AN: And I left this at a cliffhanger for a long time! Bad timing with doing Power of Justice while spinning this subplot. I like Zel and Amelia well enough but my true obsession is Lina and Gourry and I overloaded it with too much Zelame so I focused on getting Justice out even though I had a lot of this chapter done. But now that I have some bad writer's block with the final chapter I managed to knock this out. Ready to move on with both and get back to more Gourrina centric stuff...sorry Zelame fans.
Amelia sighed as she watched as the rain continued to fall from the sky as the maid finished making the bed. The fact that there was still so much work to be done in Zefiel City made her feel guilty when she thought about going to Maninstit, but she simply could not shake the feeling that something was wrong, nor the fact that she had good reasons to suspect as much. When she'd tried to contact Zelgadis in the morning with the Vision spell their bedroom was empty, and that combined with how strange Lina had been acting the previous night worried her.
"Is there anything else I can do, your highness?" the maid asked.
"That will be all, thank you." Amelia said as she took a brief moment to favor her with a smile as someone knocked at the door. "Actually, if you could see who that is please."
"Of course." She said as she walked out into the sitting room as Amelia continued to stare out at the rain and wondered how upset Luna would be if she decided to go home, "The ambassador from Xoana, Duchess Oriana, is wanting to pay a visit."
"Huh?" Amelia said as the muscles in her neck tightened. "Tell her I'll be right there. And prepare some tea and biscuits please."
"Yes, your highness." She said as she scuttled about as Amelia walked to the mirror and soothed the folds of her pale blue dress as she studied her reflection to ensure that she did not appear as rattled as she felt. Something about the reappearance of Duchess Oriana coupled with not hearing from Zelgadis and the strange explanation Lina had given was alarming her. Once she was assured that she appeared calm and unfazed she took a deep calming breath to steady her hands and said to herself, "Justice is on your side."
Thus armored she turned and walked out to the sitting room. "Duchess Oriana." Amelia said, "What a surprise."
"One of many I expect you shall receive this morning." Oriana said as she gave Amelia a perfunctory curtsy and then sat down when Amelia indicated she should.
The maid brought the tea and cookies and set them on the table and left. Amelia decided to not fix herself a cup of tea. She didn't want Oriana to see how badly her hands were shaking, "What can I help you with today?"
"Some good news for some people, bad news for others I'm afraid." Oriana said as she poured herself some tea, "It is a delicate situation, really."
"Oh?" Amelia asked.
"Recently a murder that was committed in Xoana years ago that went cold was solved."
"What a terrible thing to happen!" Amelia said as Oriana took a sip of tea, "Yet it appears as though justice so long delayed will finally be served."
Oriana lowered her cup and smiled and Amelia felt a sense of disquiet grow within her at the smug look in her eyes as she said, "This is so poetic, Princess. Justice will finally be served and an evildoer punished. It will be so fun to watch! Don't you agree?"
"O-of course," Amelia said, but in truth she squirmed, "Might I inquire about the incident?"
"Well, six years ago a prominent sorcerer who was researching healing magic was found murdered and his laboratory had been robbed. The case quickly went cold and likely would have remained so had not the love story of your marriage to Duke Zelgadis reached them."
The temperature in the room seemed to rise as Amelia said, "What do you mean?"
"The sorcerer's son witnessed the murder. And several years ago he identified the man who murdered his father on a wanted poster as Zelgadis Greywards. But it wasn't until word of your nuptials reached that they were able to track him down."
Amelia went white as Oriana continued with relish, "A warrant has been issued, and yesterday Duke Zelgadis was apprehended and arrested and is on his way to Xoana to await trial."
Amelia's mind went blank as Oriana stared at Amelia with unmasked mirth as she struggled to understand how this could be true. Oriana lifted her eyebrow and asked, "Well, Princess? What do you have to say?"
"There has been some mistake!" Her chest was so tight that all she could manage to do was whisper.
"No, no mistake." Oriana said, "But all will be proven at the trial."
"I demand to see the evidence against him at once!" Amelia said with something like her more usual gusto.
Oriana shrugged as she reached into a bag pulled out a stack of papers and sat them on Amelia's table with a deafening thud, "Naturally."
"And I want to see him."
"Sorry, Princess, but we don't allow visitors."
"Where is he being held?"
"In custody. Terrible weather for this, but nothing will deter us in our pursuit of justice." Oriana said, and Amelia felt as though a knife was being twisted within her as she felt fury wash through her. Why hadn't Lina told her!? "Now, Princess, I really must go. Given how high and mighty you are I must say I am really looking forward to exposing to the world how you married a common criminal and murderer. Though…"
"What?" Amelia said dangerously.
Oriana smiled, "I know you were favoring two nobodies for the throne in Lyzeille. But if you arrange for me to be queen, then I might be persuaded to make this whole matter disappear."
Amelia opened her mouth and Oriana rushed forward to put her finger over it as she said, "The penalty for murder in Xoana is death. Think about it before you turn me down."
Talk about a rough start to the school year, Lina thought morosely as she watched as Honor and Owen organized the students in groups to search the lake. Any hope that he would return in the night was dashed in the pre-dawn hours, and Lina had taken the grim task of waking everyone for an early breakfast so they could start to grim task of what would likely be recovering a body. While retrieving their dead professor's body from a lake wasn't exactly a skill she wanted her students to learn, she also owed it to Zelgadis to do everything she could to retrieve his body. And she owed Amelia that closure.
"They look like they have it under control." Gourry said as he wrapped an arm around her.
"Yeah," Lina said morosely. She was about to suggest that they join the other teachers in their search when Gourry turned to look behind them. She looked in the direction that he was and was surprised to see Jeeves walking towards them.
"Dame Lina." Jeeves said.
"What?"
"Princess Amelia is wanting to talk to you."
"Right, right." Lina said as her stomach knotted, "Tell her I'm busy."
"She's rather insistent." Jeeves said as he leaned closer to whisper, "She says she knows that Duke Zelgadis was arrested."
"What!?" Lina yelled as Gourry looked at her in confusion. "Take me to her!"
"Follow me." Jeeves said, and Lina grabbed Gourry's hand as they walked with him to the manor as Lina tried to not get her hopes up. Arrested was bad, but it was better than dead! Finally Jeeves led them to one of the sitting rooms where Amelia was waiting, arms cross and looking furious.
"Lina, how could you?" Amelia demanded to know as Jeeves left and closed the door behind him. "Why didn't you tell me? How could you let me learn like that?"
"Learn what like what?" Lina asked.
"Duchess Oriana visited me this morning and told me that Zel had been arrested!"
"Arrested?" Lina repeated, "What do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb with me!"
"I'm not!" Lina said, and then she sighed, "We don't know anything about an arrest! Zel disappeared yesterday and it looked as though he may have drowned in the lake. We've been searching it since yesterday afternoon. I didn't say anything because I didn't want you to try to search for him in this storm and get hurt. But this is the first we've heard about him being arrested!"
"Do you think that makes it better? You should have told me!" Amelia yelled, "You should have said something!"
"Perhaps I should have, but Amelia, what's this about him being arrested?"
"Duchess Oriana said he'd been implicated in a murder that happened in Xoana years ago and she left a stack of evidence with me. She said they're taking him back to Xoana for a trial!"
"Damn," Lina hissed. "Amelia, does Zel keep a travel journal by any chance?"
"Well, yeah…"
"Well this could easily implicate him or exonerate him." Lina muttered.
"Lina!" Amelia said.
"Amelia, two of our students received letters claiming that Zel had murdered their parents. They don't know what to think. My guess is when Zel went outside to get some air some people from Xoana were waiting for him and were able to grab him and make it look as though he jumped in the lake to throw us off." Lina folded her arms under her breasts and reflected on what a mess this was. But at least there was a good chance that Zel was alive. "And meanwhile we don't know what other dirt Xoana has dug up on him."
"You talk like you think there's something to these charges!"
"Rezo brought him up with a bad crowd, Amelia." Lina said matter-of-factly. "And he had to have been a kid. Most people wouldn't have been able to stand up to a grandfather like that, especially not Rezo the Red Priest. I know that. But someone wanting to hurt you and your family won't care."
Lina didn't say anything about the family of the victims having a right to be less than sympathetic as well. "We can't rule it out. Amelia, I'm going to have to go through his journals to see if there is anything that implicates him or exonerates him."
"How would you have felt if it was Gourry who'd gone missing and I'd not told you?" Amelia asked.
Lina slumped forward, "I should have told you. Amelia, you know as a leader how you have to make difficult choices sometimes. It looks like I made the wrong call this time. But believe me I am going to do everything I can to see that Zel gets off, and to do that I need information."
Amelia continued to scowl even as she said, "He keeps his journals in a box on the top right shelf of our closet."
"Thank you." Lina said. "Do you know where he is being held?"
"No, Duchess Oriana wouldn't tell me." Amelia said. "I will be staying here for now, pursuing some diplomatic angles."
"Does Sis know?" Lina asked.
"I'm about to have a meeting with her."
Better you than me, Lina thought to herself. "Looks like we've got our hands full."
"Yes. Anyway, I'm a bit busy right now. Let me know as soon as you know something, and I want to full truth Lina! No more hiding things for my own good." Amelia said as she suddenly vanished.
Lina looked at Gourry, "You don't think I just ruined our friendship?"
"She and Zel were pretty mad after the truth about Xellos came out and they got over it." He pointed out.
"Well yeah, but…"
"She's mad. A lot of it is beyond your control, really. Once we get Zel home she'll come around." He rubbed her back as he said, "It's easier for her to be mad at you right now than at Zel."
"Right," Lina said as she glanced out the window.
"Do you think Duchess Oriana was being honest?"
"She has no reason not to." Lina said. "And she has every reason to spring something like this. Anyway, there's no use searching the lake. Why don't you bring everyone in while I go through Zel's travel journals and see what I find."
"What do I tell everyone?" he asked.
"I'll talk to the other teachers tonight. For now just tell everyone that we have received word that he is safe and we are doing our best to get him home but that we can't reveal much more. Meanwhile, let's do what classes we can today. Try to get back on schedule. At least we got an early start this morning. We'd usually just be finishing breakfast."
"Are you worried about how this will affect the school?"
Lina laughed mirthlessly, "Here I was gearing up for some pregnancy scandal. But this? I can't imagine what Sis will do to me if word gets out that we let children be instructed by a serial killer, whose victims included some of their parents. Damn."
He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead as he grabbed and squeezed her hands, "If you need me to I'll take care of Luna for you."
Lina laughed, "Sorry, love, she'll leave you in a pile of parts and I need you alive and whole." She stood up on her toes to give him a peck on the lips, "Now get to work."
"I've been looking into the matter regarding whether or not Duke Zelgadis had any involvement in the murder of your parents." Lina said to Bruce and Nerys as they sat across from her at the desk. Lina set a journal in front of Bruce. "Fortunately Duke Zelgadis kept good travel journals that include dates, his location and what he was researching. Anyway, I decided you two had a right to see the relevant passages."
Bruce looked at her in surprise and then down on the journal. He took a deep breath and opened it to the page that Lina had bookmarked. After a moment he relaxed as Nerys asked, "What does it say?"
"That he was in Atlas City." Bruce said as Nerys looked over his shoulder. "He couldn't have done it, he was nowhere near Gotham!"
"It's his handwriting." Nerys commented, and Lina was relieved that she wasn't going to suggest that this was some elaborate hoax.
"I have wanted closure for so long. But I also didn't want it to be Duke Zelgadis." Bruce said as he buried his face in his hands. "Sorry, so many feelings."
"I have a journal for you as well." Lina said to Nerys as she handed it to her. "Though you have to go back a week to get his location."
Nerys took it and started flipping through it silently as Lina looked away politely as Bruce regained his composure. Eventually Nerys set the journal down and nodded in satisfaction, "It would be rather hard to get to my hometown from Lyzeille in a week. And it looks as though he didn't mention traveling in that time. Like I said, I was surprised because I always thought I knew good and well who killed my father. It's good to be sure."
Lina took the journals back and nodded, "I'm glad I was able to clear this up so quickly. Don't hesitate to come to me if anything else comes up, especially if whoever sent you those letters tries to contact you again."
"We will." Bruce said.
"Are there any more questions?"
"None. Thank you for clearing this up for us." Nerys said.
"Where is the Duke?" Bruce asked.
"Safe, as far as we know." Lina said. "Go on back to class."
Lina waited for them to leave, and then she stared at her mountain of paperwork. She was already behind with finding new teachers and other administrative tasks and this wasn't helping any. Still, it was a bit out of her control. She opened a journal and started to flip through it once more when Luna appeared in her office. "Sis." Lina said as she took a deep breath and reminded herself that Luna couldn't attack her through the Vision spell.
"Princess Amelia is in the room with me. And she can hear you." Luna said. "Have you found anything?"
"Zel didn't murder Bruce or Nerys's parents." Lina said, "I was able to rule that out conclusively."
"Thank goodness. That would have been an absolute nightmare." Luna paused for a moment, "Princess Amelia wants to know what information you have about Xoana."
"Well, I don't know the exact date he was supposed to have been there." Lina said.
"According to the paperwork it happened six years ago on the 14th day of the month of Ragradia." Luna said.
"That's what I was afraid of." Lina said as she opened the relevant journal. "He was in Xoana then. And he talks cryptically about some mission that Rezo had him on. They were interested in the research of a sorcerer named Copernicus."
"Damn." Luna said. "Please tell me there's no outright confession."
"No," Lina said, "But there's nothing that exonerates him either."
"Thank you. I'll be coming down to retrieve them later this afternoon." Luna said. "And we'll have a staff meeting, talk about what sort of damage control we need to do."
"Right," Lina said, "Has Zel been released?"
"We're still working on the details." Luna said as she looked off at the distance at what Lina assumed would be Amelia, "But hopefully by this time tomorrow he will be home."