111. Loose Ends

Isaac didn’t know how long he waited outside the door. His surroundings were fuzzy, as if he was staring at everything through a thick veil. He pressed his ear against the wood, but he didn’t hear anything on the other side.

In the silence of the cabin, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed. The lights visible through the window kept rising upwards, the inky sky a constant, unchanging void. Maybe days had passed, maybe hours, maybe only a few minutes.

Eventually, when it became clear that Lilith would not answer, Isaac turned away. He stepped down the hallway, still in that floaty state. He barely noticed as he walked across the flower fields, over and down the hills, up to the station. A train was already waiting there. They never did that. He didn’t question it, simply stepped inside when the door slid open and fell into the familiar rhythm of the rails.

As the Golden Lands zipped past him, the fog finally began to clear, and replacing it was the memory of the sounds and the flash of light. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry.

Remus was dead. The thought sprang up like it was an old piece of knowledge, some fact that he’d memorized years ago when he hadn’t yet given up on his studies. A simple line in the history of the Underside. Remus: executed by Lilith.

Should he be so bothered by it? The longer he thought back to the moment, the more he realized he was more disturbed by the method than the result, even though the latter was still unsettling. He didn’t know what that said about him as a person.

The subway train lurched to a stop. Isaac blinked, turning to the window and realizing that he’d reached Solonell City’s station. Had that much time passed already?

Isaac got out without much thought, steadily climbing up the steps to enter the realm proper. The station was completely empty, and Solonell City’s station was usually one of the busier ones. He kept expecting to see someone, either a native human or a visitor from another realm, but there was nothing but grey cement and the chipped platform.

His feet kept moving once he was outside the station, directing him down the winding paths until he looked up and realized he’d walked to Mortimer’s shop. Isaac looked around. There was no one on the streets, and when he peered into the cloudy windows, the shop looked just as empty.

Isaac took a deep breath, only just realizing that his hands were shaking. He waited for them to steady again, took a firm grip of the doorknob, and stepped inside.

The interior of the shop was just like Isaac remembered. Perpetually dusty, jammed with odd metal trinkets and clocks, dim and half obscured by shadows, but still strangely welcoming.

Isaac glanced around, taking in the familiar tables laid out near the front of the store, before his eyes fell to the counter in the back.

For a second, he could’ve sworn he saw a hint of gold, but it was gone when Mortimer spun around. Isaac paused. The half undead man’s expression was as unreadable as ever, but there was something almost frazzled about his eyes, though it disappeared almost as quickly as the golden light had.

Isaac stepped up to the counter.

“Hey.”

It felt like a terribly out of place thing to say, but he couldn’t think of anything else. He wasn’t even sure why he’d come here other than his body moving instinctively. Mortimer frowned a little, scrutinizing his appearance.

“Hello,” he said in that ever calm voice of his. Then, “Are you alright?”

A bitter snort rose before Isaac could shove it down. “Is it that obvious?”

“A bit.” Mortimer paused, then said, almost to himself, “I didn’t see you in the room, but I wasn’t sure if you were in a corner or—“

Isaac stopped him.

“Wait. What do you mean you didn’t see me?”

Mortimer pursed his lips. He seemed to contemplate something, then sighed. In that moment, he looked the closest to his true age that Isaac had ever seen him.

“It was broadcast,” he finally said. He didn’t need to specify what he was talking about.

Broadcast. Isaac thought back to the swirling pools of golden light hanging around the parlor. They’d looked similar to the ones that had been at the tournament, he realized. The growing coldness in his chest grew, and he clenched his fist.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“She broadcast that?”

The sounds had been bad enough. He couldn’t even imagine what it had looked like. He didn’t want to.

Mortimer nodded stiffly. “It was meant to be a warning, I think. I imagine that was why it was so…violent.”

Isaac remembered Lucius and Casimir’s words. They must have known that she would broadcast the “trial,” or perhaps they’d said what they did in order to ensure that it was public. It was a way to both satisfy the ones seeking vengeance and a way for Lilith to reassert her authority after the temporary system error might’ve thrown her abilities into question.

It made sense, why she did it that way. That didn’t make Isaac feel any better about it.

He rubbed his forehead. “Of course she did,” he muttered. “Of course.” When he lowered his hand again, Mortimer was still staring at him with that silently concerned look.

“I didn’t see it,” Isaac hurried to say. “She shoved me out the room.” He paused, realizing. “Wait, are you okay? You watched the whole thing?”

“It was nothing the Underside hasn’t seen before.”

Isaac laughed lowly. “Yeah, I’m starting to realize that.”

He took a step back from the counter, turning and beginning to pace along the length of the room. He still felt too jittery, like a constant thrum of energy was running through him. He couldn’t stand the idea of being still right now.

“Maybe I’m overreacting,” he thought out loud. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.” He turned and paced the other direction. “It’s just, well, killing and—and torturing Remus didn’t bring back anyone. But maybe Lucius and Sharil and the other demons needed to see it.”

“It does provide some closure,” Mortimer said carefully.

Isaac paused. He was about to agree, but something about the words struck him. His brows furrowed. The longer he thought about it, the longer he focused on his growing unease, the more and more unsure he got.

“…I guess so,” he said slowly.

“You don’t think he did it.”

Mortimer’s words were as blunt as always, and Isaac appreciated the directness. He shook his head.

“No, he confessed. It was definitely him. It’s just…” His voice trailed as memories rose. Time since the discovery of the murders had flown, but within that whirlwind activity, he could still pick out little individual conversations. He remembered the discussion with Rosalinde, the rough sketches of the wounds that had looked almost like bloomed flowers.

“He definitely killed the demons,” Isaac repeated. He was thinking out loud now, just as much as he was talking to Mortimer. “He probably used ice, and that’s why the bodies were damp. But the wounds, Rosalinde said it looked like something had exploded within the cuts. I don’t know how he would’ve done that.”

Mortimer hummed. “Maybe he was able to form ice internally,” he suggested. It was a gruesome thought, but one that had to be considered.

“Maybe.” He shook his head. “It’s not just that, though. I don’t know why he killed the humans. It could be collateral damage, but then the one in Solonell City…” He swallowed, shuddering a little as he remembered the sight.

When Isaac turned to Mortimer, the half undead man looked to be deep in thought.

“It does seem a bit peculiar that someone so preoccupied with vengeance would flee to Solonell City,” he said slowly. Isaac nodded, relieved to have his worries understood.

The longer he thought about the situation, the less and less satisfied he was. There were too many oddities, too many things with seemingly no explanation. But Remus had confessed, and he didn’t seem to be lying. So what was missing?

A sharp ringing sound snapped Isaac out of his thoughts. He nearly dropped his tablet in his surprise, its screen flashing a bright gold. He frowned at the device warily, half expecting to hear Lilith’s voice. Instead, after a few more flashes and rings, the screen dimmed again.

“What is it?” Mortimer asked from behind the counter. Isaac tapped the screen, scrolling to the new message, and blinked when it pulled up a list of names along with their respective stat sheets. He frowned.

“I’m not sure, I—“ He stopped, eyes widening in recognition.

“I need you to find the old stat sheets of the victims. They were erased from the tablet.”

“It’s from Fable,” Isaac breathed. His heart beat faster, anticipation and trepidation combined. “They found the stats of the human victims.”

Mortimer’s eyes sharpened and he leaned forward a little. Isaac set the tablet down onto the counter, attention laser focused on the screen as he kept scrolling through numbers and words. The first two victims were low level, levels 8 and 5, while the third was level 17. Higher, but still easy enough for Remus to handle.

The fourth name was what made Isaac stop.

[CECILY - LEVEL 34]

Isaac looked up and met Mortimer’s eyes. The half undead man’s face looked grave, having come to the same realization that Isaac had.

“Remus was level 29. He wouldn’t have been able to kill her.”

The moment the words left his mouth, the missing piece sprang forth in his mind, slotting into place. One so obvious that he didn’t know how he hadn’t realized it before. Maybe it was some innate desire to believe the best in the Underside’s inhabitants, maybe it was a desire to simplify, to get things over with as quickly as possible. But now, there was no more denying it.

Remus had never specified exactly how many people he’d killed.

There was more than one perpetrator.