The two diary pages Abner submitted were not the Thousand Character Classic he had obtained from that valley to pass off as the real thing. They were genuine pages that Weave the Sea Serpent had collected on his orders—though their contents were hardly respectable.
He and Xio had agreed on this before parting last Monday, so Judgment was not surprised. She had spent the week following Princess Vera in pursuit of Baron Larry and had no time to collect diary pages.
Justice Audrey blinked. With a mixture of emotion and envy, she thought, The Tower treats Judgment so well... And Temperance treats the World that way too...
Fors glanced at one, then the other, before casting a discreet look at Justice. Her feelings were hard to put into words.
After seven days of reflection, she had sorted through some of her suspicions from last week's Tarot Club gathering. Once she ruled out Viscount Glaint, all the suspicious things about Miss Audrey Hall became obvious.
After all, of the people who could have slipped Mr. Fool's Honorific Name into a book in Viscount Glaint's study, Miss Audrey was the likeliest!
Besides, Miss Audrey and Justice gave Fors remarkably similar impressions. They might well be the same person.
But Fors had no proof and had had no chance to test her theory that week, so it remained a guess.
The thought that Miss Audrey had probably seen through the markup she had added when selling Glaint the Apothecary formula—and her later excuse of going to the washroom to perform the Sacrifice and Bestowal rituals—left her deeply embarrassed. She almost wanted to bury her head in the sand rather than expose the truth...
*At least that little "performance" wasn't entirely pointless. I managed to fool Xio... Even though I'm almost certain now that