"Captain-Commander," said Ammas Mourthia pleasantly.

"Mourthia," she replied. "Want to explain all this here, or in Titansgrave?"

"Is there any way you're not taking me to Titansgrave tonight, Mielle?"

"Captain-Commander."

"Is there any way you're not taking me to Titansgrave tonight, Captain-Commander Mielle?"

Thalia scowled. "I'm thrilled you can make jokes while one of those girls is being loaded into a funeral cart."

Barthim the Beast leapt to his feet, his face contorted with a rage not even the odd miscreant at the Lioness usually saw. "Ammas did more for that girl than any of your useless, vile, cockless guardsmen ever did! You are to be speaking to him with more respect, and if he wants to be joking, you will smile and listen!" At that Barthim pounded one gigantic fist against Ammas's table, making it shiver and creak so ominously it might have shattered. Ammas would find a hairline crack in its surface the next day.

"Barthim," the cursewright said warningly. The guards had drawn their swords, although the Captain-Commander seemed unmoved. Muttering ominously, the Beast sank back into his chair. Ammas looked up at Thalia. "I'll tell you this much. There are two dead werewolves in this temple, one in a rather sorry physical state, one in perfect condition except for a broken neck."

"And a crushed windpipe, several broken ribs -- "

"Barthim, please. There is also at least one living wolf still abroad. It may have assumed a human shape, I do not know. I have reason to suspect these wolves have an unusual level of control over their forms."

"Would you share these reasons with me?"

"Am I under arrest?"

"I don't have a choice. I might not have to charge you with anything, but we need to speak frankly," her eyes wandered to Barthim for a moment, "and alone."

"Then I'll tell you everything I know at Titansgrave. What are you doing about the remaining wolves?"

"I have two guards and a couple of deputies scouring Brightmoon Bay."

"Deputies?" Now Ammas looked deeply concerned. "What deputies? And why Brightmoon Bay in particular?"

"The deputies are a couple of travelers out of Gallowsport. They claimed to have experience dealing with these monsters."

Ammas now looked downright alarmed. "Gallowsport? What men out of Gallowsport?" He rose from his seat, heedless of the glaring, sword-wielding guardsmen. "Mielle, please. If you've deputized men from Gallowsport, they -- they might not be trustworthy."

Thalia's eyes narrowed. "Tell me what you know about this."

Ammas's eyes darted over his shoulder, toward the waters of Brightmoon Bay, glittering peacefully under the risen half-moon of Saya. "Travelers out of Gallowsport, wolves out of Gallowsport. I fear you may have been duped."

The Captain-Commander looked for a jest in Ammas's eyes and found none there. Disquiet began to creep into her otherwise immovable demeanor. "I'll send a few more guards, make sure my men aren't outnumbered."

"I'll go with them if you want."

"I can't permit that."

"The offer stands. Perhaps we should finish our conversation at Titansgrave as quickly as possible, then. I won't even ask you to deputize me."

Captain Thalia seemed to find this agreeable. She nodded to Sergeant Lyros, who pulled from his belt a pair of shackles. Ammas turned around and offered his wrists without complaint. "Shall I confiscate his dagger, Captain?"

"Give it to me. I don't think we're going to find anything on that poor girl that matches this weapon, but an investigation is an investigation. Any objection, Ammas?"

Ammas smiled thinly. "You're the most reasonable person in Titansgrave, Mielle. No objection from me."

"Captain-Commander," she corrected again, snapping the shackles about his wrists. Barthim's mustache quivered furiously, but he desisted when Ammas shook his head.

"Keep an eye on my things, would you Barthim? And keep the liquors I sent to the Lioness for yourself. Bring them back here as soon as you can manage it."

"Certainly, Ammas." Barthim leaned back, turning his gaze to the street. His face crumpled when he saw the still white shape barely visible through the netting of the funeral cart.

As Thalia and Lyros escorted Ammas to a newly arrived gaol cart -- there were now nearly two dozen guardsmen in the street -- Ammas paused, silently looking at Poul and the funeral cart. Cayle was seated in the bucket, lightly daubing his face. Madame Laurette stood beside Poul, ashy and grim.

"Take a moment, if you need it," Thalia murmured softly enough that only Ammas heard.

Ammas approached the cart, awkward in his restraints. Rather than Lena's body, he addressed Poul, who regarded him with an unexpected deference. Many of the guardsmen who knew the Old Godsway and weren't stupid bullies like Cayle were aware of Ammas and his reputation. "When you've concluded the city guard's business with her," Ammas said, "please contact me for the disposition. I'd like her to be interred at the Temple of the Graces."

"Ammas, that's really my affair, not yours," Laurette interrupted.

Ammas turned stony eyes on her. Laurette flinched. She had seen Ammas angry more than once, or at least she believed she had, but the fever in his eyes and the black paste smudged beneath them made him appear absolutely mad. "Yours? And what will you do? Have her wrapped in a dirty cloth and thrown into the Straits of Twilight like a nameless beggar? She wasn't a piece of meat for you to peddle like a butcher. She was a woman named Lena, and she was my friend, and if I want her to rest in the gods' embrace, then I will fucking well see it done, and never mind that she was 'yours.'"

Carala watched this whole exchange from her place on the Lioness porch, fascinated. Not in her entire life did she think she had ever heard so much rage and contempt distilled into a single word. Laurette shrank back, and Carala didn't blame her a bit.

"Ammas," Captain Thalia said gently, "come. The sooner we're at Titansgrave, the sooner you might be able to come back here."

Ammas nodded, sparing one last look at the white shape in the funeral cart, and followed the Captain-Commander. At that moment a number of hoofbeats began pounding up the Old Godsway from the direction of Brightmoon Bay. They weren't coming at a gallop, but there was a definite urgency to it.

Thalia paused, one hand on Ammas's upper arm as four riders dismounted beside the funeral cart. Two were dressed in Argent Brand livery, the other two in nondescript dusty gray as one might see on a mercenary. The taller of these two bowed and spoke to Captain Thalia. "We saw one of the creatures, Captain. Green eyes, fur possibly dark gray or black, some splashes of white. We chased it to one of the shipyards -- "

"Oldcastle and Sons," provided one of the guards, the female sentry Amala.

The taller deputy nodded. "Your woman would know better than I, Captain. I can point it out in the daylight if there's any question about it. Anyway, the beast leapt onto the foredeck of a half-built vessel where we couldn't follow and dove into the waters. If it emerged, none of us saw it."

"I rode about the lip of the bay, but saw nothing," offered the shorter, somewhat stouter deputy.

Carala looked up, shocked. "Denisius?"

The shorter deputy turned his round face to the Lioness. "Great gods," he murmured. His surprise was so great he might have been dreaming.

Carala, utterly heedless of revealing her identity, forgetting that she was dressed and painted as a Prideful Lioness whore, darted from the porch and into the street, throwing her arms around Denisius Gallis's neck and openly weeping in relief, remembering this was a man who had last seen her in the shape of a wolf, that he had approached her with an open hand and gentle word instead of a sword, that she had been seduced into betraying him, and still he had come all the way from Talinara to find her.

"Erm, hello," Denisius said, awkwardly patting her shoulders. He had never seen her dressed like this and wasn't quite sure where to put his hands. "I -- I wasn't sure you'd be here."

"Poul, why don't you take that young woman and our deputies into Ammas's place once you've removed the evidence for transfer?" The Captain fixed Ammas with a wry smirk. "I'm sure they'll all have a great deal to discuss when our prisoner is released." Poul, not entirely understanding what was happening here, nonetheless complied.

Mielle Thalia helped Ammas climb into the back of the heavily barred gaol cart -- it was difficult without the use of his hands. Before she closed and locked the grate, she murmured to him, "It seems we have even more to discuss than I imagined. For instance, why the Princess Carala Deyn hired you and is now hiding out in a brothel."

The grate slammed and Thalia turned the key. Ammas leaned back with a sigh, feeling he might well fall unconscious between here and Titansgrave. Even without the spirit salve, this had been a long and terrible day. Before the gaol cart had turned off the Old Godsway he fell fast asleep, and had to be roused to be hauled into Titansgrave for his interrogation.