[For Professor Valerie, Personal.]

  A single gas lamp burned on the bedroom desk as Ivy sealed the envelope with a grim look on her face.

  The red falcon perched on the windowsill gave her a nod, took the letter gently in its beak, spread its wings, and vanished into the night.

  Over the past two years, she had sent no fewer than twenty letters back to the Society.

  Not once had she received an answer that satisfied her.

  This time, just as she had expected, the great nobles in the Imperial Capital had once again rejected her request for soldiers to be stationed in Willowbrook. Those people, coddled and comfortable in their estates, always believed they had more important things to deal with. The dangers she described in her letters meant nothing to them.

  In tonight's reply, her teacher had suggested transferring her back to the Capital.

  She wrote that Ivy's mother was getting old, and that Ivy should stop making the family worry.

  Ivy clenched her fist.

  None of them had any idea what kind of crisis the Empire was facing.

  The werewolf that had suddenly appeared in the forest. The cursed object that was estimated to be above Tier Three. The blood moon from last night. Every sign pointed to the same conclusion, followers of the Old Gods had already set their sights on this frontier town.

  Her eyes drifted once more to the yellowing newspaper on the desk.

  [The Witch's End, Cultists of the Old Gods Are No Match for the Empire!]

  The bold headline practically dripped with pride.

  The reporter from The Gryphon Daily had been standing beneath the execution platform that day. He had witnessed the witch's death from beginning to end, then written up her story for the paper. Once one of the Empire's most brilliant elemental casters, she had supposedly fallen into ruin after being seduced by an Old God.

  The black-and-white image on the page kept shifting, replaying the execution scene Ivy had watched countless times.

  A woman with a black hood over her head was tied to a wooden stake. The executioner poured oil over her body, touched a torch to it, and the flames swallowed her almost instantly. When the fire finally died, all that remained on the stake was a blackened corpse.

  Ivy's brow stayed furrowed.

  From beginning to end, the Church had never allowed anyone to see the witch's face. The official explanation was that the witch possessed a pair of evil eyes capable of bewitching the mind.

  But that only left room for another possibility.

  For example, during the battle that had destroyed more than half the Imperial Capital, perhaps the Church had failed to capture the Midwinter Witch alive and simply found a substitute to burn in her place.

  The reporter from The Gryphon Daily, however, believed every word of the Church's story.

  After the execution, the paper sang the Church's praises in grand, glowing terms. Even now, the great nobles in the Capital still believed the Midwinter Witch was long dead.

  There were other rumors, though.

  Some said the witch had escaped the Church and the knightly orders despite being gravely wounded, fled from place to place, and eventually reached a frontier town before slipping beyond the Empire's border.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Ivy pressed a hand to her forehead in weary frustration.

  She had pieced together every rumor she could find and mapped out the Midwinter Witch's most likely escape route. That was the very reason she had left the Capital in the first place and insisted on coming to Willowbrook.

  Willowbrook had been the Midwinter Witch's final stop.

  To the followers of the Old Gods, this town held special meaning. They had even given it a name, the Land of Ruin and Rebirth. They believed that when the Midwinter Witch returned, she would bring destruction to this rotten Empire.

  That had been two years ago.

  And yet the recent signs around Willowbrook all suggested the witch was showing signs of rebirth.

  Ivy had already sent the route she had pieced together, along with all her notes and manuscripts, back to the Society. But...

  The nobles in the Capital treated her like some delusional fool.

  They still insisted the Midwinter Witch had died in that execution two years ago.

  After all, in a place like the Capital, a Tier Two graduate of the Society of Enlightenment had no voice worth hearing. Even her father had written to warn her not to keep sending such absurd letters, saying all she was doing was bringing shame to the family.

  Ivy let out a quiet sigh and gathered the papers on her desk, tucking them away in the drawer.

  Only time would prove the truth.

  So once again, she ignored her teacher's advice.

  She would rather die with the truth than live without it.

  Ivy took off her coat, hung it on the rack, wrapped herself in her blanket, and lay down in bed.

  Sleep would not come.

  The matter of the Old Gods' followers was not the only thing weighing on her mind. There was something else bothering her too.

  Ivy kept feeling as though she had forgotten something important. But every time she tried to trace the thought, it slipped away from her.

  For someone who pursued truth, that kind of uncertainty was torment.

  She slept badly.

  Endless nightmares swallowed her whole.

  She dreamed she was standing in the streets of town. Everywhere she looked was buried in ice and snow. The familiar townsfolk stood frozen in front of her, still caught in the poses of their failed escape, their panicked expressions locked in place forever.

  She also dreamed of a cloaked figure standing high atop the clock tower, looking down at her from above.

  The figure wore a strange mask, and beneath it was a single crimson eye.

  When the sky outside the window finally began to pale with dawn, Ivy jolted awake.

  She threw off the blanket and sat bolt upright in bed. Her clothes were drenched in sweat. The tuft of blond hair on top of her head had split apart in panic.

  At last, she remembered the thing she had forgotten the night before.

  Oh no.

  She had forgotten to bring Ethan his food.

  That idiot... he had not gotten eaten by the starving wolf-chicken, had he?

  On the other side of town, Ethan, who kept early hours, stepped out of the cabin and was immediately hit with the shock of his life.

  The moment Chloe saw him come outside, she cheerfully rose from the mattress, greeted him brightly, and in doing so revealed the object she had been sitting on.

  A corpse.

  It lay sprawled on the ground with its eyes still open, one arm stretched forward as far as it could reach. A long trail of blood had been dragged across the floor behind it.

  Ethan stared at the body for a full ten seconds.

  Then, very calmly, he stepped back into the cabin and closed the door.

  Maybe he was still half asleep.

  He steadied himself, slapped both cheeks, forced himself fully awake, prepared mentally, and opened the door again.

  "Morning, Chloe."

  "Cluck."

  The energetic Chloe answered him at once.

  Then she sat back down on the mattress again. This time the corpse disappeared from view, leaving only one arm sticking out from under her body and the blood-soaked bedding.

  "Go dig a hole, Chloe."

  "Cluck?"

  The moment she received the order, Chloe trotted off to the patch of ground in front of the cabin and started digging with her claws.

  Ethan grabbed the shovel from inside and hurried after her.

  As they dug, he listened to Chloe's explanation.

  She had found the body by the roadside.

  Late in the night, she had heard someone calling for help and gone to investigate. By the time she arrived, the man was already lying on the ground, bleeding from all seven orifices and twitching nonstop. Since he was clearly unconscious, she had worried he might get cold lying out there, so she had dragged him all the way back to the cabin, settled him onto the mattress, and used the feathers on her belly to keep him warm.

  More or less the same way she would incubate an egg.

  What a kind little hen.

  Ethan wanted to praise Chloe for her kindness.

  Unfortunately, if anyone else saw this scene, they would probably come up with a very different version of events.

  For instance, Ethan and his wolf-chicken had attacked an innocent passerby in the wild, murdered him, stolen his belongings, and buried the body to cover it up.

  "Ethan, I brought you milk and brea..."

  The voice behind him made his scalp go numb.

  And just as expected, the voice cut off the moment it got close enough to see what was happening.

  He turned around stiffly.

  Ivy stood on the slope with bread and milk in her hands, while both her eyes and the tuft of blond hair on her head scanned him in perfect suspicion.

  "Let me explain."

  Ethan knew he had to make this as brief and clear as possible.

  "This man died of natural causes."