Back inside her living room, Emika stared at the three letters she’d put on the desk, her heart beating rather violently. She needed a while to calm down before she could even open the first one; none of them seemed to be letters related to her business, or letters coming from anyone she personally knew.

Eventually, she picked up the red letter first, and opened it. Inside was a weird looking scroll with complex writing on it, together with a piece of paper containing a handwritten message:

Dear Emika Hasegawa,

Our routine divination checks have shown recent spikes in strong magical energies released in your close circumference. After investigating the issue, we have come to the conclusion that you might suffer from a strong magical affliction.

Our facility is well-equipped for magical research and treatment, and we specialise in discrete and effective work, independent of Cursebreakers and similar rigid structures. We would love to take a look at you, determine the problem and offer any kind of help we can provide.

While we would not turn you away in any case, we would highly appreciate it if you brought one of your bonsai trees as recompensation for us to use as a magical ingredient for other projects, to offset time and resources used for your examination and eventual treatment.

The letter then provided some instructions on how to use the scroll to teleport to their place, and gave weekly time frames during which they’d be able to receive her visit. It was signed by Victor Felton, who apparently worked at the Great Magical Fund Research Branch.

Reading this, Emika felt a big lump form in her stomach. An entire bonsai was a lot of compensation, she felt, but it was fair enough of them to be transparent with the process. This request also told her that they were well aware of who she was, and she didn’t quite know how to feel about that.

With a sigh, Emika opened the next letter, which was the one from the criminal department. It was a simple, short notice, just inviting her to the station for an interrogation. The date was set for the next morning; the letter had apparently been in her mailbox for a few days already.

As she read through it, Emika could feel the sweat build up on her skin.

Did they… did they already know she was responsible?

If so, how?

Her thoughts started circling, until they were interrupted by a notification sound from Lester’s phone. It was a message from Melisande.

Sooo.. how’s the milk?

Right. Emika had been in the middle of chatting to her when she went to fetch the delivery. Sorry. Got distracted. I just found out the police want to interrogate me tomorrow.

WTF! Why??

Emika tried to word her response as vaguely as possible. A few days ago, there was… an incident… I think it’s related to that. They probably want to find out if I had something to do with it.

Damn, that’s terrible… Do you have a plan? U gonna get a lawyer?

No plan. I can’t get a lawyer. Obviously she couldn’t. That person would probably just die and she’d be in an even bigger mess. And even if she were to just call one, she didn’t even know how to explain her situation.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

In that case, don’t talk to them. you said it’s an interrogation? just don’t go. If they wanna ask u questions, they gotta come to you!! and then when they come, don’t open the door. if they break in and ask stuff, stay silent.

Emika frowned, and wrote: That sounds like really bad advice… If I act like this, they’ll know immediately that it was me…

The response was lightning fast. SEE, this is exactly why you don’t talk to them!!! You just FREAKING ADMITTED IT BY ACCIDNGT

Fuck, thought Emika.

Im begging you, don’t SAY A WORD

Fine, wrote Emika. At least I know that if I do talk to them, I’ll have to be more careful. Thanks…

She took a deep breath. What could they even know? Emika’s friends were dead, so they couldn’t have talked. Also, it was very unlikely that there had been any witnesses. Sure, someone saw her burn a body, but she had already solved that issue, right?

She had, however, revisited the scene of the incident… but, it was Mina’s home. The home of her best friend. Why shouldn’t she go visit her? The apartment had been in a good state, so for all they could possibly know, Emika had just found the empty house of a friend after not seeing her for a few days, and then gone home again.

It wasn’t possible that they knew more than that, right? Emika hadn’t done anything, really.

But wait… wasn’t that in and of itself a problem? That she had not even tried to contact any of her friends who had been missing for days… nor tried to alert any authorities about their disappearance…?

This thought felt like a punch in her gut. Was it already too late? Did she mess it all up? Was… was there even anything she could still do at this point? Not to mention the fact that she was still suffering from a curse that would kill off any person trying to investigate the matter or arrest her. This sucked.

With a big lump in her throat, Emika turned to the third letter. It was such a pretty and perfect piece of artistry. There wasn’t even any weakness to do it carefully with a letter opener; she simply had to rip open one side and felt slightly bad for ruining it.

When she did, a folded piece of paper fell out, neatly written on with extremely elegantly curved handwriting.

The letter read:

Dear Emika,

My name is Líf. I hope this letter finds you well. I come to you with a matter very close to my heart.

You may not be aware of it, but through a series of unfortunate events, you have come into possession of something that truly belongs to me. Unfortunately, I have no other choice but to demand its return. For this, I would gladly receive your visit.

I want to be honest with you, though: There is no method by which to return my possession to me from your body without you losing your life in the process. Of course, I understand that asking to surrender your life for a stranger is an unreasonable request to make, and as such, I want you to understand that while this possession is of immense importance to me, measured by the lifecycle of a human, I have some time left until I need it returned. Thus, feel free to simply drop by whenever you realise your life is nearing its end, and I shall tread carefully and hide until that time comes.

As an aside, please note that getting into contact with a human poses great risk to me and I would like your discretion. I am of an old people that lived largely at odds with humanity, and as things stand, I am likely the last of my kind. Furthermore, I have been left slightly weakened after being attacked last year.

Finally, I want to express my sympathy for your situation and the circumstances you are going through. While none of it was by my intention nor my volition, I still bear some responsibility for part of me finding its way to you as a thing that causes you trouble.

Please take care of yourself, and kindly make sure you don’t pass before finding me.

Heartfelt regards,

Líf

Emika read it three times, until her thoughts finally started working again. This couldn’t possibly be from that ‘Revenant’ Lester had mentioned…? More importantly, never in her time would Emika have imagined being asked this politely to give up her life. For some reason, she felt compelled to — just so she could meet that person. Though, peculiarly, the letter contained no information at all about how she’d actually be able to visit Líf. There was no address, nor any hints at a location.

In other words, this was something for future Emika to worry about — unlike the contents of the other letters.

After carefully considering all her different options, she eventually arrived at the conclusion that she needed to visit that Research Branch to get herself checked out. Ideally, that would simply solve all her problems, right?