“Hm.” She ignored the fact that he hadn’t given his name yet, not having volunteered her own, anyway. “Sunlight as weakness.” Already the wheels were turning in her mind. “Until six months ago. It fits.” She brought out the carnelian gem she had taken from the Kartaian corpse, peered at it as if it would reveal its secrets. “He might have found a workaround for that, offered his services to them. But I don’t think it’s all for free.” She grunted. “Blood magic in itself isn’t evil or forbidden, but his use of it is completely inhuman. He takes bodies and twists them into becoming his dolls. When I saw the Kartaian body back in the city, it moved and attacked me. Not in the conscious, deliberate way that its living counterparts did earlier, puppets are still just puppets, but it’s still powerful magic. His earlier attempts were much more crude than the display I had seen earlier. I highly doubt these monsters knew what they were agreeing to when they cast their lot with him.” 

She paused, absently fixing her hair. It really was a shame, the circumstances they had found themselves in: the night sky was lovely, otherwise. “Thanks,” she said after a long while. “Even if you didn’t really want to. Thanks for helping.”