After leaving the place where Edrian was being kept, Celestia found herself no closer to the answers she wanted.
He had refused to tell her anything.
Not because he did not want to, but because he could not.
Magical restrictions.
She had seen it clearly enough — the way his jaw tightened whenever certain subjects ca too close, the way his words seed to die before they could fully form, as though sothing ancient and rciless was wrapped around his throat.
In the end, there had only been one thing he managed to tell her.
The witch who had saved him.
The Spirit Witch.
According to Edrian, she might be able to help her... if Celestia could find her.
But that was the problem with Spirit Witches.
They were not easily found.
They appeared only when they wished to be found.
The attendant ca for her twelve minutes after Thaddeus left.
Celestia had spent those twelve minutes sitting in the waiting area with her legs crossed and her fan moving and her mind doing considerably more work than her expression suggested.
Thaddeus’s words had settled sowhere she was not ready to examine. She had laughed — the right response, the safe response, the response that gave nothing away — and she stood by that decision completely.
She was still standing by it.
I have known my brother his entire life. I have never once seen him look at anyone the way he looked at you in that court.
She fanned herself slightly faster.
Just thought you should know.
She fanned herself slightly slower. Deliberately, composure was a practice.
"My Lady." The attendant bowed.
"The King will see you now."
Celestia closed her fan, stood, and followed.
The throne room was exactly what a throne room should be and considerably more of it.
Celestia walked through the doors with her head level and her expression composed and her ruby eyes moving across the space with the quick efficiency of soone cataloguing everything before they needed to perform anything.
High ceilings. Stone columns. Light coming from sources she could not imdiately identify, warm and gold and carefully placed.
The throne itself — large, dark, the kind of furniture that communicated power without needing to say the word — occupied the far end of the room with the comfortable authority of sothing that had always been there and expected to remain so.
The King sat in it.
And arranged in a precise arc around him — standing, watching, carrying the particular stillness of people who had learned that stillness was its own form of presence — the Inner Council.
Six of them. She counted quickly. Different ages, different builds, the sa careful eyes.
Celestia walked the length of the room without hurrying. She reached the appropriate distance, stopped, and bowed — correctly, precisely, with the practiced grace of soone who had been taught the right way to present herself in front of royalty and had decided, on this occasion, to use that knowledge.
"Lady Celestia of House Alwyn," the King said.
His voice was — she processed this — not what she had expected. Not cold. Not commanding in the way that needed volu. Simply certain.
The voice of soone who had never needed to wonder whether they would be listened to.
She straightened and t his eyes.
The King was — she processed this also — striking. Not in the way Drazeil was striking, which was the kind of striking that made rooms rearrange themselves in self defense. More the way of soone who had been handso once and had aged into sothing more interesting than handso. Sharp eyes.
The particular quality of soone who missed very little and had spent decades practicing the appearance of missing more than he did.
He was looking at her with sothing that was not quite amusent and not quite assessnt but lived in the productive territory between them.
"I have been looking forward to eting you properly," he said. "Your speech this morning was — " he paused, apparently selecting his word with care — "unexpected."
"I hope unexpectedly good, Your Majesty," Celestia said pleasantly.
Sothing moved at the corner of his mouth. "I was intrigued," he said.
"A girl with no magic, from a noble house nobody has heard much of, walks into a royal execution and argues for justice with the composure of soone who has done it before."
He tilted his head slightly. "Where does that co from?"
"A sincere belief that justice matters, Your Majesty," she said. "And a moral code I have carried for as long as I can rember."
"And the fighting?" A councillor — grey haired, precise — spoke from the arc. "You engaged the Crown’s Monster with a fan."
"He engaged first," Celestia said.
"I simply responded."
"With a fan."
"It is a very good fan."
A beat of silence.
Then the King laughed — short, genuine, the laugh of soone who had not expected to and had decided not to pretend otherwise.
Several councillors exchanged glances. One of them — younger, sharp eyed — looked at Celestia with the particular expression of soone rapidly revising an opinion.
"Sit," the King said, gesturing to the chair that had been placed — she noticed — at a respectful rather than supplicant distance from the throne.
"I will be direct," the King said, settling back. "There are things happening in this kingdom that require investigation. Mana anomalies. Unexplained deaths. Magical irregularities that my usual resources have been unable to adequately address." He paused.
"And a butler who ca back from the dead because of the vampire blood in him"
"I am aware of the butler," Celestia said.
"I assud you were." His eyes were steady on her. "Your speech yesterday demonstrated a capacity for observation and reasoning that I find useful. Your fight with Drazeil demonstrated sothing else entirely."
He let that sit for a mont.
"I am assigning you to investigate these matters."
Celestia held his gaze. "With respect, Your Majesty — why specifically? I have no magic. No official standing. No experience in royal investigations."
"No," the King agreed. "But you have sothing considerably rarer." He looked at her for a mont. "You are not afraid. Of anything, apparently. Including things that have been making people afraid for centuries." A pause. "That has a particular value in this situation."
Celestia absorbed that.
"There is one other thing," the King said, and sothing in his tone shifted — careful, deliberate. "You will not be working alone."
She waited.
"Drazeil will be your partner in this investigation."
The room was very quiet.
Celestia did not allow a single thing to move across her face.
Inside, several things moved across her face simultaneously.
He accepted this, she thought.
Drazeil accepted working with , and he accepted this before even becoming bound to by the Pact. He hates specifically, which ans he has sothing in mind.
Sothing this partnership gives him access to that he wants.
"A thought for later" she thought.
"I understand, Your Majesty," she said. "I accept."
The King studied her. "You are not surprised."
"I am," she said pleasantly. "I am simply not letting it show."
That almost-amusent moved across his expression again. He looked at her for a long mont with the eyes of soone who had been reading people for decades and was finding this particular person genuinely interesting.
"The decree will be formalized and delivered to House Alwyn," he said.
"You will begin as soon as arrangents are made." He paused. "Is there anything you wish to ask before you go?"
Celestia considered. "Just one thing, Your Majesty." She t his eyes steadily. "The investigation. Are there areas you would prefer I do not look into?"
The room went very still.
The King looked at her for exactly three seconds.
Then he said: "No."
Just that. Just no. Clean and final and carrying the particular weight of an answer that had been decided before she asked.
"Then I have no further questions," Celestia said.
She rose. Bowed — correctly, precisely, exactly as she had when she entered.
She straightened.
And was about to turn toward the door when it opened.
Not the main doors. The side door — the one attendants used, the one that ant sothing had bypassed the usual ceremony because it could not wait for the usual ceremony.
A young attendant stepped through. His face was — she noticed imdiately — carefully arranged into the particular blankness of soone delivering news they did not want to deliver.
His eyes found her across the room.
And sothing in her chest went very quiet.
"My Lady," he said. His voice was steady. Professional. The voice of soone doing their job. "I have been sent to inform you—"
He stopped.
Started again.
"Lady Bailey of House Sylex," he said. "She was found this morning in her mansion."
The throne room was completely silent.
"She has passed, my Lady."
The fan in Celestia’s hand did not move. The ruby ring on her finger caught the light. And sowhere in the back of her mind, quiet and certain and impossible to unhear, a voice that was not hers said:
So things are simply ant to find their rightful owner before it is too late.
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