Lyonell emerged from the shadows, a cane in hand, and a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “You didn’t think you were going to die, did you? That would have made it far too easy to escape punishment for the crime one of you have committed.” His cane clicked against the stone path with every step he took.

  “So, what’s going to happen to us?” Reese asked.

  Now that she wasn’t dead, she almost regretted drinking so much.

  Almost.

  “You two, as well as eight others, will remain here until we are able to figure out who the killer is amongst you. He or she will be executed, and the rest of you will be free to go.” Lyonell spoke as if they were the simple rules to a game Reese should have known since she was a child.

  But she didn’t know the rules of murder and magic.

  The further she ventured from home, the more she learned that she truly knew nothing about how the real world worked. She knew nothing beyond the safe walls of her home. Walls she had chosen to leave behind in pursuit of something new and exciting.

  This unknown part of the carnival was certainly new, but it was far from exciting.

  “Do be careful, the carnival isn’t quite the same during the day. I would hate to have more innocent bodies on my hands if you truly are as you claim.” Lyonell turned and walked away from them, his cane still clicked against the stones.

  Reese could already tell she was going to grow to hate the sound.

  “I wasn’t expecting to live long enough to find the killer.” Luca admitted.

  “Neither was I.” Reese pushed the rum away from herself. She was going to want to be sober if she needed to finish this investigation.

  “But you were looking before.” Luca leaned forward and finally poured himself more rum. His second cup to her what? Third? Fourth?

  “I had to at least try. I had little hope, but there was still some there,” she said.

  “Then that’s where we’ll start, you may have been desperate, but that body is our only lead,” he said.

  “They’ve likely already removed it.” Reese shook her head.

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  Lyonell didn’t want to make it easy for them. He was waiting for the murderer to make a mistake in their attempt to frame someone else. He wouldn’t have left the body for them to tamper with evidence now that the game was truly underway.

  Because that was all it was to him. A game to see if the innocent would prevail or if the killer would get away with their crime. He didn’t care about Myriam Fowler, and he most certainly didn’t care about Reese.

  This was as much entertainment for him as the carnival had been for the rest of them.

  “Have you figured something out?” Luca asked. “You’ve got a look on your face that says you have.”

  “This is all just a game to him. If we panic, we’re playing right into his hands. He wants us to make a mistake that could get us killed. We have to be careful about this,” Reese said.

  “We have no body to investigate, and we don’t know who else is here. How are we supposed to go about this carefully when we have no information?” He asked.

  “We watch.” She smiled.

  “Watch what?” He glanced around the clearing. The only living things there were them.

  “The others. You can learn a great deal about a person if you watch them long enough. We just have to find them, and watch how they act when no one else is looking. They’re bound to act nervous when they think they’re alone.” She suggested.

  “Reese, that is a lovely idea, except for the fact all of us are nervous. We are being accused of a murder we didn’t commit. I would dare say your drinking earlier was nervous behavior, does that mean you’re the killer?” Luca didn’t meet her eyes as he poked at the crumbs of butterfly cake in front of him.

  “You have a point.” Reese frowned.

  His reaction to Myriam’s body had convinced her that he was innocent, but he had found her standing over a woman’s dead body.

  How had he come to the conclusion that it truly wasn’t her?

  “What makes you so certain that I’m not the killer?” She asked.

  “She had been dead for some time. Anyone with brains wouldn’t stick with the body of their victim, and you don’t seem like a stupid person to me.” Luca shrugged.

  “So, we’re going to do this together?” She asked.

  “Of course, we’re the only people we can trust,” he said. “Besides, it’s not safe to be alone with Lyonell lurking about the way he is. You were right about this being a game to him. We need to have each other's backs if he decided his game has grown too boring.”

  Reese could feel the color drain from her face. “Do you really think he would do such a thing?”

  “He’s already trapped us here and let us think we would die. What’s to stop him from doing more?” Luca pushed away from the table, food and drink forgotten on the table.

  “Investigation or not, he’s the enemy here.” Reese agreed.

  She hadn’t thought much about Lyonell before, but now she was beginning to realize just how dangerous an individual he was. He ran the show, and that permitted him to do whatever he pleased. If hunting down nine innocent people and a killer one by one was what he wanted to do over the next fifty years, it was what he would do, and there wasn’t a single thing any of them could do to stop him.

  Lyonell Montgomery was a man who got what he wanted, and if that was their heads, he would get it. All in his own time, their punishments would come, even those who had done nothing wrong.

  Unless they managed to kill him first.