93. Fractures

Lilith opened the door before Isaac had a chance to knock. He nearly flinched on instinct at the sight of her. Her hair, usually styled to an almost uncanny perfection, was messy, with stray hairs falling across her forehead. She was still wearing one of those strange mostly black dresses, and her shoulders, usually always held at perfect ninety degree angles, were slumped forward.

When she met Isaac’s gaze, she gave a weary smile.

“Another one, I assume?”

Isaac froze as the words processed. “There’s more?”

Lilith silently stepped aside and gestured for Isaac to follow. She turned and stepped down the hallway without looking back, and he hurried to keep pace until they reached the quiet parlor. Lilith took a seat on her usual armchair and released a long sigh.

“Fable just reported eleven deaths. They’re working on identifying the victims.” She rubbed her forehead. “Well? Was this one a demon or a human?”

An image of the street, splashed with scarlet, the strewn limbs and scattered chunks of flesh, flashed in his mind. He shoved the picture aside, swallowing down the bile threatening to rise.

“Human, I think,” he said, voice hoarse. He wrung his hands in the fabric of his jacket, twisting the worn cloth. “Rosalinde found them after me. She said the death was recent.”

Lilith straightened at that, eyes sharp. “Rosalinde? She’s from Solonell City, isn’t she? What was she doing in the Inferno?”

Isaac furrowed his brows. “The person—the body,” he corrected himself with a shudder, “was in Solonell City. Near the subway station.” He paused, tentative. “Were most of the other deaths in the Inferno?”

“All of them were,” Lilith replied immediately. She drummed her fingers along the armrest. “At least until this one.”

Isaac filed that information away for later. He leaned forward slightly, keeping his voice as steady as possible. “Lilith, what’s going on?” The cloth between his fingers was being wrung thin. “What happened to the System?”

Lilith was silent for a few moments, her eyes drifting over to the window. The golden lights of the realm continued rising upwards as always, flowers perfectly bloomed and without a single trace of wilting in sight. The warm glow, the dark sky—they all seemed remarkably soft in comparison to the stark scenery and sharp edges of Solonell City.

“It’s my fault,” Lilith finally said, voice so quiet Isaac almost didn’t hear her at first. She tapped harder against the armrest, so hard Isaac could practically hear the sound from where he was seated.

“I used too much magic during the tournament,” she said in a curt, clipped tone. She didn’t move, eyes still fixed outside the window. The tapping stopped abruptly, and she exhaled. “I was careless and the System went down.” She laughed, the sound hollow and easily echoing about the small room. She brushed some hair out of her face, finally turning to face Isaac with a bitter smile. “If Fable hadn’t reported those deaths, who knows how long it would’ve taken for me to notice.”

Her fingers clenched together into a fist. “It won’t happen again,” she said in that same uncharacteristically quiet voice. Her words shook slightly. Isaac nearly got up to ask if she was alright, but he stopped when he met her eyes.

There, mixed with the exhaustion and weariness, was a pure, unbridled rage—the sort that burned and flared so brightly it stung to look at for too long. It was raw and sharp, yet held the unmistakable constant presence of pride and dignity.

Isaac sank back into the couch, his fingers loosening their grip around his jacket. He would laugh at the irony, if the circumstances were different. It was maybe the first time he could say he’d ever really understood where the fear surrounding Lilith might come from. There had been the System’s appearance during the tournament, but that had still felt disconnected. Right now, it was just Lilith, and it was during a moment when she was admitting to the limits of her abilities that her power seemed more clear to him than ever.

“…were there any more victims?” Isaac’s voice came out low and quiet.

Lilith didn’t look away. “As far as I’m aware, there are only the eleven Fable reported and the one you just did.” She leaned back a little in her seat. “Assuming there wasn’t another one we missed, those should be all of them.”

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“Who did it?” Isaac was surprised at how sharp his voice sounded. Lilith pursed her lips.

“That’s the question, isn’t it? We don’t know. And now that the System is back in place, it’s even harder to find out. It could be nearly anyone.”

“You said the other victims were all found in the Inferno. Humans and demons?”

Lilith nodded. “Eight demons and three humans, killed rather violently.” She frowned. “Four humans total now, with the one in Solonell City added in.”

Twelve victims in total, possibly even more. Isaac shuddered. “How long was the System down? It couldn’t have been that long.” He’d dozed off, that was true, but he doubted he could have been asleep for longer than 15 minutes maximum. Even adding in the time after he’d woken up, it couldn’t have possibly been longer than half an hour. And yet, someone had managed to kill twelve people in two different realms. That wasn’t even taking into account the travel time on the subway between the Inferno and Solonell City.

A sudden thought crept up in Isaac’s mind. If the perpetrator had begun in the Inferno, then got on the subway and headed to Solonell City to continue their slaughter, he had likely just barely missed encountering them. Could they have even been on the same train?

Isaac shook his head, unconsciously shoving his hands into his pockets at the sudden chill that rose in the room. No, he’d gotten off the train right away and hadn’t seen anyone else at the station. At most, they had been on the train just before him. That still felt too close. A mere hair’s breadth away.

Lilith’s next words confirmed the thought.

“Twenty eight minutes,” the woman said. She rubbed her forehead. “It was down for twenty eight minutes total.”

Barely ten minutes with subway travel time factored in. And the murderer would’ve had to travel by foot, too, to the different victims.

Isaac stared down at the tablet. He pressed the button, and the screen glowed gold. He turned it back off.

“…We don’t have any ideas? No clues?”

Lilith’s gaze was steady and hard. “Fable is collecting evidence, but frankly, it’s a wild goose chase.” She rose from the armchair, moving to stand beside the window and slightly leaning her weight against the windowsill. “At this point, the most I can do is reinforce the System so it doesn’t happen again.”

Isaac stood as well. “That’s it? You’re not even going to try to figure it out?”

“I would if I could. I can’t leave the Golden Lands, Isaac, and ensuring there’s no more holes in the System takes priority. What exactly do you expect me to do?” Lilith’s voice was sharp, but Isaac didn’t back down.

“Then I’ll do the investigating,” he pressed.

Lilith met his gaze, and she smiled thinly. “Do you really think you have a chance at figuring this out? Be realistic. I barely know anything. How exactly do you intend to investigate when there are so few leads?”

Isaac opened his mouth to retort, but before he could, the clear ringing of a bell interrupted him. The sound seemed to echo throughout the small room, crisp and sharp. He spun around, searching for its source, before his eyes landed on a single glowing sphere of light hovering in the center of the room, just underneath the chandelier so that it looked like part of it if he wasn’t paying attention.

The golden orb gently drifted over to Lilith, coming to a pause over her open palm. Up close, Isaac could see that its interior, which looked so flat and constant from a distance, was actually made up of swirling streams of energy that undulated in set patterns. Lilith frowned. After a few moments, she waved her hand and the orb dispersed in a shower of lights.

“What is it?”

Lilith glanced over at Isaac. She waved her hand again, and Isaac looked down just as the tablet screen flared gold before fading back to black. He picked the device up and turned it on. There was a new file that, when opened, simply displayed a list of names. His heart sank.

“These are the victims Fable has identified so far,” Lilith said, weariness heavy in her voice. She rubbed her forehead. “They’re still working on the other ones.”

At least half the list consisted of question marks. How badly mangled must the bodies be, Isaac wondered.

He swallowed and forced his eyes to wander down the list, searching for familiar names with increasing trepidation the lower he went. Villard was one of them. His mind flashed with images of the tournament. He hadn’t known the demon personally, but he’d looked so at ease in those fights, casually taunting his opponents and moving with skill and precision. He couldn’t imagine him in the state that he’d seen the Solonell City victim in. He didn’t want to imagine it.

Holding his breath, Isaac slowly looked further down the list, scrolling past a string of question marks. Many names, names he didn’t know and regretted not knowing, burned themselves into his memory.

Finally, he reached the bottom, and he slowed down as he continued reading.

CECILY

LUTHER

?????

?????

Isaac stilled as his eyes landed on the last name. His grip on the tablet tightened so much that its edges felt like blades. He ignored the sensation, too busy staring at the screen, gaze glued to those familiar letters.

.

.

.

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OLZU