Chapter 108: The Suspects?
The more I thought about it, the more every tiny mistake in this murder started eating at me. One small delay, one missed chance, one second too late, and now she was dead. It was the kind of thing that made your head boil if you stared at it too long.
"Can we trace the necklace somehow?" I asked.
Pix shook her head slowly. "It was just a necklace. Nothing special."
So there was no tracking spell, no magical signal, nothing like a proper modern locator. Of course there wasn’t. That would have been too useful...
I exhaled and rubbed the back of my neck. "You saw her wearing it, right?"
"Yes," Pix replied. "She put it on earlier today."
I nodded once. "Alright. Let’s go back a little. When Jelda appeared in the window."
"Oh, gods..." Pix muttered, flinching at the memory.
"You were not in the room then, of course," I said. "But did you hear anything? Or see anything strange before that? With everything she went through, there had to be some kind of sound."
Pix looked down at the ground.
"Nothing," she said. "I was outside, sitting on a bench. I was waiting for the arena to empty so Jelda and I could practice together afterward."
"Did you talk to anyone else?" I asked. "Did any other students say they heard something coming from the room?"
She shook her head again. "No. Nobody said anything."
That made the situation even uglier. No sound. No shouting. No warning. Jelda had been raped, murdered, and thrown into the window, and nobody had heard a thing.
That only made my theory feel more solid. She had been taken somewhere else, killed elsewhere, and dragged back here just so the bastard could dump her body and terrify the dormitory. But if teleportation magic was supposed to be blocked by the dormitory wards, then how had they brought her back without anyone seeing? That part still made no sense.
Unless something inside the building had been tampered with. Unless someone had helped.
"No sound at all," I muttered. "That means she really was moved."
"It is not possible," Pix said immediately. "The whole building is protected."
I looked up. "By what exactly?"
Sora answered this time. "Crystal wards. I was a student here once as well. The main crystal sits on the top floor and keeps the entire dormitory under protection."
"Can we go see it?"
Sora shook her head without hesitation. "Only the headmaster has access to those rooms. Mr. Marble is the only one who can enter the ward chamber."
That made my jaw tighten.
"So now Mr. Marble is on the suspect list," I said bluntly. "Something is clearly wrong here, Captain. We need to do something."
"I cannot just shackle the headmaster because a student was murdered," Sora replied. "He is the Queen’s brother, Ace. Do you know what the consequences of that would be for me?"
"Then let me talk to him tomorrow," I said. "Not as an arrest. Just questions."
Sora stared at me like I had just suggested jumping off the roof.
"Do you want to die?" she snapped. "If you start asking the headmaster questions about Jelda’s murder, the Queen will have your head before you finish your sentence."
"She was teleported away, Sora," I said, stepping forward a little. "We have to follow that lead."
Sora did not answer right away. She just looked at me, then turned away and pinched the bridge of her nose like she was trying to force herself into a calmer state of mind. I could tell she was thinking hard about the possibility, even if she hated it.
But it did not take long before she made up her mind.
"No," she said at last. "No, no, absolutely not. We are not dragging Mr. Marble into this."
"Then I’ll speak to him myself tomorrow."
"What if he tells the Queen that you asked questions about Jelda’s death?" she asked. "Do you understand what kind of trouble that would put you in?"
"He probably won’t."
"What if he does?"
I clenched my jaw. "Then I’ll deal with it."
Sora looked at me like I was an idiot about to walk into a fire.
Then a voice came from behind me. "I will go with you."
I turned around and saw Eselin standing there with one hand resting on her hip. Her long blonde hair moved softly in the wind, and even from a distance I could tell that the whole situation had worn her down. Her shoulders looked a little slumped, and there was a tired edge to her expression that had not been there before. She must have been sweeping the district with the other S-Class students while the guards handled the dormitory.
"Well," Sora said with a tired slap of both hands against her thighs, "one reckless student was bad enough. Now I have two."
Eselin did not even react to that.
"If Mr. Marble has anything to do with Jelda’s death," she said, her tone flat and serious, "then I want to know."
She looked at me for a second, and then without another word, she turned and walked off again.
That was her entire answer. No explanation. No reassurance. Just a promise that she would be there. Honestly, that was enough for me.
A second pair of eyes would help, and an S-Class student at that made the whole plan feel slightly less stupid.
Sora let out a long breath and shook her head. "If you want to get yourself killed, I am not stopping you," she said. "Just do not drag me into a royal scandal when it happens."
"We are done here, then," I said, turning back toward Pix. "Thank you for answering my questions."
Pix sniffled and wiped at her face again. "May I come too tomorrow?" she asked softly.
I shook my head at once. "No. If Sora is right and this turns into something serious, the fewer people involved, the better."
Pix looked down immediately and nodded, though she still looked miserable. "Right," she whispered.
Yeah.
I just hoped tomorrow would not turn into a disaster.
ꨄ︎ꨄ︎ꨄ︎
I stopped near the elder tree and looked up at the upper floors for a moment.
Mr. Marble had not come yesterday to check on the situation at all. A student had been murdered right beneath our noses, and he had not even bothered to show his face. He had not checked on Jelda. He had not checked on her roommate. He had not checked on the dormitory. That alone was enough to make my stomach twist.
I was hoping I was wrong. I was hoping he had simply been busy or dragged away by some royal nonsense. Because if I was right, then the Queen would absolutely try to bury this whole thing with everything she had. Maybe not just her. Maybe the entire palace would help cover it if they had to.
My eyes moved to the stairs, and that was when I spotted Eselin waiting for me near the railing. Her arms were crossed, and she was leaning against the stone with her gaze already fixed on me. She looked tired, but determined, and I could tell without even asking that she was serious about this.
Balls on her.
I walked over and gave her a small nod. "Eselin."
"Ace."
"You really came."
"Of course I did," she replied. "Let’s go."
We started up the stairs one step at a time, and somehow each one felt longer than the last. My thoughts kept circling around the same ugly question. If Sora was right and Mr. Marble had something to do with this, then we were walking into a mess big enough to swallow us whole. If he had nothing to do with it, then we were still in trouble, because accusing the headmaster of the academy would be its own kind of disaster. Either way, this was a terrible situation.
By the time we reached the top, the academy hallways were almost silent. The attack the day before, along with Jelda’s murder, had clearly shaken everyone. Students were moving quietly, some heading toward their classes, others disappearing into side corridors without even speaking. Down in the hall below, the elder tree stood in the middle of the building like a giant watching over the whole place, but even its presence did nothing to ease the tension hanging over the academy.
"Alright," I muttered as I stopped in front of Mr. Marble’s office door. "Here goes nothing."
Eselin gave a small nod. "Mm."
I knocked.
For a second, I expected the usual "come in," but instead the door opened right away. Mr. Marble stood there without a word, then stepped back and opened the door fully so we could enter. He walked behind his desk, sat down, and linked his hands together on top of the wood.
We came in and I shut the door behind us.
Now came the hard part.
The easy part had been walking in. The hard part was asking questions without making it sound like we had come to accuse him of murder.
"Mr. Marble," I said.
"Ace, yes," he replied with a tired exhale. "Gods."
"I assume you have already heard the news, sir," Eselin said politely.
He nodded. "I was in the Circle until this morning. I only learned about it less than an hour ago."
"The Circle?" I asked.
He nodded again. "As you both know, General Yua is here. The Queen asked me to accompany her to the Circle yesterday. She wanted to see it for herself."
That immediately got my attention.
"If I may, sir," I said carefully, "I would like to ask a few important questions."
He met my eyes. "Of course."
"We suspect Jelda was teleported out of her room," I said.
"Impossible," he answered immediately, though his calm expression did not change. "The dormitory is protected by the crystal wards."
"Right," I said. "I was wondering if someone might have picked the lock or broken in some other way."
"There is no lock," he replied. "There is no door, either. The ward chamber is a solid barrier. You can pass through it only when authorized. You cannot simply destroy it."
"Really?"
"You could destroy it," he added after a pause, "but it would make an enormous amount of noise. Enough to alert the entire district."
I nodded slowly. "Then what would your guess be, Mr. Marble?"
He leaned back in his chair. "I do not have one. I am waiting for Captain Sora to identify the suspects."
"The suspects?" I repeated. "How do you know there are more than one?"
