From the transcript of the interrogation of Florian Quinn by the Academy Prime: “I did come to know Hayden a little bit, sir, and I’m happy that I did.”

  “I’m not going to kiss you, you know,” Madeline began the conversation as they followed the scent in the air toward the food carts. The scents competed with one another too strongly for Florian to get a good enough whiff of any one thing, smelling roasted meat, spiced vegetables, stews marinating in sweet sauces, soups and perhaps most enticingly, fire cooked chicken on a stick. He chased that one.

  “I didn’t expect you to?” Florian replied. “Odd way to start a conversation.”

  Madeline frowned. “Talia said I should kiss you.”

  “Did she now,” Florian answered with a smirk. That sounded exactly like something Talia would say.

  “Yes, but I’m not going to do it.”

  “That’s fine,” Florian said. “I’d much rather kiss whatever this fellow is serving. I think it’s the chicken. You want one?”

  “Yes. And if he has wine.”

  Florian bought two of the chicken sticks and two cups of Saberwine - the vendor only had the cheap stuff - they found a bench in a nearby deserted alleyway to sit and eat. The flavour of the chicken melted on his tongue, a tangy spice that would have gone well with a creamy sauce of some kind. Madeline went straight for the wine, taking a deep drink.

  “How many fingers am I holding up,” Florian joked, holding up two.

  “Very funny,” she hiccuped.

  “I didn’t take you for a drinker.”

  “I’m not,” she sighed. “Oh, but dancing is so much fun.” She took an ogreish chomp of the stick chicken, handed the remainder to Florian to hold, finished her wine then stood up and twirled, doing a little dance as if the music was still bathing her.

  Florian watched her and laughed.

  Madeline sat back down with a plop and took back her chicken. “I’ve never had friends before,” she admitted with another deep sigh. “Are you going to finish that?” She pointed to his still full cup of wine, taking it before he could answer.

  “You’re not going to remember any of this in the morning, are you?” Florian answered, unable to keep his amusement from his face.

  “I hope not. I hope I forget everything that happened today.”

  “Why? Today was a good day.”

  Madeline looked down the alley and back out toward the steaming carts of the food vendors. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “You’re not from Grinnrock?” Florian guessed.

  She nearly choked on her wine. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “The bellaw. When you didn’t recognize the taste I had a weird feeling so I got some history on the drink from the bartender. Nice guy, by the way, we talked a bunch. There’s not a Grinnrocker alive that wouldn’t recognize the taste of bellaw, even if its poorly made. Apparently there’s a tradition in Grinnrock - more of a ritual, really - when a young man or woman becomes an adult.”

  “My great grandmother was from Grinnrock,” she admitted. “I’ve never been. You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  She nodded. “Don’t you want to know why I’m lying?”

  Florian shrugged again and watched Madeline take a deep drink of his wine. “You’re allowed to have secrets.”

  “I can’t hold them in any longer,” Madeline said in a defeated voice only interrupted by another hiccup. “It’s tearing me up on the inside. I have friends, I didn’t expect friends. I have a crush on a __boy__ and you basically love me back and I’m __lying__, Florian. I’m a liar. I’m lying to you, I’m lying to Talia, I’m lying to Hayden and Willow and Hutton and Herbert and Walcotte and-,”

  “I get the point,” Florian stopped her. “Maddy, I’m sure whatever you’re doing is for a good reason,” he said, allowing her words to pass around him with only a sideways look in protest.

  “Stop, Florian. Stop being so good to everyone, stop being so nice to me when I clearly don’t deserve it. Like, look at the vendor. What’s his name?”

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  Florian shrugged. “Spurlock but everyone calls him Spurs. The chicken on a stick is a recipe from his mother, everyone said she should sell it but she was too old so he bought his cart to do it for her. He said she still cooks for him sometimes.”

  “See, how do you know that? Nobody knows those things. I bet that guy serves a hundred people a day some days and maybe three a week know his name and zero know that thing about his mother.”

  “What’s your point?”

  She sighed and sipped. “The point, Florian, is that you have this way of building people up even if you don’t know you’re doing it. I’m a bad person, Florian. Liars are bad people and I’m a liar and that means I’m a bad person.”

  “You’re not a bad person, Maddy. Trust me.”

  “How do you know?” She looked at him, eyes big and hopeful that he could say something to take this weight off her shoulders.

  “My father is a bad person. My mother is a bad person. You are the type of person who sees someone in pain and goes to find a way to make them feel better. You did that for me, remember? That’s not something a bad person would do. You showed empathy and caring and bad people don’t do that, Madeline. So you may have bent the truth a little bit, but that doesn’t define who you are.”

  “I suppose,” she said, taking one final long drink of the remaining Saberwine. She hesitated. Then she pulled out a half dozen sheets of folded parchment paper from a leather dossier and held them out as if considering heavily the implications of what she contemplated.

  “Professor Herbert says we have to trust sometimes. I am choosing to trust you. Just you. Not anyone else. Understand?”

  Florian’s heart skipped a beat. “I do.” She handed him the packet, took the final bite of her chicken and stood up as though she couldn’t bear to look at him while he read its contents. She tapped her cloak, looking for something and after she tapped her pockets three times each, conceded she couldn’t find that thing. “Do you have any money left? I want more wine.”

  He handed her some coin with a smile and watched her find the cart that sold more expensive wine on the second try, buying another chicken stick from Spurs to save face after she went to his cart first by accident. She came back to the alley and danced slowly, hands out, one holding a full cup of wine and the other holding the chicken.

  Florian opened the packet, smoothing the loose papers over his knee and when he read the first page he knew nothing would ever be the same again.

  “Hey, it’s snowing,” Madeline noticed, tilting her head up while swaying to music only she could hear.

  His fingers touched the page reverently, as though the words were about to leap off the page and attack. “Are these your parents? Amelie and Maxim?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  A crude drawing of her parents - one next to another - with a note from the author marking them deceased sat at the top of the page. Her mother had the same facial shape as Madeline did, and her father looked like a fun person to be around.

  He kept reading, horror increasing with every word. The dossier was from the Saberwyn City Police Department, either hastily copied or stolen outright. It marked her parents death as a murder and the weapon suspected to be a thin dagger by method of repeated wounds to the sternum.

  “Keep reading,” Madeline urged.

  “There is no way,” Florian argued in a disbelieving snarl. “Your parents were not Rotforces. It can’t be.”

  Madeline just drank and danced as Florian kept reading. The dossier listed Madeline as the only offspring of Amelie and Maxim Michaud, put into the system and shuffled around a half dozen times before the case file became cold and marked closed. The inspector on the case, a Robert Bray, collected most of the information before being discharged due to declining performance and substance abuse which resulted in a new inspector being assigned.

  “Your last name isn’t Le Torneau?” Florian asked.

  “Nope!” Madeline replied, spinning slowly, continuing her slow dance. “Told you I’m a liar.”

  Inspector Yoel Godin filed his final report and closed the case citing insufficient evidence for further investigation largely due to the missteps by Bray. It was Godin who named Madeline’s parents as likely Rotforces, citing their business as logistics experts to have inconsistent books, customers that were unable to be found and shipments routinely missing. He had no hard proof but drew a conclusion on the circumstances anyway.

  Godin’s report made up the back half of the pages and Florian read every line closely, engaged with every word of the text. Especially since he recognized some of the names.

  Maybel Taran was one among several who gave testimony in support of Madeline’s parents, drawing heavily on the healing work Taran did in remote villages of the Saberwyn Empire, Madeline’s father providing logistical support from distance and Madeline’s mother offering fundamental services.

  Florian’s breath hitched when he read the next section. Suspects. Again, among a short list a name stood out so brightly it might as well have been on fire. Bettina Lawrence. The notes written by Godin placed her in the village at the time of the killing and witnesses noted a conflict between Lawrence and Madeline’s mother at the shop days previous. Still, no murder weapon was found on the Professor and charges were never brought forward but the possibility cast a pall over her promising career and chained her to the Academy, a kindness offered by the previous Academy Prime.

  “How much of this is new information?”

  “New to me? Most of the stuff Godin wrote. I found out the primary suspect was a Death Dealer, and I knew my mother had an altercation with someone but the specifics…”

  “Lawrence?”

  Madeline nodded. “I’m sure it’s her, Florian. This is confirmation.”

  “Rot fuck,” Florian whistled. “Taran shows up here, too. Says she knew your parents and even helped them, sounds like?”

  “I always liked Taran. Guess now I know my instinct was right on that one, too.”

  “Maddy, I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”

  “Read the back,” Madeline said in a small voice, sitting back down and taking another big bite and long drink.

  Florian flipped the page over and read the conclusion of Inspector Yoel Godin: We all have better things to do with our time then continue to pursue this case. While I admit there is no hard evidence of my conclusion, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming in the extreme. The Michaud’s were Rotforces, criminals or both, murdered by another criminal or criminals being shielded by a corrupt Academy Prime. There is no threat to public safety here, only justice dispensed for a transgression I can only guess at. Recommend closing this case and reallocating resources with a final question about this file. Who cares?