Chapter 136: Then the Real Hunt Begins

During the midday meeting, Aldric placed the seal ledger on the table.

"From now until evening, everyone will move in pairs whenever their duties permit," he said. "Before the first toll, we’ll inspect the rooms and corridors one final time. After that, we’ll conduct a full conversation sequence involving all of us, not just three people."

Garrick said, "And what about anyone who leaves their room after the conversation sequence?"

"Leaving their room doesn’t mean they’re the killer, but we’ll record their movements. I can’t stop anyone by force, and the rules will kill me if I try to confine them, as we’ve already learned," the old man explained.

Garrick looked at Talia for a moment.

Then he said, "And if someone dies and we know who was the last person to speak to them, no one should hesitate this time. Otherwise, we’d better not make accusations with no basis in fact."

Talia paled.

She had previously accused Mirai without evidence in a moment of panic, and now she seemed like a burden who only heightened the group’s anxiety.

"No," Aldric said sharply. "Everyone should hesitate until they know the truth. Two witnesses give you the right to accuse; they do not make the accusation true. The person who killed Elena communicated with her after our arrangement without any of us seeing him. He can do the same thing again, turning the last public communication into a trap to implicate an innocent person, and then whoever makes an accusation without clear evidence will die."

Garrick did not like what Aldric had said. He wanted to begin ruling out the innocent, and the only way to do that was for someone to make an accusation and have it turn out to be false. That meant he needed victims, but even so, he did not object.

As for Ravian, he kept his gaze fixed on the seal ledger.

Aldric understood the danger, but he could not eliminate it completely or address it properly.

’There he goes again, repeating the same mistake and looking down only one path,’ Ravian thought as he watched the old man rub his forehead in obvious exhaustion.

Yet the moment someone died after the conversation sequence, the victim’s name would become the focal point of everyone’s fear, and it would take only a little anger or panic for one of them to convince himself that the killer possessed some hidden means of communication; once the panic spread far enough...

The real hunt would begin.

They returned to work.

The day passed slowly, and throughout it, Ravian watched Mirai’s interactions.

She spoke to Talia more than once: once about the keys to the North Wing, and again when the girl froze after hearing a sound from inside one of the rooms. She also met with Aldric to review the seals and spoke to Bran about the rear service doors.

All three were viable choices for her to protect if she was the Mage.

She did not communicate with Kaiden after the midday meeting, since the hall’s orders were relayed to him through Sylvan and the mirage servants.

That did not change the fact that she had spoken to him that morning, but in Ravian’s eyes, it made Kaiden a more likely target than either Talia or Aldric, because if Mirai truly was the Mage, she would obviously protect those two.

One was the group’s primary strategist and the person they needed most, while the other was a girl whom the killer might find easy to communicate with in her current unstable state. Ravian was almost certain that Mirai was the Mage.

That was why he had chosen Elena instead of targeting her the day before. If she was the Mage, she would certainly protect herself, though he would need to test the limits of her protection soon anyway.

Shortly before sunset, the eight gathered in the main hall again.

Garrick and Bran inspected the corridor leading to their rooms, while Aldric reviewed the seals one by one on his own. Sylvan opened the small bags they had received along with their roles, removed every writing tablet and sheet of paper, then left everything on a side table until the sequence was over.

This was a method they had devised to prevent secret communication.

Ravian calmly showed his hands and the pockets of his jacket, just like the others.

He was not carrying a message.

The message was already inside one of the palace walls.

Aldric placed the eight slips for the draw inside the box. Mirai took charge of shuffling them this time, then Bran drew the names one after another and arranged them on the table.

1- Mirai.

2- Bran.

3- Sylvan.

4- Kaiden.

5- Talia.

6- Aldric.

7- Rayan.

8- Garrick.

Aldric confirmed the order, then announced for everyone to hear, "Each person will speak only to the one after them. Once the final conversation is over, no one is to direct any communication toward another participant until the third Black Bell toll."

Mirai stood before Bran first while the other six watched them.

She asked him about the seals on the rear service doors for which he was responsible, and he confirmed that they had remained intact. After that, Bran moved on to Sylvan.

"Did you find any of our office doors left open?" Bran asked, voicing the first question that came to mind.

"No," Sylvan replied in a bored voice.

Sylvan then stood before Kaiden and asked him about the kitchen inventory. Kaiden replied that he had inspected the storeroom and finished recording its contents.

Kaiden moved on to Talia.

The girl looked at him for a long moment before asking, "Do you think I’m nothing more than bait?"

Kaiden’s usual smile vanished.

"I think your fear is what the killer wants. Don’t give him what he wants, or you really will become bait," Kaiden said in complete seriousness, concern flickering in his eyes for the briefest moment.

Talia gave no answer, merely looking at him for a few moments before moving on to the next person in line.

Now it was her turn with Aldric.

She said softly, "If I die tonight, can you avenge me, Mr. Aldric?"

"Pfft." Ravian laughed, and everyone turned to stare at him.

"Ahem." Ravian brought a hand to his mouth. "Sorry. Pretend you didn’t hear anything and carry on."

Talia’s tear-filled eyes flashed at his reaction, but Aldric intervened before she could start crying.

"I won’t allow anyone to push you into making an accusation you don’t believe is true," Aldric replied, drawing her attention back to him before frowning at Ravian in a silent warning to stop, then turning to Talia once more. "But I can’t stop anyone from making an accusation or letting down their guard, and those are precisely the things you need to be wary of."

Aldric then stood before Ravian.

The other six watched them.

Aldric asked him, "What was so funny about what just happened?"

Ravian did not answer immediately. Instead, he turned to Talia and smiled at her before looking back at Aldric with a half-mocking, half-bored expression.

"You know she’s going to die, don’t you?"

Aldric’s eyes widened, while Talia stared at Aldric in utter shock.

"Even if the killer doesn’t target her, she’ll kill herself anyway. In fact, the killer would be a damned fool to target her instead of leaving her to end her own life," Ravian said, turning to Talia as he finished.

"And you know exactly what fate awaits her... In fact, it’s easy to guess after what happened in Elena’s room this morning," Ravian continued, utterly indifferent to Talia’s tearful expression.

"Rayan! You—!" Aldric shouted at Ravian.

But Ravian was not finished yet.

"But you know, there is actually a solution," Ravian said suddenly, raising a finger as though he had just come up with an excellent idea.

Talia’s eyes lit up when she heard him.

"And that solution is simply for the Mage to save her by choosing her as one of the three people they can protect."

Ravian stared into Talia’s eyes as he said this, watching her eyes widen in realization.

’Yes, that’s exactly what you should do, girl...’

’Please don’t make me go to the trouble of finding another victim.’