The account of the murder helped Vance to reorient himself in the present. His jumbled memories organized themselves into an orderly sequence, and he identified the real events that had been erased by the Redspine High. While I was dreaming, my body was acting on its own. I talked to people. I made decisions. My actions affected the world around me, even though I lacked awareness. He had been like a drunkard, like a sleepwalker, like a dissociated soul. It was a scary realization—that one could lose oneself in such a way. Maybe I killed Shannon, after all. He started to doubt his innocence again, but then he dismissed the harmful thoughts and regained his calm.
His chance to speak finally arrived. It was time to defend himself. It was time to use every argument and fact at his disposal to overturn the preliminary ruling. And to be able to convince others, he hardened his own resolve and adopted a peculiar motto: I want to live; therefore, I am innocent. My life is more valuable than the truth. This is my one and only chance to change the outcome of the trial, and I will not waste it because of any doubts. He cupped his hands around his knees and looked up from his chair. Solsnam, Himilco, and Eleanor were waiting for him to start.
His chains clinked and rattled. He stood up and walked to the center of the room, a position from which he could see the scattered clues. Then he cleared his mind, unwound the first thread of the tangled mystery, and began, feigning confidence, “Shannon was stabbed in a perfectly locked room. The only suspect fled through the window after the stabbing. These are the facts of this crime, facts no one could doubt or dismiss. But do they tell the full story? It’s easy to accuse me of this murder. I did sleep in this room with Shannon. I did run away after her death. This much is true. But I didn’t escape because I was guilty: I had to flee because I knew I would be called a murderer. Falsely.”
“All the evidence points to you,” Solsnam said.
Himilco smiled in approval.
Eleanor locked her ankles.
“Evidence is important,” Vance said. “But before we talk about evidence, I want us to take a step back and talk about motives. Why did I kill Shannon in the first place? This question was never discussed in your account of the crime, and no one has brought it up until now. Every crime, no, every human action, has a motive. Our brains think in terms of reasons and goals. But in the case of this murder, there is neither a reason nor a goal. I met Shannon on this very day. We have no history. I bear her no grudge. She is a low-level slayer like me. And her death didn’t make me profit in any way. Why did I kill her?”
“I knew this was coming,” Solsnam laughed. With calm and confidence, he paced the room and answered as he walked: “Yes, at first glance, it does seem as if you have no motive. But I wouldn’t miss a point so obvious. The account of the crime never asks why you killed Shannon, because a personal motive is not needed. You are a Necronette. The Witch of Decay wants to destroy Argilstead. She wants to murder every single Headbound. And because you are a low-level Necronette, Shannon was the most suitable victim for you to kill.”
“Impeccable reasoning, Solsnam,” Himilco said.
Eleanor unlocked her ankles and crossed her arms.
“Impeccable reasoning? I’m not sure about that,” Vance retorted.
“What do you mean?” Solsnam said. “Are you saying my logic is flawed?”
“Oh, it’s so terribly flawed,” Vance said, with an invisible smirk. “First of all, Shannon wasn’t the most suitable victim for me to kill. It was Eleanor. Eleanor herself said that she was waiting for me to betray her. If I were an undead Necronette, I would’ve killed her in the desert by throwing her off her mount. The Skull Jaws would’ve eaten her in no time.”
“It would’ve been a risky move,” Solsnam said.
“Really? More risky than killing Shannon right here in Argilstead?”
“Well … No … But …”
“Eleanor was the most suitable kill,” Vance continued. “But this isn’t the only problem with your ‘impeccable’ logic. You said that the Witch of Decay ‘wants to murder every single Headbound.’ Those were your words, right?”
“Yes,” Solsnam said, less confident than before.
“Then why did she target Shannon in particular?” Vance said. “Shannon was holed up in the House of Turncoats. She refused to leave. She was anxious and cautious. In other words, she was the hardest target to murder. If the Witch of Decay wanted to kill ‘every single Headbound,’ she would’ve prioritized the other newcomers who were venturing out into the world. She would’ve sent her Necronettes to do some banditry or to target isolated Headbound.”
“What are you trying to say?” Himilco suddenly joined the discussion.
“Yes,” Solsnam said. “What does all this sophistry mean?”
“It means something really simple,” Vance said. “If you want to blame the Witch of Decay for what happened, if you want to call me a wicked Necronette, then you have to give me one valid reason for the Witch to target Shannon. Shannon and nobody else! Shannon the low-level Geomancer!”
The room was suddenly silent. Vance had successfully attacked the first basis for the preliminary ruling: he had turned the Necronette argument against its supporters. And Himilco and Solsnam were at a loss for words. They suddenly had to determine why the Witch of Decay would waste a valuable asset to kill a low-level Geomancer. But there was no clear answer. The Necronettes of the past had caused turmoil and destruction, treachery and infighting, feuds and vendettas. On the other hand, Shannon’s death seemed to be self-contained. It caused no resounding percussion. It stirred none against none.
“You convinced me that he was a filthy Necronette,” Solsnam finally said to Himilco. “You have to answer. Why did the Witch target Shannon?”
“I … I don’t know,” Himilco said. “No one can understand how the Witch of Decay thinks. No one can tell what she’s planning.”
“You’re suddenly talking like priests, Himilco,” Vance scoffed. “No one can understand what god thinks. No one can tell what god’s planning. Sure, gods and witches have their ways, but here in this trial, we care about facts. You can’t base an argument on the lack of knowledge. You can only base it on evidence.”
“The Witch must’ve had a reason,” Himilco said.
“Then say it,” Vance rejoined.
There was no answer. Himilco loosened the collar of his mage’s robes as if he were short of breath. Then he walked to the square window and leaned forward with his elephant head until it was outside. “You don’t understand. The Witch of Decay never reveals her motives until the very end.” He said these words like a prophet delivering an apocalyptic warning to a nonchalant people. Tomorrow there would be thunder and lightning; tomorrow there would be meteors and destruction. Today? Oh, there’s nothing today—business as usual, I believe.
“There is no proof that I’m a normal Turncoat,” Vance said. “But there is no proof that I’m a Necronette either. You’re assuming that I’m guilty until proven innocent, but it should be the other way around.”
“No one wakes up at Rust Lake,” Himilco asserted.
“Every rule has an exception,” Eleanor said.
“And I shouldn’t be punished for being the exception,” Vance concluded.
It was now left for Solsnam to decide which side to take. He spun the feather pen in his hand twice. His thoughts raced, lurched, skidded, and swerved. No one could guess what he was thinking. Cruelty and leniency rested on the two sides of the scale—equal in weight and likelihood. Then he started, “Well … It is true that a Necronette would come up with a better lie. No one has woken up at Rust Lake since the great Cassiel, and the Witch of Decay is well aware of this fact … It is also true that no one saw Vance at Haraldr’s Spring.”
“Are you going to believe him?” Himilco lost his calm—a rare occurrence by all means. “His excuses make no sense! This is a big mistake!”
“Calm down,” Solsnam said. “I am only trying to save us time by advancing the conversation. His guilt remains unchanged.”
“It’s not only about his guilt!” Himilco objected again.
But Solsnam had already made up his mind. He said, “I hereby acknowledge that the suspect may not be a Necronette. I also acknowledge that there is no personal motive for the suspect to commit the crime. However, the rest of the account still holds true. The main suspect lured the victim to this bedroom and brutalized her while she was unconscious.”
***
Vance cleared the first bar with difficulty. He turned the Necronette theory upside down and demonstrated to his accusers that the involvement of the Witch was unlikely. By doing so, however, and by eliminating personal motives from consideration, he also labeled himself as a crazed murderer. No one said anything along these lines, but he could sense it in Solsnam’s choice of words: “lured” and “brutalized.” This emerging crazed-murderer theory threatened to destroy the progress that he had made, and it was vital to create an alternative picture that would paint him in a more empathetic light.
With a bit of self-talk, he reminded himself of how this picture should look: I’m not a murderer. I’m another victim, on trial by an unfair system, for a crime that I never committed. Then he cleared his mind, unwound the second thread of the tangled mystery, and began, feigning confidence, “I find it strange that you’re using the word ‘lured’ every time you talk about the crime. ‘… lured the victim to the room and then killed her in seclusion.’ ‘… lured the victim to this bedroom and brutalized her while she was unconscious.’ Words have a strange power. Sometimes they can change our perception of things.”
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“What are you trying to say?” Solsnam braced himself.
“It’s a really strong word,” Vance said. “ ‘Lured.’ ”
“It describes what happened,” Solsnam retorted. “You befriended the victim. Then you asked for a private room and slept with her inside.”
“You’re right,” Vance said. “But again, you’re skipping ahead too fast. In the very beginning, it was Shannon who approached me. Your account says so. She wanted me to be her ascension partner or whatever. And what was my first reaction? I pushed her away. I told her I had other plans. I wanted to leave the table. My reaction was so cold that it put me at odds with Hollie. And this begs the question: if I had been trying to ‘lure’ Shannon into the bedroom, why did I treat her in such a way?”
“You were pretending to be cold to avoid raising suspicions,” Solsnam said.
Eleanor let out a sigh.
Himilco seemed unimpressed.
“Pretending to be cold?” Vance laughed. “Now that’s funny. I wasn’t her only option, you know. A lot of other Headbound were willing to help her, including Hollie and Gunner. Pretending to be cold would’ve pushed Shannon away from me and would’ve made her look for someone else.”
“Fine,” Solsnam said. “Your first conversation with Shannon had nothing to do with the crime. I’ll give you that. But what about your second conversation? Are you going to claim that it was innocent and irrelevant too?”
“The second one?”
“Yes,” Solsnam said. “Shannon participated in your philosophical discussion with Oswald. And after Oswald left, you spent some time talking to her. During this interval, you studied her character and analyzed her weaknesses. You gave her false hope by finally agreeing to help her. Then, when she lost herself to the Redspine High, you executed your plan and lured her to the bedroom.”
“Stop right there,” Vance said. “Are you saying that everything Shannon and I did together … that everything we did … was part of my plan to lure her?”
“Of course,” Solsnam said.
“Your actions were calculated,” Himilco added.
“My actions were calculated?” Vance laughed, seeing the contradictions that neither Solsnam nor Himilco could see. “You’re theorizing without changing your perspectives. If you want to analyze a crime right, you need to think from the viewpoint of the killer.”
“The evidence supports our claims,” Solsnam asserted.
“No, it doesn’t,” Vance said. “Think back about what happened according to your own account. Before Shannon and I went into the bedroom, we challenged Eleanor to an abrupt arm-wrestling match; approached Gunner for training; entertained the solar elves with tales about King Solario; and ran around the House of Turncoats like two maniacs. What kind of killer would want to attract this much attention to himself? And right before the crime.”
“You needed to play along because she was experiencing a Redspine High,” Solsnam said. “You did it so that you could lure her to the room later.”
“Again with the damn luring,” Vance laughed. “Let’s say I did play along with her. Why on earth would I want to lure her to the room? Don’t you remember what your account said? Shannon was looking for someone her own level so that she could leave the House of Turncoats, so that she could leave Argilstead, so that she could complete her ascension. I didn’t need to lure her anywhere. If I really wanted to kill her, all I had to do was wait for a few hours. We would’ve left Argilstead together, and I would’ve killed her in the plains.”
“You didn’t have time,” Solsnam said.
“I had seven days,” Vance retorted.
“Seven?” Solsnam looked at Eleanor. “Even after the market purchases?”
“Yes,” Eleanor said. “He got lots of donations before the crime.”
It seemed that this was the first time Solsnam heard this fact. He stopped for a few awkward seconds to consider how it changed things. Then he said, slowly, pensively, “So … he had seven days left?”
“Yes,” Eleanor said again. “This is why Himilco was chasing him around.”
“But if he had seven days, then he could’ve lured Shannon outside Argilstead and killed her in the middle of nowhere,” Solsnam said, finally understanding what Vance had been saying. “This means that he didn’t need to lure her to a private room or kill her inside the House of Turncoats … Nothing makes sense anymore. What was he doing on the ground floor with Shannon? And why did they end up in this bedroom?”
“I was going through a Redspine High,” Vance said, clenching the chance.
***
If Vance had said from the start that he had been going through a Redspine High, Himilco would’ve called him a liar; Eleanor would’ve remained silent; and Solsnam would’ve never believed him. Instead, he went slow and steady and paved the way to bring up the difficult topic. Thanks to this approach, he managed to scratch away the chiseled image of the crazed murderer and to replace it with a more benign one—that of an accidental killer. He was heading in the right direction. Even if the truth remained unclear, he was successfully destroying the evidence against him.
With confidence in his arguments so far, he repeated, “I was going through a Redspine High the whole time. It began while I was watching Eleanor celebrate her appointment, and ended when Himilco came upstairs to wake me up.”
“Are you trying to say that the murder was an accident?” Solsnam said.
“Vermeil Activator doesn’t cause violent tendencies,” Himilco said, rushing the words to make the point before it was too late. “I’m not a rookie mage, and I would never hand out a potion unless I’m aware of its effects. Vermeil Activator has never even caused a brawl or a tussle. And the House of Turncoats is a safe place, where newcomers can use it without fear or worry.”
“I’m not claiming that the murder was an accident or that Vermeil Activator made me do it,” Vance said, carefully choosing his words. “You asked for an explanation for my weird behavior. You asked why I ended up in this bedroom with Shannon. And the Redspine High is the answer.”
“He said he didn’t use the patches,” Himilco quipped.
“Yes, I didn’t,” Vance retorted. “They were stuck to my body while I wasn’t paying attention. The patches were part of an intricate plan to frame me for this murder. A plan that seems to be working.”
“There is no plan to frame you. You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying, Himilco. You’re the one who’s too afraid to see the truth.”
Silence returned to the room. Himilco was worked up; Solsnam was pensive; Eleanor was nonchalant. And Vance was clinging to his last tangible hope. If the Redspine High got denied now, he didn’t know what he would say next. He needed it to be part of the greater narrative, not only because it was part of the truth but also because it brought him one step closer to being called a second victim. And yet Solsnam remained stern and silent. And yet Himilco returned to the window as if to release his bottled-up frustration. All the indicators were negative—all the signs said that the Redspine High theory would be shot down.
Then, all of a sudden, Solsnam headed toward the window-side elephant and said, with pragmatism, “There is a way to know whether he’s lying.”
“Yes, there is,” Himilco grunted.
“We can check the marks left by the patches on his body.”
“Yes, Solsnam. We can do that, but …”
“What are your reservations? It’s not easy to fabricate these marks.”
“I know. But it’s not impossible either, especially if he's a Necronette.”
“Listen, Himilco, I understand your fears. The Dullahans made mistakes in the past and let many Necronettes escape. Our record is not perfect. But we have to follow the evidence wherever it takes us. Let’s see the marks he has on his body. Our findings can bring a swift end to the trial.”
Vance had been watching this heart-to-heart conversation unfold, and when it ended, he found Himilco and Solsnam coming his way. They walked in-sync, with a uniform gait, and stopped right in front of him—standing side by side like a pair of ruffians or bodyguards (depending on perspective). Only a single step separated their Flames of Revival from Vance, and he could sense the tepid heat that emanated from them. What are they gonna do to me? He felt slightly uncomfortable, but then his discomfort died away as he realized that they didn’t intend to harm him.
“This is the moment of truth, Vance Wolfe,” Solsnam said. “You claim you were forced into a Redspine High. And there is a way to verify this claim. A simple examination that will tell us everything.”
“You said something about marks on my body.”
“Yes,” Solsnam said. “Vermeil patches dissolve and leave a distinctive red mark on the skin. We have found five such marks on Shannon’s arm, and they are proof that she had used Vermeil Activator. We want to check your body for similar marks … and see what they can tell us about what happened.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Vance, wait,” Eleanor interrupted. “If they don’t find any red marks, they’ll think you’ve been lying about everything. Are you sure you wanna do this?”
“I’m sure,” Vance said, with resolve.
And accordingly, Solsnam and Himilco began the examination. They raised Vance’s shirt and slid it along his arms until it was caught by his manacles and chains. Then they lowered his pants until they also hit rusty iron. Eleanor, who hadn’t expected them to undress him so fast, looked up from the stone chair, saw him butt naked, and shouted, “You could’ve at least given me a warning!” But neither Solsnam nor Himilco paid any attention to her words. The two were busy with the examination. They tried to locate any red marks on Vance’s skin and to differentiate from all others the special discoloration caused by Vermeil Activator. Autoptic concentration was necessary.
Will they find any marks? Vance grew tense with every passing moment. If they don’t … No, they must. They must. They must. His heart began to beat louder and louder with anxiety and anticipation. I went through a Redspine High. I saw the memories, the dreams, the nightmares. And it won’t make sense for them to find nothing. He clenched his fists and pulled back his toes. The marks are there. He rattled his chains twice and looked down at the shirt hanging between his two manacles. The marks aren’t on my chest. The marks aren’t on my stomach. The marks aren’t on my arms. But they are there. The marks are there. The marks—
“Found them,” Solsnam suddenly said.
And Vance felt as if his soul had been saved from eternal condemnation.
“Where?” Himilco asked.
“Here.” Solsnam pointed out. “On the lower back. Can you see them?”
“Two marks.”
“Yes, but they are rather strange, don’t you think? They seem fake.”
Fake?! Vance saw eternal condemnation returning. No, they can’t be fake!
Himilco put his hand on Vance’s lower back, along the spinal cord, near the cauda equina. He seemed to be concentrating and theorizing and analyzing. A whole minute passed before he felt it appropriate to speak. And when he did, he sounded like a philosopher lost in his own findings. He said, “The outline of the patch marks is dark and pronounced, but the color fades toward the center. This is a sign that the patches were damaged before they were stuck to the skin. And this kind of damage wouldn’t result from carrying the patches in a bag or a pocket. It’s a sign that they were stuck with excessive force … And this location … They were placed here along the spinal cord, as if on purpose … You see, the proximity to the nerves speeds up absorption.”
“What does this mean?” Vance blurted out.
“What can we conclude?” Solsnam asked, with as much impatience.
“A Necronette can’t fake this much detail,” Himilco said. “Vance was going through a Redspine High … And most probably, someone else stuck the patches to his body. It’s a possibility that we can no longer ignore.”