Savannah resolved to give Lord Shiva some privacy to dress while taking the opportunity to have a private chat with her sister. The two of them walked to the chamber where Kanari used to stay as a guest. All the way Kanari didn’t waste a second complaining about lord Shiva's indecent conduct.

“Do you think he did it on purpose? Those demons are famous for being lascivious.” She whined. Savannah felt sorry for all the hearsay about demons that label all creatures in one group and sought to defend Lord Shiva's honor: “I am sure it was an unintended accident.”

Kanari complained more: “How so? He appeared wearing that stupid goblin skin, then he only took it off when we were alone.”... She stopped before she said in suspicion, rolling her eyes at her sister's back: “He did it on purpose.”

Savannah sighed. She didn’t desire to argue on this stupid subject, because if things get deeper. Questions will rain on her like a plague, and she didn’t wish to implicate Kanari in her personal problems more than she already had. She claimed in fabricating consensus: “Ah, yeah, yeah. He is a big pervert.”

Kanari sensed the falseness in those words. Her irritation shifted the target and landed on her sister's outline. She hurried to catch up to her, then she blocked the way. Lips pursed on each other, a furrowed brow, Savannah asked: "What!" pretending to be clueless.

Kanari gave her a long, discontented stare without uttering a word. She just turned around and moved forward, unlocking the Chamber door. She signaled to her standing still sister to follow her…

Closing the door, Savannah remained oblivious to this strange, out-of-character behavior. Her eyes followed Kanari's movements as she searched under the bed pillows until she pulled out a notebook. Swinging it left and right, she finally opened it. Turning page after page before she revealed to Savannah a perfect white page.

Savannah looked at her in confusion, and before she could ask, Kanari stated: “It means that I have lost all connections with him.”

“Rokah?” Savannah demanded clarification.

“Who else.”

Another sigh escaped Savannah's chest, but this one was reflective rather than sarcastic. She sat on the bed and took the notebook in her hands, turning and skimming over the pages before she asked: “When does it start?”

“About three days ago, firstly it was a simple cut out, then suddenly the connection stopped at once.”

“From your point of view, what does that mean? Explain like I am five years old.”

“It means that his personality was developed to the point where he can make his own decision and ignore most of the unconscious orders that I will give him. It’s like having a free will to a certain degree.”

Savannah leaned her head to the floor and thought about Rokah's last action. He was the one behind the Chimera uproar after he exposed the tavern massacre. The same massacre she wanted to clean in silence, so she would avoid getting into trouble with her mother.

She nodded with her head, then she said: “hmm, this caused me a few problems. Well, Isn’t that what we hoped for? Will your plan work?”

Kanari sat with her and answered: “Yes, but I think the development was rapid. Must be there something that induced it and I want to observe it for future reference. It also means that we don’t have much time left. I think you should release him.”

Savannah gazed into her sister's eyes. “This is it. Then I only need to track where he goes.” And Kanari reciprocated: "Yes. He will be your animated compass for a limited time, thus you need to act quickly."

Savannah rubbed her sister's head and said, her voice was a cluster of enthusiasm and joy: "Thank you, Kanari, you are a genius. I will make sure to bring you a present when I return." Then she stood up and walked to the door.

Because of her eagerness, Savannah didn’t notice her mother's presence outside the room, therefore when she opened the door, all her energy exploded in her heart from the unexpected shock. A sensation resembled a heart attack.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“You are going to track whom?” Akila said in a low enraged tone as she wore the complexion of a judge going to enunciate his verdict.

“No one,” Kanari answered.

“The Chimera Magus, who helped the Count, I saw him fleeting,” Savannah said at the same time.

The two of them were out of synchronization. They are lying. And Akila already had a notion regarding their little conspiracy -for some time now- but she didn’t tire herself in finding out what it could be until Mr. Hendrickson brought the informer issue. An informer who he thought he was one of Akila's creations. It was how Akila concluded that this little conspiracy wasn’t actually a little conspiracy since it involves the art of animation. Thus, she articulated offering her anger an apparent resonance: "Who is this mysterious informer that you have sent before our arrival?"

The two girls found themselves cornered. They can’t lie anymore. The only option they were left with was, to tell the truth.

Savannah stepped forward before her sister began to spill all the truth. She still had a little hope of getting her mother to believe what she was going to say by stating just a part of the whole truth. Thereby, she started by defending her sister and excluding her from the interrogation: “It’s all my fault, Ma, Kanari had nothing to do with it. I forced her to help me.”

“No, mother…” Kanari protested. She was trembling.

Akila's eyes moved between the two of them back and forth several times, then she said: “you better start explaining.”

Savannah placed her right hand behind her back and gestured to Kanari to keep quiet. After she brought a chair to her mother to sit on it in an attempt to earn a few seconds to craft a perfect half-lie. When she felt ready, she finally said: “well… do you remember Bi-an? That stupid Hendrickson gets her destroyed.”

Her face displayed a hint of grief. This grief wasn’t. fake. That’s why it passed her mother's radar. Then she continued: “Because you didn’t give her to me, I was irritated and pestered Kanari to make one for me. That’s all.”

The sight of Akila's glimmering eyes didn’t subside, nor did her anger dissipate. Savannah felt immense pressure to say more.

“We borrowed one of your models. Kanari followed the instruction and animated it for my sake. I am the one who convinced her, if you desire to punish someone, then it is me.”

The silence reigned over the Chamber while Akila moved her eyes to see Kanari staring at the floor displaying a certain shame.

She stood up, her hand covering her face, directing her word to Kanari: “Did you understand the danger you have put yourself in? Animating a humanoid personality is not just risky, is also depriving. How many times should I repeat this?" she paused, waiting for a reaction from Kanari and when her eyes never left the floor, she continued: "I bet that why your agility and sense of smell were reduced dramatically??"

The two girls seemed shocked because they didn't pay attention to this risky change. They looked at each other in horror while their mother shouted. "You must stop the process now. Where is the programming support?" then spotted the notebook in Savannah's hand. Akila threatened in an angry tone after she snatched it away: “I will deal with the both of you later when we return home. You better not cause more trouble.”

“Oh, my head…” Akila whined as she shut the notebook, and she left the chamber, leaving the two sisters alone.

Savannah cut off the gloomy stillness: "Thank god, we are saved for now.” She looked at her sister and asked her: "are you feeling good? Are mother exaggerating about your agility and sense of smell?"

Kanari followed up. “I feel a bit tired. I will be better since the connection was severed, but I am dead if she found out that this isn’t the standard conventional animation.”

“We will be both dead if she found out the whole truth. That’s why. We need to make sure that she will never find out, maybe for the next hundred years.”

A kind of panic atmosphere saturated the room. Each one of the sisters worked her brain for a solution until Kanari put her thoughts in question: “who do you think told her about him?”

“Who else but Hendrickson?”

“Didn’t you say that he is nearly blind?”

“He didn’t use his foresight. He probably made direct contact with him.”

Savannah's statement wasn’t on a whim. She formulated this theory the last time she gave Rokah a quick visit. Particularly after she picked up the smell of fumes of burned papers. However, her assumption was vague and not backed up with strong evidence. As yet, everything fell into its corresponding place. And the big picture of the last events presented itself.

Rokah used the Chimera uproar as a decoy to sneak inside the manor and meet Hendrickson. He helped the latter to burn the remaining contracts of the Magus and obtain the name register. That was why the barrier got destroyed days before the due date.

“He is so intelligent. Is that what Kanari had meant by having a free will?” Savannah murmured into her heart.

“But the unanswered question is: in exchange for what? Rokah granted all this priceless service to Hendrickson.”

Savannah thought that she must award Mr. Hendrickson a visit before her mother will talk to him a second time.

She addressed her sister inquired about her schedule. “What are you going to do?”

“I should deliver the token of passage to the Count.”

“Good, do it then. And leave this problem for me.”

“What do you mean…, what are you going to do?” Savannah was at the door when she heard Kanari's question. Nevertheless, she offered her a quick hint: “I need to meet Hendrickson before Mother.”