I went to my cell with this whirling in my head. Somehow Inquisitor Pina was going to take evidence to the court that I'd burned down Harigold Manor. Which was completely unsound because that was one of the few acts of destruction that wasn't my fault but the only one I really cared about! She apparently got tired of yelling about the stuff she was sure I was guilty of but couldn't prove, and instead moved to something absolutely untrue. What the fuck kind of legal strategy was that?

  God, I was warned that these courts were extremely corrupt but I'm a bit taken aback. I barely spoke as I walked in, and Gedes closed the door behind me. The key turned. My powers came back to me, the touch of mana flowing in my veins once more.

  I walked to the couch and sat down. I put my head in my hands, fingers scrunching in my hair. Nails dragged along my scalp. I let events start playing back. The completely bullshit arraignment, lumping all the charges and demanding one plea to all of it. Not even offering me the opportunity to plead not guilty. The assumption of wrongdoing so deeply ingrained that the only acceptable defense is extenuating circumstances. A prosecution that can proceed on circumstantial supposition but a judge demanding I provide positive evidence. A prosecutor that's not even qualified as an attorney, just as an interrogator!

  And accusing me of burning down my family home.

  The screams had pressed against me as a physical force. That maid had been so certain that I would leave her to die.

  I was shaking, my nails digging into my scalp. I felt something wet, I was bleeding. I thrust my hands out, clutching the cushions of the couch so that my fingers would not cut into me. I was blind again, tears burning salt into my eyes. My mouth was dry enough to hurt but my nose was running. My chest hurt. I was sobbing. I had been sobbing for a long time. What happened? I brought my head up, and blinked. Through the frosty cobweb-sheets of my hair I looked around, as if answers were going to appear on the walls. My knees were soaking wet, the dress there was almost transparent.

  I had cried into my lap so long that it spread out and soaked in. I looked out the window- at least an hour had gone by.

  And I could not remember any of it. I remembered a huge hurt swelling inside me, and then an hour had passed by. I gestured the spell out, and then whipped the water out of my dress and sent it to the drain. I paced. I stewed. I cried a little more. Goddammit.

  Everything would be sunk if I cried in front of the court tomorrow. I had pushed though today with preparation and quips, but it was clear that from now on Pina was going to be aiming to hurt me however she could. And she already had my number, she knew how to wreck me. If I cried, she'd claim it was a guilty conscience and I was done. If I lost control, I was going to be labeled unstable. I needed some way to beat her. Hard.

  Fuck this Vendetta Defense.

  The only thing it really established is that I'm vindictive and violent. It just assumes that I did whatever I'm accused of but that I ... what? Don't even claim that it was in a good cause. Not necessary, or self-defense. It's not about being a good person or even an honorable one. It just-

  "You would have done it too in my place."

  Of course. It's an argument of empathy. I don't need to establish that I was a victim, but that we all are victims, in my place. I grabbed paper and started working on some notes. Now I just needed to keep from getting blindsided during the trial tomorrow. Some way to control my emotions. If only I could suppress my feelings there like when I channeled steel into myself.

  The restraints kept me from my mana, not just from casting. While they were active, I had nothing. I could not even supplement my wardrobe, let alone invite essences into me to shape my feelings for me.

  I was going to miss that. There's something extra special about antidepressants you can turn on and off like a switch.

  All right, I'd be fine. Just gotta work on this defense. No more surprises.

  "The prosecution calls Professor Quethron."

  "The fuck?" I blurted.

  Scrivener's sigils took my words to every ear in the courtroom and every spectator in the stands. Twice as many as yesterday, word had gotten around that there's a good show to see. So, not a good moment to lose my composure. Fuck this inquisitor for continually blindsiding me!

  My old science teacher strolled out of the green room and up to the witness stand, swore to tell the whole truth, and then stood there glaring smugly at me with his fingers clasped together in front of him.

  "Professor, is it true that Lady Harigold has the powers of a sorceress?"

  "It is."

  "And that she can use spells according the essences that she has affinity for?"

  "It is."

  "Can you elaborate on that?"

  "Yes. Unlike conventional sorcerers, the Lady has a unique aptitude to gather affinity from casual contact, especially while she is sleeping. Some essences she can gather remarkably easily. Others she has exceptional difficulty."

  "Yes. And can she employ the essence of fire?"

  "Her abilities in that field are meager. She would be hard-pressed to singe a blade of grass."

  Hey! Accurate, but hurtful!

  Pina continued. "So, Professor, she would not be able to use sorcerous fire to set multiple fires throughout a house at the same time?"

  "Absolutely not. And she still does not even know why," he gloated, sneering at me. "She has not yet figured out she has high affinity for some elements but not others."

  "Yes Professor. So it is impossible for her to have set those fires in that house using her sorcery?"

  "Oh, no, it would have been quite simple, actually," Quethron said. "While the lady Natalie Harigold has only a pauper's grasp of the essence of fire, she does have access to a far more exotic and obscure element, which she understands more thoroughly than any other. I have some understanding of its abilities, enough to know that this is possible. But her grasp far outstrips my own, and she probably could do many things I do not understand."

  "Could you elaborate, Professor?"

  Man, that's a well-choreographed dance they have there.

  "Certainly, inquisitor. Could I call forth the two exhibits of evidence checked in under my name?"

  The first was a rolling table with a sheet over the top. The second was a Tesla coil twenty feet high. A long cable unspooled behind it, porters were rolling it along carefully to keep the cord from tangling. Well, this was not going to look good.

  "See, the lady Natalie," he continued smugly, "has both a sorcerous capacity, and a knowledge of natural philosophy, to control what we know as levin energy. A knowledge that she partially passed to me. And with the information she imparted, only a portion of her knowledge and a fraction of her power, I was able to build these devices."

  "Thank you Professor. Would you kindly demonstrate for the court what you can do with only a partial knowledge and a fraction of her power?"

  When he flipped the switch, lightning filled the courtroom. People screamed, furniture was kicked over. The court reporter sprinted out of there. The judge threw his gavel. Pandemonium reigned. He shut it off after a few seconds, and I could hear someone crying. For once it wasn't me. I just sat there with my arms crossed. "Very funny Professor," I muttered.

  The sigils carried it to everyone. Whoops.

  "As you can see, levin energy, which she calls electricity, is what the rest of all know as lightning. Though she rarely uses this power as a sorceress, it is known to her and to her alone. She is very open about her ability to travel great distances without the intervening space, and to create explosions of vast magnitude, but she is far far more secretive about this. Her refusal to disclose all of her knowledge about it, in fact, was the cause of the quarrel she and I suffered that ended with her family dismissing me. She had me fired for asking too many questions about this subject!"

  "Thank you for that Professor. And while it may be common knowledge that lightning can and does start fires, I feel that the the lady may object to speculative and coincidental evidence if we do not demonstrate for the court that this is possible. Professor?"

  He whipped the sheet off the first exhibit. A twist of fabric between two copper prongs. Wires led to a battery. "This model here has only a tiny fraction of the power demonstrated by my first device. It is one of the simplest and most harmless versions of this energy source."

  He flipped a switch, and there was as jolt of light, and the the cloth lit up like a torch. It was a torch, and soaked in lamp oil like a torch.

  "Objection," I sighed. "The rag is soaked in flammable oils and we can all smell it. The spark he created has accomplished no more than a simple sulfur match. His theatrical display demonstrates the destructive power of lamp oil, not electricity."

  I knew how this was working. I knew what he was doing. And it was solid irony that he was using Tesla coils, recreating the AC scare of the Edison vs Tesla feud. Edison once famously electrocuted an elephant to death to prove that Tesla's inventions were dangerous. Quethron was only lighting a dish towel, so I guess I should be grateful for his restraint.

  "And Professor, for the sake of presenting solid reliable evidence to the court, could you tell me whether this fire was in fact caused by the lightning energy?"

  "Yes Inquisitor, it was!"

  When it was my turn to cross-examine, I started slow. I was already tired just because this guy annoyed me so damn much. It was the exhaustion of re-fighting a stupid fight far too many times. "Professor, is it true that I have even less capacity to channel levin energy than I do fire?"

  "I would have no way of knowing that," he said. "You are the world expert on the subject, not I. I don't know anything about it other than what you wish me to know."

  I rolled my eyes. "So, what, you know enough to say that I can, but now you're too ignorant to say that I cannot?"

  "You and I have had far too many discussions about how it is 'impossible to prove a negative', in your words. I cannot swear what is impossible, by your own logic. Shall I explain this to the court in tedious detail?"

  "No need to prove that you're a pompous ass."

  She was trying to sway the court with scare tactics because I demanded evidence. That did not piss me off nearly as much as the fact that she was trying to prove I'd set fire to my own house.

  Ymily died in that fire. Dozens of others. People I saw every day.

  I stared him down. He came after me with my own science. The dick.

  "Professor, do you remember Ymily?"

  "What?"

  "Ymily Tarker. Blonde girl, yay tall?" I held out my hand. "She enjoyed painting her nails. She worked with me when I was handling mail. Her office was in the basement where we all handled the post. She worked late nights, Professor. She had a cot in her office. She was in that cot the night of the fire."

  Pina cut in. "Is there a question in this questioning?"

  "Yes. Professor, do you remember Ymily?"

  "I ... do not. There were many people in that household."

  "Professor there were fifty-one people living on the grounds and of them forty-four had quarters in the manor house itself. I knew every name. Let me try a question. Do you, professor, think that I killed those people, or that I started that fire?"

  "Objection! Supposition!"

  "Your honor, this man was called as a character witness. I am asking him to serve in exactly that regard."

  The judge stared at me coolly. "Proceed."

  I turned on the professor. He glared at me. "I don't know you well enough to make that determination," he snarled at me.

  "Oh, is that so?" I said. I felt myself cooling, angry now. "Professor, that mail room was instrumental. The fires in that house were not caused by levin energy, but scrivened spells. They were placed inside of envelopes that were sent to members of the household, then discarded. And every envelope combusted together."

  "Objection!" Pina jumped up. "How do you know that!?"

  I glared at her flatly. "I got it from the man who sent them. When I investigated the crime. Like you should have."

  "And the evidence?" she sneered.

  "It's gone," I said. "It exploded." I turned back to Quethron. "But Professor, I have more bad news. Ymily was not the target of that attack. Neither was I, or my family. I know who sent the envelopes, and I know who hired him to do it. He was hired to kill my family, but the reason he agreed to do it had little to do with that. We weren't his targets. The library was."

  "What."

  "Those people were collateral damage, Professor."

  "The books?"

  "Those were the targets."

  "Objection!" Pina belted out.

  "Professor, maybe you don't know for certain that I would start a fire and kill a dozen people. Maybe you don't have that capacity to say for certain that I would do that. But do you think that I would ever have started a fire that destroyed that library?"

  He looked shell-shocked. "Never."

  "No more questions, your honor."