The Crows weren’t in the sitting room near the entrance.

“You know, I saw some of them at the athletics room the other day. Maybe they went to exercise?”

Ike knew his explanation was weak even before he said it out loud. Nerinai stepped into the room and started rooting through the mess of things that hadn’t been cleaned for days. Ike held back by the door. For all they knew, the Crows were on the same murder path that Nerinai had, just without the actual killer. They were shamans though. They’d figure it out sooner or later.

“I don’t think they’re underneath the beds, Nerinai.”

She shot up and kicked the neat mattress to the side. “Well where are they then, Guardian?”

“How should I know!”

“This was your idea!” Ike didn’t have an answer, and Nerinai didn’t exactly seem hell bent on getting one by then anyways.

Looked like whoever left the room did it in a hurry, and left anything they wouldn’t need behind. Like Ike’s shovel. After he’d given it to Rosa to bury Yanell he’d worried he’d never see it again, but he was glad to have that at least. Once he finished putting the shovel back on his back, he saw a pile of napkins that Ike could only guess came from drying tears. Yanell’s death hit Nerinai hard and she’d met the girl once. For them, the Crows, who knew how long they’d traveled together?

Ike was coming up with no good ideas- as per usual- and given the fact that this was pretty much all his idea he couldn’t stand not having anything to give. Not a single goddamn idea floated in his brain. Nothing. Empty. Flat. Blank. One image of Nerinai staring angrily at him when he turned around to face the door, but that wasn’t helping anybody.

“We should just go look for them somewhere else,” he finally offered.

Nerinai didn’t say anything. She walked out of the room and Ike followed. They must have searched through half of the building and turned up nothing by the time they circled back to the sitting room. The place where Ike first met Arcani.

Everyone was there. All the furniture got pushed up against the walls, leaving a big empty space in the middle for Martial Donnahais and his kneeling captive.

The butler had his head bowed. Ike’s breath caught in his throat on seeing him there, and Nerinai darkened. As the two of them entered the room, the Martial turned to them with a note of sincerely grim repugnance on his face, a curl in his lips, and squint in his eyes.

“Here! Look now!” He pointed at the two of them with a sword he was holding to the butler's neck, but then Ike felt something sharp and cold pressed up against his back.

“Not a move,” said the Arcani twin brother. Ike flicked his eyes back at Nerinai and could just see another sword up against her throat, the color drained entirely from her face.

Ike expected some help. A guffaw, a sound of shocked innocence from one of the Crows at least. Kassidy stared straight ahead ignoring them entirely, while the other two turned their eyes to the ground in shame. They’d walked right into the middle of a trap, a coup, and Ike had led them there.

“Good of you to join us, lady and gentleman, for the reckoning.” Donnahais tightened his grip around the neck of the butler. Blood dripped out of his nose and his clothes had been torn. Beaten, probably, when the Arcani forced him into the room. Donnahais tightened his grip and continued, “Everyone in attendance has had far too much of the nonsense to suffer it any longer. Even the Crows, your once loyal retainers, have come to see the fair truth about this sham of a ritual. Come out with it: you, and your Guardian, have been plotting against the will of humanity!”

Ike really needed to hear that again. There wasn’t a moment in this world where Nerinai hadn’t been fighting tooth and nail for the lives of everyone she knew and would never know. Hell, five minutes ago she was practically begging to sacrifice herself for them. And now, this.

No words crawled up his throat. He didn’t trust his voice to work right then anyways, not standing in front of all these people with a sword to his back. One slip of the tongue and he’d be skewered. Ike-kebab.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Worst of all was Nerinai. Even with all the magic in the world, the Arcani were fast. That blade on her neck would kill her before she could do the slightest bit of damage. They were trapped here. Ike felt stupid, even more than usual. All the clues had been right there to spit in his face. Hadn’t the Martial explained just how much he hated shamans right to his face? Nerinai told him he was stealing keys through the building. He’d been planning something like this for weeks, probably.

“Well? Is there anything you’d like to say before we move on to sentencing?” A sick smile spread on the Martials' cracked lips.

“That’s bullshit.” Nerinai, even with the blade on her neck, managed to spit on the floor. “You’re a battle-crazed liar filled with a lust for the blood of shamans. Nothing you’ve done in your pitiful life has been for the good of anyone but yourself.”

“Liar!”

“Martial Donnahais,” Kassiday said. She finally grew a voice and started to speak on behalf of the person she was meant to respect. “The Raveness shouldn’t be held here for this. There’s no proof she was involved-”

“No proof!” Donnahais let out a hearty chuckle. “Was it not you who came to me with poison on the tongue? Remind me of your words, shaman.”

She seemed to compose herself with a righteousness she didn’t deserve. “The right and duty of the Raveness is to ensure the survival of humanity as a whole. This is done through a sacrifice of a willing participant, which she has failed to provide in a timely manner-”

“Is that what this is about?” Ignoring the sharp pressure on his back, Ike kept talking. “Nerinai doesn’t need to sacrifice anybody! This is ridiculous! We- we came up here to ask for help. She has an idea, she can close the gate permanently. All of this could be solved if you just listen to us.”

“Listen to you? All we’ve done is listen and now one of our own is dead.”

“The three of you rats should be hanged,” said Nerinai, which helped nothing.

Donnahais picked up the butler, struggling to keep him on his feet and brought the tip of the sword to his chin. The old man- whatever he really was- took the abuse with a little poorly hidden grin. He knew something the others didn’t, Ike could see, but said nothing.

“The Raveness lies. Her plan was to leave us all to death.”

“The plan was above your head-” Nerinai cut off from a fist into her back.

“Look! Look at how she maintains the ruse even now, when she is found out,” Donnahais said, speaking fully to the crows now. “We have the real killer in our hands and justice at the tip of a sword. She would have us throw it all away in the name of fantasies! Tell me ladies, is this not blasphemy? What could be the punishment of a holy leader attempting to lead her flock into ruin?”

It felt like the room had frozen. Nerinai got her breath back and Ike didn’t need to see her to know she was absolutely furious.

“What did you say?”

“Silence, your words have no more power-”

“Yanells killer is dead.”

Nobody had a response to that. Even Donnahais, the madman raving as if he had the world in the palm of his hand, looked between Nerinai and the Crows.

“Its corpse is rotting in the basement. Along with an opening into the laboratory with the gate to hell. Martial, the next time you attempt to turn my flock against me, perhaps ensure that you have all your facts in order.”

“You could just as easily be lying,” he said in much quieter tones than before.

Nerinai looked to Kassidy. “Maybe. The evidence is there though, and I have no reason to lie. I suspect the sword at my neck will pull whatever I say. This is the punishment for following false prophets, Kassidy, defeat. When the gate becomes unstable let it be known that it was a group of cowards who caused it.”

“You can’t-”

“-shut her up! Before-”

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” In the midst of the shouting between everyone in the room came Deon. He threw himself right into the middle of the room with his hands held up high. Of course he would. Out of everybody who didn’t belong in the Black Palace, Deon at least seemed the most level headed.

“Please, please! All of this fighting and arguing is utterly unnecessary, we are all friends and comrades now. Put down the swords. Let us have a real discussion on the matters at hand now if we are all such willing and brilliant adults as we believe ourselves to be.”

For a moment, Ike wondered if Donnahais would just cut him down. Then he wavered. Maybe none of this was going to plan, maybe all of it was. Even after he nodded at the twins to drop the sword and let down his own, Ike didn’t move an inch.

“See? Everything works so much better, when we all just calm down.”

For a moment the room was quiet. Everyone was weighing their words, their loyalties and for a moment Ike wondered if everything was going to end.

Then a long, fleshy spear dropped from the ceiling.

Ike watched the demon’s tendril creep down, then snap into his skull, and Deon was dead. The room exploded in action. Crows shouting and throwing magic up, the Arcani shoving their captives to chase a real monster. All of it was a blur.

As Ike rushed to Nerinai’s side, he saw one person ignoring all of them. Martial Donnahais pushed the butler down on the ground and drove his sword through the man’s neck.