"Conciliation?" Melanie scoffed at her phone's screen, the other hand busy reapplying lipstick. "Do they even know what that means? It wasn't even an option".
"It's jargon".
"It's wrong, Andrea. Well, whatever. We're fucked, anyway, aren't we?" she turned around, back facing the mirror. "Just how fucked, exactly?".
Andrea sighed. "We'll have to argue intentional harm with intent to be rewarded".
"Shit. That low?".
"I tried to argue it wasn't their fault, but whoever they inherited the Manor from. If Whitlock really didn't know about the bomb in the basement, which he could very easily argue, then it was a horrible accident, the culprit is probably long dead, and the Doll will be sent to be destroyed. But they won't budge".
"Which means they're protecting whoever they did inherit it from".
"I sent Mark to look into it".
"The new guy?".
"He's constantly arguing with the other new kid. If they're so intent on competing, I'd be a fool not to use it".
"And so? Who was the old fuck?".
"That's the thing. Nobody".
"The record is gone?".
Andrea nodded.
"Couldn't we argue that? Possible destruction of evidence?".
"That's hardly recognized in Court. And, besides, it's an Oldtown House, anyway. Because we were dying like flies back then, so many properties exchanged hands that it'd be impossible to track it down".
Melanie rested her lower back against the sink. "And now what? We're really going to accuse the man of murdering his kid to get compensation from the Crown?".
"If he won't let the both of us be innocent," she said. "Then be it".
BREAKING NEWS: FIRST HEARING TO THE PUPPET CASE SCHEDULED FOR THE LAST DAY OF THE MONTH.
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"Has the kid even been buried yet?" Mark asked.
"No. She's been held at the deadhouse to look for signs of shadowblood".
"Shadowblood?" Melanie whispered-shouted. "How would a Doll even have that?".
"Remnants of war, maybe?".
"Does shadowblood even last all that long?".
"How should I know? I'm not a fucking doctor, Mel".
"Unclench, Kaneshiro. I'm just asking a question".
From the driver's seat, Andrea told both of them to shut up. Besides her, Lauren scrolled through the news app on her phone. "Everybody's talking about the hearing".
"Well, none of us have ever seen a Doll before. I'm kind of..." Mark trailed off. "Nervous about it".
"Seconded," Mel agreed. "What if it's all malfunctioning and stuff? That's scary".
"Wow, great job defending our client, Mel".
"Our client is the Crown. Not that thing. Although you would have a difficult time sorting your relationships with clients".
"Is that supposed to mean something?".
Andrea hit the brakes on the car before she could be forced to deal with that. "We're here".
Mark looked through the window, his gaze following the form of the building up to the gray sky. "Damn".
"Are we even allowed here without a proper reason?" Asked Lauren.
Andrea unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car, the rest following suit. "Kaneshiro will talk to the desk lady and get us hall passes--".
"Huh?".
"-- Monroe and Jensen, I want both of you to, in the meanwhile, go through the library and get me anything you can on the Fourth Shroud. And Mel will talk to Judge Adler and get that old war notebook of his".
"Sure. What about you?".
"I'm not exactly welcome here," she sighed. "I'll roam around but things will get complicated if someone sees public enemy number one sniffing around the Judiciary".
"You are an attorney".
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
"A very hated one".
"Aren't we all," Kaneshiro said, wrapping both his arms around Lauren and Mark. "C'mon kids. Let's go".
"You sure you'll be okay?".
"Please".
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"Wait, go back to that page".
Mark groaned. "We've been over this. Just because it was a doctor and he was named Whitlock doesn't mean he was actually their relative. I couldn't find shit about him! You're just obsessed with that book 'cause you're the one who found it".
"Oh, shut up and just go back already!".
He did. On the page, there was a graduation picture from seventy years ago, the twenty-something doctors smiling brightly at the camera in their stark-white coats.
"Do you see that?".
"What? Old school elite? Sure".
"No! This one!" She pointed to a person in the picture, and it wasn't the so-called Mr. Whitlock of the olden days.
"What about her?".
"Look at the embroidery on her coat's pockets!".
Two crows. One behind the other, to make it look like the shadow of the first. "Damn, you have good eyes - fuck".
Lauren took out her phone, already calling his number, while Mark went to look for a Family Trees of Steelands volume on the tall shelves.
"Oh, hey kid. I got us the hall passes but I can't find Andre--".
"Kaneshiro! I mean, sir-- do you remember that case about the girl who was accused of necromancy?".
"Huh?" He sounded skeptical at first, but softened: "What about it?".
"Wasn't she sentenced to death?".
"Yeah, but there was this whole thing about her still being thirteen, so they're waiting to carry it out. Kind of gruesome if you ask me. But if you're thinking we can get that for the Doll, I may have to remind you that it was, technically, put together two hundred years ago--".
"No! She was sentenced to death for the practice of necromancy, but there wasn't any proof of it, right?".
"I mean--".
"For the first time in six decades, the Crown used the Rule of Reliability to override the lack of evidence and attribute the crime, since it was reported by someone of recognizable social status and a friend to the Crown, correct?".
"You really know your history".
"I beat over seven hundred applicants for this job, sir," she said. "Well, the family that accused her were the Ravenrranks".
"Well, if there's one friend to the Crown--".
Mark snatched the phone from Lauren's hands. "Fifty-four years ago, the Ravenrranks were given the medal of Outstanding Social Aid for donating over twenty-million rals worth of property,'' he read off the book.
The line went silent for a second. "Kids," he said, very quietly. "Do you know what you're saying?".
"Sir--".
"Shut up," the coldness in his voice startled them. "Don't say it on the phone. Meet me in the car".
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"Well, you were right," Mel scoffed, sitting down on the roof of the vehicle. "You little shit".
"My father told me about this".
It felt wrong. To mix the words of her father with the absolute insanity she was about to dive into. She looked through the notebook, Annotations from the Hospital of Divine Salvation's Medical Staff, a Re-telling of the War Days, a rare spoil of war she wouldn't be able to put her hands on if it weren't for the fact that Melanie was Judge Adler's favorite niece.
"It doesn't mean it didn't kill the kid," the other woman reminded her. "That's what they were made for".
"Of course, it doesn't. Matter of fact... I believe it might have. But I'm not here to find out whether it did it or not. We're just here to prove the Crown wasn't the one behind it".
It is our current understanding that the mixing of shadowblood with human blood gives us no benefits except for a brief, inconsequential, elevated state of mind.
It is also our current understanding that shadowblood does not affect Dolls in any perceptible way.
----------------------------------------
She met Kaneshiro at the entrance.
"I would just like to remind you," he said, towering over her. "Of two things".
"Which would be?".
"We're His Majesty's Defense Attorneys. Telling the entire kingdom that the Crown made use of an obsolete royal privilege to throw in jail an innocent kid because his friend asked him to, sounds very close to treason".
"Which is why that is not what we're saying," Andrea told him. "The Ravenrranks utilized their closeness to His Majesty and took advantage of their family story to commit a horrible crime".
"And doesn't that sound the same?".
"To the public, perhaps. To the Court, it makes us the victim, doesn't it?".
"And would His Majesty be okay with being the victim?".
"He will, if He doesn't want to be dethroned or burnt alive," her stare hardened. "There's no easy way out of this, Kenji. His Majesty was either ignorant to the ill intents of a friend who got a kid sentenced to death, or directly responsible for the killing of a child. None of that sounds great".
Kenji's jaw's muscles flexed with the effort not to curse.
"There's no evidence the kid didn't practice necromancy, either. She could be guilty".
"She could," Andrea agreed. "The Court will review her particular case and she'll be heard again. But, Kenji," she reminded him. "That's her problem, not ours".
Kaneshiro stepped aside but kept his gaze on her. "We answer only to the King," he said, almost to himself.
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"Ma'am, no unauthorized personnel beyond this door. I'm sorry".
"I'm not unauthorized. I'm its lawyer".
"Even so, I can't let you in".
Andrea greatly disagreed with the public's common perception of attorneys as this constantly complaining, overbearing righteous people who could recite the Constitution back to back just to get their fifteen cents off the tax fare on an iced coffee. None of her coworkers were ever like that.
Andrea, however, was. And she had no intentions of pretending otherwise.
"Obstruction of justice is a crime punishable with a twenty-five-year sentence, sir. That thing behind this door was granted exceptional rights to even have a lawyer, as we do not commonly consider objects to be on the possessing end of rights. Which means that, for my name to even be next to it in the courtroom papers, His Majesty had to write by hand a decree conceding the right to defense," she said, all in one breath. "If you do wish to keep me from speaking to my client, I'll have to have you tried for not only obstruction of justice but for perjury against the Crown''.
The poor, overworked security guard, stepped aside.
From the car parked at the entrance to the Designated House, Lauren and Mark sighed in awe.
Mel, however: "That was such bullshit".
"She would've been laughed out of court," added Kaneshiro.
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Andrea took a deep breath. The double doors to the Designed House, where the thing was kept, a previously empty royal property, seemed to stare right back at her.
The thing behind that door was just another client, she told herself. Even if it had been accused of murdering an eight-year-old. Just another day of wiping under the rug the dirt that fell from the Crown's hands.
She knocked and the doors opened almost immediately.
And, at last, Andrea Valenti met the Puppet that Came Alive.