The rules were carved in stone: a serial killer wears pride like a crest, leaving either a personal mark, or crumbs for the Investigator. One path is enough.

Since the killer had chosen a mask and a target, Lucimia felt Anliena needn’t tip the scales; like a fox, the killer might leave tracks.

To learn who the killer had marked, Lucimia went to the law station, like a swallow cutting across dusk.

She asked Luwens to let her see the body; he agreed, sober as winter rain.

Soon they stepped into a side room, a cold box of air, where the dockworker lay like a felled tree.

Lucimia lifted the sheet, her brows knotting like storm clouds, and studied the corpse as if reading frost.

The death was brutal, as savage as the merchant’s, two storms sharing one sky.

A magic arrow had hit the head and burst like a firecracker; the dockworker’s skull was pulp, gray and red like trampled berries.

Beyond that, Lucimia saw nothing, just the quiet glare of stone and steel.

She lowered the cloth, stepped out, and turned to leave; Luwens stopped her, his voice like a low bell.

“What is it?” Lucimia paused in the hallway, a stream stilled by a stone.

“From what we know,” he said, words steady as iron, “the merchant was likely killed by the one posing as an Investigator, trying to erase the real hunter on his trail.”

“Mm…” A soft sound, like wind tasting rain; she let the view be his.

It was the enforcer’s angle, a lantern swung from their post.

Lucimia and Anliena both felt the “fake Investigator killing” read like staged smoke, a painted tiger.

Luwens hesitated, then went on, the sentence dragging like an anchor: “Now this worker’s dead, and the trail’s snapped. Got any ideas?”

“Uh…” Heat pricked her cheeks like noon sun; she didn’t know how to shape it.

She thought, then slid the topic aside like a card, and left him a hook: “Check if anyone’s gone missing lately, later than the Ouli case.”

“Why?” His doubt rose like mist from a marsh.

“No reason. Just check.” She clipped it off like a thread and walked out into the streetlight.

She wanted Luwens to find the first person the serial killer chose, the seed before the harvest.

Lucimia headed to the dockworker’s death site, eyes combing the ground like rakes through straw.

Nothing. Just water breathing and wind licking wood.

At last, empty-handed as a net in winter, she returned to the tavern.

—

In the room, Lucimia’s mind was a fogbound river; she couldn’t find a bank to land on.

Afternoon slid toward night like ink; still, no thread to pull.

No shouts in the street, no new death toll, only the tavern’s breath.

Rexi lay on the bed, legs swinging like a metronome, mumbling, “Ah, I’m bored out of my skull. I want a drink.”

Lucimia looked over, gaze a cool well. “Got any good ideas?”

“Uh… no idea. Maybe a few sips, and lightning will strike.” Rexi chuckled, a cat in cream.

Lucimia rolled her eyes like marbles. “Shouldn’t have let you drink. Look at you—made a wine sprite.”

“Heh-heh.” Mischief flickered like a candle.

Rexi rubbed her head, hopped down like a spring, patted her wrinkled clothes, and chirped, “I’ll just grab two cups!”

She didn’t wait for Lucimia’s answer; she skipped out like a sparrow, leaving Lucimia alone, chin propped, thoughts dripping like a leaky eave.

With no lead and idle hands, Lucimia took out the Imagerecording Stone, replaying it like waves over pebbles.

One thorn kept pricking her: the time she and Rexi returned, and how both looked scrubbed clean of memory, like slates in rain.

She watched the stone: Rexi came back first, then changed clothes; the time read 23:00, neat as a clockface.

Then Lucimia herself returned and changed; the time stamped was 2 a.m., cold as moonlight.

The dockworker’s account set the merchant’s death around 22:00, maybe a shade later, like dusk slipping deeper.

If the merchant died at 22:00, and Rexi looked memory-wiped by 23:00, then what was Lucimia doing till 2 a.m., walking like a sleepwalker?

If her memory had been cleared, how had her body kept moving, like a boat rowing with no oarsman?

And “memory delay” didn’t wash; Rexi already showed blank eyes by 23:00, a mask fixed by then.

“Something’s off…” The words fell like a pebble into a well, rings widening.

If the merchant died at 22:00, and memory lagged till 23:00, Lucimia shouldn’t still be outside; she should’ve “woken” mid-step on the street.

If the merchant didn’t die at 22:00, and Lucimia killed between 1 and 2 a.m., why did Rexi act blank at 23:00, like winter glass?

Both lines etched the same stark point into stone—

“Rexi… was faking?” The thought cracked open like thunder in her chest.

Either way, Rexi’s “memory wipe” was staged; her 23:00 act was a mask, carefully painted.

Why the act? Her own whim, or a plan they’d set, a net thrown in twilight?

To what end? What fish could that net catch?

At least this: the memory wipe didn’t land at 23:00, but later, maybe when Lucimia came back, like frost settling near dawn.

And like she’d argued with Anliena: if the merchant died at 22:00, why did no one report it until 3 a.m.? Five hours is a long night.

Clearly, the merchant died later, like a bell struck near midnight.

“Wait… if that’s true… doesn’t it make me the serial killer?”

Her heart jolted like a stag in brush.

“It can’t be that I killed the merchant, and Anliena killed someone too, and both got memory-wiped. That kind of luck is a comet.”

In the quiet room, Lucimia sank into thought, a diver holding breath in black water.

She traced a maze of lines, and every line met itself; whether she was killer or Investigator, the logic nestled snug, like stones in a wall.

“How did it come to this?” The whisper ran thin, like a thread unraveling.

Knock, knock, knock—

The wooden door shook like a drumskin.

Lucimia stared at the door, puzzled as a fox at a trap. “Who is it?”

Rexi never knocked; she blew in like wind, so it likely wasn’t her.

Or had she drunk herself into manners?

“It’s me, Luwens.”

“?”

Lucimia blinked; she hadn’t expected Luwens to find her again, and his tone carried a low weight, like clouds before rain.

She rose and opened the door. Luwens stood with arms crossed, face set like carved wood.

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s dead,” he said, voice flat as slate. “Here in this tavern. The server.”