Without a single word for refuting, Savannah stayed silent, mind a white page from a new book. Seconds volatilized in despair. And before her brain came with a statement, a pretext for her unexplainable mercy for Mr. Hendrickson's situation, Lord Shiva forwarded: "Let me guess, he asked you to eliminate Seaben?"

She watched him inhaling slowly, loudly, making his disappointment patent:" You became reckless when someone offers you a slim chance to solve your problems. You won't think about the overall outcome as long as you get rid of what is bothering you in the present. That's why you get yourself exploited."

Shiva took a quick look at her aloof face. Honestly, one of the many reasons Savannah occupied a prominent place on his ladder. Oblivious when she shows mercy, sympathetic to those she considers accomplices. What a cocktail of dangerous blind spots. Looking at her, she clearly didn't grasp what he implied.

"Did you forget that you can't kill without a scythe? Or do you overlook the accident ten years ago?"

" No, "Savannah hushed. The mention of that gloomy day of her black history petrified her soul. "He didn't ask me to kill your dealer or anyone for that to boot. " Her words rapidly quit her lips, for she hated this topic to the core. However, her attention was brought to a point she was ignorant of.

Before Shiva spoke about the matter of the Chimera magus, Savannah didn't question why Nicolai didn't ask her to eliminate Seaben.

" Really?" The lord cut her train of thought, saving her the expense of returning to the reality: "When I talked to Nicolai before the dinner, he couldn't shut up about Seaben's betrayal and how much he suffered from it."

" Lord Shiva, according to you, what is the hidden intention of Mr. Hendrickson by wanting to eliminate the magus Chimera?" For Savannah, Nicolai wanting the magus Chimera's death was reasonable and legitimate. A traitor's end should soak in bloody disgrace and appalling pain. After all, she was going herself to slay that Magus whether Nicolai asked her to do it or not.

"Don't rush and think a little about it," Shiva began to explain. "If Seaben gets eliminated early, Nicolai wants us to believe that he killed him because of his treachery. This is only on the surface, His buried motive as I see it, Nicolai wanted to keep only one version of the story - obviously his own version- of what exactly had happened on the farm and how he lost it to the blood demon."

Being perspective, not requiring a further argument, Savannah stood speechless, aghast against Lord Shiva's cogent reasoning. She never took the matter from this angle. And airing Mr. Hendrickson's motive this way was more consistent with his personality.

Her eyes followed Lord Shiva back as he walked towards the window. She wanted to praise his quick wit and profound logic. However, his words outrun her lips: "If he didn't ask you to eliminate Seaben, perhaps I am overthinking." Pretending to be humble, Lord Shiva emphasized.

"No, you are not wrong in your suspicions." Savannah declared, the fog water around her disturbed, its turbulent movements generated by inhaling, exhaling succumbed into chaos: "He asked me to keep the coffin that dealer of yours took with him and safeguard it."

"A coffin?"

"What if Nicolai had asked somebody else to get rid of the magus?" After this realization, Savannah hurriedly walked towards the door. In her mind, only one prominent thought is to catch up with the butler carriage before the magus gets eliminated.

Leaving Lord Shiva's silhouette slowly eaten by the thick water fog. The latter flapped with his wings to facilitate the fog disperses, content: "Let's see what you are trying to bury by Seaben's death, my dear almighty seer."

***

Akin to lightning speed, Savannah reached her sister's personal chamber. She stormed inside without knocking, frenzied, yelling: "Kanari… Kanari… Where are you? Where did you hide the permits that I asked you to prepare for me?…"

Not wasting any second of her time, she was searching through the desk, under the bed, between accessories... No chance for slacking.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Her sister emerged from a small door, frustrated, her hair soaking wet, wearing only a bathrobe. The displeasure shone her face red due to the interruption:" Stop yelling, even dead heard you." Sweeping her palm over her face, eliminating the scare droplets of water. "Why don't you just go down and tell the world about them?" Kanari upheld the fact that if her mother found out about those illegal permits, she won't get her hand on the Crocotta official seal for the next decades.

"Sorry… Sorry, but I am truly in a hurry." Hands bowing down, softening the ambiance, the older sister apologized yet in haste.

Kanari sighed, eyebrows scowl smoothed. Then she walked into the lair where she has stashed those illegal permits. It was between the cushion fabric.

Meanwhile, she sought the opportunity to inquire about their usefulness. "So, for whom you need all those illegal permits?"

This question startled Savannah, yet she reserved the oblivious look: "Of course, for Rokah and the Amarok."

"Then, you don't need all the three of them…" Kanari playing the mischievous part. She finally pulled out the three signed permits that she had prepared. Then, glares directed at her sister, getting to the important part:" We are in this together. What are you not telling me?"

Savannah didn't wait for another petition, her sister a master in an emotional ruse. A carbon copy of their mother. Better not let her start. Ignorance will be at her side when everything reached a revelation.

She used the advantage of being taller - approximately by a head and half - then swiftly moved her hand to snatch the permits away, motion like the graceful breeze, cool and smooth. When she reached the opening of the room, she threw several words about being sorry for this sneaky conduct as well as being in an extreme emergency before she left the room, leaving a faint trace of fog.

Reluctant to accept what just happened, Kanari chased after her back to the vacuum of corridors. With the flush of bath warmth mixed with the shallowness of anger, Kanari stopped her pursuit when she realized that she will never catch her.

Abandoned in the cold, and darkness, between the stiff unconscious Chimeras, Kanari's eyes shine akin to a candle's flame near its quench. Her heart throbbed with doubts. "Really Savannah, all those hide-and-seek games we were playing were solely for you to retrieve a piece of jewelry you have lost. No, this can't be the entire story. What are you hiding?"

****

Another obstacle faced Savannah as she finally made her way outside the main house. In fact, her mother seemed as if she was waiting for her.

When those pale yellow eyes glittered in the darkness like a pair of twin stars, Savannah, in a full running state, halted arbitrarily. She couldn't pretend that she didn't hear her mother's soft calls.

Those glittering eyes that looked like they were suspended on a thick black shadow approached Savannah's position. "Where are you going?"

"After the treacherous Chimera dealer," Savannah answered while her eyes spotted Kanari's notebook in her mother's right hand.

"Didn't we agree that you won't leave the farm unless our new associate does first?"

"Mother, it's not like you need my presence that bad. You are here, Lord Shiva is here, and sister Surveen will get here, if not at the down at least in the morning."

"Why then the change of heart?" Lady Akila eyed suspiciously: "If you wanted him, why wait until now? Why let him flee in the first place? Didn't you say the patrolling guards will take care of him?"

"Mum, I was just being lazy. Besides, at that time, I didn't have a plausible reason to waste time and effort on him."

"Hmm, what changed then?"

Savannah clenched her fist. The time was passing on, and every second made her target reach farther. Moreover, what's wrong with this interrogation?

"I am just worried. What if the Chimera dealer dies before he gets caught by the patrol? If so, we will have to make do with Mr. Hendrickson's version of the story."

"Mm, so you think Hendrickson still has a pawn capable enough to face a Chimera magus…, Do those suspicions of yours have a valid basis?"

Those inquiries were not coming from a mother's natural solicitude instinct. Those are inquiries made by an investigator, a detective. Savannah harnessed the ability to distinguish the difference. To figure out when her mother acts as a mother or as a clan leader.

"No, but I will feel safer if I catch him first."

Eyes on eyes, it was a fraction of a second of mutual observations, lasted like an eternity for Savannah. Her mother, at least, changed the subject: "It's most likely he will take the quickest road to Babel, the biggest city in the region. If you get there before me, make sure to give your uncle this message." Akila teared up a few pages from the notebook and handed them to Savannah while she clarified: "Tell him the hospital food supplies will start again before the new moon."

Folding the papers and storing them in one of her pockets, Savannah's eyes didn't strand from her mother's face. At a predator's face, calm, serene, and awfully dangerous. She sensed that there was something wrong, but she couldn't fathom its essence.

"Savannah…" the light of her mother's eyes intensified, sealing a raging flame. "Is there something else you want to tell me?".

It was apparent that Akila suspected her daughter of doing something stupid and risky. But why she isn't yelling, scolding, or warning like every time? Why this patience and strange treatment of flexibility?

With those dancing dilemmas, Savannah didn't have much time to mold over them. She sprinted into the night world, racing a free arrow after whispering the word "No." in a low tone.