I think myself capable to deceive, my skill in acting is rather phenomenal, I must say. However, no other ability of mine can rival that of my talent to receive fatal abuse. That and my stew, I make a wicked stew.

At least I still had my clothes.

I sat huddled on the ground, my coat held close to me. I positioned myself so that the sun would be hitting my face, but the sun was rising, and the frigid winter air flowed through the open window.

Shivering, I pulled my coat closer, the inner-pocket now empty. Any protection I had from Nyx was now gone. My name was released to the public without my consent, my face already plastered across the city in case I escape. It'd happened before, no need to give the villain a chance to flee in the dead of night with anonymity from the unwashed masses.

What a fantastic way to end the day, six feet above the ground.

My eyes teared up, I'm not gonna cry, not now.

This was her plan, to frame me for the murders, and when I managed to convince that White Hand Valerie, she went off and killed another eight.

The Adjudicator was going to condemn me, the entire court proceeding was only formality. Once I was dead, Nyx would find somebody else to latch onto, like a leach, drinking her fill.

I should tell them the truth.

"Hey, psst, hey." I looked out the window, but there was nobody. I searched for the noise. "I'm inside the bucket, Vassy."

The bucket? There wasn't a-

Oh.

I peered into the toilet.

She stared up at me.

A reflection of Nyx in the toilet water, how refreshing. How I could drink up this sight.

A coy smile spread across my lips. "Hello, Nyx."

"Can you spill the bucket out on the floor?"

"Uh," I inspected the toilet, not the cleanest throne I've seen, "No?"

"Listen and do as I say, I'm your ticket to freedom."

Guess we were both prisoners in our own right.

"I'm going to teach you how to turn into mist."

Really, now? How nice of her. Maybe I should pour out a bottle of the King's wine in celebration.

"How do I bypass the anti-echera circle?"

"Hah! That only affects spells taking place outside of your body. You're going to turn yourself, into mist. Now, envision your body as mist."

I closed my eyes, turning off my outer-perception of the world to focus on my inner-perception.

"The hardest part of turning to mist is turning back." I heard a muffled giggle from her.

My echera began to burn through my veins, the ethereal substance overtaking my blood. My body began to transform, my arms dissolved into fine particles. It traveled upwards to my shoulders and head. I turned weightless as my legs disappeared, then my chest, and finally my head.

Interesting, the professor said that shifting was dangerous and could result in death or permanent damage, but everything was fine. Saint propaganda?

"Now turning back will require you to collapse the mist onto itself, and then by envisioning each part of your body becoming whole again. I hope you've studied anatomy."

I turned back, it was far more difficult than I could imagine, but my theory was there, good enough to do something as simple as this. Hehe, simple.

People thought that magic was violent, heretical, and complicated. People are stupid. All you needed was echera, the fuel which is supplied from nutrients in the body, and a powerful enough imagination to use magic. Well, okay, maybe not that easy, it was more like a muscle. You couldn't do something new with your imagination, learning fireball, for example, required knowing how to convert echera to heat. Once you learn how to send the fireball away from oneself, then the knowledge of the fireball created a foundation for other similar spells. The foundation for each tower of magic was the most difficult to learn, and then you had to build into each spell slowly, from fireball to Dwannon's Spark or mixing together concepts to create new spells. Many sorcerers went by the book, not bothering to feed their creativity, which in fact stifles them once they got past tower three— if they were in the military. Even the military agreed that creating new spells was dangerous and unnecessary when powerful spells already existed.

Idiots. Though the military of Ardran hadn't been in a war for decades, Faardah, the merchant city sat on the coastline and was embroiled with conflict against sea raiders. Gruus was about to be wiped off the face of Yara, which had officials worried. The Panacea's been doing it for eons, if sorcerers couldn't kill it, what could a horde of angry little Saints with knives and 'technology' do about it?

I return back to human form, yet I feel drained. My arms hang at my sides lamely, and my legs shudder underneath my weight.

"You're drained from returning to solid form, being corporeal requires very little effort."

Guess that was one thing in my favor. Sort of?

"Now come get me, I'm in Bara's office. He's running his grimy, filthy fingers on my pages,' Nyx gave me a pleading look, "You're my only hope."

"No thanks." I wasn't in a hurry, all I needed to do was regenerate my echera and wraith out of here.

Her hand rose up and delicately stroked my cheek. "Come. Get. Me."

"I'm drained."

The fingers edge closer to my eye, "Do it."

Not wanting a repeat of what happened, what was it? Two nights ago? I slowly corporealized myself. Then, like a zephyr, I moved towards the bars. As soon as I made contact, lightning courses through me, pulling back, I tried to solidify, but it was too late, The erratic purple energy burns through the outer layer of my mist, I was evaporating.

What should have been a second felt like a minute as my misty body vibrated in the air. It began to subside, and I immediately turned back.

I fell onto my knees. Holding back my screams and biting my lip bloody, I took stock of the damage. I was bleeding, I looked at my arm, ravines of skin were missing, red liquid filling in the gaps and dripping onto the cold stone. Blood soaks my clothes, another shirt ruined.

"Hey now, I didn't know they had contingencies like that, what a shocking revelation." She says sagely.

My blood was puddling underneath my kneeled form, Nyx appeared in the reflection offered by my oh-so-worthy sacrifice.

"Hm, just a flesh wound, you'll be alright. Ever learned healing?"

"No." I croaked out, it took me several tries to get the word out with my nerves aflame.

She lifts up her shirt and scratches her stomach absent-mindedly, "Guess you're gonna die, don't have too much fun." She walked off to the side, disappearing.

"Damn bitch."

My right hand slaps my face, causing blood to spray everywhere.

Why does it never end?

"So useless," She sighs, "How about a deal."

"Fuck. Off." The pain wracks my body as I try to stand up, the blood loss seems to be severe, I observe as I fall onto my butt.

She stops talking. Her reflection in the blood remains passive, probably thinking of some way to torture me more before I bleed out.

I hear footsteps approaching as I sit hunched over the pool of blood.

"By Echid! The boy wasn't lying!"

Huh. An interesting turn of events.

A jangle of keys, the door opens, more footsteps. My conscious is fading, the loss of blood is making me woozy.

A hand touches on my shoulder, they ask me something. I blink, trying to regain clarity but my eyes don't open, or has my sight dimmed. A sea of nausea rocks me, I moan.

I can distantly hear them talking, more hands. I black out.

The unforgiving stone doesn't do me any favors, but at least someone had placed a pillow underneath my head. "W-what? I'm fine. What's happening." I try pushing a man off of me who's holding his hands over a particularly nasty gash on my stomach, but my attempts are softly brushed aside, like a starving kitten in the rain.

Conscious fades in and out, I hear snippets of conversation.

"An act?"

"Don't think-"

"-ther victim?"

"-atch him."

"Murderer."

I find myself wrapped in something cold, it hugs me comfortably, and as time passes it warms to my skin. I crack my eyes open and see Valerie sitting next to me, hardly looking worried. "Just because he doesn't like the Saints doesn't mean he would kill us."

A gruff voice responds to her, "It can still be an act. He tricked you into believing-"

She cuts him off "He was genuine. Despite his sarcasm and rather irritating dryness— He's not a killer," She looks down, "He's awake, ask your questions."

I open my mouth to speak, but I'm cut off.

"Did you kill them?" Bara asks, his eyes brimming with malice.

"No?" I answer hesitantly.

He grunts and looks out of the window behind me.

"Did you try going through the bars?"

"How would I do that?" I try making a confused expression but my face stings like a bastard.

Bara leans back still looking anywhere but me.

"He didn't do it, let it go."

"Do you remember what she looked like?"

"Yeah," Okay, time to set fire to the pyre, "She had black hair, pale, uh, tall." Sounds just like her.

Valerie hums in thought, "What was she wearing?"

"A lot of black. And a white shirt. Dressed like a man." Nyx's description should throw them off. There were thousands of pale women in Ardran, though the only ones that dressed like men were the Saints, and Nyx. Hah, let them figure it out. It was their fault he was wrapped up head to toe in linen.

"We can't find her on our own." Valerie said.

Uh-oh.

She bends forward and places a hand on my shoulder— looking rather awkward. "We want you to join us for patrols."

That bitch! That was not an invitation, that was an order.

"Well, uh, I'm busy, I have classes and work to do."

"No you don't, the college is closed until the murders are resolved."

"I recently picked up a job-"

Valerie shook her head.

"I don't want to walk around in the cold in the dead of night."

Valerie sighs, "If you're with us patrolling and there's more murders then," Bara stood up and left, "You can't be held responsible."

"I don't understand why I'm a suspect, it makes no sense!"

"You don't like the Saints, Rade and Garen are found dead, reports destroyed," Chapped Lips' name was Garen! I Knew it! "We find your bed bloody, and you have a strange white arm, though it's rather far-fetched you had a bad batch of healing tonic. From your room, Bara tracked a trail of teleports that trailed to his two agents' home. follow you around the next day, and there are another eight murders of Saint agents at night. Your window was found open after we took you in the second time, not only that but you managed to get injured," Valerie points at the linen bandages, "We're not sure what's going on, but it's rather strange that you weren't attacked until you were stuck in a cell. She could've killed you in your sleep, or perhaps," She purses her lips, a look of shock strikes her features, "Unless it's a Saint that's been killing people."

"Um."

She stands up, "Don't worry about being attacked, we have two guards at the door. She begins to pace "A tall, pale, black haired woman, probably an abmian and an epicentra, as well as some way of sneaking around," She stops and turns to face me, "Oh, and Vasra, tell no one what I've said, not to Bara, nor a Saint, not even your diary." She pulls out Nyx from her coat and sets it on the bedside table delicately before striding out.

"Diary?"