Lilastheria looked around. “Those people were stabbed with ordinary weapons, by the looks of it. Do you want me to incinerate the bodies with demonic magic?” she asked.

“Not necessarily. It just has to look like demons were present and involved. The ritual circle will help with that. We might just want a few more signs of demonic presence. It could help if any investigators found traces of mind magic being involved, for example.”

“Mistress, what exactly happened here and what is the goal? Who are you trying to fool?”

“Those soldiers were killed to frame us. Now we are going to frame demons instead. We are trying to mislead imperial investigators. Who may or may not be responsible for this in the first place. There has been a demonic attack yesterday so it is fitting. We don’t have a specific narrative. The soldiers did not fight back so they were either paralysed with magic, or taken by surprise. Instead of covering up their wounds, or inflicting new ones, I think we should add to the scene.” I explained.

“We could remove one of the bodies. Make it look like a guard was part of it. A demon could have shapeshifted and taken their place. Then surprised them and performed a summoning.” Lilastheria suggested.

“That would make the person we removed look guilty. That could have repercussions for their family.” Lucy pointed out.

“True. Unless we planted that body elsewhere. In which case it would look like the person had been replaced earlier.” I proposed.

“Where would we plant it though? We would have to make sure it was found as well.” Lucy said.

“Hm. Maybe near the fight with Alexander? That would even connect the incidents. He makes a scene as a distraction. Then one of the guards gets replaced.” I suggested.

“What would have been the demon's end goal though?” Lucy asked.

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“I am sure the paranoid investigators will have plenty of theories. If someone wanted us framed for the murder of our guards they might have something else planned anyway. So it would look like we removed our guards to do something else.”

Lucy nodded. “Ok. Let’s take one of the bodies and move it. We should do it quickly before someone discovers the scene. We can put the body in our storage for transport.”

“Lilastheria follow us… wait. How can you see us anyway? We are using an invisibility spell…”

“A combination of demonic sight and our bond mistress.” Lilastheria explained.

Before we left I modified the ritual circle we used to bind her. The spell was already done, this was just to stop other people from duplicating my magic. The last thing I wanted was to teach the Empire magic. Afterwards we moved to the scene of our previous fight and hid the body behind a nearby bush. We also hid our tracks. To further increase our deception Lilastheria used some fire magic on the guard's wound. Otherwise the missing blood would have looked suspicious. Although, in a magic world there were plenty of creatures who might drain blood. Once we were done we moved away. So far nobody had seen us.

“Ok. With that done we need some information.” I said.

“Yes, mistress. What would you like to know?”

“Do you have any knowledge about Beira? She is an imperial court mage and uses demons for her research to empower humans.”

“I am familiar with her, yes. She summoned me before the inquisition used me. I suspected she might have handed my name over to them, after she did not need me any longer.”

“You did not mention any of that last time.” Lucy pointed out.

“Apologies, but you were not my mistress back then. And there was no reason for me to provide more information than necessary. It also had no connection to the Iron Rock incident.”

“Ok, what did Beira need you for?” Lucy asked.

“Originally she wanted me to have children with humans. But after some thought she figured it would be easier to summon an incubus and have him impregnate human females instead. She collected some of my blood and asked me a lot of questions. I briefly helped with the newborn half demons. That was about five years ago. She did not have any further use of me, so when the inquisition summoned me I thought she might have handed me over to them.”

While not surprising, hearing that still made my stomach churn. “We need to shut down that lab and rescue those children and their mothers.”

“The mothers seemed to be willing.” Lilastheria said.

“Possibly brainwashed.” Lucy theorised.

“Do you know where that lab is?” I asked.

“Yes. Assuming it has not been moved since then. It is inside the city. Shall I guide you there now?”

“Hm. That would not be in line with our plan. We wanted to only gather information for now. Maybe we should discuss it with Loriel and strike tomorrow.”

“It might be hard to sneak away tomorrow with another demonic incident. Maybe we should just go now.” Lucy said.

She did have a point. Maybe it was time to burn down a lab.