A gas lamp dangled on the ceiling, casting its cold light over two persons in the windowless room.
Quinn was silent and still, eyeing the blank-staring Kynon across the table like a hawk preying on a rodent. The man was cuffed, hands behind his back and arms bound to the chair.
The door behind the ranger-knight creaked open and the sound of armor rustled as Mealla, the warden of Uwendale entered. She shook her head once, signaling to Quinn that they hadn't found any clues for how Tabitha was set ablaze.
A sinking feeling, like a sword underwater, cut through Quinn. No clues found could also be a clue. If there was nothing logical about it, then it's simply pointing towards the supernatural or magical. The question was the motive at hand. She leaned over the table, taking a better look at the maskless Kynon. He looked much older than she'd expected. His hair and eyes matched the color of the room's stony interior. Deep wrinkles lay folded over his gaunt face and the bright burn marks were a stark contrast to his pale skin.
"Kynon," she said, "tell me again what happened."
The man didn't meet her gaze. His voice was neutral when he retold his version of the incident for the fourth time. "Young Nollaig had been sorting out the herbs too close to the hearth. Master Tabitha was too distraught to notice her surroundings and she accidentally stepped on the burning herbs. Before I knew it, she had turned into a pillar of flame."
The same retelling, word for word. Even the cadence was the same monotone, but Quinn couldn't decide whether it was due to shock or from practiced rehearsals.
"That doesn't make sense," Mealla said. "She would've needed to be dunked in a vat of oil for the fire to turn that big that fast, not from flammable herbs."
"It's what happened," Kynon replied.
Quinn agreed with her mother. She had stepped away from the hearth room for a moment to grab the books, still hearing the wake-tenders cry for help. She had managed to fill the bag to the brim when the cries suddenly turned to shrieks. It had been half a minute at most. It must be magic, but why was the wake-tender the target? Wasn't a ranger-knight a more enticing prey?
She rubbed clammy palms over her sleeves, feeling comfort from the hidden daggers strapped to her underarms. It seemed that she wasn't the only fidgeting person in the room, based on how the warden rested a hand on a crossbow by the belt.
More guards would've helped, but they were outside and doing their best to calm the distressed villagers together with the mayor. Was that Kynon's goal? But then, killing Quinn would've caused the same kind of distress, if not more.
"How long have you studied under Tabitha?" Quinn asked.
"Six months."
That was a surprise. He had moved around the wake-tenders house with such familiarity that she would've guessed a few years at least.
"What did you do before then?" she asked, then added, "Where are you from?"
"Nothing," Kynon said in his impassive voice. "I lived happily with my family in a cottage north-east from here."
"North-east?" Mealla said, "That's the land of the Arbormark."
That could explain the accent, but Quinn wasn't too versed with the Arbormarks while Kynon's accent had a familiar ring to it. "And what made you come to Uwendale and seek an apprenticeship from our wake-tender?" she asked.
The gray man finally lifted his gaze, meeting Quinn's. Her fingers twitched and she had to hold herself back from reaching a dagger.
"I woke up to my home in ash and cinders," he said. "Weak and wounded, I thought my life was over, then I saw them. The swirling blackness of Wolf and the white figure of Lamb.
"The Eternal Hunters were peering over something among the rubbles and I realized that it was my wife. They asked her what she would choose, and I prayed that she would fight for her life, to run from death as best she could. But Leanna asked for the arrow so Lamb pulled her bow and claimed my wife's soul.
"I waited for them to turn to me. I prepared myself to choose Wolf, to resist death. I knew that I would fail and that Wolf's jaw would crush my neck but it's what I had learned to do from the tally-men. Kindred turned towards me. White Lamb and Black Wolf, wearing masks of each other. They stared at me for a long moment as if pondering. Then they left."
The gas light flickered as silence filled the room, each person muted with their own reasons.
The man named Kynon closed his eyes as if trying to listen to the echoes of his story.
The warden of Uwendale set her jaw, as if bearing pain from an old injury.
The ranger-knight bit her tongue and clasped her hands, suppressing the urge to throw a dagger between the man's eyes.
Slowly, sound returned to the room. First from the scraping of Quinn's chair against the stone floor as she rose. Then from her low voice saying with certainty, "You're not from the Arbormark."
"I never said I was," Kynon replied. "I merely said that I lived north-east from here. The warden interpreted the rest on her own."
"Further than Arbormark?" Mealla asked. "Skaggornland?"
"No," Quinn said. "I should've recognized that accent earlier but it's been a long time since I've heard a Noxian speak in our language."
In a heartbeat, the warden pulled out her crossbow, loaded, and aimed at the man across the table. "A spy from Noxus? Are you working with the mages?"
"Lower your weapon, Warden," Quinn ordered. She leaned closer to Mealla and whispered, "We need him alive incase we need to decipher Tabitha's books."
"You want to bargain with a Noxian?" Mealla whispered back.
"It wouldn't work anyway," Kynon continued. "What makes you think you could hurt me when even Lamb refuses to strike me down? When Wolf ignored chasing me?"
Not only was Kynon a Noxian, but one of the fanatics too. What had once seemed like a puzzle nearing its completion had been turned into something bigger. Was Kynon following someone's orders from the Noxian Empire, or was he here by himself?
The warden opened the door, calling for whatever remaining personnel inside the barracks.
"Why here in Uwendale?" Quinn asked. "Why Tabitha?"
"Why my wife?" His tone was hard like iron, matching the color of his eyes. "Why my daughter? Why not me?"
"You're not going to say anything?" Mealla asked.
The warden's office had remained unchanged over the years with its single shelf, table and window. Quinn inspected the tomes on the shelf and picked out a ledger, rifling through it. "What do you want me to say?"
"I thought you would start with 'I told you so'," Mealla opened one of Tabitha's books, her brow furrowed in concentration, then she shook her head in defeat, closing it. "I don't even know where to start with these ciphers."
"I can gloat when all this is over," Quinn replied. She closed the ledger and headed for the window. The festival should've been bustling, but there was a worried tension in the air, clinging to the attendees and weighing their shoulders. The noon bell struck three times, she would be late for her meeting with Glendon the merchant, but more pressing things were at hand. Valor had also yet to return from his scouting of Jax.
"Do you have any carrier pigeons?" she asked.
Mealla looked up from another one of Tabitha's books. "What for?"
"We need to alert the High Council of the Noxian spy and of the mage activity here in Uwendale."
"There's no proof of mage activity here."
Quinn shot her mother a glare. "You can't be serious."
"If you report about mage activity, the mageseekers will come. They will—"
"I know what they'll do, Warden. They'll find all the mages, remove them, and make Uwendale a safer place."
"There's suspicion of murder and infiltration from hostile nations," Mealla insisted. "Not magic."
"You said it yourself that she had to be dunked in a vat of oil for the flames to grow to that size. She wasn't, so the only explanation left is magic."
"Imprisonment or exile." There was an edge in Mealla's voice. "Those are the only options for those afflicted with magic. Have you heard of the elixirs they force down on mage suspects?"
"I wish I had some on me, to be honest," Quinn replied.
"The mageseekers torture people."
"It's for the greater good of Demacia." Just saying it tasted sour inside Quinn's mouth, but she held fast and grabbed an empty parchment from a stack and began to write. "Trust the High Council. Trust that they know what's best for our nation."
"Do they know what's best for Uwendale?"
"Do you?" Quinn snapped back. "Because there's a lot of things pointing towards you, Warden. The lack of rangers, the Slayer's festival, the lack of security and huge influx of visitors, and that's not even mentioning the Noxian spy who has been snooping around for six months right under your watch. You claimed I lost my edge when we discussed the wyvern corpse. Isn't it ironic?"
Mealla stood her ground, taking on each accusation without a flinch or a grimace. She stood tall and straight like a Dauntless Vanguard.
"What is happening here, mother?" Quinn said. Her voice wavered with the last word, shedding her stature of knight and breaking the formalities. She reached for her mother's hand, squeezing it. "Tell me what you're hiding. Everything's pointing at treason, but I know you better than that. Why is Uwendale holding a strange festival during this chaos?"
Mealla looked down at Quinn's trembling hands. "The Wings of Demacia," she murmured. "It's a great title. Fit for you and Valor. Reaching anywhere the High Council asks you to go, even behind enemy lines."
Quinn's eyes widened. She backed away.
"You don't think I noticed your slight limp?" Mealla continued. "How you pull down your sleeves? Injuries are normal for a ranger, maybe expected even, but they've run you ragged, Quinn. And how do they thank you? By giving you another mission, keeping you too busy to think for yourself."
She caught herself tugging the sleeves again.
"Why should I say anything when you refuse?" Mealla said. "Because you're my superior and ordering me?" She took a step closer. "Because you're my daughter and want me to listen to your plea?" Mealla stared straight at Quinn. "Because you're a ranger who can't trust their partner?"
"Trust?" Quinn's knuckles turned white from how hard she clenched. "Is that what this is? You think that I didn't say anything about my missions because I didn't trust you?"
The warden didn't reply.
"Fine." Quinn rolled up her sleeves, revealing the bruises and scars. "You want to see the cut on my head?" She pulled back her hair. "From an enemy archer. Would've sunk deeper into my skull if it wasn't for my visor. And that one on my left leg, I got it in Trevale." With each wound she exposed, Quinn grew bolder and fiercer with her words. "This one, in Frostheld. Almost cut to the bone. I thought I wouldn't be able to move my arm anymore." When she was finally done, it was as if she'd been dunked in ice water. Shocked, huffing and shivering, followed by a slow, rising heat.
"Now tell me," Quinn said. "Tell me honestly, are you harboring any mages in Uwendale?"
"None." The word came out so fast and so easy from the warden's mouth, without hesitation, without thought.
Someone knocked on the door and Quinn gathered herself again and cleared her throat. "Come in."
A boy with tumbleweed hair peeked in. Quinn recognized the boy as Adam and she spotted a bruise on the boy's face.
"Adam, what happened?" she asked.
"I'm not really sure…" The boy said. "Uhm… Jax wants to talk to you."
"Then let him in," Quinn said.
"He doesn't want to enter Uwendale, he's afraid that it might cause more problems. He's waiting by the forest edge with some… well, some dead watchmen."
It took a few moments and some repeats for Quinn to extract the information from the ranger-in-training. None of it had sounded real but Quinn believed every word.
"Send for the mageseekers," she ordered Mealla, then exited the warden's office before her mother had a chance to reply. She rushed back to Darragh's workshop, finding Glendon the merchant outside and still waiting for her.
"Sir, eh, Lady Knight," he spluttered, "How may I, may I be of —"
"Your stall had a full view of the Illuminator's camp, didn't you?" Quinn asked.
"Why, eh, maybe, I'm not sure that —"
"Did you see any Illuminators leave the camp with anyone?"
The merchant furrowed his brow. "Well, yes, but isn't that quite normal? People ask for their assistance all the time, don't they?"
"Thank you, Glendon," Quinn said, putting a coin in the man's palm then walking past him. "Keep watch of them for me. I'll return with more questions later."
While the puzzle was still missing some pieces, she had now enough to see a vague picture of the situation. As she entered the workshop, she hoped that Darragh had finished repairing her gears.