Of Light So Dark and Dear

Chapter 11

In the days that followed, she neglected her private audiences with Michael altogether. She knew he wanted to explain, but she wasn't ready to hear it yet. She had to ration the amount of obscurity she took in each day.

The daily meetings were another bout of bizarre. No one said anything of Ms. Lafontaine's magic. It was as if the feat had been pushed aside as unremarkable, normal. No one asked questions, probably because no one wanted the explanation.

Angeline had replaced Mr. Schwarz at his chair. Lena doubted she would have noticed were it not for the widow leaving halfway through their meetings every day. She could not blame Angeline for not being able to stomach a full hour of these gruesome details. For someone not used to seeing and hearing these things, it could be extremely sickening.

No one had told Angeline what she'd unknowingly done to her husband. They avoided mentioning it while she was present in their meetings. Lena knew she would have to tell her eventually. She simply couldn't fathom explaining all that had happened when she couldn't even comprehend it herself.

They had done a full examination of Mr. Schwarz's crime scene. The only thing they could not unpack was the motive. There was no way to decipher if Mr. Schwarz had previously come in contact with the suspect or if his murder was for a different reason entirely. Dr. Mckailey had shared that the perpetrator could've killed Mr. Schwarz to send a message to them. To show them he knew they were looking for him.

Victor and Dr. Mckailey had apparently searched the whole area within a half a mile's radius of the scene and hadn't found a single trace of the man they were looking for. It was if he had vanished into thin air. Given every mythical thing they were already dealing with, Lena wouldn't count that out.

Mr. Chaining assured them that word of Mr. Schwarz's murder would indefinitely reach the papers. A death of that caliber- a renowned detective- could be almost impossible to miss. The only thing they could do now was make sure the story was spun to create the least amount of damage. Mr. Chaining had spent most of his days at the press station in Augsburg, working with the writers of the Bavarian papers. She barely ever saw him in the manor, aside for their daily team meetings.

Georgia had been very cooperative with answering their questions once she had recovered from her initial shock. She had stayed at the manor a full day following the murder, after which she had been picked up by a friend and taken to stay at her sister's residence. In Lena's chamber, she had been replaced by a soft-spoken woman named Theodora.

She had been almost completely confident that she'd escaped Michael until she turned a corner in the library and he almost scared her to stone as he stood there grabbing a book. "Good day, Ms. Weiss. I thought I might run into you here."

Her mind began grappling for any excuse she could use to escape the impending conversation. "I was just leaving." She kept it simple.

But before she could fully turn to walk away, he said, "no, please stay. I need to talk to you." He looked to the table and chairs surrounding them. "Shall we?"

She contemplated the benefits and disadvantages to conversing with him here. "Okay," she said, halfheartedly.

She ignored the chair he had pulled out for her. She instead sat down in an armchair a good six feet from him.

He hid his shock as he sat down and said, "You know I would never hurt you."

She didn't look at him. She knew his sky-blue eyes would make her want to confess everything.