“Emony!” Tiphaine shrieked a few minutes later. She hadn’t seen the color come back to her face, covered with mud as it was. At least it looked like her solution had worked.

“Emony, why in undeath did you do that?!” she shouted, wiping it from her eyes.

“Tiphaine, look away! I understand that you’re upset, but – I said look away! Before you wipe it off! You’re going to become a rock again!”

At least Tiphaine still listened to her.

“You stupid dog! Where are you?! You didn’t have to go that far! I was just having a little fun!” shouted Tiphaine.

“Don’t move, Tiphaine, you’re going to hit your head on a tree! Stop going forward! Thank you. Now, then… Are you dumb?! You petrified yourself and did this to me for fun?! Do you have any idea of the kind of crisis I am having in my mind right now?! Hey! Don’t look in that direction! Stupid snake, you deserved it and you know it! I said, don’t look in that direction! Don’t you dare petrify yourself again, or I’ll have to do it all over again!”

“Don’t you dare!” Tiphaine sobbed.

Slowly, Emony’s friend removed the mud from her eyes and flicked it away from her fingers before carefully peeking through them and looking at her.

“Come here,” Emony said, beckoning towards her whilst avoiding her gaze. “You missed a bit. But close your eyes, don’t make me a statue now.”

While Tiphaine slithered over and laid down next to her, Emony wet her hands in the stream and helped her clean up her face. It was difficult for Tiphaine to do it all herself, since she couldn’t risk looking at it. Once Emony was done, Tiphaine slithered away to grab her mask and put it back on.

“You’re pretty cute again, though. It was worth the trouble,” the damned snake said.

“Shut up.”

Again, the cuteness of her new voice disturbed Emony. Not to mention the magic she could acutely feel tying itself in knots in her mind.

“Oh, don’t worry, Emony, you still look really threatening! Yes, that’s the expression! You’re so adorable – I mean scary! Definitely scary! Here, fishy doggy!”

“By the divines, Tiphaine, as soon as this curse is lifted and I’m a werewolf again, I will eat your living hair-vipers while you watch. Shut up!”

Though Tiphaine was laughing, her mouth slammed shut in an instant. Emony noticed her pupils dilate for a moment, just like the soldier’s had.

She hadn’t meant to do that.

“I’m sorry! Divines, are you okay? You can speak again,” Emony said. “You didn’t bite off your tongue, did you?”

Tiphaine opened her mouth and started checking up on her jaw.

“Are you okay?” Emony asked again.

“Yeah. I’m fine. You’re pretty mean today, Emony.”

Emony looked away. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, I’ve had a stressful week. I’ll make it up to you.”

Tiphaine stared at her suspiciously from behind her mask for a moment before gazing to the side, lost in thought.

“I’ll help you dry off.”

A few minutes later, with immeasurable relief, Emony felt her body begin to vibrate again, and powerful legs once again replaced her golden-scaled tail. As soon as she dared risk it, she patted herself … himself down and looked down under his tunic. The breasts were gone. He was a man again.

With immense relief Emony noticed the strings of magic begin losing their grip on his mind. He was becoming himself again.

“Praise all that is divine,” he said, gazing up at the sky.

“Your pants are a little… gone,” Tiphaine said beside him, looking in another direction while the vipers on her head stared at him curiously. “It wasn’t me.”

“Technically it was, since you tricked me into transforming. But whatever. So much for Lenah’s magical unrippable clothing. I knew she was a useless, stupid little witch. Where’s my backpack?”

His companion slithered over to a nearby tree and threw the thing over to him. Luckily, he managed to find his pair of backup pants in it. He’d need to get a new backup, though.

“So, do you want to go check out the lake later? You think your friend is in there?” he asked.

“Well, I can smell a lot of magic in the air, so there’s definitely something,” Tiphaine responded. He missed his own empowered sense of smell. “But I don’t know if it’s her. She doesn’t do dark magic. And the most potent smell is… death. Look how many ravenwood trees there are around here.”

“You’re right, there are a lot of them. Lucky for the petrified villagers, I suppose, but something pretty bad must have happened here in the past. Perhaps those “men of the lake” the humans mentioned are connected to it. You know, I don’t remember Lenah saying anything about any black magic in the area. I thought we were just going to have a nice, friendly little chat with your mermaid friend.”

“Yeah, me too. But if Verena’s really in the lake with those undead and some king… Emony... I’m worried. Can we check up on her?”

Emony scratched his chin. “'I wonder... I can’t exactly fight off an army of the undead as a fish, so should we side with the humans? That’d leave a bad taste in my mouth – but at the very least, we need more information. For now, let’s play nice. Let’s get back to camp.”