Freya beckoned, and the owner walked over.
She rattled off a few sentences in German, faster than she ever spoke English. Regulus caught only fragments.
The owner nodded and left. Before long, the food arrived.
A wooden tray, loaded.
A plate of sliced dark rye bread. Two plates of sausage. A dish of potato salad, thinly sliced and tossed with onion and pickled cucumber, dressed in a pale creamy sauce. Two bowls of thick stew with chunks of meat and vegetables floating beneath a film of oil.
Freya ordered herself a dark beer.
Regulus was underage, so what sat in front of him was a glass of Pumpkin Juice.
They ate.
He cut a section of white sausage, peeled away the casing, dipped it in sweet mustard, and took a bite. The texture was delicate, layered with faint spice... marjoram, parsley, cardamom. Nothing like the rough-hewn sausages back in England.
The potato salad was tart with a hint of sweetness. It sharpened the appetite.
Freya ate quietly. She cut small pieces, brought them to her mouth at an unhurried pace, chewed with her lips closed and barely a movement of her jaw. Almost soundless.
A stark contrast to the warrior she'd been an hour ago.
He ate quietly too. They exchanged a few words here and there.
"How long has this place been open?" he asked.
"Forty years. Inherited from the owner's father."
"You come often?"
"When I'm on assignment."
She wasn't one for small talk, but she answered every question, brief and without a wasted syllable.
He didn't force conversation. They ate, glanced out the window now and then, traded bits of idle talk that meant nothing in particular.
When the meal was done, they stepped outside.
The night had deepened.
The waves had softened. Less violent now, more rhythm than rage.
Freya walked ahead. Regulus kept pace at her side, half a step behind.
They followed the cobblestone path toward the cottage by the sea.
At the cottage door, she stopped. So did he.
She turned and looked down at him.
"The Abyssal Whispers will stay quiet for a few days." Her tone had returned to its usual calm. "But they won't give up. We patrol again tomorrow. I'll come get you in the morning."
Regulus nodded.
She kept looking at him. Blinked once.
Then her tone shifted. Something almost like... coddling, though she didn't seem practiced at it. "Don't worry. They don't know who you are. You'll be fine."
Regulus looked up at her, mildly exasperated.
He was twelve, not two.
Freya had already turned and walked away.
Her braid swung with the motion, tracing an arc through the air before settling against her shoulder. Her footsteps were quicker than usual. He wasn't certain it wasn't his imagination, but there was something almost buoyant in them.
He watched her disappear around the corner of another building, and shook his head.
He pushed open the wooden door, went inside, washed up, and lay down on the bed.
The ceiling was bare timber, a few cracks running through it, all neatly patched. Through the window came the sound of waves, rising and falling like slow breaths.
He stared at nothing for a while. Then he started to think.
First, an honest self-assessment: his mind had been unusually active today.
Not a serious concern. He'd spent over a decade in this world maintaining a state of rational detachment, but that didn't mean he was incapable of feeling, incapable of being stirred.
Today he'd met an adult witch who'd left an impression. She had qualities he found compelling. The athletic poise, the severe but striking exterior, the efficient manner, and those occasional micro-expressions that clashed so completely with the rest of her.
All of it intrigued him, and that likely accounted for the restlessness in his thoughts.
He wasn't, after all, truly a twelve-year-old boy.
He shook his head, dismissed the tangent, and returned to business.
The Decomposition Curse. Its first use in live combat.
The opening shot had failed. The target dodged, even partially countered it. That proved the curse wasn't invincible. It required a clean hit. A graze across fabric, even contact with an extremity... an experienced wizard with quick reflexes and ruthless instincts could find a way to cope.
But the second strike had been different.
Combined with space warp and a spatial anchor, he'd delivered the spell directly onto the target's skin. The result was nothing alike.
No time to react.
Direct contact.
Instant death.
In a real duel, not every curse would land. Opponents dodged, shielded, used every trick available. A miss was a miss; you cast again. But when the Decomposition Curse connected cleanly, it killed in a single blow.
Clear, effective, and enough.
Then there was the other thing. He'd killed someone for the first time.
Regulus examined his consciousness carefully, his psyche, his spirit and found nothing was off.
No moral turbulence. No psychological shock. No mark on the soul.
Last year in Knockturn Alley, he'd discussed this with Orion. He'd told his father he had no particular feelings about killing, that he wouldn't hesitate.
Those words had been a judgment based on self-knowledge at the time.
Today confirmed that his self-assessment had been accurate.
His thoughts moved on to the Mental Erosion, the final spell the masked figure had cast. That cognitive chill.
It didn't target the body. Didn't target magical power. Only the will to fight. Only the sense that existence had meaning.
He'd let it into his mental barrier, and during the process, Bellatrix had gradually brightened.
But the quality of that erosion had been too low. It couldn't even breach his Occlumency on its own; he'd had to open a gap deliberately to let it in. Under those conditions, all it could do was help verify the concept of guarding the self. Nothing more.
Still, the signal was clear. Bellatrix needed that kind of opposition. Needed that act of protection.
Going forward, as long as he kept encountering similar attacks, or actively sought higher-level confrontations, the star should ignite fully.
That counted as a gain.
And then his thoughts circled back to Freya. He was nearly certain now: she'd done it on purpose.
This wasn't the end of it. This was the beginning.
A figure surfaced in his mind.
Silver-grey hair swept back from his face at medium length, and eyes that seemed to see everything while caring for none of it, elegant yet dangerous, magnetic and volatile.
The image rose from somewhere deep in memory.
Regulus sat up abruptly and waved at the ceiling, a casual gesture, as though greeting someone who might be watching.
He waited a beat.
Then he lay back down and shook his head at himself.
Ridiculous.
It was all conjecture. Wild speculation, even. There was no evidence that the blue flame belonged to that person. No evidence linking Freya to them. No evidence this entire mission had been arranged.
There was another reason he hadn't asked Freya directly.
If his guess was right, the moment he voiced it, it became fact.
Like an open ending collapsing into a fixed script, leaving only one path forward. He'd have no choice but to walk it.
But if he never asked, or better yet, if he simply didn't know...
Then what would happen along the way?
Where would it all end up?
Any outcome was negotiable, and at least he'd have the moral high ground. He could act, could pretend, could say when the time came: I had no idea.
Then again, if it really was that person... would any of it make a difference?
If they'd arranged all of this, they had their reasons. Whether Regulus cooperated or resisted might not change a thing.
He let the thought go. There was no practical value in chasing it further.
Whoever stood behind the curtain, whatever their purpose, all he could do was keep moving forward. Keep growing stronger. Keep accumulating.
One step at a time.
The only thing Regulus didn't question was this: he was worth the attention.
Dumbledore had already entered the board, guiding him, nudging him, funneling resources through the professors.
Voldemort had entered too, probing him with the Dark Awakening, trying to corrupt him, to pull him close.
One more player in the game hardly changed the math.
He rolled over and closed his eyes.