"Please tell me what happened before and after the forger's wife found you at the cemetery." Colin's voice seemed devoid of emotion, just a matter-of-fact tone.

She sighed and had to think. How much did she want to disclose? What had the villagers said on her behalf so far?

To her understanding, the investigation had already been completed to a certain extent, but her testimony about what had really happened, when no one else was around, was still pending. That was her biggest problem. She didn't want to lie, but she couldn't tell the truth either.

"I had discovered the cemetery by chance earlier that day," Rowena began, licking her suddenly very dry lips, "and I somehow liked the scenery of it, so I thought I would go there again before returning to the chateau. That's when I discovered the open graves."

"Do you know what holes in the ground mean to us?" Since he still hadn't changed the tonal range of his question, she couldn't tell if he expected her to know or not.

She could only nod reluctantly and possibly try to blame her tutor if Colin didn't like it. But to her surprise, all he did was nod and tick something off on a notebook he had in his lap.

"After finding the holes, what did you do?"

Now it was starting to get tricky. She couldn't tell him about Pan, she couldn't mention the sword from another world, and she didn't even want him to know about her Mana proficiency.

"I... can't quite remember," she opted for the easiest way once more. When in doubt: sudden amnesia.

"You remember nothing?"

"Not nothing at all, but..." she started, trying to find a way to twist her words around the events that had transpired.

Of course, she could always pretend not to know anything at all, but she had to give up at least some information. Lives might be at stake if they couldn't find the culprits.

Another sigh escaped her. "I really can't tell if I remember correctly or not," she began, "but I remember the skeletons rising from their graves and starting to dance."

It must have sounded very ridiculous, since her brother had given her a blank stare for about a minute in response to her claim. Contrary to her expectations, however, he didn't seem diametrically opposed to believing her, which was shocking in and of itself.

"There must have been something in the air, we should look into it," he commented, lost in thought, jotting down more words on his book. "Two people having the same bizarre hallucination isn't something that occurs every day, but it wouldn't be the first time either."

"I'm pretty sure I wasn't hallucinating." Though, honestly, she thought she'd had a few too many, but Pan had said she was "wide awake".

"If you know enough about the Visitors to know about holes, you should also be aware of the fact that they can't stand the dead. No Visitor has abilities regarding the dead."

That was her thought as well. But that was only true for the Visitors themselves. If an ability was created by a structure and used through another vessel, that would be different. Or to put it more bluntly, if there was a Visitor with abilities that could somehow enable that ability for a human contractor, an Executor could do it.

'It might be him,' a voice intercepted her thoughts, 'but I hope that is not the case.'

'What? Do you know something you're not telling me again?

'I am not sure. I cannot make a judgment until I know.

'Can't you make half a judgment or something?'

There were hundreds of thousands of Numbered out there, but he knew of only a single one who could have had the ability to control skeletons. He sincerely hoped they wouldn't have to face him, but he couldn't be sure.

That guy wasn't one to permit acts such as the dancing skeletons. Unless he had found a contractor with a morbid sense of humor who was still on his wavelength.

'There is nothing more to talk about,' Pan concluded.

'Sure there isn't.'

Extremely annoyed, she shook her head and took the cup of tea that had been placed in front of her a while ago. Norina was still standing near her, watching her worriedly.

"Anyway, I was shaken to the core, as I'm sure you can imagine. So I tried to escape, but Iris suddenly showed up." Rowena took a sip of her tea so she wouldn't start fidgeting with the ends of her sleeves in front of her brother's sharp gaze.

"You still could have run, right?"

"Well... I didn't want to just leave her there."

"So you threw yourself in front of her, was that your only option?" This was the first time she could sense a bit of emotion from him, as there was a brief glimpse of anger in his eyes, gone as fast as it showed itself.

"I didn't 'throw myself in front of her,' I tried to help her as she had fallen to the ground and was in a very bad position."

"Why did you even think of helping someone else when you couldn't possibly help yourself?"

"I," she started, again calculating what to say, "thought that I might have a chance to help myself, because I can use a bit of Mana." There, she said it, now she had to deal with the consequences.

It took the young master a while to understand what his sister had said, but when he finally realized the meaning of her words, he began to frown. "That's not very funny."

"That's because it's not a joke, Young Master Colin."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"All right, I will humor you," he said, "how do you know how to use Mana?"

"I don't know much, I just looked it up and learned a few simple things."

This was an obvious lie, because no one could learn Mana that easily. Of course, everything was once learned by a first of their kind, and they had to learn from scratch as well. But it took way longer to do so.

"I've been learning for years now, but I can only do so much." She opened a hand and used the bit of Mana she had put back into her core to manifest a tiny Vector in the palm of her hand.

Colin could no longer tell what he was seeing. First his ears failed him, now his eyes as well as his senses. He would have known if his sister had learned any kind of magic, right?

He had seen her from time to time, but there was no trace of Mana on her. Even now, he couldn't tell.

What he hadn't known, what even Rowena hadn't known, was the fact that her sense for using Mana was much sharper than the technique used in this world.

There wasn't much difference, so it wasn't obvious at first glance, but the way they had learned Mana control in Celia's world was to allow for stealthy approaches when dealing with Visitors or - especially - human enemies.

She hadn't given it much thought, but her brother's Mana signature was all over the place, so she had also been able to easily tell that his Mana had soaked her doorstep back then.

He couldn't make sense of it though. "Alright, we will talk about this another time - with father present." That was too much for him at that moment. "What happened after you... helped Miss Iris?"

"She ran to get reinforcements, I would have almost died in the fight with the skeletons, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge wave of water appeared and swept me away with my enemies. More I can't recall, I lost consciousness after the water had hit me."

More scribbling could be heard as they sat awkwardly, thinking about the absurd story she had just told, knowing that at least the part about the water must have been true. As for the rest, the young man wasn't sure, but there was more than one person telling the same story.

Was it coincidence? Or perhaps an ability given by one of the Numbered to get them to see visions of some sort?

He had found traces of at least three different Mana signatures, though none of them were traceable due to the water washing the evidence out of the forest.

One was in the water itself, more deeply ingrained than the others, probably by the person who brought it in, since it was not natural at all.

One had been left on the graves and the bones within. It must have been very strong, because the water had washed up the graves with all the skeletons inside, messing up the evidence, yet the trace was still clearly there.

The last one was found on the ground. This one was the most conclusive, as it was a piece of unholy ground that didn't match any of the signatures found at the scene. It was definitely a numbered, not just a Spellkeeper.

'At least three,' he thought, not very happy about it, only partially noticing his sister getting up.

"As I am done telling you of the events, can I go?"

He couldn't even react fast enough as she was already heading for the door with the young maid at her side.

"Wait, how did you get to Eisenwacht? You didn't say anything about that."

'Damn.' Well, he hadn't asked before. "Like I said, I can control my Mana a bit, so I strengthened my legs and jumped down the balcony. I went there by foot, it wasn't that far."

It was certainly within reach, although it would have taken her much longer if she had walked at a normal pace. On the other hand, Colin couldn't doubt her, since she'd already admitted to going in secret and they'd actually found her at Eisenwacht.

This was the only possibility. 'She couldn't have flown there, after all.'

"Are we done?"

"Just one more question, Rowena," her brother said without missing a beat as she was about to leave the drawing room, "Why were you there?" The question was not surprising by any standard, but Rowena had little explanation to offer.

Cogwheels moved in her head, forming any answer that seemed reasonable enough. "Because I read that the Duchy of Varnhagen was once the source of the continent's greatest artisans and craftsmen. Eisenwacht should have been the capital of the duchy, not Vandenberg." Words kept lining up one after another. "Since I know so little of our history in this matter, I wanted to see for myself what had become of this place, since I am a daughter of Varnhagen."

His eyes widened for a second, then narrowed slightly. "I understand," he said, somewhat satisfied with her answer, "but you are not right about Eisenwacht being the former capital of the duchy. Not entirely right, that is."

With a nod over her own shoulder, she simply acknowledged his words without comment, eager to leave the salon.

After washing up, she went back to her own room and got ready to sleep, but stared at the dark ceiling for a while after her blonde maid left the room.

"Pan, what else do you have of my stuff?"

'Everything you left in my Subdimension,' he answered obediently, 'except for your Mana Sword.'

"Yeah, I almost expected that last one," she retorted sarcastically, "but if you have everything, please hand me my jacket the next time we are on unblessed ground."

Since they were above ground level, she couldn't just ask for it up here, the surface was below. Besides, the ground was thoroughly blessed. There was no getting through.

But she wanted the jacket. It was a tacky VAULT jacket with a giant "13" on the back, drawn in length from top to bottom, but she loved every bit of it. And in the long, big pockets there was something that could come in handy.

She had given up on a sword, but she couldn't get used to the idea of having nothing to protect herself in case of an emergency, as she had been in three days before. She had never expected something like that to happen, so who said it couldn't happen twice?

The memory of the collapsible compound bow hidden in the pocket of her jacket brought back long forgotten memories. She had been like this before, hadn't she?

'I remember always triggering the foldable arms when I tried using any type of Mana, holding that huge ass bow with my tiny, shaky hands, only to have it fold in on itself like a champion.'

She smiled now and even laughed a little at the memory, but back then she didn't think it funny.

Every time this mistake happened, her instructor would slap her on the back of the head and tell her, "Every time this happens, a close combatant dies because you didn't support them."

It made her feel nostalgic and a little sobered up, although she still felt that phantom pain in the back of her head whenever she touched her beloved bow.

At the beginning of her time with VAULT, she had the increased strength in her body, but no control or finesse. Now it was as if the scenario had simply turned around.

Learning how to shoot a bow was something she could do in a jiffy, compared to internalizing how to move, how to apply force, and how to use her new abilities aside from sheer strength.

And all that was just the physical aspect, not to mention things like combat experience that would tell her how to react in time at certain moments, or how to understand an opponent's next moves and motivations.

Of course, a Visitor would act quite simple-minded, they were like infants in terms of intelligence as long as they didn't exceed a Grade 2. But it wasn't as if they didn't have any human enemies.

VAULT would lend its soldiers to the regular police or military whenever Spellkeepers, Enforcers, or even Executors were part of terrorist groups, criminal syndicates, or just plain muggers who used their superhuman abilities to threaten ordinary civilians.

Ordinary civilians weren't the only ones at a loss when faced with someone with inhuman capabilities.

That was something that stuck in her mind as she thought about the alleged terrorist attack. If it was really an act of terrorism or just an attack from a neighboring country to weaken their borders, no one knew at this point, but there were definitely humans involved. It couldn't have been the Visitors.

There was a drastic increase in the Visitor problem in the books, it even looked like the Crown had been betrayed at some point, driving the Crown Prince and his fiancée, Saintess Scarlett Baldwin, into a corner.

There were no humans involved in the novel. Visitors, she understood. They were usually very clear about their motives. But the Sentinels were a problem, because they were much closer to human, especially in their behavior.

And if there were actual humans involved, that made it even worse, because humans could move among humans without raising suspicion.

She had no idea who the enemy was. And that was what truly frightened her.