It was a dangerous habit, dwelling in the past. However, that had been his recent days in the present. Since the gathering he'd been forced to attend, his mind was a battleground. His thoughts waged war with one another: what used to be, what is now. Who he used to be, the stranger that he had become. It was the shadow that haunted the dark slits of his eyes, it was the slight crease of a frown that had made his face a home.

Would his siblings even recognize him anymore? His appearance hadn't changed remarkably over the years, but the skin was ill fitting of the monster he had become. A skinwalker, donned in the robes of Theodred, a nameless beast that puppeteers his skeleton. The conversation with the pianist, the memories she had stirred by nothing more than the innocent play of music, it had all brought him here to this very moment. He didn't know what kind of ruler his brother would have been. He didn't know what kind of lady his sister would have grown into. They had been taken before their lives even had a chance to flourish. He remembered the raspy, uneven breaths his brother had taken near the end. He had been chosen by whatever semblance of order they had possessed. He was to be turned as well, but death hadn't spit him out, not like it did for the bastard son. He knew the way Isabella had screamed.

But he knew they would be abhorred of him.
They would loathe this thing that he had become.

So that was why he stood here now, idly watching the wind rock the sign for the Toad & Thyme to and fro on its gentle current. Of course it wasn't the face of the general that currently held fixation on the adornment. It was a tawny, shorter man with angled features and longer, shaggy hair that softly curled around his face with some of it pulled back atop his head. It was not his normal disguise, but he certainly didn't want any to know of his visit here. Known or otherwise. The streets had eyes, the walls ears. The less any knew, the better for them. He couldn't exactly afford to openly fall out of the queen's good graces, at least for now.

So it was in a lighter, meeker tone that called out a soft "Hello?" As he pushed open the door to peer around the shelves. He'd heard great praise about the keeper of the business. A different manner of magic, they claimed. One he hoped would be of service to him. So that he could be of service to others - what he should have been doing for a very, very long time now.

 
The steps were soft as they came to him, a mere whisper of sound brushing this way and that from the mysterious depths of the shop. It wasn't until they were at his side, however, that he found the supposed owner. Though no other seemed to be in the shop, he supposed that it could have easily been another patron until he stole a glance at her from the edge of his peripherals. He'd seen her before, of course, but it was always a bit.... shocking to truly behold her. An incident. An unfortunate accident. Spared or cursed, he had no idea which view she had of it, but regardless, the coil of her lips lilted upwards into a polite simper.

"Iron scribes.  For candle magic." The sound of her voice accompanied the tapping of her sere nails upon the glass vial. "Owl pellets for divination." Her words were low, but as her next move hinted, he assumed well enough that she knew what he truly was. It was of no consequence to him as she hovered over the splintering nails of rough wood. He didn't need her to think him human - not yet, anyways. "Wooden stakes.  For the... undead." Despite the proposed threat, or mayhap just a way to inform him that she knew, he would clear his throat slightly. His true skin bore the scars of those encounters, but this costume was smooth, unmarred by the anvils of violence. Her smile only grew, however, warping softly with wicked intent. "Or perhaps you're looking for something else?  I can help."

"I am looking for something else." Though his voice did not mirror the meekness that he had posed upon his entrance, it still failed to emerge as his true one as well. Had he been here for any other reason, perhaps he'd have let the entirety of his disguise melt away, but just as much as protection for his own identity, it was a precaution for her as well. He would not allow another innocent to be trapped in the crossfire of what he was to commit should another see the general of Lavalles in this shop. Should he be caught. "I need a disguise - a better one." There was a hesitance. He knew all too well that the crown had ways to make those they interrogate speak the truth - not just fear or pain induced. He'd seen the serums, the arcana that would unwind the tongue no matter the will of the speaker. "I'm to be.... hunting monsters, my lady. And I don't want them to know who or what I am. Do you have something to aid me with that?"

Despite her belief or not, he would affix his stare to her, muddy river eyes searching her own cerulean ones. Delving through molten flesh in full in hope to map her expression - to anticipate the honesty of her answer. If she did indeed take his request seriously and understand the implication, he wanted to see it.

 
She observed him for a long moment, as if dissecting him bit by bit til he was naught but the bones of a hollow ship under her attention. While he knew her to be eccentric, there were very few whos mere attentive eye could make his skin crawl, that made him want to straighten.

To raise his chin in defiance.

This one, and the Red Queen herself, were the only ones thus far that he could say forced such an instinct to rise within him. He had met her before, darkened her doorstep on several different occasions, once or twice as himself, as the general Theodred, but normally it was in some manner of disguise for one reason or another. Most usually it was not to deceive the shop keep herself, but for the sake of his own privacy. He did not indulge in the public being privy to his affairs. He had no wish to build any connections to those he did not already have - though Tanyi was one of them, despite if she would admit it or agree herself. It seemed all too perfect that the thread that bound them had shown herself in the house in Odersten.

He would watch as she crossed the small distance towards the window, silent fingertips flipping the sign to ward off any other customers. While the store was still standing, he wondered just how much business a woman of elden arcana would have in face of many residents here harboring one power of another. In truth, one of the things that had drawn his curiosity here were the similarities between she and the woman who had cursed him with life. A witch they had deemed her, and with that condemnation, so too was he burned. Even if it wasn't the fine bridge of her nose, it would be the inky strands of his hair that would tell any that he shared her blood. His memories of her were few and scattered, manipulated by the blurry recollections of a toddler when she perished in their private home, an isolated villa in the mountains far from the dukedom so that the duchess would be none the wiser to his father's betrayal. This shop was the closest thing he had ever come across to those marred memories. The herbs that decorated the ceiling, the odd and strange collection of items. The very smell upon the air. He breathed it in, deeply, as if it would take him there. Even for just a moment. Then he was drug back to the present.

"It won't be cheap," came the initial, bitter warning. He had already expected as much, though. She was a dying breed, and her arts were certainly worth their prices, at least he had found thus far. "-but I may have just the thing you need.  Follow me." Without another syllable, she would glide behind the curtain that separated the storefront. He followed after her shortly, unable to keep his eyes from roaming the oddities of her collection. So to, did he allow the apparition of himself to shift, until a face that she surely would recognize would meet her eyes next she turned to him. It belonged to the man who had brought to her a wounded young woman, one he had drug from the maw of danger, one he had brought to her for secrecy should her tormenter once again search for her. A face he hoped would vouch to her of his sincerity not to merely use the thing for sport.

"Watch your step and take a seat there." Her instruction would dissuade his focus from the split, dual face of a serpent, coiled and poised in one of the large jars to where she gestured. The smell was heavier here, the air stifled, almost as if the place itself was a tomb. He couldn't call it pleasant, not with the underlying, pungent assault of sulfur. With one last, cursory glance to the glass, he would obey and settle himself neatly upon the stool. His focus was instead placed souly upon the shop keep while she thumbed through the pages of what looked to be an extremely antique - even by his standards - tome. "How long do you need it to last?" "as long as possible, with multiple uses." He could only hope it wouldn't be too taxing, let alone exasperating for her. No matter how much he wished it, he could not meet his overall goal in a single night, nor was it practical for him to return here each time he had the opportunity to go hunting. Eventually, that would lead to being caught, an inevitability rather than strict pessimism. "Consider price no issue," he would add, should monetary value be of concern to her.

 He watched her obsessively. His eyes never left the intricacies of her features, the way her body language revealed all but naught to him. While she certainly already spoke and acted as if she held the key to what he had requested, there was a cloying uncertainty beneath the surface of his cerebral prison. It wasn't paranoia so much as it was another step closer to the fruition of his plans. Nuances and careful plotting that could then be tested. A much needed step. Yet one that would have him swinging his legs over the precipice of the cliffside and diving into the unknown depths of the hollow it yawned before. One mistake, one unforeseen factor and this path could come to an abrupt and sharp end. Those along the way could also not get caught in the crossfire.

"And if the price is parts of yourself as you are now? Her brow would lift at him, her fingers wandering over the pages of the book cradled upon its pedestal. While he thought he had seen it before in her time of caring for Helayne, he had never beheld it in this context. He had never witnessed her actively consulting it for her craft. His mother's own grimoire rested in his home. Tucked away in precious hiding, one of very few intimate possessions he would be upset to part with. While it was nowhere near as large, the tome still reminded him of it. Of its pages filled with various herbs, their uses, some even containing the pressed leaves of species that may very well no longer even grow. "Would it still be no issue?"

"so long as I can hunt, yes." There was no scope of hesitation within his vocals. Finally, his gaze would draw in a soft blink as she leaned away from the withering pages. "I will take my dues, of course, but magic, she does not obey the laws of man nor does she respect our currencies.  Her price will be far more cruel than mine." He would tilt his head in a vague display of curiosity. As he had feared, a possibly unplanned for aversion from his tasks. "Any idea of what I should expect?" He inquired, wishing to be as well informed of the matter as he could. It mattered little to him what the spell took, just as he stated, so long as he could continue to pursue his current goals. It would already be a difficult endeavor to keep up appearances with his current duties as well to avoid suspicion for as long as possible, but should the cost of the magic prove too taxing... well, it needed to be accounted for.

Then, he was once again content to watch her work. He watched her map out the pathways for the spell's circle, an art that he had also learned from his matron and what lingering artifacts he had of her. The very same he had done to commit the atrocities in Dunmeath. Though his medium was often time invoked by blood than chalk as he had no say over the elements any longer and hadn't for quite some time. Everything seemed to connect to a solitary stone, one that began to pulsate with a light of its own as she began the mantra of her arcane. The symbols and runes followed suit, sparks illuminating the space and filling the room with the scent of hot chalk, flint and stone.

She grabbed the moss hued stone glimmering and humming, then within her possession, it stilled, as if it had breathed its last. Then her fingers curled over the nonuniform surface, until the prickle of blood begged his vision to drift to her hand. A loathsome, disgusting instinct, albeit his focus would have likely been drawn to it anyways. Intense mana seemed to fill the precious material, a pulse ebbing over the shop keep until it was no longer she who stood before him. But someone else entirely. A face and energy that which he could not perceive any longer as human. It was the same bleak atmosphere as others of the undead.

Applaudable work indeed.

"Feed it blood.  Yours or someone else's, it doesn't matter.  So long as the stone remains whole, you can refresh its uses by letting it bask in the full moon's light." She would hold her extended hand out to him as he approached, her fingers uncurling to showcase the artifact that had effectively devoured the crimson ichor. He would take it, his thumb running over its edges, testing them against the digit's pad. Sharp enough, indeed. Eyes would draw from it and back to its enchanter. "And your price?"