28 Investigation

“About what you asked, I’ll look into it next,” Eliza said, a light cough snapping like a twig as her easy tone fell away like a dropped veil. “If the artifact really has an issue, the trouble will swell like a storm front. We didn’t live beside the Black Sun for nothing, and we can check it fast like a needle pricking a blister.”

“Good,” Lilith nodded, relief blooming like a warm lantern despite the chill. She wasn’t a Black Sun expert; if the professionals sounded steady, she’d ride their current like a leaf on water.

“But how are you going to verify the artifact’s integrity?” Her doubt rose first like thorny bramble, then the words followed. “If something’s wrong, won’t your testers be in danger, like moths to a fire?”

“Tie a rock to the artifact and throw it out,” Eliza said, casual as tossing a pebble into a pond. “If the stone gets eaten away, the artifact’s faulty, like a shield riddled by acid. Black Sun Devouring doesn’t hunt only living things, like a wolf sniffing only warm blood.”

“That sounds sloppy,” Lilith muttered, a grimace puckering like sour fruit. Morris’s methods always felt weirdly cheap, like paper charms in the rain.

“If it works, it works.” Eliza shrugged, loose as reeds in wind. “Artifact is a grand name for something that’s not that precious, like a crown of tin. Vampires are dwindling like stars at dawn; the current stock of artifacts is surplus to us, like grain in a sealed granary. And Morris will stay closed like a locked coffin; we’re already phasing these tools out like old banners.”

“Morris closing is bad news for Vampires in the other cities of Spuiset,” Lilith said, a messenger’s duty prickling like cold dew. “Are you abandoning the ones outside, like boats cut loose?”

“For the race to endure, you prune some branches so the trunk lives,” Eliza said, face calm as frost. “Spuiset faces harder trials than you think, like cliffs under a black tide. Regions without a god’s shelter can’t resist the disasters gods left, like villages stripped of levees before the flood. The Vampire fore-kings holding on for millennia was a candle in the wind, a miracle at midnight.”

“As long as you know what you’re doing,” Lilith said, letting the matter fall like snow beyond her threshold. She was an outsider; without Eliza asking, the Little White Dragon had no standing to stomp through Vampire affairs like a dragon through a tea house. She’d come to Morris for a few things; the piece tied to the Legendary Sword sat in her pack like a cool shard of moon. What remained were star-reading knowledge and the true body of the Nameless One, two constellations already sketched in her mind like chalk lines on dark slate.

“So, what can I help you with?” Lilith asked, curiosity bright as a foxfire. “Heads-up, it won’t be free, like rain in a drought.”

“Oh? Are you expensive?” Eliza arched a brow, the look flicking over the Little White Dragon like a cat’s tail.

“Kidding me? I’m a White Dragon!” Lilith drew herself up, pride clanging as she patted her flat chest like a steel drum. “Plenty of races would pay rivers to hire a dragon, like pilgrims bearing incense.”

“But you’re not a full-grown dragon,” Eliza said, hand measuring the small dragon who barely reached her chest, then ruffling Lilith’s head like wind in wheat. “You’ll shatter people’s dragon stereotypes like porcelain.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lilith glared, her temper flaring first like a struck match before her words pounced. “I’m pure-blood White Dragon, Dragon Territory’s Plain White Banner… uh, maybe not that pure,” she faltered, pride wobbling like a kite tugged by gusts. “Doesn’t matter, I’m strong and noble, a dragon among mountains. Handling a few Black Sun corrosion issues is easy as flipping a paw… probably,” she finished, spirit wilting like a damp firework.

“Then what reward does our noble White Dragon demand from us humble Vampires?” Eliza laughed, the sound ringing like glass in sun.

“Uh, that depends on what you want me to do,” Lilith said, fingers fidgeting like beetles. “If you just need some dragon scales, that barely needs paying, like plucking apples. If it’s a hassle, we negotiate again, like merchants at dusk.”

“In that case, I do have something for you,” Eliza said, chin propped like a chess piece poised to strike. Her eyes rested on the small dragon as an idea lit like a lighthouse on fog.

“We’ve got an investigation,” she went on, voice steady as a drumbeat. “It touches Morris’s safety like a knife at the throat, but we lack hard proof, so handing it to you is fine, like sending a hawk ahead.”

Eliza pulled a folder from the desk, then shook papers across the surface like cards fanned on velvet. “These are public-facing pieces,” she said, sliding them over like a tide. “You should at least know what enemy you’ll face, so you can decide whether you’ll take our commission, like a hunter weighing tracks.”

“It’s only part of the information,” she added, voice cool as ink. “If you join, I’ll share the rest with you, like opening the second gate.”

“What’s this?” The Little White Dragon leaned in, curiosity nosing forward like a pup, eyes skimming the spread.

“Stuff we found in Morris lately—privately printed,” Eliza said, mouth tightening like a drawn bow. “No one knows when it started circulating, like spores on the wind.”

Lilith lifted a sheet. The parchment was a collage of clippings from home-printed rags, a patchwork quilt pasted with cheap glue. The ink smeared on her fingers like wet soot.

“Unknown religious group?” she read, words snagging like thorns. “Sneaked back into Morris after years? A new god about to rule Morris? What is this mess, like smoke in a closed room?”

Eliza pulled a tissue and passed it over, the white square fluttering like a feather. Lilith wiped the black off her hands, the stain streaking like storm-clouds.

“That so-called cult is the thing I want you to investigate,” Eliza said, eyes dark as deep water. “If I remember right, when I decided to lock down Morris, that church popped up once like a fish breaking water. After the lockdown, it vanished, like a pebble swallowed by a lake.”

“And now it shows up again out of nowhere?” Lilith asked, suspicion coiling like ivy.

“That’s right,” Eliza said, the words landing like stones.

Lilith read through the sheets, page after page echoing the same chorus like waves repeating on shore. She wasn’t a literary critic, but even she could feel the pull—these broadsheets steered opinion like a hidden rudder, polishing the unknown cult’s image on purpose, like someone buffing tarnished silver.

“You think these papers are tied to the cult?” Lilith looked up. The Vampire Princess nodded once, sure as a clock’s tick.

“Alright, I’m in,” Lilith said, rising like a drawn blade. She stuffed the parchments into her satchel, the leather swallowing them like dusk.

“As for payment,” she added, eyes gleaming like starlight on steel, “I’m honestly curious about this cult.”