"...so, Lord El-Melloi II. You said you would grace us with your great deductions once we had everyone gathered, did you not?"

 "I never said it was deduction. Just speculation. At any rate, there's no logic to follow." As always, my master spoke with a kind of bored tone, adding such comments as if they were nothing.

 For him, though, that should have been quite important. The ironclad rule of incidents involving magi that he would often espouse - there is no meaning in the whodunnit or howdunnit, the only thing you could rely on is finding the whydunnit.

 (...but...)

 If we were unable to solve the case this time, the loss wasn't something that could just be described with words like 'great.' As far as the authority of the El-Melloi family, my master couldn't have cared less, but the relic he had put up to gamble with this time was different. No, thinking about the attack from Galiasta, what was needed here wasn't something as simple as solving a mystery.

 With as bitter an expression as ever, my master dropped his gaze from the ceiling and shifted it to the master of the Twin Towers.

 "First, about my previous request, Lord Byron."

 "...of course." Reluctantly, he nodded, snapping his fingers.

 In response to his signal, servants came forward with a box. Cutting the sealing Magic Circle on top of it with a knife in just a single place, it disappeared. As soon as it had done so, liquid mercury spilled forth from the box, eventually taking the form of a maid.

 "Trim."

 Immediately, I noticed Reines' face loosen. From her perspective, Trim was a companion that had been at her side without fail for years, after all.

 For example that was - for me, it was similar to Add.

 "Of course, if you do anything untoward, I will be forced to confiscate it again."

 "Naturally. Please feel free to watch over her. Your concentration should have recovered by now, yes?" Reines bit back as she inspected Trimmau from head to toe.

 "-does that about do it for preparations, then?" Atram sat leisurely, arms crossed. In this place with complicated undercurrents flowing every direction, he was the only one who stood outside everything. The only one who had lost nothing, the one who had come to do nothing but take. His ease showed plainly in his ability to smile in this situation.

 "No, two more." As my master said that, he turned to the door. In short order, noisy footsteps sounded from the hallway beyond, and the door swung open.

 "We're here!"

 "...my apologies. Please excuse us."

 "-Flat, Svin."

 My breath caught the moment I saw what the frizzy haired boy was holding.

 Wrapped in a blanket, held with the utmost care and respect, was the body of Caleena.

 "...Caleena..." The living maid's pained voice filled the lobby.

 Svin then gently lowered the body to the floor, where my master crouched down to inspect it.

 Taking out a magnifying class and a penlight, he began his inspection. More than a magus, he looked like a police officer or a forensics expert. Come to think of it, the famous detective Sherlock Holmes was also renowned for using cutting edge forensic technology of his time to investigate his crimes. Such unnecessary thoughts found their way into my head.

 Before this scene which was so unsightly for a magus, whispers began to circulate the room. However, my master wasn't about to start caring about the opinions of others now. Heedless of their covert comments, he touched the face of the body, so calm it looked like she could have just been sleeping.

 Absorbed in his task, he seemed entirely unaware of the fact he had begun sweating, and that I had wiped it from his face a few times for him.

 He continued for a while, before finally,

 "As I thought," he whispered in a strained voice. "The tympanic membranes are torn. A clear injury showing her hearing had been lost. If one were to be thorough, then that would be a matter of course. As she said herself, she lived in an environment where magecraft could make up for that weakness, so there would be no problem."

 To those listening, they must have thought he was talking about the methods of the culprit.

 But I remembered a certain fact. A confession from the Princess of Gold when she had come to Reines' room. That her deafness was a result of a genetic fault.

 Frowning, Islo asked.

 "What...does that...mean?"

 "Right." Slowly, my master stood up. Lightly massaging his stomach, he took a deep breath. "Then, let's start from the conclusion."

 Standing in front of Caleena's body, he spoke boldly, without reservation.

 "This is the Princess of Gold."

 Silence struck the room.

 Like the room had been struck by some kind of magecraft - a silence settled over the lobby like all sound had been robbed from the world.

---

Sputtering uncontrollably, the self-styled spy Mick Grajilie was the first to complain.

 "...whoa whoa, what do you mean by that?"

 "I meant exactly what I said. This girl is the Princess of Gold, the one who Iselma called their Social Assembly to show off."

 'Have you gone mad?' As much as we all wanted to say it, no one did.

 After all, the words my master was speaking went far beyond madness.

 Of course, she was the maid that was always alongside the Princess of Gold. But what possible train of thought could have led him to the conclusion that she herself was the Princess of Gold?

 Atram spoke up for the rest of us.

 "...you mean like that Jack in the Box Projection trick? But that only worked because it was working off of the Princess of Silver, because she resembled her so closely, right?"

 Right.

 Using the unique catalyst that was the Princess of Silver, Reines, Maio, and Islo combining their talents could only manage to create the illusion for a few seconds, but that was the Princess of Gold. There was no way the maid, who was so completely different, could have been used to accomplish the same thing. And though it hadn't been for especially long, the Princess of Gold had certainly appeared for longer than just a few seconds.

 My master gave a small nod.

 "Of course, the method is different. Rather, I didn't understand it for the longest time. After all, for the completion of the Princess of Gold, the timing was just all wrong...Flat."

 "Yes yes, I wrote it all down here!" Raising a hand in the air, Flat held up a diagram.

 Looking at that diagram, Reines blew onto Trimmau's arm. The arm dissipated under the magically-charged breath, becoming a faint mist covering the surroundings. After a short time, the mist took on a glow, lighting up to reproduce the pattern on that diagram in the air.

 It was a horoscope.

 A map of the heavens, showing the sun and moon that refused to meet.

 One by one the orbits of the planets were drawn in, and in reaction to them, the ground plane changed. The fact the map didn't take into account the veracity of the heliocentric model - the fact it didn't draw the orbits of the planets strictly accurately was because what was important for magecraft was not the scientific understanding of the planets' movements, but the data recorded by observations of those movements.

 "Considering the calibre of those gathered here, I'm sure you all already know the current state of the constellations." my master began, "Iselma's magecraft, the building of the Towers of the Sun and Moon, has been modelled with great precision after a spell built on the sun and moon. But if the Talisman Iselma and Galiasta were fighting over was used to perfect the Princess of Gold, then the timing just doesn't make sense. While Iselma acquired the Talisman roughly a month ago, the sun and moon haven't been in an auspicious alignment for several months."

 So saying, he pointed to the sun and moon in the floating image.

 In the first diagram, two stars were in the same place, while in the next they stood opposite each other.

 "The best possible would be an eclipse at noon. A conjunction of the sun and moon, resting in the same place. Second best would be the sun and moon standing opposite, with Saturn - the star governing the art of creation - standing at 120 degrees. But neither of those have occurred in the past month."

 "You..." Having long surpassed rage, Lord Byron's face had started turning sickly dark.

 Right now, my master's explanation was akin to a polite dismantling of the Iselma magecraft. However, recklessly protesting now would just be confessing the truth of my master's words, making him an accomplice in its destruction. Nevermind Galiasta's violence, my master's words alone were sufficient torment.

 "But, if something else stood took the place of the sun in the formula, there would be no problems."

 "Oh? And what could have taken that place?" Completely absorbed, Atram leaned forward as he spoke. My master responded with the utmost politeness.

 "In the exercise of magecraft, it is sometimes possible to exchange the position of the sun for one of the other planets. Venus is probably the most popular choice. After all, it is the brightest star in the sky. For this reason, Venus was feared as a god of ill luck in the Far East, and was even associated with the fallen angel Lucifer in the Bible. The Morning Star. The Evening Star. And the name Venus itself has roots leading back to the goddess Ishtar of Mesopotamia. As the star presiding over the concept of beauty, it would serve as a perfect replacement in this case, wouldn't it?"

 "Lord El-Melloi II." From behind, the Princess of Silver softly asked from within her veil. "I don't understand how the issue of the Talisman and this are connected, but if this is the Princess of Gold, what was the corpse of my sister that we all saw? I believe it's even still in her room."

 Though of course magecraft was laid over the room to preserve both the scene and the remains that lay within it, the Princess of Gold's body had been basically left as it was.

 My master's response was calm and collected.

 "Of course, that's the real Princess of Gold. But it wasn't the one that was shown at the Social Assembly."

 Even I tilted my head to the side, confused.

 The more he spoke, the less I understood. He wasn't revealing the whole picture to us, only giving us a single clue at a time. So far, I was completely unable to assemble those clues into something that made sense.

 But of course, not everyone was as incompetent as I was.

 "I see, I see..." Inorai's lips curled into a smile as she listened, lifting her freshly filled whisky glass to her lips. The one who was the same as my master - or rather, a true Lord unlike my master, had her face light up as she understood what my master was putting forth. "It was just cut up at random, wasn't it? Well, I can't say I'd do anything differently in their shoes."

 "Precisely my thought," my master replied with a polite nod. "The actual Princess of Gold died long before the Social Assembly. That fact only came out after the display, when the preserved remains were discovered by accident."

 "Wha...what on earth are you talking about?!" Lord Byron shouted, but my master's response was frigid.

 "There's no point in keeping it hidden even now, is there, Lord Byron? Your chance at keeping it a secret was gone once Galiasta intervened. Even without a forensic analysis, anyone versed in that field of study could at least tell you that it's clear the time of death doesn't match up."

 "...there's no way you could prove that," Byron, at a loss for words, still desperately hung on. "As such, I would request you refrain from impinging on our honour with your wild delusions."

 "Shall we ask for some testimony, then?" Saying so, my master turned around.

 He turned to one in particular - a certain magus, one who stood out above all others, he pointed to the tabacco-wielding redhead.

 "Wait, me? What's this about?" As if excited by the idea, Touko took a step forward.

 Gently, my master touched the body at his feet. "I would like you to take a look at her."

 "Hm. So according to you, this is the Princess of Gold that was displayed in the Social Assembly?" Touko asked, seeking confirmation.

 To which my master gave a small nod. "Right. The Princess of Gold that made her debut here was this girl. The maid Caleena, who you gave plastic surgery to. Isn't that right, Touko Aozaki?"

 Silence descended over the lobby.

 Perhaps everyone was gauging the meaning of those words.

 Plastic surgery. If you had said that the Princesses of Gold and Silver had undergone all sorts of procedures over generations, carving into their minds and bodies with various techniques in order to grasp that ultimate body, I could have understood it no problem. But the moment you switched that word out for 'plastic surgery,' it made an impact that was hard to describe.

 "Well well," Touko laughed, clearly enjoying herself. "You think I used plastic surgery to turn her into the Princess of Gold? While I'm flattered, unfortunately I have no memory of doing so. Granted I don't have the best memory. Maybe I should get checked for Alzheimer's," she said, tapping her temple with a finger.

 My master took a half step back, opening a space beside Caleena's body.

 "At any rate, please take a look."

 "Alright, don't mind me then." Kneeling down by the body, Touko began her inspection, looking around the lines of the cheeks and the back of the ears. "...hmm. Though minimal, there certainly does appear to be traces of surgery. If it was done by magical means, though it depends on the precise method used, there should only have been indirect signs of the procedure. After all, if healing magecraft was also involved, there would be no need for even needle and thread. In any case, there wouldn't be enough traces to be noticed in your everyday life."

 She had no need of tools like my master did. With the air of a master who could see an error of a single micron in the grinding of a telescope's mirrors with the naked eye, she continued to trace various parts of the body with her finger.

 After a while, she spoke again.

 "Ah, seems I was mistaken. This is definitely my work."

 At that, the whispers started up again.

 As her expression became darker and darker, Touko spoke again. "But how did I forget something so important?"

 "You didn't forget it at all, did you?" my master declared. "You just didn't remember doing it from the start."

 "...oh?" Touko frowned. Not that she didn't understand, but in a way that showed she understood quite well.

 Following that, my master continued by turning to another individual.

 "Maio," he called to the pharmacist.

 "Y-y-yes?"

 "When you first met Reines, you were using some sort of medicine to feign drunkenness, is that right?"

 At the time of the presentation of the Princesses.

 Two magi from different factions in the Clock Tower got into a fight, and the atmosphere was getting bad. The dead drunk Maio stumbled in between them, 'accidentally' breaking up the fight before it could get any worse. In fact, that drunkenness was a result of medicine he had taken, and by taking a sobering medicine immediately after, he had returned to normal in no time.

 "...y-yes..." As Maio confirmed this, my master relentlessly struck.

 "...in that case, you are more than capable of making a medicine that prevents memories from sticking, aren't you?"

 Even for those foreign to the world of magecraft, the idea of memory loss due to excessive intoxication was a common one. When a person recognizes something, their experience is preserved by moving it from short term memory, an area of memory only concerned with what happened moments before, to mid-term memory, a stage of memory that holds information for anywhere from half a day to a month. However, certain alcohols can serve to inhibit this transfer of information, preventing those events from being recorded in more permanent form. As memory was just as important in magecraft as it was in science, it was something my master - as a lecturer in the Faculty of Modern Magecraft - had spoken on in his courses before.

 What he was talking about now was someone artificially recreating that phenomenon through magecraft.

 Not just that, but if it was possible to inhibit the transfer of information between short and mid-term memory, it was likely also possible he could create medicine that would serve the same function between mid and long-term memory. Also, within the field of preventing memories from sticking, he could potentially select for certain keywords to be forgotten.

 Lifting her head, Touko's expression was curious.

 "Hm. Are you saying I took some sort of memory-inhibiting medicine without noticing?"

 "No, I can't imagine you being so careless. But if taking that medicine was a condition for a job offered to you, you would still consider taking the request, wouldn't you?"

 "I see. That would depend on how interesting the job was, of course," she confirmed.

 Depending on how interesting it was.

 If it was enough to capture the interest of the Clock Tower's greatest, one who had risen to the rank of Grand.

 My master continued.

 "Why did they ask for plastic surgery?" He raised one finger. "Why did they need to erase Touko Aozaki's memories of the event?" A second finger.

 Pinching those fingers together, he pressed them into his forehead, as if struggling to understand some irrational premise as he continued speaking.

 "It's not that complicated an issue. There was no way he could let news of the Princess of Gold's death get out. In that case, I'm sure he'd offer any reward to get her back. Even if that method only produced a fake."

 Lord Byron seemed to have given up his protests.

 Atram, Mick, and the other accomplished magi were completely absorbed in my master's speech.

 In the middle of talking, my master pulled his cigar case from his chest pocket. Taking out and lighting a cigar with a match, he continued.

 "I can even take a guess as to what kind of magecraft they used to accomplish the feat."

 The cigar held in his mouth burned slowly, giving off a faint purplish smoke. Staring at the burning tip, he muttered.

 "It was probably this, wasn't it?"

 "Ha!" Suddenly, Touko burst out laughing. As if she just couldn't take it anymore, the woman held her hands to her stomach, laughing uproariously. "Haha, hahaha! Hahahahahaha! Ashes?! A Cinderella spell?! How could it be so simple?!"

 My master nodded. "Yes, once you've seen it, it's quite simple."

 Of course, I didn't understand at all.

 The only thing it brought to mind was the story of Cinderella. Perhaps the Perrault and Basile that my master had been muttering about before were the authors of that fairy tale. Though there were many different versions of the story, the most famous being that published by the Brothers Grimm, the original could be traced back to Charles Perrault, and before him the Italian Basile.

 No.

 (...ashes?)

 Hadn't I heard about them somewhere before?

 "Byron Valueleta Iselma, Atram Galiasta," my master turned to the two. Still not understanding the reason for Touko's laughter, they regarded him with puzzled expressions. "I said as much before, but allow me to repeat. Would you mind if I spoke a little more about the Talisman you were arguing over?"

 "Do what you like."

 "...if you must."

 Lord Byron's composed reply was contrasted by Atram's lack of patience.

 Having their permission, my master continued.

 "The Talisman you were struggling over was the leaf of a Linden tree."

 The European Sacred Fig was known as a symbol of holiness, connected to the Holy Virgin Mary and various other saints. It was often planted near churches or court houses that functioned as town centers, and thanks to its medicinal properties, it was also secretly used by magi and alchemists.

 "However, this one was connected to a certain Heroic Spirit, through the blood of a dragon that had touched it."

 Suddenly, everyone went stiff.

 Every one of them knew the legend that that image called to. Even if one wasn't a magus, it was hard to believe there was a person who didn't know of the great Heroic Spirit of Northern Europe. Wielding the legendary sword Balmung, he slew the evil dragon Fafnir, a knight who possessed an immortal body that could be harmed by neither claw nor tooth nor weapon.

 Siegfried.

 From the enchanting tale of the Nibelungenlied, a hero among heroes. As he bathed in the blood of the dragon, a single linden leaf stuck to his back, the source of the one exception to his immortal body. The Talisman my master spoke of was none other than that leaf.

 "...wait." Atram shot to his feet.

 There was a faint tremor in his voice. It seemed whatever meaning was hidden in my master's words had finally got through to him.

 "What is it? Is speaking of the Talisman off limits after all?"

 "No. You mentioned ashes before, didn't you? You don't mean..."

 "...right. Even if only once, a leaf drenched in the blood of a dragon would never wither or rot. However, there are magi who could use unconventional means to burn it, making it into a single-use catalyst."

 The silence that followed his words felt different from those before.

 It was like the silence of hearing someone had wantonly destroyed a precious treasure. Not that they didn't understand the value of the thing they were destroying, but like someone with particular authority in that field had, knowing full well what he was doing, proactively incinerated an object of unspeakable worth to the world.

 With an expression like he was choking, Atram turned to Touko.

 But not just him.

 A sharp sound rang throughout the room. Eyes wide in shock, Lord Byron had let his cane fall to the ground.

 "I-impossible...Miss Aozaki...Even if it was you, there's no way..."

 If Atram was choking, then Byron looked as if he was begging. For a man who had devoted his entire life to art, seeing that art smashed to pieces before him, perhaps there was no other expression possible.

 "Nah, if it was me I would." In contrast, Touko was perfectly composed. "I see. Using a leaf soaked in dragon's blood in a Cinderella spell. It's the perfect affinity, don't you think? The myth of Siegfried is less of a man becoming immortal, and more of him being reborn as an immortal hero. The comparison to Cinderella is even better. Makeup and dressup are definitely their own kinds of magecraft. From there, plastic surgery is just another step along the path. A Linden leaf connected to the rebirth of a person into a hero is a Talisman that's almost too perfect. The fact I don't remember this at all is driving me crazy."

 At that, as if suppressing more laughter, she pressed a hand to her mouth as her shoulders began to shake.

 The arrayed magi - even Reines and Flat - stared at her in astonishment. Even for him, a magus well outside the realm of normal, Touko's actions seemed unprecedented. Even I, who was a complete outsider to the ways of magi, couldn't avoid the shock of that revelation. Because even I had been born alongisde this box and chained to the past from the beginning. Even I had been taught that blind obedience to the past was a given.

 Maybe because I guessed her answer correctly.

 Or maybe, there was some other reason.

 "W...why..." Lord Byron at last swallowed loudly, turning to Touko. "Why?! Miss Aozaki, that was what you demanded as your payment! Why would you use that yourself to fulfill my request?! That's just going too far...!"

 "Oh, is that how it was? Thanks for getting me something so valuable, then." In reply to Lord Byron's wailing, Touko shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't remember it at all, but if the Lord's speculation is correct then I can understand why I did it. I took the job because it sounded interesting. But if the level of materials and funds provided is lacking, that will show clearly in the finished product. So it only makes sense to use my reward to ensure a result that satisfied me. Pretty logical, don't you think?"

 "Wha-?! No one asked you to go so far! All we wanted was a way to get through that one night...!"

 "Please, let it go. That's just who I am." Touko smiled, an earnest apology from the bottom of her heart.

Case Files III, Chapter 3, Part 1