Emony

He saw the first sign of the killing before he entered the house. The crimson red of the blood stood out against the white flowers it was staining in the garden. The second sign was the trail of dried droplets that led to the little wooden house, and the third, past the open front door, was the splintered wall lying on the floor beside the back door, which was ripped open and hanging on a single hinge.

The human, Aylard, who had been talking to him leisurely until then, apologizing for spilling his drink, abruptly shut up and unsheathed his sword, carefully stalking forward in front of them. What a hero, Emony thought. Unimpressed, he strode past him into the house and peered into the bedroom. The bed was unmade, with blankets lying all around, betraying that someone had jumped out of it in a hurry. Emony tasted the air out of instinct before remembering he was no longer a werewolf – but he didn’t really need to be one to smell that something had died there. The dried pool of blood next to the bed was starting to turn. Tiphaine was still slithering before the front door, pinching her nose under her mask, obviously uncomfortable. Shooting her a smile, Emony stepped fully into the small room and closed the door behind him.

Stepping gingerly past the pool of blood, he opened up the small nightstand that lay collapsed on the wooden floor next to the bed. How he missed having two functioning arms.

There was a small leather purse in the nightstand, which he grabbed and pocketed without hesitation. He looked over the other contents as well before tossing them onto the bed one by one: a bowl, a shaving knife, a key, a quill and even two letters written on parchment.

He turned them over and read, holding them still with his good hand. They were old and damp, but still legible. One was a note from the “Bank of Trouwts”, informing Garrick the merchant that he owed them a sum of twenty-seven silver pieces, to be paid back by spring of next year. He shook the pocket he’d put the man’s purse in. He didn’t have enough. The other was a letter to “Lenah of Gulls Landing.” It was a love letter he hadn’t sent. There was a silver ring tied to it with a string.

Lenah of Gull’s Landing. If it was the same Lenah Emony knew… No, actually it wouldn’t be that surprising. She lived all over the place. Maybe it was her.

Poor guy.

He lifted the letter to the light of the window to get a better look at the ring. It was real silver, he saw. As a werewolf, he’d never been able to touch it, but he certainly knew how to make it out. Lenah would have hated the thing if she received it. Any witch would have.

After a moment of thought, he rejoined his companions in the main room, keeping both the ring and the two letters.

“Find anything?” he asked Aylard.

“By the look of things, he was attacked,” Aylard muttered, glancing in Emony’s direction for a moment.

“Obviously. He’s also dead. I meant, did you find anything that could help us find out how he was involved in moving the former queen.”

The human winced and went back to looking around, shaking his head.

“Tiphaine?” he inquired next.

“No, I didn’t find anything either,” she said, her hand over her mouth.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded quickly. She was obviously lying.

He resolved to find that new lead quickly. “Aylard, the man didn’t die in here. He was asleep when his attacker came in. He woke up as it entered the bedroom – got slashed across the chest and stomach, staggered away, made it outside, and died there. Don’t bother with that, help me find out who the man was.”

Aylard looked over at him in shock. He returned the gaze – he’d expected the human to be more familiar with death.

“I know, because I’m the one that did it,” he joked. It didn’t seem that it was appreciated.

Unfortunately, over the next twenty minutes, they found nothing. Emony had Tiphaine leave the house, convincing her, despite her protests, that there could be clues outside, before ransacking the place and finding nothing but more wooden bowls, mugs, some silverware and a small barrel of cider that smelled like it had turned.

Once again, he looked over the pieces of parchment he’d taken.

“What do you care about what happened to that girl, anyway?” asked Aylard. “The rebellion was ten years ago. It has nothing to do with the men of the lake.”

“So says the expert,” he murmured, trying to read. It was harder when someone was trying to talk to him.

“Look – I haven’t seen a woman trying to murder us any of the times we’ve been attacked. So please explain it to me. Why is finding this girl, Imarah, important? ... Shouldn’t we be researching ways to break curses? How to destroy the undead? Well?”

After a few wasted moments, Emony looked up from the letters, smiling maliciously. He hadn’t managed to read a thing.

“I’d rather not say. Just trust that it’s important and stop asking questions about why. Or, I might just trip, and accidentally slit your throat. Tiphaine might be cross with me, but you’ll be with the men of the lake. You’ll understand everything.”

Aylard stared at him in disbelief for a few seconds, then looked away, apparently unsure which expression he should wear on his face.

Suddenly, while he was staring at him, Emony was struck by a thought: That every word the human had spoken might have been consciously schemed. It seemed, somehow, like there was a methodical order to every question…

No, no, he was just being paranoid again. As Tiphaine said, humans always brought out the worst in him. It wasn’t his fault, after what they’d done to his parents, but…

“I don’t think we are going to find anything here,” Aylard said as he was thinking, not meeting his eyes. “We’ve looked through the whole place. Unless you found something in the bedroom?”

“Maybe I did,” he said, narrowing his eyes. That feeling was back. For a moment, he wondered if he should turn into a mermaid and ask him a few questions. Were he still a werewolf, he would have pulled the truth out of his throat… but becoming a mermaid was too unnerving. He decided against it.

“Come then. Let’s go.”

“Yeah.”

“Find anything, Tiphaine?” he asked, stepping out into the garden. His preferred companion was slithering around the grass in the garden, careful not to disturb the bloody scene of the murder.

She pointed over to the patch of flowers stained by blood. “I think he died here,” she said. “But it’s not where the trail ends. The smell is faint, but it goes that way.”

“To the lake,” Emony said. “Where he is now.”

For a moment, he wondered if she had accepted that Verena was likely complicit in the murder. Knowing her, she was probably trying to avoid thinking about it. There was no point in forcing it on her.

“Aylard, I trust you will report this to the knight commander? Judging by the color and the smell of the blood, I’d say the man died a week ago. Let’s get back to camp.”

Of course, he couldn’t really smell anything. But what was the harm? It’s not paranoia if you’re right.