I would have expected to run into our guards on the way back. Surprisingly we did not see them. Since they could not track or observe us with magic that was disturbing. Did something happen to them? Were they recalled? The park was rather big and it would take us over an hour to get back to the entrance. At least at the pace of a normal human going for a walk. We could get there quite quickly if we actually ran, or used magic. Maybe they were somewhere on the way?

“Did you see our guards anywhere? I asked Lucy.

“No. They have been absent since we went for a swim. Do you think they are simply waiting by the carriage?”

“Maybe. They seemed rather insistent to guard us though. I expected them to be close enough to react to any fighting.”

“I would not be surprised if they were detained by the prince, or his people.” Lucy suggested.

“Good point. It would be rather fitting for Alexander. Assuming they found someone close by to remove the polymorph.”

“Should we still go along with the plan to use doubles and snoop around? With today’s incident someone might want to question us later. And it would be a problem if they approach our doubles. Maybe we should wait a day?” Lucy wondered.

“Sadly that is a valid concern. We should have grabbed a communications device to talk with Elnora. Things have been escalating quickly since our bath yesterday.”

“Should we just sneak away now? The park is big. We can always claim we were just enjoying it. Tonight was only meant for some recon anyway. We could find a quiet place, summon and question the succubus and then return to the carriage.” Lucy suggested.

“Hm. We have to make sure nobody is watching though. Let’s search the area a bit. Maybe we can find a trace of our guards. If we are really confident about our privacy we try the summon. If we find out where the lab is we will need an alibi for the attack. But gathering information should be fine.” I reasoned.

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We headed into a wooded area of the park and searched our surroundings. It was a park so other people were using it. Which meant we wanted an area with limited visibility. We also left the obvious path. Despite our enhanced senses we could not detect anyone observing us.

“Either our watchers are really good or there is nobody here.” I said.

“How are we going to do this? Use invisibility, then transform?” Lucy suggested.

“Does not hurt to be extra careful, let’s do it.”

We both used the invisibility spell and then transformed. Afterwards Lucy casted See the Unseen, to ensure she could still see me. Meanwhile I started to stretch. Somehow that just felt good in my feline form.

“I think I smell something…” Lucy said.

Her nose was a lot better than mine in her animal form. She started sniffing around.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Blood.”

We did see smaller animals in the park. There were also a lot of birds. There should not be anything dangerous, like a wolf. But a dog or a cat could have killed a smaller creature. Would that be enough for Lucy to pick it up? We should have seen something if it were close. One way to find out.

“Lead the way.” I said.

We tried to stay quiet as Lucy followed the trail. We were invisible but that did not stop any noise we made. The trail led a bit deeper into the woods. As we got closer to our target I could smell it as well. It smelled like death. Surrounded by trees we found six corpses. Our guards were dead.

“I think they were killed shortly after we went swimming.” Lucy said.

“Do you smell anything that could identify the attacker?” I asked.

“No. There is no trail here. I think whoever killed them used magic to hide their presence.”

“It looks like they did not fight back. They have wounds that might come from a spear, a sword and lightning magic. Exactly what we used in the bath.” I pointed out.

“You think they are framing us for this?”

“Yes. They make it look like we walked into a remote place and then killed our guards. After the encounter with Alexander. Maybe they disposed of him as well. Maybe they wanted to get rid of witnesses. I did not really care for our guards but they deserved better than this.”

They did their job and were killed for the political games of someone. What a waste of life.

“I hate the Empire.” I said.

“What do we do now?” Lucy asked.

“Hm. If someone is trying to frame us, maybe we frame someone else instead.”

“The demon!” Lucy exclaimed.

“Exactly. We are going to summon our succubus here. We make sure there are traces of a demonic ritual. It will look like we were attacked again by the same enemies.”