October 25

Gather Law Headquarters

2:30 PM

Victoria von Graye

The most surprising part of arriving at Gather Law was realizing just how empty the area was compared to what I had expected.

I had been anticipating the building to be just as busy as it had been the previous day. It had been a mess and a half trying to navigate all of that, and I was bracing myself for that to be the case again. Much to my surprise though, none of that was the case. Instead, I was met with a relatively empty lobby.

In fact, the lobby was a little bit too empty. I glanced around with a frown when I realized even the front desk where Clarith and Neptune worked was empty. "Where is everyone?" I asked. I would have thought there would at least be a substitute working there while we were waiting for them to come back with results about where Prosecutor Wood had disappeared to, and yet, the entire lobby was empty. I had an inkling as to why, and it had everything to do with our case, but it still left an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"We should look around," Deirdre suggested, starting to walk deeper into the building without missing a beat. I nodded my agreement, and the rest of us trailed after her. I kept my eyes open for any signs of people that might be able to point us in the right direction, but we found nothing. I could only assume the company was coping with the information about Prosecutor Wood the only way it could: poorly. Maybe everyone had been sent home so the family could focus on their search for their missing relative. That would certainly make sense.

Deirdre paused a few minutes later, holding an arm out to stop all of us from walking forward prematurely. "I hear something," she announced, and my eyes went wide. I glanced around to try and figure out where the source of the sound was coming from, but I realized a bit too late that I didn't even hear the noise yet. Deirdre's hearing was better than everyone else's at the agency, so it shouldn't have been that surprising that she picked up on it prematurely, but I flushed with embarrassment anyways. Nobody else seemed to mind at all though, instead just following Deirdre deeper into the building.

Deirdre only stopped walking when she had arrived outside one of the meeting rooms. She knocked at the door carefully, and all of the clamoring inside went silent in the blink of an eye. I shared an anxious glance with Lily, hoping that whoever was inside would be alright with having a visitor. Trying to find Neptune, Clarith, and Buddy would have been like picking a needle out of a haystack, but we had to get to them sooner rather than later. That meant hearing where they were going from the one group of people that might be aware of their current location.

The door opened slowly, and I was met with none other than Everett Wood. He looked up at us in shock, his eyes going wide. "Woah, it's you guys," he remarked. I could hear a thin, disappointed sigh from somewhere behind him, and I recognized the one responsible for the noise as Harvey. "What do you need? We're... Kind of in the middle of something."

"Go on and let them in, Everett," Mr. Wood called out from inside the room. "I believe we should speak with them today anyway. It wouldn't hurt at all, would it?"

Everett hesitated before following his father's instructions, pulling the door open wider and allowing us to step inside. As soon as the door was opened, I realized we had found exactly what we were looking for. The entirety of the Wood family was waiting inside the room, but more importantly, Neptune, Clarith, and Buddy were there. Unsurprisingly, Buddy was still pacing the length of the room in an attempt to calm his nerves, though I could tell that it wasn't working. If anything, he looked even worse than he had the day before, and considering how anxious and worked up he had seemed previously, that was impressive. It almost felt like he was breaking some kind of world record.

"Hey there, you guys," Neptune greeted, her eyes going wide. "I didn't realize you were going to be heading here after the trial ended." I could tell she had at least a thousand questions she wanted to ask us, but she calmed down after sending a brief glance in Buddy's direction out of the corner of her eye. The last thing she wanted to do was accidentally stress him out, and right now, that meant being as calm as possible regardless of how she actually felt about everything going on.

"We actually came to speak with you," Lily explained. "We know you've been looking around for Prosecutor Wood lately, and... After what we learned during the trial... We were hoping to talk to you about it a little bit."

"We're already aware," Clarith assured her with a shake of her head. "As soon as the trial got out for the day, we received a call from Mr. Wood requesting us to come back here as soon as possible so we could hear what was revealed in the courtroom. When we got back here... Well..."

"I can't believe it," Buddy murmured. Somehow, he seemed even more stressed than he had the day before. "Niamh willingly went with the assassins for the sake of being kept safe? I don't understand how that's even possible. In what world is going with assassins willingly going to be safer than trying to escape?"

"I would be lying if I said I wanted to trust everything we heard from that Balthazar man. Of course I don't want to believe it. But at the same time... It makes a bit too much sense for me to outright discount it," Neptune told him with a wince. "If he is telling the truth though, then that means she's safe, and we need to use that to our advantage. We have to find her and make sure that she's okay. She's suffered more than enough because of those assassins up to this point, and I don't want to leave her out to dry again."

"They've done so much to hurt so many people. I can't let them hurt her too," Buddy said, his voice cracking on the last word. He shook his head to force himself to stay calm. "As long as they still have her, they have an advantage. We need to do everything in our power to sneak in and out while grabbing her as soon as possible. She's counting on us, and I can't let her down."

"He's been like this ever since he heard the news," Mrs. Wood explained with a small sigh. "He's incredibly worried about her. I wish there was something we could say to calm him down, but... I don't know if that will work the way we were hoping. It worries me greatly, but..."

"We need to find her," Buddy cut in. "As long as she's with them, she's not safe. I don't trust Balthazar one bit, not after everything he's done. We have to find her. I don't even want to imagine what she's going through right now."

"Buddy, please," Clarith interjected. She took his hand, and Buddy stopped walking, though he refused to look up and meet her gaze. "I know that you're afraid, but pacing constantly isn't going to help. You need to take a break. We're going to find her no matter what it takes. I promise. I understand that you're scared, but you're not doing this alone. Just... Try to take a moment to breathe?"

Buddy finally tore his eyes away from the floor so he was looking at her. As soon as they locked gazes, he took in a shaky, uncertain breath before pushing it back out again. He closed his eyes, and I saw a few tears force themselves free before streaming down his cheeks. "You're right," he whispered, though I doubted he believed it as much as he wanted to admit. "We should get going as soon as we can."

"First, I would like to speak with our guests about everything that took place during the trial," Mr. Wood announced. "I believe we could stand to learn a lot from one another given the circumstances. None of us could have ever anticipated that would be the way all of this ended."

"You can say that again," Yuri sighed. "I had been so sure that Niamh was kidnapped by the assassins because they wanted to use her as a hostage, but I guess not... If what Balthazar says is true, then she went with them because she thought it would be safer than any of her other options."

"And to some extent, he has to be telling the truth," Deirdre pointed out. "We spoke with Chrysalis after the trial ended, and she said that she was sure he was being honest. She remembered everything he described about her witnessing the crime as it took place. At the very least, he wasn't lying about that piece of all this."

"That certainly paints an interesting picture of the situation at hand then," Mr. Wood hummed to himself. "I would be lying if I said I had much stock in anything an assassin says, especially those affiliated with the Emsthorpe family. However... I believe we may have to trust them just this once."

"Even after everything they've done?" Buddy questioned, his voice slightly calmer than it had been previously. "They killed your brother and sister-in-law. They almost killed Niamh once too. This was an assassination attempt if everything we've heard is to be believed. And... You trust them to look after her?"

"I take it as the lesser of two evils, though there's a very small difference between the different sides," Mr. Wood explained slowly. "If what Balthazar said was true, then all of this happened because he and the rest of his siblings were hoping to keep Niamh safe from Augustus Emsthorpe. That man is responsible for everything we've suffered through over all these years. If he's kept away from her, then... I suppose all of this is for the best."

"And he dug his own grave if that's the case," I murmured. "All of his children-at least those that still live-decided to betray him because of what he did to their mother. If he hadn't killed her, then none of this would have happened. They never would have stabbed him in the back if not for his own actions."

"If it means he's left to face the world alone, then so be it. He's done more than enough harm with the help of other people, and now, we may be able to apprehend him and finally make him pay for his crimes," Buddy frowned. "The sooner we can get rid of him the better."

"I agree," Neptune nodded. "I get the feeling that the reason we haven't found Niamh or the other assassins yet is because of him. They've been trying to keep her safe from him, and that means remaining in hiding for as long as they have to in order to keep everyone protected. He's the reason for all of the issues we've been running into throughout our search for her."

"I can't wait for him to finally be gone," Harvey muttered crossly. "He's done more than enough harm as far as I'm concerned. The sooner he's taken out of the picture, the sooner we can go about our lives without constantly fearing for them."

"That's how it's always been for you guys, huh?" Yuri asked, a frown spreading across her lips. "For as long as you've remembered, you've had to be afraid of him and the rest of his assassins."

"All because of a grudge that started before we were even born," Everett finished for her. "You get used to it after a while, but when you stop and think about how dangerous it is for you to just be alive in a situation like that... It starts to bother you a lot more than you'd want to admit openly."

"I can only imagine," Lily sighed. "It's been so much to take in for all of us, and we're not even the people who have been targeted by all of this nonsense."

"We can't get too far ahead of ourselves though. As long as he remains at large, we remain in danger, and we can't let our defenses fall too soon," Mr. Wood reminded everyone. "Right now, we need to prioritize bringing Niamh back safe. Robin would never forgive me if I allowed anything to happen to her, especially if that man was responsible for it."

"Then let's go," Buddy announced as he looked to Neptune and Clarith. "We need to make sure she's okay, and that means following the trail to track her down. We know everything we need to now. That means it's okay for us to go."

"Alright," Clarith nodded as she rubbed gentle circles across the back of his hand. "We're going to be okay. All we need to do is breathe, and we'll be fine. I promise."

Buddy didn't seem to believe it, but he didn't offer an objection either. Instead, he just headed toward the door, Neptune on one side and Clarith on the other. Neptune was the last one left in the room, and she waved to me and the rest of the defense team on her way out. "Be sure to tell Chrysalis I said hi," she called out. "We'll tell you as soon as we get an update on what's going on. Promise."

Neptune vanished from view soon afterward, the door closing behind her. Once she was gone, Mrs. Wood sighed and shook her head. "I hope those two are able to keep Buddy out of trouble," she murmured. "It would have been pointless to try and make him stay here, but when he gets worked up that way, I can't help but worry about him."

"Speaking of Buddy, he seemed a lot more on edge than I would have expected him to be," Lily frowned. "I understand the concern, especially for a situation this tense, but... I don't know. I can't help wondering if perhaps there's a bit more to this that he's not sharing with us."

Mr. Wood shared a brief but knowing glance with his wife. Harvey and Everett refused to make eye contact with anyone in the room, instead just looking at the ground for the sake of justifying a lack of information. Mr. Wood cleared his throat in the silence, knowing this question wasn't going to be dropped any time soon. "Buddy has had... A history with the Emsthorpe assassins, to say the least," he started. "It was that history that led him here to us in the first place."

"That's right... Buddy was the first one of them to end up here, and he dragged Neptune and Clarith in after he met them," Yuri remembered. "But what exactly happened for him to end up struggling so much because of them in the first place? Did he get hurt?"

"Something along those lines," Mrs. Wood replied. "But it's not our story to tell. If Buddy feels comfortable with sharing the truth with you, then he can do that on his own terms. For now, all we can say is that he has a history with the assassins, and the idea of them hurting Niamh is too much for him to bear. That's why he's trying so hard to find her no matter what it takes."

"Poor Buddy..." I couldn't help whispering, shaking my head along the way. "No wonder he's been so stressed... He doesn't want anything bad to happen to her after he's already struggled because of the assassins in the past."

"I never realized the two of them were so close," Yuri confessed. "It shocked me the first time I saw just how worked up he was about her. I didn't know they spoke at all, much less enough for it to merit this level of worry. It seems to be about her being taken specifically rather than just about anyone ending up in their hands, so... It makes you wonder."

The room's atmosphere shifted with that, but nobody quite knew how to break through the silence. Mr. Wood looked down to the floor before he cleared his throat, forcing the conversation to move on. "How has your investigation been going?" he questioned. "We're choosing to trust that Buddy, Neptune, Clarith, and the others trying to find Niamh are doing their jobs, but I'm afraid we've neglected to speak with you about how things have been going for you."

It was a graceless way to change the subject, and every single one of us knew it, but that didn't stop it from working, at least to some degree. I nodded in his direction, making a mental note to not bother the Wood family too much on the subject of Buddy and Prosecutor Wood's relationship. Apparently, it was a sore spot, not that any of us would have seen that coming. "We learned that Balthazar has been telling the truth, at least to some degree. That was a bit of a shock for all of us, but it seems to be the truth. What he claimed really did happen on the night of the murder."

"I'm sorry your friend ended up dragged into this mess," Mrs. Wood frowned. "I wouldn't have expected someone so detached from our family to end up involved with all of this, but here we are."

I looked up to her carefully, a small frown on my face too. I couldn't tell if she was being genuine or if she was trying to cover her tracks because she knew the truth. It wouldn't have surprised me at all if she was aware of what was going on and just didn't want to admit it. Judge Diaphan had figured it out without ever being told, after all, and the entire Wood family had countless sources of information waiting at their fingertips constantly. If they had learned the truth at some point over the years, it hardly would have surprised me, though that didn't mean it sat with me any easier.

"It's certainly a complicated situation," Deirdre eventually opted to say, and I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was trying to figure out Mrs. Wood in much the same ways I was. "We have a lot to learn before we can consider this case sealed in the past. We're closer than ever to unraveling who the culprit is, but unfortunately, hearing the truth from Chrysalis could only answer so many questions."

"She still didn't get a good look at the killer when all of this was happening, so she can't fill in the gaps for us there," Yuri explained. "She said that she saw the victim hit the ground, but since the victim was in between her and the killer, she couldn't identify the one behind the crime. That means we're going to have to figure out which one of the other Emsthorpe children was responsible for the murder on our own terms."

"I never would have thought I would see the day in which an Emsthorpe assassin stabbed another in the back," Harvey confessed. "It always seemed to me as if they were frighteningly loyal to one another, even if it led to their own downfall. And yet, here we are, trying to solve the murder of one of the leading family's children while one of the others was the culprit."

"And we're learning that they have morals too," Everett snorted. "I never would have thought I would see the day in which one of the assassins wound up having a heart." He shook his head, and Harvey sighed at the deliberate mirror of his words. "But here we are, I suppose. I guess all we can do now is try to figure out what it means when it comes to moving forward from here."

"We're going to find a way out of this," I assured them both. "No matter what Balthazar said, we're going to figure out who was responsible for this. And Prosecutor Wood is going to come back home with time. I just know it."

"If she's found before the trial ends tomorrow, then she'll probably have to testify... I can only hope she'll be able to handle that given everything that happened," Mrs. Wood murmured. "She's been through a lot, and I wish there was more we could have done to help her over the years. Unfortunately, there was always something that got in the way."

"Like the assassins," Lily finished, and Mrs. Wood nodded. "Well, after this case is over, I doubt you're going to have to worry about most of them. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you'll probably only need to contend with the father of the family. Raven Emsthorpe is dead now, Balthazar Emsthorpe is in captivity for his affiliation with the crime, and of the other two siblings, one is another accomplice and the other is a killer. That will only leave one final member of the main family left."

"Unfortunately, he's the one we have all come to fear the most," Mr. Wood sighed. He suddenly seemed exhausted, like he had never been this tired in his life. He shook his head at that, though I could tell he was still thinking about everything Augustus Emsthorpe had done to ruin his life over the years. "He nearly killed Niamh once before years ago. That was the day my brother died. After that, we tried to be as strict as possible with defending ourselves from any unwanted attention, but that's been much easier said than done, as much as I hate to admit it."

We all looked to one another, and Mr. Wood shook his head before continuing. "If we can get rid of the others though, I believe that will be a step in the right direction. When Niamh returns to us, we can come up with a plan for keeping her safe in the future. Right now, we can't leave her on her own, not as long as there are so many people who want to see her harmed. The least we can do after not getting involved with her life for so long will be to reach out to her now."

"And we'll make sure that you can do that," Deirdre assured him. "We'll do all in our power to make sure the trial ends favorably. We have someone counting on us throughout all of this as well, and we can't afford to let him down."

"If something happens and the culprit of this case ends up getting away, we'll do what we can to help your friend," Mr. Wood vowed. "Pieter Fury... We've heard quite a bit about him, and we can't allow him to fade away because of something like this. If he ends up trapped in the detention center for longer tan expected because of this case then we'll do our part to help you. Consider that a promise."

"Thank you," I smiled, unable to hold back my relief. I took in a slow breath before pushing it out. "I guess we should head down to the detention center now. Speaking of Pieter, we may want to speak with him one more time before all of this ends. He's probably going to want to hear what we learned from Chrysalis earlier."

"And that doesn't even factor in that we need to talk to Balthazar before all of this is over too," Lily pointed out. "We have to at least try to get something else out of him before the trial goes back into session tomorrow. There's not much evidence left to gather, but he could give us at least a few more answers. If he's willing to be as honest as he's claimed up to this point, then that has to mean something good for us."

"In that case, we'll leave you to the rest of your investigation," Mrs. Wood smiled, though anyone could see that she was forcing it for the sake of everyone else in the room. "If you need anything from us, you know where to find us. We'll be doing what we can to help the investigation to find Niamh from here. Gather Law is under stricter security than usual for today to make sure nothing bad happens, but if you need to get inside, you can do so freely. We want to do all that we can to help you find the truth."

"Thank you for the offer," Yuri nodded. She turned to the rest of us at that, trying to push a smile onto her face despite how resistant her features were to forming a grin. "Let's get going then. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready to have a talk with an assassin."

I shook my head. "I don't know how I ever could be, but I guess there's no time quite like the present."

October 25

Detention Center

3:30 PM

Victoria von Graye

It didn't take long for Balthazar to be called out into the visiting room after we arrived at the detention center. He carried himself with a strange aura of solemnity, and I could only assume he had cultivated this serious demeanor from years of working as an assassin. He knew the price of not hiding his emotions well enough, and so, he did the best that he could to mask everything. No matter how dire his circumstances appeared, he had to hide it from the rest of the world.

"Hello, Balthazar," Deirdre greeted. She pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the glass, and the rest of us followed suit. "I'm glad to see that you decided to meet with us when we requested it."

"How could I refuse?" Balthazar pointed out. "You're the ones investigating this case, and I don't want to block your avenue to the truth."

"You say that, but you won't tell us who committed the crime," Yuri countered. "You know who was responsible for all of this. You're actively defending them even now. How in the world can you say that you want to help us while you're still working to hide so much?"

"I've shared all that I can, at least for the time being," Balthazar said. "You're close to figuring out who was responsible for the murder. All you need is one final push in the right direction."

"A push that you won't provide to us," Lily frowned. "We want to do all that we can to solve this mystery and leave it in the past once and for all. We could use your help to do that, so could you please talk to us?"

Balthazar remained silent, and I could already tell this question was going to be a lost cause. Instead, I nodded to myself and tried to change the conversation. "Why don't you tell us more about the plan for that night?" I questioned. "You were there because you were trying to help your sisters out of the situation they had found themselves in, yes?"

Balthazar nodded. "Emmeline reached out to me first. She had to fight in order to contact me after I vanished since I had no intentions of speaking with anyone in the family again once I had left. I didn't exactly want to leave her or Belladonna behind, but I had no other choice. She still figured out how to reach me, and from there, she said there was a plan coming up that she didn't want to be involved with."

"The Night of Calamity," Deirdre concluded. "It was to be a triple assassination of three important legal figures that would send the justice system into chaos while also getting rid of a few personal grudges the family held. But your sisters didn't want anything to do with that."

"Emmeline's faith had been wavering for quite some time, and when I told her what I had learned about our mother's death, it all fell into place for her. She decided she was going to fight back, and that was where it began," Balthazar said. "I had learned about our mother's passing when I was still working with the rest of the group. I couldn't stand to look at our father after that. He had told us that she had died as a result of her own disloyalty toward the family's cause. He never said that he was the one responsible for her death. That was enough to shake my faith, and when I told Emmeline, she decided she had dealt with enough as well. And so, we started planning to stop the Night of Calamity by any means necessary."

"And that meant you had to ally yourself with your sisters once again," Lily finished for him. "You were trying to do everything you could to stop things from getting any worse, but it wasn't enough. The murder still took place, and your plan still fell apart in ways you weren't anticipating."

"It should have been a clean job if everything had gone to plan, but it didn't end the way we would have liked, and so, we had to adjust," Balthazar explained. "It never should have happened this way. We hadn't ever planned on taking that girl along with us. It was too risky, and we knew it. However, we weren't given much of a choice in the matter, and so, we did what we had to."

The room went quiet at that, and I took in a careful breath before pushing it out, already dreading what I was about to say and hear in response. "Tell us everything from the beginning," I instructed of him. "Don't hold back on any details. We need to know all of it."

Balthazar took a moment to compose himself as well, but he didn't stop even when I requested the truth. Instead, he just nodded, ignoring how tired he was through and through. "As you wish."

i didn't sleep last night oof

-Digital