I recognize a lot of the names on the list of people who voted against this girl. Interestingly, Chester isn’t among them. I flip pages until I find a similar type of case.
Yep, the same people voted to kill this guy as the Siti girl, but Chester did not.
I keep looking.
The voting pattern remains eerily consistent, which I guess makes sense. If one is dead set against any exposure to humans, they would be likely to remain so.
I skim the pages faster until I come across a case where the voting record is slightly different. Very interesting indeed. The defendant in this case was Princess Peach, Ariel and Felix’s roommate. In her case, Chester voted for the ultimate penalty.
An even more interesting case waits on the next page. This time, Chester himself is on trial. Not much detail is given apart from “spoke about Cognizant secrets to the uninitiated.” Unlike all the prior cases, where the vote was to decide execution, Chester risked nothing more than being expelled from the Council. The vote didn’t go in Chester’s favor; they removed him. Huh. He must’ve earned his way back since then. But not surprisingly, the same people who typically voted for execution in similar cases voted to expel Chester as well.
Could that be his motive? All the dead Councilors came from the list of people who voted for execution in these cases. Could Chester be getting revenge for what he perceived as an indignity? It would explain his out-of-character vote to kill me, a person who could potentially expose him.
If this is true, the next person to die will be one of the Councilors who voted to execute or expel in cases of exposure to humans.
Hey, are you napping? I text Felix.
He doesn’t reply.
I go into the dream world, tell Pom he has a chance to see Felix again, and enter Felix’s dream.
He’s sitting on the couch, playing a video game in which creatures that look a bit like Pom fight each other with cool superpowers.
“Hey,” I say. “I figured you might be asleep.”
Felix looks at his video game controller, at the creatures on his screen, at me, and finally at Pom. His unibrow seesaws on his forehead. “Every single time, it’s so freaking hard to believe I’m dreaming.” He looks back at the screen again. “Also, why am I not doing something more interesting in my dream, like flying?”
“I’m sure you do that sometimes.” I join him on the couch, and Pom flits over to sit between us. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to you about Chester.”
“And I need to play the game.” Pom is all but bouncing with eagerness. “What are those creatures?”
“Pokémon.” Grinning, Felix hands Pom the video game controller. “Try playing as Pikachu or Jigglypuff.”
A happily purple Pom starts mashing the buttons.
Felix turns to me. “So. Chester.”
I tell him what I’ve discovered and ask, “Do you think he could be the killer?”
“Thinking about probability manipulation gives me a headache.” Felix theatrically rubs his temples. “I think he could be.”
“Oh?”
“Let’s start with the arrow. If there was a chance Tatum could be hit with it, Chester’s power would’ve made it a certainty. And when it comes to sneaking up on the elf, he could’ve used his power so the elf wouldn’t have noticed his arrival until too late, or he could’ve made the elf fall off the cliff by accident.”
I was thinking along the same lines, but it’s good to hear another person confirm it.
“He could’ve also been behind the bird attack,” Felix continues. “If there was a chance the birds would go crazy one day and peck the dreamwalker to death, Chester could’ve increased that probability.”
“Right, but what about Gemma?” I ask. “She was ripped in half. There’s no chance he could’ve done that, is there?”
“Maybe his lion?”
“Maybe. That thing did look like pure muscle. It has to be incredibly strong.”
Felix scoots away from Pom, who’s going at the game with ever-greater enthusiasm. “You should talk to Kain about this as soon as you can. But do it carefully. Part of Chester’s power is being in the right place at the right time, so he might overhear.”
“Then how am I—”
“Am I interrupting you again?” Kain’s voice booms from the sky.
Speak of the devil. He’s caught me in my trance again.
“Thanks, Felix. I’ve got to go.” I wake myself up.
As expected, Kain is standing next to me in the library, his thin mouth more downturned than usual.
I put my hand over my rapidly beating heart. “I was working on the case, I swear.”
“And?”
“We need to talk, but not here.” I look around the book stacks furtively. “Can we go outside where we can’t be overheard?”
Kain raises an eyebrow. “Sure.”
He leads me through the stone corridors until we reach the castle entrance and emerge from the mountain to the woodsy smell of wet vegetation and the light drizzle of rain.