Salem's smile faded as his gaze flicked lazily to my shredded clothing, to the knight standing cheerfully at my side, then down to the unconscious girl draped naked over his shoulder like a grotesque shawl.
His eyes lingered there a fraction too long, narrowing ever so slightly, as though trying to make sense of a riddle he didn't particularly want the answer to. His jaw worked once, but no words came. His expression was a perfect still lake—flat, unreadable, calm enough to make me nervous about what storms might be hiding underneath.
Then he spoke.
"Cecil," he said slowly, his tone dry as sun-baked parchment. "You've been gone for an hour. And in that hour, you managed to adopt a naked man, kidnap a naked rabbit, and parade them both back here as though this is the sort of company you think I keep."
The words dripped with such quiet exasperation that I almost preferred outright fury. Fury I could deal with; sarcasm sharpened like a blade was far worse.
I stammered. My brain tried to form words, but all it produced was a strangled, "I—I can explain." My hands even fluttered up in some pitiful half-gesture of defense, as though my fingers might pluck excuses from thin air if I willed them hard enough.
Salem tilted his head, wiped a streak of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand, and raised a palm to cut me off.
"Don't. I don't think any arrangement of words in the common tongue could possibly justify the scene I'm looking at." His eyes pinned me, sharp as needles stuck through a butterfly's wings, leaving me wriggling on display.
Which was when the knight, bless him—or curse him—decided to pitch in. He shifted Nara's limp weight cheerfully, tilted his helmet toward Salem, and boomed in a voice that carried enough volume to shake dust loose from the rafters:
"Ah! At last, it all makes sense. You're the lover, aren't you? The devoted flame! No wonder he looks so flustered—he didn't want his darling to think he was straying."
The tavern, silent except for the distant dripping of blood and the creak of broken beams, suddenly felt deafening with that single proclamation. My ears rang with it, echoing far louder than any battle cry.
My soul left my body. I swear I felt it ascend. I might as well have keeled over right then and there. If I had collapsed, perhaps the floorboards would have shown me the mercy Salem clearly wasn't about to.
However, Salem, to his credit, didn't kill him outright. Instead, he closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose with blood-streaked fingers, and let out a slow exhale that sounded far too controlled. Then, without another word, he pressed his free hand against his face. A full, weary facepalm.
Not a denial.
The silence after that was unbearable, the kind of silence that makes your heartbeat sound like a drum in your ears. I could practically hear the ghost of my dignity packing its bags and leaving.
I blinked at him, the weight of silence dragging at me. "Salem," I croaked. "Are you seriously not going to correct him?"
"Why," he muttered into his palm, voice muffled, "would I bother? It's less effort to let him talk himself out."
The knight gave an approving nod, as though Salem's apathy confirmed every one of his wild assumptions. My stomach, meanwhile, sank straight through the tavern floor.
Less effort. Gods above. My life has become a farce.
The knight, oblivious to the sheer absurdity he'd just unleashed, strutted forward. He stopped in front of Salem, straightened to his full, utterly indecent height, and extended a hand as if they weren't both covered in blood, sweat, and the faint perfume of insanity. The hand looked absurdly confident, a gesture of brotherhood made by someone too cheerful to notice the murder simmering behind Salem's eyes.
They stared at each other. The tension was so thick I could practically bottle it and sell it as a vintage. Every second stretched like taut string, waiting for one careless word to snap it into violence.
Finally, Salem sighed, sheathed his blade, and clasped the knight's hand. "I'm Salem."
The knight's grin practically gleamed through the helmet. "A pleasure, o somber one! You've the eyes of a hawk and the aura of a storm. I like you already."
Salem's mouth twitched at the corner, which I could only assume to be his version of a laugh. "You're… enthusiastic."
"And you're bleeding," the knight replied cheerfully, clapping Salem's shoulder hard enough that I winced in sympathy. "Excellent. Nothing bonds men like blood."
"I can think of a few other options," Salem deadpanned.
For a moment, it looked like this might actually work. Until Salem raised an eyebrow, glanced at the knight's complete lack of attire, and asked the only question that mattered.
"…Why are you naked?"
The knight drew back with a scandalized gasp, as though Salem had asked why he bothered breathing. "Why am I naked? Why wouldn't I be naked? To stride the world without shame is to declare victory over it! Clothing is a cage for the soul, a flimsy barrier between man and his truest self. Do you not feel the air kiss your skin, the freedom of unshackled existence? This is ecstasy itself!"
He spread his arms wide as he spoke, Nara nearly slipping from his grip, his voice booming like a priest in a cathedral. Dust rattled loose from the rafters. Salem's glare deepened, mine buried itself in my palm.
Salem rubbed at his temples.
"And besides," the knight added with a gleam, "exhibitionism is an art." He paused for a moment. "Say, would you like to join me? Two proud men, liberated from cloth, striding as gods amongst mortals?"
His tone was so earnest, so painfully sincere, that I almost pitied him. Almost. Salem stared at him for a long, agonized beat, then closed his eyes and muttered, "No."
The knight pouted audibly. I wanted to crawl into the nearest barrel and drown myself. Preferably with enough ale to forget this entire interaction.
"Moving on," Salem said, his patience hanging by the thinnest of threads. He glanced at me, his expression sharpening again. "Rodrick is close. I can feel it."
I blinked at him before nodding slightly. Then I turned to the knight. "Well? Are you coming with us, or are you planning to keep preaching the gospel of nudity here in this tavern?"
He beamed. "With you my lady? Always."
And just like that, the strangest entourage ever assembled spilled out of the tavern and into the night, walking alongside the canal as if we were some parody of a parade. Salem, silent and sharp-eyed, his blade still dripping faintly.
The knight, striding with the energy of a man who'd never known shame, still carrying an unconscious rabbit girl like she was a prize he'd won at a festival. And me, wedged between them, wondering if my life could possibly spiral any deeper into lunacy.
The canal water glimmered faintly in the moonlight, black as ink, broken only by the occasional ripple. The cobblestones were damp under our boots, the air heavy with mist and soot.
It was then that Salem's head tilted upward. His eyes tracking something moving among the rooftops.
"Someone's here," he murmured.
Sure enough, a shadow flickered across the tiles above us—a figure in tattered clothes, their feet moving with frantic precision. Something fluttered from their hands, arcing down toward us with a glint of red.
It landed at my feet. A scrap of parchment, bound in ribbon.
I crouched, tugged the ribbon loose, and unrolled it. The handwriting was a hurried scrawl, the ink smudged in places. It looked to be a rough map of the district. And on it, a single massive "X" drawn across the outline of a building labeled with two words: Boathouse. Quiet. Below it, smaller letters scrawled in haste: Bring no tail.
I opened my mouth to shout at the runner, but the figure was already gone, vaulting over the far side of the roof. Another shadow leapt after them, and then another, and in moments they were swallowed by the night.
I looked up at Salem and the knight. "Well. That doesn't sound ominous at all."
Salem studied the note, his jaw tightening. "It could be a trap."
"It is a trap," I corrected, letting my tone sharpen. "The real question is whether we're the mice… or the cat." My gaze flicked to the scrawled lines of the map, the markings that promised something—or someone—waiting at its end. "And if it's meant to draw us out, it's probably connected to Rodrick in some way. Whoever set this up knows he's important to us… they could want to leverage that."
After a brief, silent exchange of glances, we decided to follow the map because when a blood-soaked city drops you an invitation tied in red ribbon, you don't decline—you politely walk into the jaws and hope your teeth are sharper.
Each step carried a weight, the thought of Rodrick's safety pressing us forward even as our instincts screamed caution.
We trailed the canal, our boots crunching against damp stone, the mist curling around our legs like a thousand quiet fingers. I kept one hand on my dagger, eyes sweeping the water.
And then I saw it.
A ripple. Small, deceptively gentle, barely a whisper across the water's surface. But there was a precision to it, a slow, deliberate movement that betrayed a lethal weight beneath the black sheen.