Varil was awake, of course. He didn't sleep nearly as much as most people and was just down the hall from the door when he heard it open and shut rapidly. He wasn't too worried or suspicious, the fact that none of his traps had gone off indicated that the person visiting had a key, and only two people other than himself had one.

"This is certainly an unexpected surprise." Varil said as he stepped into the hallway from the adjoining one that branched into the kitchen and living room of his home.

True to his nature, he was wearing an apron, which was covered in spices. There was a distinct smell wafting down the hall, meats and herbs cooking with a rather pleasant and faint sizzle. He wiped his hands down on the apron and arched a brow at her, shaking his head to help get the unruly mass of hair back from his eyes.

"Were you hoping to get your hands on some dinner tonight?" He asked curiously as he walked down the hall toward Ashira.

"Not home," Gasparo de Luca mused to himself, out loud as he so often did. Crueler or more miserly masters offered nothing of their thoughts or feelings to those apprenticed to them; Gasparo thought this a crippling shame. Let them hear; let them know. Comprehension, understanding, context; these things provided more than adequate barriers to separate master and apprentice.

In response to the voiced words, Annunziato stepped out of the shadows he'd concealed himself in. The pools of darkness cast by the variegated witchlights of this world made such stealth effective beyond anything that could have been obtained at home.

"I saw no one, Captain," Annunziato said. 'Master' was so....antiquated a term, after all. "That does not mean there was no one to be seen."

"Your eyes fail you, Apprentice?"

"My Captain," Annunziato replied with a slight bow, deferential but in no way defensive, "the light here favors not me alone."

"She is cagey." Gasparo shrugged. "To startle her into action by revealing myself in the light was but a hope, not a true plan of any sorts. Were she a quarry so easily flushed I'd have put her to the torch long ago. " He cast a cold look around at the perverse world of the black arts she had apparently, quite happily, taken as her home. "But she has little personal defense here, and I doubt not she knows that. So long as she knows me to have found her, she will be afraid. And rightly so." The tight leather of new gloves creaked slightly.

"My Captain, I would ask....how do you know she is the one" Is she not capable of disguise by the altering of her very body?"

"I have some small experience in the matter, Annunziato," Gasparo said sardonically, his fists loosening at his side as the foolish question dulled the raw edge of anger. "In particular, motions. Change the color of hair and eye or even mildly alter the figure, what have you — yet the body remains the body, and thus moves as it always does. I saw her move, that first time I espied her. I would know her anywhere. The benefits of a long hunt."

"Now search!" he snapped at his apprentice. "Make a catalog of all possible approaches to this building, and all hiding places. She will return here, I've no doubt, at a time when she knows me to be elsewhere. You must observe."

Annunziato bowed his understanding, then set about an immediate canvass of the area. He was quick-minded and a good study. Gasparo knew his aid would be invaluable.

After far too long, the hunt would be over, and the witch purified by good holy flame.

Though....Tongue touched and wetted lips. Though not necessarily with skin properly attached.