Worry Not

When was the last time you saw your daughter?

I tucked her into bed last night. Eight o' clock as always!

Have you seen anyone suspicious wandering around the town lately?

Well, no! Who would come out this far-- wait, you don't suppose it was bandits, do you?

Ma'am, that's--

Those Heronite dogs! If I said it once, I've said it a thousand times, a border town is no place to raise our children!

Mrs. Merrow, I assure you bandits have never ranged into Resta before. Even without the Desmond clan to provide a mighty deterrent, I don't suspect they would come just to steal a child from her bed in the dead of night.

Well, who else could it be?

For the moment, there remains no evidence that Melany didn't leave of her own volition--

She would never go out on her own at night, especially not in this weather!

In that case, a good place to start would be with family members and acquaintances. Most kidnappings are committed by someone the victim knows.

It can't be anyone in the family! All we've got are my husband and his mother. Dianna is too old to travel and Frederick is serving in the crusade!

Worry not, ma'am. I promise we're going to find her by magic or investigation. Your husband will not come home to tragedy. For now, I'm going to need you to tell me everything you can about your family's immediate acquaintances, those your children see most frequently.

Merric, you stay where I can see you!

...

You need to tell her about the fox.

We did! She didn't believe us!

Then tell her that Mel left to follow it!

She still won't believe me! Mel is afraid of the dark! She doesn't like the cold either!

It's been two days, Merric! Do you have any idea what is happening to her right now?

No!

No one does! And no one's going to find out unless we tell your mum the truth! That spellwarrior is just going to waste her time talking to my family! Then he's going to to talk to everyone else in the town! By the time she realizes no one around her knows where she is, it'll be too late!

I'm going to be in so much trouble.

We both are! And it's only going to get worse the longer we wait!