Hearing a response from inside, Charlotte secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
If no one had answered their knock and they had opened the door to an empty office, the Purification-ers squad might have turned straight around and headed for the Sauron residence to arrest Raoul Sauron, their prime suspect for leaking information.
After all, even Charlotte could see the suspicious points about her father. The Inquisition, which had secretly investigated all of Suhit City, could hardly have overlooked them. Perhaps they had let Raoul's daughter join the operation, then deliberately delayed it by a night, precisely to "test" him?
Even if he was a baron from a branch of the Sauron family and had maintained some ties with the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun, they could still take him in for questioning if there was solid evidence that he had helped Cultists evade capture.
Fortunately, Julian Wright was still here... Charlotte reined in her thoughts and pushed the door open.
This office was far plainer than Morvan Durand's workspace. A coat rack stood beside the door, with an upturned tricorn hat hanging from it. Chairs for visitors occupied the center of the room, while a broad wooden desk stood at the far end. The papers that had been spread across its surface had already been gathered into a neat stack on the left.
The window behind the desk overlooked a narrow street at the rear of City Hall. Farther away lay King's Road, where lights were gradually coming on. The last glow of dusk mingled with the light of oil lamps lit early, casting faint shadows around the desk, window frame, and coat rack.
A middle-aged man stood behind the desk. He seemed to have just finished tidying up before leaving work. His coat was neatly arranged and his cravat already tied, but his white curly wig still lay on the desk, exposing dark brown hair streaked with white.
He had clearly been expecting Matilda from Viscount Abel's household, and already wore the polite smile officials usually adopted when receiving young noblewomen. But when he saw Charlotte enter, that smile instantly stiffened.
Did he know Matilda? No, that wasn't surprise at discovering someone impersonating a noblewoman. It was panic at seeing someone who shouldn't be here... Charlotte's thoughts raced. Then she gave a slightly awkward smile, lifted her skirts, and curtsied.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wright. I deceived you.
"I'm actually Baron Sauron's daughter, Charlotte Sauron. Because of what happened in the Old District, I was afraid you would refuse to see me if you heard my name, so I borrowed Matilda's."
She paused and lowered her head as though embarrassed.
"I didn't want to worry my father, but I also wanted to uncover the truth, so I had no choice but to visit in this rather improper way."
This was one of the explanations she had discussed with Viève beforehand. Even if Julian really was a Cultist and recognized Charlotte, such an excuse would most likely keep him from turning hostile immediately. Instead, he would wait and see.
To keep him calm, she did not even use her Arbiter abilities.
Sure enough, Julian Wright's stiff expression eased, and a gentle smile returned to his face.
"So it's Miss Sauron," he said, glancing at the lady's maid standing by the door with her head lowered. A trace of puzzlement entered his voice. "Since you were one of the victims, of course I'll do my best to cooperate. Please, have a seat."
Charlotte nodded and took two steps forward, but did not sit. She stopped in front of the desk, close enough to see Julian's face clearly yet far enough away to retreat to Viève's side if he suddenly resisted. Feigning an expectant expression, she studied him intently, trying to find fragments of her memories of that day's sacrificial ritual.
Flickering candlelight, blood on the floor, cloaked figures... Those fragments remained confused and difficult to distinguish. But as Charlotte looked at Julian Wright's coat-covered body and tried to picture him wearing a black hooded robe, one memory suddenly became clearer.
Was he really among them...? Charlotte felt a little more certain, but had no time to think further. She knew Julian had not truly believed her. He was only pretending to cooperate because both sides were still maintaining a surface peace. At the first sign of a flaw, he would surely abandon the pretense.
She raised her right hand and gently rubbed and squeezed her neck, as though nervous.
This was the signal she and Viève had agreed on before setting out. It meant she was confident he was a Cultist, and they could act.
The next second, Viève suddenly raised her head from her place by the door and swept aside her disguise robe, revealing a white shirt, dark waistcoat, and tight trousers beneath. The Sun Holy Emblem concealed inside her collar flipped out with it, its golden, abstract sun symbol reflecting a trace of the fading sunlight.
An intense radiance instantly flooded the entire office, with her at its center. The walls, window frame, desk, and even the carpet were illuminated as brightly as at noon. Even the wall across the back street outside flashed with a dazzling reflection.
With her back to the light, Charlotte only felt that everything before her had been swallowed by scorching sunlight. Julian, who bore the radiance head-on, clearly suffered far more. He instinctively shut his eyes, his face twisting in pain, and flailed his hands in an attempt to block both the light and the attack that would follow.
Charlotte knew perfectly well that, although she was now an Arbiter, she could contribute little to a direct confrontation at this level. She stepped half a pace diagonally backward, drew the Sealed Artifact dagger she had used to wound Etienne from her sleeve, and stood ready.
As the glare faded and the office dimmed, Viève swept past her and leaped straight onto the desk. She clenched her right fist, brilliant light spilling between her fingers as though she held a miniature sun in her palm, and prepared to smash it down on Julian.
But just as the Cultist was about to meet the same fate as the Black-Clothed Woman at the Printing House, the temperature in the room suddenly dropped.
Charlotte's spirituality immediately gave her a vague warning, as though some danger was approaching. Yet its target was not her, but Viève on the desk.
"Watch out!"
She immediately called out a warning. At the same time, she noticed a shadow emerging from the ceiling, as though something that had been outside the room was answering a summons. It had only a faint human outline, with elongated arms and a distorted face, and was lunging down at Viève to possess her.
Viève did not look up. Illusory golden flames sprang up around her body and rapidly joined into a sea of light. They ignited neither paper nor wood, instead tracing the shadow's entire outline and burning across its surface.
Then Viève twisted at the waist, raised her right leg, and swept it sideways. Her kick struck the shadow's flank with a rush of wind. The burning shadow instantly shattered, dissipating into the air like mist exposed to sunlight.
That was a Solar High Priest's Purification Slash, used against evil spirits and Wraiths.
Yet in that brief instant, Julian had regained his ability to move. He opened his eyes, reddened by the glare, and shot Charlotte and Viève a hateful look. His body suddenly blurred, turning into something like a pool of shadow stretched by sunlight, and merged with the darkness beside the desk cast by the sunset outside and the oil lamp within.
Charlotte reacted, bending down and thrusting her dagger into that patch of shadow.
The blade scraped across the carpet with a ripping sound, but the shadow was already sliding along the floor toward a corner of the room, like black ink staining the carpet.
Rather than chase it in vain, Charlotte shouted:
"Light!"
Her Intisian naturally carried no supernatural power, but the instant she called out the reminder, Viève uttered a word in Hermes:
"Light."
A soft radiance spread from her body, filling every gap in the office that had been large enough for a shadow to move through. The dark shape fleeing toward the corner contracted violently.
But just as Charlotte thought it would be forced back into its original form, the shadow, which had already reached the door, abruptly changed direction. Braving the sunlight that filled the room, it rushed toward the window. Before the half-open window, it re-formed into a human outline with indistinct features, then vaulted outside without hesitation.
Viève immediately gave chase, leaping through the window with sunlight still radiating from her body.
He actually got away... Only then did Charlotte get up from the carpet and cautiously approach the window, dagger in hand.
She was not worried that Julian would truly escape. To prevent that, the two Purification-ers, Jellen and Joel, had already circled around to the back of City Hall. Though they were only a Sequence 8 Light Pray-er and a Barbarian, one could provide support while the other fought at close quarters. They were more than capable of holding up Julian after he jumped from the building.
Moreover, during that brief supernatural battle, Charlotte had noticed that this Cultist, much like the Black-Clothed Woman who had attacked her last month, had little resistance to the many abilities of the Bard Pathway or the Holy Water they produced. He was suppressed as though their attributes directly countered his.
Once Viève joined them, capturing him would only be a matter of time.
Hopefully, we can get something useful out of him this time. Unlike those two Cultists last time, who were clearly just carrying out orders, Julian should have been a direct participant in the sacrificial ritual... Charlotte leaned her head toward the window, thinking hopefully as she prepared to see what was happening below.
Just then, a sudden chill came from the dagger in her hand.
The Sealed Artifact was warning her of hostility directed at her-hostility from behind!
Charlotte's body moved before her conscious mind did. She spun toward the doorway and saw a figure slowly emerging from the narrow patch of darkness between the open door and the wall.
The human outline rapidly solidified into skin and clothing. It was Julian Wright, who had just leaped out of the window.
No, he had not jumped out to escape. That false shadow had deliberately fled through the window in front of Viève, luring the Solar High Priest, whose abilities completely countered his own, out of the office. His real body had hidden in an overlooked shadow, only emerging once Charlotte was alone in the room.
This guy is at least Sequence 8, and might even be at the same level as Viève. Fighting him alone isn't a good idea... Charlotte immediately made her judgment. She turned her rear foot toward the window, ready to follow his example and vault outside to join the Purification-ers below.
But Julian did not immediately lunge at her. He stared at Charlotte, his expression neither triumphant nor vicious, but deeply puzzled.
Seeing that Charlotte was about to copy him and jump out of the window, he raised his right hand and extended his index finger. Before she could act, he spoke a sentence in a language Charlotte did not recognize, yet whose meaning she understood directly:
"You are guilty!"
Charlotte's movement stalled just as she was about to jump, as though she had been restrained by an invisible force. Yet she could not make sense of it.
I... am I?
The next second, Julian continued in that unfamiliar language:
"You have committed the Sin of Murder!"
The office instantly fell silent. Charlotte's heart tightened, and a sense of imminent catastrophe suddenly arose, only to vanish just as quickly.
Nothing happened... The puzzlement on Julian's face deepened.