When did she wake up?

Lucimia didn’t know; her mind was a harbor in fog, bells muffled and distant.

She opened her eyes to a room black as ink, with moonlight pouring in like cold milk over the sill.

She glanced at the bed across the room, rubbed her blurry eyes, and squinted; in the silver wash she saw a pale-green spill of hair.

Rexi lay there, out cold, her breath rising and falling like a bellows in winter.

“Rexi… ah, I remember.”

Memory flickered like a match in wind. On December 30, sometime between four and five in the afternoon, she’d challenged Anliena to a Duel, and Auril had said he’d set the terms himself.

The Duel’s theme was a Serial Murder Case, with two roles: Investigator and Serial Killer.

There were shared rules, and there were role rules, like paths splitting in a forest.

After drawing lots and fixing who held which role, Anliena left first; she and Rexi followed like shadows after dusk.

They returned to the tavern and hashed out tactics, sparks over dry tinder…

“Huh? What did we settle on? Tch—”

Frustration pricked first, then action: Lucimia sat up straight, drew her knees in, and cradled her head as she dug for the memory.

“…I can’t find it. Looks like it was wiped clean.”

They had planned something sharp, something vital—but how do you swing a blade when you can’t even see the hilt?

Did she try to glitch the rules, to pin her memories down like a butterfly under glass?

From the look of it, no; the net slipped, and the catch was gone.

That couldn’t be right; she wouldn’t bet everything on one trick.

She must have laid more snares along the trail.

But not knowing her own snares, how was she supposed to step the pattern?

And her role? Empty as a well gone dry…

By the rules, she shouldn’t remember what she is right now.

Which means the Serial Killer has already claimed the first victim, like the first domino tipping in silence.

The first thing she and Anliena had to do now was simple as a lantern in the dark: learn their own identities.

Without that, every step after was mist on a cliff edge.

If the Investigator mistook herself for the killer and struck down an innocent, that was defeat.

If the Serial Killer failed to kill within a three-day interval, that was defeat too.

This stretch of time was precious, a candle guttering in wind—worse for the killer than for the cop.

The killer had to confirm their role at once; the Investigator could afford uncertainty for a breath or two.

Her chest tightened; time mattered. “Right. What time is it now?”

If she was the killer, she had to move like a knife through paper.

She threw back her quilt, ready to swing her feet down, and froze—she was in a thin sleep dress, soft as mist on skin.

She went still, the thought landing like snow. “Why would I change into sleepwear to nap?”

It sounded silly—what else do you wear to sleep?—but ever since she started living on the road, she slept armored in her clothes, ready for trouble like thunder behind clouds.

Leisurely changing was not her way, not with storm signs on the horizon.

…

Silence first, then motion: Lucimia rose, walked to Rexi’s bed, and flipped her quilt with one swift wave.

Under it, Rexi too wore loose, lazy sleepwear, fabric pooling like water.

…

Lucimia’s brow tightened like a drawn bow. She glanced at the time—

December 31, 3:00 a.m.

“Ten hours gone?”

“…Mmm, so cold,” Rexi mumbled, her voice drifting like a moth to a flame.

It was late December; the air had teeth. In thin sleepwear, cold crept in like a tide.

Lucimia wordlessly drew the quilt back over her, tucking warmth like a promise.

She didn’t plan to wake Rexi. She went to the table instead, and as she neared, she noticed a clear crystal sphere sitting there, bright as trapped frost.

Lucimia halted, a spark leaping. “This is… an Imagerecording Stone?”

She hadn’t used one in ages; the last time was in the Town of Tranquility, when she went up against Elyssus, a chessboard under a winter sky.

She hurried, pulled out a chair, sat, and took the stone into her palms like a bird’s egg.

“Did I put this here?”

A thought clicked like a lock; in the missing ten hours, she must have set a dozen things in motion. Now she had to read her own tracks, footprints in snow.

Even the sleepwear felt like part of the same design, a thread in the weave.

The rules never said you couldn’t use an Imagerecording Stone. They only said you couldn’t speak your identity.

Hints, though? Hints were wind in the grass.

“…Let’s see what I did in those ten hours.”

She fed magic into the stone. Images rose like fish through clear water.

Two girls appeared first, shoulders haloed by light.

Rexi: “Why’re we recording this?”

“Nothing big. Just keeping a card up our sleeve.”

“Oh. So what do we do next?”

“Head out and run the plan.”

They left through the door, silhouettes sliding away like swallows at dusk.

Judging by the light, that scene sat around yesterday at five in the evening, the sunset slanting through the window, casting long bars of shadow like ink strokes across the room.

After that, neither of them came back; only the shadows moved, creeping with time like moss.

Lucimia fed in more magic; the images sped up, night rolling over like a tide.

Finally, the door eased open. Only Rexi came in, alone.

“Mmm~” Rexi stretched, her spine a lazy cat.

“So tired. Bedtime.”

She began undressing, fabric whispering like leaves.

Lucimia blinked, unsure if she should watch; a beat later, necessity outweighed shyness.

Rexi stripped; pale skin flashed like moon on snow. Then she put on sleepwear and slipped under the quilts, vanishing like a pebble in a pond.

Lucimia felt a burr of wrongness snag her thoughts.

She dragged the progress back and watched again.

Again. And again. No big smoking crater. But the odd grit stayed.

First: when did the big-hearted, slapdash Rexi start changing clothes just to sleep, as prim as a housecat?

Second: a moment ago they’d been discussing the Duel like flint and steel. Now she came back, looked empty as a spent shell, and dropped right to sleep?

Lucimia filed both points away like pins in a map, then checked the time stamp—

23:00.

A while later—until two in the morning—Lucimia in the image returned. She undressed, put on sleepwear, and slid into bed, as if the day had rinsed her down to bones.

At three, the Lucimia in the recording awoke.

The stone’s vision ended, the surface going still as a frozen lake.

Lucimia frowned, a line like a knife cut. “What did we go out to do? Why did we come back one by one? Why did we act like nothing mattered, just bone-tired and ready to drop?”

Questions rose in her chest like a flock of startled birds.

Had she set more Imagerecording Stones outside? Where was the first victim lying, cold as iron? When did the memory-wipe strike, a wave across the shore?

What was Anliena doing? What exactly had she arranged?

The questions wheeled, a storm of leaves.

But she didn’t hurry; calm pooled in her heart like a still well. She knew once she stood before the first corpse, she could use these shards to piece together the truth, a mosaic in moonlight.