The account of the murder helped Vance to reorient himself in the present. His jumbled memories reorganized themselves into an orderly sequence, and he matched particular hallucinations to their corresponding real events. Then he was finally given the right to speak and defend himself. It was time to use every argument and fact at his disposal to try to overturn the preliminary ruling. I need to force Solsnam to vote innocent. He cupped his hands around his knees and looked up from his chair. Solsnam, Himilco, and Eleanor seemed to be waiting for him to start.

His chains clinked and rattled. He stood up and walked to the center of the room, a position from which he could see the scattered clues. Then he cleared his mind, unwound the first thread of the tangled mystery, and began, feigning confidence, “Shannon was stabbed in a perfectly locked room. The only suspect fled through the window after the stabbing. These are the facts of this crime, facts no one could doubt or dismiss. But do they tell the full story? It’s easy to accuse me of this murder. I did sleep in this room with Shannon. I did run away after her death. This much is true. But I didn’t escape because I was guilty: I had to flee because I knew I would be called a murderer. Falsely.”

“All the evidence points to you,” Solsnam said.

Himilco smiled in approval.

Eleanor locked her ankles.

“Evidence is important,” Vance replied. “But before we talk about evidence, I want us to take a step back and talk about motives. Why did I kill Shannon in the first place? This question was never discussed in your account of the crime, and no one has brought it up until now. Every crime, no, every human action, has a motive. Our brains think in terms of reasons and goals. But in the case of this murder, there is neither a reason nor a goal. I met Shannon on this very day. We have no history. I bear her no grudge. She is a low-level slayer like me. And she had no valuables on her. Why did I kill her?”

“I knew this was coming,” Solsnam laughed. With calm and confidence, he paced the room and answered as he walked: “Yes, at first glance, it does seem as if you have no motive. But I wouldn’t miss a point so important. The account of the crime never asks why you killed Shannon, because a personal motive is not needed. You are a Necronette, and a Necronette has plenty of reasons to kill a Turncoat. The Witch of Decay wants to destroy Argilstead. She wants to murder every single Argilean. And because you are a low-level Necronette, Shannon was the most suitable victim for you to kill.”

“Impeccable reasoning, as always, Solsnam,” Himilco said.

Eleanor unlocked her ankles and crossed her arms.

“Impeccable reasoning? I’m not sure about that,” Vance retorted.

“What do you mean?” Solsnam said. “Are you saying my logic is flawed?”

“Oh, it’s terribly flawed, Your Honor,” Vance said, respectfully, but also with an invisible smirk. “First, Shannon wasn’t the most suitable victim for me to kill. It was Eleanor. Eleanor herself said she was waiting for me to betray her. If I were an undead Necronette, I would’ve killed her in the desert by throwing her off her mount. The Skull Jaws would’ve eaten her in no time.”

“It would’ve been a risky move,” Solsnam said.

“Really? More risky than killing Shannon right here in Argilstead?”

“Well … No … But …”

“Eleanor was the most suitable kill,” Vance continued. “But this isn’t the only problem with your ‘impeccable’ logic. You said that the Witch of Decay ‘wants to murder every single Argilean.’ Those were your words, right?”

“Yes,” Solsnam said, less confident than before.

“Then why did she target Shannon in particular?” Vance said. “Shannon was holed up in the House of Turncoats. She refused to leave. She was anxious and wary and cautious. In other words, she was the hardest target to murder. If the Witch of Decay wanted to kill ‘every single Argilean,’ she would’ve prioritized the other first-timers who were venturing out into the world. She would’ve sent her Necronettes to do some banditry or to target isolated Argileans.”

“What are you trying to say?” Himilco suddenly joined the discussion.

“Yes,” Solsnam said. “What does all this sophistry mean?”

“It means something really simple,” Vance said. “If you want to blame the Witch of Decay for what happened, if you want to call me a wicked Necronette, then you have to give me one valid reason for the Witch to target Shannon. Shannon and nobody else! Shannon the low-level Geomancer!”

The room was suddenly silent. Vance had successfully attacked the first basis for the preliminary ruling: he had turned the Necronette argument against its supporters. And Himilco and Solsnam were at a loss for words. They suddenly had to determine why the Witch of Decay would waste a valuable asset to kill a low-level Geomancer. But there was no clear answer. The Necronettes of the past had caused turmoil and destruction, treachery and infighting, feuds and vendettas. On the other hand, Shannon’s death seemed to be self-contained. It caused no resounding percussion. It stirred none against none.

“You convinced me that he was a filthy Necronette,” Solsnam finally said to Himilco. “You have to answer. Why did the Witch of Decay target Shannon?”

“I … I don’t know,” Himilco said. “No one can understand how the Witch of Decay thinks. No one can tell what she’s planning.”

“You’re suddenly talking like priests, Himilco,” Vance scoffed. “No one can understand what god thinks. No one can tell what god’s planning. Sure, gods and witches have their ways, but here in this trial, we care about facts. You can’t base an argument on the lack of knowledge. You can only base it on evidence.”

“The Witch must’ve had a reason,” Himilco said.

“Then say it,” Vance rejoined.

There was no answer. Himilco loosened the collar of his mage’s robes as if he were short of breath. Then he walked to the square window and leaned forward with his elephant head until it was outside. “You don’t understand. The Witch of Decay never reveals her motives until the very end.” He said these words like a prophet delivering an apocalyptic warning to a nonchalant people. Tomorrow there would be thunder and lightning; tomorrow there would be meteors and destruction. Today? Oh, there’s nothing today—business as usual, I believe.

“There is no proof that I’m a normal Turncoat,” Vance said. “But there is no proof that I’m a Necronette either. If I had wanted to lie to you about my First Death, I would’ve avoided mentioning Rust Lake. Think about it. I could’ve said that I woke up in any other haven and then wandered into the undead desert by mistake. That would’ve been more believable. But I didn’t know that waking up in Rust Lake was such a big deal, so I just told Eleanor the truth.”

“I don’t think he was lying, Solsnam,” Eleanor said. “A Necronette would never mention Rust Lake to begin with.”

“But no one wakes up in Rust Lake,” Himilco asserted.

“Every rule has an exception,” Eleanor replied calmly.

It was now left for Solsnam to decide which side to take. He spun the feather pen in his hand twice. Then he started, reluctantly, “Well … It is true that a Necronette would come up with a better lie.”

“Are you going to believe him?” Himilco lost his calm—a rare occurrence by all means. “This is a mistake!”

“Calm down, Himilco,” Solsnam said. “I am only trying to save us time by advancing the conversation. His guilt remains unchanged.”

“But it’s not only about his guilt!” Himilco objected.

But Solsnam cleared his nonexistent throat and said, “I hereby acknowledge that the suspect may not be a Necronette. I also acknowledge that there is no personal motive for the suspect to commit the crime. However, the rest of the account still holds true. The main suspect lured the victim to this bedroom and brutalized her while she was unconscious.”

***

Vance cleared the first bar with difficulty. He turned the Necronette theory upside down and demonstrated to his accusers that the involvement of the Witch was unlikely. By doing so, however, and by eliminating personal motives from consideration, he also labeled himself as a crazed murderer. No one said anything along these lines, but he could sense it in the choice of Solsnam’s last few words: “lured,” “brutalized,” “unconscious.” This new crazed-murderer theory threatened to destroy the progress that he had made, and it was vital to create an alternative picture that would paint him in a more empathetic light.

With a bit of self-talk, he reminded himself of how this picture should look: I’m not a murderer. I’m another victim, on trial by an unfair system, for a crime that I never committed. Then he cleared his mind, unwound the second thread of the tangled mystery, and began, feigning confidence, “I find it strange that you’re using the word ‘lured’ every time you talk about the crime. ‘… lured the victim to the room and then killed her in seclusion.’ ‘… lured the victim to this bedroom and brutalized her while she was unconscious.’ Words have a strange power. Sometimes they can change our perception of things.”

“What are you trying to say?” Solsnam braced himself.

“It’s a really strong word,” Vance said. “ ‘Lured.’ ”

“It describes what happened,” Solsnam retorted. “You befriended the victim. Then you rented a private room and slept with her inside.”

“You’re right, Your Honor,” Vance said. “But again, you are skipping ahead too fast. In the very beginning, it was Shannon who approached me. Your account says so. She wanted me to be her partner or ally or whatever. And what did I do? I pushed her away. I told her I was busy. I didn’t give her a chance to talk to me about anything. My reaction was so cold that it put me in trouble with Hollie. And this begs the question: if I had been trying to ‘lure’ Shannon into the bedroom, why did I treat her in such a way?”

“You were pretending to be cold to avoid raising suspicions,” Solsnam said.

Eleanor let out a sigh.

Himilco turned around and away from the square window.

“Pretending to be cold?” Vance smiled an inward smile. “Now that’s funny. I didn’t even know what Shannon wanted from me, so why would I pretend to be cold toward her? This is a clear contradiction.”

“Fine,” Solsnam said, brusquely. “I acknowledge that your first encounter had nothing to do with the crime, but your second encounter is still relevant.”

“The second one?”

“Yes,” Solsnam said. “After you talked to Oswald, you got up from your chair and went to sit with Shannon. The two of you spent a long time together, and during this interval, you studied her character, analyzed her weaknesses, and managed to lure her to the bedroom.”

“Stop right there,” Vance said. “Are you saying that everything Shannon and I did together was part of my plan to lure her?”

“Of course,” Solsnam said.

“Your actions were calculated,” Himilco added.

“My actions were calculated?” Vance laughed, seeing the contradictions that neither Solsnam nor Himilco saw. “You’re theorizing without changing your perspective. If you want to analyze a crime right, you need to think from the viewpoint of the killer.”

“The evidence supports our claims,” Solsnam asserted.

“No, it doesn’t,” Vance said. “Think back about what happened. Shannon and I challenged Eleanor to an abrupt arm-wrestling match; approached Gunner the highlander for tips and training; entertained the solar elves with tales about King Solario; and ran around the House of Turncoats like two maniacs. What kind of killer would want to attract this much attention to himself? If I wanted to befriend Shannon, there were a million other ways.”

“You needed to play along because she was experiencing a Redspine High,” Solsnam said. “You bore with her so that you could lure her to the room later.”

“Again with the luring,” Vance laughed. “Let’s say I did play along with her. Why on earth would I want to lure her to the room? Don’t you remember what your account said? Shannon was looking for someone her own level so that she could leave the House of Turncoats, so that she could leave Argilstead, so that she could hunt her beast. I didn’t need to lure her to the bedroom. If I really had plans to kill her, I would’ve just become her ascension partner. We would’ve left Argilstead together, and I would’ve killed her in the Targrass plains.”

“You didn’t have time,” Solsnam said.

“I had seven days,” Vance retorted.

“Seven?” Solsnam looked at Eleanor. “Even after the market purchases?”

“Yes,” Eleanor said. “I helped him gather donations before the crime.”

It seemed that this was the first time Solsnam heard this fact. He stopped for a few awkward seconds to consider how it changed things. Then he said, slowly, pensively, “So … he had seven days left?”

“Yes,” Eleanor said again. “This is why Himilco was chasing him around.”

“But if he had seven days, then he could’ve lured Shannon outside Argilstead and killed her in the middle of nowhere,” Solsnam said, finally understanding what Vance had been saying. “This means that he didn’t need to lure her to a private room or kill her inside the House of Turncoats … Nothing makes sense anymore. What was he doing on the ground floor with Shannon? And why did they end up in this bedroom?”

“I was going through a Redspine High,” Vance said, clenching the chance.

***

If Vance had said from the start that he had been going through a Redspine High, Himilco would’ve called him a liar; Eleanor would’ve remained silent; and Solsnam would’ve never believed him. Instead, he went slow and steady and paved the way to bring up the difficult topic. Thanks to this approach, he managed to scratch away the chiseled image of the crazed murderer and to replace it with a new, more benign image—that of an accidental killer. And not only that, he also managed to infer an important fact.

Eleanor didn’t tell Solsnam everything. If she had, he would’ve known that I had seven days left, and he would’ve been better prepared to counter my arguments. But what did this mean? Did it mean that Solsnam never asked about the remaining time, or that Eleanor hid the information deliberately to give Vance the upper hand in the debate? Vance couldn’t tell for sure, but he didn’t care much about the answer. He was heading in the right direction—trying to discover the truth about what had happened, but also trying to outsmart his deceptive framers, whoever they were.

With confidence in his choices and decisions so far, he repeated, “I was going through a Redspine High the whole time. It began while I was sitting on the ground floor with Oswald, and ended when Himilco came to wake me up.”

“Are you trying to say that the murder was an accident?” Solsnam said.

“Vermeil Activator doesn’t cause violent tendencies,” Himilco said, rushing the words to make the point before it was too late. “I’m not a rookie mage, and I would never hand out a potion unless I’m aware of its effects. Vermeil Activator has never even caused a brawl or a tussle. And the House of Turncoats is a safe place, where first-timers can use it without fear or worry.”

Eleanor unfastened her right gauntlet and started to play with its straps.

“I’m not claiming that the murder was an accident or that Vermeil Activator made me do it,” Vance said, carefully choosing his words. “You asked for an explanation for my weird behavior. You asked why I ended up in this bedroom with Shannon. And the Redspine High is the answer.”

“He said he didn’t use the patches,” Himilco quipped.

“Yes, I didn’t,” Vance retorted. “They were stuck to my body while I wasn’t paying attention. The patches were part of an intricate plan to frame me for this murder. A plan that seems to be working.”

Silence returned to the room. Himilco was worked-up; Solsnam was pensive; Eleanor was nonchalant. And Vance was clinging to his last tangible hope. If the Redspine High got denied now, he didn’t know what he would say next. He needed it to be part of the greater narrative, not only because it was a part of the truth but also because it brought him one step closer to being called a second victim. And yet Solsnam remained stern and silent. And yet Himilco returned to the window as if to release his bottled-up frustration. All the indicators were negative—all the signs said that the Redspine theory would be shot down.

Then, all of a sudden, Solsnam headed toward the window-side elephant and said, with pragmatism, “There is a way to know whether he’s lying.”

“Yes, there is,” Himilco grunted.

“We can check the marks left by the patches on his body.”

“Yes, Solsnam. We can do that, but …”

“What are your reservations? It’s not easy to fabricate these marks.”

“I know,” Himilco said. “But it’s not impossible either, especially if he's one of those putrescent Necronettes.”

“Listen, Himilco, I understand your fears,” Solsnam said. “The Dullahans have made many mistakes in the past and let many Necronettes escape. Our record is not perfect. But we have to follow the evidence wherever it takes us. Let’s see what kind of marks he has on his body before we make a judgement.”

Vance had been watching this short heart-to-heart conversation unfold, and when it ended, he found Himilco and Solsnam coming his way. They walked in-sync, with a uniform gait, and stopped right in front of him—standing side by side like a pair of ruffians or bodyguards (depending on perspective). Only a single step separated their Flames of Revival from Vance, and he could sense the tepid heat that emanated from them. What are they gonna do to me? He felt slightly uncomfortable, but then the discomfort slowly died away as he realized that they didn’t intend to harm him.

“This is the moment of truth, Vance Wolfe. You claim you were forced into a Redspine High,” Solsnam said. “And there is a way to verify this claim. A simple examination that will tell us everything.”

“You said something about marks on my body,” Vance said.

“Yes,” Solsnam said. “Vermeil patches dissolve and leave a distinctive red mark on the skin. We found five such marks on Shannon’s body, and they proved to us that she had used Vermeil Activator. We want to check your body for similar marks … and see what they can tell us about what happened.”

“I don’t mind,” Vance said.

“Vance,” Eleanor interrupted, “if they don’t find any marks, they’ll think you’ve been lying about everything. Are you sure you wanna do this?”

“I’m sure,” Vance said, with resolve.

And accordingly, Solsnam and Himilco began the examination. They raised Vance’s shirt and slid it along his arms until it was caught by his manacles and chains. Then they lowered his pants until they also hit rusty iron. Eleanor, who hadn’t expected them to undress him so fast, looked up from the stone chair, saw him butt naked, and shouted, “You could’ve at least given me a damn warning!” But neither Solsnam nor Himilco paid any attention to her words. The two were busy with the examination. They tried to locate any red marks on Vance’s skin and to differentiate from all others the special discoloration caused by Vermeil Activator. Autoptic concentration was necessary.

Will they find any marks? Vance grew tense with every passing moment. If they don’t … No, they must. They must. They must. His heart began to beat louder and louder with anxiety and anticipation. I went through a Redspine High. I saw the hallucinations, the memories, the illusions. And it won’t make sense for them to find nothing. He clenched his fists and pulled back his toes. The marks are there. He rattled his chains twice and looked down at the shirt hanging between his two manacles. The marks aren’t on my chest. The marks aren’t on my stomach. The marks aren’t on my arms. But they are there. The marks are there. The marks—

“Found them,” Solsnam suddenly said.

And Vance felt as if his soul had been saved from eternal condemnation.

“Where?” Himilco asked.

“Here, on the lower back. Can you see them?” Solsnam said.

“Two marks.”

“Yes, but they are rather strange, don’t you think? They seem fake.”

Fake?! Vance saw eternal condemnation returning. No, they can’t be fake!

Himilco put his hand on Vance’s lower back, along the spinal cord, near the cauda equina. He seemed to be concentrating and theorizing and analyzing. A whole minute passed before he felt it appropriate to speak. And when he did, he sounded like a philosopher lost in his own findings. He said, “The outline of the patch marks is dark and pronounced, but the color fades toward the center. This is a sign that the patches were damaged before they were stuck to the skin. And this kind of damage wouldn’t result from carrying the patches in a bag or a pocket. It’s a sign that they were stuck with excessive force … And this location … They were placed here along the spinal cord, as if on purpose … You see, the proximity to the nerves speeds up absorption.”

“What does this mean?” Vance blurted out.

“What can we conclude?” Solsnam asked, with as much impatience.

“A Necronette can’t fake this much detail,” Himilco said. “Vance was going through a Redspine High … And most probably, someone else stuck the patches to his body. It’s a possibility that we can no longer ignore.”