I folded my hands, dusting it from the particles they caught from the window sill. Ethan watched every move with hawk-like eyes, not letting go of any detail. So, I stuck to one spot, kept my stance at ease, and beamed at him. He didn't bother me. I wasn't scared of him, of what he had done, or what he could do. Like everyone who participated in this wild chase, he was but a pawn in an elaborate game I established.

"It was a fun game, indeed," I replied with a small nod—the only thing I let past my curated outward image. "Let's be civilized people and talk. I'm sure you have questions before I put you in place. Think of it as your final words before the Ocalira slap on your wrists."

Ethan scoffed. He must have a plan of his own, but with me pulling all the strings I could, it had been a waste. His anonymity—the only weapon and secret he held against me—was now in my hands. If he was any wiser, he'd surrender now, admit his defeat, and go quietly. While I still had patience for him, that was. He had been a good friend, but if he stuck with me all those months as part of his revenge, then he deserved what I planned for him.

"How?" Ethan tilted his head to the side, exhaling a short gust from his nostrils as if he couldn't believe we were having this conversation. "I don't have anything to say to you except that. How did you know it was me?"

I reached into my pocket and drew out the pin with the felt tip. The silver glinted against the morning sun as the pin streaked from my hand to Ethan. The culprit reached out and snatched it before it curved down. He opened his palm and stared at the pin now settled on his hand. His gaze snapped up to mine. "What is this?"

"A pin. One that fell from one of the theater girls' uniforms," I said, jerking my chin towards him. "You're more familiar with it than you let on, aren't you?"

Ethan snorted. "It could be one of the girls in the Theater Annex. It could be Alyson," he replied. "Why do you think it was me?"

I edged my bottom lip out. "It could be." I bobbed my head slowly as if being convinced. But it wasn't Alyson. Never her. Because while love could drive people to take their next breaths, other times, it could be revenge. So, I raised a finger and touched it to my lips. Knitting my eyebrows, I continued, "But there's the matter of the carriage. And the smudge."

A sordid laugh tore from him. "Carriages and smudges?" he said. "I might have been wrong about you, Arlo. You've officially lost it."

"Oh, to be in your mind," I said, a hint of smile pulling at the corners of my lips. "So quiet, and so...linear."

I would thank Andy for that line later. Steepling my fingers, I took a deep breath and glanced at the bell. If I presented it as something so obvious and not something I didn't spend three days fixating on, I could do to him what Andy gained a reputation for. I could poke him straight into the heart and work my way towards his resolve.

The common folk have an innate belief—once dirt-born, forever a dirt-born. They have internalized this to a point where they would squirm like a toothed leech dunked in salt whenever an elite reminds them of their capabilities and up to what point they could control their fate. Andy was the main practitioner of that, except it targeted everyone whom he thought to be underneath him. Perhaps, I owed the devil more than a word of thanks.

"Carriages and smudges, indeed," I muttered with a smile. Let Ethan think this was mere child's play. A more serious one with lives at stake, maybe, but still was. I faced Ethan again, giving him the attention he craved from me. "Let's start from the infirmary, shall we? Mrs. Lemorpha revealed the stock for sleeping draught has been mismatched since the murders started, and it isn't a far leap to realize where and how they are being used. The culprit couldn't have been a grown man, or he wouldn't resort to knocking out his victims before delivering the final blow. He also couldn't leave signs of resistance because he had a specific goal in mind—to frame the inventor of the Idea Vial as a criminal peddling murderous substances. They all need to look like suicides, brought about by the frenzy of the potion."

I paused, regaining my breath. It was like giving a lecture to a person who mastered the topic at hand. Ethan edged farther from the bell, but made no move to approach me. Wary. We were both wary of each other. "You are a direct Instrumentation Credence student—that's how you're able to complete the list of scholarship students in the program even with a short deadline. And if you're as determined as me, you studied how to bypass school systems, including the one in the infirmary..." I narrowed my eyes. "And the decorative knives in the Theater Annex's gallery."

Because that night in the dressing room, he couldn't cut off the stage lights' ropes with his weapon of choice hidden in the basement, and he couldn't use magic since every spell could be tracked by investigators.

"For a successful murder and blame-dusting, you need something that will hide you from the public eye as well as make you appear unsuspecting to your victims," I continued. "So, you dressed up as a girl from our university, sneaking into the dressing rooms while the girls were rehearsing. They go home past curfew too, and the university turns a blind eye. That's how you're able to move freely in the grounds, and how you know the quickest way from the SPA Cluster and the HC."

Ethan was yet to make a rebuttal, but seeing him as mum as a foal, I was on the right track. I squinted at his frame and confirmed my reasoning. His head was smaller than Horace's, and with him standing a head shorter, he was maybe as tall as Alyson and some of the girls in the Theater Annex. "And when you went to splatter blood on the carriage you knew I used, I suppose you got a little carried away," I said. "You splattered blood from your unfortunate victim all over the windows and aimed for the top to...say, give it a spilling effect. You forgot to remove the coat, and the pin's felt tip brushed some of the blood off."

The memory of that morning flashed in my mind. Smudge on the lower right, right by the dead lamp. It was also possible for him to have grabbed the sconces to haul himself up, resulting in that specific swathe. "Of course, you never return what you stole from the dressing room, creating a problem for our dear Alyson who had to scrub your mess from the start."

"Then comes Horace Prescott's murder." I glanced through the window, distracted by a flock of migratory birds zipping across the blue and cloudless sky. The morning sun shone brightly across the spire, throwing my shadow pointing towards Ethan's. "You aimed to bring home the point—that Ranacrys and I are one person, so you clocked Horace somewhere in the halls, I assume as he relieved himself, and dragged him to his death. After you pushed him off the stage lights, perhaps some of the girls came back from rehearsals, causing you to hurriedly tear off your disguise and scamper off. Uncharacteristic to its kind, the pin popped off, and the rest is history."

I crossed my arms and shifted my weight from one foot to another. My legs were still sore from the climb up, while Ethan looked unfazed by the height at all. As if he was too exhilarated to mind it. Why? "Yesterday, when I caught you threatening Alyson into staying quiet, I only needed the last confirmation."

Ethan clapped his hands together, catching up to my logic. "That's why you asked me for a compilation of the scholarship students," he said. "You need to look at my handwriting without alerting me."

He wasn't denying any of the accusations I lobbied at him. Was it really an endgame for him? Or for us both? "And what do you know?" I said with a shrug. "They are the same with the letters scrawled on Ranacrys' cards."

"And then, what? You made your own plan in confronting me?" Ethan asked.

I snapped my fingers. "You're catching on," I said. "Ranacrys cannot be revealed on anyone's terms but mine. Of course, I had to separate you from the Ocalira while also drawing you out."

Ethan cleared his throat and sniffed. The dust must be getting to him. Well, it wasn't only him who wanted to get out of this place. "So, you turned yourself in," he replied. "When you called Alyson's father from the infirmary."

" 'Collaboration' is the right word for it, I suppose," I said. "Twist your words a little, and you have the adults wrapped around your finger. They were eager to find out who the street murderer was, and I dangled that promise in their faces. I will deal with an annoying creep, and they will leave Ranacrys alone without revealing it's me." I smiled at him. "Genius, right?"

Ethan rolled his eyes. He must not have known the fate of people who came forward knowing my identity and weren't living for my benefit. Those people knew what was coming if they blab their mouths to the wrong company. A promise was a promise, and a secret was a secret. They wouldn't tell anyone. Rather, they mustn't and couldn't. Ethan Delcher should roll his eyes while he could.

"And if you think about going after Alyson, rest assured that she didn't tell me who you are," I plowed on. "But she helped me a great deal to finish this plan."

A frown flushed Ethan's amusement off his face while I kept mine. It happened when I was about to leave the empty classroom after showing her the knife. She stopped me with a word, admitting to someone threatening her to do their bidding. An idea flashed in my head that day, and I told her to keep it to herself. "I've got a plan," I remember saying to her in the hallway. "Pretend you gave me their name and make them come to you. That's when I will know for sure who without you breaking your oath."

"And true enough, the next thing we know, Alyson was poisoned with such malicious intent, and who 'found' her?" I probed. Ethan wasn't smiling now. A schemer didn't like being overshadowed by a smarter schemer. "I have no qualms against you. Truly, I don't. But it's proper for the true murderer to be put to justice."

Ethan sneered. "You are the last person who can speak to me about justice."

"Correct in that regard," I answered. "So, what is it?"

He knitted his eyebrows. "What is what?"

I edged backward and propped myself onto the sill. Invisible forces of wind and the earth's pull gripped me in place and also threatened to yank me down. "What did I do to gain your passionate hate?" I said.

"Myllan Complex," Ethan said, face darkening as if a cloud passed by and blocked all of the spire's source of sunlight. "Does that ring a bell?"

When I shook my head, his steely facade broke. His eyes seared, collapsing into depths of hell and doom. He whirled towards me, a delirious laugh ripping out of his lips, his chest heaving. "You kicked us out when you purchased the building for your nefarious potion production," he ranted, looking at his feet as if he would find his memories there. "My sister was sick. Winter was approaching, and without a proper house, I knew what to expect."

He raised his gaze to mine. "You killed my sister, with your ambition and elite-minded self-preservation," he revealed. "And I won't ever forgive you for that."

Then, he went and obsessed about the owner of the complex, and when he figured out it was me...that was the beginning of the plan years in the making. But he forgot one fact, and it brought down everything he believed about me.

"It's not my fault you're poor," I said.

Ethan's eyes widened, his mind computing the reality of those words flying off from an elite. From someone like me. "What did you say?" he demanded. Oh, I might have fried his brain.

I waved a hand in the air. "It's not my fault you have nowhere to go when I paid real money to transfer the ownership of that building to my name," I said. "And as an owner, it's natural to want pests off my property. It's not my fault for exercising my right to own and to determine my borders. It's not my fault—"

A weight slammed into me, Ethan's movements being nothing but a blur in my periphery. My rear slid off the sill, and my knees were the only things keeping me from toppling to my death. "Say that again, you pompous nitwit!" Ethan screamed in my face, spit flying against the glare of the sunlight. His hands bunched up my collar against my throat.

"You have no idea how much I sacrificed to be here. I will avenge her, and I will become as monstrous as I must, if need be. I will have chased you to the end of the world and pushed you to the edge." His voice shook with such raw emotion it might have moved me to tears if I wasn't dangling halfway out of the spire. "Say that again while hanging on for your life. I dare you."

Before I could utter another sentiment, Ethan grunted and opened his hands. I tumbled out of the window, straight into open air. My weight was meaningless for a second, the imminence of my death gripping my heart. Then, panic burst out in a gasp, and instinct took hold. My arm lashed out, fingers biting the ledge around the spire's windows. Pain ripped on my arm and hand. My soles scratched against the spire's smooth, granite walls, aiming to gain footing in vain.

I looked down, the height of the spire registering in my poor brain. Well, a desperate wish has a habit of getting answered sooner or later if it comes from the heart. Ethan must have hated me so much...and so well.

He leaned over, a triumphant smirk coloring his face. "Is your life flashing before your eyes now?" he asked in a gloating tone. "Is everyone you wronged coming back to memory? You are a vile, little man, Arlo Crowhaven," he said. "It's almost a horror how no one will remember you when you die such a horrid death."

"Horror is in the eye of a beholder, Ethan," I said through gritted teeth. My weight dug against my nails—the only anchor I had against the spire's skin. I reached behind my back, hands finding the only comfort there was in the face of death—spilling more blood. "Something for you to learn before you die."

I whipped Alexi's gun towards him, clicking the safety off. Ethan scampered back. "You should have thought this through before going against an elite," I said, hooking my nails tighter against the ledge. Sweat slicked off my palms, loosening my grip. "What does this look like to everyone down there, hmm? A scholarship kid pushes the son of an aristocrat off a spire in revenge for property acquisition."

"I'm not the one holding the gun," Ethan said.

I hummed my agreement. "But who do you think they will believe more?" I replied. "A street brat from nowhere or a son of the Crowhaven family? Money is a powerful conversationalist. Do not underestimate it. If I said you pointed a gun at my head, pushed me, and fired, it shall be so. And I will say it, Delcher."

With wide eyes, Ethan rushed to the window just as I clicked the trigger. A rush of copper burst out from the muzzle with an explosion, smoke curling in its wake. The bullet whizzed past Ethan's cheek, slamming against the bell instead. A loud ringing rippled all over the grounds, out of its interval. I flashed Ethan a knowing grin as I chucked the gun straight into the window. In a panic, he dodged left, letting the gun sail past the sill and clatter onto the floor.

He knew his fate then. I didn't need to explain it. My fingers slipped off the ledge, and I sped towards my death.

May it be as horrid as they hoped.