CHAPTER 326: THEN MY QUESTION-I

Sensing the shift in the courtroom, Minister Rueben clicked his tongue in frustration. He had long known Iliza was a liability, but even he hadn’t expected her to be this careless. How could she have left such damning evidence in her room?

He had warned her, repeatedly, not to leave the potion behind. She was to use all of it at once, destroy the remnants, and make sure nothing could trace back to them. And yet now... the vial had surfaced.

Stupid girl. Had she really believed she could hold onto it as leverage against him? That she could threaten him if he ever tried to discard her?

Now, her foolishness would drag them all down.

Rueben’s eyes flicked toward Queen Morgana, barely a second of contact. But it was enough. Between them passed a silent, wordless exchange, swift, precise, and lethal in understanding. They both knew what must be done to contain the fallout.

Just then, the courtroom doors opened with barely a whisper.

A woman stepped inside, her green dress brushing the stone floor as she moved. She cast a brief glance at Judge Darling, then her gaze snapped directly to Arabella. Her lips curled into a faint, secretive smile, as though relishing a private joke no one else understood. Danger shimmered beneath her composure like someone who was excited to see chaos and blood.

Her humming was soft, nearly inaudible, as she turned to face Morgana.

But her amusement abruptly faltered. Her expression stiffened. Her head whipped around, eyes narrowing at the second set of doors, which opened again.

A young man stepped inside, a white cat sleeping peacefully in his arms.

Noah.

His crimson eyes swept the courtroom, and for a fleeting moment, they met Alice’s.

They stared at one another, two strangers caught in the ghost of familiarity. Something about the other felt known, as if they had met once, somewhere beyond the reach of memory. A name, a face, a shadow in the past, just out of grasp.

Alice frowned, the corners of her lips twitching in restraint.

Noah, meanwhile, winced slightly, raising a hand to his temple. That strange ache had returned, pressing against his skull ever since the human hunt. He should never have gone. He told himself that over and over, but it was too late now.

He sighed, pressing his knuckles to his forehead. The cat stirred slightly in his arms.

From across the room, Alice watched him move deeper into the courtroom. Her brows furrowed.

What was that feeling?

Why did it feel as if she had just seen another witch?

But that young man... he’s certainly a boy and a vampire at that.

She had done her own little experiments and confirmed that there could never be a vampire who could also become a witch.

They would instead become like the Crown Prince sitting in the courtroom, a demon worshipper, able to borrow their power or take it for themselves but could never achieve the control that a witch would ever have.

That presence of another witch dimmed, leaving only her and Arabella.

Alice began to question whether she had mistook the presence earlier, though not entirely convinced as she was certain with what she felt earlier.

Well...

"Whatever," she whispered to her own, hitting her finger to her elbow in a rhythm. So what if there’s another witch? They were all going to die soon after all.

Alice raised her hand over Iliza and after connecting her index finger to her thumb to form a circle, she placed Iliza inside that circle and grinned madly.

"Work well my little toy, don’t disappoint me."

Minister Rueben stood after the accusation. He could feel his human slave’s gaze over him but brushed it off as nothing but a feather brush.

Like Morgana, he was quick to throw away anything that had turned into a burden to him. Iliza had never once someone he wanted or was charmed by, only kept as a pawn which made it even easier for him to cast her aside.

But that wasn’t what Iliza had thought, still foolish to the end.

And so when he avoided her gaze, Iliza was horrified, she understood what he was about to pull.

"Although it is true that I have brought her as my slave, in no way have I ever instructed her to do anything," Minister Rueben confirmed. Thankfully whenever he had demanded Iliza to harm Arabella, he had done it through words without witness.

Other than Iliza, no one else heard his words, and who was about to hear her words? She’s nothing but an insane killer who had worked with the sorcerers now.

Arabella who had seen all this frowned.

It wasn’t that she pitied Iliza. It wasn’t that she had forgotten what that person did to her when she had at first recognize her as a friend.

All because of Iliza who had told Queen Morgana of her ability to survive death that the human hunt occurred and so many more lives were taken.

The ones who should be angered wasn’t only her, rather the rest of the humans victim from the hunt.

But to see Minister Rueben grinning as if he believe he was going to walk pass this unscatched was impressively disgusting.

"N- No," cried Iliza weakly, not knowing what else could she do when the blame was all about to put to her. She tried to bring up evidence only to realized with welling tears that she had never once bothered to keep evidence to protect her innocence, only evidence to blackmail Minister Rueben and the King.

Minister Rueben cut her off, "In fact there was a reason why I had took her as a slave and that’s because I believe that human woman over there is guilty and dangerous."

He pointed his finger toward Arabella who stared back at him, as though somewhere she had expected that his silver tongue was going to shift this blame to her again somehow and she was correct.

"This girl was once a friend of Arabella in the dungeon and I had kept her around me to keep an eye on her."

"Objection your honor," Cassius sang with a smile. "You said you don’t know anything about her... mistakes you say?"