Lady Amanda
"My Lady?" Dominic greeted as he entered the room looking as healthy as he was before the whipping. His healing ability always fascinated her, even though it simply reinforced his father's beliefs of the boy being an abomination... who healed that fast anyway? She suspected the King's rage was not that his son could heal fast, but that his son was healing faster than he wanted, poisons couldn't kill him, a fall from the balcony had not killed him when he had been little, stab wounds, fire, drowning and any kind of accident had been proven ineffective to the boy's immortality.
It was actually a miracle that the boy was still right in his head, if she had even live a little of what the boy had lived, she suspected that she would commit a crime so heinous that a beheading would be warranted. With his healing capacity, she doubted a hanging would suffice; the poor guys would keep hanging and gasping for his life for all eternity, a perfect torture that she suspected the King already had on his mind.
"Your highness, forgive me for yesterday's event, I was only following orders." She said to the Prince as she stood up to bow before waiting for him to sit.
"I don't like this version of yourself, it feels too fake and manipulating, go straight to the point Lady Inquisitor." He said as he remained standing while he looked around the room before looking back at her.
"Please, have a sit. Loved or despised we all deserve a bit of politeness from other people." She said, ignoring the feeling he gave her with those deep eyes of his. Now that he was not under any torture she could see the depth of his eyes, and the age it showed within them was a bit jarring. No boy his age should have that look of so much familiarity with pain, no human being regardless of whether they had magic or not, should have lived the life he had; no child should be tortured from the moment they could comprehend pain till the day they died. It made for a very terrible life and one that always made a seemingly innocent person became a person so evil even the darkness would fear them. Maybe his sister was doing a good job with him, because somehow he was yet to kill someone; well unless if he finally broke and decided to kill Edward.
After a moment of staring at each other, trying to understand one another, he finally sat down.
"Tell that to everyone in Syera." He said at last as he relaxed into the chair.
With a soft smile she cast the lie detecting spell on him before relaxing into her chair. From the outside, they looked like your everyday teacher and student having a friendly conversation, but the tension in that room, was so thick she could hack it apart with an axe. "Please, recount your version of the night before."
Dominic ran a hand through his hair and neck before looking her in the eyes with those light brown eyes. "As you and everyone in the kingdom know, I had a fight with Edward after he called me an abomination and said some unsavoury things to me. Once I beat him, he left the party to sulk in his misery and humiliation, so I remained and had a couple more drinks before I decided to go look for my sister who I guessed you and everyone in the Tower know has hardly ever left my side.
"You see ever since we were little, she has always wanted to be by my side, always playing with me, eating with me and sharing the same bed with me, we even bathed together and at times used the loo together because she was always worried that whenever she left my presence I would be harmed by my subjects either physically or emotionally, which always happened." He paused as if he wanted her to understand his unique relationship with his sister, which everyone in the kingdom found strange. "This is why I went looking for her; I was worried about her not being within one foot of my person. I began my search of the Tower until I arrived at a classroom where I could swear I heard her crying. When I opened the door I found her weeping with three of her friends giving her comfort."
"Why were they comforting her?" She asked the boy, who according to the lie detecting spell, had not yet told a single lie.
"Isn't it obvious? Some guy just called me an abomination and said some unsavoury things to me; she gets emotional about things like that."
Cocking her head to the left, she leaned forward and placed her elbows on the desk with her fingers interlocked and her chin on the back of the fingers. "Your sister strikes me as the violent type the one capable of doing something rash if it meant protecting you."
"Agreed, that was why I was surprised she did not join me to fight Edward but instead left me to handle him myself when she saw me winning. Maybe she was crying because she saw I could handle bullies myself, or because she dreaded what you would do to me the following day, or as I said earlier; because some dickhead just called me an abomination."
Amanda kept her eyes focused on him for a very long time before she closed her eyes in quiet frustration; the kid had nothing to tell, time to bring in the next suspect. "Send for Elswyth."
The moments between Dominic leaving the office to the moment of Elswyth arriving at the office, Amanda had used them wisely to weigh her potential options if no one in the school knew the whereabouts of Edward. She could order a tracing spell to find his location, but that was illegal without the consent of the family, and she most certainly was not family. However there was always the possibility of her casting the spell regardless of consent, given that only the office of the Chief Inquisitor of the kingdom could cast the spell, however the clause was that she could only cast the spell if the boy was feared to be in a critical condition or had been missing for too long.
Missing for only a day was not considered too long regardless of your station, for all she knew, he could probably be in the arms of a whore somewhere in Syera and not six feet under. Nevertheless, if he remained missing today, she would have no choice but to cast the spell and find the boy.
"Lady Amanda." Elswyth said as she entered the office and took a sit.
"Elswyth, good for you to make it up here in time, how are you doing?" She began.
"Okay I guess, I mean the son of the prime minister is missing, things are going to get crazy from here on out; I will take every peaceful moment I get and will cherish them." She replied softly.
Amanda smiled at her reply and knew at that moment that the girl had nothing to do with Edward's disappearance, she was too innocent and sweet to be capable of any crime at all, she struck her as the kind of girl to turn herself in if she committed a crime, not out of feeling that justice should be served, like her brother, but more because of the guilt that would eat her alive if she kept quiet.
"Tell me what happened the night Edward went missing."
Elswyth nodded her head and took a deep breath before she began. "I and my boyfriend hardly have any time to spend together due to us studying so hard for the upcoming graduation exams, then we have my brother being his usual over-protectiveness, so I had suggested that he and I made out in one of the classrooms that were empty due to the party." She said. "Upon getting in there we began to make out until we decided to move to the desk which was when things got hot an heavy with us. Moments into the make out session before we began to … you know, the Princess walked into the room pissed and began to destroy the classroom in anger. At first she didn't notice us because we were in a corner of the room, but then we decided not to continue what we were doing and instead try to help the Princess, I mean we were after all her friends. So we decided to comfort her and that was when my brother came barging into the room in search of me, upon seeing that I was comforting the Princess he joined in and then the Prince after he came a couple of moments after." Elswyth finished.
"Your brother doesn't strike me as the very comforting type." Amanda pointed out with a smile.
"Oh he isn't, but he has a crush on the Princess." Elswyth replied honestly.
"I'm glad you were honest with me, you can leave now and send for your brother."
Just like with Elswyth, Derek's story made sense as did the stories of the remaining two. If one of them had done something to Edward, it was hard to tell with how honest they all had been, unless if they had found a way to beat the lie detecting spells. Nonetheless, if she had been asked to pick the top three suspects among the five of them, the Prince would top it followed by Derek and then the Princess. Derek being friends with Edward would make him a very good suspect seeing as the best friends always did it.
Taking a deep breath, she got up from the chair as the Head Mistress entered the office with a tired look on her face. "Today was not easy on any student. Each of them kept asking me whether a killer lived among them and if we had found the killer."
"We don't know if he is dead yet, for all we know he is in some brothel having his way with three young whores and laughing at us as we run ourselves ragged looking for him." Amanda said as she packed her things into her bag and headed out of the door for her guest room. "If he doesn't return tonight, we will have to cast a tracing spell and find him wherever he may be."