Vance cleared another bar. He finally got Himilco Magus to say the magical words: “You were going through a Redspine High.” It was a fact that had been obvious to Vance from the start, but it was a laborious task to prove it. If he hadn’t weakened the Necronette theory in the start, Himilco would’ve probably refused to take a look at the two Vermeil marks. And if he hadn’t mentioned the Redspine High at the right moment, he would’ve never gotten the chance to go through the examination, and the truth would’ve remained in the dark. Many outcomes were possible, but he managed to achieve this one through patience, perseverance, and a pint of luck.

“Himilco,” Solsnam said, “you know the kind of tricksters Necronettes are, and you’re better than to make such a mistake. Concentrate. Take a second look at the patch marks. If you say that they are fake, the trial is over.”

“They don’t look fake,” Himilco said.

“They look fake to me, and we surely shouldn’t let things drag on.”

“I can’t lie.”

“I’m not asking you to lie! I’m asking you to take a better look!”

That two-faced elf! Vance boiled with subcutaneous rage. He didn’t bring up the examination to find out the truth. He wanted to use it as an excuse to convict me, to cut my defense short and give the final ruling. He thought that Himilco would never side with me under any circumstances.

“I took a better look, Solsnam, but I stand by my initial assessment,” Himilco said, calmly. “I’m just as confused as you are, but the patch marks are genuine. As a mage and as an alchemist, I can’t say otherwise.”

Hearing these words, Vance felt great relief. Now I know that there’s at least one honest person in this room. He looked at the elephant-mage. If he had been conspiring against me, he would’ve just called the patch marks fake … He would’ve followed Solsnam’s hints and insinuations. But it was clear that Himilco was now looking for more than a simple conviction—perhaps for a new theory, perhaps for a better understanding of the case, or perhaps for the truth in itself. He may have chased me around Argilstead and tried to kill me, but now that I think about it, he must’ve been acting out of paranoia. The Necronettes must’ve caused him lots of suffering in the past. He learned to assume the worst and act upon it, and maybe he’s starting to see that he was wrong.

“I’m glad you’re realizing that Vance is innocent,” Eleanor said, right after Himilco Magus finished his assessment. She put on her gauntlet and stood up from the stone chair. “That’s what I’ve been saying from the start.”

Himilco and Solsnam said nothing in response; one was dumbstruck by his own findings, the other by how uncooperative his advisors were. And Vance, who was now dressed up again, also found no appropriate words to say.

“Can I remove his shackles?” Eleanor continued. “Let him be a free man and give him a chance to help us find the real killer. We’ve wasted enough time on this travesty of justice.”

“No … We can’t let him free yet,” Solsnam said. The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed, and he continued, “So he has no motive. So he was going through some hallucinations. So what? The most important fact of this crime has never changed. Shannon died in a locked room, and Vance was the only one inside with her. Someone forced him into a Redspine High. But who could’ve forced him to kill Shannon? We might have been wrong about everything that preceded the crime, but listen, the crime itself is a simple and straightforward locked-room incident.”

“It’s not simple,” Vance said. “I told you I’m being framed.”

“It’s not simple at all,” Eleanor agreed, promptly. “Whoever drugged Vance was probably smart enough to bypass the room’s lock.”

“That’s pure conjecture,” Solsnam said. “His innocence has not been proven yet, and he will remain in custody.”

“Fine, keep Vance in his shackles,” Eleanor riposted, “but don’t ignore the progress we made! Our next step should be to find the person who drugged him, not to go back to square one and call him a killer again!”

“Find the person who drugged him …” Solsnam repeated slowly, thinking, pondering, conjecturing. “How in the Maiden’s name will we do that?”

“We can start by creating a list of suspects,” Himilco said. “Anyone who came into contact with Vance should go on this list.”

“Fine,” Solsnam said, yielding to the pressure. “Vance Wolfe, who do you suspect stole the patches and drugged you? Who came into contact with you after you received the patches and before the Redspine High?”

Vance paused at this question. He gave the matter much thought, especially because he needed to remember many tricky details of the past. His strong memory served him well, and he said, “I received the patches from Himilco. Then I watched the arm-wrestling match between Eleanor and Gunner … I was standing among dense crowds on the sidelines, and a lot of Turncoats bumped into me. Then Himilco came and talked to me … He told me about how Eleanor was really popular around here. Then I got into a short fight with Hollie … and I also sat down with Oswald, the philosophy guy.”

“So,” Solsnam laughed, “the whole audience of the arm-wrestling matches, Himilco Magus, Hollie, and Oswald. That’s a long list of suspects, don’t you think? And you have nothing to prove that any of them drugged you, so how will you find your presumed murderer among them?”

“There must be a way to narrow down the suspects,” Vance said.

“No, there isn’t,” Solsnam laughed. “We have no clues other than the marks on your lower back. Should we go around asking for confessions? ‘Oh, please, kind suspect, did you drug Vance or kill Shannon?’ ”

“We don’t need to ask for confessions,” Eleanor suddenly said, with her usual confidence and self-assurance. “We have another clue.”

“What other clue?” Solsnam said, annoyedly.

“How many patches did you receive from Himilco, Vance?” Eleanor said.

How many? Vance paused before he said, “Five. Like everyone else.”

“And how many patch marks did you find on Vance’s back, Himilco?”

“Two. Only two.”

“And there you have your answer, Solsnam,” Eleanor said. “It’s simple math, isn’t it? 5 − 2 = 3. To find the person who drugged Vance, we first need to find the three missing patches. And that’s doable, isn’t it?”

“Yes … it’s doable,” Solsnam said, rather reluctantly. “But why would anyone keep the extra patches? If I were a criminal who managed to drug Vance and frame him for murder, I would throw them away without a second thought. They’re incriminating evidence.”

“It won’t hurt to look around,” Eleanor said. “Even the greatest criminals make stupid mistakes, and who knows, even if we find the patches discarded somewhere, they can still guide us in the direction of another clue.”

“Oh, I see where this is going! You won’t quiet down until we waste a few more hours!” Solsnam fumed. “Fine! I will authorize the search. But if we end up with no results, if we don’t narrow down the suspects or find new clues, we will move directly to issuing the final ruling.”

And so the search for the three missing patches began. More Dullahans were summoned for duty, and they scoured the nooks and crannies of the House of Turncoats for anything that whispered Vermeil Activator. The first-timers who had received patches from Himilco were asked to clarify how they had been used and show the corresponding marks on their bodies. Meanwhile, the other Turncoats were patted down and interrogated. The scale of the search grew and grew as more people were cleared from blame. And Vance waited on the stone chair in the bedroom for any news—for anything to feel optimistic about.

But the hours passed by, four in total, and suddenly, Eleanor, Himilco, and Solsnam were back. They entered the bedroom together—empty-handed and silent. It was one of these moments when Vance wished he could see their faces. If he saw them, they would tell the whole story; they would spell out, without words, whether there was an undying light that would survive the dusk. But all he could see were three uninterpretable flames—as mute as their owners. Why aren’t they saying anything? He felt that he couldn’t bear the silence. Come on, just tell me whether you found the missing patches or not. What are you waiting for? Do you just wanna torture me?

“We didn’t narrow down the suspects or find any clues,” Solsnam said.

“But you found the patches?” Vance asked right away.

“No … We didn’t find the patches either.”

“Are you here to give me the final ruling?” Vance felt his heart stopping.

“No, we still have to deliberate and vote.”

“Then … why are you back?” Vance asked.

“Eleanor …” Solsnam said, almost with a sigh. “Eleanor said that we didn’t search this very room. I told her that it was the crime scene, and that it was self-defeating to find the patches here … but she said that it has to be searched nonetheless. Stubborn as a mule.”

“It’s proper procedure,” Eleanor said, with a hint of satire.

What on earth is she thinking? Vance retreated to the stone chair and sat with the weight of despair heavy on his shoulders. I’m done. It’s over. He resigned himself to hopelessness. Things were going well. If only they found the three missing patches somewhere, I could’ve worked with that. At the very least, I could’ve spun some tale around the patches and gotten some mercy. But now they will jump straight into the final ruling, and it doesn’t seem that Solsnam will vote innocent. That elf … He just acknowledged everything I said, but he ignored it all in the end. It’s almost … almost as if I was wasting time trying to convince him of anything.

Vance sunk lower and lower into the vortex of despair, but his Mental Eye continued to watch Eleanor, Solsnam, and Himilco as they searched the room for the lost patches. What good would it do me if they found the patches in the crime scene, where only Shannon and I have been? He wanted to facepalm. And they’re not even searching properly. He laughed wryly at how Solsnam bent down to look under the bed and how Himilco checked the window. If that’s how they searched the rest of the building, it’s no wonder they found nothing. He moved his Mental Eye to watch Eleanor. She was lifting the corpse off the bed to check the space under it for the patches.

Under the corpse? Seriously, Eleanor? He almost laughed at this stupid idea, but then he sprung up from his seat with a sudden realization. The stupidest ideas are often associated with strokes of genius, and it was at that moment that one inspired the other. Vance stood in the dead center of the room. As the world around him seemed to rotate, as the facts of the crime seemed to combine and amalgamate, he announced, with a voice so loud, “I know where to find the three missing patches! I know how the real murderer created the locked room! Delay the final ruling!”

***

The scattered clues—the intriguing anomalies and subtle facts—combined to form a scenario inside Vance’s mind. Perhaps he was letting his imagination run wild; perhaps his theory would prove wrong. But he had to try to present it to his accusers before it was too late. Unlike fictional detectives and enlightened heroes, he couldn’t afford to wait until the very last second, when he could presumably make a convenient revelation and solve the murder case, with a self-satisfied grin and a prideful finger pointed at the hyperhidrotic murderer. Nothing is certain; there is never one truth. And those who wait for absolute certainty will never move forward.

But Vance moved forward with confident steps—against the impossible odds, against the crippling evidence, against the deceptive confusion of the Redspine High. He made uncertainty his shield and doubt his weapon. And they served him well until he was able to reach this decisive moment. After he made the attention-grabbing announcement, after he said that he knew the location of the three missing patches, he walked to the double bed and stood next to Eleanor. He looked at her and then at the corpse, before he said, “You told me that I should help you find the truth.”

“Yes,” Eleanor said. “The truth is more important than anything.”

“Because it keeps me alive?”

“Because it keeps Argilstead alive.”

“You talk like saints.”

“But I know I’m not one.”

“What are you, then, Eleanor?”

“A Dullahan Guard. Simple as that.”

Her answer was strong and decisive. There was no hint of doubt or hesitation in her voice. Against the never-ending perils of Middlerift, certainty was her shield, and trust was her weapon.

“Well, I might’ve found the truth you were looking for,” Vance said. “If you really trust in my innocence, I need you to do one last thing for me. Could you bring me a bucket of water? And a piece of cloth … And soap if you have any.”

“Himilco,” Eleanor said, redirecting the request.

“What does he need them for?” Himilco said.

“Please,” Eleanor said, “he’s onto something.”

“Ask my deputies.”

Eleanor left the bedroom in a hurry. An unnerving silence followed. Solsnam paced the room, and Himilco retreated to his thoughts and instrospections. It seemed that they were both waiting to see what Vance would do next, but they didn’t dare to pose a hasty question. And Solsnam was especially cautious, because he didn’t want to start new discussions. After around ten minutes, Eleanor finally returned with a bucket of soapy water and a worn-out piece of white cloth. She put the bucket on the ground next to the bed and stretched the cloth with both hands as if it were a scroll on display.

“Thank you,” Vance said.

“What’s next?” Eleanor said. “Do you want to clean the blood off the walls? Do you think it’s hiding a dying message or something?”

“No. Could you please clean the area around any of the stab wounds?”

“The wounds? Why?”

“You’ll see in a second,” Vance said.

Eleanor dipped the white cloth into the water, leaned forward, and started to clean one of Shannon’s stab wounds. Solsnam moved closer to see what the cleaning operation would reveal, while Himilco looked away and again out of the window. The dry blood on Shannon’s skin continued to come off with every wipe and scrub. The dark scratchy layer melted away and revealed another coating of a much lighter red. Discovering this new hue, Eleanor started to scrub harder in search of the color of skin. She moved her hand back and forth and scoured the wound as you would scour a greasy pan. The color of the skin, however, refused to return to normal.

“That’s enough for now, Eleanor,” Vance said. Then he turned to Solsnam and added, “Could you check the body again? Take a look at the wound that Eleanor cleaned. Tell me if you see anything interesting.”

Solsnam approached the bed. Before he even touched the still body, he had already noticed what the scrubbing had revealed. He turned toward Himilco and said, with a tone of absolute alarm, “Shannon has a sixth Vermeil mark!”

“What?!” Himilco turned away from the window and raced toward the bed. He stood next to Solsnam and seemed to be absorbing the surprise. Then he took the cleaning cloth from Eleanor by force, dipped it into the soapy water, and started to scrub the two other stab wounds. The dark layer of blood wore away, but the brighter red that replaced it was unwashable and uncleanable. The stubborn elephant-mage tried his best to erase the redness. He adjusted his posture and strained his weak muscles, but his efforts changed nothing: the discoloration was caused by a subcutaneous alchemical reaction.

Vance felt triumphant. I found them! I found the patches! Hope is alive and well! With an insuppressible rush of jubilance, he said, “Three missing Vermeil patches! And three marks hidden by stab wounds! Shannon wasn’t stabbed to death! She died from an overdose!”

It was a moment of utter shock, a moment of paralysis, a moment of reversal. Solsnam and Himilco felt the causticity of the answer. How could it be that they never thought of this possibility? How could it be that the truth was so near yet so disguised beyond recognition? Not only had they missed one of the most important details of the crime—the real cause of death—but they also had to hear it from their main suspect. And this fact alone left a bitter aftertaste and forced them into a corner.

“But if she died from an overdose,” Solsnam finally said, “who stabbed her?”

“She stabbed herself,” Himilco answered. He dropped to his knees and held Shannon’s cold hand with both of his. “Poor girl … Handed to Decay … Eight doses is just way too much. I can’t believe this happened.” He started to rub her hand rather gently. “When you use excessive amounts of Vermeil Activator, you experience long hours of euphoria, but then you’re hit by a series of vicious panic attacks. You lose your voice. Your heart starts to beat out of control. Your skin starts to burn. Then you experience a gradual loss of motor function. All your muscles relax against your will … and you eventually die.”

“This is why you give each first-timer only five patches,” Vance said.

“Yes,” Himilco smiled, but very sadly. “Five patches is safe. Six or seven won’t cause an overdose. But eight is way too much, especially for someone with a small body like Shannon’s. Someone like Gunner or Eleanor or even you, Vance, would’ve survived eight patches, but there was no hope for Shannon. This is truly … truly lamentable.”

“But there is no proof that she stabbed herself,” Solsnam said. “You are just speculating at this point.”

“There is proof,” Himilco said. “The location of the stab wounds.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think the wounds coincide with the patch marks?” Himilco said. “It’s because Shannon was trying to save herself. She wanted to let the excess Vermeil Activator out of her body.”

“You mean …” Solsnam turned toward the room’s disconnected bloodstains, then toward Shannon’s bloodsoaked dress. “She panicked … Stabbed herself … Tried to stop the bleeding with her dress … Couldn’t find the door in the dark … Went to the window … Realized that the jump was too high … And … And fell on the bed, where her life came to an end.”

“Yes,” Himilco said. “The killer didn’t drag the corpse around the room. It was Shannon herself. She created this terrible mess while she was trying to seek help. She probably wanted to find me. I have a few antidotes that could’ve treated the overdose and saved her life.”

“I … I need to revise the facts of the crime.”

Solsnam raced to the stone table where his notebook lay. He turned the pages until he found a blank one, and then he started to record the new findings and to reconcile the contradicting data. The process took a while, minutes he spent writing and rewriting, with several pensive pauses in-between. When he was done, he turned his attention back to Vance, who was now more self-possessed than before. Tension filled the air. Silence begot unease. Then the conversation resumed in a new direction.

“You made a great leap forward, Vance Wolfe,” Solsnam said, standing with his feather pen in his right hand. “But you still haven’t cleared your name. The crime happened in a locked room, and nothing has changed about that. You’re the one who caused the overdose!”

“What?” Eleanor asked, puzzledly. “Why is it Vance?”

“The room was locked!” Solsnam said, the words bursting out in anger.

“The lock doesn’t matter anymore,” Vance retorted. “Shannon was already dead before she walked in here.”

“Huh?! Are you mocking my intelligence? A corpse can’t walk!”

“It sure can,” Vance retorted again. “The three extra patches were stuck to Shannon’s body on the ground floor before she entered this room. A timer was already counting down toward her death, toward the overdose, even before the door was locked.”

Solsnam was taken aback.

“The overdose doesn’t kill immediately.” Himilco agreed with Vance.

“Oh,” Eleanor said, “so it’s not a locked-room incident anymore!”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Solsnam tore pages out of his notebook, crumpled them up, cut them into pieces, and threw them on the ground. “Do you understand what you’ve done, Vance Wolfe? Everyone is a suspect now!”

“Are you blaming him for finding out the truth?” Eleanor said in disbelief.

“No … No, I’m not … But …” Solsnam seemed confused. “What should I do now? Should I put everyone in shackles? The audience of the arm-wrestling matches, Himilco Magus, Hollie, Oswald! Should I put them all behind bars or execute them one by one? Is this what should be done?”

“Are you seriously asking that?” Eleanor said.

“What other option do I have? Someone has to answer for this murder, or we will have more criminals popping up like vermin!”

This is bad. Vance felt uneasy again. Solsnam is looking for someone to punish in order to maintain the peace in Argilstead. If I say nothing, he’ll default to me. I have to give him a better alternative. I have to find the killer. It’s not Himilco. Could it have been someone in the audience of the arm-wrestling matches? Vance closed his Mental Eye and thought harder. No, no! It couldn’t have been someone in the audience! He reached a sudden breakthrough. How did I not notice that earlier? We’ve had a clue that narrows down the suspects all along!

“Hold your horses, Solsnam,” Vance said, forgetting to call him Your Honor. “I know how to narrow down the suspects. Down to only one!”

“I won’t hear anymore from you!” Solsnam said.

“Give him a chance,” Eleanor rejoined. “Speak, Vance.”

With equanimity, Vance began, “Himilco, you said that the two patches were stuck near the lower nerves of my spinal cord. You said that this speeds up the absorption, but you never provided us with more details. Could you give me an estimate of how long this absorption would take?”

“Oh, my, I forgot about that,” Himilco said. “Yes, yes … I can give you a rough estimate. Since the two patches were also damaged, your body must’ve taken somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes to absorb them.”

“Great, this estimate is everything I needed,” Vance said. “Listen carefully, Solsnam. After Eleanor defeated Gunner in arm-wrestling, the Turncoats went wild, and I wanted to escape from the noise of the celebrations. I left the dense crowds and sat alone at a table. I remember staying there for a long time, but I never got the Redspine High system message. And this means that I wasn’t drugged by anyone in the crowd. Only two people came into contact with me within 30 minutes of the system message. Because of the speedy absorption, only one of two suspects could’ve drugged me: Hollie or Oswald!”

“Oh, my, oh, my,” Himilco said slowly, “this makes sense.”

“Yes!” Eleanor cheered. “It all makes sense now!”

“I’m not done yet,” Vance said. “There is one last fact that can help us pinpoint the real killer: the patches were damaged because they were stuck to my body with excessive force. Oswald didn’t need to use force, and if he had, I would’ve immediately noticed what he was doing. If Oswald had drugged me, the patch marks would’ve looked normal. And this means one thing.”

“It means …” Eleanor said slowly.

“Hollie is the real killer,” Vance said. “She pretended to be starting a fight with me over how I treated Shannon, but she had an ulterior motive all along. She bumped into me to pickpocket the Vermeil patches. Then she tackled me from behind and stuck two of them to my back. After that, she used the other three patches to start the countdown to Shannon’s death and manipulated her two blissfully drugged victims into renting a private room. But she knew that her crime had one single imperfection, so she joined Himilco in the chase. She didn’t want to avenge Shannon or any of that bullshit. She wanted to kill me as fast as she could—before I could tell anyone that I was drugged, before I could show anyone the marks on my back!”

“So …” Solsnam paused before he continued, “So … Hollie perpetrated an almost perfect crime. Is this your claim?”

“It’s not a claim anymore,” Vance said. “It’s an inevitable fact!”

“Did she have a motive to kill Shannon?” Solsnam said.

“I don’t know. You have to ask her in person. I’m here to argue for my own innocence, not to prove the guilt of others.”

“Does this mean that your defense is over?”

“Yes,” Vance said. “I told you why I’m not a Necronette. I showed you proof that I was going through a Redspine High. I discovered the real weapon used for this murder. And I narrowed down the suspects to one. The rest is up to you, Solsnam. You can ignore all of these findings and use me as a scapegoat, or you can live up to the title of investigator-judge and arrest the real killer. But know this: I’m innocent. I’m being framed. And no matter what you decide, I’ll never give my Flame of Revival to anyone. I will live and die with the flame.”