Annabeth had been overwhelmed by feelings of loss, confusion, and heartache.
She had spent months and months trying to figure out how to stop her father from dying. She was so convinced Lady Elsie would poison his food and did not understand how her father had died, on the same day, at the same time and in the same exact way.
Even though she had seen her father die 3 times now, Annabeth could not figure out at what point he ingested the poison. She thought it would because of the breakfast, but this time proved she was wrong. Could fate also have its own rules? It could explain the inevitable death of her mother during her birth and rebirth.
For 3 hours after Lord Flinn's death, the thought of fate playing a hand in the matter had been crossing her mind. Although a number of people had surrounded her and giving her words of comfort, she was lost in her own thoughts.
"I guess I have to run away from home this time too," Annabeth sighed as the thought crossed her mind. She remembered how cruel Lady Elsie had become after her father's death. She was not strong enough yet to handle her.
Besides, this time around, Annabeth had tried to expose Elsie's plot to kill Lord Flinn, her father. Clearly, Elsie would try to kill her too this time around instead of just mistreating her, she thought.
Annabeth was forcefully snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of someone screaming.
She searched around and saw the doctor who was probably called by Drienel, the guard, step forward to attend to a woman who had suddenly fallen. Annabeth moved around a little to get a better look at the face of the fallen woman as she thought her eyes were deceiving her.
"This witch-b*tch is actually putting on a show!" Annabeth exclaimed in her heart.
Given her past atrocities in her life, it was almost hypocritical for Annabeth to call someone else a witch or a b*tch but what's a little hypocrisy going to matter to someone who killed children too simply out of fear that they would try to get revenge on her since she killed their parents.
To Annabeth, all Lady Elsie was doing was an act. Lady Elsie was probably trying to put on an innocent role to gain sympathizers. After all, who would suspect a wildly mourning and fainting widow as the murderer of her own husband?
Annabeth realized that in the past, when Lord Flinn died, Elsie had convinced all the attendants that she had genuinely mourned her husband. No one questioned or suspected her. Rumors would even circulate that one of the servants did it since they were likely the ones present for both Lord Flinn and his first wife's death periods.
She felt a faint fear in her heart as she realized she might now be a prime suspect for Lord Flinn's death.
From the time Lord Flinn died, Annabeth had not shed not even a single tear. Her cold heart was only hurting because her months of planning had gone down the drain in less than 15 minutes. Worse off, she had mentioned a possible poisoning of the Lord of the mansion and so focus would definitely be on her.
She had been too focused on other things to not realize her little competition with Lady Elsie was not done, she thought.
It was too late to catch up anyway… and even if she tried, bringing herself to act like one of those orphans she made and later killed would injure her pride. She was the mistress of despair after all, not the mistress in despair.
This would be the first time someone would accuse her of a murder she didn't commit… her cold heart started beating faster and faster.
However, in the midst of her wild unrestrained thoughts, she saw Lady Elsie's bloodshot eyes. She saw the slightly popped out veins and the body that had started wriggling as though in pain.
Annabeth had seen this happen five times before, twice on her real mother and now three times on Lord Flinn. She could easily recognize what it was and she hoped this would be the sixth time she saw it.
When the doctor started healing Lady Elsie, Annabeth wished deep in her heart she could free the doctor's neck off its shoulders and use her skull as a bowl for soup.
She wanted to tell the doctor to stop, fearing that there was a chance she might save Elsie's life.
When she heard Lady Elsie's final words right before her death, "Kissed him," Annabeth had to use all her strength and take deep breaths in succession to suppress a peal of laughter from coming out.
"Dumb witch got killed by her own poison," Annabeth thought as she evil-grinned a little.
She quickly returned to a serious expression hoping no one had seen her. She really needed to develop a good poker face, she thought.
****
"Step away from that body right now!" Ordered one of the investigators who had come to find out the cause of death of Lord Flinn.
He was a tall, moderately muscular, and scruffy-bearded man, with bags under his eyes like he had not slept for a long time. If it was not for his neat clothing, one would confuse this balding grey-haired man for someone's homeless uncle.
Like the other members of the investigative unit, he wore dark blue clothing with a silver-like scarf around his shoulders. He had two medals more than the rest of the investigative team present and everyone could tell he probably had a higher rank. The remaining team had paved way for him and so the crowd that had surrounded the dead body naturally followed suit.
The man stepped forward and walked towards the newly deceased body. His name was Yansen, and he was the squad captain of Jorgen Citys investigative unit. Having a Lord die under mysterious circumstances within his city made him leave his paperwork and personally take on the case.
He needed first-hand information to report to the higher-ups. To make matters worse, another person with a title and more influential within the city than Lord Flinn had died. Two nobles in one day… death was having a field day, captain Yansen wasn't having one in the same sense.
Upon seeing who the command came from, Ms. Luwi stood up and obliged. She walked a couple of steps away, the crowd retreating along with her.
She knew the captain from their meetings on a number of cases before he had become captain. His analytical skills were exceptional and so far, there was not yet a case he had not solved yet.
When he was 2 steps away from the body, he stopped, squatted and cast his Tier 5 Truth Seeker spell.
It was similar to Ms. Luwi's inquisition spell, only that he could see many more details. No detail too small was overlooked and any anomaly was displayed before him.
It was this personal Truth Seeker spell he conjured long ago that was responsible for his 100 percent record at solving cases, and also his promotion to captain.
This time, however, the results it displayed were shocking to him.
Although he could not see exactly what caused it, the results he saw inside the body of Lady Elsie were too shocking. If he had to describe it, it was like someone had used a small pocket knife to directly stab Lady Elsie's veins and organs, from the inside of her body, without hurting her skin.
At that moment he knew, his day had just gotten weirder and longer... but strangely more interesting.