Wednesday afternoon the court returns to session to hear testimony from the sorcery Jans Auns and the forensic analyst Roman Rakek. Auns keeps his testimony brief, and focuses entirely on his involvement with the spells that tracked the vampire to the wharf. Cerna’s questions for him are technical, and highly detailed in magical theory.

Auns fumbles his way through them. He is, after all, a sorcerer, not a wizard. While he may be quite skilled at the practical application of magical theory, the theory itself is not his strong point.

Romorith has him demonstrate the fine control over his magical ability. Auns creates a mist of ink, sprayed over a page. Romorith wipes the ink away, and proves to the court that it only sticks where other ink already lies. While Auns could not express the specific theory of magic that allows this spell to function, demonstrating that like things stay stuck to like things works fairly well.

And then it is Rakek’s turn to take the witness’s place. His role in evidence processing is so small that the introductory portion of his testimony is very short. He explains, with minimal fish references, that it was his task to verify the handwriting of the legal documents relating to Marion Durandal’s consent to contract vampirism based on analysis of handwriting in known samples.

Rakek lays out the description of his findings in much the same way as he did for the detectives when they visited his office. He explains that the lines have the same shapes, but lack varying values that would indicate that they were written with natural pauses and variety of line pressure.

“Could this uniformity of writing be caused by the writer simply copying a text after they’ve already written a first draft?” Romorith asks, craftily beating Cerna to the chase.

“Only if they were forged, ma’am,” he answers. “And I don’t mean falsified. A living person cannot sustain uniform perfection of pen strokes the way it’s been done on these documents. It would have to have been written by someone under the effect of a mind control spell.”

“Have you verified the signatures of the other two individuals on the document?” Romorith takes another turn, this being her most clearly damning evidence.

“I have checked both and verified them as originals,” Rakek answers. “Both Adrien Bellemare and Astyocheia the Traociot’s signatures on this document match samples from similar records on file with the Vampire Ethics Counsel.”

There’s a hiss of many nervous intakes of breath through the courtroom at the sound of the elder vampire’s name. It’s a strong implication of the Traociot’s involvement in this act of creating Spawn illegally.

“Have you any questions for this witness?” Judge Nobakht asks as Cerna remains quiet.

“Not a one,” is the lawyer’s succinct response.

The court is dismissed for the day with Romorith giving Cerna a deeply distrustful glare. Something isn’t right. Something isn’t right at all.