Everyone’s eye were on McGee, and McGee’s eyes were on everyone. Because he had a lot of eyes. So his eyes were… on everyone.

Anyway.

“Let’s get this over with, Sir Allard,” Lyili sighed. “If Sir McGee’s testimony is as important as you say it is, then I’d like you to get to the point.”

Yeah, about that… I didn’t really have much of a point beyond just giving me some extra time to think. My big mouth had got me into this, it was going to have to get me out of this too.

“I… think the, uh, importance of the testimony will… stand for itself.” Ugh. I really fucked that up. Whatever. “McGee, please state your relationship to the victim.”

“We were, like, teaaammates?” The blob was at the stand. He lifted a tentacle to push his long golden hair aside. How did he manage to keep the slime from getting on it? Was slime good for your hair? I didn’t want to find out.

“Sidkik said that Prowteg was his friend. Would you describe him in the same way?”

“Ryley!” Violetta gripped my arm with the strength of a lobster or something. Fuck, it actually hurt. Good thing she was a Succy Girl and not a Handy one. “You can’t ask someone’s rival a question like that!”

Violetta knew I had just asked about their relationship, right? As in, I didn’t know about it? As in, why the fuck was she yelling at me?

I tugged my arm away from her, keeping my attention on the bro. “So… he was your, uh, rival?” I asked.

“That’s right, man,” McGee said, his voice taking on a serious tone. “Prowteg was a lot of things, but he fer sher wasn’t my bro, bro.” Okay, so it was hard to sound serious with his accent. Still, he was noticeably less easy-breezy than before.

“Did something happen between the two of you?” I asked.

“Nothing really haaappened?” McGee shrugged. I say he shrugged, but it was more like some of the mass from his lower half moved to the top of his body, then moved back down again. Yeah. I was just going to call that shrugging. Gross.

Weird shrugging aside, McGee was a lot more like the witnesses from the last trial. Getting something out of him was going to be a pain in my ass. Fine. If he wanted to be difficult, it was time to play some hardball.

“Listen up.” I slammed my hands down, causing the whole room to jump. I was starting to understand why Lyili did it so much. “You were at the stadium last night, we have photo evidence. According to Sidkik, he saw you on the field with Prowteg.”

McGee narrowed his eyes. “So what?”

“So unless you start talking, I’m just going to assume you killed him.”

“W-Wait, w-w-what?” McGee seemed to almost shrivel up, thick drops of sweat pouring down his body. Was he determined to be as disgusting as possible or something? “I… I didn’t kill anyone!”

“Then cooperate.”

“We were both, like, practiciiing?” McGee said. Maybe asked. I don’t know. “I didn’t even talk to him last night, bro. He just, like, kept to himself.”

Finally, we were getting somewhere. “How long did you practice?”

McGee took a moment to think before answering. “From, like, 7:00 to around 8:30? When I was dooone, I went to the… weight room. To take a break. When I passed through the field on my way out, Prowteg was, like, already gooone?”

According to the pig, he saw McGee on the field at around 8:00. The picture of him leaving the stadium was taken at 8:45. At least the times seemed to match up.

“Now…” It was time to get back to my original question. “Why were the two of you rivals?”

McGee looked miserable, like he could start melting any second. He kind of already was. “Y-You know that Prowteg was the anchor of the team, riiight?” Yeah, Violetta had said that. Something about him always going last on the team.

“Well… that used to be, like, my position.”

“Interesting,” I said. “So he took your position. He was better than you.”

“Ryley!” Violetta whispered as loudly as possible. “Prowteg was amazing, but McGee’s one of the best too! Just because Prowteg played anchor most of the time doesn’t mean he was better at it!”

Uhh… didn’t it though?

“I got it!” Yaika yelled. “McGee killed Prowteg because he was angry that he replaced him.”

“My, what a fine observation!” the king added. Fuck yeah, this was exactly the direction I needed this to go. I didn’t think it would happen this fast, but I wasn’t complaining.

“P-Princess?” McGee gasped.

“Hey, that makes sense!” Violetta added. For once, I was happy all of them were speaking up. “During this morning’s game, McGee was finally the anchor again, right? I mean, I guess he didn’t do a very good job… but still!”

“You’re so smart, Violetta!” I think it goes without saying who said that.

“That’s right,” I said like a badass, pretending like this was all according to my plan or something. “And everyone at the game was talking about him.” ‘Everyone’ meaning Brad and his friends. Still, there seemed to be a lot of attention on him compared to the other players this morning.

“Hmm…” The king assumed his thinking face. Things were looking good.

“H-Hold on a second!” McGee’s voice cracked. “I… Sure, I might have been bitter that Prowteg, like, stole my position or whatever, but I didn’t kiiill him! For real. You gotta believe me!”

“Sorry, things are kind of pointing to you right now, ‘bro’,” I said, smug as fuck. I mean, this was good for me, but it was kind of weird. Like... déjà vu weird. Another demon with a valley accent angry that someone else was more successful than they were?

I looked across my table. Lyili was just standing there with her arms crossed, her expression blank. Shouldn’t she have shut me down by now? I mean, the royalty was on my side, but that just meant she would accuse me of ‘infecting their minds with my perverted nature’ or something. She almost… looked like she was waiting for something.

Just then, the doors to the throne room were thrown open with a bang. Uh-oh.

“P-Please! Be careful!” the king yelled. “You’re going to make holes in the wall…”

“Uh, sorry your majesty,” a familiar non-McGee bro voice said. Brad slinked into the room, a packet of papers in his tentacle. He looked at me. “Bro… I finished the footprint analysis you wanted.”

Lyili jumped up on her table. Total normal thing to do. Not crazy at all. “Excellent, Sir Brad!” she said. “Please, tell us what you’ve discovered.” What the hell was her deal? She acted like she already knew the results.

“Well…” Brad gulped. “Prowteg’s, Sidkik’s, and McGee’s footprints were all there.” McGee’s ‘footprints’? What did those even look like?

“But that wasn’t all that you found, was it?” Lyili’s smile was almost sinister.

“No… there were another set there too…” Brad continued. “Small ones.”

My eyes darted to the guillotines.

“They belong to the boy.”

Suza looked completely blindsided. Her head drifted over toward Jaim, but he refused to look back at her.

Possible murder charges aside, he was probably grounded.