October 25

Defendant Lobby No. 6

11:00 AM

Victoria von Graye

As was to be expected, Pieter wasn't taking any of this well.

When we arrived out in the defendant lobby, the first thing he did was start to pace the length of the room to get out his lingering anxious energy. There was only so much the movement could do for him though, so he wound up stopping a few moments later to stare at us. "That was what you didn't want me to know about, wasn't it?" he asked even though the answer was clear as could be. "One of the Emsthorpe assassins helped Chrysalis on the night of the crime, and you didn't know how I was going to respond."

"Actually, we knew exactly how you were going to react, and that was why we decided to keep this to ourselves," Yuri replied with a small shrug. "You were going to freak out, and if we could avoid it, then we weren't going to deliberately make you spiral like that. It was a bad idea, and we weren't going to encourage something like that. So we thought it would be best if you heard about it during the trial, though I guess there's really not a good way to hear about something like that."

"There's no good way to hear about any of this," Pieter confirmed with a heavy sigh. He ran his hands through his hair, accidentally moving his eyepatch slightly on the way. He was quick to adjust it again a moment later, though his anxiety remained high enough for him to keep pulling at his hair slightly. "I can't believe any of this is happening. Why in the world would an assassin do something like that? It doesn't make any sense."

"We were just as confused about it as you are right now," I assured him. "We had no idea what to think about it or if we could trust something like that could ever be real. I mean, the idea of an assassin trying to defend Chrysalis from harm is a bit outlandish, especially when... You know about certain things."

Pieter nodded to himself at that. "I guess the Emsthorpe family is nowhere near as unified as they want to appear to the outside world... That's the only reason we were able to get away with any of this," he murmured. "But that's for the best. I would rather them fight amongst themselves if it means the people they called to the Council of Six's headquarters that night got away in one piece."

"Right now, it's looking like one of the other two Emsthorpe children was a traitor who contacted their brother after he left to recruit him to help in pulling apart the Night of Calamity scheme," Deirdre remarked. "Balthazar Emsthorpe could have been the killer, but it also could have been that traitor from within the family. This is an incredibly grand operation, and I somehow doubt anybody from outside the immediate family would have been asked to help with it given its importance."

"Yeah. We don't know all that much about the other people who have been recruited into the family, but we can figure that out later on," Lily nodded. "This seems like an issue just between the people who are pushing the family forward as its leaders, and I'm choosing to believe that one of them was responsible for the treachery that ultimately killed the victim of this case."

"I hope the witness the police found is willing to be honest about all of this regardless of who he is," Pieter sighed. "We have no way of saying for sure how much they're going to be willing to say, and... I don't know. All of this just makes me nervous."

I nodded my understanding. "Yeah... If he doesn't want to tell the truth, then we're going to be right back where we started at a dead end with no way of worming our way out of it," I murmured. "But he's been pushing us in the right direction up to this point for whatever that's worth. I don't know how much I'm willing to trust in him right now, but it's a step toward something, I suppose."

"No matter what we think of the Emsthorpe family, the fact of the matter is that one of them protected Chrysalis that night," Deirdre concluded. "I don't know why or who was involved with that, but it's something we need to keep in mind from now on. If you ask me, there's even a chance the idea of defending Chrysalis expands to others as well. Maybe the chief prosecutor didn't run into any trouble while he was at the scene of the crime because he was being kept safe as well, albeit in a way that kept him away from the heart of the crime scene."

I thought about that for a moment before nodding. "Yeah... I guess that would make sense," I realized softly. "There's a chance he could have been in a lot of danger too, and if we look at what we know about the case, he probably was... But if he was left alone deliberately, then that would have given him the chance to get away even if he didn't know what he was running from in the first place."

"We can ask the witness about it when the trial goes back into session," Yuri pointed out as she glanced back toward the courtroom. "I don't know what his deal is, but he's bound to have at least something we can use. I know he was completely silent when he was taken into custody yesterday, but if he was the one responsible for the phone calls, then he has at least some motivation to try and help us out. It seems like he was trying to point us in the right direction all this time, so... I guess we can hear him out and see where it's going to take us in the long run."

"I just hope he can tell us something about where Prosecutor Wood is being kept," Lily frowned. "We still have no idea where she disappeared to, but we have to find her as soon as possible. We have no idea how much danger she could be in right now, and i don't want her to have to go through all of that alone. She was taken for a reason, and if we can figure out what that reason was, then we'll be one step closer to figuring out where she is now."

Deirdre hummed at that, and I could tell by the look in her eyes that she thought she may have been on the cusp of a breakthrough, but she was cut off a moment later by Yuri clearing her throat. "I guess we're going to have to go back into the courtroom now," she said as she gestured back toward the entrance. The other people who had stepped out into the lobby for the break were starting to head back inside, and I knew Yuri was right about us having to go back in. We couldn't afford to dawdle out here for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

"Okay then," I sighed to myself before glancing over to Pieter. He was still well beyond his regular boundaries of anxiety, and I could see it in the paleness of his face and the exhaustion of his eye. I stepped toward him and pulled him into a hug, ignoring just how much taller he was than me for a few moments. "It's going to be okay. No matter what, we're going to find the truth. I promise."

Pieter was still for a second before he allowed himself to embrace me in return. "I know," he murmured. "I'm counting on you, and I know you'll be able to do this... There's no one I would rather place my faith in."

I smiled at those words, holding back the relieved tears welling up in my eyes. I hadn't even realized just how much this case was putting through the emotional wringer until that moment, and it made me want to break down and just cry for at least the next week. I did my best to shrug it all off though, instead letting out a small sigh and gripping tightly at his hands. "We'll have you back home in no time, and we'll go out for a great dinner to celebrate. I'll make sure to plan the best date you've ever seen to celebrate having you back," I promised him. "Just hold on for a little bit longer. It might be scary now, but we'll fix this. I promise."

Pieter nodded gently, though I could tell he was far from believing it for a variety of reasons. I could hardly blame him, but I didn't voice my fears openly for the sake of not wanting to scare him. Instead, I pulled away and started toward the courtroom. "Let's go and hear from perhaps the scariest witness of our lives," I said, keeping a hint of humor in my voice for both of our sakes.

Pieter was quick to follow no matter how much he wanted to run and hide, and I couldn't help the swell of pride that rose in my chest at the thought of his bravery. He was handling this with a lot more grace than I had anticipated. I supposed the idea of an assassin looking after his baby sister must have soothed his fears a little bit even if he was still completely terrified. It was hardly the step in the right direction he had expected, but it was still helping him, and I was glad for that much.

For the moment though, I didn't have long to be proud. We had a trial to take care of, and unfortunately, it came with the unwanted side effect of cross-examining an assassin. I had done this before, but this would be my first time actually knowing about it from the start, and somehow, that seemed to make it worse. I hoped with everything I had that my fear of the unknown didn't make this any harder than it had to be even though I knew it wasn't going to be that simple. Still, the least I could do was try... Whatever that was worth.

October 25

Courtroom No. 6

11:10 AM

Victoria von Graye

When we arrived back in the courtroom again, the gallery was just as full as it had been before. Even if there were fewer people in the courtroom than there usually were, they were making impressive amounts of noise that made it almost impossible for me to focus on anything. My heart was pounding louder and louder in my ears as the minutes dragged by, and I was doing my best to deliberately avoid looking at the witness stand where I knew our horrifying assassin witness was going to be waiting for me.

Judge Diaphan raised her gavel and brought it down firmly a moment later. "Court is back in session," she declared. "The witness has been prepared, and it's high time we heard his testimony... Understood?" Her tone made it clear that she would be tolerating no nonsense from the witness, and she looked down to face him.

I was only partially surprised to see the same man Yuri had tackled the day before standing behind the stand. He was still wearing all black, but his face was much easier to see now that his hood had been pushed out of the way. His hair was dark and smooth to an almost unnatural degree, though I assumed he only looked this put-together because of hair product given that he probably hadn't been given the time to properly keep himself hygienic during a nonstop case like this. He refused to look anyone in the eye, instead staring down at the ground solemnly and silently.

"Witness, please state your name and occupation for the court," Prosecutor Umber instructed. As was to be expected, the man said nothing, instead just continuing to watch the floor with an unreadable gaze. After a few heavy beats of silence, Prosecutor Umber narrowed his eyes. "I asked you a question, witness. State your name and occupation."

"I might have another way of getting him to talk," Deirdre interjected, and everyone turned to look at her. "I believe we already know your name and occupation, witness. Perhaps me saying it for you will help to loosen your lips." The man looked over to her but otherwise said nothing, though I got the feeling he was curious about what she was going to say. "Your name is Balthazar Emsthorpe, and your occupation is assassin... Formerly, that is. I'm not entirely sure what you do nowadays."

The man continued to watch Deirdre for a long moment before he took in a long, deliberate breath. "You're a sharp one," he finally said. "Though I doubt I should have expected anything less."

"So you admit it?" Judge Diaphan questioned. "You're Balthazar Emsthorpe?"

The man nodded. "I am," he replied. "Though I had been hoping to never need to speak my surname again. I wanted to bury it, but here it is, back to haunt me as per usual."

"I'm sure you're already aware of the reason you're here," Prosecutor Shield continued. His hands were pressed against the prosecution bench, and he leaned in a bit closer to the witness. "You are suspected of being involved with the murder of Raven Emsthorpe, your younger sister."

"I know," Balthazar responded. He shook his head. "I will tell you right now that I did not kill her."

"Tell the court what you know about the night of the crime," Prosecutor Cruz said next. He was only barely managing to hold back his rage at the sight of another member of the Emsthorpe family given what the ring had done to his father, but he did his best to keep himself calm. It took a thin inhale and forced exhale for him to fully compose himself, but he somehow managed it.

Balthazar, much to my surprise, didn't bother with firing back with a snarky comment. Instead, he simply nodded. "If that is what you wish to know, then so be it," he agreed. "Just understand that this is not the story you will want to hear. I can only warn you once before I begin."

"He's not fighting back anywhere near as hard as I would have thought," Yuri confessed quietly. "I would have thought he would be trying to run away and escape with everything he has, but he just seems so... Defeated. It's like he doesn't care at all about what's happening."

"I can only assume that's because he knows he's been caught... He really doesn't act like the rest of his family though," I murmured. "The rest of his family would fight bitterly to the end no matter what it took, but he's just... Surrendering. He knows there's no way out of this, and he's even agreeing to testify about what he knows."

"I just have to wonder how far that supposed honesty goes," Deirdre frowned. "We still haven't heard him testify, and I have a bad feeling that he won't just be handing us the truth on a silver platter. Even if he wasn't the one who did it, then he could very easily try to cover for the true culprit. It wouldn't surprise me if he lied at least a bit in his testimony."

"Then we'll just break through the lies," Lily concluded. "But right now, that means hearing him out no matter how little we want to, so let's get to it. The rest of the case will still need our attention after this, after all."

~ Witness Testimony ~

~ At the Headquarters ~

-"I learned there would be an incident at the headquarters that night from an outside party, and so I decided to go."

-"When I arrived, I learned there were a few people already there. They had been summoned to the building by letter."

-"If you truly wish to know what happened when the victim was killed... Then so be it. I was not the one who killed her."

-"But I was in that room at some point over the course of the night. I played a different role in the case entirely."

-"The girl who was on the witness stand before me... I saw her that night, but I doubt she saw me."

-"I was there because I knew something would be happening. I did not kill the victim, but I did something else instead."

"That might just be the vaguest testimony I've ever heard," Yuri frowned to herself. "How in the world are we supposed to use something like that to figure out what really happened that night?"

"You were at the scene of the crime because you knew something was going to happen," I repeated, and Balthazar nodded. "You knew somebody was going to end up hurt if you didn't go. That's the reason for all of this. I'm sure of it. You went because you were aware of the plans to hurt people, and you wanted to intervene before it could get out of hand."

"I was aware there was a plan to hurt a few people, and I went to try and stop it," Balthazar replied simply. "I told you as much. I did not want to see anyone suffer needlessly, so I played my role in the case... But I mean it when I tell you that I did not kill anyone that night. I never held the weapon that took my sister's life."

"But from the sounds of it, you know exactly who did kill her. You just don't want to say it," Prosecutor Umber muttered crossly. Balthazar said nothing, but we all knew the assumption was correct. "You could save us a lot of time by just saying who murdered the victim."

"For a few reasons, I'm afraid I can't do that," Balthazar told us. "However, you are free to cross-examine my testimony as much as you would like."

"In other words, he's not going to say a word until we push the truth out of him ourselves," Lily concluded. "We might as well get down to business then. He has a lot to hide here, and I think it's high time we made sure everybody know it."

"The phone calls, his presence at the crime scene, how he knew... We're going to unravel all of it here and now," Deirdre murmured. "No matter what it takes, we'll hear the truth from him today, and we'll use it to find Prosecutor Wood. I'm sure of it."

"Begin your cross-examination now, defense," Judge Diaphan instructed. We all shared a nod and got right to it.

~ Cross-Examination ~

~ At the Headquarters ~

-"I learned there would be an incident at the headquarters that night from an outside party, and so I decided to go."

"Hold it!"

"Who was this outside party that told you something was going to be happening?" I questioned first. "The case was meant to be a secret among the Emsthorpe assassins because they were going to commit one of the most damaging crimes they could as far as blows to the legal system are concerned."

"I heard about it from someone within the ring," Balthazar answered. "I've had nothing to do with it for a little over a year. I decided I was finished with the family, and so, I left. I wouldn't have been up to date on their affairs, so I heard it from someone else."

"Did you seek this person out to try and hear it?" Deirdre asked next. "Or did they come to you first?"

"The latter," Balthazar replied. "Someone else had been having doubts for a while as well, and they decided to come to me with hopes that I would be able to help them to get out of this. They thought I could stop the crime if I worked with them, and so, I did. I wanted to stop a triple assassination, and so did they. We decided to work together to save the proposed victims of the murder."

"I see..." I murmured. We had been right about our assumptions of Balthazar hearing about this from someone who was in the family proper even though he had left, but unless he decided to name them, we were in a bit of a bind. We would have to find the truth on our own terms.

-"When I arrived, I learned there were a few people already there. They had been summoned to the building by letter."

"Hold it!"

"How many people were there at the scene of the crime?" Deirdre asked.

Balthazar paused for a moment to think about it. "Seven," he replied. "There were those who had been summoned by the letter, the victim, me, and two others."

"So there were three people there to try and kill the recipients of the letters," Yuri concluded. "I guess that makes sense. "They would have been sent to attack the different recipients, and if they split up, then they would have taken care of it a lot faster. There were three assassins."

"And yet, those other two are completely unaccounted for," Lily murmured. "But I'm willing to assume I know exactly who was responsible for the murder. Or, at the very least, I know one of the two people who did it. His other two sisters are our main suspects if we take him at his word."

"He wouldn't have surrendered so easily if he was the one behind it. He probably knows which one of them did it but decided to come here to testify so she wouldn't have to," I said. "But that won't stop them from being caught forever... Not as long as they have a hostage still."

-"If you truly wish to know what happened when the victim was killed... Then so be it. I was not the one who killed her."

"Hold it!"

"One of the other two people who was in the building with you was responsible for the murder then," Lily concluded. "Nobody else could have committed the crime. You know that too."

Balthazar said nothing, but he did turn his attention to me. "I told you I was not responsible for the crime. That is all you need to know. I played a different role in the crime."

"You're trying to cover for the one who killed the victim," Yuri accused him as she leaned a bit closer over the bench. "You know who was responsible for it, but you don't want them to get in trouble. That's why you're here instead of her."

Balthazar remained silent for another handful of seconds. "I did not kill the victim. I did something else."

-"But I was in that room at some point over the course of the night. I played a different role in the case entirely."

"Hold it!"

"You were the one who made the phone calls throughout this case," Yuri began. "You wanted to call people who were involved with the case even if they didn't know it, and if you called them, it was less risky. After all, if we assume your other sisters were involved with this, then there was the chance their voices would have been recognized if they called people who had run into them previously."

Balthazar made no comment regarding the phone calls for an uncomfortably long time, and Judge Diaphan narrowed her eyes down at him. "The court requests the truth about your role in this case," she told him, measuring each word heavily before speaking it. He knew the gravity of what he was saying, but Judge Diaphan was doing everything she could to remind him.

"The phone calls were not what I was thinking about when I said I played a different role in the case," Balthazar eventually told us. "There was something else I did instead..."

-"The girl who was on the witness stand before me... I saw her that night, but I doubt she saw me."

"Hold it!"

"You were the one who moved the previous witness away from the scene of the crime, weren't you?" I realized, my eyes going wide. "You saw Chrysalis there with the victim's body, and you decided to take her away so she wouldn't get caught up in the crossfire of the investigation."

Balthazar contemplated what to say before he nodded. "She wasn't going to be able to defend herself," he told us simply. "She was unconscious and wasn't going to be waking up any time soon. I couldn't just leave her there with a dead body. I would hardly call that to be appropriate behavior."

"You tampered with a crime scene. That's not appropriate either," Prosecutor Cruz countered, narrowing his eyes at Balthazar. "I understand why you did it, but that doesn't mean it's right."

"If she had woken up and was still at the crime scene, then she probably would have remembered seeing the victim die," Balthazar cut in. "She was lucky enough to not have any blood on her clothing, and that meant that if she was moved away from the crime scene, then she may not have to face the horrors of that at all. I decided the risk was worth it, and so, I decided to take her away from the scene to somewhere safer."

"You didn't want her to remember what she had seen at all," Deirdre concluded. "And you decided to take her away from the crime scene but didn't realize something had been left behind along the way."

Balthazar sighed. "I didn't realize what happened before I entered the room," he confessed. "I suppose Raven tried to attack her, and that must have been when the little charm came off. I couldn't just fix the broken string or give it back to her. If I messed with her too much, then she could have woken up. Just moving her was enough of a risk."

"So you shoved the Magatama in the plant and hoped nobody would find it or realize what it meant," Lily finished, and Balthazar nodded. "Hm... Interesting. All that leaves is..."

-"I was there because I knew something would be happening. I did not kill the victim, but I did something else instead."

"Hold it!"

"You were responsible for the phone calls, and you also moved Chrysalis away from the crime scene. You were an accomplice," I declared. "You called people to try and move them into the places you wanted them to be. You were able to get the chief prosecutor out of the building, at least in some way, but..."

"He left on his own when he came to believe there was nothing going on at the building after all," Balthazar corrected. "But there was one other issue, and it came in the form of the previous witness."

"You didn't want her to be left unattended as long as the case was going on," Deirdre realized. "The reason you called the defendant there was so that he could come and pick her up so that she would be protected and away from anyone who may have tried to hurt her. That was what the victim tried to do, after all."

"But he wound up finding the crime scene instead... That's why he wound up being arrested for the case," Lily finished. "There was no deliberate framing attempt at all. He got lost in the building and didn't know where to go to help his sister."

"But there's one other part of all this that still confuses me," Yuri remarked, and everyone looked in her direction. "If we assume for a moment that he did all of this because he was trying to protect Chrysalis, then that leaves a greater question... Niamh wasn't under his protection at all. She wasn't mentioned in his explanation of the case even once beyond a blanket statement about her, Chrysalis, and Chief Prosecutor Bespoke too."

"Where is she?" Prosecutor Shield questioned of Balthazar. "There was someone else who was there at the scene of the crime, and you haven't mentioned her much. Where is she now? She's your hostage, isn't she?"

Balthazar's eyes went wide. "No, of course not," he assured everyone. "I never wanted to take her as a hostage. None of us wanted anything like that. It was... You may find this hard to believe, but we had a reason for taking her with us. In fact, she decided to leave the scene of the crime willingly that night."

The gallery burst into chatter at that, and Judge Diaphan slammed her gavel down. Even after she had hit the gavel against the podium three times, that wasn't enough to get everyone in the gallery to fall silent. "Order in the court!" she had to practically scream before everybody finally listened.

"Hang on... Let's think about this for a moment," I murmured. "It sounds to me like a lot of what Balthazar did that night wasn't really involved with wanting the victim dead. Let's assume he's telling the truth about not killing the victim. He wouldn't have come forward so quickly if he was responsible for her death, after all."

"He was trying to keep Chrysalis safe," Lily went on. "It sounds to me like the three targets in the building that night were each targeted by one of the assassins. I get the feeling the other two assassins decided to not carry out their assaults, so that meant the one going after Chrysalis was the most aggressive. That would be the victim."

"Chief Prosecutor Bespoke was able to just walk away, and he probably would have been the least important of the three targets," Deirdre continued. "In the other two cases, the targets were being drawn there for personal reasons involving the family, at least to some degree. The Emsthorpe's even have a grudge against the Wood family."

My eyes went wide, and I glanced up to Balthazar as the pieces finally clicked together. "All this time, we assumed Prosecutor Wood had been taken hostage by the people responsible for the murder," I began. "But that was never what happened. Instead, you led her away from the scene of the crime, and she came with you of her own free will... Because you were protecting her from the father and leader of the Emsthorpe family."

plot twist!

-Digital