Fully dressed in a red gown, hair smooth and well-brushed, scalp faintly aching, Mouse wandered the hallways. “Cel… Hello, my bodyguard? Are you near?”

“You really sound like a lunatic when you do that,” Cel replied, jogging out of a servant’s hallway.

“I wouldn’t need to if my bodyguard ever bothered to guard my body,” Mouse snarked back.

She rolled her eyes. “As if being near you would be any help. You’d cast an illusion and vanish the second you got bored.”

“The nerve. The utter nerve.” Mouse shook his head.

“What do you need this lowly servant for?” Cel asked, giving an overly ornate bow.

Mouse nodded ahead of him. “The victims of this alleged biting woman. Shall we?”

“Oh, right. Certainly, my lady.” Cel bowed and turned, leading him from the palace.

A dark-haired servant woman sat in the stable, milking a cow. At the sound of their approach, she stood and bowed, almost on reflex, then caught a glimpse of their skin and jumped back. Startled, she clapped a hand to her neck. “Not again!”

“At ease, at ease. I’m not the woman who bit you,” Cel placated her.

“Nor I. Do you remember anything of the encounter?” Mouse asked.

The woman backed away, both hands raised in the parallel bars of the humans’ religious symbol. “I’ll answer no questions of you, fiend.”

“Fiend? We aren’t darkfoes,” Mouse grumbled.

Cel nudged him. “I believe fiends are the monsters who dwell in the negative half of the humans’ afterlife.”

“Do they run around biting women?” Mouse asked.

“Not… generally? I’m not fully acquainted with human mythology and folktale, I only know the basics,” Cel replied.

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Looking at the trembling servant girl, Mouse sighed. “Well, I don’t think we’re getting much more out of her. Let’s move on, shall we?”

“Right. Let’s see…”

Dressed in a plain, patched dress, a maidservant rested against the well, a bucket of water held idly in her grip. Dark brown eyes gazed up at him. Long, walnut hair reached to the maidservant’s midback. Mesmerized, she stared blankly.

“Hello? Er, hello?” Mouse tried.

She reached out and caressed his cheek, a smile on her face. Quietly, she whispered, “Hello.”

“Do you remember anything about—hey, hey! Hands!” Mouse backed out of her reach as the girl’s hands wandered down his neck.

The maidservant smiled dreamily at him. She took another step closer, almost in a trance.

Cel put herself between Mouse and the maidservant. “Wake up!”

The maidservant jolted. She glanced left and right, eyes bleary. Her eyes landed on the moon elves, and she jumped again. A blush crawled up her cheeks. “I—oh, dear. It isn’t even dark yet.”

“Hello. Do you remember anything about the biting incident?” Mouse asked.

She blushed again, deeper. “I—is this really the place to ask?”

Mouse and Cel exchanged a glance. Cel cleared her throat. “Thank you, ma’am. Appreciate your cooperation.”

“I… haven’t answered any questions…”

The third servant girl smiled at them, bustling around the kitchen. Plump and rosy-cheeked, she gestured them to wait as she hurried around, dark curls pinned into a tight bun. “Oh! What’s brought you two to the kitchens? The bread is still proofing, but I have some handpies I’ve made from the leftover pie dough, if you’re hungry.”

Mouse eyed her up and down. “Do you recall the biting incident?”

“Oh! Oh dear. Yes, indeed, not clearly, but…” She put a hand to her cheek and blushed.

“Were you able to see your attacker? Any details at all?”

She nodded absently, fetching a long-stemmed wooden paddle to retrieve a fat, golden pie from the oven. “Chicken pot pie for dinner tonight, darlings, look forward to it. Yes, the biting… unpleasant, that, very unpleasant. Everything’s a bit blurry. I recall I ran out of peas because I was in the middle of shucking when she came up behind me… I shuck late at night, you understand. Get it done for the next day. Wears out the hands something fierce, and I hate to deal with anything in the kitchen afterwards.”

“So you were… here? In the palace?” Mouse clarified.

“Not in the palace proper, no, but… yes.”

Cel nodded. “And the attacker?”

“Hmm… I remember she was lovely, but the details…” She shook her head. “Her hair tickled my neck, I remember that. It wasn’t nearly as long as yours.”

“Thank you. You’ve been quite helpful,” Mouse said.

“Wait, wait. At least a cookie. It’s an experimental recipe, you must let me know how it turned out. Oh, and some brownies, and I can’t let anyone leave without…”

Laden with sweets, Cel staggered out of the kitchen, Mouse sweeping nobly ahead of her, trailing cookie crumbs. He wiped his mouth and nodded. “On to the nobleladies.”

“They might be a bit more resistant to your, er, charms,” Cel said, juggling the handpies back into her grasp.

“Ah, but we have bribes,” Mouse replied, smirking at the baked goods.