Scaley's Arc

Chapter 3 of 9

Scaley closes her ledger and walks away from the gate. The coroner's boat disappears around the bend, taking the fourth body with it. Three cultists left to find, but the trail has gone cold. The marsh shows no fresh tracks, no new signs. She needs leverage, something to draw them out. Willow waits for her at the stilted lodge, perched on the deck with her arms crossed. Scaley recognizes her from the village — an outcast who ran with the cult for a while before they turned on her. "I heard you've been counting bodies," Willow says. "The three you're looking for are hunting someone. Keep Guidry out of the deep marsh, and I'll tell you where they'll be next." Scaley climbs the ladder slowly, thinking through the angles. Willow has no reason to help unless she's got her own score to settle. "Why now?" Scaley asks. Willow's jaw tightens. "They want him dead because he saw something he shouldn't have. You want them found. We both get what we need." Scaley pulls out a worn dossier from her pack — notes and sketches about the Beast and the gem, things she's pieced together from the dead cultists' belongings. She lays it flat on the weathered wood between them. "You tell me when and where. I keep Guidry away from the marsh. But if you're lying, I come for you next." Willow presses her palm against the page, smearing blood across the margin where Scaley marked the terms. The stain spreads into the paper, dark and permanent. "Three days," Willow says. "They'll be at the old ritual site past the bone yard. They think Guidry knows where the gem went." She stands and walks to the ladder without looking back. Scaley folds the dossier and tucks it away, the blood oath sealed. She has a location now, a timeline. But she also has a new problem — keeping her favorite cousin away from the one place the cultists expect him to be. The trail isn't cold anymore. It's just gotten dangerous.