AN: OOPH. This chapter took a while to write. Officially my longest chapter ever to date in anything I've written. I hope all the dialogue doesn't bore anybody.

Responding to some comments: Baby Fawn, I don't know why the people of Windhelm can't solve the murder by themselves. But, as Wuunferth says, they're all idiots! Obviously the Dragonborn is just way smarter… heh . Purple256, I'm glad you appreciate the realness of the situation! I wanted SO BADLY to let Deb get to boink Ralof, but, c'est la vie, you know? We all have that one person in our life we never got to kiss or whatever… Sigh. Plus, I've already been super nice and also super mean to Ralof in other stories… and also included him a lot as a main character. He was merely a minor one here, for once! (But, I forever love the Chubs). Kira Mackey, CSI: SKYRIM. Heh. Heh... *grin* Timeywimeyspaceywacey, When in doubt, always blame the mages. The journal, however, did talk about the College at Winterhold, so it really REALLY looks bad! Katschaba, I love my twist in this quest, and I'm glad you like it too. I hope you like the resolution…. It doesn't end with this chapter, either! Pshycogurl335, Thanks! The language barrier will be an issue for a little while longer, probably up until I do a time-jump while Deb is attending mage college. Even then, it will take years for her to become truly fluent, as is normal. Culture shock will probably never fully go away, though. MirriMazDuur, Don't worry about not reviewing so much! I'm glad you like it! Who (or what?) are you rooting for, exactly? ;)

Also, over 9,000 views! GEEEEZ! Haha. Wow. Thanks so much for reading, everyone. I love writing this story, so I'm glad you all enjoy reading it!

Also also, 10 points to the first person to guess correctly what (awesome) movie the title of this chapter comes from. Now I want to go watch that movie. Because it's awesome.

Chapter 25 – Piece of Cake, Piece of Pie

In my dungeon cell under the palace at Windhelm, I was just barely falling asleep when I felt something scurry over my head. It was squeaking softly. Voicing my disgust, I bolted upright and franticly brushed my face, hair, shoulders, and then the rest of my body.

"Everything alright?" I heard Wuunferth ask from an adjacent cell. We were separated by a stone wall, but the fronts of the cells were iron bars, so we could hear one another just fine.

"Yes. There was a…," a rat, I figured, "…thing. Small animal. Like a big mouse. I don't know your word."

"Rott," Wuunferth mumbled the word.

"Rott," I repeated, and then added, "I have to urinate."

"Look behind you."

I did what Wuunferth said and just barely made out the glint of a metal grid-covered drain. "Ugh," I grumbled. I hated peeing over anything that didn't have a seat. I was never the most outdoorsy person – even my archaeology digs had port-a-johns. I was just glad that my hands were untied.

I had never been in a cell before. The only trouble I'd ever gotten into were a few speeding tickets. As I squatted, I realized that if any guards were in the immediate area they would have seen everything as I did my business. Lovely. Memories of Thrynn watching me pee came back all-too-vividly.

When I finished, I sat back down on my musty bedroll. "I suppose you are not sleeping, then?" I asked Wuunferth.

"No, no…," was all he said.

"Still thinking of the strov-, strovar…."

"Strovodinok, yes. It fits the pattern. If I just knew what the strovodinoke was attempting to do then I would know what to look for…. And the necklace…. A taufra, perhaps? Necklace…."

I saw Wuunferth in my mind's eye shaking his head, muttering to himself and pacing back and forth. "There is nothing to do tonight, Wuunferth. Jorleif will be here in the morning, we can yell at him more then. Do not worry, I have a plan."

"Plan? What plan?"

"I told you, Wuunferth. I have experience in murder things. I will make them see you are not the killer."

"Oh, no my dear, I am not worried about that. The Butcher will kill again, and likely soon. I, and you, will be here, and then they will have to release us. I suppose here is the safest place to be right now – especially for you. I am worried about the guards thinking they can relax, and another young woman will die because of their hinskar."

I sat in silence for a while. "What is hinskar?"

"Hinskar is the guards thinking I am the Butcher, and that you had something to do with it. Considering the murders have been occurring for months and you've been here for mere weeks, they're being pure hinsken. Absolute hinsken. Ulfric should send the lot of them out to The Foll for vakten. Hinskar!"

I'll just go ahead and consider that word to mean "idiot", I thought. "I am going to try to sleep. If you are going to stay awake, please think quietly," I said before curling into a ball on my bedroll. I hoped no more rats would come sniffing around my head.

"You have got to be fucking brandig!"

It must have been early morning when I heard a man spit out angry words from somewhere nearby. I quickly slipped on my linen ladybriefs after peeing over the drain and re-wrapped my mage's robe around my body. A quick succession of thudding drew nearer and I knew someone was running toward the dungeons. I hoped it was Ulfric coming to yell at the guards for arresting his court mage, but I was wrong.

"Yrsarald?" I called out to the man who came running toward my cell. He was panting, and wincing in pain.

"Deborah, I came as soon as I heard. I didn't want to believe it." Yrsarald grunted when he bent down to rub his left knee; the joint was apparently the source of his discomfort.

"You didn't have to come, Yrsarald." I approached the cell door and gripped the iron bars. "Wuunferth and I are alright. We are more worried for the women who will be killed next. You have to tell the guards to keep looking, or someone else might die. That is more important."

"Oh, shut up," Jorleif snapped as he entered the room. "We found your journal, mage. What in Oblivion are you writing in here?" He was waving my journal at me. "Daedric spells? Bulven? A dulma to hide your secrets!?"

"It is to learn!" I hollered. Wuunferth was right – idiots. "It is enchanting notes and lists of words. Some of my thoughts. That is all!"

Jorleif flipped through the pages. "Drunk. Potion. Tonic. Feast. Spiced." Flip, flip. "Adventuring. Treasure. Tent. Mare." Flip, flip. "Fuck. Fucking. Nuts. Damn." He continued reading my list of naughty vocabulary words in silence, until he arrived at the most recent entry and looked up at me. "Cock?"

My face and ears were on fire. "I told you – to learn the words. Remember. Study."

"You're studying 'cock'?" Jorleif's eyebrow arched. He looked down at the list again. "'Asshole'?"

I looked briefly over to Yrsarald, who may have been blushing more than I was. I looked back at Jorleif. "I write everything down. To learn. So, now, I can say you are being a fucking shit-head asshole right now because you read my personal journal to everyone!"

Wuunferth snorted, and then sputtered in a fit of not-quite stifled laughter.

Jorleif grimaced, and continued to read my notes. "What language is this?"

"My language," I answered.

"Yes, but which? I don't recognize the stefrufit."

"That's because it is Deborah's stefrufit, idiot," Wuunferth chimed in. "You're not listening."

"She's not from this world," Yrsarald added.

Jorleif laughed. "Another world? Of course. And I am a methlim of Shor." He turned to Yrsarald. "And how would you know that anyway, rathgif? I'm beginning to wonder just how oludra you are with her."

"I am perfectly oludra, steward," Yrsarald stepped up to Jorleif, towering over him, dragging out the word for the man's title as if it were an insult. He grabbed the journal to have a look for himself. I couldn't watch him read my list of naughty words. I backed away from the bars, lowered my gaze and commenced pacing back and forth nervously. "She is also studying dates. And names of animals." I heard him close the journal. "She tells the truth, Jorleif. You know she does." I turned back around to see him hand the journal back to the steward. "She came to me last night asking to help us."

Jorleif scoffed. "How can a mage possibly help us?"

"The same way that I have been trying to help, idiot." Wuunferth nearly growled. He was getting angry again.

"Let her out, Jorleif." Yrsarald's tone was growing more irritated, which made his thick accent stand out even more. "She hasn't even been here for that long. You know she is not The Butcher, ne helping him."

"Let her out," a deep voice vibrated from the doorway. I looked up to see Ulfric leaning against the doorframe, a foot pressed against the wood to steady himself. He did not look happy. He had been listening. With a foot he pushed his body upright and walked forward to my cell. He grabbed the journal from Jorleif and examined the contents for himself. His expression never shifted from a slight frown. He then slammed the journal shut and rebound the closure with the thin leather thong. "I said," he turned to Jorleif, "let her out."

Jorleif appeared as if he was holding back some unkind words, but he did as he was told and sorted through his jumble of keys. Ulfric then turned to Yrsarald and handed him the journal. "Watch her. Guard her. Help her. Galmar is here anyway, he can take over your nothen until this mess is taken care of."

"And what about Wuunferth?" I asked as I exited my opened cell door. I had no idea if I could approach Ulfric so casually, but he did know who I was, sort of, having almost lost my head alongside him not too long ago.

Ulfric the Lion-Man turned to me, his expression as steady as a poker champion's. His presence was incredibly commanding, and I wasn't at all surprised that he was a kind of local ruler, aiming to be king of the entire country. I felt the Jarl's gaze lay heavy on me, and I fidgeted uncomfortably until he spoke.

"Wuunferth will have his dom. I'm not one to so quickly condemn someone I've known for my entire life. But, for now, the old mage stays here." Ulfric walked passed me toward Wuunferth's cell.

"Don't worry about me, Deborah. Do what you need to do. I will be fine." Wuunferth was sitting cross-legged on his bedroll, hood up and hands tucked into his sleeves.

"I'll have a nice breakfast brought down," Ulfric said to the old mage. "Personally," he added, "by Jorleif."

I thought I saw the corner of Wuunferth's mouth turn up in a smirk.

Ulfric suddenly turned and made for the dungeon exit, but as he approached me he grasped my upper arm and pulled me close to him. He pressed his lips to my ear and spoke under his breath. "When this is through," he said, "you will tell me about this 'other world' efin." The Jarl loosened his grip on me just as abruptly and continued toward the exit. "Don't bother me again with this until you have something more solid," he said to everyone within earshot as he stormed up the steps with Jorleif trotting behind him.

I turned to Yrsarald. We exchanged somewhat stunned looks before he handed me my journal. "So," I said, "you are to guard me."

He gave a little shrug. "Those were my orders, yes."

"Against who – myself, or the real killer?"

Yrsarald sighed. "Both, I suppose. Come on, you can go wash, and then we'll go eat." I felt the man's huge hand pressing against my lower back, urging me forward. He turned to Wuunferth's cell as we walked away. "I'm sorry, Wuunferth. We will get you out soon."

The old mage grumbled something incoherently and continuously until we walked too far to hear him.

I may have been temporarily biased, but I thought that the bath I took that morning was the best bath I had ever taken in my entire life. Just being in that cell made me feel completely filthy and violated, and I scrubbed the memories away.

I had chucked my now-disgusting bra and old mage's robe in a waste basket and brought with me to the bathing room a fresh pair of underwear, a chest binding, and the mage's robes that Stenvar sent me. Once I was clean and dry, I figured out how to fashion the linen chest binding in a way that actually supported my bountiful bosom. Instead of binding it horizontally across my chest as Siv had done with her tennis-ball-sized breasts, I wrapped the long piece of fabric in a crisscross fashion over my upper body and then across my upper torso, like an underlined X. Since the fabric spread over my shoulders, it would have looked bad with any clothing other than my mage's robe, but since that's what I usually wore, I didn't care.

Breakfast was uncomfortably silent. Ulfric and Galmar were absent, as was Jorleif, and I still didn't know anyone else there but Yrsarald. Though I didn't know them, the other men and women present had obviously heard about me and what happened. I tried to ignore their questioning stares.

Out of nowhere, I heard a growl next to me. Yrsarald thrust himself from the bench and began to pile various fruits and cheeses and pastries onto a platter. He lifted the arrangement from the table and turned toward the steps that led upstairs. I was confused, but figured I should follow my guardian. I grabbed a pitcher that was filled with honey water and walked briskly after Yrsarald. When we reached his bedroom door, he ordered me to open it.

He walked in, set the platter down on his bed, sat next to it, grabbed a pastry, and devoured it. I stood at the foot of the bed with the pitcher and watched as the pastry disappeared. The sweet, fluffy thing never stood a chance, nor did the second one that he shoved into his mouth. Remains of the delicacies were left dotting his goatee.

Breaking out of my trance, I shook my head and walked over to the night table next to the man to put the pitcher down. When I turned back to Yrsarald, he had begun to work on a pie. A whole pie. With his hands.

"Are you eating your feelings?" I asked, unable to avoid being amused by the sight of a gigantic, heavily-muscled man devouring pastries like I usually did about once a month. Yrsarald looked up from the red-berry pie which had stained his red-brown goatee a deeper red. "You look like a bear eating a piece of bloody deer." I smiled.

I didn't mean to shame Yrsarald, but he must have felt that way. He put the pie back down on the platter, stood and walked over to a washbasin, and cleaned his face. He leaned on the tall basin for a moment, obviously tense and having a lot of internal conflicts about something.

Feeling bad about unintentionally teasing Yrsarald, I sat on the bed, reached for the other pie – one made with a deep purple berry – and chowed down. "Mmm," I said with a very full mouth, "very good." I barely chewed the first bite before taking another. I wasn't sure why Yrsarald was upset, but I was a champion at eating my feelings, and I had a lot of anger to deal with at the moment. When I heard the man laugh, I looked up at him from my pie, but I didn't stop eating. Purple berry juice dripped down my wrist. I stopped it with my tongue and gave it a lick. I put what was left of the pie back down on the platter to lick the rest of my fingers and hands. I didn't know what the berry was, but it was delicious, something akin to a mix of blueberries and grapes.

Yrsarald laughed again before saying, "Go wash before you get jazbay all over my bed."

I giggled, and complied. There was a bar of sweet-smelling soap by the washbasin which removed the sticky mess easily. When I returned to the bed, I stared down at the feast before sitting again. "Do you have plates?"

Yrsarald walked over to a cabinet where I saw many plates and cups stacked. He grabbed two plates, two cups and two forks, then handed me one of each. We both placed our partially-demolished pies onto plates and continued to feed ourselves in a more human fashion. We were eating a whole pie each, and neither of us cared. It was kind of beautiful.

"I am sorry that I said those words," I said as I forked apart another piece of pie.

"No, it was the truth. I eat to stay calm."

"Calm? Why do you need to be calm? You were not urinating over a hole behind bars." I immediately regretted talking about urination. He wasn't an archaeologist – we tended to have tougher stomachs when it came to conversation topics while eating. Bones, mummies, millennia-old scat, whatever.

Yrsarald was silent for a minute or so, evidently considering his words. "I anger easily," was all he said before munching down on more pie.

"How do you not become round by eating so much?"

"There is a training room near the dungeons that I use. But I just don't put on the vegen easily."

"Vegen…." I assumed it meant weight. "You are lucky." I stared down at my almost-gone pie and frowned. "I am sorry you are made to guard me." I stabbed a purple berry with my fork and stared at it. "You have better things to do, I suppose."

"That's not why I'm angry, Deborah. I don't mind looking after you." Yrsarald dropped his fork onto his now-empty plate. "I'm angry because too many have died, and I am certain Wuunferth is not The Butcher. Jorleif is an idiot." He looked up at me from across the bed. "What are you going to do now?"

I shifted my gaze back to my pie and ate it while thinking. After the last crumb and berry was scraped into my mouth, I pushed the purple-smeared silver plate away from me and reclined on the back of Yrsarald's bed. "I am going to make everyone see that Wuunferth is not the killer."

"But how?" He walked over to the pitcher of honey water, poured us both a glass, and then joined me in reclining. We both had a lot to digest, in more ways than one.

"I need to speak to Jorleif," I said. "I need to see why he thinks Wuunferth killed the women. What happened last night? What changed?"

"I only heard about it this morning. A guard received a nafnila note about seeing blood outside of a house. They found journals and… parts of bodies in a fala room and in the cellar. The parts in the cellar were frozen, inside a cut into the earth and packed with snow. They also found a strange-looking necklace with a skull on it."

"Frozen body parts?" I asked. Yrsarald nodded, looking as horrified as I felt. I gulped, fighting the reappearance of my pie. "What parts?"

"What parts? Of a body?" he asked. I nodded. "I don't know. Does it matter?"

"It might matter."

Yrsarald, who had somewhat naturally tawny skin, looked like he was turning pale. "Everything is still in the house. If you want to see it, you need to speak with Jorleif."

I sighed. "I don't want to see, Yrsarald, but Wuunferth said a thing like that might be important to know. So, I will see."

"Just don't expect me to look, too."

"I will take my journal. Make notes. Any one thing might be important later." I scooted off the bed, picked up the platter of food, and placed it on Yrsarald's desk, then did the same with our plates. When I turned around, Yrsarald looked like he wanted to punch someone. "Are you… still angry? Do you want more food first?" The man could probably eat ten Big Macs and still have room for dessert.

Yrsarald stood, grabbed a chunk of cheese and shoved it into his mouth. He then reached for his fur cloak and threw it over his arm while chewing. "I'll always want more food," he eventually said. "Go on and get your cloak. We'll go see Jorleif and then go to the house."

"What do you mean the necklace has gone missing?" Yrsarald snarled at Jorleif.

"It was here, and now it isn't. That is what I mean. Funny that this one," the steward said, indicating me, "gets let out at the same time, hmm?"

"She was with me all morning, Jorleif." Yrsarald was getting angry again. I could feel the heat radiating from his body. "I stood outside the bathing room as she washed. She did not take the necklace."

"Have you asked Wuunferth?" I asked in my best sarcastic tone. "Maybe he magic'd himself out of the cell and to down here. Made himself a snake and went out of the bars and all the way with no one seeing." I walked toward the chest Jorleif had opened. Two leather-bound journals were inside. I reached forward to grab them but Jorleif caught my wrist.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked.

"I am helping, Jorleif," I snapped. "Take your hand off me."

The steward refused, and Yrsarald had had enough of the man's insolence. I could tell my guardian wanted to pummel the tiny steward, but instead, Yrsarald grabbed Jorleif on each upper arm, picked him up and away from me, and replaced him to the side. With one finger wagging at the confused and slightly shaken steward, Yrsarald ordered him, "Stay… there…," and then nodded at me to continue.

I reached into the chest and retrieved the journals. Both were stained with blood. I wished hard for some surgical gloves. I opened the first journal and slowly read the contents. "This is a list. I don't know these words."

"Body parts," Jorleif said.

I continued reading. "What is an… ice…mind?"

"Who knows? Some damned elven thing," Jorleif grumbled.

I opened the second journal and stopped reading when I recognized a word. "The words read about Susanna." I showed Yrsarald the text.

He read the entire journal. The letters of this language were written quite large, so one sentence might take up about half a page of an average-sized book. I knew from experience now that writing with a quill was not at all as easy as with a ball-point pen, and it was indeed more difficult to write small letters without risking creating a series of black splotches. While the books I've read in this land tended to be somewhat thick, their contents are relatively short.

When Yrsarald finished reading, he looked at me with a look of dread sprawled across his face.

"What?" I asked him.

"It reads like Wuunferth talks," my guardian said.

"What? What do you mean?"

"That's what we thought," Jorleif puffed his chest with pride.

"The Butcher calls everyone idiots and fools. Whoever this is spent time in Winterhold… practiced magic." Yrsarald turned the book to me and pointed out what he was referring to. He was right – whoever wrote this held a sort of contempt for other people, and Wuunferth did indeed call many people idiots.

I began to feel my heart sink into my stomach until I remembered something. My eyes shot up at Yrsarald, and then over to Jorleif. "The note."

"Note?" Jorleif asked.

"The one about the house," I confirmed.

"In the chest," the steward said.

I reached in and grabbed the small piece of paper. On a nearby table I laid open one of the journals and opened the note, examining a page of the journal and the note side-by-side. I was anything but positive about my conclusion since it was like trying to decide if two oranges could be easily differentiated, but the two samples of writing looked exactly the same.

"They are the same," I said. "The writing. The same person wrote them."

"Most people write in the same way, Deborah," Yrsarald explained in a grim tone.

"So, show me something you wrote," I said to him, and then turned to Jorleif. "You too. Any letter. And something from Wuunferth's room. We can see. See if they are all the same, or all different."

"What are you getting at?" Jorleif planted his hands on his waist, begging an explanation.

I opened my journal to show Jorleif my Norren scribbles. "I do not write like this person. See?" I held up the short note. "Not the same. I learned to write from a friend, and from old books. I might write the same as my friend or as the old books. But this, this writing is different." I glared at Jorleif. "You do not see the little things."

I could see the pride melt away from Jorleif's very soul. "Fine. We'll go get something from Wuunferth's room. And Yrsarald and I will give you a letter. Whatever. I still don't see the mark, though."

"Just go get the writings. We will see," I said.

Sure enough, there were subtle differences in everyone's style of writing. My writing was blocky and stiff, because I was slow and careful. Jorleif's was messy when writing quick notes, and neat and precise when writing important letters. Yrsarald's was sharp and quick, with several mistakes as Jorleif happily pointed out. Wuunferth's writing was shaky lately, possibly an indication of his age. The mage's earlier writings, found in old journals in his room, were graceful and almost feather-like in their calligraphic delicacy. The writing of the killer had more in common with Jorleif's than any of the others, changing from messy to neat even mid-sentence.

Several other minor differences stood out, such as the way letters slanted, or if lines of a letter sloped up or down towards the right side of the page. Even the shapes of the letters had tiny variations from person to person, such as the letter for the sound "th", which had no resemblance to the Nordic rune from my own world. Instead of looking like a triangular flag at half-staff, the Norren letter looked more like a lightning bolt, or an awkward, backwards Sigma. Some people wrote the letter consistently with a long tail at the bottom, and others, no tail at all. I wrote mine with a tail, which apparently was an older way of writing it, as made evident by the books I'd been learning from.

I felt some relief in realizing that Stenvar was most likely not the killer. I felt one less worry pinch at the nerves of my aching, tense shoulders. I would have to examine his letter to me to be sure, but from memory his writing was very messy, even more so than Jorleif's scribbles and Wuunferth's shaky penmanship.

"If you see the way everything is written," I finished explaining as best I could, "the writing of the killer is the most different from any of the others," I concluded. "We all, and Wuunferth, have almost the same way of writing, but the journals and note are both very different from our writing. I am sure they were wrote by the same person."

"Written," Yrsarald said.

"What?" I asked.

"Were written. Not 'wrote'." He smiled knowingly.

"Oh," I cleared my throat. "Thank you."

"So, you're saying the killer is not like the rest of us in some way," Jorleif said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yes, exactly," I confirmed.

"Perhaps… the killer olstup somewhere different from us, learned to write differently," Jorleif continued.

"A different city, maybe," I offered.

"What about another world?" Jorleif suggested, stressing the last word.

My lip twitched with annoyance, threatening to rise into a sneer. "I already showed you I write like either one of you, more. And of course my writing would be different, I am learning it still. I can barely read."

"Enough, Jorleif," Yrsarald growled. "Deborah is not the killer, move on."

"I'm merely bendig out the fact that you, Deborah," Jorleif jabbed a finger hard into my shoulder, "were olstup somewhere other than Skyrim."

"Yes, that is obvious…," I closed my eyes momentarily in utter frustration. "Can you please tell me who else in Windhelm was… came from somewhere else? Learned to write somewhere else? Maybe not Sky-Rim?"

"Elves, for one," Jorleif began. "They all came from Morning-Wind."

"Harsten and Imperials, too," Yrsarald added. "Don't hop to the elves so quickly, Jorleif."

"Yes, yes," Jorleif scratched his chin. "I don't think we have any Rathgaeten in the city, but I can check. And of course there are the Argonians."

"The Argonians don't enter the city," said Yrsarald.

"We haven't caught The Butcher yet; the killer is an ahkropa garn. Argonians are nothing but little ahkropen."

Yrsarald groaned and planted his face into his large palms.

I cleared my throat. "Jorleif, perhaps it is time to search the homes of the people. You have the journals and the note – go and find a letter with the same writing. Start with people not from here. You know the killer is a mage, so look for a mage."

"Wuunferth… and you… are the only mages in all of Windhelm," Jorleif said.

"That we know of," corrected Yrsarald.

And then it hit me like a baseball bat to the head. "Match lists of names," I said.

"What?" asked Jorleif.

"Match lists of names. From here, from the college in Winterhold! The journal reads something about the college – the killer went to the college! They keep lists of people who go there, yes?"

"Of course they do," Jorleif answered, "but how can we be sure the killer didn't change his or her name?" Jorleif made a good point.

"And maybe they did not change the name," I retorted. "Match the lists." I began to pace back and forth, running my mind over any other ways to identify a mage. "What do mages use?" I asked the men.

"Use?" The two men exchanged glances.

"What maybe they buy?" I specified. "Things that maybe no one else buys?"

"Ehh, aren't you a mage? Don't you know?" Yrsarald gave me a shrug.

"I'm… new." That was the understatement of the entirety of all time, ever. "Maybe potions… Wuunferth used and made potions, but he is not like most mages. He is also a… ehh, person who makes potions."

"Folhete," Yrsarald said.

"Sure…," I had no idea.

"What sort of potions does a mage use?" asked Jorleif.

I shrugged. "Ones that help with magic. But I don't think the killer is that much idiot to buy potions. Too obvious."

"True. He also would have changed his name, too, I say," Jorleif said.

"Write a letter to Savos Aren," Yrsarald ordered Jorleif, "get a list of anyone who sottekt the College in the past… thirty years. While we wait for a response, Deborah and I will go to the various houses in the city. But first, we need to go see the mess at Hjerim." Yrsarald then turned to me. "Come, Deborah, you can skata the murder sith."

Frozen bones. Frozen bones in an ice box dug into the cellar of the house where the murderer carved up the bodies of five women. I wrote down everything I saw, in English, in my journal. I wished for a pen or pencil – dipping my quill into the inkpot every few minutes was annoying.

While Yrsarald looked around the abandoned house, I muttered to myself in English as I examined the remains. "Two pelvic girdles…." I tried not to gag as I picked up the pieces of people for a closer look. The pubic arch was fairly wide, as was the sciatic notch. "Probably female." Next pelvis. Both features very wide. "Very female." The bones still had a considerable amount of muscle attached to them, and I was not happy about it. I was just thankful the bits of people were frozen. Although preventing easy inspection of the bones, it prevented any further gagging due to decomposition. The smell of ripe protein was stuck in my memory from my expansive anthropological education, and I did not wish to rejuvenate that particular olfactive experience.

"One right femur, two left. One right tibia, three left." In the ice box were also organs, tendons, and even jumbles of nerves and veins. Yippee. "Two hearts, one liver, two kidneys but I don't know which side…." I had to look away while I gagged a little. Breathe, breathe. Alright, go. "Two lungs, attached. One stomach and all intestines… attached." Turn, vomit, breathe, breathe. Alright, go again. "One pair of feet, probably from the same person." Organs, organs and more organs. I didn't know what every organ looked like. And then I saw it, under piles of more pinkish-grey organs – folded skin.

Stand, turn, vomit again.

Breathe, breathe. Think. Switch to Norren.

"Yrsarald?" I called out, still somewhat choked-up.

"Hmm?" I heard him approach.

"Were all the women… in pieces? Like Susanna?"

"Yes, even more so."

"More?"

"Yes. The first two women were found with barely anything but their clothes to thek them. Not even a head."

I turned in surprise to Yrsarald. "No head?"

He shook his own head side to side.

"I need… need…." I ran up the stairs and out of the house into the frigid, snow-filled air. Yrsarald followed.

"Are you alright? I imagine not. I don't know why you wanted to look at that." Yrsarald placed a hand on my shoulder as I leaned on the iron fence surrounding the house. I dry-heaved into the frost-covered bushes.

"I told you," I said as I caught my breath. "Need to see. Tell Wuunferth. I write down everything I see."

"Alright, alright." His hand lifted from my shoulder. "Have you seen enough yet, though? I hate being in there."

"No, not yet." I swiped some fresh snow from the ground to wash out my mouth, and then turned to Yrsarald. "Did you find anything? Upstairs?"

"No, nothing. It really is empty except for the one room and the cellar."

I steeled myself to go back inside. "I will see again the one room," I said before re-entering the house. I headed to the hidden room where rituals apparently took place. "Blood everywhere," I said, taking in the scene once more. "Scissors, knives, needles, sinew…." Cutting. Sewing.

Cutting. Sewing.

Body parts.

Cutting…. Sewing….

Body parts….

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christmas pie," I blurted out in English.