Shitara Renki froze, never having imagined that such an option even existed.
But...
"But I want to play it!" she said, on the verge of tears. "Do you know how hard it usually is to get my hands on this violin? Even for me, after all these years, this may be my only chance to perform with it."
Conan: "..."
Was this what artists were like? Terrifying.
Haibara Ai had always suspected there was something off about this commission. She reached out and poked the violin case on the table. "Hard to get? But didn't you take it out quite easily?"
"How was that easy?" Shitara Renki muttered softly. "I specifically went to Grandfather and told him that I wanted to borrow the violin in advance to practice, so I could play well for him tonight. That was the only reason I managed to get my hands on it, and even then..."
She quietly glanced toward the door.
Mouri Ran turned to look as well and cried out, "Ah!"—at some point, the door had opened a crack, and two eyes were eerily staring in through it.
Normal people's eyes should have been arranged side by side, but outside the door, the left eye and right eye were stacked one above the other, squeezed into the door crack!
"Ghost!!!"
The stool clattered loudly. Mouri Ran moved so fast she nearly left an afterimage, swooshing behind Jiang Xia in an instant.
Jiang Xia narrowed his eyes from the gust of wind she had whipped up. When he opened them and looked toward the door again, he saw that Mouri Ran's commotion had startled the people spying outside as well. The eyes blocking the crack tilted back, revealing two identical women in maid uniforms.
"You..." Conan stared. "You're those twin maids?!"
One of