The judge in this case was like a younger clone of the judge Apollo was facing today, Athena thought. She didn't know the man had a brother.

"Silence!" Simon barked across the courtroom and the court dutifully went quiet. "Mr St John, please tell the court what you were doing on the night in question, this time without all the lies and omissions."
"Objection!" the woman standing at the defense attorney's bench yelled. She was taller than Athena, with tan skin and curling chestnut hair. Like a taller version of her mother, Athena thought. "My client already explained that those omissions were… oversights. Nothing more."

"Indeed," Simon said, a cruel smile on his lips. "Proceed, defendant."

"I went out to dinner with some business associates, at Chez Michel. I did step out to take a phone call," he glared at Simon, "but can't have been gone more than fifteen minutes." His accent sounded strange, British with some American thrown in. Athena supposed it was the effect of living in the US for so long.

"The payments you mention were some help I offered to a friend in need, nothing sinister about them. Yes, they went to a numbered bank account in the Cayman Islands, but if you ask your fellow prosecutor about that, he'll tell you that many people in the public eye use such accounts for privacy reasons." Simon twitched but it seemed he resisted the urge to sic Taka on the man.

"And the email address," Simon prompted.

"Not mine," St John said easily.

"Please see the subpoenaed account records from Freemail Inc," Simon said, slicing the papers across the court and pinning them with his blade. St John didn't even flinch. He's made of ice, that one, Athena thought. Apollo had said St John reminded him of Kristoph Gavin. She could see why now.

"I don't see the relevance," St John was saying.

"Freemail claim that the IP address used to sign up for an account was the one you see on that piece of paper. Your ISP confirms it uses static IP's, and that this is the one assigned to your account."

"My business account," St John corrected. "I have an internal network and over one hundred employees. Any of them could have set up the email address."

Simon recoiled in shock. "My apologies," he said thinly after checking his notes. "You are correct."

Damn, that had caught him by surprise. Athena watched him gather his thoughts. A young man in a dark green suit entered the courtroom and dashed up to Ms Bose, handing her a few papers and whispering to her.

"Your honor," Bose said. "May I approach the bench?"

"Uh, well, that's rather irregular," the judge said. Bose gave him a winning smile. "But there's no rule against it." Martha Bose strode purposefully towards the judge's bench and Simon snarled and slouched after her. There was some murmuring and a few muffled exclamations from Simon. Athena had a bad feeling about this.
"Right, well, Mr Blackquill, the defense makes a good point about this case. You seem to have very little in terms of evidence and your prior history with Mr St John means you really should have recused yourself before this trial began." Athena gasped in horror. Simon had a conflict of interest and hadn't revealed it to the court?

"This court takes a dim view of anyone who tries to hoodwink justice," the judge continued. "It's seems the facts of this case are clear. I'm ruling this a mistrial, and all charges against Mr St John will be dropped. The prosecutor's office and the police may continue to investigate and if sufficient physical evidence can be found to support fresh charges, this ruling should not interfere with that through double jeopardy. Court is dismissed!" He banged the gavel hard and then turned to Simon, saying something that made the samurai prosecutor nod curtly. The court was mayhem, journalists swarmed around Athena in the public gallery as they all attempted to follow Julian St John and his triumphant attorney out of the court. Athena's phone buzzed in her pocket.

We won! Want to go celebrate? AJ

I can't, something bad's happened. Simon's in trouble.

What happened? AJ

Tell you later. But it's bad.

Klavier was almost draped over Apollo in the booth of Java Judgement, looking happier than he had in days.

"You're crazy," Apollo laughed. "Anyone would think you'd won today!"

"I did," Klavier said with a shrug. "At least, justice won." He gave a sly look at Apollo to see if his pun made him smile.

"Like I haven't heard that one before," Apollo grumbled good-naturedly. He tapped a quick message to Athena on his phone. "So, does this mean FR-3 was never related to the serial killer," he asked.

Klavier shook his head, deep in thought. "Ja, I don't know. It's a strange coincidence, is it not? And we didn't solve the question of where the sticky note came from."

"Well, I guess you'll figure it out when you question Ms Snapps or Darke or whatever she wants to call herself," Apollo said. "Joe Darke's sister, huh? What are the odds?"

"It could explain how Fraulein Starr ended up back in LA," Klavier mused. "If Ms Snapps had discovered her new identity and appearance, maybe she lured Ms Starr here somehow."

"Yeah, that could work. I mean, witness protection is good but if she was really determined and maybe hired a good private detective…"

"A bad private detective," Klavier said shortly.

"What? No he'd have to be good at his job… oh you mean, ethically bad. Yeah, I guess." He was distracted by his phone as Athena replied to his message. He frowned and typed another text.

"I hope I'm not boring you, Forehead," Klavier sulked.

"No, no, it's from Athena. Something's happened, I don't know what. But she says Simon's in trouble."

"Blackquill?" Klavier said sharply "How?"

"No idea," Apollo said. "Athena won't say. Probably too complicated for a text message."

"Let's head back to the courthouse," Klavier suggested. "It might be nothing, but there have been too many bad things happening to all of us recently.

There was a hard rapping at the door and then Miles burst into Phoenix's temporary office, looking flustered.

"Miles," Phoenix said in alarm. "What's the matter?"

"Blackquill," Miles said, sounding terrible. "I've had to suspend him."

"What happened?" Phoenix said, getting up and guiding his friend into a chair.

Miles leaned forward, his head in his hands. "You know he was prosecuting this morning?"

"Yeah, the St John case. Athena turned him down as a client. Said he gave her the willies or something."

"Well, he took on Martha Bose Junior as defense counsel. That apple didn't fall far from the tree. She discovered that Blackquill and St John had a past." Miles was breathing heavily and Phoenix got up and grabbed a can of soda out of the fridge and pressed it into his hands. Miles gave it a disparaging look but opened it and drank thirstily. Phoenix watched the movement of his throat and kicked himself but he couldn't look away.

"What kind of a past?" he prompted.

Miles twisted his hands together in an uncharacteristic expression of distress. "As a prosecutor and in prison."

"St John has a record?" Phoenix spluttered. "I didn't know that."

"Yes and no," Miles said. "He was convicted for the murder of six teenage girls between 2017 and 2019. Blackquill was the prosecutor in that case, just weeks before he himself was wrongly convicted of Metis Cykes's murder. St John's defense counsel filed for a mistrial, claiming the conviction was unsound given that the prosecutor had been jailed for murder. The court wouldn't allow it, but they did give him an expedited appeal and on appeal he was able to provide an alibi for one of the murders. A witness had come forward and said he'd met with St John in Atlanta on the day he was supposed to be murdering Alicia Wentworth in San Pedro. He was acquitted and released."

"Shit," Phoenix said with feeling. "I don't remember that case at all. I remember the murders, vaguely."

"You'd been disbarred by the time St John came to trial," Miles said softly. "You didn't exactly have your finger on the pulse after that."

"Still… fuck, Miles, this is bad. How come you didn't get Blackquill to recuse himself?"

"Because I didn't know, dammit!" Miles barked. "I wasn't here either, remember? I was in Germany. I only found out about it when the Judge came barging into my office this afternoon. I've suspended Blackquill, pending an investigation. I've got no choice, I'm trying to clean this office up and I can't be seen to be sweeping prosecutorial misbehavior under the carpet."

"I'm sure Blackquill understands," Phoenix soothed. He reached out to touch Miles and then hesitated. Swallowing, he gathered his courage and placed a hand on his shoulder. Miles looked up at him, his face drawn and gray.

"What am I going to do," he whispered. "It's all falling apart, Phoenix. What am I going to do?"

Phoenix jerked at the use of his first name. Miles never called him Phoenix, ever. He knelt down on the floor and cautiously slid his hand down Miles's arm and grasped his hand.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But we'll figure it out. I promise."

The door opened and Phoenix found himself staring into the startled eyes of Apollo and Klavier.

"Uh, I think we're interrupting something," Apollo squeaked and began to back out of the room. Phoenix disengaged his hand and stood up, his face flaming.

"No," he stammered. "It's OK. Miles was just telling me about Blackquill."
"I see," Apollo said slowly. "We just spoke to Athena. She's distraught and Simon's gone into one of his silent, brooding phases."

"I can't believe he was so stupid," Klavier said irritably. "Surely he knew someone like Martha Bose would find out about this."

"Maybe that's why he was so keen for Athena to take the case," Phoenix said sourly.

"Nein, that is beneath you. Blackquill is a pain in the hintern, ja, but he is not corrupt. And he would never do anything to hurt Fraulein Cykes." Klavier looked offended, Phoenix thought.

"I'm sorry," he winced. "I didn't mean it like that. But I agree with you, why did he take such a big risk?"

"It's probably my fault," Miles said. He made a quelling gesture when Phoenix, Apollo and Klavier all denied the possibility. "He knew how much stress I was under, with one prosecutorial position unfilled, Payne using his seniority to get out of prosecuting most of the smaller cases and then this whole mess with the serial killer. He probably figured nobody would find out and no harm no foul."

"I disagree," Klavier said sharply. "Blackquill must have known he was jeopardizing the trial."

"He made a mistake," Apollo said. "Maybe you're so perfect you've never screwed anything up, but the rest of us are human. Leave him alone."

Klavier stared at him, his face white. "My bandmate was a smuggler and a murderer and I never knew. I've made my share of mistakes, Apollo."

Apollo's hair drooped alarmingly. "I know. God, I'm sorry, Klavier. It just feels like the hits keep coming at the moment. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"Why didn't you recuse yourself?" Athena asked, her head propped on her knees as she sat on the bed looking at Simon. Simon stared down at the floor.
"Because Herr Edgeworth is overwhelmed, those shirking Payne's were always wriggling out of cases and that without getting into the whole serial killer debacle," he said curtly. "I didn't see why it should matter. Yes I was a prosecutor on a previous case where he was convicted, and yes later he appealed and was released. But this isn't the first time that's happened. Why should I think this was any different?"

"Uh, because you were in prison with this guy while he was arranging his appeal?"

Simon's head whipped round like a striking snake. "What have you heard?" he snapped.

"Heard? Nothing, Simon. What are you talking about?" Athena could hear the discord and pain in Simon's voice.

"Somebody's mmph mmph" Athena clapped her hand over Widget before he could make this worse.

"Prison is a harsh place," Simon told her. "Sometimes, you have to do things to survive. Things you'd never do otherwise."

"OK," Athena said carefully. "Simon, you don't have to talk about this if you don't want to."

"You'll find out, soon enough," Simon said bitterly. He paused and Athena thought he might not say any more anyway. "There's no money in prison," he said finally.

"Yeah," Athena said, mystified.

"But things are still bought and sold, do you understand?" Simon's voice was a whisper, an icy wind that chilled Athena to the bone.

"Well, I know cigarettes are used as currency," she said uncertainly. "Umm, I'm guessing other things too?"

"Yes," Simon said desolately.

Athena stared at him, understanding making her shiver.

"You…" she broke off, overcome. Simon pulled away from her. "No! Simon, I get it. You shouldn't feel bad about doing whatever you had to do to survive in there." She pulled him closer and wrapped herself around him. "It's OK." She kissed the top of his head. "I promise it's all going to be OK."

"St John was a… procurer of items. Whatever you needed, he could get. I didn't need drugs or cigarettes or anything like that. What I did need was privileges. For Taka. St John made a deal with the warden to allow me to keep my bird. I have no idea what that deal was, the warden certainly hadn't been interested in helping me out when I had appealed to him directly. That deal had a price, and I paid it. So, yes, when the chance to prosecute the man came up, I wanted it. I believe a terrible miscarriage of justice occurred when he was released from prison. I believe his alibi for that case was fake, and I think he's done it again. And he's free to kill again because of me."

Trucy Wright was young, but that did not mean she was stupid. Daddy had tried to keep her away from the awful things in the world, but she wasn't a little kid anymore. Uncle Miles had explained the serial killer theory to her and that was big and scary. But he also had promised he would keep her safe, and Trucy believed him. He got a particular look in his eye when he said things like that. It was the same look he got when he looked at Daddy. He never looked at anyone else that way. Trucy had tried to explain the look to her friends. Pearl had told her she was imagining things with a more jaundiced eye than Trucy had thought her capable of. Jinxie had been no help at all, since it wasn't likely that Uncle Miles was possessed by a demon. She needed someone to talk to, someone who knew the people involved and could keep a secret.

"You know, I'm not sure I'm the one you should be confiding in," Ema said.

"Who else is there?" Trucy said. "I can't ask Daddy about it, obviously. Polly couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it. And Athena's a good listener but Widget just blurts everything out in front of everyone."

"OK, OK, I suppose that doesn't leave many other people. The fop is too self-absorbed to notice anything and Blackquill's too wrapped up in Athena to notice anyone else even exists. So, explain this to me again because the last time I thought you were implying that Miles Edgeworth is in love with Phoenix Wright. And that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life."

Trucy sulked. "It's not ridiculous. You should see them together. Look at the expressions on Uncle Miles's face."

"Facial expressions. On the Chief Prosecutor? Look, Trucy, I don't want to seem like I'm being a bitch but are you sure you're not… projecting?"

"I don't know what you mean," Trucy protested.

"Things have been rough recently. A killer on your Dad's trail, other friends of yours possibly in danger. You like Mr Edgeworth, he's strong and stable and he's been friends with your Dad forever. So maybe you're seeing what you want to see?"

"No," Trucy said adamantly. "Please, Ema. Watch him tonight. You'll see it, I swear."

"All right," Ema said amiably. "Although I was looking forward to seeing your show."

"You can do both, silly!" Trucy told her. "Uncle Miles is coming tonight."

"I know that," Ema said patiently. "But how can I observe him and watch you at the same time."

"Oh, you'll figure it out," the young girl said airily. "And anyway, there is an intermission."

"Trucy will understand if you don't come tonight, Miles," Phoenix said.

"Nonsense," Miles retorted. "A promise is a promise. There's little more I can do tonight anyway. Maybe a break is just what I need."

"Is Blackquill OK?" Phoenix asked.

"I spoke to Athena earlier," Miles told him. "She said he's not in great shape but she's keeping an eye on the situation. Obviously they won't be coming out tonight."

"Of course," Phoenix said. "I already told Trucy what's going on."

"And that's why I have to go," Miles said. Phoenix blinked in confusion. "Trucy needs some stability in her life."

A warm feeling swelled inside Phoenix and threatened to spill over into tears. My God, he thought, you're a grown man. He smiled at Miles and it felt a little wobbly.

"OK," he said unsteadily. "Let's go."

He raised his eyebrows at the bland silver sedan on the driveway. "Got sick of the red sports car?" he asked.

"Don't be ridiculous, Wright. But the car is distinctive and we've already been shot at once. I'm not taking that risk with your life again. Or with your daughter's."

Dammit, Miles seemed to be able to get right under his skin tonight. "Thanks, Miles."

"Gavin and Justice said they'd meet us there," Miles said.

"Yeah," Phoenix sighed. "He's really been good to Trucy these past few days. I may have misjudged him."

"Gavin's a good man," Miles agreed. "I think Justice is coming to see it too."

"Stop," Phoenix groaned. "I can't cope with thinking about that any more."

"I still don't understand why you have such a problem with it," Miles admitted.

"I guess I don't," Phoenix said. "Not since I realized what the situation really is."

Miles's eyebrows dived over his nose. "I don't know what you mean."

"I thought he was going to seduce Apollo and then break his heart. Now I'm beginning to suspect the person at risk of a broken heart is Klavier."

"Justice seems to like him well enough," Miles pointed out.

"Yeah, but he's not had many dependable people in his life. I'm not sure he's capable of dealing with the reality of a relationship with someone so firmly in the public eye."

"It's a concern," Miles agreed. "But Justice is made of strong stuff and he's the second most determined person I know."

Feeling a weird sense of deja vu, Phoenix frowned at him. "And who's the first?"

Miles clasped his shoulder and leaned in. "You, of course."

The Wonder Bar was packed to the rafters that night. Trucy's shows were always popular, but tonight the owner literally had to turn people away at the door.

"Busy night," Klavier observed in Apollo's ear. "The crowd loves her, don't they?"

"She's amazing," Apollo had to turn and speak directly into Klavier's ear in order to be heard. "But you know you didn't have to come tonight if you didn't feel like it."

"Ach, I cannot wallow in self-pity all night," the German said dismissively. "I made a promise to Fraulein Wright and I keep my promises."

Apollo shivered at the way Klavier's breath ghosted across his skin. "Well, I appreciate it anyway. And I know she does."

"A superstar always wants his fans to be happy," Klavier said idly. Apollo gave him a glare but his heart wasn't in it. This was just part of Klavier's act, he'd realized. One of the ways he protected his real self from the world. Not for the first time, he wondered why he felt he had to. "But your appreciation is a rare and precious thing, Forehead."

"All right, no need to overdo it," Apollo said, rolling his eyes. He felt a light touch on his left shoulder and turned to see Klavier's hand casually resting there. He turned back to his right to ask Klavier what he thought he was doing and was stunned to see the rockstar was staring at him intently. "Uh…"

"I'm perfectly serious," Klavier said. "I mean most of the things I say to you, Apollo."

Apollo gazed at Klavier, and seriously considered for a moment throwing caution to the wind and kissing him. The idea the rockstar prosecutor might actually have serious interest in him didn't seem totally insane in that moment. And then the lights went out, signalling the beginning of Trucy's show, and he lost his nerve. But he didn't move Klavier's arm.

Ema wanted to watch Mr Wright and Mr Edgeworth, as she'd promised. But her eye kept being dragged away to the way the fop was draped over Apollo and whispering in his ear. Poor Apollo was constantly blushing and it was clear to Ema that the young attorney was utterly enraptured. She felt a twinge of sympathy. Tangling with Gavin was bound to end in tears. She resolutely turned her head and sought out her true target for the evening. Mr Edgeworth and Mr Wright were deep in conversation. Wright was quite animated, speaking with his hands and his eyes were bright. Edgeworth watched him in that enigmatic way that he had… but then Wright said something and although he laughed, pink stained Edgeworth's cheeks. Ema's mouth dropped open in astonishment. Maybe Trucy was on to something here. She had to admit, she'd thought she'd be telling her young friend that she'd seen nothing to suggest anything more than a solid friendship. But the look on Edgeworth's face as Wright continued to speak brought a lump to her throat. Then the lights began to dim as the show was due to start and Edgeworth put his hand on Wright's arm. And the look Wright shot Edgeworth left Ema in no doubt of what was going on. But apparently the two at the center of it were totally oblivious.