"One of Yalrendo's most eligible bachelorettes has been found dead in her bed. The news has sent shockwaves through many of the capital's noble houses. Just this spring, the charming Noemi Amatto dazzled everyone, becoming the season's standout debutante! The entire family is in mourning, and it's no wonder. Following an examination by healers, it was determined that the young woman died of natural causes—the poor dear's heart simply stopped. It is truly tragic to realize that such serious health issues can strike at so young an age. However, as the family's healer assures us, heart conditions are not uncommon in the Amatto bloodline.

Nevertheless, Vittoria Amatto, the mother of the deceased, has made a rather sensational claim: that her daughter was murdered. While the esteemed lady's sentiments are entirely understandable, as far as we know, no official case will be opened regarding this matter. Will Vittoria risk a conflict with the magical police?"

I turned the page, but there was nothing else of interest—just standard news briefs. The city was moving on with its life. That was fine; it would have been strange if they'd dedicated several spreads to my death. Still, they could have chosen a more flattering portrait.

I tossed the crumpled newspaper aside and wiped my hands on the grass. I had fished my paper trophy out of the dumpster located in the backyard, right near the kitchen door. The very idea of digging through the trash—oh, the horror!—would never have crossed my mind before, but apparently, the afterlife was opening up whole new horizons for me.

It was simply because there was absolutely no way for me to slip into the house unnoticed. And as for the morning mail—which, as it turned out, did contain a letter from the police—no one had graciously thought to leave it on the lawn in front of my chosen bushes so I could peruse it.

Regardless, judging by Mother and Uncle's subsequent conversation, it had merely been a polite rejection to yet another request to open a criminal investigation. After fuming a bit more about the sheer injustice of it all, my relatives retreated indoors, and silence fell over the yard once again.

There was a little less than two hours left before the usual daytime hustle and bustle began out here. Clearly, it would be better to spend that time productively rather than gnawing on foul-tasting branches.

The thought occurred to me that earlier letters might have been thrown out, so I went to conquer new territories. Fortunately, by my calculations, it was only the middle of the week, meaning the trash hadn't been collected since my death. Unfortunately, there was already a massive pile of it, practically overflowing from the giant bin, and the stench was downright incredible. Before, just standing near it would have made me gag, but now I only felt a mild sense of revulsion. That, and a tremendous surge of excitement. I desperately wanted to see Mother's request, the one mentioned in today's letter! After all, this wasn't the first response from the police. Why was she so certain I had been murdered?

I wanted to talk to her so badly, but alas, that was impossible. In our world, the rules were simple: if you die, be a dear and lie still. If you don't, the necromancers will promptly put you back in your place. The living do not negotiate with the undead. And the latter, as a rule, aren't particularly conversational either.

Which meant, in order not to harm myself or my family, I needed to stay far away from them.

I didn't find any letters in the trash, but amidst the potato and beet peelings, I did uncover a recent issue of the Yalrendo Chronicles.

The newspaper wasn't lying—a so-called heart condition really did run in our family, and it was quite dangerous. My father had it, my great-grandmother had it, but out of Vittoria's three children, only Dominic had been diagnosed. I had been examined countless times, and every single healer had unanimously declared me perfectly healthy.

So why the tsdag did my heart stop?

It was already hard enough to come to terms with my own death, and now there was this murder theory to deal with. In my mind, the word "murder" was associated with fatal wounds and curses, not with unceremoniously giving up the ghost in one's own bed. Besides, if the healers had confirmed natural causes, what was the point of all these suspicions?

And yet, Mother's certainty had somehow infected me. Plus, there was one other detail that continued to bother me.

Try as I might, I couldn't remember a single thing from the evening at Duke Loisenzo's. Not the reception itself, not the journey home. All the memories were completely obscured. I knew, somehow, that they were there, but how could I reach them? Had someone messed with my head, or was this just a side effect of dying?

The back door slammed shut. I held my breath. The bushes I was currently hiding in (who knew I'd be taking a grand tour of the yard's shrubbery?) were thicker and more neglected—it was the backyard, after all—but if you looked closely, you could still spot someone lurking inside.

"Did the rats get into the trash again last night?!"

The kitchen maid, who had evidently come out to toss the breakfast scraps, glared disapprovingly at the scene of my search operations. Yes, I had to admit, I hadn't been very careful and had left quite a mess.

"Biti, what is it now?!" the cook yelled from inside. "Can't tear your eyes away from the garbage?"

"The rats made a mess again!" the girl called back. "I told Miss Carmela we needed to order a new lid. Who's supposed to clean all this up?"

The door slammed loudly, echoing the maid's indignation. I had a feeling the rats were in for a war. And it wasn't even their fault.

I let out a loud sigh. Then I remembered that I didn't actually need to do that anymore, tried to feel upset about it, but once again, came up empty. Irritated, I ripped a few handfuls of grass out of the soil, kicked dirt everywhere, and felt a little better.

Fortunately, there were no witnesses to my latest outburst.

I needed to get out of my leafy sanctuary before the whole house woke up completely. The only question was: where to? Maybe I should try showing up at the police station? Maybe they'd help once they saw I was perfectly sane?

Only, I was unlikely to make it there without incident in my no-longer-so-white attire. But I only thought of that after I had already left the estate. I looked around, but thankfully, there was no one on the street yet who might raise an alarm over a vagrant wandering into the wrong neighborhood.

To my luck, this part of the city featured a row of trees planted along the sidewalks to provide cool shade in the summer, which made creeping along a bit less nerve-wracking. I walked one block, then another—the wealthy mansions gradually began to give way to humbler dwellings, and people started appearing on the streets who looked as if they had crawled out of the same graveyard I had.

A couple of vagrants were trying to walk inconspicuously, sticking to the shadows and darting from one fence to the next. They were heading in the same direction but moving completely independently of each other. Returning from somewhere? I had never wondered what the homeless did at night, but they looked like they were dragging themselves home from a grueling shift.

The few maids already hurrying about on household errands tried their hardest to pretend they didn't see the beggars. They were probably lumping me into the same category, which played right into my hands.

The old Noemi, accustomed to strolling only through beautiful, manicured parks and fluttering from one noble house to another, would have been terrified to follow a couple of vagrants into the unknown. But the new me was being guided by some instinct, and that instinct was practically voting to tail these strange men. Maybe they'd lead me to some place where I could easily blend in. The homeless stick together and help each other out, right?

My naive, childish dreams were shattered in an alleyway. The vagrant I had set my sights on—having decided it was better to chase one rabbit than two—ducked into it, and when I followed him, the path ahead was empty. I stopped in confusion, looking around. He was fast! He must have noticed he was being followed and decided to drop out of sight before anything bad happened.

"Well now, pretty lady," a hoarse voice suddenly rasped from behind me. "What exactly do you think you're doing?"