Connections.
She sat on the floor, her back pressed up against the foot of her bed. Spread across the floor at her feet was virtually every piece of paper she had scribbled on or printed off since her arrival in the Cove, and a half consumed bottle of Merlot. The writing process and the piecing together of said writing always seemed to go better with a glass of wine. Or three.

Bringing the glass to her slightly red-stained lips, Sophie’s eyes skimmed over the beginnings of the piece she had written involving Lyneth. The vampire had been surprisingly willing to speak of her past – her days spent as a warrior called a “death dealer,” her marriage to a werewolf, and her subsequent “quieter” life. Although Sophie was hard pressed to believe that perhaps the vampire didn’t miss the old days of the blood feud. In fact, Sophie was even harder pressed to believe that the points of contention between the vampires and the lycans, who had once been at each other’s throats, had seemingly been forgotten over time. She didn’t hold any allusions that they were all best friends, but it was very interesting to her that wars weren’t occurring in the middle of the streets as they once used to.

But they are, she reminded herself. We just can’t see them.

Setting down her pages of notes and glass of wine, Sophie leaned over, her hand extending to another pile full of newspaper clippings that she’d come across or been on the hunt for since her arrival. Each of them referenced the recent killings and disappearances in the Cove, and she scrutinized each piece for a pattern. The only thing made apparent from reading the articles was that the lycans appeared to be targeted the most, their alpha having been attacked in broad daylight (or so one article speculated).

Sophie rubbed at her eyes, the edges of her mind too full of information and wine. Aside from speaking with Lyneth, she’d also had the pleasure of conversing with Yuuta, an unseelie fey from the dark courts. In her past experiences, she had so very rarely come into contact with beings other than lycans or vampires (elementals and fey did not frequent Montréal and its nearby safe haven for whatever reason). While she wasn’t able to draw connections from fey to the lycans or vampires, she was certain that there was one.

Everything is connected.

Sophie made a frustrated noise as she pulled the heels of her hands away from her eyes, and glanced back down at the papers. She leaned over, pushing them around on the floor, attempting to sort them into piles, to create a timeline, to find something. Anything.

“Come on,” she muttered to the pages. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s happening here.”