In which another Ace Attorney trial happens, another thread to the overall plot of the story is discovered, and we find a place for Rhea.

Despite the joking tone of the Christmas conversation, Ryoma was right to worry about Revan. The young man had collected photos and had strung them up on a bulletin board with yarn connecting them all. When Sakura had asked, he replied with "It's what they do in movies," and she asked no further questions.

Unfortunately, he was not actually going with a pattern and evidence. Instead, he was simply collecting everything he could find that had any connection to dragons. Dragon-themed children's books, movies with dragons in them, and Emblemme's own Dragon Noodle restaurant made multiple appearances. But he was still no closer to the truth than when it all began.

"Ok, dragons," he said, pen in his mouth, as he stared at the board. "Who are you?"

The pen broke, leaking ink into his mouth.

"Not again," Revan groaned when he'd finished spitting, tossing the pen to join others like it in the garbage.

Now that he was distracted from the board, he could hear the sounds of Sakura and Elise playing a card game, Elise shouting dramatically. Yu-Gi-Oh, then.

"Yu-Gi-Oh dragons?" he said to himself. "Maybe…it's a criminal organization that steals information from businesses…and puts it on trading cards in invisible ink?" He paused, then punched the wall. "Hearing myself out loud makes it even worse! What am I doing with my life?"

There was a noise at the bottom of the stairs, and Revan recognized Ryoma's voice. He didn't hear what he was saying, but he could identify the other voice as Camilla Nohr's.

"Elise, sweetie!" Camilla called, walking right past Revan's door as she heard the sound of her sister's dramatization and Sakura's giggles. 'I'm here to pick you up!"

"Isn't she seventeen?" Revan asked, sticking his head out to hear the answer.

"She is," Camilla confirmed, "but she hasn't learned to drive yet. Our father doesn't trust her behind the wheel anymore."

"Damn right!" Elise cheered, as if it were some kind of accomplishment.

Revan wasn't really paying attention to them. He was focused on the woman standing behind Camilla, loudly chewing her gum and popping it on occasion. Camilla barely even seemed to notice. "Who's your friend?" he asked her after a moment.

"I don't know," Camilla said with a shrug. "I asked, but she never answered. She just did…well, more of that."

The strange woman, though not taking a break from chewing, looked into Revan's room, and then her eyes drifted to the card from his mother's murder sticking out of his pocket.

"She's cute, though," Camilla added, distracting Revan once more. "I'm thinking of adopting her."

The next gum pop sounded almost annoyed.

"Well, good luck with your sister," Revan said after a moment, "and…uh, her. And if you hear anything about dragons…"

"I'll tell you," Camilla promised, and headed down the hall to Sakura's room.

Revan closed the door, turned, and was about to place the card back on his theory board when he noticed.

The strange woman had picked his pocket. And instead of taking his wallet, she'd taken the card, which was even worse.

Only a few days later, the police were called to a murder scene in southeast Emblemme. The detectives chosen were Alois Rangeld and Arthur Murphy, which made everyone else at the station wish them luck.

"Victim has been dead for a few days," Alois warned as Arthur stepped in. When the younger detective immediately recoiled from the stench, Alois almost laughed. "I wish I could be where you are, Arthur. Back when seeing corpses was gross as well as sad."

"And you were working with Jeralt Eisner," a cop called from where he was sealing the body in a bag. The frayed rope used to strangle him and the book he'd been reading were still there, being sealed into evidence bags.

"And I was working with Jeralt Eisner," Alois agreed. "Thank you, Raphael."

Raphael gave him a thumbs-up and returned to his own job. Alois cleared his throat.

"Well, then," he said. "We'll need all the clues we can get. Search every nook and cranny, this man must've had something important for his killer to get him while he was reading." He lifted a card off the table. "Weird looking bookmark."

"And something else," Arthur called.

Alois took a step closer. The door to a hall closet was open, and there inside was a young woman with short teal hair, holding a piece of frayed rope in her hand.

"Don't you knock?" she asked defiantly, and closed the door.

"Sorry," Arthur said quickly, but then he realized what was weird about that. "Hey! That's not how it works! You're coming to the police station with us for questioning!"

To her credit, she didn't fight. She simply let them do what they must, and kept her mouth closed even when she was asked if she wanted to call a lawyer.

"Rowena!" Garon called, knocking on the door to her room. "Rowena, I've got some news!"

"What news?" she called back, not inviting him to open the door. She didn't even get out of bed to do it herself.

Naturally, Garon was suspicious. "Is Jakob in there?"

Rowena rolled her eyes. "Yes. Jakob is in here. We spent the whole night creating more kids for this nuthouse while Elise was filming right across the hall."

"She wasn't filming you, was she?" Garon asked, horrified.

"We didn't do anything, Garon. Jakob went home."

"Good. That's one less dead body." He laughed as if it was funny. "And speaking of corpses, I have a job for my favorite lawyer..."

Rowena groaned. "Garon, I'm not a defense attorney. I can't help you if you finally killed the neighbor's chihuahua."

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Garon promised, before his voice got darker and his hands curled in an almost choking motion. "He died of natural causes."

She sighed. "I think it'll be a lot easier on everybody if I believed that," she decided. "What did you come to tell me?"

"I bought you another trial!"

Oh, this morning was getting worse the longer this conversation went on. "What?"

"Some guy died in his shady apartment and there was a woman hiding in the closet. They took her in for questioning and she isn't saying anything. Figured it would be an easy case, so I bribed your way in."

Rowena was silent for a very long time. "The last time I did a murder trial," she said carefully, as if she was restraining herself from shouting, "it mentally broke me and shattered our relationship. So your response...is to put me through another one."

Garon went silent, too. "Shit."

"How did you get involved in another murder trial?" Revan asked Silas as they were sitting with Kaze and Azura in the mall food court, having just finished a game tournament. "I thought you weren't going to be allowed to go into the courtroom again."

"I knew he was," Azura said quickly, "but I assumed that they would have him pass the bar first."

Kaze finished the trio of disbelief. "I don't get why you agreed. Didn't you just barely pull through the last trial because Rowena's other family kidnapped their dad's lawyer?"

"Garon bought Rowena the prosecution," Silas answered, "and she's taking it with Lucina. Lucina got Stahl involved, and he brought me so they'd be evenly matched."

"Just like the last one," said Revan, before taking another sip of smoothie. He immediately cringed. "Ugh. Strawberry lumps."

Silas ignored his commentary. "The problem is, this is a pretty strange case. My client was found hiding in the victim's closet, but he'd been dead for days. She hasn't said anything in her own defense. And I have no idea how I'm even going to begin."

He chugged the last of his smoothie, choked up some fruit, and announced he was going home. Revan jumped up to follow him, Kaze and Azura going with just because they had nothing better to do.

"I'll help you write your case," Revan suggested. "The prosecution has the cops to help them out. I can be your Maya."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Come on!" Revan begged. "I once played so much Professor Layton that I spoke with a British accent for two days."

"I remember. The accent was horrible."

"That's not my point! I'm a great detective and puzzle-solver. I can help!"

Silas finally looked at Revan. "You're not going to leave me alone until I say yes, are you?" Revan grinned and shook his head. "Then fine. I'll talk it over with the actual licensed attorneys and see if I can take you as a partner. But keep your mouth shut."

The attorneys allowed it, so Revan got to follow Silas into the courtroom once again. He did not seem to notice his friend's irritation, instead promising that he was there to help cut through all the bull that the witnesses threw onto the defendant.

"Hey," he said after a moment of silence. "Where is your client? Shouldn't she be here by now?"

Stahl wasn't concerned. "The bailiff should be bringing her in soon," he said, and Silas turned to the door.

There wasn't much time at all before the door opened and in walked the man Revan recognized from his own trial, who was carrying the woman Revan recognized as the gum-chewer who had followed Camilla to his house. She wasn't protesting this at all.

"Was carrying her necessary?" asked the judge, who Revan did not recognize but heard was named Rhea. When the man just shrugged, the judge let out a long sigh of exhaustion. Clearly, she didn't know what she was getting into. "Then if we're all finished fooling around, let's begin the trial of..." she squinted at the case file, then looked up at the defendant. "Your name appears to be smudged. State it for the record."

"Beruka." The client had a blunt, quiet voice that didn't seem to match her situation or appearance. "Occupation is professional asshole."

"We're boned," said Revan.

Silas nudged him to keep him quiet. "That doesn't register as an actual occupation," he pointed out. "Can the client select a different one?"

"I'm under oath," Beruka pointed out. "I can't lie without facing perjury charges."

"Then I ask you to elaborate."

"Professional asshole," Beruka repeated. "I'm hired to ruin someone's day. It's a bit like being an assassin, without the need to spend time cleaning up blood and evidence."

Silas jumped up immediately. "The defense asks that to be stricken from the record."

"On what grounds?" Rhea asked, and Silas waved an arm at Beruka.

"Because her explanation is damaging to our case!"

Rhea looked over at the prosecution's side, clearly asking them if they could believe this guy. When Rowena smiled innocently and Lucina shook her head, she returned to the conversation. "No," she said simply, and Silas stood down.

Lucina decided to open the case. "Our friend Beruka here claims she grew concerned for the victim after not hearing from him for nearly a week. We can assume from this fact that they not only knew each other, but they were close. Defendant, what was your exact relationship with the victim?"

Beruka's expression, or lack thereof, didn't change. "He found me orphaned and abandoned as a little girl. He took me in and raised me, taught me everything he knew, and let me go."

The other prosecutor flinched as the story hit home. Her brother and his friend both gave her reassuring smiles, but Revan's was a bit unstable.

"Accused of murdering her adoptive father," he said as his own personal experiences replayed in his mind. "Been there, sort of."

"And that's what we're here to figure out," Stahl promised. "You were innocent, and we proved it. Now we just have to figure out Beruka's story."

"An illegal adoption is not a valid excuse for murder," Rowena said, and Beruka merely glanced in her direction. "I've looked into it. If you were angry at your father -"

"I wasn't," Beruka interrupted. "I remembered the circumstances that led to it. He taught me self-defense. My situation never colored my opinion of him."

"So there wasn't any motive," Silas concluded. "And without a motive, the case falls flat."

"She had a motive." Lucina said it like it should have been obvious, and she called her first witness.

Revan watched as the witness took the stand, and his mouth fell open. "Oboro?"

Takumi's girlfriend waved nervously. "Hi, guys."

"But why?"

"For truth!" Oboro insisted. "For justice! And for the free donuts in the prosecutor's lobby."

Oboro promised to cooperate with both sides, and Silas and Revan knew her well enough to understand that this was an accomplishment, since the defendant was from the Nohr side of town - it had taken her a while to get used to Silas, and he'd grown up at the imaginary border between the two sides. She began her tale at the boutique she worked at and designed for, telling the story of the defendant talking loudly on her cell phone one step behind someone Oboro herself described as "an asshat."

"Can you describe this 'asshat' for the court?" Rhea asked.

"Uh, sure? Tall, thin, pale...this aura that seems to be intended to make you think she's better than everyone else...green eyes...mint green hair..."

Oboro stopped talking almost mid-word as she realized that the woman at the judge's bench fit that description exactly. Rhea had an expression of silent rage, very clearly understanding and remembering.

"Go on," said the judge.

"I don't think I can," said the witness. She made a mental note to pay more attention to customers' faces so she wouldn't be thrown off by a black robe replacing a white dress. She might even be wearing the same dress under the robe as they spoke.

"With the story," Rowena interrupted, and Oboro let out a small sigh of relief.

"The story," she repeated. "I found her...the defendant...to be pretty annoying. She talked loudly about her 'mark,' loudly coughed up something nasty, and when the customer offered her a tissue to wipe the spit off her mouth, she ate it."

Silas, Stahl, and Revan collectively stared at their client in disbelief. Beruka merely shrugged, refusing to explain even as Revan noticed the tiniest hint of a smile. Benny facepalmed.

"What the hell?" Rowena said after a moment of silence, saying what they were all thinking.

"That's what I thought," Oboro said with a small smile in Rowena's direction. "I was going to call the police, or a psychiatrist, but when the customer left, the defendant followed. I didn't think anything of it until I read about the woman's arrest. I planned on backing up an insanity plea, but when I read about the card found in her possession..."

"The card?"

Oboro pulled a small, pocket-sized notebook and pencil from her purse, the equipment she used for her design sketches when she wasn't at home or at work. She scribbled something down, speaking out loud as she did. "A plain white background...a large eyeball...several smaller ones..."

"I know what it looks like," Revan interrupted, mere moments before Oboro turned the notebook over to show off her work. "The assassin that killed my mother claimed it was his calling card."

"That's funny. The same card was found with the bodies of my parents when I was a little girl." Her face twisted into something mildly frightening. "The police told me it was a warning, not a calling card. That every few years a victim would be found with one."

Beruka's blank expression cracked slightly, her lower lip flattening for a moment. Revan and Silas, who had both played Apollo Justice, noticed. Stahl did not.

"Do you know what this is?" Silas asked, and Beruka shrugged.

"I don't not know."

"For real?" Revan yelped, getting the attention of the judge.

"It looks like a really cool design for a trading card," Beruka said simply.

Silas raised his hand like he was back in middle school. "Your Honor, I would like to declare my client as a hostile witness."

"Well, it would be a cool trading card," said Rhea. "Denied."

"Do you have any ideas for your campaign strategy, sir?" said Dedue, pulling the car into the lot. "If Mayor Marth runs again, you'll need a very strong campaign to rely on."

"I've seen the state of Emblemme, Dedue," said Dimitri. "I have seen the future of law and order in this city, and it is equally frightening." He stepped out of the car and gave his friend-slash-employee a wave. "Thank you for driving me here, Dedue."

"Just don't rip your steering wheel off the car again," Dedue said bluntly.

"They said they could fix it!"

"Which is only more alarming, since it implies they've practiced." Dedue looked up at the courthouse, and started backing out of the space. "Mercedes will stop by to take you home. Don't give Shamir too much trouble."

"Shamir?" Dimitri repeated. "Why would I give Shamir trouble? She's merely taking the evidence from the police station to the trial."

Dedue fell silent. "I'm late," he announced, and left his best friend alone.

Dimitri wondered what Shamir was guarding, and was quickly spotted by the woman in question. As usual, she wasn't there for small talk.

"The trial's already started," she told him, and Dimitri nodded once.

"I figured it would. What evidence are you holding?"

"Something that you might recognize. That's why they called you."

"Can you give me a hint?"

Shamir thought it over in silence. "It might bring up old memories."

"Yes," Dimitri said irritably. "I was told."

"Unpleasant memories."

"There's another kind?"

"Wow. Can't wait to tell Mercedes that your wedding day is an unhappy memory."

"Shamir." Dimitri was practically begging now. "The cake imploded, Ingrid broke her heel and tripped up the bridesmaids, Sylvain released the frogs, Felix interrupted Dedue's best man speech just to call me a boar, then Mercie's brother declared himself the 'worst man' and challenged me to a duel...with breadsticks as swords. And Annette still tried to propose a toast in the middle of said duel. I'm sure my wife understands that our wedding was far from perfect."

"How much do you remember of your father and stepmother's death?"

Dimitri instantly turned hostile, memories of a long-ago blaze searing through his mind as if it were recent. "The bastard watched them burn," he hissed. "He waited until the rubble had cooled off before planting that card in the ashes."

"The victim of this case had a card on him as well." Shamir picked up her handcuffs, ready to use them to restrain the witness if necessary. "And so did the defendant. Just try to explain what you know without getting held in contempt."

"I hope that bitch fries," Dimitri growled, and Shamir shook her head.

"She's your age, Dimitri. She's not responsible for the fire. She might not even be connected."

"But she's connected to the card that was connected to the fire."

"That's why you're here," Shamir agreed. "Try to keep a cool head. And, if that fails, don't start talking to the walls."

"That happened one time!"

"The card is linked to a series of deaths," Dimitri said, forcing his voice to remain even. "Most have been declared accidents, but some are cold cases. The fact that the card is linked to this case proves that this is part of an assassin's plot." He focused on Beruka, radiating silent fury. "The question is, is it her card?"

"Assassin?" Revan repeated, and glanced to the prosecution. Rowena met his eyes and gently shook her head, as if to say 'down boy.'

Silas didn't see that part. "This is the first time we've heard actual assassins brought into this."

"This is the first time I've been called to the stand," Dimitri replied. "I lost people I cared about in a cold case relating to that card."

"My parents' deaths were ruled as a mugging," Oboro added from the crowd.

"Settle down back there," Rhea ordered, intimidating enough to silence the crowd without her gavel.

Silas jumped at the chance. "I'm noticing that everything I have of these cards are pictures of crime scene photos," he said, and Rowena scrambled to go through her own evidence pile. "Detective Nevrand gave us pictures of several crime scenes, but none of them have the cards front and center. I'd like to call her as a witness instead."

"But I'm up here now!"

"I'll allow it," said Rhea without hesitation.

So Dimitri left the stand, grumbling to himself, while Shamir took his place and stared at Silas, just as blank-faced as Beruka.

Silas pointed out the photos of crime scenes past - not including Oboro's parents or the Blaiddyd house fire, but including the case they were currently discussing. "The cards are in the background of all of these photos. You never brought the actual card to the trial."

"The assigned detectives were Alois and Arthur," Shamir replied immediately. "I never expected the card to survive."

"And yet it's in the background of these photos."

"I wasn't the crime scene photographer."

"Tell me what you know!"

Shamir tilted her head in acknowledgement. "Every so often one of these cards shows up, usually with a body."

There was a whole 30 seconds of silence.

"That's it?" Silas demanded.

"You asked what I know. I told you."

"How can you not know more than that? What's wrong with you?"

"Objection!" Rowena cut in. "Badgering the witness."

"Withdrawn," Silas said through his teeth.

"I think it's going well," said Revan, and his friend punched him a bit harder than the usual gesture of men showing affection.

"I'll tell you what I know," Dimitri interrupted from the audience. "That card marks assassinations. I don't know what my father and stepmother did to get targeted, but it was the only explanation that made sense after my stepsister was proven innocent."

"Why would you suspect your stepsister?" Revan demanded.

"Because she used to play with matches and call herself the Flame Emperor!"

"Good reason," said Revan.

Rhea slammed her gavel as she watched the courtroom descend into further chaos, Shamir and Beruka the only ones remaining calm. "Order! Order!" Seeing no one paying any attention, she threw the gavel at the wall and shouted, "Shut the hell up!"

Everyone went quiet. Rhea picked up her gavel in silence.

"Now," she said slowly, through her teeth. "We will be taking a ten-minute recess for me to calm down and prepare to face you lunatics again. While I'm gone, you had all better get...your shit...together." She gave them all a pointed glare, even more horrifying than the face Oboro made. "Do. You. Understand?"

The courtroom erupted in various versions of "Yes, ma'am." Rhea nodded.

"Good."

When the trial resumed, they had replaced the near-useless Shamir with one of the detectives for the case. Alois was used to taking the stand in murder trials, so he was actually cooperative.

"It was a pretty standard crime scene, really," he said, shrugging it off. "The corpse, the weapon, the wobbly ceiling fan, the shady lady in the closet - no offense," he added.

Beruka tilted her head slightly. "I admit it. I'm shady AF. Go on."

"Right," said Alois, mildly concerned at how casually she admitted it. "There were cards."

"Plural?" Silas asked, and Alois nodded.

"There was a whole briefcase full of them. The cards have been connected to murders in the past, so we took them all out when we cleaned the place."

"That doesn't make sense," Silas mumbled, looking at the others in confusion. "If Beruka brought the briefcase with her, that would just be inconvenient."

"Sounds shady to me," Stahl agreed, chewing another gummy bear.

"I've got it!" Revan hissed, but Silas spoke over him.

"If my client carried the briefcase as she went to kill somebody, wouldn't she try to hide it? And why even bring it in the first place? It would be so inconvenient!" He slammed a hand on the desk and turned his head to face his client. "The cards belonged to the victim, didn't they, Beruka?"

"I'm not on trial here," was the immediate response.

"You literally are!" Silas looked back at Rhea. "Now do I have permission to treat her as a hostile witness?"

"I'll allow it," said Rhea.

"She's his client!" Rowena protested.

"I'll still allow it. I'll allow just about anything at this point."

"So just tell the truth!" Silas pointed at Beruka dramatically. "Just admit it - the victim was the assassin!"

Beruka stared blankly at him for a second. Then, showing true emotion for the first time since this began, she nodded once.

"He was," she admitted. "And I knew it."

"And why did you never turn him in?"

"That's classified."

It seemed Rowena had come to the conclusion when Silas did, as she didn't seem to be surprised. "So you knew that he was an assassin," she said, slowly. "Did you never think to warn his victims?"

"I never knew who they were. I didn't even know what he did until I stumbled into it. Literally. I chipped a tooth."

"And you didn't follow in his footsteps, did you? You did, after all, choose to be a professional asshole instead of an assassin. You don't believe in murder for payment."

"Murder's not my style," Beruka confirmed.

"However, you said that he taught you everything he knew. I have to assume that you know how to kill somebody." She took Beruka's silence as confirmation. "So you took the knowledge he gave you and took him out to end his reign of terror. Cool motive. Still murder."

"But why would she hide in the closet days after committing the crime?" Silas challenged. "Isn't there a time limit on 'the guilty always return to the scene?' And why would..." The answer hit him mid-rant, and he lowered his voice. "It was suicide, wasn't it?"

Beruka stared. Then she gave a small, barely-there smile, and told her story.

"I stumbled into my adoptive father's...career...when I was fourteen." Beruka spoke fondly of the event, despite the type of career the man had. "I slipped in the hallway and tore down the fake wall hiding his weapons. He had to explain that. He wasn't very good at lying. Well, not to me. He once told the mailman he hoped he had a nice day."

"Irrelevant," Rhea interrupted.

"The mailman never returned, so that may not be true." Beruka returned to the story immediately. "I was...fascinated by the weapons. He did teach me how to use them. He made it clear that his line of work was dangerous and illegal...mostly the first one. I decided not to kill for mostly practical reasons."

"And moral," Silas interrupted.

"I can't lie under oath."

As her lawyer, he buried his face in his hands and screamed in frustration. Beruka pretended it didn't happen.

"So you didn't turn him in because he was teaching you how to use weapons?" Rowena was completely stunned by this. Sure, she liked pretty swords as much as the next girl, but if she knew someone who was using them against people...

"Wrong. I didn't turn him in because there would be a target on my back."

"He'd kill his own adopted daughter?"

"It's a possibility. But it would be a suicide mission - he'd taught me self-defense and told me that morals and practicality go out the window when someone is trying to kill you."

"According to the law, it kind of does." Rhea sighed. "Go on."

"It's simple. He cut out the middleman." Her eyes turned to the floor, and she took a moment to gather her thoughts past what grief she was feeling for the man who raised her. "And maybe he wanted out anyway. The result was the same. Five days of unanswered text messages, I went to check on him. He was under the ceiling fan, the rope in two pieces on the floor. I picked up one piece to see if it was his own rope. I heard noises. I hid."

The room was quiet, except for Benny sniffling in the corner. Then Rhea came to her conclusion.

"This case will need to have a real trial," she decided, "with real lawyers and better evidence." She glared at Alois, who cleared his throat nervously. "However, given what evidence we have, and the 'innocent until proven guilty' that this country claims to be based on, I can rule this trial trial in favor of the defense." She tapped her gavel and stood up. "Court dismissed, I'm getting some soup."

Silas mocked Revan for not helping for two whole days. Finally, Revan had enough.

"I solved the case, Silas!"

"Yeah," he admitted, "but you solved it at the same time I did. That wasn't really contributing, it was just following along."

"Actually, I got to suicide way before you did. I just didn't interrupt because you told me not to." He shrugged. "The briefcase was open and spilling cards. The assassin cards, used to mark their kills. If an assassin killed himself, he'd leave it, either as a final 'screw you' to his employers or by tradition if they ordered his own suicide. Either way, Beruka wouldn't have left the whole briefcase." He pulled Oboro's sketch from his pocket - she'd given it to him after the trial. "And now that I know what this is, I can get back to my theory board."

"Revan, there are assassins involved." Silas spoke more like a father than a friend, and certainly not like a friend who had smooth-talked their way out of getting arrested for illegal possession of fireworks when they were sixteen. "You're getting in over your head. Let the police take care of it."

"Yeah, they've been doing such a great job so far." And there was Revan, sounding like a cranky child. "It's my mom, dude. I can't let it go."

"I'm not telling you to let it go. I'm telling you to let the police handle it."

"And I'm telling you that I can't."

The two were silent for a moment. "I know," Silas admitted. "Just keep out of anything too dangerous, at least until you get backup."

Revan almost smiled. "You're already planning my tombstone, aren't you?"

Silas smiled back. "Here lies Revan Hoshido, age twenty-one. He died as he lived - an idiot."

"It fits," Revan agreed, and said goodbye as Silas went home. But no sooner had he closed the door after his friend than there was a knock. "What now?"

"Is that any way to talk to a technical family member?" a female voice teased back.

Revan sighed in irritation. Creepy, pretty, sweet...Camilla. He opened the door again.

Once more, Camilla was followed by Beruka. This time, the professional asshole was on a leash. Camilla handed the leash to Revan.

"I got you a present," she said happily, and Revan looked at the leash in his hands, confused.

"Uh...thanks, Camilla, but I don't think she's my type."

"I just wanted to let Silas know that the real trial went fine. All evidence was circumstantial." She nudged Beruka forward. "She's living with us for now, until she feels safe again. And she mentioned something interesting that I think you might want to hear."

Beruka remained silent. Camilla nudged her again, and she spoke. "Mr. Hoshido. Have you ever heard of the Silent Dragons?"