“Tzacctlatl,” Zecora repeated, slowly emphasizing each syllable.

“That’s the name that it said in the Tacnu,” Daring Do said, pacing Zecora’s tree trunk cabin. “It also said that that…thing is some kinda key. It’s supposed to wake up the Ahuizotl.”

Zecora’s face blanched and she murmured something that sounded like a terrified curse. Daring’s stomach twisted as a magic lantern show of monstrous idols and corpses passed before her eyes: the bones of the Verdant Sisterhood, buried beneath the unnaturally cold stones. Darlene and her companions sprawled across the altars. The five sacrificial victims in the basement. Skulls with hieroglyphs etched into their foreheads, embedded into ancient stone.

Uncle Ad, sprawled in the snow, withered blue flesh clinging to his bones. She flinched as his dying scream echoed in her ears one last time, watched as the shadows seized him, that awful idol of the dog-like beast from that damned cave grinning at her as it fell from his hoof–

Daring shook herself out of her reverie. “But we do have this,” she added, passing Zecora the translation of the stela.

Zecora snatched the recipe from her hoof and studied it, a glimmer of hope slowly dawning in her eyes. “I find myself awestruck at this turn of good luck! Quickly, my friend, we’ll set to work lest we all turn out to be berks!”

Zecora already had some of the listed ingredients, namely the rotgrass, nightkiss, and a tightly sealed jar of dust peas. With Daring’s help, the alchemist set to work, carefully measuring out the ingredients, grinding them into a paste, and blending them with oil from the dustpeas, all the while invoking prayers in a singsong chant.

The resultant mixture was a thick, dark blue oil that sat in a large bowl, emitting a faint, sweet odor of weeds and mud. Zecora dipped a clean cloth into the oil and wrapped it around a stick, then held it out to Daring. “And now at work’s end, will you do the honors, my friend?” she asked.

Daring pulled out a lighter and flicked it open, holding up the flame to the torch. The oil-soaked cloth caught flame almost instantly and whooshed to life, burning an unnatural blue-green hue, white smoke pouring from the flames.

“Whoa,” Daring gasped, unable to suppress a thrill of elation running up her spine at their success.

Zecora gazed wide-eyed upon the torch, her glowing face beaming with a smile. “The spirits watch and bless, for we have achieved our success!”

“Okay, it catches on fire nicely,” Daring commented as Zecora shook the torch out and began soaking more cloths into the oil. “But how can we be sure that it’ll work on Tzacctlatl?”

“There’s only one way to this fear address,” Zecora said, her face now grim. “We’ll have to find them and put it to the test.”

Daring took a breath to still her twisting stomach. “And for that, we’ll need Phil’s help,” she said.

“Bringing another weapon to the fight will surely make his day a bit more bright,” Zecora said, wrapping the torches into a bundle and securing them into her saddlebag. “Once we have it trapped, thrice its name I will speak. My spell will banish it, and our future shall not be bleak.”

“Here’s hoping,” Daring said, wiping sweat from her brow and placing her pith helmet back on her head. “C’mon, let’s go.”

She opened the door and froze. A pair of chartreuse eyes were glaring at her.

“I thought I might find you here,” Caballeron said, entering the cabin and casting an eye around the shelves of jars and hanging herbs and gourds, the carved masks hanging on the wall, and the massive cauldron sitting in the center of the floor. He made eye contact with Zecora, who frowned back at him. “You’ve already made the torches, I see.”

“What are you doing here, Caballeron?” Daring asked.

“For one thing, Dean Paper is angry at you. You know that you missed classes. Second, you agreed that you wouldn’t just leave me hanging again,” Caballeron accused Daring, glaring at her over a shoulder. “And then you flee here as soon as you have what you want.” He turned around. “Do you not understand what we have here? We are standing on the precipice of a great discovery and you are not cooperating with me.”

“Is this all that means to you?” Daring scowled. “Another notch in your belt, a way to get your name in the papers again? You like Scarlet’s little scrapbook?”

“It’s not just that!” Caballeron protested. “An entire civilization waiting to be discovered! A new species, new magic, an entirely new culture, all there for us to learn from! Doesn’t that excite you?”

“Not as much as it horrifies me that there’s an undead bloodthirsty monster running around,” Daring replied sharply.

“A monster?” another voice asked. Twilight Sparkle entered the hut, her saddlebag stuffed with notepads and books. “Oh, hello, Professor Do, Doctor Caballeron. What were you talking about? The monster on that stela?”

With a smug look, Caballeron pulled out the copy of The Language and Customs of the Everfree Forest and the translation of the stela’s warning and thrust them at Twilight. She took them in her magic, her confusion slowly turning into wide-eyed disbelief. “You…you found The Language and Customs of the Everfree Forest? And you translated the language?!”

“I was right, Señorita Sparkle,” Caballeron declared, puffing himself up like a peacock. “Turns out that legends and myths aren’t always to be discredited, eh?”

“I owe you an apology, Doctor,” Twilight admitted, scanning the translation. “Hmm…interesting. I wouldn’t have expected Thicket, if it existed, to have been warlike. Maybe this mythology of the monster with one eye explains their past away as not their fault–”

“It’s not mythology, Twilight,” Daring cut in.

Twilight and Caballeron both looked up at Daring’s words. “What makes you so sure, Daring?” Caballeron asked.

“Because we both saw it,” Daring answered coldly. Zecora nodded in affirmation.

“¿Que? You are sure?” Caballeron asked, awe and interest in his chartreuse orbits.

Twilight blinked and raised an eyebrow. “Um…Professor, Zecora, if this is your idea of a joke, it’s in rather poor taste.”

“‘Tis no joke, my young unicorn friend,” Zecora said grimly. “We saw the beast who brought lives to end. With these torches, we set out to seek and put an end to that bloodthirsty freak.”

Twilight stared at the heads of the torches jutting from Zecora’s bag. “Um…are you sure that’s what you saw?” she asked slowly. “Whatever happened, maybe there’s some other explanation–”

“So you think we’re nuts now? Is that what it is?” Daring snapped back, glaring daggers at Twilight.

Twilight took a nervous step back. “No, Professor, that’s not what I’m–”

“Calmate, mi amigo,” Caballeron stepped in, placing a hoof on Daring’s shoulder. “She just doesn’t have a mind as broad as ours. When we find that thing, we can put them all to shame! Everyone who ever doubted us–”

“Oh, this is all easy for you to fucking say!” Daring suddenly shouted, throwing Caballeron’s hoof off. “You saw those corpses on those stones, but you can just shrug it off as not your Faust-damn problem! You’re not the one who walked into that fucking basement! You didn’t see that fucking thing get up off the floor, wearing a dead pony like fucking jacket! You didn’t have to fight it!”

“Daring–” Caballeron started to protest, backing away with his hooves raised.

“And you weren’t in the Sunken Church!” Daring continued. “You weren’t fighting for your life in that stinking tomb! And you weren’t fending off those eyeless freaks that Oddjob summoned! And you didn’t watch your uncle wither away and die because he touched–!”

She suddenly stopped, her jaw hanging slack, her heart feeling frozen in her chest.

“Touched what?” Caballeron asked, curiosity mingling with the shock in his eyes. Twilight was backing away, looking close to tears.

Zecora laid a gentle hoof on Daring’s shoulder, a lifeline back to reality. Daring took a deep breath and let it out in a grunt.

“C’mon, Zecora,” she said, heading for the door.

“I’m sorry, but I do believe that it is time for you to leave,” Zecora said to her other two guests.

Caballeron scowled at them both, then walked out with an irritated grunt. Twilight opened her mouth, then slowly closed it and exited. Zecora followed her out, shutting the door behind them.

Daring and Zecora watched Caballeron and Twilight disappear back down the path towards the city. “Do you wish to talk while we head down our walk?” Zecora asked quietly.

“Not now,” Daring admitted. “C’mon. Let’s get back to my apartment for my stuff, then we can go monster hunting.”

“Oh, there you are,” Daring said as she and Zecora entered the basement offices of the AIU. Phillip Finder was sitting at the central table, his face paler than normal but his eyes as cold and hard as ever; he, Red Herring, and Trace Evidence were looking over stacks of faxed records and mug shots.

“Where’d you expect him to be, the spa?” Red Herring asked from Phil’s left, barely looking up at their approach.

Trace raised an eyebrow at the two mares. “I thought I told you that your help would just get you in trouble, Professor,” she said.

“Well, I’m here now, and I’m helping whether you want it or not,” Daring replied. “So either arrest me or hear me out.”

Trace studied her, then glanced at Phillip, who just stared back at him. Trace sighed and shook his head. “I’m too old for this shit,” he muttered. “Fine, get in here. I’ll clear it with Cold later on. Beg forgiveness and all that.”

“Here,” Daring said, passing Phillip his cleaned vest. “Clean as bleach and coin-operated washing machines can get it. Got all the gear in there, too.”

“Thank you,” Phillip nodded, swinging the vest back on.

“So you’ve got two assistants now, Finder?” Red Herring asked. “We going to have to pay them consultant fees?”

“Hey, I wouldn’t mind the cash,” Daring smirked at Red. “Not like professors make that much.”

Red didn’t quite smile, but the corner of his beak twitched.

“Speak to them about it, not me,” Phillip said. He managed a smile as the two mares sat down opposite the three stallions. “Glad you’re here, sheilas.”

“You all should be happier still when you see why my bags are filled,” Zecora said, opening her saddlebags and placing the torches on the table.

Red Herring raised an eyebrow. “Going spelunking, are we?”

“We translated an inscription at the original site,” Daring said. “We think that these torches can hurt the…thing.”

“About that,” Trace Evidence said, his face carefully neutral. “We wanted to get your input on what exactly happened in that basement.”

“Least you could do after leaving that mess for the Ponyville Police to clean up,” Red grunted. “And by ‘clean up,’ I mean ‘pass on to us.’”

Daring and Zecora glanced at each other and simultaneously took a deep breath. “Okay,” Daring said. “So we came up with the idea of looking for Revelation with the tracking potions…” She took them through the creation of the potions, then their discovery of the drug house and the corpses within. Red and Trace listened attentively as Daring did her best to describe the unicorn rising up and attacking them with the shadowy claws wrapped around his form.

“I…it hurt to look at,” she admitted, rubbing her forehead where the pain was growing. “It had shapes like claws, like a scorpion or a crab, but it was more like the…like the world around them bent into those shapes.”

“And it somehow managed to claw Phil’s back without damaging his vest,” Trace commented.

Phil nodded silently; though his expression didn’t change, his face somehow became stonier. He pulled a flask marked with a prescription label from a pocket of his vest and flipped it open, releasing a sour scent like old milk. He chugged down a gulp and shuddered as he capped it.

“Blood replenishing potion,” he added by way of explanation in a curt tone.

“Zecora dropped a smoke bomb and we got out of there,” Daring said. “No idea what happened to it after that.”

Trace and Red both glanced at each other while Trace finished up his notes.

“Oh, do you not believe me?” Daring snapped, feeling like a string being pulled taut.

“It’s not that,” Trace said, raising a conciliatory hoof. “You’re telling what you saw and we’re taking it at face value. We just can’t assume anything right off.”

“Something like ninety percent of the cases that the AIU deals with turns out to be frauds or have a completely rational explanation,” Red explained. “Last winter, we responded to an alleged necromancer in Las Pegasus with an undead army. Turns out that it was just a bunch of actors using makeup and illusion spells.”

“The point is,” Trace cut in, giving his partner a glare. “You definitely saw something weird, but we’re not gonna assume that it’s a monster just yet. There might have been a more rational explanation. Is that fair?”

Daring scowled, but sighed and nodded.

“If you were wondering, the Ponyville Police found the other five bodies, but there was no sign of your friend, or that stash of Revelation,” Red said. “Surprise, surprise, the neighbors didn’t see anything.”

“So much for then, this is now,” Trace said. He pulled one of the mug shots from the stack of telefaxed reports and placed it on the center of the table, in view of everypony. “Look familiar?”

A chill ran down Daring’s back. Though the stallion’s eyes were a normal shade of green with regular circular pupils, the blue-white unicorn was definitely the same one from the night before. His cutie mark, she noticed, was a tall glass of dark, foamy liquid with a crescent moon embossed upon the glass.

“Though the night was dim, I am certain that that was him,” Zecora nodded.

“His name is…or maybe was Dusk Brew,” Trace said. “As Phil suggested, he was involved in the K&A gang and spent some time in a prison in Fillydelphia for extortion, burglary, and drug running. A couple of months ago, he moved to Ponyville.”

“We were reviewing known associates when you came here,” Phillip said as he dug through the files. “Getting rid of the ones that we know aren’t in Ponyville. Right…not you. Not you. Not you…” he said, flinging mugshots and files aside.

“Yes, yes, make another mess for us to clean up,” Red dryly commented, eyeing the growing pile of discarded papers on the floor.

Eventually, they were left with a list of nine names. “Well, that’s at least better than twenty-one,” Red grunted.

“That’s still a lot of ponies,” Trace commented. “Any other ideas on how to narrow that down further?”

An idea sparked in Daring’s head. “Any of them griffon hens?” she asked.

Phil ran down the list before pulling out a file displaying the mugshot of a tall black griffon hen scowling at the camera. “Yes. Giselle Starglide. Born in Manehattan, teen record for drug dealing and disruptive conduct. Moved to Fillydelphia in ‘43, worked with the K&A gang as a fence and drug dealer. Broke parole in ‘51, whereabouts unknown. Oh…looks like she and Dusk were lovers on and off.”

Daring seized the report. “Three foot eleven…black coat with green wings, green eyes! And she lost a claw in an accident working in a prison shop! That’s gotta be her! The griffon that Funny Bone saw Darlene buying Revelation from! And she was at the house!”

“More than likely,” Phillip agreed, patting Daring on the back. “Ripper.”

“My blood’s still worth bottling?” Daring grinned.

“Deffo,” Phillip grinned.

The other three occupants of the room blinked in puzzlement. “Ohhh-kay then,” Trace said slowly. “But it seems to me that now we’ve just traded one pony to find for another.”

“A griffon with a missing claw shouldn’t be that hard to find,” Daring said.

“The population of Ponyville is just shy of three hundred thousand,” Trace said. “Griffons take up about thirteen percent of that. One griffon out of about thirty-three thousand might be easier than one unicorn, but it’s still going to be a tough find.”

“Well, shit, that’s what we get paid the big bucks for,” Red sighed. “So. Any ideas on how to find this Giselle?”

“Worked as a repair griffon before her prison term and did machinist work in prison,” Phillip read from her file. “Oh, wait: she’s a member of the Golden Covenant,” he added, pointing to a booking photograph. She was wearing a necklace with a golden charm shaped like a phoenix embracing a sun. “Could check the local synagogue for her.”

Trace sighed and stood up, swinging his RBI vest onto his shoulders. “Okay. Time to do some legwork.”

Priestess Windchime of the Ponyville Synagogue finished buffing the wings of the great golden idol of Ziz that engulfed the altar before turning to face her questioners.

“She told me her name was Copperwing,” the white griffonness explained, placing the buffing rag in the bucket. The thin cloth wrapped around her eyes and the bells tied around her forelegs marked her as an adherent of Chalom, the griffon demigoddess of travelers, dreams, and death. “She came here a few months ago; she never became a full member of the congregation, but she attended regularly, hanging about the outskirts of the group, but she offered help as a handygriff of sorts. She even did some odd jobs around the synagogue–plumbing, electrical work.”

“You ever have any reason to be suspicious of her?” Trace asked. He and Red were standing before Windchime at the head of the sanctuary; Zecora, Daring, and Phil were sitting in a pew a few rows behind them.

Windchime turned and gave him a hard scowl; her brown eyes were cold through the symbolic blindfold. “Agent Evidence, the calling of Chalom is to be a guide to the lost,” she said, shaking one of the bells on her forelimbs as if to emphasize the point. “Many of the worshippers here have done things that would label them as ‘suspicious.’ But my job is not to judge; Mother Ziz’s wings are large enough to embrace the world, so mine must be wide enough to embrace my flock.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Trace replied; though his tone remained unchanged, his eyes narrowed slightly.

The priestess huffed. “No. No, I did not have reason to suspect her of anything.”

“Do you know where we can find her?” Trace asked.

“I once heard her mention that she could get the tools she needed for a neighbor’s task at her job at a reduced rate,” Windchime said, turning back to her task. “So at a guess, she works at a hardware store or something. I presume that the RBI is capable of making something of that.”

Trace and Red both glanced at each other, equally scowling. “Thank you for your time,” Trace said, flipping his notebook closed and turning for the door.

“Perhaps when you are done harassing her, she’ll give you a discount on some tinfoil,” Windchime grumbled as the agents exited, just loud enough to be audible in the sanctuary.

Red took a breath and bit down a retort as they pushed through the doors and into the gilded vestibule.

“She didn’t sound very eager to help,” Daring commented, putting down a pamphlet about the Golden Covenant that she’d been studying out of boredom.

“Griffons generally don’t play nice with pony law enforcement,” Red admitted as the group exited into the exterior of the church. “Especially not with the Tinfoil Hat Brigade. And a congregation like this probably has a fair share of ex-cons. Or maybe current cons. Someone like her, her instinct would be to circle the wagons if she sensed trouble; she only cooperated with us because she knew that we could force her to cooperate if we wanted to.”

Zecora cocked her head. “So where next shall we toil? And please tell me, what’s tinfoil?”

“Explain later,” Phillip grunted. “So. Guess we need to start looking at hardware stores.”

“Guess so,” Trace said, heading for the tan Hayson Commander parked in the lot of the temple, in the shadow of the winged belltower. He popped open the trunk and dug around, pushing aside a shotgun, a Trotson submachine gun, and a toolbag until he found what he was looking for: a battered phonebook.

“Okay, hardware stores, hardware stores,” he muttered, flipping through the yellow pages. “Here we go…looks like there’s five in town.”

“Faster if we split up,” Phillip said, tapping addresses on the book. “Trace, you, Zecora, and I will take these two. Red and Daring can check these three.”

“Hell, little less work for me always works,” Trace said as he tossed the book back into the trunk and slammed the lid shut.

Red grunted. “Yeah, give the one who can fly more work,” he grumbled.

“You need the exercise,” Trace replied, opening the driver’s side door. “Miss Zecora?”

Zecora climbed into the passenger seat and began fumbling with the seat belt. As Daring turned to take flight, she felt Phillip place a hoof on her shoulder. “Eyes open, Daring,” he urged her. “Be careful.”

Daring smiled and booped him on the nose. “Relax. After the Sunken Temple, I don’t think finding a griffon is going to be that hard.”

Phillip looked like he was going to say something else, then just awkwardly patted her on the shoulder before heading to his motorcycle.

“Hey! You coming, or you need to get a room?” Red shouted from overhead.

“Yeah, yeah,” Daring said, flying after him and cursing her cheeks for flushing.

The burro clad in the bright red vest frowned at Red Herring’s badge, mouthing out the letters A-I-U to himself before a grin crossed his face. “Oh, right. What’s wrong, Agent? Somepony spot Bighoof skulking around in the fasteners?” He eyed Daring’s pith helmet. “Or, no, don’t tell me; there’s a hidden temple beneath the plumbing aisle.”

The pimpled cashiers nearby both snickered. Red Herring scowled and tucked the badge back into his coat; Daring deliberately pushed her hat down lower over her eyes.

“We’re looking for one of your employees,” he said. “A griffon hen, black with greenish feathers, about four foot.”

“You must be talking about Copperwing,” the manager said. “I think she’s in the back.”

He led the two of them towards a back door marked Employees Only and pushed through it, revealing a back warehouse with stacked pallets of hardware, shelves of boxed grills and patio furniture, a parked van for deliveries, and a workbench for assembling and repairing.

A tall black griffon in another red vest, her wingtips marked with green, was hovering near one of the upper shelves, pulling bags of concrete mix from a stack and placing them onto a cart.

“Hey, Copperwing!” the manager called out. “These two agents from the RBI wanna talk to–”

Copperwing–Giselle–looked at Red Herring and Daring, froze for a moment, then threw the bag in her hooves at Red with a grunt. “Whoa!” Red shouted as he jumped out of the way, the concrete bag slamming onto the ground and exploding into a cloud of dust.

The griffon hen raced out a back door with a streak of black and a crashing of hinges. “She’s running!” Daring shouted, darting out after her. Red was slow on her tail, gasping in between barks into his radio.

Daring spotted Giselle rocketing to the south, gliding low over some buildings, clearly trying to lose her pursuers in the alleyways. “Get back here!” Daring shouted, putting herself on her tail.

“Just let me go, prof!” Giselle shouted over her shoulder, darting around behind a market.

Daring flew over the market, catching a warm updraft to propel her, and dove down into the alley behind. She spotted Giselle’s tail disappearing around another corner as the griffon swooped up over the rooftops.

Daring Do’s hoof reached down to the stockwhip at her side and she snapped her wrist out with a crack! The whip ensnared Giselle’s hind leg, eliciting a squawk of terror as she fought to release herself.

Watching her target’s panicked flapping of her wings, Daring drew her left wing back, gathering energy with a buzzing like static electricity dancing along her feather, then snapped the wing at her. The gust of wind shot from her wing like a blade and hit Giselle’s right wing just as she was pulling it up. Knocked off-balance, Giselle flailed in the air as gravity reasserted its grip over her.

Daring twisted and heaved on the whip, yanking Giselle in like a fish on a line. The griffon screeched as she fell from the sky, thumping to the ground. Daring immediately pounced upon the griffon, twisting her onto her face.

“There you are!” Red Herring shouted, panting as he caught up.

“Let me go! Let me go!” Giselle screeched, desperately struggling as Red and Daring both pinned her down.

“Quit struggling,” Red snapped, pulling out a set of hoofcuffs and securing them to Giselle’s forelimbs. Giselle’s struggles faded as the enchanted steel robbed her of her flight magic and her energy.

Red sat her up and patted her down for any weapons, then placed her against the wall. “Right,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “While we wait for my partner to come pick you up and give you a ride to your new motel, we’re going to have a chat about your friend Dusk Brew.”

Giselle looked up at him, her face dirty and bruised from the fall, then let out a humorless laugh and hung her head. “My friend?” she asked bitterly. “Dusk died on that slab that night. That thing walking around in his skin isn’t him.”

“You were there?” Daring asked.

“I was, and I wish to Ziz that I wasn’t,” Giselle answered.

“Tell me what happened,” Daring urged.

Giselle looked up at her, then back down at the ground. “The dreams…the Revelation told us to come to the stones. That we’d get answers there.” She made a choked noise. “That the dreams would stop…” She sniffled and shrugged her shoulders. “So we got there and started snorting up, trying to figure out what to do next…and some of those ponies, they just climbed up on the stones, laid down, and stabbed themselves in the chest. Didn’t make a fucking sound…creepiest thing I’d ever seen. And then Dusk…”

She shivered, made another choked noise, and shook her head. “Dammit, I tried to stop him…and as soon as he’d bled out, the stones exploded and that…that fucking thing swarmed out of the ground and into him, and…” She squeezed her eyes tightly and shook her head.

“It…it said it needed more,” she said. “More blood. More…worshippers. So I–we–the other dealers and I, had to go out and find them. Same as we did before, find the ones having the dreams, tell them that we’d give them some answers, or at least get them to stop.” She laughed bitterly. “Right. Like any of this made any fucking sense.”

“And that house in the projects?” Daring asked.

“I stored Revelation there, brought it out to share with the guys beneath the bridge,” she said. “But the thing inside Dusk…that night, it insisted on bringing them into the house.” She shuddered. “It…it made me watch,” she whispered. “I just stood there for at least an hour waiting for it to get up, then ran when it didn’t.”

“Where is he now?” Red asked.

Giselle sucked in a breath. “I…it told me that it needed a proper site for worship,” she said. “That night in the basement. It said it needed somewhere with great power…and it would begin by toppling its father and taking its altar for itself.”

“What does that mean?” Red asked.

“Fuck if I know,” Giselle said. “Look, you gotta let me go. If that thing doesn’t get me, then the guys who give me Revelation will!”

“They won’t be able to get you in a cell,” Red said.

“They will!” Giselle protested. “You don’t know what–!”

Giselle suddenly gagged, her chest heaving. She choked, her eyes bulging in terror.

“What is it?” Daring asked, bending down.

Giselle tried to answer, but all that came out was a gurgling noise, then she coughed heavily. Pitch-black blood flew from her beak, staining the ground. The griffon fell onto her side, gasping and flopping like a beached fish as more blood flew from her mouth.

“Shit–Red, get a medic!” Daring cried, dropping next to Giselle. In the background, she faintly heard Red already on his radio, barking for an ambulance as she helplessly gripped Giselle’s convulsing shoulders. The griffon stared up at her pleadingly, tears running from her wide eyes as more blood ran down her face.

A moment later, her entire body shuddered violently and Giselle was still and silent. Daring watched the life fade away from the eyes.

For several seconds, Daring couldn’t move or speak. “What…what happened?” she finally managed to ask quietly. “Did she take poison?”

“No,” Red said. “Whoever hired her must’ve put her under a geas. When she started to talk, she broke the geas and it killed her.”

Daring slowly released Giselle’s body, unable to tear her gaze away from the unseeing eyes, still filled with tears. Red’s claw silently fell upon her shoulder as the sound of sirens filled the air.

Author's Note

Originally, the Emissary was supposed to show up and kill Giselle for blabbing by stabbing her through the wall behind her, but the geas was something that I always had in mind and I figured that I might as well introduce it now.

Of course, the important witness dies after leaving some tempting clue. Isn't that typical?