“My apologies for the delay,” Anna said. “I thought I saw- well, it doesn’t matter, does it? Xiao Li, Cat, would you please set the bottle on the table? I wonder. Is it familiar to anyone? Can any person here identify it?”

Devorah remained in her spot by the door, just in time for one last person to come through. Though more accurately, it was an apparition just like her. It was Eugenia. No longer in her turkey feathers and nightgown, barefoot with a noose still around her neck, Eugenia was bedecked in jewels and a fine gown. Though she was see-through just as Devorah was, the shimmering transparency made the red velvet fabric of the dress gleam.

Bell came up to greet them, while John merely waved. He was focused on the case, which Devorah honestly couldn’t have given less of a shit about at that moment. At first, Bell went to hug both Devorah and Eugenia, as she had at their first reunion, but something made her reassess. She only hugged Eugenia once more.

Even before Bell released her, Devorah interrupted, saying, “Eugenia. Have you been with Anna?”

There was a pause, and Bell released Eugenia. “I have,” she said, placid and cool. “I have always been fond of Anna, and have learned some interesting things watching her.”

Why had Eugenia gotten to be with Anna, while Devorah had been stuck with Jacob and his friends? Eugenia probably would have liked Georgie and Gabriel, while Devorah just wanted to be with Anna.

That was all she ever wanted, even before the game. Even before Devorah knew such a thing could have been possible, with nearly two thousand years separating them.

“Like what?” Devorah asked, though if she was honest with herself, it came out more like a statement. Like what. It sounded exhausted.

Eugenia’s eyes softened. “You’ll have to find out for yourself. Now hush, Dev. I want to watch the proceedings.”

“You always did love drama,” Bell said, fond.

Eugenia and Bell turned to the table where one by one, each cast member was taking their turn to squint at the fragments of the broken bottle.

But Devorah just watched Anna. There she was, at the end of the table. Just as Devorah watched her, she watched the rest of her new friends come and go. She had the eyes of a hawk, her Anna. Fierce and focused. In the past, when they had caught on her, Devorah felt like the whole world narrowed down to the two of them.

Now, there was something tense in her shoulders, tight in her jaw. Devorah wanted to hug her, ask what was wrong-

Georgie yelled, “hey! I know what this is!”

“What is it, Georgie?” Anna asked in a low tone. In that moment Devorah knew that Anna knew what the bottle was, and likely what kind of poison it held. She and Georgie were from very similar time periods, even if they were an ocean apart. But having Georgie identify it was crucial. Based on how the assembled others reacted to Anna and her friends, they weren’t very trusted. Georgie, despite her earlier outburst, was.

Maybe it was because of the outburst, actually. She was quick to anger and act, and wore her emotions on her sleeve. Georgie was easy to understand. Anna, meanwhile, likely hadn’t let most of this cast into her heart.

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“It’s Godfrey’s Cordial,” Georgie said. “It’s good for helping people sleep. One of the lords upstairs used to have a sip every night before going to bed. My friend Rose used to pick it up for him at the pharmacy in town.”

“So it’s a medicine?” Jacob asked. “It can’t kill you?”

Georgie shifted in her seat. “I didn’t say that, exactly. A little bit helps you sleep, yeah. But if you take too much…”

“And how much is too much?” Lupe asked.

There was a pause. “I don’t know,” Georgie said, a bit flustered. “But the bottle’s empty, yeah? I bet the whole bottle could knock a man dead.”

“Or a nun,” Faith quipped. Xoco smacked his arm.

For the first time, the catgirl spoke up. “One lick won’t kill you, then?” Her voice was deceptively deep for such a small, thin woman.

“Don’t think so,” Georgie said.

The catgirl stuck her pointer finger down the neck of the bottle, then pulled it out and licked the tip of her finger. “Sweet,” she said.

“Hey! No! Bad!” Xiao Li yelled. She pushed her own finger into the catgirl’s mouth and pulled her lower jaw down to peer at her tongue. “We don’t lick possible poisons!”

“Clearly, she just did,” Faith said with a smirk.

Xiao Li turned to Faith, and the look in her eyes promised pain in his future. “You! Shut the fuck up before I make you! And you!” She pointed at the catgirl. “Spit!”

“Xiao Li,” Anna said, “she’ll be fine. Right, Georgie?”

Georgie looked at Anna, clearly grateful for the trust. “She’ll be fine.”

Xiao Li wrenched her hand from the catgirl’s mouth. The catgirl licked at her teeth. It struck Devorah as something animalistic. She had seen her own kitten do the exact same thing. And the way the catgirl just scrunched up her nose then sneezed? Adorable. Maybe she had more cat in her than just aesthetic ears and a tail.

No wonder Anna had taken her into her little group. Someone with a cat’s instincts could be valuable in lots of situations. But then why Xiao Li? What made Xiao Li special?

“So,” Anna started, hands folded on the table. “We know it has a sweet taste. It probably wouldn’t be hard to convince someone to drink a bottle of it, whether the bottle was disguised or not. And it is probably the murder weapon, considering that we found it broken. Does anyone have any objections?”

Lupe crossed her own arms and met eyes with Anna from across the table. “Where did you find it? It definitely wasn’t in the kitchen.”

“I found it,” the catgirl said. “It was in the lounge, under one of the sofas.”

“Since the lounge is right next to the kitchen and dining hall, it would be pretty easy to hide it without being noticed.” Sushruta pointed out. “Was anyone in the lounge in the evening?”

“Couldn’t they have also hid it at night? When we were all sleeping?” Budi asked.

“That seems like a risk that a murderer would not want to take,” Tiberius answered. “Making as few suspicious moves as possible makes your chances of being caught much lower.”

“So we’re in agreement that in the evening, the murderer probably killed Mathilde in the kitchen before going into the lounge to hide the evidence,” Jacob concluded.

“Unless…” Xiao Li said with a catlike smirk that strangely fit better on her face than her catlike companion’s. “The murder did actually happen at night, when the kitchen was closed.”

“What?” Brad asked, his head tilted. “But like, how could that have happened?”

“Could someone have moved Mathilde in the early hours, before everyone woke up?” Xoco added.

“Wait a second,” Kefilwe said, then wiped at her eyes. “I think I know what you’re getting at. Georgie, Jacob, remember when we found that hidden room?”

Georgie’s eyes widened. “Are you saying they hid in the kitchen overnight?”

“Not exactly,” Anna said. “But some others in the room will know what I’m suggesting. And I’m surprised it hasn’t been brought up before this.”

The room, which had already been filled with dramatic tension, suddenly had an atmosphere so thick it could be cut with a knife and spread on a tough piece of toast. Some people like Brad just looked confused. Lupe seemed concerned, likely that something had been kept from her.

Budi started sweating. And then he broke. “I’m sorry, okay! I never wanted to sew any kind of discord. I wanted to keep it secret in case I was attacked and needed somewhere to hide. But Faith knows about it too!”

Faith groaned and leaned back in his chair, face towards the ceiling.

“Well?” Lupe asked, impatient and with fire in her eyes.

“Fine, fine,” Faith said. “There are many kinds of hidden places and rooms in this house. Priest holes, bunkers, and passageways from one room to another. Good Budi and I even found one going from the trophy room upstairs into the butler’s office, which we all know becomes locked at night.” Faith corrected his posture and frowned at Budi. “But now that the secret has been forced out into the open by this dastardly murderer, there is no longer any reason to keep quiet on them.”

“If we had known about them, we could have blocked them up to prevent anyone from using them in a murder!” Lupe yelled. Devorah disagreed. If someone wanted to kill in the Champions’ League, a little thing like a blocked passage wouldn’t stop them. The creators of the game would never allow that.

Though most of the people in this room didn’t know about the game, clearly, Lupe probably did. There was no way to stop this. So why was she trying so hard? With patrols, collecting weapons, even suggesting barricades. She couldn’t keep everyone safe. So why put in so much effort?