Silver Fish Casket

"There's something else I'm curious about." For once, Vera spoke up on her own. "The most annoying thing about water monkeys is how they crawl out of places I'd never think of. Why?"

"Because their hands are more developed than their legs, unlike ours," Gordon said.

He turned over a Deepclaw Demon's hand bones. In the candlelight, the hand looked like an old rake that had soaked in mud.

"Look." Gordon pointed with the tip of his knife. "Long finger bones, thick, elastic webbing, exceptionally developed wrist ligaments. In the water, they dig and stretch out their arms to catch fish. On land, they grip walls, claw at gaps between bricks, and hook onto pipe walls. Essentially, they move with their forelimbs, faster than they can run on flat ground. And their bones are very soft, so they can squeeze into narrower spaces..."

His voice was steady, filled with convincing scholarly authority.

Vera folded her arms.

This was rare for her. Usually, by someone's third rambling sentence, she was already deciding whether she could knock them out with one blow of her sword and stop them wasting both their lives. But these words gave her plenty to think about, and she couldn't bear to interrupt.

She thought of the cellar drains, collapsed caverns, cracks in walls...

Before, all she remembered was that water monkeys appeared out of nowhere. Beyond inwardly cursing them for being good for nothing but ambushes, she had no way to deal with it. Now everything had a reason. The danger had taken shape.

Vera committed it all to memory. The next time she took a related commission, she would bleed less.

"So why are they crawling into the ancestral home?" Vera cut to the heart of it.

"They aren't crawling in," Gordon said. "They might be... being called in."

"Mr. Gordon, you would do well to choose your words carefully," Evans finally spoke.

"I already am." Gordon put down his knife. "If I weren't, I'd be saying this house was throwing a party, and every Deepclaw Demon in Lundenim had received an invitation."

The corner of Evans's eye twitched violently.

"Deepclaw Demons are extremely selfish creatures. They rarely cooperate, because there simply aren't any enemies in the Blackwater River that require them to hunt together. They've always lived alone." Gordon's tone gradually cooled. "When two Deepclaw Demons spot the same corpse, they usually fight first, then decide who gets to eat. But tonight, so many of them have defied their biological instincts and swarmed into this place together..."

"What have you got hidden here that's worth a whole pack of water monkeys skipping dinner to crawl in for?" Vera asked bluntly.

The part about skipping dinner was especially hard for Vera to understand. In her simple system of values, only three things generally made a creature give up eating: imminent death, being hunted, or poison in the food. If there was a fourth, it deserved to be dug up and examined.

Evans went rigid. His lips moved, but he did not answer at once.

As the butler of a great family, protecting the family's secrets mattered more than protecting his own life.

"Don't worry," Gordon said. "I'll only look at things related to water, rivers, fish, seafaring, and the Blackwater River. I won't look at anything involving lovers, bills, letters, imperial power, parliament, or colonies."

The butler let out a long sigh and finally lowered his head.

"Very well. I'll take you there."

The collection room of the Montfort Ancestral Home lay deep within the second floor.

The heavy oak double doors slowly swung open.

Gordon caught an unusual scent, something like a mixture of agarwood, sealing wax, and damp-proofing chemicals. This was the wealth of old nobility. Even the air seemed to have gold pounds floating through it.

Glass cabinets held all manner of family collectibles: diamonds, smoothbore guns, busts, famous Impressionist paintings...

"Any random thing in this house would be enough to buy our lives," Gordon finally couldn't help saying.

Hearing this, Evans proudly puffed out his chest, even though he was only an employee.

By contrast, Vera had no interest whatsoever in these priceless treasures that would drive thieves wild.

Diamonds weren't edible. Pocket watches couldn't cut down monsters. Busts could smash people, but they were too heavy and slow to swing.

She walked as silently as a cat, one hand always resting on the hilt of her black longsword. Her gray-white eyes cared only whether anything among this junk might suddenly leap up and bite someone.

They followed the cabinets deeper into the room. Beyond the gold, diamonds, and other obviously valuable objects, the collection began to reflect more personal tastes.

[An air-dried rose. Beside it were the words: 3E293, Lu Ming.]

[An old rum glass. The drinker had said only, "I'm going to buy an orange. Stay here and don't wander off," and never returned.]

[An old-fashioned nautical chart, marked with nonexistent islands and three misspelled ports.]

[A miniature dueling pistol. For challenging a squirrel that has insulted you.]

[A soaking-wet Silver Fish Casket. As though freshly hauled out of the Blackwater River.]

...Gordon stopped walking.

Inside the glass cabinet sat an unremarkable casket, shaped like the Holy Reliquary churches used to hold the bones and blood of saints.

It was silver, with a glasslike fish relief and edges that gave off a blue glow. Half a palm long, it had an antiquated design.

The fish relief had fine, dense scales, and its tail curled slightly, as though it would flick that tail and dart into the water at any moment. The casket rested on a piece of black velvet, with a yellowed label beside it.

"3E335, purchased in the Blair Lock District." It had been bought twenty years ago.

Gordon stared fixedly at it, as though countless threads ran through the walls, floor, and air, all tethered to this casket.

The fish relief on the surface of the Holy Reliquary was wet.

A droplet slowly slid down the fish's back and hung at the edge of its belly, seemingly resisting gravity, refusing to fall. Meanwhile, fresh moisture silently seeped out of the top of the casket...

It was as though a living lung lay hidden inside, breathing with extraordinary slowness, making the droplet gradually swell until it teetered above the velvet pad beneath.

Charlotte had been following behind them and noticed him stop.

"Is it this?" she asked.

"If an antique sweats on its own, either it's too nervous, or it doesn't belong in an antique cabinet," Gordon said.

"That's impossible. It's just a casket. It's been in this collection room for twenty years and has never caused any trouble," Evans protested.

"A lot of trouble is called 'no trouble' right up until it happens."

"You..." Evans wanted to say more.

Vera suddenly raised her head.

"Under our feet... the things down there are getting more agitated," she said hoarsely.

Ever since they had entered the collection room, the dull pounding underground had steadily intensified.

The creatures beneath the house had all become enraged at once. The thing they had tracked for days was now surrounded by humans.

"We need to examine it." Gordon looked at Evans. "And I have a very simple way to do that. Open the cabinet. I won't touch the casket."

Cold sweat seeped out on Evans's forehead. After a moment's hesitation, he still took out his key and unlocked the display cabinet.

Gordon did not touch the Holy Reliquary directly.

Carefully pinching the edge, he drew out the palm-sized black velvet pad beneath the Holy Reliquary, little by little.

The velvet itself was ordinary. It was merely soaked with water that had dripped from the Holy Reliquary.

"Let's go," Gordon said.

"Where?"

"Outside. To the river."

The Montfort Ancestral Home stood on the bank of the Blackwater River. Whoever built it had liked river views, docks, private boathouses, and the convenience of transporting wine barrels, antiques, and contraband directly into the house.

The group passed through a side door and reached the riverbank.

The night was deep and dark.

Looking down, all they could see was moonlight, thick fog, shattered lamplight, then a multicolored sheen of industrial oil, and only beneath it all, the silently flowing Blackwater River.

Wind rose from the water, stirring Charlotte's golden hair. She instinctively pulled her cloak closer without speaking. She had been born beside this river, yet for the first time, it felt utterly unfamiliar.

Gordon stood at the river's edge, holding the piece of black velvet.

"Mr. Gordon, if your deductions tonight turn out to be nothing more than an alarmist misunderstanding-" Evans stood behind him.

"At worst, we'll lose a scrap of cloth used as padding." Gordon didn't turn around. "With the count's wealth, I doubt that would bankrupt him. If it comes to it, he can sell that cutlery set worth half a medical school."

Before he had finished speaking, Gordon raised his hand and hurled the velvet outward.

The piece of velvet fluttered in the night wind like a moth reluctant to fall, drifting slowly toward the Blackwater River.

It touched the water.

There was no sound. It merely floated.

One second.

Two seconds.

-Suddenly!

The river's surface began to move. Gordon felt as though he had thrown in not merely a piece of velvet, but a bomb that had utterly transformed it.