Interrogation, much like divination, was about nudging the mind into yielding its secrets—prodding it with the right questions under the haze of a truth serum, guiding it to answers it couldn’t help but give.

The serum wasn’t mind control. It didn’t compel speech or plant thoughts. What it did was slip past the brain’s inhibitory defenses, numbing the barriers of deception and greasing the wheels of impulse-driven recall. It coaxed truth from instinct, not force.

Its effects targeted the prefrontal cortex and limbic system—the brain’s gatekeepers of restraint—dulling their grip while stimulating memory and speech centers. The sharper the question, the more reflexive the response.

I started simple. Names added specificity, tightening the noose around the subconscious.

“What the hell were you doing in Greg’s home?”

The crossbowman’s jaw slackened, drool pooling on the floorboards. Consciousness wasn’t required—only intact neural pathways. His motor cortex twitched as Broca’s area lit up like a cursed lighthouse.

Quickpaw watched, ears perked, one foxian tail flicking with interest.

Meanwhile… where the hell was Alice?

Later. Right now, I had a mercenary to milk for information.

His lips parted sluggishly. “Wuh… ord-ordered…” The words slurred, but they came.

A thread. A lead. Keep pulling before the effect dulled.

“Ordered by whom?”

A sluggish twitch. “Thibault. He gabe uss orbders.”

Thibault.

Elven name. Of course. Everything problematic somehow circled back to them.

Focus. Bias wouldn’t help here.

“What were the orders?”

His sluggish tongue struggled, but the answer surfaced: “Tu taku cwre of Zoran… kill him.”

Hoh.

Zoran. The Rakari boy who had asked Whisper to find Greg.

But hadn’t Zoran claimed he had no idea what Greg was working on?

So why was he marked?

Paranoia? Loose ends? A mistake?

“Did you kill Greg too?”

A slow, syrup-thick “No.”

Too vague. Should’ve framed that better.

“Do you know if Greg is dead?”

A sputter of spit. “Nw.”

So, they didn’t know.

I shifted tactics. Now for their identity.

“Who are you people?”

“We awe m-mercenaries.”

Quickpaw snorted. “Dime-store daggers cosplaying soldiers. Adorable.”

“Impersonating Pact enforcers’s a spine-removal offense.” I leaned in. “Were you aware?”

His hypothalamus fired—fear sweat blooming. “w-were aware.”

So they knew the risk and still took the job. That meant the pay was good.

“What made you take this mission?”

“Kron.”

Money. No surprises there. Mercenary loyalty ran as deep as their coin purses.

I was about to press further when his body spasmed. Limbs twitching, muscles seizing.

Then, as fast as it came, it passed. He slumped, breathing shallow.

Neurological meltdown. Not lethal—just the brain’s equivalent of a toddler tantrum in a china shop.

Their problem, not mine. These chuckleheads chose violence first. If not for Quickpaw’s flair for creative incapacitation, I’d be mopping entrails off Greg’s tacky wallpaper.

I tsked. “Who is Thibault?”

His head lolled. “Unk-known.”

Huh?

“Then how did you get this mission?”

“Hw found us. O-offered Kron.”

“So you never met him properly?”

A shuddered breath. “Hes face was masked. No… scent.”

Quickpaw snickered behind me.

Of course they were this stupid.

I sighed. “Face covered, cash in hand, and you didn’t question it?”

“Kron… spoke… louder.”

Immediate. No hesitation.

I exhaled through my nose. Idiots.

Then Quickpaw, still grinning, said, “Don’t worry about Thibault.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I paused. “Huh? You know him?”

She flashed a fangy smile. “I do.”

I shot her a glare. “Now you share intel?”

Before she could answer, the crossbowman convulsed again, his head lolled, drool pooling into a Rorschach of shame. Synaptic collapse.

Welp.

Out like a snuffed candle.

I wasn’t getting anything else from him. Not unless I wanted to sift through raw, incoherent brain static.

Quickpaw only shrugged, unapologetic.

Fine. If she already knew who Thibault was, I’d move on.

Except… two more mercenaries later, I had the same answers.

They were hired to impersonate Iron Pact enforcers. Their target was Zoran.

A cover. Meant to keep people from questioning them.

Bold move.

I clicked my tongue.

We had names. A motive.

And one glaring question.

What the hell did Zoran know that made him a target?

I barely had time to think before Alice reappeared, gliding into the room with something clutched in her hands—a tangled mess of reddish strands. Greg’s hair? Plausible, given Whisper’s dossier mentioned his fire-kissed mane. Though the damp strands clung to her porcelain fingers like seaweed from a kraken’s armpit, their liquid provenance better left unexamined.

Where did she even—

“Do not inquire, mistress,” Alice whispered, her voice a silk blade in my mind. “Some threads are best left unspooled.”

Quickpaw, oblivious to the doll inches from her, was busy finger-painting a phallic rune on a merc’s forehead. “There! Now he’s art.”

I grimaced.

Well, at least the hair was a viable divination focus. This was more than enough to divine on Greg—at least enough to pull off that vision-trance thing Alice had done the first time. I never caught the exact name of it, but the mechanics weren’t the point. What mattered was how much of my abilities I was willing to reveal to Quickpaw.

Lotte had said Whisper was a golden thread for me, but that didn’t mean I could lower my guard—not in front of her, not in front of anyone.

But Alice’s ability to pry into fate? Now that… that could be valuable to them. Maybe valuable enough to elevate my worth, make them more willing to spill their secrets in exchange for peeks into the unknown.

A double-edged sword. I'd be laying a fraction of my abilities bare, but the intel I could gain in return? That could be worth it. I chewed on my lip, weighing the risks. I hated making these kinds of decisions. Or any decisions, really.

“A calculated revelation,” Alice murmured, reading my hesitation. “Unspool but a thread; let their hunger for foresight bind them closer.”

Alice read me like an open book.

I knew it would be beneficial. But at the same time, they had no idea just how much I could do. I was capable of things beyond their wildest imaginings.

“Soooo,” Quickpaw drawled, flicking drool off the merc’s chin, “Thibault’s résumé. Wanna cliffnotes?”

I crossed my arms. “Sure.”

She looked up and grinned. “Iron’s right-hand man. Equally scary as him—maybe worse.”

Ah. Shit was starting to come full circle. Iron was currently behind Iron Pact bars, but the real question was—

“Is he an elf?”

Quickpaw shook her head. “Nope. Another Drakkari. The Argent Claws gang is real picky about their recruits. Only Drakkari. And they hate everyone else.”

That made me frown. If Thibault had been an elf, it would’ve been too easy to link him to That Thing, or the underground Elven cult whose little ritual I’d interrupted the other day. Maybe even to That Thing’s influence directly.

Maybe he had been the reason for Iron and his gang shifting into their beast forms before turning red-core. Maybe he was why I’d smelled that rotten stench on them.

“But the name…” I muttered. “It sounds Elven.”

“That’s because it is.”

Hoh. Interesting.

“Did he grow up in Lithrindel?”

“I dunno much. Maybe Whisper does. But I always assumed that was the case. Adopted accent? Who knows. He purrs Common like a highborn elf reciting sonnets. Disgustingly poetic.”

Very suspicious.

“And Greg?” I pressed. “Vanished? Dead? Staging his own funeral?”

Quickpaw shrugged. “Your guess glows brighter than mine, oh cryptic one.”

Here we go. “I… might have a method to illuminate things.”

Quickpaw’s eyes narrowed. Then she grinned, sharp and knowing. “I knew you were hiding something.”

“Well, I wasn’t hiding anything,” I deflected smoothly. “Just… hadn’t found the right opportunity to showcase my talents.”

“It’s divination, isn’t it?”

I inclined my head.

“Guess Whisper was right. Again. And now I own her five silver Kron! Told me you smelled like a star-gazing hobo.”

That made me blink. “She guessed?”

“Whisper’s no fool,” Quickpaw mused, circling me. “You rattled her cage hard enough that day. Only two flavors of folk spook her—death-touched and truth-seers. And since you’re not reeking of grave moss…” Her grin turned knife-sharp. “Divination pathway it is. Showing up here? Chef’s kiss confirmation. Had to be sniffing for a relic to soul-stitch.”

Damn. These people were way too perceptive.

Alice extended the soggy hair-bundle, its aura screaming eldritch snail trail. “Shall we commence the divination, mistress?”

Ugh.

I swallowed bile and nodded. The hairs hit my palm with a wet splat.

Quickpaw leaned in, nostrils flaring. “Sure that’s not his—”

“No.”

“—backhair? ‘Cause honestly, it looks like a merrow’s—”

“Focus.” I snatched the strands, resisting the urge to exorcise my soul. “This requires concentration.”

Alice’s blindfold ignited, golden threads weaving a lattice of something holy—or unholy, depending on how you looked at it. Same procedure as always: she sanctified the space, called upon the Mother of Chains, and let the room steep in an oppressive, unseen weight. Quickpaw felt it too, her smirk died mid-curve as the Mother of Chains’ presence descended.

I whispered along, mimicking the motions, just enough to seem involved while Alice did the real work. No need to raise suspicions.

Then Alice’s blindfold unraveled, and two abyssal vortexes stared back at me where her eyes should’ve been. Before I could so much as shudder, she grabbed my hand.

Ink spilled into my vision, pooling, swirling, darkening.

Alice always said she entered a heightened state of the world. Now I understood what she meant. The veil lifted. I saw through walls. Alice pulsed cerulean—a drowned star. Quickpaw shimmered periwinkle.

No time to gawk.

“Greg’s current state,” Alice intoned.

“Greg’s current state,” I parroted, threefold.

The vision hit like a cleaver to the skull. My head snapped back. Darkness stretched. Then, from its edges, a scene formed—

A forest, but wrong—branches gnarled into arthritic fingers, mulch squelching with the consistency of rotted meat.

A hand. Severed. Fingers curled in rigor-mortis protest, tendons frayed like snapped harpstrings.

Beyond it, a torso split open—ribcage pried wide as a grimoire, organs reduced to blackened pulp. Fat glistened beneath skin chewed translucent, maggots seething in a carrion ballet.

Legs bent at angles bones shouldn’t allow, kneecaps cratered into the loam. A head nestled in brambles, face peeled back to a bone-white grin. Crows perched on his brow, beaks gloved in ocular jelly.

The scream trapped in his throat had escaped through his eyes—sockets blown wide, eaten down to lacrimal ducts. Red hair clung to his scalp in bloody tufts, the sole identifier in this butcher’s gallery.

A force wrenched my consciousness back. My head snapped upright as I staggered.

Quickpaw loomed inches from my face, pupils blown. “Well?!”

“Dead.” The word tasted of grave dirt. “Torn apart. Scattered. Rotting.”

Her nose wrinkled. “How dead?”

“Legs-in-the-ferns, guts-in-the-mud dead. Crows got his eyes. Maggots wrote him a love letter.” I said as I frowned. “Been dead awhile.”

Quickpaw let out a whistle that sounded like a hyena with a kazoo. “Whisper’s gonna cream her panties when we drop this news. Nothing gets her wetter than a corpse with panache.”

I absently brushed phantom grime from my palms. “Divination’s more scalpel than sledgehammer. Precision takes patience.”

“And yet here you are, carving answers out of thin air. Spicy.” Her grin was all knives.

Good. That should make me valuable to them—enough to squeeze out some juicy intel. The more I played a diviner, the more leverage I’d have to pry secrets from Whisper’s cold, greedy hands. And I was very interested in this Thibault. With Iron locked behind Iron Pact bars, he might be my only lead. Elven accent, Drakkari pedigree? Prime suspect for either the elves or the cultists. Maybe both? Oh, he’d be my new best friend.

Right after I cut out his tongue.

Too early to draw lines between dots, though.

“Soooo… can you also sniff out where the forest dumped his leftovers?” Quickpaw fluttered her lashes, a pantomime of innocence.

The vision had been thick with trees. One glance at Alice, and she nodded.

I just smiled, puffed up, smug as a cat in a fishery.

“Sweetcheeks,” I purred, “I could find his childhood teddy bear in that meat pile.”