"Have you found any bodies?" she asked.

The blunt question surprised him. Likely he thought he would be the first to get some answers.

"No," he answered. "We mostly hear about disappearances. One way or another such things often get resolved, for better or worse. In the last month, there've been more reports and fewer resolved. There are now more missing people than we can possibly search for at once."

None of this made sense to Magiere. So many missing, yet Chesna had been left to die on her own front porch in plain view.

"Chesna's killer wanted her body found," she said aloud. "I think he mutilated her and left her there intentionally."

"I'd considered that, but why?" Chetnik asked thoughtfully. "It doesn't fit with any of the disappearances."

He stepped around the table and closer to Magiere, his brows knitted. As he settled on the table's edge, he leaned toward her just a bit.

"And what makes you certain it's a man?" he asked, and his gaze wandered a bit.

Leesil let out a sharp breath. "I think we've taken up enough of the captain's time. If you could give us the list, we'll be on our way."

Leesil's voice was icy, and Magiere could tell he wanted out of here for some reason. The tone wasn't lost on Chetnik, who grunted and walked to a short chest of drawers against the wall.

"There isn't any list," he said. "I can get you started with a few statements, but I expect them back." He dug through parchments in the top drawer and pulled out a stack as thick as his thumb. "Names and addresses are all written out. Can you read?"

"He can," she answered without embarrassment, giving a nod in Leesil's direction. "But that's quite a few statements."

"They aren't all going to help you," he said, again rather friendly and chatty. "A drunk or two have been known to see monsters in the dark, and there are always those who latch on to rumors and tavern tales to blame for misfortune."

Leesil snatched the stack from his hand. "Thank you. Let's go."

He headed straight for the door. With little choice, Magiere hurried after him, urging Chap ahead.

"Keep me informed, and if you need anything else," Chetnik called after, "stop by and let me know."

Magiere merely waved in thanks and hurried out. By the time she reached the courtyard, Leesil was already in the street hailing a coach.

Although Leesil considered himself adept at talking to almost anyone, by the time the sun dipped low at dusk, he didn't care if he ever spoke a word again. They'd been over half the city. All right, so it was probably a tenth or twentieth, but it felt like half, and they'd managed to find only eight people noted in the reports Chetnik had given them. Chap became more restless throughout their search, and twice Leesil had to go scouting about neighborhoods and markets to track him down.

Magiere had been severely shaken by her experience at Lanjov's, as had he. He'd wanted to both comfort her and fathom what was happening to her before it happened again. But in typical fashion, she grudgingly put up with a few questions over breakfast and then refused all further efforts to discuss these newly manifesting abilities. The "sight" was not so surprising, but the vision, and what had triggered it, was another matter.

It couldn't have been the dress, for she'd handled items-even bloodied ones-from victims before in Miiska. The same reasoning stood for walking in the footsteps of an undead at the site of a killing. In spite of this unsettling awareness she'd developed, a part of him felt they shouldn't be thrown by any kind of unexpected help. They had no trail, not many clues, nothing to hunt, and on top of that, the guard captain had spent the better part of their brief meeting appraising Magiere as if he wished to make her part of his breakfast, or perhaps a late evening repast. Leesil didn't like this Chetnik one bit.

He was tired, hungry, and sick of listening to sad, despondent folk relive unsettling experiences. They'd talked to cobblers' daughters, tanners and sons, barkeeps, and even low-ranking gentry. So far, only one tanner's son and one young noble-who hadn't even wanted them in his home-had managed to produce coherent and unified stories. Both men had encountered a female with bright blue eyes in garish clothes. Of those tales, neither teller remembered what had happened, only that they'd found themselves wandering later in a befuddled and weak state, torn wounds in their throats.

"The sun is going down," he said. "Let's just go back to the inn. We can start again tomorrow."

"One more," Magiere said absently, staring at a parchment.

She could make out a few words at a time, and Leesil sat watching her read the same line of ink scrawl three times. It was getting even darker outside. Most shops they passed were closed. Chap lay on the seat across the coach, and Leesil had the oddest impression the dog looked sullen.

"Bright blue… blue… blue eyes," Magiere mumbled as she worked word by word through the scribed report.

Leesil groaned. "Let's at least have some supper first."

"Isn't this another name for a brothel?"

He reached out. "Let me see that."

"Oh, yes," she said in mild disgust. "That would get your attention."

"Not funny," Leesil eluded, and scanned the parchment.

Just over a moon ago, a woman with bright blue eyes-like "crystals," the witness had said-attacked a hired guard named Koh'in ib'Sune serving at one of Bela's loftier "domvolyne," a house of leisure. In other words, a brothel for those who preferred not to frequent an establishment that might actually be called a brothel.

"It's the same description," Magiere said. "Like the tanner's son and that haughty little noble."

Leesil nodded.

"That makes three matching accounts," she said.

"All right, all right. One more and then back to the inn. But there's no exact address." He leaned through the coach door window and called to the driver. "Do you know the Blue Dove?"

The driver looked at him cautiously. "I know where it is, if that's what you mean."

"Take us there." Leesil ducked back inside the coach.

Chap let out a whine without lifting his head. They rode for a while in silence until finally the driver called out their destination: "The Blue Dove."

Leesil hadn't paid attention to their progress and was surprised to find they'd passed back into the inner wall ring. What they knew from the reports didn't add up in a way that would lead to this place.

The young noble who'd seen the blue-eyed woman lived inside the second ring wall in a respectable but not overly wealthy area. The tanner's son lived in the outer ring. The three encounters had occurred in different parts of the city, but still, it wasn't unimaginable that an undead would range so widely.

Magiere paid the coachman, asked him to wait, and then stood next to Leesil, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The brothel was a lavish stone dwelling with two large braziers on each side of a door painted sky blue. The building's unusually small windows were shuttered tight, so no one could see inside. As they stood there with Chap looking about, a few people, particularly one elder couple, passed them with disapproving glances.

"I've never been inside a brothel before," she said finally.

Leesil grinned at her. "Neither have I. How tragic is that?"

"For who?" she muttered under her breath. "You or the women?"

"The women, of course," Leesil answered. "And from what I've heard, these places serve a wide variety of entertainment. Some even employ young boys, and I know of a place in the Warlands with a large mastiff that-"

"Not another word." She gripped his arm, pulled him up the steps and knocked on the door.

A gargantuan man opened it and looked down at them in surprise. His head was as clean-shaven as his wide, cleft chin, and his eyes were a brown so dark they were nearly black. But his most noticeable feature was his deep brown skin. He wore dark green breeches and an open vest with no shirt, and the handle of a flanged mace was slipped through the side of a wine-red silk belt wrapped more than a dozen times around his waist.