The questioning went on for some time, and Tress felt like they were coming no closer to finding the assassin. Some of the women they interrogated were angry and offended at the idea of being made to perform their Magic, while others simply showed off what they could do and left. At one point, they’d had another human woman who displayed the Shadow domain, but her second domain turned out to be Water, thus ruling her out of the suspect pool.

And not a single one of their interviewees displayed Chaos Magic.

Between questionings, the three of them would sometimes discuss what they had learned so far, and what, if any, theories they’d devised,

“I could be Karla,” Tress pointed out. She had been thinking on this for a while. “I mean, you could probably use Mind Magic to fake Chaos Magic, right? She could have made me think she was using Chaos. Or she could use Mind Magic to nudge people into stumbling, or putting themselves in the way of something. That sort of thing.”

“That strikes me as an awful lot of effort to go to, just to convince people you had a different domain than you do,” her brother replied. “And I imagine that anyone with access to Mind Magic would have simpler methods of disguising their ability.”

Tress sighed. She had to admit that he had a point. “That’s true. I mean, Karla had us ready to just let her go without a second thought. How’d you figure out what she was doing, Seahawk?”

The bigger woman grunted and shrugged. “I’ve had some experience with Mind Magic,” she said, and left it at that. Tress guessed that maybe Karla had overextended herself trying to put a mental whammy on three people at once, and Seahawk’s mind had been able to slip through her powers as a result.

They held more interviews, talking to another eld, and another orc, and a dwarf woman whom Tress was initially ready to dismiss out of hand.

“I saw the assassin,” she said. “She wasn’t a dwarf. She was too tall.”

But Truss wasn’t convinced by her argument. “You saw the shadows that the assassin was covering herself with,” he noted. “Who’s to say she wasn’t extending them upward to hide her true height?”

That was technically possible, Tress supposed. But Truss hadn’t seen the way the killer had moved. He hadn’t seen the weapons twirling in her hands. Tress doubted that there was any way for the assassin to have faked her height that well, even with Shadow Magic.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Still, they saw more dwarves, and Tress was vindicated each and every time—none displayed either of the domains they were looking for.

Almost nobody did, in fact. Truss’ initial assumption regarding the rarity of those domains was proving correct: they had seen two Shadow domains, and not a single Chaos.

Thus the questioning continued. The three of them interviewed every single woman aboard the Menelen, and to their frustration they found that none of their questioning bore any fruit.

When the last of the female passengers had been questioned, Captain Klempt entered the cabin.

“Any luck?” he asked.

“No,” said Truss, head in his hands. “We’ve had no matched.”

The captain frowned. “But how can that be?” he asked. “Every woman aboard has been in to see you! Is the killer a stowaway then?”

“It’s looking like she may be,” said Tress with a sigh. “Which I suppose makes sense. She wouldn’t want a record to connect her to the voyage, would she?”

“I’ll have to have my boys search the hold, then,” said Captain Klempt with a groan. “Bright Queen above, but this is turning out to be a real mess, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Truss agreed. “I’m sorry, captain. I really thought we’d find her like this.”

“It would seem that Tress was correct about her being a professional,” said Seahawk. “And as a professional, she knows how to hide. There’s a good chance that we may not find her before—” She was interrupted by the window behind them blowing itself open.

Captain Klempt cursed and went to close it. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Damn thing is always coming undone, whenever a strong enough wind hits it. I was hoping to get it fixed the next time we stopped at Whitmouth.”

“It’s fine,” said Tress. She slumped in her seat. “So then what’s our next move? Should we help look through the cargo hold? I mean, we’ve come this far, and I kind of want to be a part of finding her… and show her what it feels like to get stabbed in the side too.” She noticed her brother wasn’t paying attention. “Hey Truss? Truss? You with us?”

He was staring at the window, and his brow was furrowed in that way it always was whenever he was deep in thought. “What are the odds of a strong wind hitting that window, right as someone needs to demonstrate her magic?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” sad Tress. “Pretty low, I guess. Why do you… ask…?” She trailed off as realization hit her, and her eyes went wide.

“Chaos Magic,” Truss muttered. “Of course. I wondered why she didn’t call forth a gust from inside the cabin, but I figured she just had a flair for showmanship. But if she could change probabilities, manipulate chance and stack the odds in her favor… it would be so easy to fake Air Magic, wouldn’t it?”

“What…?” Captain Klempt began. He was cut off as Seahwak suddenly jumped to her feet.

“Captain,” she said. “The elf woman named Hil’sari—send your men to find her at once. She is the assassin.”