Knightress

Chapter 15

Laura pushed open the door to her former room, the hinges creaking softly. She took slow steps inside, her eyes scanning the space. The room was still a mess and the furniture overturned, Andreas had left everything as it was, except for her clothes and shoes, which he had moved to her new room.

She stopped right infront of the upside down bed and destroyed pillow cases that scattered feathers everywhere, hands on her hips, taking it all in. She wore brown leggings, a Legion golf T-shirt, running shoes, a grey beanie, and goggles, with clear rubber gloves on her hands. With her trusty pouch wrapped around her waist. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the task at hand.

'Clues are everywhere, young knight. You just have to open your eyes to see them.' - grandma Bailey once said.

If there's one thing she learned from her grandmother was to look at every case with a different eye, from where she stood, it would appear to be a waste of time even trying to find anything. She adjusted her goggles and crawled under the bed, emerging on the other side. Her gaze drifted to the window seat where she found the letter, a once serenity filled place was now a tangled mess of cushions and books.

Laura unbuttoned her pouch and pulled out a small glass container filled with baby powder which she borrowed from one of the servants who'd recently given birth. She learned this trick from grandma Bailey, a gentle smile crossed her lips as the distant memory surfaced her mind. Grandma Bailey had used this same trick to catch whoever was handling her katana. Laura's face flushed slightly as she remembered it had been her own little guilty hands that had been handling the sword.

She twisted open the lid and threw it aside, a faint scent of baby powder wafted out. She positioned herself, and blew a gentle stream over the window and the sill. The powder clouded the air, it wafted up her nose and burned her throat, making her cough. She stepped back, waving her hand in front of her face to clear the particles. As the air cleared, Laura's eyes locked onto the window sill. A slow smile spread across her face – the sun shown brightly, working together with the powder, fingerprints were revealed.

Laura leaned in, balancing her hands on her knees as she peered at them more closely. Her smile faltered, replaced by a frown. Typically, fingerprints had unique, intricate patterns, but these looked...off. The lines seemed too uniform, too identical from one finger to the next. She pressed her thumb lightly against the glass window beside the intruder's thumbprint, her eyebrows rising at the stark contrast. Her own thumbprint had a beautiful, complex design similar to that of small roots, while the intruder's looked almost... manufactured.

"Something to work with," she murmured to herself, pulling out her camera to capture the fingerprints from three different angles.

Once the photos had printed, Laura tucked them neatly into her pouch and stood up, paving her way towards the bathroom. As she entered, she was met with the same scene of destruction she'd seen in the rest of her room. The mirror hung crookedly on the wall, its glass shattered and spider-webbed. The sink lay in pieces on the floor, water dripping slowly from the broken pipes. The shower curtain hung askew, it's rings torn from the rod. The bathroom window was cracked, a gentle breeze blew in.

Laura's eyes scanned the space, taking in the chaos. She carefully stepped over the debris, feeling pieces of the broken sink crumble under her sneakers. Her eyes roamed around the area, the creepy, slow, echoing drip from the broken scattered pipes sent a shiver down her spine. There were small muddied puddles everywhere, she gingerly stepped over them and stood in the centre of the huge, once beautiful bathroom. She glanced up, there were scratches all over the roof that even marked the grey tiles on the walls. Her eyes carefully darted every corner of the bathroom, they lingered on the shattered window before dropping to the shattered sink and stared at it with more curiousity. She walked over to it and crouched, her arms balanced on her knees as she stared at it, a gentle smile crossed her face, with her gloves finger she scratched at a dried crimson stain.
Here's a revised version of the passage: