3

“That snake-thing stays away,” repeated the town guard, staring at the three of them with his spear pointed in their direction. “Are you deaf? Monsters are not allowed here. How many times must I repeat myself?”

“A few more times, apparently,” stated Emony, annoyed. “But it won’t make a difference – she’s coming with us. It’s cold out here even for me, and I have warm blood in my veins.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing – but a dead monster can only ever be the opposite.”

Emony glanced over at Tiphaine for a moment and shrugged before taking a step closer to the human. “I’m done playing nice. Are you feeling witty?”

Tiphaine quickly grabbed him again and held him back. The town guard stared at them in disgust.

“We have a letter of intent and pass from the knight commander of the Coldbarrow field legion!” shouted Aylard. “You must let us into the village, to not do so would be to break the law!”

“Law, you say,” the man huffed. “That applies to humans. And I’ll be daft if I ever call that thing one of us! It stays outside – lucky I don’t kill it, as the laws I know demand! It can slither over to Palehome if it wants, those fiends can take it in. We’ve got enough problems already with the king’s damned witch! Now go on, monster! Scram!”

They had wasted too much time already. Aylard was reaching for his coin pouch, preparing option number two. Emony had rapidly become disgusted by option number two. He jumped straight to number three instead, opting for the most personally satisfying solution.

Quickly retrieving his unbroken hand from Tiphaine’s, he grabbed Aylard’s sword from its scabbard and leaped forward, reaching with it for the guard’s neck before the fool could react. But as soon as it collided, instead of slicing through, the blade stopped and crashed off the human, ringing Emony’s arm like a bell.

“Argh!” he shouted in pain, the vibrations reverberating through his arm. “What the—”

He glared at the human. He was suddenly grayer than the dull clouds in the sky. Only a small piece had been chipped out of his stone neck.

“Tiphaine!” he hissed, whirling around.

“Don’t look! Nor you, Aylard! I didn’t want him dead, okay? Be angry if you want, Emony, but I didn’t! Okay, now you can look.”

“You would have killed him,” gasped Aylard, staring at Emony, patting his waist, unable to locate his weapon. “We could have worked something out, or gone around him… But you would have killed him! He’s a human being!”

“And I’m not! So I don’t care!” he shouted, shoving the sword back towards him.

He stalked over to Tiphaine, staring angrily at her golden mask for a few moments before redirecting his anger towards the stone man again.

He leaned in close so his two companions wouldn’t hear his words. “That snake you just called a monster gave you another chance at life right now, fool. But don’t worry. There is no need to feel grateful. As soon as she tries to sneak away from me to free you, I will be there again to end you.”

He toppled over the statue into the dirt and glared back at his two companions. “Come on. Let’s get moving.”

Lenah’s house in Gull’s Landing was a large one, easily twice the size of the one she had in Aeliah. He could see smoke rising from the stone chimney, and colored glass windows allowing light inside. A metal door stood, baring their way, closed and locked. They had been knocking on it for ten minutes, standing around in the cold, before the footsteps Emony heard inside finally deigned to come open it. Typical.

“What do’ y wan?” asked the man who opened the door, however, a tall, somewhat fat human with crumbs on his face and messy hands, with no shirt shielding him from the cold. The smell of some sort of smoke was strong on his breath – and that was gray, as if it were coming out of a chimney. Emony suddenly found his foul mood abating, turning to pity.

What has she done to him?

“Good tidings to you, sir,” said Aylard politely, taking the lead, while he opted to stand behind him and hide Tiphaine from the man’s line of sight. “We beg your pardon, we’ve come to speak to the lady Lenah.”

“Lady? That’s rich,” Emony snorted.

“Not herrrre,” the man said, swaying and leaning onto the door to close it. Aylard stepped forward and prevented him from doing so.

“May we ask where she is? We’ve been assured that she lived in a cottage on the outskirts of town. Have we come to the wrong place?”

“No, this is definitely the right place,” said Tiphaine, eyeing the troubled human.

The man raised his head toward the sky, seemingly confused. He squinted with his bloodshot eyes. His pupils covered nearly the entirety of his eyes.

“I don’t think it’s that love potion of hers, Tiphaine. It looks worse. Divines, she managed to make something worse.”

“No. It can’t be worse than the love potion. No way.”

“Not here. There’s…. nobody here. Nobody real. Listennn… Come back in the… in the morning, okay? Come in the morning. You’re not here, either, anyway.”

“It’s… already noon,” Emony replied.

“Oh?” The man suddenly looked like he was going to hurl. “Oh… Oh, then come back… back in the evening.”

“Urgh, damned witch.” Rolling his eyes, Emony stepped past Tiphaine and Aylard and brushed past the man, entering the house. While the poor sod weakly protested, struggling to speak coherently, he took in the scene – and the heavy smell of smoke clinging to the dim, thick air. A table in the middle of the large room was covered with washcloths soaked in wine, tipped-over jugs and goblets, messy plates, fancy cutlery and wax candles dripping onto the floor, where shattered pieces of glass were littered around, all over the room. Smoke was rising in many small quantities from rolled-up leaves lying around on toppled chairs.

It was definitely the Lenah he knew that lived there. He grimaced. After turning him into a fish, she’d gone and had a party.

Emony looked back towards the human at the door, who was nearly tripping over himself trying to stand straight. Tiphaine, of all people, was helping keep him steady, he couldn’t even see clearly enough to panic at the sight of her.

He shrugged, a small hint of sympathy touching his heart. His experience had been very different, but the man’s plight was not entirely unknown to him. Lenah’s potions were always something else.

He strode over to the table, took a goblet and poured a drink. The wine smelled good, but he knew better than to ingest it.

With Aylard behind him, Emony strode further into the house. Beside countless wooden chalices lying on the floor and more of those rolled-up, smoking leaves was a small, expensive-looking woman’s shoe – but only one.

For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he should keep going, but he could still see Tiphaine patting the human on the back, watching him puke in front of her, and Aylard gazing uncomfortably at him, silently pleading with him to get further away from the two of them. He didn’t want vomit on his clothes, either, so, shrugging, he continued forward.

The room split into two halls, one going left, the other right. Behind the corner on the left, he saw the second shoe, draped on a coat hanger next to a door, along with a long, ornate black gown.

Emony, glancing over at Aylard for a moment to let him know he was to be quiet, silently opened the door and peered inside before shutting it just as stealthily. She was in there.

He knocked on the door gently. “Lenah? It’s me. Are you decent?”

“Yes, come in, Pauron,” answered her sleepy voice.

He opened the door and stepped into the bedroom, walking over broken glass and littered clothes. “I’m not Pauron. The human is vomiting outside with Tiphaine. And you said you were decent.”

A young, pale and freckled face, with ocean-blue eyes and lips, rose from the bedcovers, a stream of hair of the same hue following behind it.

“Oh, hi, Emony! I lied. Is that drink for me?”

Emony sighed and brought it over to her. He’d have thought she’d had too much already, but given she could talk, she was sober enough, unlike her newest lover.

“My lover?” she spat suddenly, looking at him in disgust, throwing off her blanket and revealing more of her nudity. She looked pretty stunning. “Absolutely not. Not that one. Pauron’s just a court advisor. And a prude. Please, just hand over the wine. Thank you. Now clean up your thoughts, Emony, you’ve already got Tiphaine. And you too, man-hiding-behind-the-doorway.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not exactly making it easy for us. Aylard, just remember she’s a good century older than she looks.”

“Rude,” Lenah growled.

“You can—”

“Read your thoughts? Yes, yes. But I can see you’ve already heard that I’m a witch, so why are you surprised? What are you guys doing here, anyway? Oh, Emony, you haven’t managed to fix that yet? Was Verena not able to… Oh. Oh. Oh, my bad. So that’s where all the black magic is coming from? Looks like I dropped you in the middle of something. That must be the first time you’ve ever had your arm broken, right? Let me play with it later. Hey, what’s your name, in the doorway?”

“Ay—”

“Right. Aylard. So, Aylard stays in the dark, is that right, Emony? But you know I love gossiping. My silence has a price and I will collect. And I want to see Tiphaine.”

The annoying witch scrambled out of the bed, long silk robes materializing out of nothing around her body as she stood up straight. While he watched, her blue hair brushed itself around her neck and jewels appeared out of nowhere over her new plunging neckline.

She drank deep from the goblet he’d brought her before abruptly throwing it away, walking over to him and invading his personal space with a hint of amusement in her eyes.

“Haha, it’s not working, is it, Emony? Go on, try remembering how old I am. You know, Tiphaine would be devastated if she could hear you right now.”

He shrugged. Tiphaine couldn’t blame him for his thoughts, he couldn’t control them. And Lenah was clearly being provocative.

“But will she see it that way? Why don’t we find out? Tiphaine, come here! You have no idea what Emony is thinking about right now!”

Emony slammed his unbroken hand into the wall a few inches in front of her, blocking her from leaving before she could skip past him. Lenah only started giggling as she turned to face him again.

“Well, in that case, we’ll have to find another way to have fun.”