Author's note:

Well I'm not dead. That's always good news, right? *awkward glances*

So it's been a long, long time since I last uploaded anything. …Yeah… Part of the reason for that is because life happened, and is still happening, which unfortunately means that this time around I cannot guarantee any sort of schedule to my updates. I apologize for that in advance, and ask you to please stick around even if it seems like I've dropped off the face of the earth again. I'll do my utmost to crank this out before the end of the century, I promise. :)

The other reason why I haven't written in a while is…well…I had a bit of a writer's worst nightmare. The last thing I posted was one of my Starfire one-shots. Now I understand that it's rated M and quite dark, not everyone's cup of tea, and I respect that. But what I didn't expect was to have almost nobody read it. Every writer has a slump, but after working on that piece for two weeks straight only to have hardly anyone care to read it sorta sucked the wind out of my sails. Took a while for me to get it back, but I'm ready to try again and see what happens.

Couple of tidbits: this will probably stay T rated, though the genres might be tweaked as I go. I will let you know if/when it happens. Also this is a sequel, so you most definitely need to read Paradox in order to get anything that's going on. There will be one or two minor references to events that took place in The Art of Obsession but it is not strictly necessary to read that in order to get this.

Hope you enjoy. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians. I just play with it whenever the inspiration stick strikes me.

"Thank Manny you've come," North huffed. He looked positively dreadful, his clothes saturated with sweat, face drawn and bearing dark circles under the eyes while his hair and beard looked as if they had not been washed or combed in quite some time. There was a layer of fine sawdust across his chest and shoulders, and paint of various colors smeared on his hands and dripped onto his boots.

"What's happened?" Jack asked, panic rising as his gaze darted wildly around the room. As if North's current appearance was not bad enough, the workshop was almost deathly quiet. There was none of the usual banging and clanging of toymaking, rumbling and rustling and whirring of test runs, or grumbling calls of the yetis. In fact, there was not a single yeti in sight, not even Jack's best frenemy, Phil. A few elves were tottering about, but of course they were absolutely useless. One actually looked as if he had recently upended an entire vat of snow globe liquid on himself, and seemed immensely proud of his drenched-yet-glittering self.

Wrenching his gaze from the rather disturbing image of an elf posing for several admiring (borderline starstruck) fellows, Jack inquired of the Russian, "Where's all the yetis?"

"Sick," North cried, his voice picking up volume with every word he spoke. "First one! Then four! More and more until there's only me! So much work to do and Christmas is only two weeks away!"

Massive hands lashed out and grabbed Jack by the shoulders. "Please help me!" the big man wailed, tears of exhausted desperation pouring freely down his face.

"There, there, mate," Bunny said, patting North a bit awkwardly on the shoulder. None of them had ever seen North break down so completely before; then again, the yetis had never gotten sick before either. "We've got time. Don't forget—we gathered Tooth's chompers and painted all my googies in a single night before."

"In the same weekend," Jack chimed in while Sandy nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Looks like the big lads managed a good lot of it, shouldn't be too hard to finish off," Bunny went on. "We'll have ya up an' running in time, don't you worry."

"Thank you," a relieved North sniffed. Jack saw what was coming and tried to escape, but not quite fast enough. Just as his toes left the ground he was pulled into a bone crushing hug. "Thank you!" the big man repeated while Jack let out a pathetic squeak.

The first few nights were a flurry of activity, all of the Guardians riding the adrenaline as they fought to beat the deadline. With thousands of believers at stake they could not afford to mess this up and ruin Christmas. After a while though they began to take shifts, Jack and Bunnymund working together while the other three slept, then trading off. Tooth pulled every last fairy she could spare off tooth-collecting duty, the girls carrying paintbrushes and fetching extra bolts or tools so the Guardians could concentrate on production. It was hard, grueling work, if only because of how few of them there were compared to the number of yetis North typically had in the shop, but not one of them complained. It wasn't as if the big man had planned this.

Which begged the question: why had the yetis fallen ill? The burly beings hardly caught so much as sniffle, let alone anything bad enough to put them off toy-making duty. And so close to Christmas too…the timing was just too horrible to be coincidental, that much Jack and Bunnymund could agree upon. Yet when they mentioned their concerns to Tooth and Sandy later on, the Guardians of Memories and Dreams hesitated.

"I agree it is most strange," Tooth murmured, casting worried glances at North's back, though the Guardian of Wonder was too engrossed in adding delicate stitching to a doll he was making to pay them any mind. "But it's not as if anyone could have done this. Protections here are sufficient enough to keep even Jack out for hundreds of years, and to get only the yetis sick, not North or any of the elves…"

"Pitch used to get in just fine," Bunny gruffly pointed out.

Pitch is gone, Sandy reminded him with his sand symbols.

"Yeah, I know, mate, I was just saying—"

"Maybe the elves did something thinking they were being helpful," Jack suggested as he kicked one of said creatures away before it could paint his toenails purple with a brush that was much too large. "Accidentally poisoned their food or something."

No matter how much they picked the issue apart, they couldn't come up with anything plausible. Bunnymund even went so far as to check in with the yetis a couple of times, the Pooka being one of the most knowledgeable in the group about herbal remedies and plant-based medicines, but even that didn't turn up any clues. Like North, Bunny was stumped. The yetis were clearly ill, but nothing either of them tried seemed help; in fact, over the course of their stay, the Guardians realized their health was steadily declining.

"Was surprised at first," North admitted to Sandy at one point. The Russian spoke quietly, an oddity for him, but he had been rather subdued in general over the past few days, worry for his helpers eating away at him. "Yetis never get sick. But I thought 'always a first for everything, no problem, more than enough hands to help'."

He shook his head sadly as he secured the last few screws into the rocking horse he had built. "More and more get sick. Medicines do nothing, and I cannot search in library for answers with Christmas coming."

"Have you asked Angiti to help?" Tooth inquired. The spirit of healing was a longtime friend of the Guardians and would not hesitate to come to their aid.

"Could not leave to find her," North said, moving the rocking horse off the workbench to make room for the next one.

Stirring in the corner where he had laid down to rest, Bunny offered sleepily, "I can go fetch her."

Sandy banged a hammer on his own workbench to get their attention. Christmas first, he told them. Then yetis. It is what they would want.

"Of course, Sandy," North said, jerking his head in a nod, and the others had to agree with him.

In the end they managed to get everything finished in time. Packaging and packing all the presents into the giant red sack turned out to be almost as big of a chore as making them, though Jack found a way to speed things along with his wind and ice powers (even if Bunny did complain loudly over paint getting chipped and wood being dented with all the "unceremonious handling"). Preparing and harnessing the reindeer was also a chore-and-a-half, though Tooth quickly discovered that bribing them with treats worked wonders on their disposition. She accompanied North on Christmas Eve as emotional support, leaving Jack and Bunnymund to clean up the veritable dump the Pole had become while Sandy flew off to try and dig up Angiti.

When North returned, flushed with success, at dawn on Christmas Day it was to discover Angiti already at the Pole. Sandy had managed to find her. Utterly exhausted yet desperate for news, he stowed the sleigh quickly before hurrying to her side, hope swelling within him. Bunny actually flinched when he felt that hope get dashed as Angiti said in her whispery voice, "I am sorry, friend North. They are fading fast and I do not know what ails them. I have not seen anything like it before."

"You don't have any ideas?" Jack asked, clutching at North's sleeve in an effort to comfort and steady the big man. "Anything?"

Angiti bit her lip.

"Please," North said, tears gathering in his eyes. "Anything to help. Please tell me."

Angiti took a breath, "I am but a healer. Though I consider myself wise to innumerable ailments, microorganisms continuously mutate and transform, forcing me to alter my skill and knowledge in order to accommodate. As it stands now I would determine the cause of their suffering eventually, but your yetis do not have that sort of time. You need to bring someone here who can identify the cause of their illness swiftly."

"Giving you time to concoct a cure," Bunny concluded. Angiti nodded to him in confirmation, but Jack wasn't at all thrilled by the news.

"Someone who can immediately identify illnesses?" he said, wholly unable to stop the disdain creeping into his voice. "Sounds like a dark spirit to me."

Grim-faced, Sandy shaped a single sand figure over his head: Morsoi.

"You cannot bring Morsoi here, his presence alone is likely to kill them," Bunny cried, fists clenched at his sides.

"No one else is as knowledgeable as he," Angiti countered. "I am sorry, Guardians. I know you do not like or trust Morsoi but you need him now. No other spirit will be able to identify the cause of the sickness."

"Probably because he caused it!"

Angiti stiffened.

"Have care not to throw hasty accusations," she warned sternly. "Or have you forgotten?"

She jerked her chin towards the banisters near the far corner of the room. Bunny glanced around and promptly flinched. One of Issitoq's Eyes was seated up there, watching them.

"Were there any evidence to support your claim I would most certainly understand, but there is none," Angiti went on. "Had there been, friend North would have had just cause to file grievance, thereby forcing Morsoi to rescind his plague. Besides," she reached out to lay a hand on North's forearm, drawing the big man's attention off the floor and back to her, "I can personally guarantee that Morsoi has been in southeast Asia for the past eight months. If I have to overhear one more human say "bird flu" or "swine flu" I might just vomit."

Shoulders slumped in defeat, North said quietly, "He will not help for free."

"Such is merely the nature of our world—nothing is freely given or taken, except perhaps among closest friends," she added with a small smile.

"Call for him." Straightening his back and squaring his shoulders, North said decisively, "Call for Morsoi."

"No need for a summons, I am already present."

The unexpected answer startled the lot of them.

"Morsoi!" Bunny snarled, having jumped more noticeably than the others (a consequence of his Pooka instincts) and taking great exception to the unintended display of weakness. "How the bloody—"

"Language, Aster," Morsoi chided as he sauntered towards them. With his hands clasped behind his back and an expression of mild interest on his face he looked utterly relaxed, quite unlike the overworked, worry-weary Guardians.

"He's not a child, he can talk however he wants," Jack snapped, jumping to his friend's defense.

"How did you know to come here?" Tooth demanded at nearly the exact same time.

Ignoring Jack, Morsoi answered, "A little birdie told me." He then chuckled quietly to himself, as if at a private joke. "No, that is not entirely correct. A little birdie was twittering in a most distressed manner, catching the interest of one of my sprites. It then dutifully informed me of your…predicament and I surmised that my aptitudes would be needed. It is good to see I was not mistaken—time really is of the essence with this sort of thing."

He stopped a short distance from the Guardians, surveying them with almost disturbing calm.

"I am surprised you have not lost any of your pets yet, North," he continued. "They are rather the worse for wear."

"Just hurry up and tell us what's wrong with 'em so we can help 'em!" Bunny barked, his accent growing noticeably thicker in his agitation.

"In good time. After all, North and I need to have an important discussion first, don't we?"

Green-tinged eyes fixed upon North, who looked vaguely ill.

"What do you want?" the Guardian of Wonder asked gruffly.

"That depends on what you want. What exactly is it you wish me to do?"

"Tell me what is ailing my yetis."

"Hmm. That would directly lead to their lives being saved, wouldn't it? Which in turn means you will be spared the imminent loss of your believers which, again in turn, means saving your existence."

"Quit thinking so much into it!" Bunny started to shout only to be cut off by North.

"Be quiet Bunny."

Morsoi's serene smile turned feral. "Well, at least one of you knows what is at stake here. So…my demands should not come as a big shock to you."

The Guardians all visibly tensed, waiting for the foul spirit to name his price.

"I would ask of you a service, dearest North."

North jerked, a frown pulling his bushy brows together. "Service?"

"Oh yes. If I do this thing for you, in return you shall do something for me. You will come to me whenever I may call for you, and you will do as I ask to the absolute best of your ability without complaint."

"I will not harm children, or the other Guardians," North said hastily, chest puffing up as he squared off with Morsoi.

"No, no, I will not ask you to do something as mundane as that," the spirit of pestilence reassured him smoothly, completely unaffected by the big man's posturing. "So do we have an accord?"

North hesitated for a good long while, mulling it all over in his head.

"Don't do it," Bunny whispered, boomerang clutched tight in his paw. "I don't know what the ratbag's up to, but I don't like it."

"We need him to help the yetis, and he said he won't ask him to harm the children or any of us. Issitoq will hold him to that promise," Tooth countered just as quietly, though she looked no more pleased with the situation than Bunny.

In the end, North jerked his head in a nod. "I will do it. I will owe you one service, so long as it doesn't involve harming my fellow Guardians or any children, if you help me save my yetis."

Morsois' eyes burned pure green as he leered, "Excellent."

True to his word, Morsoi told Angiti what was ailing the yetis. In under a week she had concocted a solution and they were all on the mend. It would take time, and lots of it, before Phil and his cohorts were in any position to keep Jack out of mischief at the Pole, but Angiti was adamant they would all fully recover.

Unfortunately, the Guardians' relief was short-lived. Angiti had scarcely given the all-clear when Toothiana zoomed into the Pole on a whirr of wings.

"Help!" she cried, grabbing the spirit of healing by the front of her robes. "Help please! My fairies!"

The situation at the Tooth Palace turned out to be so much worse than what had happened to North. Unlike the yetis, who fell ill over the course of several weeks, the fairies were deteriorating so rapidly they were quite literally dropping from the sky. Worse, their wings were turning dry and brittle; one wrong touch snapped them right off, much to the Guardians' horror. With North unable to leave the Pole with his yetis still recovering and Bunnymund nowhere to be found, Jack and Sandy had to go on collection duty not just for teeth, but for fairies who'd collapsed during a run and could no longer summon the strength to return home. Angiti tried everything, including the cure she'd used on North's yetis, to no avail.

"Please!" Tooth wailed as more and more fairies dropped to the platform around her. Her hands were already full, she could not carry anymore. "Please help them!"

"I do not know what is wrong!" Angiti admitted with a despondent cry. One pale hand tore at her own robes while the other clutched a stricken fairy to her chest, helpless to do anything else. Healing was her center yet she had been confounded twice in less than a fortnight, shattering her confidence. It would be many decades before she properly got it back.

Something caught Toothiana's eye just then, lingering outside the mountain palace. Expression grim yet determined, the queen of fairies carefully lay her little charges down before zooming off to confront it.

When Jack saw what had caught her eye, he was quick to shout, "Tooth, no!"

But it was too late.

"Go to Morsoi!" he heard her yell to the skulking sprite. "Go to your master and tell him to come here! I will owe him a service with the same stipulations as North if he helps my girls!"

"Where's Bunny?" Jack ground out from between clenched teeth. The Pooka knew medicine, too, perhaps he could think of something Angiti hadn't. It was a long shot, especially since Bunny hadn't been able to help with the yetis, but it was better than leaving Tooth to the mercy of Morsoi's whims.

Sandy shook his head. He didn't know anything more about Bunnymund's mysterious absence than Jack did. Uttering a frustrated sound, Jack hoisted up his staff.

"Don't let Morsoi take advantage of her," he instructed before blasting off on a burst of wind, careful not to catch any fairies in the crossfire.

He sped to the Warren as fast as he could, landing heavily in the open meadows of the Pooka's realm.

"Bunny!" he bellowed. "Bunny! Where the hell are you?! Tooth's fairies are sick!"

Upon receiving no response, Jack flew to the Pooka's home and banged on the door. "Bunny?! Bunny! Dammit, Bunny, I swear if you're just hibernating in there I will frost over every last one of your dye pools!"

Still no response. Grabbing the handle, Jack actually jerked in surprise when it turned unexpectedly. The Pooka was home?! What the hell was he—?

As soon as the door opened Jack was hit full in the face with the most noxious smell he had ever experienced. It was so rancid he had to lift the front of his blue hoodie over his nose lest he puke right then and there.

"Bunny?" he called again, anger vanished in an instant to be replaced by a very real fear. "You okay?"

He flitted through the house, following the smell, which grew stronger as he approached the Pooka's room. Finding the door ajar, Jack slowly pushed it open, terrified by what he might find.

"Bunny!"

He flew straight to his friend's side, dropping to his knees and releasing his staff so it clattered to the floor. The Pooka was an absolute mess. Curled up on his side, he shook so badly Jack initially worried he was having a seizure. His fur had fallen out in large tufts, leaving great bald patches that had been scratched raw and bloody by his own claws. The smell was coming from a mixture of bodily fluids, primarily sweat and vomit, for even as Jack reached out to put his hands on Bunny's shoulder the Pooka retched with a horrid gagging sound, spilling foul yellow-green bile across his already sodden bedding. There were a large number of jars and pots lying scattered around the room, particularly around the bed, and Jack's heart seized painfully when he realized Bunnymund must've tried to take care of himself only to discover nothing worked.

Just like with the yetis and fairies.

"What is happening?" he whispered in horror as Bunny vomited again. "What the hell is happening to everyone?"

"You should have stayed away."

Jack nearly leapt into the air, his heart taking flight instead to hammer away inside his throat. Morsoi stood in the Pooka's bedroom doorway, looking utterly unphased by the wretched sight laid out before him.

Too tired and distraught to summon his anger (the only proper emotion when dealing with Morsoi, in his opinion) all Jack managed to utter in response was a pathetic, "What?"

"Epidemics, even minor ones, are quite volatile in nature; microbes spread quickly and can alter their physiology most rapidly given the right environment. Even humans know that something as simple as a cold or flu has the potential to turn deadly, to say nothing of what an unknown strain can do."

"What are you saying?" Jack asked weakly as Bunny moaned. His hands were still holding the quivering Pooka's shoulders, to offer comfort if nothing else, to let Bunny know he was no longer alone. "Is Bunny gonna be alright? The fairies—"

"I am saying that you Guardians are fools. You all rushed to the Pole without taking proper precautions. Now you are suffering the consequences."

"You…you mean Bunny and the fairies caught what the yetis had? So why are they so much worse? How come Angiti cannot heal them?"

"As I said—diseases are volatile. Do not make me repeat myself, I find it tedious."

Jack stared and stared at him, his overwhelmed and overtired brain struggling to figure out what to do. His body ran too cold to fall ill except under extreme circumstances, and Sandy was pretty much safe given the nature of his own physical form, but how long would Tooth and North be okay given how immersed they were in their helpers' healing? And Bunny needed help now, the poor Pooka was going to die if Jack didn't do something.

"Help him," Jack whispered, the words barely audible even to his own ears. That would not do, he could not help anyone hesitating like this. Squaring his jaw, he lifted his head to fix ice blue eyes upon Morsoi as he repeated louder and more firmly, "Help Bunny, and put a stop to this sickness. Make sure it does not remain contagious any longer."

"Do you know what you are asking?" Morsoi inquired in a tone that was carefully neutral save for the slightest hint of curiosity, which may or may not have been genuine.

Jack glared at him. "Yes. I am asking you to save my friend, and to prevent any others from falling victim to this." His eyes narrowed. "I am prepared to accept whatever price you demand of me," he growled, "provided you do not ask me to harm children or my friends."

Morsoi stood still as a statue for a very, very long time. Not a hair on his head moved. He did not even blink. Jack grew increasingly disconcerted the longer the moment stretched—the bastard was cunning, for him to be that lost in thought couldn't be a good sign—yet he did not move or speak save to shush Bunny quietly, comfortingly, when the Pooka moaned again, because he knew there was no other way to fix this.

Bunny would be furious with him later, but Jack was willing to accept that.

Finally, at long last, Morsoi moved. His lips curled upward at the corners, a tiny dark smile that accentuated the acid green cutting through the gray of his eyes, making him appear even creepier than usual.

"For my help with Aster I will ask a service of you, Jack Frost, just as I have North and Toothiana. You will come when I call and complete the designated task, regardless of what it may be, without complaint and to the best of your ability."

Jack jerked his head in a nod, accepting the terms.

"But to stop a plague from running its course… What you are asking of me in this is to sacrifice whatever power I stand to glean. Considering the extreme nature of this particular strain," Morsoi's attention fastened briefly upon Bunny's quivering form, "I imagine it would be rather a lot. Just standing here in this Warren I can feel—"

"Enough," Jack barked. He was not about to sit there and listen to Morsoi brag. "What do you demand?"

Gray and green eyes returned to the frost spirit's face.

"I want your power."

"What?"

"Your power, little frost spirit. In addition to the previously established service, I will ask you to loan your power to me. Not that I will take it for myself," he said smoothly when Jack bristled. "I would never want such mundane abilities as my own. No. Rather what I will ask is for you to use your power at my direction, without question, to assist me in one task."

Jack frowned in confusion. "I already promised you a service. Are you asking for a second?"

Morsoi smirked. "In a manner of speaking."

"I kinda need more details than that," Jack groused.

"No you do not. You do not need to understand now, because I am not asking you to fulfill your promise now. But you will understand in time, I guarantee that."

Jack mulled it over, ever cognizant of the shivering Pooka under his hands. He didn't like how ambiguous Morsoi was being right now—hated it, in fact—but it did sound an awful lot like the wretched bastard was merely asking another service from him, one where he would have to use his power rather than his…charm or influence as a Guardian or whatever else Morsoi might need. Jack could do that. No doubt Morsoi would find a way to make fulfilling his end of the bargain humiliating and distasteful, but it was a small price to pay in exchange for saving lives.

"I will not harm any children or the other Guardians with my power," Jack said carefully. "If you can accept that then I will agree to your terms."

Little did he know how very deeply he would come to regret his decision.

The forest was deathly quiet—humans from the nearby town never ventured there after sundown (too many stories of shadows moving freely and inexplicable noises echoing through the trees); spirits had long learned to avoid the area entirely (for fear of stoking the wrath of the resident spirit, who was intensely private); and, on this particular night, nocturnal animals fled en masse before the approach of an intruder who stank of death and dust and rot, virtually emptying the land for acres around.

Morsoi scarcely noticed. He much preferred being alone whenever he came here anyway. Even his sprites were left behind, lingering on the outskirts of town at his direction; close enough to be at hand should he call for them, far enough away to avoid stoking her ire.

The things I do for you.

Morsoi smiled when he saw the entrance to her realm was open. He knew for a fact that she kept it sealed to everyone else, a cap of shadow and black sand so thick it was solid to the touch. Only for him did it open freely, without his having to request an audience.

She trusted him. A fact which caused some as-yet unidentified emotion to burn hot inside him, more powerful than mere satisfaction yet far from the smug delight he would have felt were she any other spirit.

It did not necessarily mean anything, of course, her opening her realm to him. Given how much…interest he had shown over the past few years she had undoubtedly figured out that the last thing he wanted was to hurt or destroy her. It could be she was simply taking advantage of that, though he doubted it. She had nothing to gain by demonstrating how unafraid she was, for even as a human she had not feared him, and if there was one thing Cassandra Fisher did not do it was go out of her way to prove herself to anyone. One either accepted her as she was or they did not, and woe to those who didn't.

Savaş—or, rather, the pathetic remains of him—were proof of that.

Morsoi slipped easily into the underground realm, traversing the dark halls without interruption. There were Nightmares everywhere, lurking in the shadows watching his every move, but none tried to stop him so he paid them no mind. They, like his sprites, were loyal to the utmost and did as they were told, and they had been told not to interfere with his comings and goings unless he became a threat.

The things you do for me…

He found her ensconced in her study, a private place at the very back of her realm. One wall bore a series of maps dotted with pins and pen markings of various colors that only Cassandra could interpret, while the opposite wall was lined floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves. Knowledge was power, particularly among spirits, and Cassandra had not wasted time amassing all the tomes and scrolls she could get her hands on. Morsoi (and a good many others) respected her for that. All too often spirits failed to take interest in anything outside their own existence and duties, placing themselves at significant disadvantage; or they were like North, who hoarded vast libraries of knowledge and showed them off proudly but rarely, if ever, did anything with them.

Which was why Morsoi had taken to "borrowing" items of interest and surreptitiously adding them to Cassandra's collection. She could—and would—use them more often than anyone else, and it both intrigued and excited him to know that Cassandra was well aware of what he was doing, had been for quite some time, yet made no mention of it. Such pointed silence was a significant indicator that deep down inside the spirit of fear was not nearly as opposed to his advances as she pretended to be. Returning the books and scrolls to their rightful owners or otherwise demanding to repay him for them was all it would take to communicate her rejection. By doing neither she only encouraged him to continue, which Morsoi did happily.

That she refused to speak of what he was doing made no difference; leaving so much unsaid only added to the thrill.

A heavy wooden desk stood against the far wall, half-buried in books and papers. Cassandra sat with her back to him, bent over her work as her pen scratched quietly against the page. Morsoi knew she could sense his presence just as he had been able to sense hers, though she made no acknowledgement of his arrival. She did not pause even when he came to a stop just behind her chair, looking at her rather than at whatever currently occupied her attention. Her hair was tied back tonight, giving him ample view of her pale neck and jaw. He studied them carefully, memorizing every detail, down to the delicate veins barely visible beneath the skin.

He wondered, vaguely, a passing notion, what it would taste like.

In time she finished and set down her pen.

"Morsoi," she said, cool and collected.

"Cassandra." Anticipation bubbled through him, just as it always did whenever he approached her for this reason. "I have a gift for you. Do you accept?"