I heard someone approach behind me. It was Amy that finally caught up to me, out of breath.

«Lizzie, what's... oh!»

With a glance at the scoreboard, she quickly realized what was wrong.

«91!? Wasn't it supposed to be 92?» she asked, her voice trembling.

From her tone it was clear that she hoped to be contradicted.
But there were no doubts. Another of our classmates had died. And this time, it wasn't the school who killed them.

As confirmation, among the ranks of the fallen, another name had appeared that wasn't there before, crossed out as usual with a large X.

Mary Stillwater

I didn't know her personally, but I remembered seeing her name about halfway up the leaderboard.
But... who killed her? A new innate power wielder, or just a regular mage?
And when? While coming to class I didn't notice any commotion...

As if reading my mind, Amy promptly approached the girl who continued to cry desperately. She helped her get up off the ground and embraced her, gently caressing her curly hair. After a bit the girl seemed to calm down. It was then that Amy asked her softly:

«Are you allright, Chloe? What happened...?»

Apparently, she knew her, at least by name.

«I... I DON'T KNOW!» the girl exclaimed, her voice still broken by tears, «Yesterday when we went to bed everything was fine... This morning we were supposed to meet for breakfast but she didn't show up... I thought she was just running late... But, but...»

She started sobbing uncontrollably again. Amy gave me a worried look over her shoulder. It must have been awfull for that girl to come to class and find out that her friend was dead, just by looking at the leaderboard. But if she didn't know what had happened...

If Mary was still alive last night and we hadn't seen anything wrong coming here...

"That means she just died!"

It was the only way this made any sense. Somewhere in the school, right a this moment, a killer was standing over Mary Stillwater's corpse.

I rushed out of the classroom, thinking about where to search first.
But as soon as I stepped out of the door, someone grabbed my wrist, forcing me to stop.

«What...?!»

I turned around to see who it was.
To my surprise in front of me there was a visibly out of breath Sophia.

For a moment, I stood there with my mouth open, like a fish out of water.
These circumstances were certainly not the ones in which I thought we would get to talk again.

Finally, I snapped to reality.

«What's going on? Did you hear what happened?»

Sophia still didn't let go of my wrist but she motioned for me to wait with her other hand. She leaned against the wall and slowly caught her breath.

Finally she freed me and gasped:

«Y-you won't find anything...»

«Uh?! What do you mean I won't find anything?»

«I've already looked everywhere in the school. I haven't found... anything... no sign of a duel being fought... no body.»

«Wh- wh- what?»

There was something fundamently wrong in what she was telling me. Not that I was suspecting her but...

«She just died! How did you manage to search up the whole school in an instant? Can you teleport?»

Sophia looked slightly annoyed:

«Of course I can't teleport... I checked the scoreboard 20 minutes ago. She was already dead.»

«Why were you in class 20 minutes ago?»

«These days I usually wake up and get to class earlier... You know, I don't want to scare people off their breakfast.»

«Oh...»

"Now you're making me feel guilty..."

But that was not the issue!

«Wait... But how is it possible? 20 minutes ago, the corridors were filled with students waking up and going to the dining all! How did a duel to the death go unnoticed?!»

«Beats me...»

«Did she maybe duel someone in a very isolated place?»

Sophia looked at me impatiently again:

«I told you I already checked everywhere. And with everywhere I mean everywhere: the inner courtyard, the training room, her room, even the men's bathrooms...»

"Hopefully there was no one inside... Anyway... even her room, uh? She must have broke in by cutting down the door I guess."

That ruled out the possibility of her dieing alone in her room, maybe from a sudden illness or worse, poison.

«Could it be... then... that she dueled in one of those spots and then the killer made her body disappear?»

«Could be...» Sophia replied scratching her chin.

After all, with magic, it wasn't impossible. Vanishing spells were extremely complicated, but the murderer could've used much less orthodox methods. For example, incinerating the poor victim's corpse. Then, it would be the magical field's job to erase the traces. I clearly remembered Skylark saying that the spell would restore the duel's area to its original state.

«But there's something that doesn't add up,» said Sophia, biting her lip.

«What?»

«Why duel in an isolated place first thing in the morning?»

«Mmmh...»

Sophia was right. Why would Mary have agreed to duel in such a spot? If someone had challenged her, it was probably while she was going to breakfast. If the killer had asked her to follow them to a deserted place, she would've certainly been suspicious.

Was she forced? It was possible that she had lost a previous duel with her killer and had been made to follow his orders.
But even in this case, who would have accepted to duel under the condition: "Meet me in this isolated place early in the morning."
It would have been too obvious that your opponent had bad intentions.

But then...

A new hypothesis struck me.

«Sophia... What if... we are thinking about it all wrong?»

The girl stared at me, her forehead furrowed:

«What do you mean? »

«We don't even know when she was actually killed! Assuming you were the first to notice her death, that means she could've died at any time between that moment and when she was last seen alive by her friend!»

Sophia remained doubtful:

«Are you suggesting she wasn't killed this morning?»

«Yeah, if it all happened during the night, that would also explain why nobody has seen anything!?»

«But, there's still the same issue! Why would she agree to duel in the middle of the night?»

But I had already thought about it. And I didn't like the answer I had found at all.

«Maybe... because she wasn't killed during a duel.»

«It's going to be useless and you know it.»

«Trying doesn't cost us anything. Come on, hurry up!»

Sophia and I were climbing the staircase leading to the second floor of the Academy.

I had tried several times to explore it, but every time I found two huge armored guards blocking my path. They were armed with glowing enchanted halberds. I definetly didn't want to find out what those magical weapons did.
But I was certain that beyond that point lay the teachers' quarters, as I often saw them climbing the stairs after classes. With a bit of luck, today I would be able to discover what was hidden up there.

I approached the guard post.

«Good morning, we need to speak with the headmaster,» I addressed one of the two soldiers in armor.

The guard eyed me up and down before replying:

«The headmaster doesn't receive students.»

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sophia giving me a look that seemed to say "I told you so."
But I wouldn't give up so easily.

«This is an urgent matter...»

«Professor Skylark is a very busy man.»

«...We have ground to believe someone is violating the school rules,» I insisted.

To my surprise, the guard's attitude changed. He gestured to his companion, who, after nodding, opened the entrance door to the second floor and went inside. After a few minutes, he returned and addressed me and Sophia:

«The headmaster is ready to see you. Follow me.»

And so we did.

As we walked behind the guard, I playfully elbowed Sophia.

«See?» I whispered her triumphantly.

«Don't count your chickens before they hatch...» she hissed in response.

Our journey into the mysterious second floor of the school, however, turned out to be rather unexciting. Just long corridors, similar to the ones we were used to. Since our guide was keeping a tight leash on us, we couldn't ascertain if anything interesting was hidden behind the numerous closed doors we encountered.

Finally, the guard stopped in front of one of them. After he knocked on it, I heard Professor Skylark's voice faintly say:

«Let them in.»

The headmaster's office was exactly as his owner. Utterly boring looking.
The floor was covered with an expensive-looking carpet. No trace of mysterious magical objects. There was only, on the back wall, a large cabinet stuffed with files full of documents.
Who knew if the secrets of the Academy were all hidden in there... not that I would ever have a chance to snoop around.
On the right side of the room was another door, which presumably led to Skylark's bedroom.
The latter was staring at us from behind a sturdy mahogany desk.

«Miss Belvoir. Miss Thornton. To what do I owe this visit?»

"The guard already told you..."

And in any case, I didn't quite know why, but I had the impression that nothing could happen in the school without him being aware of it.
Nevertheless, since Sophia seemed absolutely unwilling to respond, I decided to do it myself:

«Professor. Violence against students is prohibited outside of duels, right?»

«Correct. I hope you haven't come here just for a refresher on the rules...» replied the headmaster, with a hint of a smile.

"It's not the time to joke around..."

I decided to move on.

«No, we're here because we suspect someone could be violating that rule.»

I explained to the headmaster what had happened that morning and the hypothesis I had formulated about it.
The elderly professor betrayed no surprise at my account. As I imagined, he must have already been informed of Mary Stillwater's death.
After I finished, Skylark seemed satisfied with my explanation.

«I think, given the circumstances, your hypothesis isn't too far-fetched. From what you have told me it's possible that Miss Stillwater was assaulted last night. You are quite sharp, Miss Belvoir.»

Strangely, for once, I didn't detect any sarcasm in the professor's voice. But I hadn't come up there to receive compliments.

«Thank you. Since you agree with me, this means you'll do something about it, right?»

To my great surprise, the headmaster nodded:

«Of course. If it's determined that someone has violated the rules, the culprit will be severely punished.»

I let out an unexpected sigh of relief. I was already surprised that Skylark had agreed to see us. The fact that he would actually help us went beyond all my rosy expectations. With the school, for once, on our side, we could easily uncover the killer.

However, my hopes were immediately shattered.

«Well, if there's nothing else. Let me know when you have sufficient evidence of the rule violation and of who the culprit is.»

«What do you mean?»

«Well, you don't want me to punish someone randomly, do you?»

«Of course not,» I replied impatiently, now his games were dangerously close to making me lose my patience. But I knew I couldn't afford to yell at Skylark.

«I meant, won't your guards take care of finding out what happened? Why do I need to bring you the evidence?»

The professor adjusted his glasses and looked at me amused:

«Miss Belvoir, I think you've misunderstood. If you bring me evidence that someone has violated the rules, then I'll make sure that they're punished, but otherwise I have no interest in wasting my guards' time. We're a school after all, not a detective agency...»