Karen's Reply

Fallen Morning Star? It's a good name... Why does it sound familiar when I can't remember it? Could it be information I've temporarily forgotten because it involves something at a higher level?

Abner frowned and set the matter aside for now. He looked at Shoko and asked about something he hadn't had a chance to bring up the night before. "You said Lina asked you to retrieve something that originally belonged to her from 16 Williams Street... What was it?"

Shoko hesitated. Unlike the matters they had discussed earlier, this concerned Lina's privacy, and he wasn't sure whether he should tell Abner.

The conflict on his face was obvious. Abner saw what he was thinking and smiled. "Then don't tell me. Let me work it out."

Shoko breathed a sigh of relief and nodded without thinking. Detective Braine really was a wonderfully considerate man... Even so, he couldn't reveal Lina's private affairs. It was a matter of principle.

By then, Abner had activated the Pure White Eye and simulated the Mind Reading ability he had just learned from Fallen Morning Star. He "read" part of Shoko's surface thoughts and said, "It was a Beyonder item Lina used often, wasn't it?"

Shoko was startled. He hadn't expected Detective Braine's very first deduction to come so close to the truth.

"A claw-shaped Beyonder item, I'd guess... The Claw of Frost? So she lost this Sealed Artifact after the Lucky ring stopped working?" Abner "read" Shoko's surface thoughts while drawing on what he knew from his own fight with Lina.

Shoko stared at him, stunned. "No wonder they call you the Hero Detective... Now I see how you've solved so many major cases. Your deductions are almost as if you saw everything yourself... Is this the 'Deduction' Emperor Roselle spoke of?"

*Roselle even