History of Arcane Doctrine ended.
I know this because the instructor said something about next week's reading assignment in the tone of a man who had given up expecting anyone to do it, and everyone started moving, and I was still sitting in the back row staring at the empty seat where Sable Vane had been.
She left fast. Notebook already in her bag before the instructor finished his sentence, out the side door, the one that opened toward the administrative wing instead of the courtyard. Not the way students went. Not the way anyone went unless they had a reason.
I had questions.
The responsible thing, the thing a forensic psychologist with two textbooks and a balcony he never used would do, was to not follow her.
I followed her.
The administrative wing smelled like old paper and a specific brand of wood polish that I recognized from every institution I had ever consulted for, which made me feel at home in a way I deeply resented. The corridor was empty except for a portrait of some founder or another looking constipated in oils, and a janitor pushing a cart with one squeaky wheel who did not look at me.
Sable had gone into a room at the end of the hall. The door was not fully closed. I stood next to it and looked at the portrait and listened, which is not eavesdropping if you frame it correctly in your head.
"...found this morning," said a voice I didn't recognize. Male, older, the kind of tired that lives behind the eyes and doesn't leave. "Groundskeeper thought it was an animal at first."
"It wasn't an animal." Sable's voice was flat and specific. Not emotionless. Just the voice of someone who had already processed the part where they were supposed to be disturbed and had moved on to the part where they were supposed to be useful. I recognized that voice. I had used it for eleven years.
"The family will expect discretion."
"The family will expect an answer." A pause. Pages turning. "This is the fourth one in six weeks. The academy's containment protocol is not working and I need access to the old maintenance tunnels under the east dormitory."
"Those tunnels are restricted."
"So is whatever is happening in them."
Silence. Then the sound of a drawer opening, something sliding across a desk.
"You have until Friday," the older voice said. "And Vane. If this becomes public before we manage it--"
"It won't."
She sounded very certain for someone whose notebook had case four marked in small precise handwriting like it was already half-solved.
I moved away from the door before it opened.
She walked past me in the corridor without stopping. Without looking. And then, three steps past, she said: "You were in the back row."
Not a question.
"History of Arcane Doctrine is compulsory," I said.
"You weren't taking notes."
"Neither were you."
She stopped. Turned around slowly, the way people do when they are deciding in real time how much of a problem something is going to be. She was shorter than I'd expected from the back of a classroom, which is an irrational thing to notice but I noticed it. The braid was still coming apart on the left side. The ink stain on her cuff was dry.
"Harlan Voss," she said.
"You know my name."
"I know everyone's name." She looked at me with the specific expression of someone running a search behind their eyes. "Second year. Transferred from Belwick Institute midterm. No declared discipline. Instructors describe you as quiet and difficult to read."
Belwick Institute. That was new. The body had a backstory and the System hadn't given me the full file yet, which was typical of the kind of administrative incompetence that followed me across deaths apparently.
"You've been checking on me," I said.
"I check on everyone." She tilted her head, a small movement. "Why were you watching my notebook?"
The wrong answer here was: because I profiled you in thirty seconds and you're three cases into a murder investigation and I need to know if you're better at this than me. The right answer was something normal that a transfer student with no declared discipline would say.
"You draw maps in class," I said. "It's unusual."
"Most people don't notice."
"Most people aren't looking."
She was quiet for a moment. Not uncomfortable quiet. The kind of quiet that was actually an assessment wearing a pause as a coat.
"Don't follow me again," she said, and walked away.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Target Interaction Detected: Sable Vane
Profiling Progress: 34%
Alert: Subject has independent investigative access. She will reach your crime scene within 48 hours.
Current Infamy: 0
Projected Infamy at Scene Discovery: 12
Recommendation: You already know what to do.
I stared at the notification.
I did know what to do. That was the problem. The part of my brain that had spent a career thinking like investigators was already running the scenario automatically: what Sable would find at that scene, what conclusions she'd draw, what physical evidence I hadn't had time to deal with because I had arrived mid-completion and spent most of my time having a quiet crisis on a log.
The footprints. My footprints. And whoever else had been there.
Two sets of prints at one scene makes the initial profile messy. Messy is good for me. Messy is time.
The System wanted me to get back out there and contaminate or clean the scene. It was not subtle about this.
I put my hands in my pockets and walked toward the courtyard instead, because I was not, at this precise moment, doing that.
The courtyard fountain had a pigeon sitting on the rim that was missing three toes on its left foot and looked extremely unbothered about it. I sat on the bench across from it and thought about case four.
Sable's map had three crosses before Cedric. Three bodies I hadn't caused, in six weeks, in an academy that was apparently running a containment protocol quietly enough that none of this had appeared in the original novel's text.
The original author hadn't known.
Or had known and cut it.
Or had known, kept it, and the story I'd read 340 chapters of had been the version where someone else handled it before it became relevant to the main plot. The hero's story didn't start for another two chapters. Right now I was in the negative space, the off-page section, the part that happened before the narrative decided anything mattered.
The pigeon looked at me with its one remaining functioning attitude and waddled two inches to the left.
Four bodies. One System. One investigator who was already 48 hours from my scene and moved like she'd done this before she was old enough for it to be legal.
And somewhere in this academy, a person who had folded Cedric Mallow's hands across his chest and left before I arrived, and who had apparently been doing this for six weeks without anyone catching them, which meant they were patient and they were careful and they had a reason.
I needed to know the reason before Sable did.
Not because the System told me to.
Because if I didn't, whoever it was would keep going. And eventually they'd get one that the System assigned to me, and I'd arrive mid-completion again, and the second scene with two sets of footprints is a coincidence.
The third one is a pattern.
I really hated patterns. I had built my entire career on them.
The three-toed pigeon flew away. Somewhere across the courtyard, a bell rang for second period.
I didn't move for another four minutes.