"Your brother's such a charming little boy! You must be so proud of him. He will grow up to be a fine young man, I'm sure!"

'Yes, ma'am, and yes, sir,' was all the sister could answer with. Her younger sibling, as small as he had been, was capable of adapting quickly to the world - she needn't be told that. He was also a polite conversational partner, with a wide vocabulary and cuteness to boot. So it had seemed that that one day he had beared a different character altogether had gone unnoticed.

The father knew about it. He hadn't mentioned it since it happened, but with good reason, because if anyone else besides the two had noticed the incident, it would have been a headline for weeks. "Scissoring Attack", "Sibling War" - a headline like that. And the brother would have been taken away from his family for sure.

The sister still held her brother's hand on the way to school, kissed his "boo-boos" when he tripped over, and read him countless stories before bed. But sometimes - just sometimes - his hand was as cold as ice.

"Alfendi! Alfendi, stop running! Stop now!"

Pounding, pounding, pounding. Footsteps or not? Rhythmic, it was, but no - it was neither of those. It was his head - his mashed up, aching head.

The inspector stopped aruptly, and to Emmy's surprise, crashed to his knees. The shadow of a certain Alfendi Layton reached out behind the body, shifting with every deep and painful breath he took.

"Alfendi! Alfendi, can you hear me?" Emmy yelled.

Scarcely, Miss Altava.

"Was that Lucy? Lucy Baker?"

Alfendi nodded uncertainly with what seemed to be the last of his strength. He pointed to a trunk a few steps away, yet neither of the pair could identify it.

"Looks...like Dad's..." he coughed. "And... considering it's...age..."

"Hm," Emmy sharply replied. "It does. But what's this inside? A pocket watch and chain... a note...and a map too! Take a look, Alfendi!"

"Dearest Layton,

You are quite strong to make it here. We knew you would be

dying for more clues towards your precious daddy's

whereabouts, so we thought we would provide you with one last puzzle.

Consider it a treat."

The hint to the puzzle came on the back of the map. It seemed to one structured around plotting and drawing lines...

(Interactive Puzzle refused to link. Type oi43 . tinypic 2dbj8yc. jpg into your search bar at the top of your internet browser without the spaces ^^'' I'm awfully sorry!)

...

...

...

"Got it!"

Emmy turned. "Really, Al? I can't see a solution here."

"It's simple," the inspector declared, then he cleared his throat. "The "smoky building" is the factory. The "sweet street" is Bourbon Street. And the "place of delicacies" is the cafe. Mark a dot at each of the three points, and at the tip of Salsman lake. Join the lake's dot to the second place on the list - Bourbon Street. Then join the dot of Bourbon Street to that of the factory and the cafe and voila! An arrow pointing to the north-west, where the abandoned forest lies."

So that's when we decided to take the forest path. The bushes had all overgrown, the trees were great and taunting, and the entire place had a creepy sort of feel to it. But I had gotten used to that over my adventures with Professor Layton. Nothing could push me back! It looked like Alfendi was a bit off it, though. I wanted to try and help him, so I came out with the usual -

"Alfendi, you look troubled. What's wrong?"

The man had indeed kept himself quiet for a while. The familar colour of engagement in the investigation had disappeared from his eyes - a clear sign of distraction. Thus, for the first time in hours, he sighed his common adult sigh.

"Well, I'm just worried about Flora, that's all. She's been missing for a while and I don't want those kidnappers to have hurt her."

"Dad never told me much about when Flora was a little girl, but he did say that she was very enclosed. She didn't socialize much and hadn't seen the world's wonders, thus she had never needed to protect herself from anything. She must have been sad. As we're the only family she has, Dad and I made a commitment that we would protect her no matter what. As he says himself, "it is every gentleman's duty...""

"..."to help a lady in need"!"

Emmy suddenly laughed. In his confusion, Al was almost awestruck by his companion's finishing of the phrase. Did Dad really say that so often? he wondered. But there was no more time to ponder, oh no. The path had ended, and the inspector's criminal senses were tingling.

His hair turned a vibrant shade of red.