“Please Sir Sidkik.” Lyili rested her chin in her hand. “Tell us about your time at the orphanage.”

“We went there for a team PR event,” Sidkik said. To play with the children and get them interested in fitness.”

“A very admirable mission!” The king flexed his arms, making his muscles bulge. Violetta quickly imitated his pose. Less muscle, more squish.

I glanced down at my arms, noticeably scrawny by comparison. I guess I wasn’t in any condition to criticize. I didn’t even lift. Even if I did, I don’t think I’d be able to get as shredded as the king was.

“And that was just a one-time visit?” Lyili asked.

Sidkik pushed his glasses up with his index finger. “That’s right. But… well, we decided to come back again about a week after. Prowteg and I.”

“I see.”

“Hold on,” I yelled. “You’re not even going to ask him why they went back?”

Lyili leaned over her table, smiling at me. “You are free to join in with your questions at any time, Sir Allard.”

Fucking Lyili, being all reasonable and shit.

“If… If I’m being honest…” Sidkik adjusted the collar of his shirt. “We found Suza to be… very e-enchanting.” No doubt, she was super doable. Interesting word choice though.

“What about her was ‘enchanting’?” I asked.

“Suza was very friendly,” Sidkik said. “Very… easy to talk to, I suppose.”

“That’s quite enough, Sir Allard,” Lyili interrupted him. “I hardly need to hear the two of you verbally undress Madam Suza.” ‘Verbally undress’? ‘Friendly’ and ‘easy to talk to’ were pretty nice words for someone you just accused of being a murderer.

Whatever, I would drop that for now. “So what happened?”

“At first, we all talked together like friends,” Sidkik continued. “But… eventually, I found out that Prowteg was making extra visits there without me.”

“And that’s when you started spending less time together?” I asked.

“That’s correct.”

“So sad!” Violetta grabbed onto her horns, looking up at me. “Don’t you just hate it when two of your friends start spending more time together than they spend with you!?”

“Uhh…” Jeez, I was starting to think there were more problems going on behind the scenes with the Succy Girls than just a murder. I mean, the murder thing was definitely worse, but yeah.

“So… what made you think that she might be responsible for Sir Prowteg’s death?” Lyili asked.

Sidkik took a deep breath. “It’s difficult to explain… I just felt that she was playing with his heart.”

“Very interesting.” Lyili’s smug smile made another appearance. “It seems that Madam Suza may have more to her than we thought…” If only she knew.

Okay, enough of this. This was going in a direction I didn’t like, and I was basically letting Lyili make all the accusations she wanted. It was time to stop this train.

“Alright, back it up a minute!” I pointed at the porcelain pain in my ass. “You don’t have any evidence that Suza was even at the stadium last night. And come to think of it, just because Jaim stole something today doesn’t mean he was there last night either.”

“Y-Yeah!” Violetta chimed in.

Lyili crossed her arms, giving me the look a cat gives a cornered mouse. “Do you have proof they weren’t there, Sir Allard?”

Too bad I wasn’t cornered. “Objection!” I yelled. “That argument is total bullshit.” Not exactly lawyer language, but I was sick of this, well… bullshit.

“Mr. Allard, what’s wrong with Ms. Lyili’s argument, exactly?” The king wrinkled his brow.

“I don’t actually understand what’s wrong with it either…” Violetta whispered.

“Listen, I’ll show you what I mean,” I sighed, turning back to the naked prosecutor. I thought we already covered this in the last trial, but apparently I wasn’t clear enough. “Where were you last night at 9:00?”

“You’d love to know that wouldn’t y-…”

“Just answer the question,” I groaned.

“Hmph.” Lyili flicked her long dark hair over her shoulder. “If you must know, I was relaxing in my home enjoying a glass of lava.”

Wait, actual lava? How did that even work? What glass could possibly contain lava long enough to drink it? Come to think of it, didn’t lava harden really fast? How did they sell it? Oh my god, this was a logic nightmare. Fuck, I was getting sidetracked again. I needed to just forget the lava for now.

I tried to make it seem like I had been taking a dramatic pause. “Interesting… do you have any proof that’s where you were?”

Lyili narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?” My god, her reaction was even the same as last time.

“If you can’t prove that you were at home, then how do I know you aren’t the killer?” I let that sink in for a moment. “See? You can say that about literally anything. It’s a stupid argument that’s not going to get us anywhere.”

The room was silent for a moment before the king spoke. “My goodness… Ms. Lyili, this is quite the accusation.” He gripped down hard on the armrests of his throne. “Are you… the murderer?” Oh my god.

“I think I understand what Ryley is trying to say.” Fucking Yaika. I’d tell her to shut up right now if my neck wasn’t so attached to my head.

The king perked up. “By all means! Please explain, sweetheart.” Here we go.

“I think Ryley’s saying that just because it can’t be proved that someone wasn’t at the crime scene, it doesn’t make for a convincing argument that they were. Also, if we start accusing demons based on that, we could start accusing anyone of anything and get nowhere.” Yaika turned to me. “Is that right?”

“Uhh… yeah…” I mumbled. “That’s what… I was trying to say.” What the actual fuck. Yaika was so weird, it was baffling. I guess it was true what they said, even a broken clock was right twice a day.

Yaika put her fist into the air. “I helped!” The crowd burst into applause. Hell, even I clapped.

When it quieted down, Lyili spoke. “Very well, Sir Allard.” She smiled as confident as ever. “If it’s evidence you want, I’ll give it to you.”

“Oh, come on!”

Lyili gave exactly zero fucks. She continued on like I wasn’t even there. “Several of my underlings interviewed the residents living near the back of the stadium.” Of course they did. What hadn’t her underlings done? “They confirmed that there was in fact a van present in the parking lot that night. The van belonging to Madam Suza, no less.”

I really needed to have a talk with the king about these ‘underlings’.

“So, at the very least, Madam Suza’s van was present. That also points to the possibility of the boy being there. And as we all know, our lovely Madam ‘Blue Diamond’ claims to have been there herself.” Lyili pointed at the death contraptions. I really needed to start counting how often she did that. “Your majesty, I don’t find my claim to be unreasonable, do you?”

“It does make sense…” the king narrowed his eyes in my direction.

Ugh, this was bullshit. No matter what I did, we just ended up talking about Suza again. What the hell could I do?

That’s when I heard the bro-est voice to ever bro.

“Your majesty, do I, like, even need to be haaare? Like, don’t get me wrong or anything, this is sick and all, but I have practiiice…?”

Was that Brad? No. To this guy, every sentence warranted an upward inflection. Even Brad didn’t sound that bad. Who the hell was that?

“I suppose the trial is coming to an end…” the king said. “I apologize, I know you have a very big game tomorrow.”

I finally spotted the bro in the audience. Sure enough, it was a blob. I recognized his golden locks from the game this morning.

“Thanks,” McGee said. “I’d, like, better bolt theeen?” He slinked toward the door.

I slammed my hands down on my table. “Get back here!”

“Huh?”

“I-Is… everything alright?” the king stammered. You’d think he’d be used to this by now.

“Your majesty, McGee isn’t going anywhere.” I crossed my arms. “Because his testimony is the most important of all.” The crowd started to stir.

“Wow, really?” Violetta whispered excitedly.

No.

As usual, I had no idea what I was doing.