By the time Lucimia and Rexi arrived, Anliena stood rooted like a rock in a stream, while the enforcement squad had penned a dockworker inside a shop.

Lucimia touched down, wind skimming her cloak like a hawk’s wing, and peered in.

The dockworker held a little girl hostage, his knife a cold crescent at her throat, voice jagged with panic: “Don’t come closer! One more step and she dies with me!”

The girl burst into sobs, tears pattering like rain on tile.

Everyone froze, fear settling like frost on their limbs.

Lucimia spotted Luwens in the front row, a steady shape amid a tide of faces. She moved to his side and asked, “Is this dockworker tied to the Auril case?”

“Should be,” Luwens said, voice level as a still pond. “In the Auril case, all the dockworkers testified Auril had already clocked out, like dusk slipping off the pier.”

“Oh.”

Lucimia nodded, thoughts circling like crows. “What’s your move in a situation like this?”

“Normally, we neutralize a hostage-taker outright,” Luwens said, tone hard as iron. “But it’s tricky. He’s indoors, only a frontal line. He’s hugging cover like a rat behind a crate.”

“Is that so?” Lucimia nodded, her eyes clouded like a stormbank.

Something about today felt wrong to her, as if strings were pulled behind a paper screen, every step prearranged.

She thought for two breaths, then glanced back toward Anliena and called her over, voice low as wind through reeds.

“What?”

“Use magic and kill him. You’re an Investigator. Under Lowegar Kingdom law, taking him down should be fine.”

Anliena hesitated, doubt pooling like shadow. “Why don’t you go?”

“You’re better suited.”

Anliena weighed it, then shook her head like a willow refusing the wind. “No. Find someone else.”

Lucimia caught the worry, a cat avoiding a snare. Was she that sure Lucimia was an Investigator? Afraid the man was innocent, that killing would spring a trap?

Luwens heard them and, after a beat, spoke, calm as a lantern in fog. “No need to worry. We’ve got a mage specialized in shooting magic already in position.”

Hearing that, Lucimia and Anliena said no more.

Seeing himself surrounded, the dockworker shouted, voice cracking like dry wood, “All of you, back off! At least a thousand meters! Prepare me a carriage and I’ll let her go!”

Luwens wouldn’t grant it. His tone warmed like sunlight through lattice. “Buddy, release the hostage. Then you’ll just get locked up. You won’t have to answer me—we already know the answer. You won’t die. You’ll sit in prison. It’s a squeeze, sure, but better than the dirt, right? And jail protects you. The mastermind behind the Auril case silenced a merchant. They can silence you too, right? Think it through.”

Lucimia listened, patience drizzling like a soft rain. The man had a knack for coaxing.

The dockworker wavered, resolve crumbling like sand. He shouted again, harsher: “No. You can’t protect me!”

“Does running keep you alive?” Luwens shot back, voice clipped like a snapped twig.

“Yes. Someone told me. If I do their job and run, they’ll protect me from the Auril mastermind!”

Shock jumped like sparks between Lucimia, Luwens, and Anliena.

That one line dropped like a mountain.

It meant a third player stood in the shadows.

Then the killer who murdered the merchant wasn’t the Auril mastermind?

Who was it?

What had the dockworker done? He smeared Lucimia, spun false testimony.

Lucimia’s gaze slid to Anliena, cold as moonlight. She suspected Anliena, or perhaps Anliena’s companion.

Anliena stared back, her eyes a locked gate, and Lucimia couldn’t read the weather inside.

Luwens didn’t think it was them. He shouted to the dockworker, voice ringing like a bell, “You mean that killer who impersonated an Investigator told you to do this? He’s got nothing to do with the Auril mastermind?”

The dockworker paused, then yelled, “Yes!”

That single “yes” left Lucimia and Anliena stunned, minds blank as white paper.

There really was such a killer? Wasn’t that something they’d made up?

They met eyes for a heartbeat and saw only the same bewilderment staring back.

Luwens believed it. He called out, steely as a drawn bow, “He can’t protect you. If he could, why are Investigators hunting him?”

“Impossible,” the dockworker snapped, words sharp as gravel. “You haven’t seen his strength. He can protect me. If you were that strong, you’d have solved the Auril case already.”

He turned Luwens’s rhetoric back like a mirrored blade.

Luwens fell silent, words drying up like a well.

The standoff settled again, heavy as fog.

The dockworker grew impatient, anger beating like a drum, and repeated his demands.

Luwens, helpless for the moment, dispersed the crowd, pushing them back like a tide retreating.

“Prepare that carriage!”

“Alright.”

Luwens answered smoothly, but sent word in secret, thread of intent slipping through the ether to a mage for a long-range shot.

The whole block went quiet, silence deep as a pond at night, broken only by the girl’s soft sobs.

A breeze brushed past, lifting leaves like little flags.

Everyone held their breath, chests tight as bound drums, waiting for the hidden mage’s strike.

One minute.

Three minutes.

Five minutes.

By Lucimia’s measure, it was about that long. Then—whoosh—a pale green arrow, thin as a reed, sliced past her view and flew into the shop, punching clean through the dockworker’s brain.

“Go, go, go—check the girl!” Luwens ordered, voice snapping like a whip.

The squad surged forward like a breaking wave.

Lucimia stepped into the shop, her pace quick as a gust, and looked at the man on the floor.

His brain was pierced; blood and pulp splattered like crushed berries. The death was brutal. The girl had gone stiff with terror, voice lost like a bird in a storm.

Luwens moved up, checked the man, then walked back, face set like carved wood.

“Dead?” Lucimia asked, tone cool as shade.

“Dead.”

“Oh.”

“For now, we leave it here,” Luwens muttered, patience frayed like old rope. “This port isn’t quiet—one hidden force, one killer from Karan City. Outside, a Dark Deity. The times are restless.”

He shifted tone, smooth again. “By the way, I’m entrusting you with the Auril case. If you need help, find me.”

“Mm.” Lucimia nodded, like a reed bowing to wind.

She turned to go, but saw Anliena at the doorway, arms crossed like shuttered windows, gaze storm-dark on Lucimia.

Lucimia didn’t engage. She walked straight forward, brushing past like a chill breeze.

Anliena spoke then, voice firm as a nail: “You’re a serial killer. I don’t know your goal. I’ve got no proof. But this dockworker’s death ties directly to you, doesn’t it? He was someone Auril designated to kill?”

Lucimia shot her a wary look, eyes thin as blades. “I don’t understand you. I don’t know him.”

“I don’t believe you. I challenge you to a Duel. You concede and tell me you truly don’t know him.”

“Why would I do that?” Lucimia asked, bafflement rippling like disturbed water.

“If you don’t, I’ll share this guess with Luwens. I’ve already cut my ties with the worker. Or you can Duel me. I’ll concede. I’ll say my companion has nothing to do with him.”

Lucimia shrugged, wind-light, and agreed. “Fine.”

“I concede,” Lucimia said, voice steady as stone. “If I lie, the time ability’s truth-bind snaps to you. My answer: I truly don’t know that dockworker.”

They waited a breath, then another. Nothing happened. Anliena’s brows knit like tangled branches.

“Your turn.”

“…”

Anliena spoke low, each word weighted like rain: “My companion didn’t kill the merchant. My companion didn’t instruct that worker.”

They waited again. Still nothing.

With her answer in hand, Lucimia left Anliena in the doorway, said nothing, gave nothing back, and headed toward the enforcement station to pick up Rexi.

“Tch…”

Anliena rolled her eyes like flung pebbles, glanced once at the dockworker’s body, and turned away, taking another street like a shadow cutting a corner.

—

Away from the crowd, Anliena’s mood turned raw and restless, nerves buzzing like a hive.

She walked the street, dragging in deep breaths like hauling nets, raking her hair, clicking her tongue.

“What’s going on?” she muttered, doubt gnawing like mice in grain. “That worker’s got no link to her? How’s that possible? And why, after she killed, my memory… didn’t get wiped?”