Henry raised an eyebrow and said mockingly "Have you started laughing like Roger now? Even your mannerisms are starting to resemble his."
Then he muttered, "Maybe we should switch roles later… You go with George and try it, and I'll laugh like a madman in your place. This is unfair—my mother told me I had to become calm! That's why she sent me with George. I regret everything."
Kayden chuckled carelessly. "It would be a great show!… No one would even notice the difference."
But Henry fell silent for a moment, his features leaning more toward sadness than humor. Then he said quietly,
"I'm just afraid that what you see as fun might leave scars that won't fade easily."
Kayden paused, looked at his brother with an unusual seriousness, but in the end simply smiled and tossed his shirt onto the bed.
"Scars make stories, don't they?"
Henry nodded lightly, then said in a serious tone,
"By the way… Mr. Ayrton's carriage is waiting outside, but he's not inside it. The driver said he's at… the crime scene."
Kayden put on his heavy coat and exhaled bitterly, as if exhaustion had clung to his soul before his body. " I'm incredibly tired… my God."
They left the house together, the cold air stinging their faces as if trying to keep them awake despite the fatigue. Along the way, Kayden calmly guided his brother using the meditation and breathing-control exercises he had learned from Colton. Henry remained silent, following the instructions and trying to rein in his wandering thoughts.
When they arrived, the forest seemed to swallow the light. The trees were denser, the shadows deeper than usual—but what tore through that darkness wasn't the moon. It was powerful artificial lights, carefully installed, casting a harsh glow that exposed every detail of the place.
Kayden stepped down with measured movements, his eyes cautiously scanning the shadows and motion around him. Henry went straight to Mr. Ayrton, exchanging brief words about the incident and asking to review the report prepared by the investigators. Meanwhile, Kayden began circling the site, allowing himself the freedom to observe and catch the small details that often slipped past others.
Then his steps stopped suddenly.
He saw it.
Kayden froze, as if the air had been ripped from his lungs.
His eyes widened in shock, his body locked in place. For a brief moment, he couldn't even breathe.
Inside the hollow of a massive tree, the horrific image took shape…
The naked body of a woman, covered only by shadows and dried blood. Her body had been opened from the chest down to the pelvis in an unnatural way. This wasn't random tearing—it was closer to deliberate excavation, as if the killer had been searching her insides for something specific, then left her hollow, like an empty shell.
On her dead skin, poisonous fungi had grown in multiple colors—some green tinged with blue, others glowing violet—as if nature itself had decided to celebrate her corruption.
Around her body, withered purple flowers were scattered in the shape of a funeral wreath. But what weighed most heavily on the scene was the crown…
A crown of wildflowers, carefully woven and placed upon her head with cold precision, as if the killer had wanted to crown her at the moment of her death, not in her life.
As for her face, it bore the most horrific marks of suffering—traces of bloody tears frozen on her cheeks, rigid crimson lines trailing from her eyes down to her chin, as though she had cried until the blood itself dried within her veins.
Kayden approached with slow steps, his heart pounding violently until he could hear the echo of its beats in his ears.
He noticed clear signs of strangulation around her neck, deep black bruises layered over her feet, and broken fingers still tensed, as if she had resisted until the very last moment.
One of her hands was deformed, as though it had been incompletely severed. And despite all that devastation, a simple ring still adorned her finger.
An engagement ring.
She had never been given the chance to marry.
Kayden exhaled sharply, pressing a hand to his own neck as if trying to stop an internal suffocation creeping toward him. His gaze lingered for a moment on her hand—on that ring.
Then he murmured in a low, dark voice,
"Sir… I need gloves."
Henry was standing beside Fiona, following her preliminary analysis of the body. Fiona spoke clearly, yet her eyes carried an unmistakable weight.
"The body was found yesterday. After examination, it became clear she was subjected to prolonged torture before being brought here."
She gestured toward the muddy ground behind her, where drag marks were clearly visible.
"She was dragged through the forest. Her body was carried, then pulled—this explains her extremely poor condition."
She stepped closer to the victim's feet, pointing with trembling fingers.
"Notice this… she was bound brutally. There are deep rope marks around her wrists and ankles—the skin is completely torn. These weren't ordinary restraints. This was deliberate torture."
She paused, then lowered her voice, as if afraid even the trees might hear her.
"But the worst part… is the hollowing. From the chest down to the pelvis—clean in a grotesque way. This isn't just murder… it's a sick theatrical display."
Hatred echoed in her voice as she whispered to Ayrton,
"We need to stop surveillance immediately. You don't know who will be next… this is horrifying."
Ayrton replied with heavy calm, trying to restrain the anxiety seeping into his expression.
"We'll move soon. Don't worry."
But deep in the darkness, beyond the circle of light, Kayden felt something else… hidden gazes clinging to him, as if the forest itself were breathing around them. He slowly turned and caught a faint movement among the trees—a shadow watching in silence.
Suddenly, Adam emerged from the darkness.
He was completely soaked, his clothes clinging to his body as if he had climbed straight out of the river. His appearance was so abrupt that Fiona gasped involuntarily.
"Where were you?"
Adam lifted his head, his eyes drowned in shadow. His voice came out hoarse, like someone speaking after a long silence.
"I followed the drag trail. The killer didn't pull the body along one path… but three. I found blood on the trunks of several trees. As if he was… experimenting."
Slowly, he reached behind his back and pulled out a long, gleaming knife with serrated edges.
The light shattered across its wet blade, as though it were still quenching its thirst with blood.
"Look," he said coldly. "This isn't an ordinary hunting knife. It's designed for cutting beef—its edges are lined with ridges. Every strike with it tears flesh slowly… every cut is deliberate agony."
Fiona, her voice trembling, asked in shock, "How… how did you find it?"
Ayrton stepped in, his gaze tense yet sharp.
"He and I discussed the possibilities. We predicted the killer would dispose of the weapon in the river. Due to the slow current, Adam volunteered to search. And this… is the result."
Fiona kept staring at the knife as if it were alive, then whispered in a sad, almost broken voice,
"The place is very dark…"
But Kayden didn't share her remark. He was looking beyond that—to what lay past the darkness. He was certain there was something else… something that didn't want them to find this knife so easily.
Adam stepped closer to Fiona and leaned in slightly, whispering something only she could hear. Fiona showed no visible reaction—except that she took a step back from the body, as if she had understood his meaning perfectly.
Adam lifted his gaze toward Kayden, a long look filled with meanings that needed no words. Then he spoke in a calm, faintly mocking tone,
"The girl isn't married. I was the first to arrive here—I ran some preliminary checks."
He paused before adding with cold, dripping cruelty, "She was most likely assaulted… three times. And she's also engaged."
He smiled sarcastically and turned toward Kayden."Care to place a bet?"
At that moment, a vague phrase echoed in Kayden's mind, something he had once heard from the man hidden within his melodies:
'Never bet with Adam.'
Still, Kayden replied with deliberate coldness,
"Only twice. And she's not engaged… that ring looks like an engagement ring, but it isn't. She's a prostitute."
Silence fell for a moment, before Fiona cut through it with a voice as sharp as ice.
"Please, tell your brother not to gamble with Adam ever again."
Henry raised a hand to his forehead and sighed, as if surrendering to the absurdity.
"Even I… fell into that trap. I bet with him."
He slowly, painfully recalled the look of rage he had once seen on Adam's face when he lost one of those bets.
But Fiona's sharp voice tore through the moment of drifting thought.
"Lower the girl! Slowly! If she gets a single additional scratch, I'll kick all of you out of the site!"
The team moved with extreme caution, lifting the body from the hollow of the tree as if it were a sacred relic. Fiona watched them with tense eyes, while Adam had already turned away, picking up his coat with cold indifference and walking off as if nothing there concerned him at all.
Later, everyone got into the carriage. Kayden and Henry sat beside Ayrton and Adam, while Fiona returned to the center with the body. Silence ruled the space, broken only by the sound of wheels rolling over the damp road.
Adam finally spoke, his voice flat as he stared out the window.
"You shouldn't have brought Fiona. The place wasn't suitable for her."
But Kayden, having finally arranged his thoughts, leaned slightly toward Ayrton and said firmly,
"Sir… it's Arbella. She's behind everything. She has the research… and she holds all the threads."
"That was expected… but there's something that piques my curiosity," Ayrton murmured in a dry tone, carrying more weight than words could bear.
"We agree," Henry replied briefly, having understood exactly what he meant, as if shortening a long path of explanation into a single sentence.
After returning to the office, Henry busied himself assisting with the autopsy, while Kayden headed to his private corner. He sat there in deliberate isolation, at the table where the violet flowers found around the body had been placed, alongside a pile of his old notes.
He picked up the papers, flipping through them slowly, bitterness clouding his eyes. His research hadn't moved an inch in weeks. It was stagnant—dead, like the neatly stacked texts before him. Worse still… Arbella had misused some of his information in one of her reports, twisting the results and erasing the thin line between scientific accuracy and false claim. Everything had become more complicated.
Kayden felt frustration condense in his chest, followed by a desire for confrontation—a direct one with her.
'Should I go to her house?… Any sane man would laugh at that. A young man knocking on a woman's door in the middle of the night under the pretext of a scientific discussion.'
He smiled bitterly to himself, then exhaled deeply.
'My image? It no longer matters. But… how far am I willing to go?'
Kayden returned to his papers with heavy movements, as though forcing himself to plunge back into work—coldly, without hiding the strain.
An hour and a half passed before Henry entered the office. He was slowly removing his surgical gloves, his face a mix of exhaustion and seriousness. He found his brother sitting near the window, wrapped in rare silence, savoring a temporary isolation from human noise.
Henry spoke in a low voice as he tossed the gloves aside.
"The girl… died after severe torture. Fiona estimates that death occurred before the hollowing began. And that… in my opinion, is far better."
His voice carried the kind of coldness that only comes from familiarity—from trying to extinguish rage with reason.
The door opened quietly, and Ayrton stepped inside. He said nothing, but he had heard what was said. He stood for a moment like a statue—his face rigid, devoid of emotion. It was as if none of this shocked him anymore.
Henry looked at him warily and thought silently,
'He's used to seeing death… perhaps more than he should be.'