Jaethal was frantically trying to set up a timeline in her head. Two dozen years ago... and, give or take, twice that amount of time... that meant... Could it be that Guelder was lying about her age, saying she was in her forties? And as to her condition, was she really a natural werecreature, born with the curse and partly cured from it, or rather a freshly afflicted one, not yet in possession of her full potential? More importantly, could it be that her current persona was just a masterfully maintained mask, hiding someone entirely different?

Her train of thought was interrupted when Guelder returned from the woods, her sleeve ripped, her upper arm bleeding from a deep cut. She looked around, taking the massacre in.

"What in the nine hells was this all about?" she cried out. "They come here with an armed escort, tell me their nauseating sob stories, then attack me, me, who have no clue whatsoever about their lord or whatnot? And what does this have to do with the boar and the dagger?"

Hazel hurried to her and sat her down beside the remains of the fire, finding a place that miraculously remained clean from spilt drugs and bodily fluids. They didn't let themself be shooed away by Harrim preparing to do his job.

"I tried to capture one alive for interrogation," sighed Guelder, "and failed. Now I will never learn the truth."

"Just give me a minute," said Jaethal with a mysterious smile. "Some inquisitor I would be if I could not get you the answers you crave for."

After all, people did not have to be alive to speak.

Looking at the corpses, though, one after the other, she had to admit that it wouldn't be so easy. The pleasure slave's head was split in two neat and symmetrical halves, so that one wouldn't speak. As to the silver-haired elf, Valerie didn't leave much of his face intact, either. Jaethal's best bet was the cook. She had never cast Speak with Dead before, but she'd seen the spell being used in court and read up on it, so she had a general idea how to go about it.

Jaethal focused on the cook's body, now devoid of soul but not yet entirely severed from it. She could sense the heavy silence of the others. Their tangible horror and astonishment filled her with some semblance of pleasure.

When she finally opened her eyes, the corpse sat upright on the ground, opposite from her, stuffing its bowels back into its body, as though ashamed of being in such an unpresentable state. Jaethal waited patiently until it finished, then splashed it with a dose of negative energy. The terrible wound closed up immediately.

"You... monster! What did you do to me?" muttered the corpse in Elven, horrified.

"It is not your place to ask questions, wench," said Jaethal coldly. "Now speak the truth and do not hide anything. Who set you up to lure us into a trap?"

"A... a half-elf. Chestnut hair, a little greying, in his seventies or so. He calls himself the Wanderer. He told us we would find you here. You and the master. He said we would recognise him and—"

It broke down crying.

Jaethal flipped out her poor, mutilated dagger and showed it to the corpse.

"What do you know about this dagger?"

"Nothing! I only cooked his meals! Never did weapon maintenance!"

"Whose meals? Say the name!"

"Falaris Summer Breeze, may he be cursed in this world and the next!"

"Mind your tongue, trollop!"

In a sudden surge of anger, Jaethal slapped the corpse across the face. It fell back with a yelp, and tried to scamper away from her.

"You stay here!" snapped Jaethal. The corpse froze in place and looked at her in awed despair.

"Jaethal?" grumbled Harrim behind her back. "What in the nonexistent beard of Groetus are you doing right now?"

Jaethal turned back towards him, letting go of the corpse's frightened gaze for a moment.

"Shut up, priest! I know what I am doing!"

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"I don't think so. You're doing it all wrong."

"What do you mean? I am speaking with the dead. Is that a problem?"

"No, Jaethal. You're speaking with an undead."

Jaethal paused for a moment. Had she really...?

"Wow, you're a true necromancer now!" cheered Linzi. "This is so... um... creepy! GAAAH!"

Jaethal's heart was filled with praise to the Pallid Princess. However, there were still so many questions to ask.

"The witness is yours," she said, looking at Guelder. "Ask away."

The corpse let out a long, heartrending wail. Of course, undeath was not for the faint-hearted. Jaethal, too, had her struggles, even nowadays, even though she'd welcomed the second chance her goddess had granted her. The first moments were the worst, especially if someone didn't approach their new situation with an open mind.

However, this agony led to great blessings over time.

"Let her go, Jaethal," said Guelder. "We shall find another way to get to the bottom of this matter."

"What?" exclaimed Jaethal. "She has just received the greatest gift imaginable, from the Pallid Princess herself, by my humble hands! This is not something to be squandered! She needs a little time to adjust, but she will be fine, I promise."

"Undead lady," said Linzi, "do you want to stay with us?"

The cook continued wailing, crying, tearing at her hair with both hands.

"I take that as a no," said the baroness in a stern voice.

"We need more answers, and this is the only way to get them!" Jaethal argued desperately, surprising even herself. The new undead was not particularly fun to be around in her present state, but if given some time to calm down and make peace with her unlife, she would prove to be a motherlode of information.

Guelder grabbed Jaethal by the shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. The guileless forest girl vanished without trace. What Jaethal saw was the powerful, commanding gaze of her mentor, in a somewhat beastly version, which only made it more awe-inspiring.

"Let. Her. Go."

Jaethal reluctantly nodded and released the stranglehold she was keeping on the undead's soul. The corpse fell sprawled to the ground, dead again, this time irreversibly.

Despite her disappointment about losing her new minion, Jaethal found herself weirdly thankful to Enneo. Without this elaborate trap, she would have never got so close to discovering the girl's secret—even if the elves' theory was obviously false, only believed by a small, naive and embarrassing sliver of Jaethal's soul. Her scrutinising gaze bored into the beastly eyes that forgot to look away, and she flashed the shadow of a knowing smile.

"Let us bury the dead," said the baroness softly. "Linzi, make a description of each corpse, adding all the information they revealed about themselves. I will help with that part. Collect a personal item from each of them for the Storyteller, so that he can take readings of them and identify their owners. Then I must contact Queen Edasseril and sort this out with her before it evolves into a scandal and poisons Nightvale's relations with Kyonin."

Jaethal could hardly keep herself from shuddering. The Storyteller, an old elf who had claimed a room in Guelder's palace, sent a chill down her spine everytime she thought about him. He was the exact opposite of what Urgathoa stood for. He was ancient, even for an elf, probably more than a thousand years old, and he looked the part, too: blind, bald, wrinkled, hideous. This was not the proper way to escape death. However, he had an uncanny ability: by touching an object, he could access a part of its owner's thoughts and experiences.

Jaethal, however, was much more invested in Enneo than the identity of the six morons.

"We are wasting time," she said. "We must return to the capital as soon as possible, and make the half-blood answer for this little prank."

Valerie bit back a protest, and cast a pleading glance at Guelder. She wanted to get over with meeting her unwanted visitors as quickly as possible.

"You have a point, Jaethal," said the baroness. "You, too, Valerie. We must split the party."

And so it happened that the baroness continued her journey to Levetonsk to deal with the Eternal Rose with her three non-elven companions, while Jaethal and Hazel were to return to Tuskdale with a letter of authorisation to put Enneo in prison under the strictest surveillance. He was to remain unharmed until Guelder returned.

Jaethal couldn't guarantee that.