It had taken the police constabulary, a force to be reckoned apparently only when they don’t think you may have gone insane, two months to find the bodies. They weren’t too far from the capital; all had been put in shallow graves, in an organized manner, at the back of an abandoned farm. It wasn’t until a new tenant of the farm, who had taken possession of it the previous day, began making a small hole and accidentally digged up a hand.

  In total there were the bodies of nine women and two men, all of them were naked and their faces burned away, probably by some kind of spell. Most of the bodies, however, were in an unnaturally good state of decomposition, hinting at the use of magic in some other way that the agents were still investigating, much to the horror of the farmer, who had made the worst investment of his life there, and would not get it back. The company that had the farm listed as property turned out to be a shell; their listed office being the private apartment of a bank clerk and his wife.

  The only name they had, as it appeared listed as that of the company’s head, was one Marineus Yadesh. Someone who didn’t appear to exist either.

  Ludis de Crato, who had since regretted having been given the title of being the King’s Eyes, feared at that point that the obligations of his role that he had never signed up for may have become eternal.

  In these past months, his life had changed significantly in more ways than those exclusively concerning his workload, as he now had to juggle both his more clerical office work with being an amateur detective chasing shadows with no leads whatsoever after first accepting and finally confirming that his only witness was dead; his boss had become unhinged and buried in his research trying to prove something that was apparently highly improvable, but wasn’t telling what, and what’s worse, he had been put with a cute but incredibly annoying constable as means of having the police oversee his work. Apparently something the chief commissioner of the capital had asked the prince personally after his wandering had brought them the case of a mass vanishing and murder.

  “So, sir, what will be your approach to solve the case today?” Clarissa asked, there was venom in her voice every time she said ‘sir’. She had taken off one of her uniform’s gloves and was intently studying her own fingernails in a way that made her sarcasm more than clear. “Because I’d like to go home a bit earlier today if there’s nothing to do.”

  He gritted his teeth, internally wishing for her to be a bit less theatrical in her displays of displeasure.

  “How about we do something different and for the first time in a week, you can just go home?” He smiled at her, the feeling behind it being more than clear.

  “If I do that, regardless of what you say, my bosses will get angry!” She smiled back at him, it was the same exact expression.

  Crato grumbled to himself and paid for both of their drinks. He wasn’t getting her out of his back in some more time at least, and yet, he thought, maybe he could manage to do so if he could talk with the prince personally. The next time was supposed to be the next day, if he didn’t get away from his duties again, that is, so twenty four, no, a bit more, but just one more day, one more day and he wouldn’t be babysat around by a girl, not even a woman, no one would consider her that, she was a girl; who kept loudly judging every single one of his actions.

  “If you must know, Clarisse,” Crato mispronounced her name, intentionally of course, “My plan for today is to visit the urbanism planning office and have the clerk there give me a description of who filed for ownership of the farm.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “And then the market’s office?” And then she saw him having a quizzing expression in his face. “You know, to do the same thing?”

  “The Market Authority would not know, and neither would the capital’s guildhall. Application for the creation of a company can be done by mail and bank transference of the fees. And if it came from a foreign account, it would become nearly impossible to track it depending on which country it is from.” He answered, mechanically, before anticipating himself to the obvious following question. “And no, the same does not apply to urbanism. While purchasing of property can be done between individuals with only the supervision of a notary who then sends the documents to the office, purchase of land by a company has to be done by a legal representative.”

  “Then, with that description and hopefully a real name you’ll go to the Ministry of Justice, and have them get him for you, so you can interrogate him.” Clarissa summarized, only to then sarcastically quip, “Very smart, sir, there’s only the problem of that being an obvious dead end. The company doesn’t need anyone to have contacted the lawyer.”

  He arched an eyebrow. He had figured as much, but it was their only real lead at the moment. Crato wanted to ask her, sarcastically, what would she do in his stead, if she’s feeling like doing some actual police work instead of annoying him. However, Ludis de Crato had always prided himself in his patience. He had as much as he needed, he wasn’t a saint, of course, but he could easily tolerate things like this, even if he found them grating. That said, he did have a better idea.

  “On your end, Clarisse, have the forensics already investigated the bodies” He asked.

  She blinked, put her glove back on and pulled out a bag from somewhere he couldn’t see as the left the cafe in which they had just had breakfast. From it, Clarissa pulled out a small folder and handed it to him.

  Crato didn’t want to look inside, not after having just eaten, or at any other time really, but the carriage ride to the palace from that small place close to her apartment in the outskirts, where she had insisted for them to eat on the grounds, first, that she felt ‘irritated’ in the establishments he frequented, and two, that it had a nice coffee. It didn’t, but the tea was good enough. Finally, with a heavy sigh, he read through the surprisingly not dense or overly technical report.

  The findings inside were nothing out of what could be expected. The exact causes of death were unknown, but magic had been used to preserve the bodies and they had only been buried for a couple of days before being found. A following report speculated that the reason for it was so the culprit could choose when the bodies would be found. Meaning that, likely they had left the city already, and probably Lastria as a country itself. But there was one thing that the magical forensic consultant had brought to attention that made both of Crato’s eyebrows go up: The preservation spell and the face-burning one seemed to be connected.

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  Once they arrived to the palace, Crato snickered to himself about how, clearly, the constable had never been anywhere that had any amount of luxury, or class, or so many guards. There were more guards than he has seen before as he had to show proof of identity to enter into the Regent’s office. Something had happened.

  The office in question was a set of five rooms, four of them squares on a two by two grid and the fifth a smaller and round tower room in a corner. All the rooms had a chessboard pattern on the floor, dark wood paneling and vaulted marble ceilings, and all of them had an elemental theme depending on what use they had. Clockwise, there was the anteroom, which had a forest theme and was decorated with three large murals showing pastoral scenes, the second was the meeting room, which had an oceanic theme, and had two large tapestries of naval battles, along with sculptures of mermaids decorating the fireplace, the third was the office itself, which had a fire theme, and thus, well if there was anything there, the prince had replaced it with a red wallpaper, and lastly there was the lounge room, which had a wind theme, and thus the vaulted ceiling had a fresco that showed the eye of a storm from below. He had never seen the inside of the tower, but it was used as a sort of small library or archive.

  He found the prince in the lounge, laying on a rather uncomfortable-looking couch, with the coffee table next to it covered in paperwork. He wasn’t sleeping, but he had his eyes closed.

  “Your Highness!” He didn’t yell, but wanted to, if only as a joke.

  The prince opened his eyes, and gestured a greeting to him.

  Clarissa behind him looked confused for a moment before realizing that, yes, she was more than likely in front of the single most important person in the kingdom, and he was a young man who, being the most charitable as she could, looked like some noble had shaved and given a haircut to a homeless man, put him in a fancy suit, and left him back into his own life for a couple of days.

  “Your Highness, may I ask why the entire army is in your hallway? Did you declare war on showering or what?” Crato asked, his voice filled with a disdain that Clarissa couldn’t believe, but seeing that, could comprehend.

  “I have showered, yesterday.” The prince answered back, his voice was hoarse. “But I have not sleep since, so, um…” He had noticed her presence “Do excuse me.”

  “I was not aware that not sleeping could make someone who does not drink smell like a drunk.” Crato quipped.

  The prince shot him a dirty look, rose from the couch and composed himself in a manner so hasty that Clarissa ended up honestly quite surprised. After a single minute he just needed a shave to look like how he looks in official pictures of himself.

  “I had an alcoholic drink, by accident.” He mumbled, to her, he sounded surprisingly sincere, and by the massive grin in her charge’s face, he probably was. “And they’re there because there has been an accident.”

  Crato arched an eyebrow.

  “I made you aware that I had written a letter weeks ago to be sent as soon as possible when things were sorted here so that Ro-… Lady Wynthart, could return to the capital and be exonerated, correct?” Crato nodded. “Well, things are sorted, but I have not given the order, yet my eagle was sent with it yesterday.”

  “I fail to see how that is a problem, your Highness, less work for you.” He quipped.

  “The problem is that I told it to a grand number of three people. You included. And one of them physically could not have made it flown as she is still in Wynthart.” The prince explained. “So, care to explain this, Lord Crato?”

  “Your Highness, with your permission, if I may.” She began, after which she kept silent as the prince demanded to know who she was, then Crato explained, and finally after a back and forth about security the Regent sighed and gave her permission to talk. “Lord Crato was with me all day yesterday. I didn’t look away for a single moment, and we were both in the same room at all times, except once in a bar when he had to go to the toilet.”

  “Who is this third person.” Crato asked the obvious question.

  The prince seemed deeply uncomfortable for a moment. After having a long work relationship with him, Crato knew that it was probably related to some kind of scolding he had to go through. “Lord Vivrul, the Minister of Justice. It was his idea for me to write the letter before everything was done, for reasons that I do not wish to explain as they are rather embarrassing for me. But he did not order the letter to be sent, he has told me as much and has no reason to lie. So unless it was you, I have no idea of how it could have happened.”

  “Your Highness, is the sending of the letter such a problem?” She asked. “Maybe there was a fourth person, a servant or such, who found out about it, or was told by their master, and made the decision on their own as a way of helping them.”

  His Highness seemed to actually consider it for a moment before scratching his head and letting out a loud groan.

  “The problem is that we have a security issue at the palace, but the letter, by itself, is not actually one. It just upsets my plans a little.” He finally said.

  Then he explained. Apparently his intention was to have Lady Wynthart return to the capital at the end of the week, spend the weekend together, and then have her publicly exonerated in the next grand ball. He had been thinking about sending the note the very next day having this time to arrange everything, he had calculated all the timings. Now, it was likely that the lady and her entourage would return the next day, and having a security issue at the palace, he wasn’t too comfortable in the plan being like that.

  And not only that, apparently he hadn’t been able to contact Wynthart, as in the city itself and its castle. The phone connection wasn’t working. So he couldn’t arrange things with them either.

  Once he was finished, Crato turned around to Clarissa. “And this, my dear, if you were questioning it, is why I still tolerate your presence despite how much you want me to get rid of you.”

  He took a deep breath. “Anyway, your Highness, please take a look at this.”

  The prince jumped when he looked inside the folder Crato handed him. As in, physically jumped, in the air. “Living Saints!” He exclaimed, blasphemously.

  “Your Highness, I am quite afraid that I need you to take a good look at that and talk to me about magic.” Crato smiled.

  Behind him, Clarissa furrowed her brow so hard it was painful. For her, one thing were her normal cases, mostly involving minor robberies, and at one point an actual murder, which had given her some manner of responsibility inside the constabulary, but since she went with him into that mansion, her already dim picture of the aristocracy got darker and darker. And something in her gut told her that it would keep going in that direction.