The Necromancer's Stone; Chateau de Nouilles

"I hope you didn't mind my using the window.  Dad's annoyed because the snow melted and I didn't want to hear about it twice."
"He's annoyed because the..Thalia, even for an immortal that's a weird thing to be annoyed about."
"They don't call him the frostbringer for nothing; he's got this freaky affinity for cold stuff."
Hal paused for a moment.  Thalia saw a snicker lingering behind his smile and rolled her eyes.
"So, how does he stand having such a hot daughter?"
It was cheesy, but she laughed anyways.  It was hard not to have a sense of humor when you'd just climbed out of the window of an ice fortress in a knee length, regal indigo dress and matching stilletos to go to the opera.  Besides, it was cute the way he hesitated before he said it.  He knew it was cheesy when he said it, but he'd said it anyways.  And if there was any one thing Thalia liked, and there were many, It was a proper one-liner.
"So, what's the deal with your mother?  I've seen your dad coming and going from time to time, but there doesn't seem to be any woman living here but you."
Thalia glanced towards the the fireplace in her father's study.  It was a cold flame, specially enchanted to act like firelight without the heat.  Ironically, firelight was much colder feeling than most artificial light was.  It was the shadows; seeing them flicker reminded you how weak the fire was.  Or that's how Than always said it anyways.  When she was little, Thalia had always looked at that fire in the frozen palace and thought of how weak her mother must be compared to her father.  Now it just made her wonder if, like the fire in the heart of his fortress of ice, there was a little flame in his heart, burning for the girl who warmed his heart.
"That's kind of a fourth date sort of question."
"I'll keep that in mind when we get to our fourth date."
Awfully confident of him, but he'd have to screw up pretty bad to avoid there being a second date, so a fourth didn't seem out of the question.  And considering her list of peeves and his past behaviors, it seemed unlikely he'd manage to screw up in a significant manner.
"So what're you thinking of for dinner?"
"Chateau de Nouilles"
"Who named that place anyways?"
"Some human trying to be clever and make his restaurant sound classy.  I mean, with the design, waitstaff quality, and food presentation style 'house of noodles' just wouldn't cut it, now would it?"
"Good point.  Will the host be snooty?"
"You'll be able to see his sinus'."
"And the waiters, will they judge us on first sight and recommend cheap wine since they see we're young and have unrefined taste?"
"No, they'll wait and see how long it takes for you to laugh, and how elitist my jokes are; then they'll judge us."
Thalia grinned as she spotted a sleepy looking valet in a red vest.  
"I think I'm going to enjoy this place."
"I hope so, your bribes make up the secondary income of most of the clientele.  This place would be dead if you weren't so intent on controlling everyone."
Thalia was half insulted.  But she could tell from the gleam in his eye that he was jesting.  Hal didn't mind her criminal activities as much as most 'good' people did.  And clearly, there was a definite benefit to her activities.  The money she liberated from the wallets of corrupt officials and other, more direct, crooks was almost all cycled directly into local businesses and more naive officials, and to a lesser extent the arts.  She didn't horde it the way many criminals, and indeed most legitimate businessmen, tended to.  It kept the economy in motion, and when it slowed down she saw to it that additional weight was added to investing in continued growth.  Hal was smart enough to know that, even if he didn't particularly like the means she used.  In all fairness, she could have done just as much, probably more, good if she worked inside of the law.  But then she wouldn't have been able to act as quickly or decisively against the problems she found, and Thalia was not interested in dealing with lawyers.  
"Glad to see my money is well spent.  We should probably discuss who's going to pay."
"I favor a joint venture; seventy-thirty, favoring the speaking party."
"I appreciate the chivalry, but fifty-fifty. I'll let you cover the tip."
"Only if you do the math.  I'm crummy at math."
"Deal."  She planned to pay for it all anyways.  There wasn't a chance in low hell that he had the fiscal resources she possessed and the Opera tickets had probably set him back more than he'd ever admit.  Then again, perhaps she wasn't giving him credit.  He was a travelling swordsman, gentleman adventurer, and immortal, if a rather young one.  He could have any size fortune and it wouldn't make any difference how poor he seemed.  Still, as the local villainous overlord and criminal mastermind, besides the trust funds that her father had carefully managed and her mother had carefully paid someone else to manage, she was almost certainly wealthier than he was.  
"Table for two; somewhere other people can't hear us, if you catch my drift."  Hal winked at the host, who merely raised his eyebrow and lead them to an out of the way side room.  It had one round table in the center, made with a dark wood that matched the room's fixtures.  
"Will this do?"  Hal hadn't been kidding about the sinus', the man had his nose turned so far up she could have tied a sail to his face.  
"We'll make the best of it."  Thalia spoke with enough derision as to make it clear that there was only one person in the room with any class to speak of, and they weren't male.  The host managed to bear it with more confidence than she had hoped for.  
"I should warn you in advance, there is a party coming through later that has booked this room in advance.  Your waiter will be with you shortly."  The host turned and departed, closing a door behind him.  Hal laughed and switched his utensils around.  
"This is the room the U'kown use when they have their meetings."
"The Guild?  Why don't I already know this?"
"You have better things to do than track down the Nieldic mafia.  Besides, you're out of their league."
"I'm out of their league?"  Thalia did not count many people on her 'not to be messed with' list, but the U'kown, a guild formed from the pirates, thieves, assassins, and smugglers of the Nielda, had a history of matching their might against that of the Imperial Guard.  She could hardly dream of the sort of power they wielded.  She did dream of that level of power; but only hardly.  "How the hell am I out of Their league?  They rigged the game so that they have their own league; membership: them."
"Yeah, but none of them have ever fallen hundreds of feet onto a stalactite and then walked away.  And none of them have tickets to the Opera tonight."
"How can you be sure of that?"
"Because I killed one of them and took their tickets."  Thalia let a beat pass to see if he laughed.  If he did, then it was funny; if he didn't, it was scary.
He didn't.  
"You killed a U'kown guildsman?"
"I was wondering if you'd buy that one.  No, I actually did buy the tickets.  But I've crossed paths with the guild before, I'm not bothered."
"They'll find you.  They will find you, and they will kill you.  They will find you, and kill you, and kill everyone you hold dear."  She paused a second as it sunk in.  "I'm dear to you, right?  That means they'll kill me too!"
He'd been smiling up to that point.  He was not bothered by the thought of them coming after him, but seeing her frightened did bother him.  
"If they do, I swear to God, I will kill them first.  No matter how many of them their are; if they so much as touch you, I will end them."
Resolve, no other word for it, just absolute, unshakable resolve.  He really did mean that.  And not just a retributive, kill the offender, sort of resolve.  He said them and he meant all of them.  He was offering to destroy the oldest criminal organization in the known universe for looking at her funny.  
No, not offering; he was promising it.  She didn't have to accept it to make it a certainty.  
"You're kinda scary right now."
He relaxed instantly, slumping his head into his hands.  "Sorry, I overreacted a bit."
"I appreciate the thought.  I'm glad you want to protect me and all, but a simple 'I won't let that happen' would probably have worked just fine.  In any case, I'd rather you didn't try and take down the U'kown single-handed."
"Why not?"
"Well, its just a little..over-ambitious is all.  I don't know that one man could do it."
Silence fell.  The night continued.  They both selected their preferred pasta plate and told the waiter, a pleasant if somewhat androgynous young Pythen named Ss'silia.  And they navigated small talk until food arrived; how's school?  What did you do all week while I was in school?  What's your favorite weapon class?  That sort of thing.  And as they finished their plates Hal's turn for questions came round again.  
"Have you ever been on a date before?"
"Once."
"Let me guess.  Some guy you met at school; he asked if you wanted to go out, you said yes.  Then he took you to the bar and regaled you with stories of his prowess in magic and combat.  Then when you were drunk enough to be susceptible, he took you back to his room and tried to get into your pants."
"Really, really close; but a few flaws in your version."  Thalia blushed as she thought about the night.  "I was a freshman, and this older student picked me out of the crowd and offered to show me around.  We did go to a bar, but the stories were about school history; who built what statue, why that hallway doesn't go anywhere, et cetera.  I did get tipsy, but not drunk.  And my date did try and get in my pants."  
"I'm feeling an and here."
"She kind of, possibly might have succeeded."
"Wait, She?"
"You know most of the people who've heard that story are more interested in the getting into my pants part."  It was a half-hearted attempt to change the course of the conversation.  Hal wasn't the sort of person to be dissuaded from the line of interest he'd already drawn.  
"Don't get me wrong, I'm still interested in the pants part of your revelation, and I fully hope to thoroughly explore them at a later date.  But I'm much more concerned with the gender of this fortunate forbearer."
"Her name was Katherine.  We're still friends, really good friends, but nothing really came of it.  I just don't have any interest in being...why would I talk about this on a first date?"
"U'kown place enchantments on their meeting places that make it difficult to not reveal any information relevant to the questions asked within them.  Although in my defense, it had not occurred to me that they would have enchanted this room until after you started to answer.  I expected you to just stop at 'Once', and I am truly apologetic for having unwittingly made you reveal more than you're comfortable with."
Thalia drew a series of runes onto the table and activated them.  Hal watched with intense discomfort as they began to glow in a singular shade of red.  Finally, after rearranging them several times and reactivating them, Thalia smiled and looked up across the table.  
"Four questions answered; want to know?"
"Yes."
She lifted the first rune into the air and pointed at it.  "Is the room enchanted to force you to tell the truth, the whole truth, and only the truth?  The answer of course is 'yes'."
She lifted a second rune into the air, positioning it beside the first.  "Is our waiter Pythen?  So that I can be sure the enchantment doesn't change the answers of detection spells."
Thalia swept the third rune into position below the first two.  "Would you have told me the truth if the room hadn't forced you to?  I'm happy to know that you would have done so of your own free will."
Finally the fourth rune joined the others.  She walked around the table and stood over him.  He was still waiting for the fourth question, the inevitable "Did he use the enchantment to his advantage?  Can he resist the effects of the enchantment?  The one that would condemn him and cut short their entire evening.  But Thalia had wanted the answer to a rather different question, one she'd been wondering since she'd met him.  So to his surprise; she leaned in and kissed him.