“Alright, come clean,” I said. “What is this?”

“W-Whatever do you mean?” Suza held her mask in place with one hand, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the other. I imagined that skin tight leather wasn’t exactly the ideal outfit for a hallway filled with torches.

“Don’t you get it? The only reason Lyili’s letting me talk to you out here is because she knows you’re the prime suspect. You’re going to be accused of the murder, and that means I have to defend you.”

“But… I have the bomb.” She held up the pen-like object.

“Do you?” I narrowed my eyes. “Because they found the safe at the bottom of a fucking pond. That doesn’t exactly match with what you said, you know.”

“Is it really a bomb?” Violetta asked, her tone a lot nicer than mine. “You can trust us. We just want to help…” Jeez, the two of us were starting to sound like a good cop/bad cop routine.

Suza sighed, looking down at the device in her hand. “Alright, it’s just a pen. There’s no bomb.” Something told me a certain ripped monarch wasn’t going to happy about being lied to.

It was time to lay it all out on the table. “Look, we know who you are…”

Violetta threw her hand over my mouth. I guess we had to be even or something. “Ryley, Mel’s right here!” Oh yeah. The lizard girl was so quiet, I had almost forgotten about her. Actually, I had just forgotten. How do you ‘almost forget’ something, anyway?

God damn it. I couldn’t really afford to mince words right now. I turned to the ever-smiling brunette so that our faces were just inches apart. “Mel, you can’t say anything about this, alright?”

Violetta rubbed one of her horns. “Well, to be fair, I don’t even think she can talk…”

My god, I kind of hoped she couldn’t. Knowing she could talk would just make the silent staring even weirder.

“That doesn’t mean she can’t write,” I continued. “Mel, this is confidential between me and my client. It’s, uh, against the law for you to go blabbing to Lyili about this.” There weren’t actually any laws against that yet, but I felt like I deserved this one. After all, as nice as I’m sure the lizard girl was, having a spy from the prosecution at all my meetings was bullshit.

Mel nodded. I would just have to trust her and her cold lifeless doll eyes.

“Alright, I can’t believe I even have to say this but…” I turned back to ‘Blue Diamond’. “You’re Suza.”

“W-What?” Suza looked shaken as fuck. “Oops, I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who is this… ‘Suza’?” Wow. Master of disguise.

“Come on.” I sighed. “You might have fooled everyone else, but you’re not fooling me.”

Suza’s arms sagged. “Okay… it’s me.”

Mel put her hands over her mouth. No, she didn’t gasp or anything. In fact, she hadn’t even stopped smiling. Was this her version of surprise? Why the hell was this such a shocking revelation? Was this like a Superman thing where he took off his glasses and no one recognized him anymore?

Suza wiped her forehead again. “How did you figure out it was me?”

“I know, right!?” Violetta clapped her hands together. “I had no idea at all!”

“I’m a master detective.” Yeah, I needed to hurry this along. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to out your true identity or anything.”

Violetta nodded enthusiastically. “We promise.”

“Now you need to be honest,” I said. “You weren’t at the stadium last night, were you?”

“Mr. Allard.” Suza stood up straight, her eyes sharp and cold. “I may have been lying about the bomb, but I ask that you not question my credentials as a thief. Ever.” Holy shit.

“Oh, uh, s-sorry…” Bad cop credentials revoked. Turn in your badge, Ryley. You’re off the force.

“I don’t get it…” Violetta on the other hand, carried on completely oblivious. “If you stole the safe, why did they find it in the pond?”

“Well… that’s the thing.” Suza put her hands on her hips. “I went to the stadium to steal the safe, but… it wasn’t there.”

“So you didn’t actually take it then.”

“That’s correct.” Suza’s claims about her being a master thief weren’t exactly holding up to scrutiny.

“Alright, did someone really hire you to do it?” I asked.

“Yes, but I really can’t say any more than that. I swore on my life I’d keep their identity and the contents of the safe a secret.” Suza glared over at Mel, who just smiled back like some kind of... smiler.

Violetta snapped her fingers. “Drat!” Drat? If we were going to start using old-timey words to express dissatisfaction, ‘curses’ seemed more appropriate given that this was the Demon World.

“I’m sure you understand, Mr. Allard. I’m a professional,” Suza went on. “Just as you’ve promised to keep my identity a secret, I have to do the same for my client.” Ugh, I guess she had me there. What was I going to do, say ‘got you, I’m not a professional at all’?

“And you didn’t see anyone while you were there?” I asked. “Nothing out of place?”

It took her a moment to answer. “I didn’t see anyone. And… the only thing out of place was that the safe wasn’t where it was supposed to be.”

I think I more or less understand.” I let out a deep sigh. “What I don’t get is why you pretended that you stole it. Were you planning on dying in Jaim’s place?”

“The kids! Think of the children!” Violetta sounded like some kind of commercial that pressured you into donating ‘just pennies a day’ with sad music and close ups.

“Oh, I had no intention of being caught.” Suza smiled. “As soon as I had them thinking I had done it, I was going to make my great escape.” Was this woman insane?

“The whole castle is on high alert with your stunt,” I said, pointing down at the far end of the hall. There were a few Grand Slimes guards standing out of earshot from us. “If you try to escape, you’ll earn yourself a one way trip to tentacle town.” So hot. The torches, I mean.

Violetta tapped me on the shoulder. “Can I ask something?”

“That depends. Are you going to ask her if she heard any banging noises?” Actually, with a heavy safe involved, that might not have been totally irrelevant.

“N-No!” Violetta scrunched up her mouth.

“You don’t have to ask me to ask questions, you know.”

“Okay.” Violetta cleared her throat. “Ms. Suza, you didn’t know Prowteg… did you?”

“Of course I did,” Suza said like it wasn’t another nail in her coffin. “A few of the Janitor players visited the orphanage fairly regularly to play with the kids.”

Great. Now there was even more of a reason why I couldn’t let Lyili know about Suza’s secret.

“Alright, well I think they’re going to take you into custody now.” I turned to Mel. “I don’t want them removing her mask. Tell Lyili that taking it off can be her reward for finding her guilty or something. She’ll probably be into that.” Mel nodded.

“What are we going to do?” Violetta asked.

I sighed. “We have some investigating to do.” I felt like adding ‘my dear Violetta’, but I assumed she wouldn’t understand the reference.

“One last thing, Mr. Allard.” Suza stood with her fists clenched at her sides, her bottom lip quivering slightly. “Why… are you doing this?”

The change from her confident persona was so jarring, I froze for a moment. “Why am I… doing what?”

“I watched your first trial, you know,” she said. “Your life was on the line. That’s why you were so persistent, right?”

I mean… yeah. The threat of death did wonders for motivation.

“Why are you helping Jaim?” Suza’s eyes locked with mine. “Why are you helping… me?”

Her question was simple, yet it hit me in the chest like a bullet. Why was I doing this? As far as I knew, my life wasn’t riding on this trial or anything. I could put zero effort in and I would be just fine. I didn’t even know these people. Why… was I taking this so seriously?

“This is what lawyers do.” The words felt strange to me, like they weren’t my own. I just... couldn’t think of anything else.

“Well… thank you.” Suza nodded. “Good luck in your investigation.” With that, she and Mel disappeared down the hall back toward the throne room.

When they were gone, I glanced over to Violetta. She looked back up at me with a big dumb smile on her face.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head, her magenta hair brushing against her shoulders. “Nothing.”

Ugh. Why couldn’t I have just said it was because she was hot or something?