With the tournament over, there wasn't anything to distract people from the exam season. Jacob overhead one second-year in the cafeteria say, "exams in mirror are closer than they appear."

He noticed the pervasive campus security a lot more than before, lingering outside buildings and marching in pairs along campus paths in their dark dusters. If they were right in their assumption of the killer's pattern, they would strike again this week. The clock was ticking, and more than ever Jacob felt the presence of that hidden pact between himself and Father Emil.

In two weeks, the time dilation would be over and people could come and go from campus and the killer would be able to slip away into civilization (if they wanted to), not to mention Jacob would have to go back to Vancouver. He had to catch them before the term ended or else he'd lose his magic.

He wanted to get started on planning immediately, but he didn't think bringing Tanaka and Camilla into the same room the same day of the disastrous Grand Final match would be a good idea. In all honesty, he wasn't sure bringing them into the same room was ever going to be a good idea, but he didn't have any choice.

He messaged them both, planning a meeting for Monday afternoon once Intro got out. He booked one of the clean, simple study rooms that were available in the type magic buildings that he hadn't known about until a couple weeks before when Blake had booked one for them. They had blackboards with markers mostly out of ink, and a long, business-meeting table with a handful of chairs. The best part? They were private and soundproofed.

Jacob paced the study room, anticipating each arrival. He'd told them the other would be there so they'd know, and they'd both —to his surprise—agreed, so it should be fine.

Tanaka opened the door and stepped in.

"D'Angelo's not here yet?" He asked, placing his laptop bag on the table.

"No," Jacob said. The transfer student sounded expectant. Was he planning something? Jacob would have to keep an eye on both of them.

Camilla waltzed in a few minutes later, tote bag over one shoulder. She nodded to Tanaka, then Jacob, and sat down directly across from Tanaka. Jacob tensed, waiting for one of them to say something snide about the other.

"How's the progress on the divination spell?" Camilla asked. She seemed to be directing the question at Tanaka.

Jacob blinked. Were they... friendlier than they had been? What the hell was going on?

"I'm making good progress," Tanaka said. "But Jacob can't get a handle on it to save his life."

"Hey!"

"Decomp is your weak suit," Camilla said.

"I know," Jacob said, plopping himself down in the chair at the head of the table. "I've been really trying, but I can't help it."

"You managed to modify the spell to suit our needs?" Camilla asked Tanaka.

"Yeah. It won't detect anything weaker than a pocket dimension spell, which makes it pretty useless for other things, but it takes far less energy."

"How much less?"

"Tough to say, but I find it much easier. The smaller the spell you want to detect, the more difficult the divination. So this variant is quite cheap. But you know all that, don't you," Tanaka said. It wasn't a question.

Camilla nodded. "How long can you hold it for?"

"Sixteen hours straight, with a few hours for a break in between."

"And you?" Camilla asked Jacob.

"I can only do the regular divination, for a half hour at a time," Jacob said, ashamed of himself.

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"That's still useful. You can give us breaks," Camilla said. "I've been practicing the regular spell myself. I can hold it for two hours at a time. You should teach me the variant today. That way we can cover more than a full day. We can take shifts casting it, with Jacob giving us both a little break in between."

"Who's taking the night shift?" Tanaka asked.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Camilla said.

She pulled her laptop out of her tote bag, along with several strength charts. "As promised, I did some research on the victims. I think it might be able to help us." She handed them the strength charts. "Here are the strength charts of each victim. What do you notice?"

Jacob scanned through them, handing them off to Tanaka when he was done with each one.

"I don't know," Jacob said. "Their affinities are all different. There's guys and girls. One is strongest in Decomp, one in Consumption, the rest Production."

"They're all weak," Tanaka said, eyeing the last one. "Really, really weak."

"I thought the exact same thing," Camilla said.

Jacob snatched the charts back. "You're right..." Not a single one of the victims' peaks came even close to average.

"Not just weak mages, or mages with a bad type or two," Camilla said. "Weak in all three categories. But, I looked up the tournament seedings of the years the victims were from, and while Keighleigh Smith was ranked the lowest in our year, not a single other person was ranked that low. A couple were in the seventies. One in the sixties."

"So, what you're saying is, they're weak, but not necessarily the weakest?" Jacob asked.

"Exactly. Camilla nodded. "I don't know if it's to not make it too obvious who their next victim is, or whether they have a whole bracket of people they consider."

They all mulled that over.

"I don't get it," Tanaka said. "You go to all the effort of sacrificing someone using Ritual Magic in order to increase your own power, and you pick the weakest students?"

"Could be they're easy pickings. Could be some serial killer thing," Camilla shrugged.

"How much power are we talking?" Jacob asked. "Four victims. That can't be that much if I remember the book correctly."

"Tough to say," Camilla said. "They're weak mages, sure, but a boost is still a boost."

"I think it's gotta be a serial killer thing," Tanaka said. "No way you go to all that effort and pick chumps."

"Can we be safe in that assumption?" Jacob asked.

No one had the answer.

Camilla cleared her throat. "What I think we can be safe in assuming is that the killer won't target us."

"They killed Father Emil, though," Jacob said.

"But if they haven't found out we're onto them yet, they won't."

Wishful thinking, but it did make Jacob feel a little more optimistic.

Camilla sighed. "I wished I'd been able to narrow it down a little more, then we could have tailed a couple of the potential victims, but the killer has been too general in their selection."

Crazy. It was all so crazy. Locked on a campus with a killer. Investigating it like they were just playing a game.

"You two know the magic side of this better than I do," Jacob said. "What do you think their process is? Do they make the pocket dimension first or strike their victim first?"

Camilla and Tanaka looked at each other.

"Pocket dimensions are expensive," Tanaka said. "There's no reason to believe a capable mage can't keep one open on their own for a while, but as we found, you can sense them. So, my guess is he's creating it at the last possible minute. Maybe even after he knocks the victim out."

"He'd have to be pretty good with the spell to create one quickly," Camilla said. "You wouldn't want to be standing near an unconscious body while you work the spell."

"Like, faculty good?" Jacob asked.

No one answered. No one wanted to answer.

"How are they moving the bodies, then?" Jacob asked. "They found Keighleigh Smith pretty far from where we found the pocket dimension."

"Maybe they're using a veil," Camilla said.

"Okay, what about this?" Tanaka said. "They knock these people unconscious, use a veil to make themselves invisible, go to a remote or untravelled part of campus, create the pocket dimension, do the ritual, then leave, veil up again, dump the body somewhere else, and walk away like nothing happened. Wait, now that I say it that sounds like a lot of work."

"Yeah."

"I read somewhere that you can move pocket dimensions. Something to do with moving them around within the barrier. Maybe that's what they're doing?" Camilla said.

"Any way to be sure?"

"I don't know."

"So, we're pretty confident they're waiting to make the pocket dimension until they're committing the crime. That means we're gonna have to be quick," Jacob said.

"And we're gonna need round the clock surveillance," Camilla said.

"Well, I doubt they're going to strike in the middle of the day. Nighttime has been the pattern," Tanaka said.

"Are you betting someone's life on that?" Jacob asked.

"I'd say it's a safe bet."

"But still a bet."

"Yes."

"Jesus Christ," Jacob grunted. "Do detectives make bets? Like, would a police detective bank on evidence like that?"

The trouble was, nobody knew.

"We can do an around the clock vigil," Camilla said. "A magic stakeout, like you mentioned, Jacob."

"Are you both up for that?" Jacob asked. "That's asking a lot of you."

They both looked at Tanaka. He shrugged. "Don't think I'm gonna study much for exams, so I got nothing better to do now."

"I want to study," Camilla said. "But I can spare time this week."

"It's nothing crazy," Tanaka said. "You and I both can cast a spell with minimal attention, and once it's up you almost don't need to think about it."

"Okay," Jacob said. "Let's do it."