Alistair pointed. Everyone stared.

“Me?” Tristan pointed at himself, shocked.

“It all starts and ends with you,” Alistair said.

Bjorn stepped forward, reaching for Tristan.

“No, no. Not yet,” Alistair cautioned, raising his hand to Bjorn.

The [Barbarian] stepped back into the door, crossing his arms once more.

“Tristan, dear Tristan. Last night, you left the house early and spent all night at the bar. I haven’t confirmed this, but it doesn’t matter. The point… is that you were not in the house, and no one present can confirm your presence or alibi.” Alistair shook his head. “And that is the primary problem.”

“You can confirm my alibi. Go to the bar! Go to the bar, and ask the bartender!” Tristan said, panicking. “I didn’t do it, I swear I didn’t!”

Alistair shook his head. “That is not what matters. What matters… is that poor, beloved Millie thought you did.”

Tristan froze. “Wh—what?”

The [Detective] spread his palms. “You are an adventurer’s child, the [Hero]’s son. You may have thrown away your potential in preferring to drink and gamble, but nonetheless, you are as capable as any low-level adventurer. You had the potential to capture a mimic and deliver it to this room, and Millie thought you had.”

“But, but I… I wouldn’t. I didn’t hate my father. We fought, yes. I complained a lot. I wasn’t fond of the old man. But to kill him? In cold blood? I would—I would never! I—” Tristan took a deep breath. He gulped.

Alistair waited, fingers knitted together. He quirked his eyebrow expectantly.

Tristan sighed. He waved at the bodies on the floor. “I can’t handle blood. I don’t like pain. Dad always saw me as a bit of a coward because of that, and I—I guess I can’t blame him. I wasn't suited to be an adventurer... I don't think Dad ever got over that. No, we didn't get along. How could we? His expectations... how is it possible to live up to the expectations of the [Hero], when you have a fear of blood?

"But I wouldn’t kill him. Dad and I didn’t get along, but at the end of the night, we’re family. I wouldn’t… what even is the point of having an inheritance? I can already drink and gamble my life away with what I have. Why would I need more?”

“Gambling debt?” Alistair suggested.

Tristan shrugged. “I act the idiot playboy, but I’m not actually stupid. My life’s goal is to live a good, effortless life and die an old man. I gamble, but with care. Penny-ante. Tame cards with friends. I might have gone out and had a fun night on the town if I inherited and sold this creaky old place, but…”

Alistair tilted his head. “But… did Millie know that? She heard your complaints, your wild tales about nights on the town, knew you and your father didn’t get along, knew you’d argued… and then Harold winds up dead, to a monster that only someone skilled as an adventurer could capture.” Alistair parted his hands and shrugged. “Millie heard what happened, and she thought you had done it. She panicked. More than anything, she wanted to protect you. So she ran off to the garret.”

“She went to get water, and she came back with water. She didn’t have time to go to the garret,” Mabel interjected.

“In a house that has no access to water from plumbing or spells, do you really fetch your water fresh from the well every time? Did Millie not keep a carafe on hand, in case you needed water at a moment’s notice?” Alistair asked.

Mabel opened her mouth, then shut it. She nodded. “We did, but…”

“She likely used that instead of fresh well water for the tea, bypassing the time required to visit the well. By now, she would have refilled the carafe. There’s no evidence left, no point in looking for it.” Alistair took a deep breath and looked at Mabel. “If I may…?”

“Oh, my apologies. Continue,” Mabel said, nodding.

“Where was I…? Oh, yes. Millie ran to the garret. There, she found the bloodstained mirror. When she approached, it would have smelled of blood, and perhaps even shifted or chewed. Tristan?” Alistair asked.

Tristan bit his lip. “I… I did teach her how to detect mimics. Just the life-saving basics. In case… well, in case someone tried to hurt Dad, to keep Millie alive.”

Alistair nodded. “Millie recognized the mimic. She knew it had just eaten. Tristan, you surely taught her that a sated mimic is a safe mimic?”

Tristan nodded, tears welling up in his eyes.

“She took the mimic-mirror off the wall and hid it somewhere. Likely behind the desk. Because, behind there, she would have found the real mirror, and hung it back up.” Alistair walked over to the desk and pulled it away from the wall. A smudge of blood streaked the wall behind the desk, a light transfer where the bloody mirror had made contact.

“How did you know it was hidden behind there?” Mabel asked.

“There’s nowhere else in the room large enough to hide the mirror,” Alistair said, shrugging. “Once I determined that it was a mimic, it was simple enough to deduce where it would be hidden.”

“Ah.” Mabel nodded.

“But… Mimics can’t reflect. That’s… one of the rules. A mimic can’t become a mirror,” Tristain said, furrowing his brows.

Alistair raised a finger. “I’ll come to that. For now, we’re following the tragic tale of Millie.”

Tristan nodded, falling silent.

“Millie had successfully disguised the murder weapon, but she knew she was on borrowed time. Once a mimic has digested its prey and is ready to feed again, it changes shape. Evolutionarily speaking, this is so that creatures don’t learn to avoid the mimic’s mimicked form, and never again draw near enough for it to feed. She knew she had to return and fetch the mimic before it changed shape, for two reasons. One, she knew the mimic was the mirror, and knew where it was—morphed mimics do not move. Two, a mimic doesn’t change shapes until it’s ready to feed again—in other words, in its new shape, the mimic would be deadly dangerous, and could be anything in the room.”

“Is that what she was going to do, when I found her cleaning the room?” Mabel asked accusatorily.

“Likely. I suspect she was using ‘cleaning the room’ as cover to scope out the area and figure out if she had enough time to remove the bulky mimic. Unfortunately, we interrupted her before she could remove the mimic, which leads us to our current scenario.” Alistair gestured at Millie on the floor. “She returned while everyone was locked away in the lounge to fetch the mimic, but it was too late. The mimic was ready to feed once more. And it fed.”

“But—then, we’re all in danger!” Lord Faitan said, panicked.

“Not at all. Were you listening in the least? The mimic has fed. Until it transforms again, we are all safe.” Alistair bent and scooped up Harold’s diary from the ground. He held open the pages, showing them nonsense markings and half-formed letters. “I can hold it as easily as this with no fear whatsoever.”

“By the gods!” Mabel grabbed at her necklace and jumped back, startled.

Lord Faitan pressed his back to the wall, his eyes huge. "That is the mimic?"

"Mimics are incapable of replicating precise detail, particularly on the internal parts of their mimicked forms. After all, there's little need to replicate the exact letters of a book when your goal is merely to fool someone into getting close enough to eat," Alistair reasoned. He turned the book over, showing them the blood on the back of the cover. "And combining that with the slender cuts on Millie's arms and legs, almost like papercuts... well, it was simple to deduce what the mimic had become. Seeing the messy internal text on the pages merely confirmed my hypothesis."

Tristan and Bjorn reached for weapons, only for their hands to fall empty.

"Get away from it!" Tristan snarled.

"I told you. It's perfectly inert," Alistair said, shaking his head.

The pages ruffled under a wind no one could feel. The room tensed.

Lady Aiden raised a hand and whispered a few words, glowing eyes focused on the mimic.

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Startled, Lord Faitan jumped at her. “She’s casting a spell! Trying to erase the evidence!”

Lady Aiden threw her hands out. Black energy wrapped around the mimic, and it froze. A second later, Lord Faitan slammed into her, knocking her aside.

“Lord Faitan, please. Unhand the lady. Honestly, do you call yourself gentlemen? Two of you beating up a mere lady. Where’s your conscience?” Alistair lectured him.

Lord Faitan looked at Lady Aiden, then at the frozen mimic and unharmed Alistair. Slowly, he released Lady Aiden and backed up, putting his hands up. “My apologies. I panicked.”

“It is merely a capture spell. The same kind cast on monsters to make them freeze,” Lady Aiden said gently.

“No need to apologize, no need at all. Catch.” Alistair tossed the mimic at Lord Faitan.

Lord Faitan leaped and caught it. “Careful, my man! These things are delicate!”

All eyes landed on Lord Faitan. He stared back, then dropped the mimic and jumped back. “Ah! Are you trying to kill me?”

“No, but you were trying to kill Harold,” Alistair said. His smile returned, pulling his lips tight. “Lord Faitan, why did you murder the ex-[Hero]?”

“Me? I did nothing of the sort,” Lord Faitan returned, putting his hands on his hips.

Alistair waved his hand. “Let’s review the evidence. First, you brought a chilled package here, about the size and shape of a wine bottle. Now then, Tristan. Can you tell me a few facts about mimic biology?”

“Me? Uh… mimics, they’re very dangerous, unless they’ve just eaten, or it’s very cold out. They’re cold blooded and fall into a state of hibernation once the temperature hits… a low enough…” Tristan fell silent. He stared at Lord Faitan.

“What? What a ridiculous accusation,” Lord Faitan snarled. “Just because I had a cold package…”

“A cold package, perfect to transfer a hungry mimic in. A hibernating mimic will wake up starving, and is likely to attack the first thing it lays eyes on, regardless of class or levels.” Alistair nodded at Lord Faitan. “You left dinner early, as did everyone else. You had enough time to fetch the mimic, take it upstairs, and place it in the garret.”

“Nonsense. This is balderdash,” Lord Faitan said. He whirled to the door.

Bjorn raised his eyebrows. He didn’t move from the doorframe.

Lord Faitan gritted his teeth. He whirled again and glared at Alistair. “Trapping me here with a mimic… what is the meaning of this?”

“What was the meaning of putting the mimic in Harold’s room? That is the next question we must examine. Why did Lord Faitan kill Harold?” Alistar wondered aloud.

“We’re simply accepting that I’m the killer and moving on to the motive?” Lord Faitan objected.

“No, no. Ah, right. I should finish my explanation. After all, there’s still the question of how the mimic reflected Mabel and Harold, so that they didn’t question it.” Alistair turned to Mable. “The paper packaging, please?”

“Right here.” Mabel held it out to him.

“Thank you.” Taking the packaging, Alistair plucked at the edges, then pulled the paper apart from the edge, revealing two pieces of brown paper glued together. Shiny powder burst out, glittering on the floor.

“That—that proves nothing!” Lord Faitan protested.

“Mabel, some water?” Alistair requested.

Mabel rushed off. She returned with a carafe and held it out to him.

Alistair poured the water on the powder. The two mingled together. Shiny bits of powder swirled on the surface of the water, swirling around, while other parts mixed with the water and became heavy and weighted.

“You’ve made mud,” Lord Faitan pointed out, scoffing.

Holding his hand over the mixture, Alistair closed his eyes, then opened them.

[Evidence Reconstruction] [Recast Spell]

The powder and the water mixed fully and completely, creating a shiny silver paint. Alistair knelt. He dipped his fingers into the mix and dragged some of it over the floor. The paint dried almost instantly, providing a mirror coat silver surface on the wood.

“Enchanted paint. It’s a bit of an old trick, and out of style, but someone with an old house and a deep memory would remember it. In this case, the paint powder is barely enchanted. Silver powder would have already brought it close, and a simple enchantment finishes the job.

“Lord Faitan crept up to the garret while everyone else was at dinner with his chilled mimic, as the mimic was warming up and coming back to life. He pointed the mimic at Harold’s mirror. The mimic formed the shape of the mirror frame, and Lord Faitan painted the mirror on its surface. He left the mimic on the wall and hid the real mirror away behind the desk. The real mirror has dust on its frame, so it’s no surprise if the frame isn’t reflective, especially in the dark of night, when Harold enters his study. Mirrors cannot eat people, and mimics cannot be mirrors. But if a mimic is painted with a mirrored surface, now we reach the point at which the garret sat that fateful night, when Harold arrived.”

Closing the glue-lined paper back up, Alistair handed it back to Mabel. “Keep that safe. It’s crucial evidence.”

“Yes,” Mabel replied, nodding.

Lord Faitan scowled. “Meaningless.”

“Meaningful, and quite so. Lord Faitan, you will have to face the courts for the murder of Harold. But for now, let us return to the question of why.” Alistair regarded the group of people, then nodded. “And as fate would have it, the ‘why’ is also here with us today.” He smiled at Lady Aiden.

“Me?” Lady Aiden asked, startled.

“Ah—my apologies, Lady. I did not mean you were part of the conspiracy, but rather… you were what motivated Lord Faitan to strike.” Alistair cleared his throat. “Lord Faitan has been a champion of teleportation pads, a grand cause linking our country together through teleportation nodes.

“Lady Aiden, representative of the Dark Elves, wanted to contribute. Dark elves are highly skilled at teleportation and movement-based spells, as you can see by her usage of the freeze-capture spell on the mimic. She saw an opportunity to make humanity see dark elves positively once more, and saw the ex-[Hero], known as someone willing to cooperate with ‘monster’ races and underdogs, as a good entry point.

“Lady Aiden approached Harold with a suggestion: she could build an alternate, cheaper teleport pad system, including towns with monster or partial-monster populations, which Lord Faitan had been deliberately excluding. Am I wrong?”

Lady Aiden paused, then nodded. “Close enough.”

“Lady Aiden and Harold were growing close to a deal. Lord Faitan disliked this. Not only does it disrupt his monopoly on the teleport pads, but it also allows monster races to access the teleport network he set up? Unacceptable. Not to mention that the dark elves’ relative mastery of teleportation techniques means that one dark elf is equal to a dozen human mages—in other words, not only are Lady Aiden’s dark elves cheaper to hire, as they are undervalued by humans, but also, she needs to hire fewer of them to replace the teams of human mages that are required for teleportation.

“Lord Faitan felt pressured. He needed the deal to fail. Lady Aiden is a hard woman to lock down. A dark elf in her prime who rarely leaves the Dark Lands, a masterful mage and a race with inborn [Stealth], or an old man, but the only old man in the country who will talk to dark elves seriously about business deals? Between the two of them, it’s far easier to target Harold.”

Lord Faitan narrowed his eyes. “If that’s the case, and I’m the murderer, then why did I kill Millie?”

Alistair shrugged. “That is the tragedy. You, Lord Faitan, wanted to retrieve the mimic, and when you left Mabel after comforting her, that is what you attempted to do. Unfortunately, Millie got there first. She hid the mimic before Lord Faitan could.

“Lord Faitan, you could have extracted the mimic anyways, and kept everyone safe. Instead, you realized that someone had tampered with your scene, and shrugged. Someone else had intervened, and now they could take the fall. You figured the best thing you could do was create an alibi. Once you realized you couldn’t have time to remove the mimic, you made sure you were around other people as much as possible, so that others would always be able to vouch that you couldn’t be present.”

Tristan looked at Lord Faitan. “That is true. He hasn’t left my sight since we gathered for breakfast this morning.”

“Because I was sociable this morning, I’m the murderer?” Lord Faitan interjected sarcastically.

“If we had never realized it was a mimic who was killing, or if Millie hadn’t died and had successfully disposed of the evidence, Lord Faitan could have relied on his alibi and escaped. But instead, we uncovered his trick, and know the truth. Lord Faitan, will you admit your guilt?” Alistair asked.

“What guilt? I’m guilty of nothing. You aren’t even a member of the police,” Lord Faitan blustered. “I’m leaving.”

He turned to the door again. Again, Bjorn stared down at him, solid as rock.

“Don’t worry, Lord Faitan. I called the police earlier, before I began questioning any of you. They should be here any moment now,” Alistair said, putting a hand on the desk. He raised his eyebrows. “I’ll be handing everything over to them and explaining all of the evidence I’ve discovered in both Millie and Harold’s deaths. I hope you don’t mind a prison cell. It might be a bit less nice than your palaces, but I’m sure you’ll survive somehow.”

A heavy knock came from the door, echoing through the house. Mabel jumped. “Shall I?”

“Please,” Alistair said.

Mabel scurried off, hurrying down the spiral staircase and away.

“All your evidence is circumstantial. You can prove nothing,” Lord Faitan grumbled.

“Are you sure about that?” Alistair asked. He leaned in. “Lord Faitan, if we inspect your finances, will we find that you recently purchased a monster? If we question your mages, will they admit to having cast an ice spell on a strange object?”

Lord Faitan shut his mouth. He scowled.

“And to think, you could have simply partnered with Lady Aiden. Instead, because you refuse to partner with monsters, she had to search out Harold. Once you knew that, you became jealous, and rather than bending your mindset, you thought it was best to kill Harold instead. What a pity,” Alistair said, shaking his head regretfully.

“You know nothing. Nothing at all!” Lord Faitan spat. He opened his mouth to go on, then narrowed his eyes. “This is a skill, isn’t it?”

[Impassioned Confession]

Once you’ve accurately guessed the murderer, they will be more likely to confess to the murder.

Alistair adjusted his cuffs primly. “Who could say?”

“It’s a crime to extract confessions with skills,” Lord Faitan snarled.

“For the police to extract confessions with skills. I, as you nicely pointed out, am no policeman.” Alistair brushed down his vest, then nodded. “Commander.”

“What’s all this, now?” A gruff man pushed past Bjorn, looking around the room. He squinted at the dead bodies, then at Alistair. “Again?”

“I was called to solve this murder, Commander. Please, there’s no need to be suspicious.”

Commander Merrick grumbled under his breath, then sighed. “So? Who did it?”

Alistair nodded at Lord Faitan.

“This is nonsense. Are you going to take him at his word? Is it even legal?” Lord Faitan protested, backing away.

Commander Merrick gestured him over, pulling out a pair of cuffs. “He’s never been wrong before. Don’t worry, Lord Faitan. We’ll hold a full investigation of our own.”

Lord Faitan growled in his throat, but said nothing.

As he led Lord Faitan out, Commander Merric paused and looked at Alistair. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

“It’s unlikely,” Alistair said evenly. He touched his forehead, tipping an imaginary hat. “Good luck, Commander.”

Commander Merrick grunted. He shook his head and vanished down the spiral stairs, taking Lord Faitan with him.

“Phew! Let’s put this nasty business behind us. I’ll call the coroner, and we can have a proper funeral for poor Harold and Millie,” Mabel said, looking sadly down at them.

Tristan sniffed again. “Fucking… Lords. Millie… there was no reason for her to die.”

Lady Aiden gave Alistair a nervous look. “I’ll be returning to my lands now, if you don’t mind?”

“Ah, Lady Aiden… could we speak, first?” Alistair asked.

Lady Aiden flinched. After a moment, she nodded.

“Hmph. I’ll help with moving the bodies,” Bjorn offered, stepping out of the doorframe.

The group of them wandered down the stairs and separated, each going their separate way. Only Lady Aiden and Alistair left in the same direction, wandering out into the day.