Emony felt a cold liquid trickle down his back. He whirled around in an instant, ready to attack – but he saw it was just Aylard behind him, stepping back in shock at seeing his reaction and spilling more of the ale he was holding.

“Sorry,” he remarked upon seeing Emony’s murderous expression. “I was just… getting us a refill.”

More of the liquid fell on Emony’s tunic. Panic rising, he quickly turned to Tiphaine. She shook her head. Turning everyone in the tavern into stone… bad idea. But his skin was already vibrating where the ale had made contact with it. He had to get away.

As fast as his legs could carry them, he sprinted out of the tavern.

The sun blinded him momentarily upon reaching the outside, but he ignored that and ran in the direction of the lake. A few humans walking along the road stared at him, confused, and quickly stepped out of his way.

“Stay here!” he heard Tiphaine shout, probably at Aylard and the rest. He was already far away. The wind was whipping his face as he ran.

He got lucky. Just as he leaped toward the water, while he was soaring through the air, his legs combined into that long, golden tail, ripping apart his newest pair of pants, and the top half of his body contorted into a smaller, feminine frame.

At the same moment, magic wrapped itself tightly around Emony’s mind, poisoning her thoughts again. The top part of her tunic was quickly stretched by her expanding chest, but by a rare stroke of good fortune, it held. Maybe, just maybe, the king wouldn’t kill her for making him lust after her.

And she had nearly resorted to violence earlier when she’d caught Tiphaine trying to sneak Verena’s bra into her/his pockets.

Emony’s unfamiliar new face was the first thing to touch the water, and the clear, cold liquid flooded straight into her smaller-than-normal mouth and nose. This time, she didn’t resist it, instead letting it fill her lungs, as panic-inducing as that was.

She slipped underwater and lithely turned herself around, so she was not upside-down but opted to stay under the surface. After a couple of seconds, her madly beating heart calmed down and her breathing slowed. She grew accustomed to the water in her throat and lungs. Her broken arm suddenly registered pain, as it had fallen out of its sling.

Breathing out the agony, she secured it against her chest again, grabbed her slowly sinking ripped pants and fished the bra out of them before swimming further away from the shore, trying to spy anything that might be happening there through the light bent by the water’s surface while she put it on.

“So, what now?” she sighed finally, not being able to make out anything outside and instead looking around the water.

The lake was a beautifully vivid blue, teeming with fish and rocky grounds that steadily grew deeper as the shore grew further away. It was beautiful. If only she hadn’t just been turned into a female fish, she would have definitely wanted to stay there for a while.

In the distance, she spotted something large floating in the water.

As she got closer, she first thought it was a human, and her instinct was to back away, but then she realized that one of those could not survive, unmoving under the water as it was. She thought it must have been a corpse, then, and she was sort of right – but the cadaver turned its head to look at her.

It was a man of the lake.

Gulping fresh water along with her spit, she swam over to it, assuring herself that it was her friend.

She stopped a respectful distance away, hoping she’d put the bra on right. By the divines, if she’d have to ask Tiphaine to teach her…

Actually, she smiled thinking on it further, maybe if I pretend to be thoroughly incompetent, I could get a demonstration…

She pulled herself away from such thoughts.

“Um… My king, can you hear me through this man?” she asked the man of the lake. Seeing the flesh rotting off his face, she noticed the slight tremble in her unfamiliarly cute voice.

The corpse remained quiet but nodded its head in response. Perhaps it no longer had vocal cords. Strange that its ears and eyes still seemed to work, then, even after they had all rotten away.

“My king, I’ve come to report back to you – I was forced into the water by some humans that I need to remain ignorant of my nature. I will go back soon – but first, I thought I would relay to you some information – we have discovered that your queen really may have been taken somewhere from here, after you died on that boat ten years ago.”

The man of the lake stood completely still, unmoved by the waves that rhythmically swayed her.

“The men that may have taken her had a local named Derreck – no, Garrick, that was the name – cart around the corpses of your personal guards for them when they left the village after the coup was done. We hope to find this man soon, to ask him if your queen was among them – though she would have been alive, of course.”

Upon hearing the last of her words, the floating cadaver slowly moved an arm towards its front and abruptly punched itself in the face. Suddenly, it started pounding its head forward into its knees, shattering its own bones, before continuing to punch itself again. Its head was fracturing with every impact it laid on itself. Emony could only look on with her mouth open, thoroughly unnerved.

The tantrum lasted for minutes.

Then, when it finally calmed down, it stood unmoving in the water again, as if nothing had happened. Emony couldn’t tell what to do or say next.

She heard a woman’s voice pierce the wall of bubbles behind her.

“Garrick can’t help us,” said Verena, who appeared a moment later.

“Verena – my lady. It’s good to see you. That’s… a shame. We were hoping to spend the day interrogating him. May I ask why we can’t?”

The mermaid swam over closer to her and sadly gazed at the man of the lake. “The dead cannot remember. Their minds are gone. That’s Garrick, right in front of you.”

Emony turned to look at the corpse. He did look a little… fresh?

“He joined the ranks only a week ago. It was an accident,” Verena said.

“I suppose the villagers don’t know yet, since they say he was a merchant…” she responded, nodding. “They must think he’s gone to sell something in another village or town.”

Verena swam even closer to her, stopping near her face as she floated awkwardly in the light current, trying to balance herself with her one good arm. Garrick the merchant followed.

“I hope that wasn’t your only lead?” Verena asked hopefully.

“Merely the first,” she responded quickly, eyeing the pair of grimy eye sockets watching her. “I’m sure we will have another soon. On that note, I should probably get back to land to go and find it.”

“Yes, that would be great. Come back when you find something new, or if you need any sort of help. We’ll be glad to provide it. Hey, Emony, Garrick’s house was that way. It’s on a little hill. I know, because he would often… we used to be friends, of a sort.”

“I see. I’m… sorry, then. I’ll be back soon.”

Verena shifted around the water nervously. “One more thing. Since you’ve already talked to the villagers – did any of them mention a settlement called Palehome? It’s north of here, the opposite direction from Terrena. A few days march, according to Aulduyen.”

“No, none of them mentioned it.”

“Make certain it’s not important, that we don’t need any information anyone there might have. And tell us soon if there might be. We can give you…. I’m sorry, perhaps three days, at the most.”

“Three days. Okay. I’ll ask around again, and if anyone mentions it’s connected at all to the rebellion, I’ll let you know.”

“Or anything else that might be related,” added Verena. “Anything at all.”

“Of course. I’ll be back soon with my next report.”

The dead form of Garrick nodded and swam back to where it had floated from before she arrived. Before Emony could turn to leave as well, Verena spoke to her again.

“Just one more thing, Emony. You understand why I’m asking… right?”

“Yes,” she nodded, for a moment looking past Verena towards the man of the lake, who was shifting away. “Yes, I think I do.”