Kylara never reached Imla’s house.

What would be the point? Ulinda was already dead. Her body was in pieces on the ground. There was no bringing her back.

Kylara did not believe in empty gestures. A healer was not going to bring Ulinda back, and a healer was not going to find out who did this.

She was.

The longer she waited, the longer the murderer would be free. Kylara glanced back at the forest.

The killer was still there, hiding amongst the dark. Waiting. Lurking. She was sure of it. She could almost feel their presence. It hung as a weight in the air, pressing and squeezing against her skin. It felt like the Desert had crept closer.

Kylara looked away. At the moment, at least, the evil felt contained. When Ulinda was dying, Kylara had had the foresight to put up a trigger ward around town. It wouldn’t block anyone from entering–you needed real wards for that–but it would give Kylara some notice if they got close. The ward had not failed until Kylara had walked through and set it off, and she had quickly put it back up.

That meant whoever had killed Ulinda was still in the woods. Kylara could still find them, she just needed to be efficient about it.

She had a rough idea of where to look. Ulinda’s body was in the forty-six, eight hundred coordinate range. The killer could not have got far. All Kylara needed to do was place a few trigger wards in that area. Hopefully, she would be able to get a pinpoint on their location quickly.

Or at least, that was the idea.

She cleared her head and closed her eyes, picturing the maths in her head. Then she threw up as many trigger wards as she could. Dozens of them, combing through the woods. If there was a person there, Kylara would find them. She started with wool, as usual. Wool was always the best for finding someone. Everyone wore it. Wool meant people and people meant wool. You found one, you found the other.

Three of her trigger wards failed.

She waited a minute, then tried again using the same patterns of casting.

Three wards failed again. Two of them were the same ones, but one was not. A change. Something different. Something moving.

Got you, Kylara thought, smiling.

The failed ward was one and a half kilometres northeast of her. She had been right, the killer had not gotten far. If she ran, she could get there in what, six minutes? Seven?

Another one of her trigger wards failed as she stood there. Then another shortly after.

Fuck.

Those wards had been fairly big, which meant whoever it was was running. Sprinting, in fact, if she was timing it right.

Kylara quickly constructed two disc wards perpendicular to the direction they were running in and waited for them to break.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Te–

The second ward failed. Kylara had placed the discs had been exactly thirty five metres apart. The killer was running fast. What was it? Thirteen, fourteen kilometres an hour? Wow.

Kylara didn’t know how long they had been running or in what direction, but if it was anything like their current pace, then… she wasn’t sure. It might be possible to catch up with them, maybe even try to cut them off depending on if they changed direction, but she didn’t think it was feasible. She certainly wouldn’t win in a fair race.

And even if she did… then what? She couldn’t confront the murderer. She wasn’t strong enough to fight an attacker that could destroy someone’s jaw like they did to Ulinda. Kylara wasn’t even sure they were human. Going off the trigger wards, they seemed to be wearing human clothes, but the strength it must have taken to kill Ulinda… it didn’t seem possible.

She visualised the coordinates in her head again and threw up another trigger ward, expecting it to fail right away.

It didn’t. Kylara frowned in confusion. The murderer should have run right into it. What was going on? Had they stopped?

Three wards later, and she found them again, having turned slightly north. And still sprinting, it seemed.

She sighed. Even if was possible running at full pace, they were not going in a straight line. She wouldn’t be able to catch up and keep track of their movements at the same time. All she would end up doing is losing them.

Kylara clenched her teeth. As much as she didn’t like it, she needed to stay back and gather as much information as possible.

Ten minutes later, and Kylara was exhausted. Keeping track of someone like this was harder than she had realised. The killer had abruptly changed direction twice, and it had taken her almost five minutes to find them again the first time. The second time, she had figured out that they were probably running along one of the fences that enclosed the sheep station up north. Which, other than explaining the killer’s seemingly random movements, didn’t help her much. She had no idea what direction the fence went.

Kylara sighed. Was standing here really the best she could do? She felt useless and more importantly, inefficient.

Tracking someone like this wasn’t something she’d done before, at least not to this scale. It was a lot of information to keep track of in her head. Where they were, what direction they were going, the speed. It was too many numbers. She was decent at maths–all warders were–but not this good. She needed to get better bearings. She needed paper. And a map.

She did a few more quick calculations.

Judging by the fact that the murderer was still heading north, she had time. For some reason, they were running next to the sheep runs. It was an odd way to go admittedly, but Kylara just figured they were giving the village a wide berth. Perhaps they knew Kylara was tracking them. They had probably spotted her in the forest.

Perhaps they even thought they could outwit her. Most people didn’t know the mechanics of warding. They thought the bigger the distance, the harder it was to ward. It didn’t work like that, but perhaps the killer thought it did–the further away they got the safer they would be.

Kylara did a few more calculations in her head. She’d been standing in the same spot for a long time. They were far enough away now that even if they turned around and circled back, they wouldn’t get near the village for at least another twenty minutes. And the border to Saltsbury–the only way to evade her wards–was an entire day’s walk away. Kylara had time.

Kylara mapped out a few more wards–ones that didn’t tell her an exact location but would go off if someone from the woods got too close to the town.

If that happened–well. She could figure it out later. Right now, she needed those maps. And paper. And possibly, a textbook. The obvious spot to go was the library.

The library was close. It was located on the second floor of the council building. It wasn’t far, and the door was never locked at night. It was meant as a safe heaven to house people in emergencies.

Well, emergencies. Kookaburra Creek rarely had emergencies. Mostly Auntie Maevery used the council building whenever she got into an argument with her husband. Or when she had guests over and they were staying the night (she was always having guests over and it was always an emergency). Or once, when she had told Kylara she needed the spare rooms because her kids were snoring too loudly and she needed sleep. Kylara had agreed, that did seem like an emergency. She liked Auntie Maevery a lot. Truely a connoisseur of life's little wonders.

The point being, the council building’s door was always unlocked. Always.

Except apparently, tonight. The door was locked tight.

She shook it again and tried to force it, her frustration mounting. Of course this was her luck. The one time there was an actual emergency…

Kylara paced back and forth, her mind racing with possibilities. Who had locked it? She scanned the area for a solution, hoping she might see something that would help her, an open window or something that she could climb through. But it looked like whoever had locked the door had also closed the windows.

Fuck.

She wished she had brought the butterfly entad with her. Then she could scale the walls and try the upper windows.

She could always run back, but…

Kylara bowed her head. She couldn’t go back. Not now. Not yet.

If she went back home, Yalmay would be here. And the sight of Yalmay, sleeping peacefully while a woman not much older than her had been violently killed just metres away… It was too much. Ulinda had asked for her brother while she was dying. Kylara couldn’t see her sister yet. She would be sick.

Kylara thought she was was doing a good job keeping herself together so far. She was trying really hard. Really, really hard.

Focusing on one thing and one thing only was helping, but it was still taking most of her willpower to not break down. She could keep it together a little while longer–at least until she found the killer–but something about seeing her stepsister unaware felt like it would make it all real. Kylara wasn’t ready for the nightmare becoming reality.

Kylara circled back to the locked door. Maybe she could pick the lock. She had never done it before except on a toy lock, but it couldn’t be that hard, could it? Her Uncle Don could do it. If he could do it, anyone could.

Kylara grabbed a clip out of her hair–she usually slept with her hair up and braided, so it could look curlier in the morning–and bent the clip into less of a bend. Then she inserted it into the bottom of the lock and wiggled it back and forth until she felt it catch on one of the pins. Remembering something about applying torque to the wafers, she pushed forward and tried to turn it.

It didn’t work.

She pulled the pin out with some difficulty and tried a different angle, shifting it until she felt the tumblers move. She turned the knob.

But all it did was push the pin out of the lock. There was still something blocking it from turning.

Kylara tried again. This time, the pin snapped.

She stared at the door in frustration, unsure of what to do next.

It wasn't like there were any spare keys around. Pemulabee probably had them, and he lived on the other side of town. Plus, he was asleep.

She stared at the door in frustration, unsure of what to do next.

Why was it even locked anyway?

Then it occurred to her. Auntie Maevery wasn’t inside. Dhaligir was.

She was an idiot.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Dhaligir, let me in!”

Kylara cursed. He had been staying there since the Council had ruled in favour of his exile. It was a form of house arrest. There was even a trigger ward just beyond the door. If she had spent even a second thinking clearly, she would have seen it. She had put it up herself, just a few hours ago. The ward was meant to keep track of every time someone left the building or entered. The Council thought it was a better idea than locking Dhaligir in a cell, although the two things amounted to the same thing in principle. Kylara would be alerted every time Dhaligir tried to leave, so he couldn’t. Not without consequences.

Kylara wasn’t sure if the method was more humane or more modern than locking Dhaligir up, but Pemulabee had certainly thought so. And other than it being more work for Kylara, it amounted to the same thing but with better optics: Dhaligir wasn’t getting out.

Although, thinking about it, that still didn’t explain the locked door. They hadn’t locked him in the building. Not technically. That was the whole point. Better optics.

Dhaligir must have done it himself. Perhaps he thought literally being locked up was better than metaphorically being locked up? Maybe it gave him comfort? Kylara tilted her head.

Whatever. She didn’t care.

She banged on the door a few more times. “Dhaligir!” she shouted. “Dhaligir, wake up!”

No response, but Kylara was certain he was in there. She banged her head head against the door. This was wasting precious time. She needed to get in.

She circled around the building again. Dhaligir would be in one of the rooms on the second floor.

“Dhaligir!” she shouted, spotting what looked like a set of dishes from an upstairs window. A quick trigger ward confirmed he was in the room. Or at least, Kylara thought he was. His shoes were.

“Dhaligir!” Kylara repeated the call a few more times.

After a minute, she saw movement and a face flashed in the window briefly. Kylara gestured violently at the front door. Dhaligir nodded once, then disappeared again. Kylara rushed back to the door and a few seconds alter, it opened a crack.

Dhaligir looked at her with tired eyes. “What is it?” he asked groggily. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to get something,” Kylara said. “It is urgent. Open the door.” She pushed through until the door got caught on Dhaligir’s foot.

“If you feel bad about what happened, I don’t need your help to break me out. They exiled me, not jailed me. And I’m glad to be going anyway.”

“I’m not here to break you out,” Kylara said.

“Oh.”

“I need to get to the library.”

“Huh,” he said, not moving.

“This is urgent, Dhaligir.” She leaned back a bit to try to seem more composed and took a deep breath. “Please, I really mean it,” she pleaded. “Let me in.”

“You know?” Dhaligir said after a moment. “It’s funny, but I’ve decided I don’t care.”

He went to slam the door. Kylara shoved her foot in. It hurt. She still wasn’t wearing shoes.

“Wait, just hear me out.”

He looked at her for a second. “Nah,” he said, and kicked Kylara’s bare foot as hard as he could.

Kylara flinched back as the door slammed in her face.

Fuck.

“Dhaligir, this is really important. I’m not lying. You will regret not letting me in if you leave.”

The door opened again a crack. “Why?” he asked.

Kylara hesitated. For emergencies like this, there was a protocol to follow. She couldn’t give Dhaligir any details before she informed the head of the council. And Pemulabee was still asleep on the other side of town.

But perhaps she could explain some of it. “I need a map of Kookaburra Creek,” she said. “I’m tracking someone and I can’t lose them. And I need to track them now. They are getting away.” She tried to put as much urgency in her voice as possible.

“This some sort of game then?” Dhaligir asked.

“It’s not a game. Someone might get hurt if I don’t do this.”

“Huh.”

Dhaligir looked at her for another long moment, probably just long enough for him to feel like he was in change, then moved aside.

“Thanks,” Kylara said as she ran past him upstairs. She didn’t look back.

The library was small, just a collection of a few shelves and books. At first glance, it could be mistaken for an office or storage room. In fact, it had been built as such. It hadn’t been until relatively recently that Kookaburra Creek had acquired enough books to make the room a proper library.

Kylara shut the door and lit a candle. The room was lit well by the moons, but she always had trouble reading in the dark. She wanted as much light as possible. Then she grabbed a a pencil, a map, one of her old warding textbooks and sat down.

She briefly glanced at the door, but Dhaligir didn’t seem to have followed her. Good. She needed the concentration.

The first thing she did was mark the killer’s last known location on the map. Kylara had been keeping the coordinates in her head since she had stopped tracking the killer. It was a relief to finally write them down.

Kylara’s gaze swept over the map and she closed her eyes in frustration.

Annoying.

The coordinates were unfortunately right next to the storage houses, just south of the sheep station. If she kept using wool to track the killer, the wool in the nearby storage houses would interfere.

It was always a guessing game with wards. Was the wool she had just detected from the killer’s clothes or from some other random source?

It was good she had the map now, because the confusion that would’ve caused might’ve cost her precious time. It would still be a pain–she might try to switch to a different tracking material soon–but it was less of a pain with the map.

Kylara set off to work.

Somewhat surprisingly, it took her only about two minutes to find the murderer again. They had moved quite a ways north, nearly directly above their last location. Kylara marked it on the map.

Okay. She had their location.

The next thing to do was figure out what the murder weapon was.

Kylara flipped open the textbook she had taken from the shelf. The book was simply a catalogued list of plants, animals, and minerals. Anything that could be detected with a ward. There were complementary books with descriptions, but this one was simply a long reference list.

It was meant for scenarios exactly like this. When a warder did not know what something was made of, the goal was to flip to the appropriate page and use trial and error until something hit.

If a warder needed to key a ward against some unknown cloth, they could flip to the chapter on cloth, which was just a list of common materials in order of popularity, starting with wool and ending with various types of plant fibres and animal skins. It was intended that a warder just go down the list until something pinned.

Kylara flipped to the page on weapons. It was a long section, mostly because the more unique the material of a weapon, the more useful it was against warders. People kept annoyingly innovating–using new types of wood for spears and bows and arrows.

There were also a few metals at the top of the list, but it was mostly various types of wood. Bullets could only be made of a few select metals, which made guns incredibly easy to ward against. Only an idiot would bring a gun to a fight with a warder. You brought spears or knives or bows. The more eclectic, the better.

Kylara scanned though the list, cross referencing everything with the still changing location of the killer. She lightly crossed out anything that set off a trigger ward.

For example, the killer was carrying gold, but no silver or copper. There were no other metals on them. None of the local woods came up either (and thank gods that Kylara had thought to get a map, because she never would have figured that out without one–too much interference).

The only wood they had on them was western myall. That probably was from the murderer weapon. She marked it down.

Interesting, a foreign weapon. Hopefully that would make it easier to find. Someone must have bought it from a tinker.

Kylara flipped to the next section–common clothes and shoes, and went down the list again. Nothing unusual came up with the materials of the clothes. As far as she could tell, they were wearing something brought and made in Kookaburra Creek.

Which was very interesting, because the shoes were not. The shoes were distinctly foreign. Almost all shoes in Kookaburra Creek were made of grey kangaroo, which came up negative. Red kangaroo, however, came up positive. Found commonly in Lamberside and Nitida, red kangaroo was almost never traded in this part of the Network.

Kylara frowned. She was starting to think the attacker wasn’t local at all. Maybe it was one of the thieves from Saltsbury. They had attacked recently someone, hadn’t they? But the motive didn’t fit, even if the methodology did.

Kylara glanced at the map. It did seem like the killer was running in the general direction of Saltsbury, but they were doing it in an incredibly convoluted way. They were going more north than east.

It was another sign the killer might not be local. They clearly did not know the most efficient way to get around. Going that far north just lead you to the Desert. They were going to get themselves stuck at this rate. They would have to circle back.

Kylara leaned back and smiled at the thought, then scolded herself.

What was she doing? She needed to spend this time gathering information, not making deductions. This was the data collection phase. Perhaps tomorrow morning she could ask around, find out where each of the materials pointed to and what they meant in terms of clues, but not right now. Now, she simply needed to get through the book.

The book was long, and she went as fast as she could. Warding against a list was easy. The only caveat was that a warder needed to have a general idea of what something was, but Kylara had studied enough that she was familiar with almost everything in the book. You didn’t even need to picture the material, just have the knowledge of it. Or once had the knowledge of it. There were definitely things Kylara had forgotten or gone rusty on that she could still sometimes key a ward to.

It took her a long time to finish the book. Once done, Kylara closed the book gently, and with a contented sigh she leaned back in her chair, satisfied with what she gotten. The list was good.

They were carrying no metals except for money.

No guns.

Foreign shoes. Local clothes.

A weapon–probably a spear–made of myall wood.

Several nettles, but no other unusual plants.

Also, oddly, three different species of shells, despite them being nowhere near the ocean.

That last one had been a good find. Kylara would need to ask around and find out who owned a necklace or bracelet with three different species of periwinkle shells.

Kylara stood up and, looking out the window, noticed a few glimmers of light on the horizon. It was getting late. Or early, she wasn’t sure. She should probably figure out where Dhaligir went and alert the Council about what had happened. They needed to get things somewhat sorted before the town woke up.

Kylara walked downstairs and found Dhaligir standing in the hallway, staring intently at her. His arms were tightly folded across his chest. She was surprised he hadn’t interrupted her, but thankful for it.

“What were you doing up there?” he asked suspiciously. “Were you stealing something?”

“No?” Kylara said, slightly confused. The question threw her off. Why would see knock on the door if she was going to steal something? She was not that dumb. And what was she going to steal, anyway? The door was usually left unlocked? “I told you, I was tracking someone.”

“I saw you looking for something.” He said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world that she was lying.

Kylara sighed. Of course she was telling the truth. That was kind of her whole thing.

“I’m telling the truth,” she said. Her lip bent into a sly smile. “Truly,” she added, putting her hands up in a shy imitation of defence.

Dhaligir face seemed to catch the implication. Kylara was starting to notice a pattern there. Dhaligir had a habit of working himself up and forgetting about the whole ‘warders keep their word’ thing. Then he got upset when she tried to subtly remind him.

“You–”

“Never mind that,” Kylara interrupted. There were more important things to be doing than defending herself against stupid accusations. Like alerting the Council. If she could enlist Dhaligir, that would be ideal… “I need your help.”

“Why?”

Kylara sighed, then pulled out the map she had been using to track the path of the murderer. “I’ve been tracking someone,” she said, pointing to the dots she was using to mark the location every few minutes. “We need to tell Pemulabee and the rest of the Council before they get out of my reach.”

Dhaligir looked at the map in interest. “Looks like they are going to Saltsbury,” he said, looking intrigued.

“Maybe,” Kylara said.

“My parents are in Saltsbury,” Dhaligir said.

“Yeah,” Kylara said. “Can you help?”

“Now?” he asked.

“Yeah. Now. This is urgent.”

“It’s not urgent,” Dhaligir said. “You just wasted thirty minutes in the library. Doesn’t seem like you were in such a rush to me.”

Kylara bit her lip. It did look like that from his perspective, didn’t it?

“Unfortunately it is. The person I was tracking, they–” Kylara swallowed and caught Dhaligir’s eye, “–they did something terrible. We need to wake the Council. Get Wawiriya, she’ll be up already–” Wanderers always were “–I’ll get Pemulabee. Tell her to met me at Skull Rock.”

“What happened?” Dhaligir asked, seeming to finally understand the urgency of the situation.

Kylara hated the fact she needed to follow the emergency protocols. No one else would’ve followed them. Not under these circumstances. She felt like she was lying to Dhaligir even though she was trying to do the exact opposite.

They had established the rules after Malyun’s daughter had been killed. Back then, the Council hadn’t found out about the murder until a riot had nearly started. So now the rule was that the Council needed to be informed first. That was the way of things.

“I can’t say,” Kylara said. “I’m not allowed. But it’s not good.”

She looked at the horizon. The sun was starting to rise. She needed to get this done before the town woke up.

“I’m going to wake Pemulabee,” she said. “Will you go get Wawiriya?” At Dhaligir’s visible hesitation, she added, “No one is going to fault you for leaving the Council building. I promise. You won’t get in trouble.”

“And you really can’t tell me what happened?”

“Sorry,” Kylara said. “I wish I could.”

But at the same time, I’m glad that I can’t.

“Okay,” Dhaligir nodded. “I’ll get her.”

“You should hurry.”

The killer was still deep in the woods as far as she could tell, but that didn’t change the fact that they could turn back. She wondered what they would do when it started to become light. Would they realise they were going the wrong way, towards the Desert? Her wards would give her plenty of notice if they came near town, but it was still a worrying thought.

Kylara looked around, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.

She sucked in a deep breath. The killer was still within spitting distance of town. Someone riding a draft bird or a yarraman would be able to catch them easily. And Kylara had their location. The Council would gather a group and send them out. If everything went as she suspected it would, Kylara wouldn’t even need the list of materials she had gathered. That was simply a contingency.

Things were looking hopeful.

She glanced at Dhaligir and nodded. “Bring Wawiriya to Skull Rock,” she repeated. “Ill met her there.” She turned away and walked down the steps. Dhaligir followed.

“I’ll be quick,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“Good,” Kylara said, opening the gate. Then stopped short. She had forgotten something. Something important.

“Dhaligir,” she said, voice steady. “Get Imla too. We need a healer.”

“A healer? Why? What happened?”

Kylara bit her lip hard, blinking back the sudden flow of tears.

“Just get her, please,” Kylara whispered. And with those words, she walked away, refusing to glance back and let Dhaligir see the tears streaking down her face.