Chapter 39: Everybody Had Seen a Different Murder

Chapter 39: Chapter 39: Everybody Had Seen a Different Murder

The officer ended Martin’s support call only after giving the person on the line a number to contact, then placed the phone in an evidence sleeve. Dante watched that ordinary movement because looking at the covered body made the practice room feel too small for his lungs.

A medic stayed beside Dante on the mat while an officer took names from the spectators. Jett had come closer with Posey, but neither interrupted when Dante was asked to describe the belt tightening around his waist.

Anika thought Martin had attacked him. She had seen the raised fork, not its connection, and Dante wanted that gap to matter more than everything he knew about the tool. His mind could build an entire enemy around a missing detail. He had already started.

He described the pull, the first beep, and his warning. Asked where the prongs had been, he admitted he couldn’t see them below the belt. Martin had told him the tool needed three beeps, and Dante had asked Anika to stop him after the first.

He asked the officer to read his statement back. His command sounded ugly in her ordinary voice. He mentioned Martin handling equipment at the cleaner’s, and she reminded him that was Martin’s job. She recorded the fact separately from the meaning Dante wanted it to have.

Rhea washed her hands at the practice-room sink while Posey held out paper towels, and Dante watched the water because he couldn’t make himself look at what they were washing away. Jett stood beside him without a joke, close enough that Dante could ask for help if he knew what kind he needed.

Jett set Dante’s bag by his feet and stayed. Dante almost offered a joke to make his friend answer in kind, then looked toward the covered body. He couldn’t turn this into another story about surviving something ridiculous. Jett knew that without being asked, and stayed anyway.

A student thanked Anika as security led him outside. Dante nearly nodded, then asked the officer to keep his warning in the statement, because he’d said it before Anika cast. He couldn’t bear her answering alone for words he’d supplied, even if he still wanted them true.

Senn arrived and arranged Anika’s formal account with an adviser. She could return to residence under temporary conditions, but she had to keep every relevant message, attend appointments and cast only against an immediate threat to life.

Nobody declared Anika right, so Dante did it himself after they left the practice room. He said he was alive because she’d acted. Her attention settled on him, and the familiar voice found its rhythm. He could make this sound certain if nobody interrupted.

"You didn’t see the connection," Rhea said from behind them, stopping him before he could turn the sentence into a speech.

"He was pointing something at me," Dante answered, hearing how closely he sounded like the students who had already begun calling it an attack.

Rhea reminded him that he’d watched Martin demonstrate the release yesterday, then took Jett back to residence rather than argue in front of an officer. Anika didn’t ask Dante to defend her again, but she let him stay while she waited for her adviser.

He showed Anika his notebook: stolen words, hidden payments, equipment running without power. He admitted the organization was unproved, then arranged the events as though it already existed. One enemy would make their actions fit. He kept reaching for that version because the other one left Martin on the floor.

Back in his room, he promised Mom he’d tell investigators the truth. Online strangers called it a rescue, murder, or cover-up. He preferred rescue and hated how quickly he’d chosen. Then Martin’s pool photograph appeared, looking nothing like the enemy his explanation needed.

The medic had found no serious injury, though his ribs stayed tender and his casting limits remained. He left lunch unfinished to check the message offering his statement again.

Jett knocked before lunch went cold and asked whether he wanted company. Dante let him sit without moving the notebook, then pushed the untouched fries between them. They ate a few while Jett described where he had stood during the accident, keeping to what he remembered even when Dante wanted something more useful to Anika. He listened because he had asked, although each detail made the version in his notebook harder to keep.

That afternoon, he attended his scheduled archive workshop because he needed somewhere besides his room. Iris, the assistant who’d checked Jett’s withdrawal papers, offered a seat near the door and permission to leave, her round glasses slipping beneath short dark curls.

She drew a curved shape above her sleeve and spoke a careful Korean phrase. The wool appeared to turn into bright silver scales, shifting as she moved her arm beneath the classroom lights.

"The Mirage Wardrobe changes the light people see," she explained, letting Lucan touch the sleeve. "He still feels an ordinary cardigan, because I haven’t acquired a dragon or a better salary."

Lucan confirmed it felt like cheap wool, and Iris said participation marks were optional. When Dante asked what exposed the disguise during movement, she bent her wrist until the false sleeve slipped beyond the real one.

Dante sketched the false sleeve slipping and asked Iris to repeat it. An illusion had a visible weakness, something he could learn to spot. His own story about Martin kept changing to avoid its weaknesses, and he didn’t like where that comparison led.

Anika arrived and took a seat two places from him, putting her phone facedown beside her notes. Dante asked if she wanted company, accepted her quiet answer that she wanted to hear the lesson and passed her the page number instead, resisting the urge to turn sitting beside her into another public promise.

Anika copied the shape without powering it, obeying her conditions. When her pencil slipped, Dante almost crossed two chairs to help. She picked it up herself. He stayed seated. She had asked for a lesson, and he could believe that without appointing himself guardian of every movement she made.

Senn arrived near the end of the workshop and asked Dante to step into the archive office. Iris remained as a university staff witness while the inspector placed two printed images on the desk.

The first showed Martin’s fork around a blue line beside Dante’s belt, captured by the practice-room camera just before the wind struck. Dante said the angle could hide something, even though it showed the connection his own position had blocked.

Senn did not argue, instead placing the second image beside it. A man with Dante’s face stood at a restricted reception entrance, holding a numbered envelope while the timestamp placed the visit during the class Iris had just taught.