I stood outside the throne room in a stone hallway lit by a wall covered in torches. Like, way too many torches. I wasn’t sure how anyone with long hair walked down this hallway without fearing for their life.

No, the trial wasn’t over. The audience had gone into such a frenzy after Goldie dropped her manager sex bomb that I convinced the king to call a recess.

Violetta tugged on the sleeve of my shirt. “Are you okay, Mr. Ryley?”

“Huh? Yeah. I’m… fine.”

Somehow, I had even convinced Lyili to let Violetta out of her guillotine so I could speak with her. I hadn’t expected Lyili to send someone along.

Mel, the lizard girl responsible for my execution attempt, stood next to me. Her long brown hair gave off the smell of flowery shampoo and she had a sweet smile on her face that seemed to almost brighten up the already ridiculously bright room. Real wife material.

The main problem was that, when I said she was next to me, I meant she was standing completely silent with her face about one inch away from my cheek.

Yeah, as cute as she was, I was starting to get a little freaked out.

I turned to Violetta. “Is this… some kind of lizard girl thing?”

“Oh, Mr. Ryley, you’re so silly.” Violetta giggled. “Ms. Lyili asked her to keep an eye on you, remember?”

Was this what keeping an eye on me meant? Was she literally trying to put her eyeball on my skin? Not my fetish. I took a step to the side. Sure enough, she followed.

“Err, anyway…” I said, trying to keep my eyes pointed over at Violetta. “We need to talk before the trial starts again.”

“Talk?”

“Yeah, about what Goldie just told everyone… Is it true?” I lowered my voice a little. “Did you… sleep with Volk?”

“Mr. Ryley! I told you, I’m not that kind of girl!” Violetta’s face turned beat red. “When you asked me about my relationship with Mr. Volk, you were talking about that, weren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t. It’s just that the situation’s changed now,” I sighed. “If you say you didn’t sleep with him, I’ll believe you. But, uh, just to make sure we’re on the same page… you didn’t… suck anything, right?”

“Mr. Ryley!” Violetta stamped her foot. “I didn’t suck Mr. Volk’s life force! Do you think I’m the real murderer?”

That… wasn’t what I meant.

In any case, it was clear Violetta hadn’t had any kind of sexual contact with him. That meant that either Goldie just thought they were all having sex with Volk, or that she was lying about the whole thing. I would worry about that later.

Suddenly, Violetta gasped. “I almost forgot something!”

“What’s that?”

“Remember how you asked me if I noticed anything strange about Mr. Volk during our meeting? Well I thought about it, and there was something!”

“Wait, seriously?” Was Violetta actually going to be useful in proving her own innocence?

“It was just once…” Violetta’s eyes drifted up toward the ceiling. “But he winced during our meeting.”

“Winced?”

“Yes, it seemed like he banged his foot on the inside of his desk or something,” Violetta said, clenching her fists together. “I couldn’t see his feet or anything, but I heard a banging sound. I’m sure of it!”

“He… banged his foot… against the inside of his desk,” I repeated what she said.

“That’s right!”

Yeah, never mind. This information was useless.

“Ryley…” an all too familiar lazy voice came from behind me. I turned to see exactly who I thought I would. The less-than-normal princess and the more eyeball-than-not guard.

“Hello, Princess.” Violetta sounded ecstatic. “It’s very good to see you!”

Yaika looked over at me, and then to the Mel. Then… she looked back over to me again. I waited a few seconds, hoping she’d use her princess powers to get Mel off of me. No such luck.

“What are you two doing here?” I finally asked.

“Hmm…” Brad narrowed all his eyes.

“Minzfel is freaking out about what Goldie said, so we thought we’d come hang out with you guys instead,” Yaika said. What I wouldn’t give to see that brat’s world image shattered.

“I’ve never done anything like that with Mr. Volk, I promise!” Violetta cried. “You have to believe me…”

“Oh, yeah, uh…” Yaika fidgeted with her hands, her eyes darting back and forth. “We… never even considered it.” Real convincing.

“Won’t Lyili be angry that you’re here?” I asked. “I might ‘corrupt you with my silver tongue’ or something.”

“That’ll be fine,” Yaika said, waving her hand in the air. “More importantly, do you think you know who did it?”

I glanced over at Violetta. Her smile was missing from her face for pretty much the first time since I’d met her. As much as she acted bright and stupid, it was clear she wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the situation she was in. I actually felt a little bad for her.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Someone else did it and I think I have an idea who.”

Violetta got up in my face on the opposite side of Mel. “You do?”

“Oh, they’re… they’re doing a thing,” Yaika said. “Brad, get me in there.”

“Sure thing, Princess.” A tentacle shot out of Brad’s body, wrapping around Yaika’s waist. He hoisted her up, holding her so that her forehead was pressed up against mine.

I would have backed up if it weren’t for the fucking wall of torches behind me. I really needed to make a law about personal space or something.

“I think it might be Rayne.” I suddenly became very self-conscious about my breath.

“Ms. Rayne? But she’s so kind!” Violetta yelled way too close to my ear.

“Alright, give me some room think.” I pushed the two at my sides away. I wasn’t going to touch Yaika. Knowing how demons felt about the royal family, doing that would probably land me right back under my old friend Mr. Guillotine.

Yaika turned her head toward Brad. “Thing’s over.” He promptly placed her feet back on the floor.

Thank whatever god or gods demons worshipped, I could finally breathe again. Wait, was that oxymoronic? Were there demon gods? A question for another day.

“Rayne was the first one to find Volk’s body,” I said. “And she has a motive. If Goldie and Cyana really were sleeping with him and she knew, she could have killed him for betraying her.”

“I just can’t imagine any of them doing this…” Violetta said with a whimper. “This… isn’t like them.”

I mean, did anyone really think their friends were like that? How many times did you see a friend of a murder on the news be like, ‘yeah, I totally expected this’?

“I know it’s hard to hear, but if you didn’t do it, it means one of them did. Plus… there was something we found in Volk’s office.”

Violetta looked up at me. “What did you find?”

“There was a knife covered in blood behind the bookshelf,” I said. “I think it’s what was really used to kill Volk.”

“Huh. What about the bite marks, bro?”

“I think those were just something she planted there to make us think the killer was a succubus.”

Violetta started stroking her horns, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “You mean… Ms. Rayne tried to make it look like I did it?”

“Uhh… yeah?” Duh. “After Goldie testifies, I’m going to call Rayne back to the stand instead of you, alright?”

“Alright…”

Down the hall, it looked like demons were piling into the throne room. Without a word, Mel walked away from us. The recess was over.

Yaika motioned to us. “Looks like we should head back.”

“Of course, Princess,” Brad said. “I’m gonna grab an ice cream bar real quick… if that’s okay, of course.”

“Yeah, sure.”

An ice cream bar, huh? I had an idea of how I could use that in the trial.