Once again holding my veil aloft, I circumvented the small camp so as to not wake its occupants and headed for the village center where the corpse of the werewolf was splayed out on the ground. It was still surreal to see it dead after it had been so menacing to see breathing and towering over me, and I felt a weariness to approach it as if it would come back to life and jump me. I knew this was, probably, impossible to happen but when I got closer, a prickly sensation like that of a carbonated drink filled my mouth, then my nostril, and eventually crawled over my skin. It gave me goosebumps and I quickly prodded it in the head with the tip of my sword just to make sure.

I was not sure what was eliciting this odd sensation but what I was not expecting was a feeling of excitement to well up from within me, as if my body was anticipating what was coming. I felt a grin creep up on my face that I could not control and quickly gave up on trying to suppress it. Scanning my surroundings and double-checking in the direction of the camp, I was confident no one was watching and was about to give in to my instincts but stopped myself from leaning over and biting down. I could not risk getting blood on me now and anyway had a better way of extracting the blood, as well as a more civilized way of consuming it. It was also an opportunity for a test.

"Qubit, can you store the body, extract the blood and place it back exactly how it is now?"

Seemingly anticipating my command, it wasted no time disintegrating the body into white light, taking away the prickly sensation along with it, and once again materializing it, appearing unchanged save for looking a little more scrawny when looked at closely. Its fur also seemed to have lost some of its luster, looking more gray and drab. The clotted, dried blood around its wounds that remained also seemed to be losing color, and I was reminded of the aggressive rabbit I killed in the forest when tufts of fur started to fall off. It was also starting to flake and break up into motes of dust which were getting swept by the wind before vanishing completely. I had a slight moment of panic as I had not expected this to happen at all, having chalked up the first time to it being caused by me drinking the blood. Unless Qubit exuded a similar effect when harvesting blood, then the only link that tied the two together is having been drained of blood. This was definitely not a natural reaction but could not think of what could have been the catalyst to cause blood loss to turn to disintegration.

Actually, there is something.

Rather than thinking of what magical effect could cause this, I remembered that the werewolf had been called a spirit, a creature of magic, meaning it might decompose differently. That would mean the horned rabbit was also a spirit.

Now that I think about it, are horned rabbits real? I swear I heard about them before somewhere. Pretty sure they had a name.

I calmed myself down and resigned to having to deal with the inevitable mysteries of the mystics that are bound to keep cropping up at the rate things have been going. All I could do is suck it up and get out, and hope to find an explanation elsewhere. If it turns out to not be a big deal, nothing lost in being careful, but as long as something was unknown, especially when seemingly caused by me draining blood, I was not taking any risks. I did not stay to watch the rest of the corpse disintegrate as I quickly located the sheath, grabbed it, and set off back to the tree Lucie had been resting at.

She seems to have accepted my offer and gone to sleep as she was not there when I arrived. I took her spot and stood by my word to keep watch in her stead. After stowing away my sheathed sword into my bag, I fell into a trance while my gaze shifted between the treeline, the clouds, and the time I asked Qubit to display.

---

A drizzle started around six hours into the day, which seemed to have been enough to wake up Larry as I saw him rouse the other two. He had seemed startled when he saw Lucie sleeping but she soon pointed me out and I gave them a wave. After receiving a surprised look, which quickly turned into a friendly smile, the two then seemed to start some sort of discussion. I was going to join them but decided to not interrupt as I was assuming it was about me. At some point, Tristan also emerged from his tent huddled in a thick blanket, briefly said something before staggering into the back of the cart and disappearing from view as he laid down. I got up to approach when they started to pack up the tents, offering to help which they gladly accepted. Neither of them asked me anything and we worked in relative silence, save for the occasional direction or word of thanks. The atmosphere was a little tense but not wholly unwelcoming. It felt more like exhaustion and weariness had overtaken us all, with the rain further dampening the mood.

With Tristan having wrapped himself up tightly in his blanket in the back, Larry and Lucie put on cloaks and pulled up the hoods which I thought looked very cool. The two had switched places, with Larry holding the reins and me sitting beside him in the front. We set off back down the road we came from, wholly different from when we first traversed it.

---

Thankfully the rain eased up after we left the forest, and with two or maybe three more hours that I estimated the sun to still be up, I was beginning to relax a bit. The smell of damp earth and grass was pleasant, making me truly appreciate the fresh air.

With us having reached a point beyond what I had explored, I was getting tempted to ask about our journey and its destination, among other things, but felt uncomfortable breaching the silence. Larry had kept his gaze focused forward the entire way so far, making it hard to start a conversation with him, and with Tristan seemingly out cold Lucie was the only remaining option, but she seemed busy with cleaning and maintaining the swords. They really were staying prepared and I started to worry as to how common it was to encounter spirits wherever we were.

Is this even still Earth?

That thought came to me first as amusing, but slowly transitioned to being a serious consideration. Time travel as well, but I did not want to jump to such extreme conclusions until I figured out where exactly I was now. It was not like I could do anything if either of those were actually true and my current goal and priority still remained at reaching civilization.

Speak of the devil.

In the distance, I spotted what looked like to be a wooden fence cutting right into the plains with shorter grass on the other side. It went right up to the road on either side, which was still straight as an arrow. When we reached it, I spotted cows on the far end and eventually buildings. Beyond the pastures were also vast fields of farmland, all of which looked barren much like the one in the village. Harvest season must have already passed as winter was on its way. Eventually, our path got congested with sheep being led by a shepherd and her dog and our progress slowed.

This actually delighted me as it was not only a return to normalcy, albeit a lot more rural, and got to finally see a person going about her life and work uninvolved in the magical affairs of the last few days. It was a moment that let me relax and wash away my anxieties, albeit truly only a moment as the bleating of sheep and barking of the dog seemed to have wakened Tristan.

"The hells all that noise? My head's already about to burst. Are we at least close to an inn? I'm starving." Before anyone could answer him, he slid out from under his blanket with a wince and propped himself up to get a look around. "Ah great, first rain and now this."

"We still got a bunch of hardtack and some jerky. Eat that if you're so hungry and quit complaining."

"Let's not start this now you two. How's your arm?"

"It's fine. Just give me something to eat. And water."

"Be polite Tristan."

"If I ask politely, will you also get off of my ass?"

"Quit it. You are both acting like such children it's unbearable."

Luckily Lucie was quick to interject but I was still glad for the silence to finally be broken. The thought of staying in an inn excited me and just as I was about to be excited about a warm meal, I remembered I could not enjoy food anymore and did not really sleep. Also, I had no money.

"Valerie, are you hungry? Want water? I should have asked earlier, sorry." Lucie turned to me after handing Tristan his meal.

"I'm alright. I have my own." I patted my backpack as reassurance but then had to look away in embarrassment. "Uhm, were you planning on staying at an inn? I don't really have the money for that."

"Don't worry, we can..."

"What, you have nothing? At all?" Tristan interrupted Lucie before she could finish and I tensed up at the questioning.

I just shook my head for lack of a better response.

"Why not? Did you lose it all? Get robbed? Where exactly did you come from?"

"Tristan..."

"No, I'm not going to ignore this. This all just doesn't add up and is suspicious as hell. Doubly so if she really is an ascendant. Only the wealthy get to become one without ever having to fight. Even if she were from a fallen house or a runaway, why in Evergreen of all places!"

Silence ensued as no one could argue against his point. Larry had halted the cart to make some distance between us and the shepherd. The moment I had been dreading has come as I had no idea how they would take the truth of me having no clue how I got in this situation in the first place.

"Sorry." Larry's voice was soft, apologetic. "I promised, but... It has been bothering me as well."

I braced myself for whatever may come and took a deep breath, glad that at least night was nearing and we were close to some sort of settlement.

"I... don't exactly know how I got here. In the village in Evergreen that is. I know it sounds odd, but, I don't even know where we are right now. At all. I woke up there in an empty village all on my own three nights ago. I have no memory of what happened to me. I'm not even sure if I was unconscious the entire time or something happened with my memory. The very last thing I remember before then was me walking home. On my own. In London. Possibly kidnapped I guess but... I don't know why I would be."

Once more a silence descended upon us as they all processed this and I awaited their reaction with extreme nervousness. I felt like I might have said too much, with having been there three nights with a werewolf, but Larry's unexpected words sent a chill down to my bones.

"Either of you heard of London?"