Chapter 110
Arya held his breath as he saw the cloaked shadow move, approaching Étienne from behind with silent steps like a cat, raising the hand that held the weapon—and then the hologram suddenly blurred, flickered repeatedly, and vanished.
Arya groaned in frustration, pressing the replay button, pressing the fast-forward button, pressing every control he could find. Yet the glasses only displayed a short message in the corner of his vision.
"Insufficient data for complete reconstruction. Key interaction not recorded due to electromagnetic contamination from the murder event."
"Nirma," Arya called, his voice filled with disappointment.
"I can't see who the killer is. These glasses can only show partial scenes—fragments of events involving objects that still remain here. His face isn't visible. The key interaction isn't recorded."
Nirma, who had been silently observing Arya through her blue glasses, gave a faint smile.
"That's more than enough, Arya. You don't need to see his face. You only need to see what he did—how he moved, how he stood, how he held his weapon. Because those are traits that cannot be erased, not even by the most cunning murderer."
One by one, Arya watched the shadows move before his eyes, like watching a silent theater performed by ghosts.
His holographic glasses worked tirelessly, scanning every object he asked it to observe, reconstructing brief interactions from the past based on the molecular traces left behind.
He saw unseen fingers gripping the handle of the Kapeleion's back door minutes before the murder.
He saw a palm pressing against the brick wall as someone leaned there while waiting.
He saw the tip of a shoe scraping the dirt in the corner of the alley as someone tried to remain hidden.
Every object spoke. Every surface held secrets. And Arya patiently listened to those silent stories, arranging them in his mind like puzzle pieces slowly forming a complete image.
But there were limits.
The glasses could not show faces, could not reveal identities. They could only display faint movements, small habits, unique manners that perhaps even their owner did not realize they possessed.
Hours might have passed—or perhaps only minutes. Arya had lost track of time ever since the glasses had been placed on his face.
All he knew was that he had observed every piece of evidence within the Kapeleion, from the largest—like the pile of firewood—to the smallest, like the fragment of blue beads discovered by Nirma.
And every time, the glasses displayed the same fragments of scenes—the cloaked shadow with its hood covering the face, moving in the same way, standing with the same posture, striking with the same technique.
There was no longer any doubt in Arya's mind.
All the interactions recorded within these objects—from several hours before the murder to several minutes afterward—involved the same person.
The killer had been in the Kapeleion long before Étienne arrived, waiting patiently, preparing everything, and disappearing once his task was complete.
He had returned once more several hours later, perhaps to ensure that no evidence had been left behind.
Arya lifted his head, pulling his gaze away from the fading holograms, and searched for Nirma in the darkness of the Kapeleion.
He found her not far from where he stood, sitting against the brick wall with her blue glasses still on her face. And on her lips—Arya could see it clearly even in the darkness—was the same faint smile as before, a smile that made him feel that Nirma had already known everything from the beginning, that all of this had merely been a matter of waiting for the right moment to prove what she already believed.
"Nirma," Arya called, his voice hoarse from a mixture of exhaustion and excitement.
"I've observed everything. Every piece of evidence in the Kapeleion. And now I know—I know that…"
Nirma raised her hand, cutting Arya's words off with a gentle motion, then asked in a calm yet meaningful tone.
"Do you understand what I'm planning, Arya?"
Arya exhaled deeply, lowering his head for a moment before lifting it again with a clearer, more focused gaze.
"Your mind is far too complex for me to simplify, Nirma. The way you think often makes my head spin. But there is one thing I know—you've found the breakthrough in this case. I can feel it. From the way you smile, from the way you stay silent, from the way you sent those letters to the six suspects. You already know, don't you? You already know who the murderer is since the moment we arrived here tonight."
Nirma did not answer. She only smiled wider, and Arya knew that was the clearest answer possible.
He stood, stepped closer to her, and spoke with a slightly pleading tone.
"Nirma, I need to see the interactions of the evidence from the other five locations. Mangana Palace, the warehouse at the Port of Theodosius, the Greek alchemist's workshop, the monastery in the hills, the Latin soldiers' lodging house. All the evidence we gathered. Take me there—or lend me your glasses so I can observe them remotely."
Nirma chuckled softly, a gentle and warm laugh in the darkness of the night, and then she shook her head.
"There's no need, Arya. All the evidence is here."
Nirma stood slowly, straightened her robe, and walked toward the pile of sacks in the corner of the Kapeleion.
She reached for a large sack Arya had never noticed before—perhaps because he had been too focused on his glasses—and untied it.
Inside the sack, Arya saw piles of objects he recognized: a piece of cloth from the back door, a burnt apron string, sacks of charcoal and resin, a broken stylus, a glass container holding strands of gray hair, and many more.
All twenty pieces of evidence implicating the six suspects had been gathered in one place, waiting to be observed.
Nirma looked at Arya with her left eye glimmering and said, "I knew you would ask for it, Arya. So I brought everything here. Now observe them all. Look at the interactions in each piece of evidence. Compare them with what you just saw in the Kapeleion. And you will discover what I discovered from the very beginning: that only one person is involved in all of these interactions. Only one person left traces at every crime scene. And that person.…"
Nirma paused for a moment, letting the tension thicken in the air.
"… Is the one we least expected."
Arya did not need to be told twice.
He immediately took the first piece of evidence from the sack—the piece of cloth from the Kapeleion's back door—and directed his glasses toward it.
A hologram appeared instantly, showing the same cloaked shadow, with the same posture and the same hand movements, getting caught on a nail, struggling briefly, and finally tearing free while leaving that piece of cloth behind.
Arya took the second piece of evidence—the burnt apron string—and the glasses once again displayed the same shadow, this time working in a workshop, careless, allowing the apron string to touch a heated piece of metal.
The third piece of evidence, the fourth, the fifth, all the way to the twentieth—each of them displayed the same shadow.
The same posture.
The same movements.
The same way of standing with the weight resting on the left foot.
The same way of holding objects with a slightly bent elbow.
The same way of walking on the tips of the feet.
Everything was the same.
Beyond all of that, beyond the miracle of 34th-century technology working flawlessly, Nirma remained seated against the brick wall with her faint smile that never faded, her head facing directly toward Arya.
Her single eye carefully observed every change in her partner's expression with terrifying precision.
To be continued…