Left, right, pivot, uppercut.

  Thud-thud-CRACK

  The sound echoes against the circle of trees, a song of scraped scales and steady breaths. I dance back through dawn-dappled shadow, tail out to steady my steps. Autumn leaves scatter with my passage, a flurry of golds, browns, and reds that I can't help but adore.

  Mm. Not there yet with the movement, though. More variations.

  Advance, snap right, pivot, left.

  Crunch-thud-CRACK

  My fists pound into the enchanted stone, scales scraping and shoulders burning. I keep my heart and breathing at a steady rhythm— Benny would be disappointed if I pushed myself in this state, after all.

  Can't just sit still. Not when I'm going back into the city today, not when there's work to be done and new feet to adjust to. I rock back on those feet, cws crunching through the leaves, and look down to inspect them.

  I’d seen other Delvers with them; they’re called digitigrade feet, apparently. Walking on four cwed toes and the ball of my foot, with my calves bent back further to accommodate for stretched and lifted heels. Not quite sure where the fifth toe went, honestly.

  On one hand, they completely ruin whatever boots I’m wearing. On the other, they completely ruin any shoe, which means nobody can ever try and talk me into high heels again. Take that, Lizzie!

  I snort. Best get used to them before they become more or less permanent, though. Like any other change in my body, the magic threshold for cwed feet slowly dropped with Delve exposure— but pushing myself the way I'd done in the Delve had dragged those thresholds down considerably. Barely need to hit a quarter of my limit for my feet to change, now, and I hit that just by enhancing my legs for better agility.

  And my tail, of course, remains at its new and perfect length. Not compining about that.

  Absolutely ruins my old pivots, and backstopping myself for a big hit is just... different, when my heels can still flex. They're incredible for short bursts of movement, though, and I don't doubt I could pounce a few marches further. After a few false starts, I’ve settled on using my lengthened tail as a third leg and anchor. It works well enough, but it shifts my weight in ways that’ll take time to adjust to. At least this rock is a decent punching target; hard enough that I need to brace my hits, and enchanted to weather time and violence.

  Time. Hm.

  Deep breaths. In goes the brisk cold air, out goes a warm breath. My heartbeat steadies, and I turn my gaze eastward. A twist of my head and a shift of my feet offers me a glimpse of the jagged horizon through the old oaks, of the sun freed from the distant mountaintops.

  I turn today’s schedule over in my head, pouring my thoughts out into a thump of my tail. And another, punctuated with a flick fast enough for the very air to crack around the tip. Gods, of all the things that’ve changed, that one’s perfect.

  Right. The schedule, Ivy.

  When’s Ruby up again? An hour or two, probably. Half hour here, wake Lena up, bathe, hug Benny, tea, and...

  Hug Lena again, probably, but then it’s down to the city to start hunting my prey. Finding Dongbaek, who’d managed to shake off even Elizabeth’s hunt. Hopefully Ruby can sniff out what we couldn’t, and Lena’s got a keener mind for puzzles than I do.

  What had the spirit said again? Keep an ear to the ground, right. They'd given me a time frame, too, one I'd shared with everyone the moment I woke up again.

  Three months.

  Less than that, now, with a week burned away recovering. Two months and three weeks to find the man that nearly killed me. By then, winter will have cimed the nd, bnketing in bitter cold and thick ice.

  Hopefully she doesn’t want me to put my ear to the ground literally. I don’t care what people think of me, usually, but going around actively looking like an idiot might actually drive me mad.

  Uppercut left, elbow, tail strike.

  Thump-thud-CRACK

  My tail sms into the stone, hard enough for the ground to shake underfoot. Dropping my tail, I spin, sticking an arm out to bance some unexpected sway. Inefficient, fshy, and feeling uncomfortably like ramming that one bit of my elbow against a wall, but it does work. I’ll just compin about it afterward for catharsis. But it works, and fshy can be nice sometimes, so it’s something to iterate on.

  Still, the stone stands, shivering with the Manor’s magic. The name chiseled into its surface seems almost... smug.

  Markus Tousavon Crawford Sr.

  I smirk at the tombstone. “Should’ve put funeral arrangements in that damned will of yours, father.”

  Rolling my shoulders, I step forward—

  And sm a punch directly into my father's name. The air cracks, my shoulder trembles, and I can't help but ugh. It's a hissing, guttural thing; not quite a growl, but hoarse enough to scratch my throat. “Put everything else in there, though.

  “Did you pn for that? For some priest trying to seal me in with one of your knives?” I snarl, dancing backward. My body tips, tail fring out for bance. “Didn't work, and some of his followers got caught in the act.”

  Didn't work. Won't work, now or ever. I've done it once, twice, I can do it again... once I can return to Delving. Soul's still a bit too cracked for that, and certain movements still cause me spikes of pain.

  Can't even use too much magic, either. Magic works though the soul, and my own is too cracked to channel much.

  ...too changed for my own comfort, as well. I’d poured so much Delve through it, first to escape the abstract and again to free us of the Delve itself. Changes I’d not know the extent of until my soul mended.

  And far, far worse than the risk of sting soul damage?

  Benny would be mad at me. Livid. Furious, even. They’d hug me, sure, but they’d be mad. Convincing them to let me exercise yesterday had been hard enough, and that's before I told them I’d been asked down to the station.

  My tail wriggles, scattering leaves across the clearing. “Whole city's a bit off kilter, now. Trying to kill a Padin of Adamantine will do that.”

  And thank the Goddess that her padin is alright. Verity is as... bright... as ever, now that she's back on her feet, no matter how much the healer insists she stay in bed. The new feathers definitely have her off bance, and I can't say I—

  No. I stop halfway through a punch, flexing my fingers.

  Lena was worried that people wouldn't treat her the same way. Maybe Verity's the same? I set that particur thought aside for ter.

  I look to the mountains again, rolling my shoulders. The sun hides itself behind a low-hanging branch, peeking through the autumn leaves. A breeze drags a reddish leaf away as I watch, baring yet more of the sun's light.

  “It was Adamantine that warned me, too,” I muse, wrapping my tail around my waist. My cws run over the scales, clicking in rhythm, and I can't help but smile. “Verity keeps dodging the question with awful puns, though.”

  And that's an answer too, isn't it? Not that I needed one. What other spirit speaks of justice and has an arm of brass? And the spirit's advice makes sense, if nothing else. What better day to break the wards, than the day the sun is weakest? Why dance around the issue?

  And, Gods, the festival. The Hero's Festival, on the night of the solstice— of course Dongbaek would want to ruin it, because there's not a damn chance we could stop the festival from happening, even if we tried.

  A growl builds in my throat, just loud enough that I can hear it echo off the trees.

  It was Olivia's favorite, too. She'd been so excited to see it in her st year; we were going to watch the re-enactment of the Sun Emperor's fall together.

  “You and Mother sstarted thiss, whatever thisss iss, with that damned box,” I hiss out. “Put the knife in there to hide it from me, I’ll hazard, for whatever pn it iss you had. I’ll figure it out and end it.”

  My tail drops to the leafy ground with a crunch and thump. The growl becomes a snarl.

  Twist, from leg to shoulder. Roll, curl fist, and—

  With a roar, I sm my fist into my father's name once more. Magic sputters, stone groans, and I can hear birds scattering in the distance. My pulse beats loud in my chest. Pain prowls at the edge of my thoughts, but I've had far, far worse.

  The stone, still standing, is cold against my scales. Blood oozes its way into the etched letterwork, and my bones slowly knit themselves back together.

  Each breath is slower than the st. In and out. Slowly, calmly.

  ...Going it alone hasn't exactly helped, and I'd be dead or trapped without Verity and Lena.

  Maybe “I” isn't the right word, anymore.

  “We will end it,” I amend, slowly rocking back on my feet. I let my heels touch the ground, anchoring my thoughts to the strain and stretching of muscle. “Winston, Harriet, Lizzie, Benny, Lena, Verity, and even Ruby.”

  When my soul groans in protest, I lessen the flow of magic to my hand and flex my fingers experimentally.

  I look to the sun, count out the arc, pour out a little Lightning to sear the blood off my cws. With a little smack of my tail against my father's grave, I spin around and start walking home.

  “Oh,” I call back, letting a grin creep across my lips. “I opened a Delve from the inside, by the way. Didn’t even need a knife to do it.”

  If my father can hear me, I hope he's seething.

  Well, whether or not he's seething, Ain certainly is. Quietly, at least.

  Not that it's my fault, though I admit it’d be more entertaining if it was my fault. There’s a lot to be said for annoying that man.

  If anything, he settles the moment Lena comes through the door behind me, staying that way even after his eyes sweep past Lena's muffling cap and the ears beneath it. But I could hear his heartbeat through that door, hear his muffled grousing when we stepped into the station… a handful of other signs besides, I'm sure.

  Whatever the case, still isn't my fault, and we enter the rge meeting room to retive silence. It feels a bit strange, though; just Ain, Chief Flint, Ruby, and someone I don't recognize at all around a table meant for ten or twenty.

  "Dame Crawford," Chief Flint says with a nod. "Helena Harkness. It was pleasant to hear you were interested in participating in today's work.”

  I frown, gncing at Lena. She’s dressed in a tan blouse and deep brown skirt, throwing a bck coat she’d borrowed from my wardrobe over to stave off the chill of morning. And, of course, the ears, perked up and pointed at the room beneath the cap. Once I’d suggested it, she’d made the modifications herself, whipping up the ear-socks over the course of a day and a half.

  She’s adjusted rather well to the new ears, really. A few days of fidgeting, more than a little compining about no human ears to tuck her hair behind, and... mm. I should probably ask her how she’s feeling about them at some point— st time she’d just compined about all the noise, which led to the muffler cap.

  Lena looks back, chewing on her lip. Do I say something? She'd said she just wanted us to call her Lena, hadn't she. Bah. Not a damned clue how important it is to her, or not important.

  Ruby nods sharply, not looking up from the papers scattered around her. "Good morning."

  The person I don't recognize gives a half-bow from their seat, red eyes boring into me. Their voice is coarse and firm, even as their heart accelerates. "Good morning, my dy."

  "Dame Crawford," Ain drawls, eyes flicking off of me. He crosses his purple-robed arms over his chest, and his lips twist into what I can charitably call a smile. "We've missed you, Helena. I'm gd to see you in person."

  "Ah, could you call me Lena, actually?"

  "Lena, then," Ain says, running a hand through his hair. “We’ve missed you, Lena.”

  Chief Flint clears her throat, rolling her neck. I can hear her joints crack from here, ow. "Names aside, and my apologies, Miss Harkness, but we should get on with things. Dame Crawford, Miss Harkness, may I ask you to be seated?"

  Lena slips into a seat, and I'm left to look for chairs with tail holes— none, as usual, so then it comes down to what's sturdy enough. I pick one, spin it around, and ease myself onto it carefully before leaning into the back.

  And, yes, it creaks, even when I pool my tail onto the ground. Turns out that extra tail is extra weight, even if it's fantastic to have this much tail. Nothing ominous about the creaking, though, so I can consider the whole thing a success.

  "So, what do we know?" I inquire, looking around the room. Ain's brow furrows and his mouth opens, so I plow on ahead. "I know Lizzie caught some of them, and no, I didn't read the missives. Spent most of the week trying to put my soul back together."

  The mystery person's eyebrows shoot up, and everyone else winces. Yes, even Ain… bah, mystery person is a mouthful. I'll call them Red until I get a name, though I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me and I've forgotten.

  "Unfortunately, you've got most of it already," Chief Flint starts, clearing her throat. The well-worn lines on her face twist into a grimace, a shape they're clearly quite comfortable with. "We have three captives locked up for now, and they've not given us much to go on. However."

  Her grimace deepens. "I don't know how much you've heard about this, but all three are registered members of the Church of Restoration."

  The wood of the table crackles in my grip. A growl rolls in my chest, ripping its way free as a guttural snarl. "Of courssse they are."

  Three hearts lurch in their rhythms: Red, Lena, and Ain. Red has their eyes fixed on my cws, jaw set and breathing steady.

  Lena's gone stiff beside me, her hands curled in a cold rictus of… something I cannot pce. Betrayed by her own, in ways deeper than we'd known; is it anger she feels, or sadness? Perhaps something else entirely?

  "Were. We have expelled them from our ranks." Ain's voice cuts through my thoughts like a cold bde. "Our tenets and ws are quite clear. No twist of Service or generosity can come to mean murder or terror for a city, and I have no doubt it is Dongbaek who led them astray. I—"

  He stops suddenly, working his jaw. When he speaks again, I can feel the heat seething beneath, bubbling over in spatters of anger. "Continue, Chief Flint."

  Chief Flint nods, eyes flickering across the room. "Nobody knows where Dongbaek went, again, the Church is in chaos, and there's so much gossip that eyewitness accounts are almost completely unreliable. Even Gelson couldn't get much out of it. Gelson?"

  Ruby's face is, as usual, unreadable. "There is no evidence indicating that Bitgarm Dongbaek can fly, and I have already performed multiple sweeps of the sewers for proposed secret passages."

  She pauses. "Nor do I believe that Dame Crawford has eaten him."

  Heh. He'd taste awful— but. No amount of humor can quash my rising irritation, and it instead comes out as flexes of my tail. I am made to rip flesh and break bone, but devouring a person? Absolutely not.

  "What?" Lena blurts. "T-that's ridiculous. Why would anyone think she ate someone?"

  "It's the teeth," Chief Flint sighs, inclining her head to me. "My apologies, Dame Crawford. I can assure you we’ve tried to discourage that rumor."

  My response is more grumble than meaningful words. Of course it's the teeth.

  "Her reputation is hardly clean," Ain says bndly. I can't help but roll my eyes. Why should I care what they think of me? "Nor has she done anything to make it better, unless you count cavorting around with a padin."

  Red opens their mouth, expression shifting in ways I can't begin to name. And, just as they're about to speak, they close their mouth with a soft click.

  But we really aren't getting anywhere, are we, and Chief Flint wouldn't ask me here just so I can antagonize Ain. I pull some words together, thumping my tail against the carpet.

  "I came to hear what needs doing, and see if we've gotten anywhere," I state, looking back at Chief Flint. "Get on with your part."

  Chief Flint's eyes flicker, and I can see a bit of steel rising behind them. "All three captives are afraid of you, Dame Crawford."

  "Interrogation, then. Sure," I shrug, hiding a smile. They are prey working with Dongbaek, and a little bit of fear is… satisfying, in ways it probably shouldn't be. "And what about—"

  "How can I help?" Lena cuts in, wilting when everyone turns to face her. She swallows, runs a hand along her cloth-sleeved ear, and takes a shuddering breath. "I, um, I don't know if there's much I can do about an interrogation. Unless you've got other pns, a-and I think we should go over those first."

  A brief pause. My tail finds the base of Lena's chair, coiling around it— she's done most of my work for me, really.

  Chief Flint doesn't smile so much as stop frowning, but it's enough for me to pick up on. "Put simply, Miss Harkness, we need Mages and we need to keep the city from panicking. We need information— thus why this meeting started without you two— and we need Dongbaek apprehended as quickly as possible. He is dangerous, and the city needs to know that the Church, the Lord, and the Constables are all working together to take him down— that he's an enemy. Dame Crawford is the most dangerous being in the city, and you are the only Mage affiliated with the Church.”

  "And the only member of the Church I actually like," I add, following along. "I'd probably have Ain in the canal by lunch."

  Ain scoffs, gesturing my way. "Nor can I bear your presence, Dame. I am here to try and appeal to the captives, if you must know. Lena is our best choice out of many bad ones, and thanks to the Church's current policy, our only Mage."

  "They're all members of the Church, right?" Lena confirms, hands fidgeting with her bag. "Which, Gods, why would they, ah. Trying to kill Ivy and Verity is just wrong. It makes the Church look…"

  "It implies the Church holds significant hostility to the city, and to the Goddess of Justice," Ruby nods her head. "We did not finish our summary. Mir Volmar is present because they enabled the capture of three accomplices, and was the st person to see Bitgarm Dongbaek."

  A name! And Volmar is a definite they—

  I turn my gaze on them, a bit more appraisingly this time. Who are they, I wonder? A soldier? A warrior? A Mageblood, hiding the eyes that mark our kind?

  Whatever the case may be, I give them a nod, and they nod back stiffly.

  She frowns, pursing her lips. "Detective Tracer is busy with the missing persons case, and will not be participating. I am here to solve the crime. I believe this addresses everyone. May we proceed?"

  I point at Ruby and gnce at Lena. My voice drops down, and I poke her boot with my tail. "This is why I like her, you know."

  Lena nods stiffly, and I can see a waver of a smile grace her lips. "S-she's very honest."

  "Thank you, detective," Chief Flint sighs, massaging her forehead. Her frown returns, cut through her features like lines on a statue. "Gods, right. Gelson, take the Dame and Miss Harkness to the detaining area. Once you're done— so long as the Dame permits, of course— you may begin your full investigation. Mir Volmar, Mister Hendrick, I'll need a handful of things from both of you."

  Volmar's jaw tightens. "Yes, ma'am."

  Ruby's eyes light up, but her voice is as ft as ever. "Yes, Chief. Ivy?"

  I give Ruby a shrug. "We need to get to Dongbaek, don't we?"

  Ruby continues to stare.

  Right. Forgot about that bit.

  I take a moment to look at Lena. "Looks like this is our day, if you're up for it."

  Lena nods vigorously. "Yes, of course! We, ah, it's important to find D-dongbaek. So we can. S-so we can, um, bring him to justice. Right? And don't worry just yet. If it's too much, I'll just say so."

  My mouth shuts with a click, my argument dying on my lips.

  "You really have grown, then," Ain whispers, and annoyingly, I'm probably the only one who can hear that. I don't really want to know about Ain's soft side, but here I am.

  "Right," I agree, tail curling around a chair leg. Something warm rises through my chest. "I'll hold you to that—"

  Ruby coughs. "I am going to assume yes. May we proceed?"

  I snort, rising from my chair and putting a hand on Lena's shoulder. "We may. Lead on."

  "Can you, um, let go of my leg first?" Lena's words tumble out, nearly too fast for me to process, and the heat hasn't even finished rising on my cheeks before my tail snaps away from her leg.

  "Lead on," I repeat, firmly this time, and follow Ruby out of the room before Ain can say whatever nonsense is forming on his poison-den tongue.

  The moment we're all out of the room, Ruby clears her throat, adjusting her curly bck hair. Brown eyes peer up at me, then turn to Lena, regarding her the same way I might a tree or odd statuary.

  Seconds pass, counted by a clock ticking somewhere down the hall. It takes me a few moments to find it, sweeping across the walls strewn with reports and the doors belled with names I don't care to remember.

  Lena tilts her head, one ear flicking inside its sleeve. "Um—"

  "You have different ears," Ruby says finally, nodding to herself. "Muffling cap to reduce sound levels. Yes, that's what changed."

  And then, "Congratutions. Let us go intimidate the captives."

  That gets a giggle out of Lena, and a proper chuckle out of me. Yes, time to go intimidate some captives…

  And finally, finally start hunting down Dongbaek.

  Origami_Narwhal