While Lucimia weighed her thoughts, Luwens dropped a question like a pebble into still water. “The death was brutal. How do you read this murder?”

How do I read it? Her gut tightened, a cold knot beneath her ribs.

Was she supposed to say she did it? To tell Luwens she’d carved someone up like a thousand cuts on winter bark?

Impossible. The word hung in her throat like frost.

If she had killed, why do it so savagely? What gain sat behind that blood?

The whole scene whispered only one word: cruelty, like a red smear across snow.

“Cruel…,” Lucimia breathed, a soft murmur like wind through bamboo. Then a spark flared—Anliena’s slander, Oli’s abduction, and the cruelty tied together like threads on a loom.

She lifted her gaze to Luwens, steady as a candle’s flame. “I think the killer is the hand behind Oli’s disappearance, like you suspected. They saw me come to investigate and feared I’d pull a thread. So they killed to silence, with a brutality that fits villains painted in soot. Then they disguised themselves as an Investigator to get rid of me. The one waving a badge is likely a fake, here to smear me.”

She hurled the mud back like a swift return of a tide.

“That… makes sense.” Luwens rubbed his stubble, fingers dragging over grit.

“Let’s go to the Enforcement Station. No need to stare at the shop. We detain that fake Investigator first, then interrogate her.”

Lucimia stepped out of the jewelry shop, her shadow long as a brushstroke.

Seeing that, Luwens nodded, murmured to his men like a low drumbeat, and hurried after.

The three climbed into the carriage, its wheels turning like slow millstones.

Rexi hadn’t said a word since stepping down earlier. Lucimia sent her a questioning look, and the girl only blinked, guileless as a deer in fog.

Lucimia let it go, the thought settling like a leaf on water.

Maybe Rexi felt she couldn’t help, so she chose to watch from the sidelines, quiet as moss.

On the carriage seat, Lucimia’s mind kept circling, black birds wheeling over a field.

One question kept needling her: why had she gone to the jewelry shop between eight and ten last night?

She was in a Duel. So why break off to chase Oli’s case?

She went, the shopkeeper died, a witness appeared, and Anliena’s slander followed like thunder after lightning.

She saw the brutal scene and used it to fling the filth back. The timing linked like beads on a string.

Why was everything so neat, so eerily convenient?

It felt like she knew Anliena would smear her, so she prepared that cruel tableau ahead of time, a stage set for her counterstroke.

Could that be? The idea rustled like dry reeds, doubtful and thin.

With the questions rattling like seeds in a pod, Lucimia reached the Enforcement Station.

“Where’s the one calling herself an Investigator?”

She asked before the doors even breathed open.

“In my office,” Luwens replied, voice steady as a stone bridge. “If her status is suspect, I’ll set my people around like a ring, keep her from bolting.”

Lucimia nodded, then glanced at Rexi, a flicker like code passed in a fan’s snap.

Rexi caught it. Her inner actor leapt up, and she clutched her stomach with a yowl, like a cat mid-hairball. “Ow, my belly hurts.”

Luwens halted and looked back, brows lifting like reeds. “What happened? Ate too much breakfast?”

“…No idea. Ow, it really hurts. Lucimia, help me to the restroom. You and Luwens can go ahead. It’s not my case anyway.”

Lucimia made a show of hesitating, a pause like a held breath. Then she nodded. “You’re hopeless.”

“Restroom’s this way,” Luwens said, casual as a hand wave. “I’ll take you.”

They walked two corridors, narrow and pale like the building’s intestines. Lucimia guided Rexi into the restroom, while Luwens waited outside, sentinel-still.

Inside, Rexi whispered, excitement bright as lacquer. “Well? Did I sell it?”

“Good enough,” Lucimia said, patting her shoulder, a tap like a gavel. “I’ll disguise you as something small and pocketable. After I see her badge, I’ll do a second disguise.”

“No problem,” Rexi breathed, brave as a sparrow.

Lucimia called on her Disguise Power, a ripple like silk drawn over light, and made Rexi into a tiny insect. She tucked her into a pocket, soft as a charm.

Seconds later, she slipped out the door, cool as night rain.

“Let’s go.”

“Right,” Luwens answered, a nod like a short bow.

They walked to his office, steps measured like counting beads.

Luwens pushed the door. Lucimia peered inside, eyes sweeping like a paper fan.

Sure enough, a girl sat there, barely grown, with long white hair gently curled, streaked with a few pink highlights like plum blossoms on snow.

She was Anliena.

On the other side sat a man in his thirties or forties, dressed in dockworker’s garb, impatience tapping in his heel like a ticking beetle.

They entered. Luwens closed the door, the latch clicked like a note.

Seeing Lucimia come in, unbound and free as a wind-current, Anliena shot to her feet, face stern as a winter moon. “Luwens, you should restrain her, not let her roam. She’s very likely the fake Investigator I mentioned—a serial killer who frames and slanders others.”

Lucimia didn’t speak at once; silence settled around her like a calm lake. Luwens scratched his head with a sheepish smile, a gesture like smoothing a rough board. “About that—I think both your identities are suspect. And after weighing things, I think your suspicion is heavy too.”

“?” The look Anliena gave him held sharp confusion, a blade turned in hand.

When she’d showed her badge earlier, Luwens had believed her. Why the sudden drift to doubt?

Anliena cut a glance at Lucimia, certain the shift came from her words, suspicion coiling like smoke.

“Heh. The witness saw her enter the jewelry shop. Then the shopkeeper died. If not her, who? Does she even have an Investigator badge? Without it, what else is she but a fake?”

“Who’s the witness?” Lucimia didn’t refute first; she asked, voice cool as shade.

“That one.” Luwens pointed to the dockworker, silent and brittle with impatience.

Lucimia looked his way. He turned his eyes aside, evasive as a fish.

Her brow creased, a fine line like ink. Then she faced Anliena, stance balanced like a blade.

“Do you have a badge?”

“Yes,” Anliena snapped, her certainty tight as a knot.

“I don’t believe you.”

Anliena’s hand slipped into her pocket like a hawk diving. She slapped a document onto the table, the paper fluttering like a pale wing.

It held clauses like rows of rice, her name signed with magic script, an official seal, and special spells woven through.

Lucimia asked Luwens, voice level as tea poured steady. “You’re sure it’s real?”

“Sure,” Luwens said, nodding like a temple bell. “There’s an anti-forgery mark in the magic.”

“Hmph. I showed mine. Where’s yours?” Anliena’s confidence gleamed like lacquer; as a royal of the Lowegar Kingdom, she knew Lucimia shouldn’t have any badge.

But Lucimia smiled lightly and nodded, calm as drift snow. “I’ll show you.”

She slid her hand into her pocket. Her Disguise Power flowed like ink on silk, and a twin badge formed, the name different like a shifted seal.

Anliena stared as Lucimia drew it out and handed it to Luwens, her eyes widening like lanterns lit at dusk.