Cloak and Daggers

The Grim Reaper's Touch

I was bound up in chains, my clothes were grimy and I was faint with hunger and exhaustion.

Two days had passed, I had been confined in a cell again.

I shivered and my toes were blue with frostbite.

To think I had fallen this far and I didn't even know if my family knew. Then I remembered bitterly, the only family I had left was the one I was supposed to marry into.

My parents had been interred long ago and the engagement had been to prevent me from becoming homeless.

There was no word from Cedric and I wondered if he actually didn't care.

I was woken up at dawn and dragged in chains to a room, I heard voices but I feared looking up and meeting the cold and condescending gazes.

The trial started, all the findings were put before the magistrate. Finally, the judge asked me to speak...

I decided to tell the truth. 

"I am not interested in Kurosawa Ren," I told them, "I never was".

"I was frankly relieved when I met Alicia. I felt I couldn't cancel the engagement because I owed a lot to the Kurosawa clan for taking care of me all these years. I am not guilty of her murder."

The judge then asked me if I had anything to say in my favour.

I decided to look up and warily eyed him. 

I wanted to weigh the odds of telling him about the chimney when the eye contact I had with him was broken.

I looked in the direction of his gaze and found a tall ,red haired man I was all too familiar with.

"She lacks the  motive, your Honor "said Cedric.

"Go ahead, officer . Tell us your findings," replied the judge.

"We sent our officers up the chimney and found it was wide enough for a man to enter the room. We also found traces of footprints," said Cedric.

I was still reeling under the realization that Cedric was an officer.

Then I realised, it all made sense, why would someone offer to take a stranger, nonetheless a suspect into their home. 

I had been a fool to think that he had any feelings for me.

 I came back to my senses when Cedric took out the rouge powder and showed it to the judge. 

He also elaborated that the coroner had noted signs of poison on the victim's body.

Cedric then pointed out that the rouge powder had a deadly poison made out of nightshade berries mixed in it.

Then he explained that even mere skin contact would cause irritation.

The traces of poison had been found on the victims lips indicating that they had been applied and ingested resulting in her death. 

The knife stab was just a ruse to distract or perhaps  because the criminal wasn't satisified with his handiwork.

He also pointed out that she wouldn't have applied it herself as the contact would have irritated her skin stopping her from applying it to her lips.

It must have been applied directly to her lips by someone.

Such an act was an intimate gesture reserved only for a lover, close friend etc.

Cedric then grabbed Ren's hands . 

The crowd visibly gasped at the lesions over his palms.

A genius idea indeed.

On the night of the murder

Ren had excused himself for a few minutes, he had used the hearth in his room to climb up to Alicia's room while she had been bathing, waited for me to go downstairs and had grabbed the dagger. 

Then  he had simply strolled  back into her room and locked the windows to frame me. 

When Alicia had exited and dressed, he had presented her with the rose powder and insisted on applying it to her lips.  

The powder instantly knocked her unconscious and  he stabbed her with  the dagger by wrapping it in a cloth so his fingerprints weren't on the dagger, but mine were so that he could frame me.

Alicia had lent him a lot of money. Ren had grown tired with her nagging to get married.

 He had wanted to break off their  informal engagement but she had threatened him with her connections. 

His parents had also been  pestering him to get married to me so he decided to get rid of two women with one plot. 

When I heard the truth I saw how shallow Ren was. I became relieved at my fate. It was kind intervention that I didn't have to marry such a degenerate. But I felt sorry for the Kurosawa clan. The scion had dragged their reputation into the sewer.

Ren was incarcerated. Since the person killed was a foreign citizen ,the family  couldn't use their power. Not much of it was left in the first place with the scandal it caused anyways.

 I stayed back in Tokyo as I could no longer face the Kurosawa clan. The situation was awkward.

 I wrote a letter to the elders thanking them for taking care of me. I am yet to hear back.

Cedric san helped me get a job, I moved out of his house. I don't plan to tell him of my feelings. I don't think I can trust him, even though he had just been doing his job.

The amazake from my first hatsumode in Tokyo is delicious. I hope next year I will find someone to share it with.