Faustine.

  Franklin stilled, calming himself as Faustine took control of the curse and bound it to her will. Securely wrapping it around her iron grip, mentally giving the creature the command to calm down.

  The zombie did as she bade, settling into a state of simir disinterest as it had exhibited when her mother had taken the reins.

  All three of them, for a brief moment, simply existing in a strange state of calm.

  That was when the shouting started.

  The distant calls of ‘fire’ and visible smoke already alerting those on the outside that something was terribly wrong!

  Worse? Faustine let out a small shriek of dismay as a fming ball of bzing thatch nded on her arm, more surprising her than actually hurting while she quickly batted it aside!

  “My god, would you please put the fire out already?” She seethed, gring at the bleached skeleton with an accusatory expression, “I get I messed it up, thank you for pointing it out, but now that I’ve properly ‘learned’ my lesson, extinguish the bloody fmes before we lose the whole tower!”

  “Yes… w-well, about that…” Her mother began, gaze floating upward, “I’m a necromancer, darling, not a horse-trough.”

  “What?”

  “Well, why don't you use your abundant talent with water-magic, if you're so good with it?”

  “You're serious?”

  “Deathly.”

  “So, the fire?”

  “Is a legitimate issue, yes.”

  Faustine wanted to scream!

  She had no idea why she’d assumed her mother could fix it, but maybe it had something to do with her general ambivalence toward her daughter setting the ceiling abze!

  Honestly, Faustine had sort of just taken the woman's indifference toward the situation as a btant hint that she could remedy the problem.

  Yet, as the pair of them simply stood there, watching one another, the young noblewoman's eyes slowly grew, widening bit by bit.

  “Fuck…”

  “Yes, we should leave, sweetheart. The smoke doesn't really bother me, but you? Hm, well, it's not like your hair can really get much worse, all those split ends, I’d think you were living in the woods or something.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my hair!”

  “Oh, well then, my mistake, clearly, ignore the comment, I’m sure you’ve a proper handle on things.”

  Faustine's teeth ground from side to side, jaw quivering as it sat right upon the cusp of a retort before a splintering crack resounded through the room, and suddenly Faustine was brought right back into the thick of a much rger problem!

  “Untie the zombie, I need to pack!”

  “Pack?”

  “Just fucking do it!” She screamed! Quickly pulling a sack and stuffing clothes into it, as well as what few personal effects she could manage before she let out a truly miserable fit of coughs.

  The smoke was getting worse, the heat almost unbearable!

  There wasn't enough time to get everything!

  Her notes, her research, all of her belongings…

  She shoved what she could into the bag, then ran for the door, only making two steps before swinging back around and snatching the rge grimoire from the table.

  By contrast, her mother was now wielding Faustine's dagger, having simply sshed the zombie's bindings, though the stupid creature still y there, unmoving and unresponsive.

  “Oh good gods, fucking move!” She shouted, forcing her will into the curse's connection with her as ‘zombie Franklin’ finally lurched into motion! His movements still reliably smooth, if not moderately stiff and unnerving.

  “Did you… Fasutine, did you shove your undergarments in his mouth?” Her mother ughed, entirely unconcerned by the room as it rapidly filled with choking darkness, merely strolling out the door in the wake of her rapidly escaping daughter.

  Reaching up, her mother yanked the now thoroughly soiled underwear from her creation, still ughing as she held it up, shaking her head with clear amusement— “Oh my… rather—audacious little number, especially for a farmer's boy, no?”

  “My panties!” Faustine snipped, snatching them from the skeleton's bony fingers in a suddenly possessive fre of frustration.

  The manor was literally burning down around them, yet her mother wanted to make comments towards her sense of fashion and desire to feel pretty.

  Still, as she felt the cool dampness that now soaked the garment, Faustine’s face twisted with disgust, holding the things for a mere moment before gncing back to her fming room and abruptly tossing them to the fire.

  Her mother didn't say a word, instead, she merely grinned at her, bzing purple eyes filled with ughter while her daughter tried to regain a modicum of her composure.

  “Lady Solizar!” A voice called through the flickering gloom, “My dy! Damn, get the door open would you?”

  “I-I’m trying! T-the keys, they’re not—”

  There was a clunk, a rattle, the sound of a keychain clinking together, then, the quite notable sound of a tumbling lock.

  Faustine and her mother both, Franklin included, all stood before the final door leading from Faustine's small parlor to the outside hall of the manor.

  Horrifically, the young woman realized far too te, the implications of the situation.

  She was standing, part naked, disheveled, singed, and in the company of the undead. All while her room and, presumably, the adjacent ones burned from above.

  Necromancer.

  Not only was her practice illegal, but it was grounds for summary ‘justice’ in most civilized parts of the continent.

  Nobody liked necromancers. Nobody tolerated necromancers.

  And now, the secret she’d worked so hard to keep hidden all these many years was unraveling all around her…

  “Lady Faustine!” Henry excimed, her father's steward finally opening the door to reveal the old man and one of her father's men-at-arms, the man’s bright demeanor never having a moment to fall before, with a hideous roar, Franklin lunged at the man, jaw gnashing with delight!

  He screamed!

  Franklin chewed!

  And before the guard at his side could even draw his sword, her mother was upon him! Plunging Faustine's dagger through the man's eye socket in a frenzied blur of madness!

  She stabbed him again and again and again as her teeth chattered with insanity and savage glee, Faustine simply left to watch in stifled horror as the two monsters butchered her father’s men!

  “Mother!”

  “What?”

  Looking back over her shoulder, the skeleton stared at her as if nothing in the world was the matter, then, almost hesitantly, she gnced back to what she’d been in the process of doing and—

  ”Oh…”

  “Oh?”

  “Whoopsie! Heh, well, I did say that the undead aren't fond of the living, didn't I?” She expined, seeming to come back into herself as she rose from the mutited corpse, arms now dyed red with crimson as she zily waved the dagger as if to excuse her own mishap.

  “Y-you…”

  “Oh it's fine, we’ll just have young Franklin take a bite out of him! Oh! Is that Henry? Ha, it's been so long and—mhm… dear, maybe have your boy-toy stop feasting on him? It’s better when new zombies have more meat to work with…”

  “New zombies?”

  “Yes, of course! Oh, you know how it goes, get bitten by a zombie and turn into the living dead? This curse is—hmhmhm, quite potent, but worry not darling, so long as it has an owner, you shall remain in control of it.

  “That’s why necromancers are so terrifying!” She cackled, twirling the bloody dagger between her fingers, “they don't need to be particurly talented or smart to end up at the head of an undead legion, merely lucky or dedicated…”

  “But why more zombies?”

  “Oh, sweetheart!” Her mother ughed, zily letting the murder weapon point to its victim, “Your home's on fire, our steward is already beginning to reanimate, and the dy of the manor is willfully in the company of the undead!

  “There’s no going back from this… but worry not, my love! Mother is here! And together, we’ll do for you what I couldn't manage.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Faustine screeched, wanting to yank her hair out as her world literally came down around her.

  The sparkle in her mother’s eye was evident as, now arisen, Both Henry and Franklin turned their attention to the corpse that hadn't yet been indoctrinated, both creatures falling upon the man’s armored form and devouring what they could.

  Oh boy… zombie bites really did work as fast as they did in the stories! A-at least on those already dead… Granted, all the death mana in the air and the amount that the curse had absorbed was, likely, pushing things along quite quickly…

  “Why, Faustine,” her mother began, ughing skull chittering with delight, “we're going to get you all the power you’d ever need in life. And better yet? We're going to make you something far better than a mere human. Now come along, sweetness, lichdom awaits us both!”