss-side. Place was black with it.” He pauses. “Cigar, Arroyo?” “No thank you,” says Mercedes, staring into the teacup. Across from her Cutler is hunched and unreadable, a dark, wiry thing slotted into the dense shape of the armchair. “Didn’t see him again until about two years later. One of AMSD’s facilities happened to pull him out of the water in one of their routine systemic summons. Lafayette got the call, ran down. Think that’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen on her at once. Soon as Nid saw her, he nearly tore her arm completely off,” Cutler moves to indicate, “At the elbow. He was crazy like a dog. Didn’t speak at all.” A long sigh. “I hear you hate anchor demons, Merché.” “Always and forever, sir. I don’t agree with their usage in warfare.” “You afraid of water?” Mercedes pushed away a bad memory with a shudder. “Aren’t most magicians?” “So you know, then, the reason.” “Of course.” “Laf fought him to a standstill. Took two hours. Wouldn’t let any of the guards or me interfere. I still don’t understand why she didn’t just kill him. They let him return to active fieldwork after all that, incredibly.” “I knew Nid. Watching him now, there’s something really wrong. Doesn’t move right, doesn’t talk right. Grins and says terrible things. Most amalgams are like that. I’m inclined to conclude something found his corpse and is wearing it to screw with us.” Cutler leans in, fingers steepled underneath his chin. There is a quiet, unnerving desperation in the gesture that makes Mercedes subconsciously inch backwards in her chair. “You know, one of these days, I might kill him, if Hajjar doesn’t. Laf liked him and all, but there’s only so much of his bullshit she can take. You’ve seen the eyes on that kid? There’s nothing in them anymore. He’s empty. Sure, you can search for some resemblance of a soul in him, but if I had to be honest it’s probably rotted away and dangling by its shoelaces somewhere.” He stabs his cigar out on the table, a slow, humorless smile smoothing out his features. “The truth is, Mercedes, we’re all too chicken to go in and dredge it up.” -- source link
#worldbuilding#body horror#tw injury#trypophobia#nidhogg ingebretsen#coronation