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Chapter 9 - The Best Lies Are Told With Layers Of Truth - part 1

Lady Amanda

The situation was not yet serious in the Tower, sure the son of the Prime Minister and future King of Syera was missing, but it could be due to the guy being a spoiled Lord and not because of foul play; hell she hoped it was not due to foul play. She could already feel the tension in the room even before the first person entered the office she was using for her Inquisition. The students one after the other were nervous as fuck, each of them trying their best to tell her the truth in order not to be suspected as the one responsible for the boy's disappearance, while some others especially the guy's fanatics, were all doing their best to be as helpful as possible.

She relaxed into the very comfortable chair she was sitting in which had a height that added to the whole intimidating persona she had going for her at the moment, it was better if they all feared her and told her everything they knew rather than be so nervous that they forgot important details.

"Mustapha, could you recount what happened at the King's name-day celebration party?" She asked the next person to enter the room, another fanatic of Edward, more of a friend true, but still a loyal prick that did everything Edward asked of him regardless of how vile they were.

"Well, as everyone in the Tower already knows, the Prince and Edward had had a fight that night, a fight in which, surprising to everyone, the Prince won. After that fight Edward stormed out of the party angry and humiliated, even though one of our friends wanted to follow him, Derek decided that it was best if he followed him instead and tried to talk him off the ledge. A long while later he returned claiming to not have found Edward despite looking for him for an hour or so. Knowing Edward, it was most likely that he wanted to not e found by Derek because everyone knows that Edward is Derek's little project, so we all just shrugged and went on with our night."

"Did he mention whom he had seen when he left the party?" She asked as she kept track of the lie detecting spell which maintained that he was indeed telling the truth.

"Just that he had found his sister and Curtis in a very hot make out session." Mustapha said with a shrug.

"Are you by any chance worried about the lack of appearance by your friend even though it has been two days since he went missing?" Amanda asked him out of curiosity, there was indeed a sort of lackadaisical attitude to the way the boy spoke about Edward missing like it was nothing to be worried about.

"Well, it is not the first time he has gone missing, one time when we were still living with our parents in the estate, he went missing for four days and just returned like nothing was wrong. Knowing Edward, he probably sneaked out to hook up with some prostitutes to blow off some steam." He said with a shrug.

Holding back her scoff, she decided to end the Inquisition and go on to the next person. "Thank you for your time." She said to him to which he stood up to leave. "Call Phillip for me on your way out."

Apparently Derek had left the party shortly after Edward had, now this meant Derek knew something or at least saw or heard something. She wanted to send for Derek immediately, but something in her told her to wait a while longer and try to get the whole picture first, she should first speak to as many students as possible to know if anyone else left the party after Edward did in order to reduce the risk of her pointing fingers at someone who probably did nothing.

The door opened to cut her contemplation short and in walked Phillip who looked as relaxed as someone going into a very familiar situation. "Been to an Inquisition before?"

"Seen one, my grandfather was an Inquisitor. Best part of an Inquisition is when the people been asked questions became too scared to be uncooperative due to an underlining threat of death and destruction to not just their bodies and mind but to that of their families." He replied with a shrug before he took a sit before her.

"Then I suppose you plan to be as honest as possible?" She asked as she leaned into her chair, eager to get more information about the mysterious night.

"Yes." He said and leaned forward. "Now we all know about the fight which to be fair was instigated by Edward the Bully, that night was the first and only time the Prince fought back and to the surprise of all including myself, the Prince won in a very convincing manner, so convincing it was kind of worrisome to be honest. I mean if the Prince, someone born without powers, could take on Edward who had been trained by the best for many years and win that easily; what then was the fate of everyone in the Tower?"

"How did he win?" She asked, her curiosity finally getting the best of her.

"He made sure to keep Edward's hands restricted, and since basically every Saint in the Tower was terrible at hand to hand combat, the Prince was able to knock the daylight out of Edward, so much the Great Bully of the Tower stormed off in anger and humiliation." Phillip said. "Now I was dancing with my girlfriend before this happened but after the fight which everyone had witnessed, I noticed that the couple beside us was no longer there. It could be nothing, but Curtis and Elswyth were no longer at the party; I looked around for good measure before I continued dancing."

That was an interesting development, so now two witnesses had placed Derek, Curtis and Elswyth out of the party during Edward's storm off the party which meant that not only Derek had heard or seen something, there was now Curtis and Elswyth, what else happened that night, who else left the party?

From one student to another, the names of last students began to creep out, one mentioned Dominica, another mentioned Dominic, after that, the rest of the student simply reaffirmed the tales of the earlier witnesses. Some mentioned Curtis since it was pretty difficult to not know the only peasant in the Tower who had been the first to be given a scholarship by the King.

The names of the others, other than Edward had been a little hard to figure out from the students who had admittedly been drunk during the party, but by the time she had inquired from thirty five students, she had gotten all the names down and was ready to inquire of the truth from the five students that had returned without Edward. One of them must have seen something or must have done something.

"Send for Prince Dominic." She said to her body guard who immediately sent word down to the assembly hall.

While she waited for the Prince to come up the stairs, she began to to think about what could possibly have happened to Edward, hopefully the boy had simply gone an hidden himself in some rock and would crawl out soon, or he had been taken captive by one to the Five and was still alive. She could cast a tracking spell, but that was an invasion of privacy and only allowed by the Chief Inquisitor when the life of the subject is in peril or the subjects next of kin had given authorization. With the boy missing a tracking spell should be cast immediately, but the law said to wait at least two days. Sure there were risks of the kid been long dead by then, but there was also the fact that there might be nothing to worry about. She would only wait till the next day, if he wasn't found by then, she would cast a tracking spell and find him, dead or alive.