Chapter 169: The Open Door

Lorien:

I hadn’t expected her next words. Not even remotely.

Elara’s eyes remained fixed on me as she said, almost cautiously. "I think there might be something wrong with the locking spell on my dorm".

For several seconds, I simply stared at her. Then my gaze shifted toward Hazel before returning to Elara, trying to understand how we had somehow gone from discussing a carefully orchestrated assassination attempt to a problem with a dormitory spell.

"Why do you think that?" I finally asked.

She looked almost embarrassed for a moment. She lowered her tablet onto her lap, hesitated for a moment, and then admitted that she had lost a pillow recently.

I blinked. "A pillow?" I repeated.

She nodded. "Someone entered my dorm and stole a pillow last month."

Silence filled the office. I stared at her, genuinely unable to process what I had just heard. After everything we’d investigated over the past three days, after the tampered brakes, the missing truck driver, the suspicious coffee, and the complete absence of any magical residue, the breakthrough might actually be a missing pillow.

"Let me make sure I understand this correctly," I said slowly. "You believe someone may have entered your dorm because a pillow disappeared?"

Elara sighed softly, clearly aware of how absurd it sounded. "I know it sounds strange. But it happened. One of my pillows disappeared, and I never found it. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I assumed maybe I’d misplaced it somewhere or someone had moved it, but now..." Her gaze shifted toward Hazel. "Now I think there might actually be something wrong with my locking spell."

I didn’t waste another second. I turned toward Hazel, and she was already moving before I could give the order. "I’ll check it," she said, her expression suddenly serious.

She left my office immediately, and the room fell into an uneasy silence while we waited.

Twenty minutes later, the door opened again. Hazel’s face told me everything before she even spoke. "We found the problem," she said.

I straightened. "What is it?"

Hazel looked directly at me. "Princess has only placed the locking spell on her front door."

For a moment, I thought I’d misheard her. Then I looked at Elara. Her brows had drawn together in confusion, and she was looking between us as though expecting one of us to explain why that mattered.

I exhaled slowly. "Elara, a locking spell has to be placed on every exterior door of a residence. Windows don’t require separate spells because they are covered by the primary ward structure, but every door needs its own locking enchantment."

Her expression changed. "Every door?" she repeated.

I nodded. "Your balcony door wasn’t protected."

The realization seemed to hit her all at once. Her shoulders dropped, and she slowly brought both hands to her face, covering it completely. Hazel looked like she wanted to say something but thought better of it. I couldn’t blame her. The room had become painfully quiet because this single mistake had changed everything.

Hazel was the first to recover. "Anyone who noticed the loophole could have entered her dorm whenever she wasn’t there." Her voice was grim now. "And that would explain the coffee."

Elara lowered her hands slightly.

We had already examined the coffee bottle in Elara’s kitchen and found nothing unusual inside, but that suddenly made perfect sense. The perpetrator might have contaminated the entire coffee powder bottle, and then switched the bottle before the investigation team arrived to check it.

"And the open balcony door would also explain how they learned about the driving lessons," Hazel added. "They could have entered when the you were away, but they could also have listened from outside. If someone knew your schedule, they could have heard conversations about Jasper, the car, the route, about coffee, and the exact timing of your lessons without ever needing to break into your room."

I felt a cold weight settle in my stomach. The accident was so well coordinated.

"It also means Mrs. Carter may have been completely innocent," I said.

Hazel nodded. The coffee had passed through her hands, making her an obvious suspect, but now that we knew someone could have accessed the dorm, there was no reason to believe she had been involved. Unfortunately, the revelation didn’t make our job easier. It made it significantly harder.

If someone could enter Elara’s dorm unnoticed, listen to conversations, tamper with objects, and leave without triggering the wards, then our suspect pool had effectively expanded to include almost anyone who had access to Moonveil Academy. Students. Staff. Visitors. Warriors. Anyone who could have noticed the weakness in her defenses could potentially have exploited it.

"Whoever did this still needed considerable magical ability." Hazel looked at me. "Erasing magical signatures isn’t something an ordinary student or even an average professor can accomplish. Though this particular accident is more about planning than magic, the previous ones had magic used. Yet not once we had caught any magical residue, not because it’s not being used but because it’s been erased."

Elara looked thoughtful. "Then shouldn’t that make the circle smaller? If only a limited number of people are powerful enough to erase magic residue, wouldn’t we be able to narrow the suspects down?"

Hazel shook her head. "We already did." She folded her arms. "We have investigated everyone in the academy known to possess that level of magical ability, including both students and staff. We have gone through their histories, their movements, their connections, and their possible motives. Not one person stood out. We couldn’t find a single person with any motive to explain why they would target you, and we have absolutely no physical or magical evidence linking any of them to the accident."

That answer left us in silence again. Then a voice came from the corner of the room. Magnus had been sitting there quietly throughout the entire discussion, barely speaking, but now he finally lifted his head.

"You are assuming everyone powerful enough to do it has already revealed how powerful they are." My eyes moved toward him. He continued calmly, "What if there are people here who haven’t shown their true strength? Someone deliberately hiding their abilities wouldn’t appear on any of your lists."

The possibility settled over the room like a shadow. I looked toward Elara, expecting to see worry or confusion. Instead, I noticed something change in her expression as her gaze shifted toward Magnus. It was subtle, so subtle I might have missed it if I hadn’t been watching her carefully. Recognition? A thought forming? I couldn’t tell.

Then she turned toward me. Her silver eyes met mine, steady and serious. "What are you going to do next, Lorien?"