Rina let out a sharp, horrified gasp, stumbling back a half-step until she hit the wooden door of the master pantry.
Svane reacted with terrifying speed, his entire body coiled into a lethal, predatory stance, his cold eyes locking dead onto the center of the chef's chest. The atmosphere in the tiny room shifted from tense to violently dangerous in an instant.
Aris blinked, genuinely confused by their extreme reactions. She looked from the terrified attendant, to the murderous giant, and finally to Ray’s unreadable face. Her smirk widened into a dry, sarcastic grin.
"Gods, you people are dramatic. What? Did the stubborn old man finally croak from the stress?"
Aris scoffed, waving a hand dismissively.
A dead, suffocating silence filled the Master Pantry.
No one laughed. No one broke their gaze. Svane was still in a combat stance. Ray just stood there, his golden-flecked eyes freezing over, staring at her with the cold, absolute certainty of a judge who had just found his executioner.
Aris waited for the punchline. She waited for the young noble to roll his eyes and tell his guard to stand down.
It never came.
The silence stretched, heavy and terrible. Aris’s sarcastic grin faltered. Her eyes darted frantically between Ray's cold stare and Rina's pale, trembling face.
The horrific realization finally hit her. The color drained from her face so fast she looked like a corpse. Her hand trembled, and the expensive jar of truffles slipped from her fingers, shattering against the stone floor. She didn't even look down.
"Wait…"
Aris breathed, her voice suddenly small and hollow. A cold sweat broke out across her forehead. She pressed herself back against the wooden shelves, her arrogant posture completely shattering.
"Wait... no. No, no, no. I didn't... it was a joke! It was just a figure of speech!"
She looked at Ray, her eyes wide with sudden, blinding panic.
"You... you don't actually think... I swear to the gods, if he's dead, I had absolutely nothing to do with it!"
Aris pressed herself back against the wooden shelves of the Master Pantry, her arrogant posture completely shattering.
She looked at Ray, her eyes wide with sudden, blinding panic.
"I have never killed anyone in my life! I was just frustrated about the menu!"
She gripped the edge of the shelf, her knuckles turning white.
"Is he... is he really dead?"
Ray’s golden eyes remained coldly fixed on her, slowly drifting down to the slender boning knife still resting on the prep table.
"Mr. Ramada is dead, Madame Aris. His skull was shattered, the killer also mutilated him. His tongue was surgically severed. Deep at the root. A perfectly clean excision... very much like the one I just watched you perform on that boar earlier."
Ray said, his voice flat and clinical.
The color completely drained from Aris’s face. She looked at her own hands, then at the knife on the table, suddenly realizing how impossibly damning her own culinary skills looked.
"No! That... that doesn't mean it was me! Any professional who works with meat knows that! A butcher, a hunter, a meister. You sever the hyoid muscle at the root because it is the only clean release! It isn't a secret technique. It's just basic anatomy! It's the most efficient way to make the cut!"
Aris said in defense, her voice pitching up in frantic defense. She pointed a trembling finger at the blade.
She took a shaky breath, the horror of what Ray was describing finally piercing through her defensive panic.
"Surgically severed... gods above, they cut out his tongue?"
The gruesome reality of the death and mutilation of Warren Ramada hit the fiery chef violently. Aris’s legs gave out, and she collapsed to the cold stone floor, right beside the shattered glass and scattered truffles. She stared blankly at the wall, her chest heaving as her mind desperately tried to process the fact that the stubborn Head Butler had been butchered like a piece of meat.
A single tear escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek.
Aris flinched. She reached up with a trembling, calloused hand and touched her face. She pulled her fingers away, staring at the moisture in genuine shock. She couldn't believe she was crying. She hated Warren Ramada. He was a stiff, arrogant meddler who constantly ruined her art.
But beneath that hatred, buried under layers of ego and rivalry, was a subconscious foundation of profound respect. Warren had dedicated his entire life to maintaining the impossible standards of House Starr. In her own twisted, fiery way, she was exactly the same. They were two masters of their respective crafts who had battered against each other out of a shared pursuit of perfection.
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In the Ambient Presence of Ray’s mind, Ray’s committee instantly analyzed the breakdown.
Conman: "That is not a performance. The micro-expressions of shock are real. The tear is an unbidden, involuntary physiological response. Her grief, however small and confusing it may be to her, is absolutely genuine."
Detective: "Emotional shock does not clear a suspect. It just proves she has a conscience. The timeline is the only metric that matters. Establish her alibi."
Ray stepped forward, looking down at the chef.
"Madame Aris. Where exactly were you for the past three hours?"
The sharp, clinical question snapped Aris back to the present. The grief vanished, replaced by the immediate, primal fear of a woman realizing she was being measured for the executioner's block.
She scrambled to her feet, wiping her cheek aggressively with the back of her wrist.
"I was here! Right out there in the kitchen!"
She pointed a trembling finger toward the wooden door leading back to the chaotic kitchen.
"I haven't taken a single break since noon! I have twenty line cooks and junior chefs out there who can confirm that I haven't stepped away from the kitchen for a single second!"
Ray didn't argue. He didn't even look at her. He simply shifted his gaze slightly to the right, meeting Svane’s eyes, and gave a subtle, fractional nod.
Svane understood instantly. Without a word, the massive Gold Aegis turned and slipped silently out of the Master Pantry, leaving Ray and Rina alone with the panicked chef to verify her claim.
With the Svane gone, Aris took a deep, shuddering breath, forcefully pulling her fragmented composure back together. She smoothed the front of her white chef's coat, desperate to shift the intense, suffocating focus off herself.
"Who told you about the argument anyway?"
Aris asked, her voice regaining a fraction of its usual defensive edge. When Ray remained silent, his golden-flecked eyes unreadable, she scoffed.
"Let me guess. The upstairs staff, the maids and the guards. They do nothing but stand around and gossip while the rest of us actually bleed for this house."
Aris crossed her arms, pacing a short half-step in the cramped pantry.
"Well, let me tell you something, the kitchen hears things too. We might be buried down here in the heat, but the servants talk when they come down for their meals."
"What did you hear?"
Ray asked softly, offering her a rope.
"I heard that Warren wasn't exactly universally loved upstairs.”
Aris deflected defensively.
In fact…”
The wooden door swung open.
Aris flinched as Svane stepped back into the pantry. The Gold Aegis ignored the chef entirely. He stepped up beside Ray and leaned down, his voice a low, rumbling whisper intended only for his lord.
"Her alibi is ironclad. I pulled three cooks at random, separately. They all confirmed she has been standing at the central prep station screaming at them for six hours straight. She couldn't have slipped away to the wine cellar."
Svane murmured.
Ray gave a short nod. Aris was officially cleared.
Seeing Svane’s posture relax, Aris recognized the shift in the room's dynamic. She exhaled a long breath, her shoulders dropping.
"Your giant confirmed my story, didn't he?"
Aris said, her arrogant spark returning now that the threat of the Inquisition was off the table. She stepped toward the door.
"If we are done here, I have a fifth course to serve. The nobles are waiting."
"Not yet. Finish your thought, Madame Aris. What did you hear about Mr. Ramada?"
Ray commanded, stepping sideways to block the door.
Aris stopped, bristling at being ordered around in her own kitchen, but she quickly relented.
"Fine, about a couple of months ago, it was an open secret down here that Ramada was preparing to retire. He was exhausted. He had even begun quietly grooming one of the senior staffers upstairs to take over the mantle of Head Butler. I was thrilled, obviously. It meant he would finally be out of my way."
Aris said, leaning against a shelf of cured meats.
She crossed her arms, her brow furrowing.
"But then, today happened. Ramada marched in here to give me those menu alterations, and he was completely different. He was reinvigorated. Full of energy. It was like he had found a new reason to live."
Ray's mind snapped back to the coded report.
The Moonpetal supply chain opened up weeks ago. Warren had finally made progress on the tasks assigned to him by Lady Jane, and it gave him a renewed sense of purpose.
"He cancelled his retirement."
Ray deduced.
"Exactly! The rumor moving through the hallways this afternoon was that he officially cancelled his retirement. I bet the promotion of that senior staffer was also rescinded. He was staying on as Head Butler indefinitely."
Aris confirmed.
Aris looked closely at Ray.
"The senior staffer he had been grooming was reportedly upset. They had the ultimate promotion, the keys to the entire Starr estate, practically handed to them, and Ramada ripped it away at the absolute last second."
Ray’s eyes sharpened into icy daggers.
"Who was it? What is the name of the senior staffer?"
Aris shook her head helplessly.
"I don't know. The kitchen is isolated from the upper-floor politics. I don't care about their names; I only care about their meal tickets. I just heard the broad strokes of the rumor."
She gestured toward the door.
"Now, if you will excuse me, my sauces are going to go bad."
Conman: "No micro-tremors, and her vocal cadence is steady. She genuinely has no idea what the name of that senior staffer is."
The Charismatic Conman said as it flips a phantom coin.
"Return to your work, Madame Aris, but do not leave the kitchen. I may need to speak with you again."
Ray said.
Aris didn't offer a polite reply. She simply pushed past them, throwing open the wooden door and plunging back into the chaotic, roaring inferno of her kitchen.
As the heavy door clicked shut behind her, plunging the Master Pantry back into quiet, cool isolation, the pieces of the puzzle violently rearranged themselves in Ray's mind.
The internal committee immediately seized upon the new information.
Detective: "Look at the logistics. The prime suspect, Bastian Sterling, is an alchemist with the physical means to brew the poison. But he is an outsider. He doesn't know his way around the labyrinthine subterranean servant corridors of the Starr Manor."
Scholar: "Precisely. He wouldn't have the keys to unlock controlled areas like the wine cellar. He could not have orchestrated that meeting alone."
Courtier: "He had an accomplice. Someone with ultimate access to the estate. Someone who had just been robbed of the Head Butler position and thought of doing something about it."
Commander: "Look at the tactical board, kid. Who is the veteran senior staffer who miraculously happened to be assigned directly to our investigation? The man who was so eager to hunt for Bastian?"
Ray thought as his blood ran cold as the realization struck him.
He had just ordered Gino, a veteran senior staffer of House Starr, who miraculously happened to be assigned directly to Ray's investigation, to hunt down Bastian Sterling. If Gino was the accomplice, Ray hadn't just sent a guard to find a suspect.
He had just sent the accomplice to give the prime suspect a headstart.
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