I looked as serious and committed as humanly possible. The trial would only be more delicate as it continued, but I was determined to pull everyone along with me. I spoke calmly and softly, forcing them to pay attention to hear me.

“It became clear that none of the easy answers were correct,” I said. “We were being led astray by concentrating on motive. After all, perhaps the culprit’s aim had nothing to do with Candidate Bethany as individual. Perhaps the motive was to have Candidate Lordemy attend the bonding as the replacement. Perhaps the motive was to intentionally blood the dragonets in a Cammion plot. Perhaps the motive was to delay or cancel the entire bonding ceremony.”

Or perhaps it was someone who wanted the ceremony moved to a new location. I could see everyone think that, but I didn’t say it. And since I hadn’t said it, there was no avenue for Academy Leader Darkwater to complain about it. He did twitch in his seat, but he wasn’t the only one.

I continued, “Assistant Oxenden and I continued to investigate and slowly a pattern came together. Many things that seemed at first glance to be unrelated turned out to be directly connected to the death. I have been hesitant whether to come forward, or to continue to investigate and find even more evidence. But the dragon attack earlier revealed we couldn’t risk taking any further time. This is what we have. I ask for your patience and attention, even when it might initially seem irrelevant.”

I wanted control the flow of information. People trusted conclusions more when they thought they had come to them by themselves, even if those conclusions were a direct result of very specific and engineered information. Assistant Oxenden returned with the next witness. As he returned to our chairs, he slipped me another note and placed a bottle of sweetly smelling water on the table.

“Firstly,” I said, “I would like to stress how important it is to be entirely open and honest with us. I’m going to need you to resist the temptation to be polite and downplay anything. I promise that nothing you say today will get you into any trouble. The Academy Leaders will back me up on this.”

Luckily for my dignity, the academy leaders did. Or, at least, they were willing to claim so. I was concerned the witness would try to be ‘polite’ to avoid Academy Leader Darkwater’s retaliation. I knew that Academy Leader Darkwater would have other things to worry about, but my witness didn’t.

“You brought in an ice maker tool for the enrichment of the dragons,” I said. “Could you briefly explain how the tool functions?”

“Umm,” he said. “You write the circle on something that will make the core of the ice, like a piece of wood or fruit. Then you run the tool, touching it to the existing ice, spraying with water as you go. It freezes in place. Then you add whatever else as you build up the layers.”

“I understand it ended up confiscated,” I said. “Can you tell me a bit about that?”

The witness leaned forward, both hands on the table. “Academy Leader Darkwater said the students would use it for pranks. And I mean, yeah, kids are inventive. I’m sure they could have found some way. But they wouldn’t be anything dangerous. We put in safeguards. It wouldn’t freeze any living flesh. You couldn’t even use it to freeze something in an unreachable position. We added everything we could think of. And if we missed anything, we could have just added another protection. There was no call to just outright ban it.”

So much for being concerned he wouldn’t be willing to talk. Stopping him from talking might have been more difficult. His weight was all the way forward on his hands, and I had to resist the instinct to take a step back.

“Could it be used to freeze clothing to a structure?” I asked. “Even if someone was still wearing them?”

“I guess,” he said, finally easing up. “It would only stop when it came to the skin layer. But the tool isn’t that subtle, and it isn’t very fast. It’s not like someone would just stand there and let it happen.”

“Is it particularly noisy?” I asked.

“No, not at all,” he said. “It’s entirely silent. I just meant the temperature drop is very noticeable. You couldn’t take a prank victim unaware.”

I then walked him through a hypothetical that confused him. My audience, on the other hand, figured out what I was really asking, one by one. I could see it happening with every glance over to them.

Could someone build ice up against a structure? Inside the corner of two structures? Could someone build ice in a second location close to the first? How strong is the ice? How long would it take to defrost?

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Once I’d dismissed the witness, I turned to the audience to reenforce the conclusion. “It would have been easy to construct an ice platform at the corner of the viewing platform, place someone on it, and secure them in place with more ice. Later, when the ice melted, the person would fall exactly here.”

I tapped the marked location of Candidate Bethany’s head.

“We don’t need to wonder why Candidate Bethany returned to the viewing platform,” I said. “She never left. She was rendered unconscious, placed in position, and left behind. By the time of her death, the killer was safely somewhere else with an irreproachable alibi.”

I gave them some time to absorb that, but not enough for them to ask questions. I moved on to a witness that I’d had to least hope of Assistant Oxenden finding, but he’d succeeded. His work truly was on another level.

I asked, “Can you explain a little what your duties are with regards to the old section storeroom inventory?”

“Yes, Hero Percy,” he said. “I monitor the consumables for the students, excluding foods. It’s my job to track how everything is used, predict the future usage, and ensure that we always have a sufficient supply.”

“To clarify,” I said, “You do not ration, charge for, or any way restrict people from access to the items, correct? You simply monitor and order replacements?”

“That’s correct,” he said. “I might occasionally suggest one of those options, other people handle that. I just record.”

“In other words,” I said, “there is no obvious reason why anyone would go behind your back to remove anything surreptitiously?”

“None that I can see, no,” he agreed.

“Could you tell me about the current levels of essence of dragon lure?” I asked.

“That’s been a concern,” he admitted. “When we did a recent reconciliation of the inventory, we were missing a significant amount. The students don’t need it often, but when they do, they really do. We may not have enough to last us until the next resupply.”

“Could this be a result of the additional requirements by the new section?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “That was all already accounted for. We predicted that we’d need additional before the move and increased the order ahead of time. Besides which, the old section actually uses a much larger quantity than the new. In a mature dragon, you want small doses, you see. Just enough for them to disregard territorial anxiety. You don’t give them enough to make them lure-drunk and so lacking in fear that they attack everything and anything. In juvenile dragons, you do need that amount. We use it to get them over the fear of their first flight, or stress after a near accident, or anything else that’s making them anxious.”

I thanked and excused the witness. The audience was getting bored, and it was time to change that. I signalled to Assistant Oxenden. He returned with another note, and the leader of the search team. As agreed, this would be phase one on their input.

“On my own authority,” I said, “I requested a search to be made as soon as this meeting started. Can you explain what you found and where?”

> Interesting that elsewhere His Devotion, Saint Percival the Investigator, uses ‘we’. Here he specifies that he was operating alone.

I met him to take the items from him as he spoke.

“We found these vials of the essence of dragon lure,” he said, sounding painfully neutral. “Roughly half of them empty. They were in a chest at the bottom of the bed of Academy Leader Darkwater’s rooms.”

“You can’t just—” started Academy Leader Darkwater, coming to his feet in indignation.

While everyone was looking at Academy Leader Darkwater, I put the tiny bottles in a prominent place on my table. More accurately, I put most of them down. I hid one of the full ones in my palm for phase two.

I put up my hand. “Please, Academy Leader Darkwater. If you wish to speak, let us least do it properly. Take the witness chair, and we can cover some questions.”

That worked surprisingly well. I was amazed again at how much respect the people here had for Heroes.

> His Devotion, Saint Percival the Investigator, underestimates his own personal charisma. It is highly doubtful that they would have granted a different Hero so much autonomy.

The searcher was sent back to the witness area, and Academy Leader Darkwater sat down in the seat aggressively. My questioning did not improve his mood. Yes, he’d confiscated the ice maker, but no, he had no idea what had happened to it. No, he hadn’t known about Candidate Bethany’s disability, and yes, he’d had access to the intent forms. Yes, he’d been in his rooms before the purification ceremony, and no, he couldn’t prove it. Yes, it would have helped him politically if the bonding ceremony had been transferred, but no, I was insane for suggesting he’d kill someone over it.

“Finally, I’d like to ask you about the dragon lure,” I said. “Did you know that it was there?”

“I don’t understand what your obsession is with the dragon lure,” he said, not seeming to notice he was repeating words previously spoken to him. “No, I didn’t know it was in that chest, and yes, it shouldn’t have been there. But that hardly justifies searching my rooms! Maybe someone put it there by mistake. Maybe I did put it there and have just forgotten all about it. What possible difference does it make? The dragon lure shortage was inconvenient, but the lure itself isn’t a precious substance. I wouldn’t achieve anything by taking some. It proves nothing.”

“That’s precisely where you’re wrong,” I said. “It proves you were not the person responsible.”

Memo to Self

- Survive [success!]

- Bluff my way out of my escape attempt

- - Distract by presenting a theory for Bethany's death