Chapter 1: Mist on Mosslight Row

Thornhollow looked like it had been built to keep secrets. Mist sat in the gutters and curled around the carved posts on Mosslight Row, where festival lanterns hung unlit in daylight, waiting for the Feast of Mosslight to begin. The town’s traditions were not loud, they were steady. People here spoke softly, watched closely, and remembered long.

Agent Mira Lorne stepped down from the SCU carriage and felt the attention land on her like damp cloth. Not hostility exactly, more like a careful weighing. Beside her, Yara Novik adjusted her coat and stared back without flinching. Elias Vann carried two cases of equipment, while Celeste Arbour walked with a slim satchel that held more paper than most towns kept in a courthouse.

A Thornwatch ranger met them at the curb. “Municipal order,” he said, holding up a hand like a barrier. “You don’t move without local shadowing.”

Mayor Colin Drewer appeared behind him, polished boots, composed smile. “We appreciate the SCU’s… presence,” he said. “But Thornhollow is delicate right now.”

“Delicate because of the attack?” Mira asked.

Drewer’s smile tightened. “Delicate because fear spreads. And because outsiders can turn fear into spectacle.”

Yara’s voice stayed flat. “Then tell us what happened before the spectacle finds you.”

They drove out toward Dreadpine Vale along a narrow track where pines pressed close and fog collected in dips like pooled milk. At the trailhead, an old boundary marker showed an elk with lantern antlers, a symbol of Mosslight tradition. The carving was worn smooth by weather and hands.

Lysa Kett sat on the tailgate of a ranger truck, wrapped in a blanket. Even in a torn sleeve and muddy boots, she looked like the person on Thornhollow’s brochures, the smiling guide who promised visitors safe wonder. Her face was pale, her eyes unfocused.

“It came out of the mist,” she whispered when Mira approached. “I saw light in its antlers.”

A ranger, broad and stern, spoke over her. “Lantern-elk sightings are old stories. The forest spooks people. She’s lucky to be alive.”

Yara leaned slightly forward. “Lucky people usually bleed more than this.”

Mira crouched by Lysa’s torn sleeve. The fabric edges were too straight beneath the fraying, like a cut had been started and then pulled open for effect. In the mud nearby, hoof-like impressions appeared, but the spacing was wrong, inconsistent, as if someone had tried to mimic an animal’s gait without knowing weight or stride.

Mira stood and noted the way Thornwatch officers hovered close, boots scuffing the ground that should have been preserved. “I need a clean perimeter and the exact location,” she said. “No more foot traffic.”

Mayor Drewer hesitated. “Within reason.”

The words sounded cooperative, but Mira heard the boundary inside them. Thornhollow would allow help only as long as it did not lose control. She looked back at Lysa, who clutched the blanket as if it were a shield.

A local celebrity could be a person, but in a town like this she was also a symbol. Symbols were easy to protect, and easier to sacrifice. The mist thickened between the trees, and Mira felt the case begin with a quiet certainty: the forest was being used as a witness that could never speak.

Chapter 2: Clean Cuts and Quiet Chemistry

They returned to the trail the next morning with Dr. Ivo Grell, the SCU’s forensic physician. Grell moved slowly, methodically, as if haste offended him. He set a portable lamp low to the ground and examined the brambles, the torn threads caught in bark, the disturbed mud.

“This is staged,” he said after a long look.

Yara folded her arms. “Say why.”

Grell lifted a strip of fabric with tweezers. “There are neat cuts beneath the tearing. A blade made a starting line, then someone roughened it to look like snagging. A real antler hook leaves puncture depth and irregular ripping. This is shallow and curated.”

Elias photographed the hoof impressions and measured distances with a small folding ruler. “The stride pattern doesn’t match elk,” he said. “Some prints sink deeper on the wrong side, like a person shifting inside a prop. It also changes rhythm mid-line, like the wearer got tired.”

A Thornwatch ranger hovering behind them scoffed. “You think we dress up animals now?”

“I think someone wanted you to believe an animal did it,” Mira said.

Grell added, “Her bloodwork shows a sedative. Not alcohol, not folk tincture. This is stabilized, measured, consistent. Medical or veterinary grade.”

Mira felt her jaw tighten. “Who had access to that kind of compound?”

The ranger answered too quickly. “Rangers carry supplies for injured wildlife.”

Yara’s eyes narrowed. “Then your inventory will confirm it.”

They walked the approach route and Elias mapped the camera poles and trail cams. “There’s a two hundred meter gap,” he said, scrolling through logs. “Feed drops, then resumes. The system marks it as a normal loss.”

The ranger pointed at the elk carving and the lantern posts. “Tradition corridor. We don’t put eyes there during Mosslight week.”

Mira studied the logs. “No cameras is one thing. A feed that exists but conveniently forgets is another.”

Back at the clinic, Lysa sat upright, hands clasped in her lap. She looked clean now, hair combed, cheek bruise covered with powder. That alone felt like a choice someone had made for her.

Grell spoke gently. “Did you take anything before your walk? A calming draught, tea, a tonic?”

Lysa’s answer came too fast. “No.”

Mira watched her eyes flick toward the door, where a Thornwatch officer stood “for her safety.” The denial did not feel like lying for profit. It felt like lying to survive.

Outside the clinic window, Thornhollow’s mist pressed close to the glass. Mira could already sense how the town wanted this to go: a forest story, a quick scare, a grateful survivor, a return to festival light. Evidence did not want that. Evidence wanted questions, and questions made people angry.

Mira left the clinic with a growing list: sedative source, staged tracks, and a surveillance gap that was too precise to be innocent. The case was no longer about whether the forest attacked Lysa Kett. It was about who needed Thornhollow to believe it did.

Chapter 3: The Paper That Turns a Town

The next day, the accusation arrived with breakfast.

The Hollow Post, usually a thin bundle of festival schedules and lost goat notices, ran a front-page letter in careful handwriting. It accused Lanternway Relief, Lysa Kett’s foundation, of siphoning donations meant for search parties. The letter named no author, but it spoke in the tone of a neighbor warning a neighbor.

In the inn’s common room, Mira watched patrons read, then glance toward her and look away. Anger moved through Thornhollow quietly, like cold through stone.

Yara dropped the paper on the table. “Timed,” she said. “Attack first, scandal second. They want the story to set before we can touch it.”

Elias pulled up digital copies already circulating. “Someone photographed it and sent it to every local group feed. It’s spreading faster than the town can question it.”

Celeste, newly arrived from provincial archives, adjusted her scarf and read the letter twice. “Handwriting is theater,” she said. “It signals authenticity. People trust ink more than a typed statement because ink looks human.”

Mira requested Lanternway Relief financials through official channels. The response came late and incomplete, with several pages missing and some numbers oddly rounded. She pushed again, citing SCU authority. By afternoon she had bank statements, vendor invoices, and authorization forms bearing Lysa’s signature.

They laid them out on the inn table, using mugs as paperweights. The invoices looked plausible at a glance: “trail support,” “search coordination,” “community logistics.” But Elias’s eyes stayed on the small details.

“Same formatting errors across different vendors,” he said. “Same spacing, same faint watermark pattern. These were generated from one template.”

Yara tapped a line item. “And these payments are too clean. Round numbers. Repeated. Like someone is moving money in predictable blocks.”

Mira followed the routing. “Funds go out to vendors, then portions return as ‘consulting reimbursements.’ It’s laundering, but it relies on no one wanting to notice.”

Celeste circled a vendor name. “Hollowroot Supply Cooperative. Newly registered. Approved for festival support and ‘search logistics.’”

Mira looked up. “Who approved the contract?”

Elias checked the header. “Municipal procurement.”

The innkeeper approached with tea and set it down carefully, eyes lowered. “Lysa used to pay for search lanterns out of her own pocket,” he said quietly. “People liked her for that.”

“And now?” Mira asked.

He hesitated. “Now people feel fooled. Or they need to feel fooled. Anger makes the missing easier to bear, because anger has a target.”

Mira gathered the papers into a neat stack. “This fraud isn’t just theft,” she said. “It’s narrative. Someone wants the town to turn on Lysa and on the idea of outside-linked charity.”

Yara’s gaze hardened. “Political agenda,” she said. “Make her look corrupt, make outsiders look meddling, then sell ‘local control’ as the cure.”

Outside, workers hung more lanterns along Mosslight Row. The town prepared for celebration while its trust curdled. Mira felt the case tightening around one fact: if you could control what Thornhollow believed, you could make a scam feel like justice.

Chapter 4: The Price of Cooperation

Frontier Warden Elsabeth Graye received the SCU in her office, where pine resin and old paper made the air feel permanent. Her uniform was immaculate, her voice measured.

“You will have access,” Graye said, “under conditions. Chief Marshal Halden Creek will approve all interviews. Thornwatch will be present. We do not allow unmonitored questioning.”

Mira kept her expression calm. “Witnesses may not speak freely with uniformed officers in the room.”

Graye’s eyes stayed steady. “And locals may not speak freely with outsiders who misunderstand them. This is Thornhollow. We keep order.”

Yara’s chair scraped the floor as she leaned forward. “Order is not the same as truth.”

Chief Marshal Creek stood near the door, younger than Mira expected, with tired eyes and a mouth set in a practiced line. “We’ve had disappearances,” he said. “People are scared. Your presence makes them more scared.”

Mira nodded slowly. “Then we work carefully. But we work. We need to interview Lysa’s assistant and manager about authorizations and vendor contact.”

Creek shook his head. “Not alone.”

Mira noted the refusal, the way it was framed as protection. In small towns, protection and control often shared a face.

Back at the inn, a note lay under Mira’s door, folded twice. No signature. The ink bled slightly, as if written in damp air.

LEAVE THE FOREST TO THE FOREST. LET THORNHOLLOW HEAL.

Yara read it and laughed once, without humor. “They want us gone.”

Celeste held the note between two fingers. “They want you to doubt your right to investigate.”

Elias returned from a walk with his cap pulled low. “Rumors are moving,” he said. “People say SCU is here to shut down the festival, to blame Lysa, to take donations for provincial budgets. None of it is true, but it doesn’t have to be.”

Mira felt the strain in her team. Yara wanted to confront Graye and Creek head-on. Elias wanted time to map systems. Celeste wanted to look backward, to see if this pattern had visited Thornhollow before. Mira wanted a path that did not end with the SCU expelled for “disrupting the peace.”

“We split our approach,” Mira decided. “Yara, talk to people off record. No threats, no pressure. Just listening. Elias, focus on the camera network and procurement links. Celeste, check old SCU files for similar fraud patterns. I’ll keep the official line open with Graye and Creek.”

Yara’s eyes narrowed. “You’re asking me to work around their rules.”

“I’m asking you to work around their theater,” Mira said. “Truth won’t show up in a monitored interview room.”

That night, Mira walked Mosslight Row alone. Lantern posts stood like sentries, carved wood dark with moisture. In the mist, figures at a distance blurred into possibilities: a neighbor, a watcher, a messenger. Thornhollow felt quietly watchful, as if it had learned long ago that the safest way to survive was to keep outsiders guessing.

Mira returned to the inn with the note in her pocket, feeling its message like a stone. Leave. Heal. As if investigation was a wound. As if the scam, the staging, the manipulation, were not the true injury.

Chapter 5: The Healer at Briar’s Edge

The first strong lead arrived in a whisper, and it sounded like it wanted to be believed.

A festival volunteer met Yara behind a smokehouse where the air smelled of salt and old firewood. He kept glancing toward the street. “Sister Hedra Malrow,” he said. “Briar’s Edge healer. She’s been saying Lysa is cursed. She hates Lanternway Relief. Says it’s outsider money breaking oaths.”

Yara brought the tip to Mira with a hard set to her mouth. “Motive, influence, access to sedatives.”

Mira did not dismiss it. In a town built on tradition, a healer could move opinions with a sentence. And if someone wanted a scapegoat, a healer was both plausible and convenient.

They obtained a warrant through the proper channel. It took too long, and Mira wondered who enjoyed the delay. When it finally arrived, stamped and begrudging, they drove to Briar’s Edge where cottages leaned toward the forest and smoke rose in slow columns.

Hedra Malrow met them at her herb shed, hands folded, expression unreadable. She was older, hair bound tight, eyes sharp and unafraid.

“You bring state papers into my garden,” she said. “To blame me for your town’s shame?”

“We’re looking for a refined sedative,” Mira replied. “And any link to the attack on Lysa Kett.”

Hedra’s mouth tightened. “Lysa sells stories. Stories invite wolves, even when the wolves wear human faces.”

Inside, shelves held jars labeled in careful script: sleepwort, bitter-sedge, nightbloom. Grell examined them and shook his head. “Herbal sedatives metabolize differently,” he said. “What was in Lysa’s blood was stabilized. Measured. This is not that.”

Yara searched with the warrant anyway. Behind a jar of dried moss, she found a small unlabeled vial, cork sealed, clean glass, new.

Yara held it up. “Then explain this.”

Hedra’s eyes narrowed, but she did not reach for it. “I didn’t put that there.”

Grell took the vial and inspected it. “Commercial,” he said. “Not herbal. And recently filled.”

Mira felt the trap begin to show its teeth. The vial was too perfect, too cinematic. It would make a neat report: healer with sedative, healer with motive, healer blamed. It would also satisfy Thornhollow’s appetite for a simple villain.

“You’re saying someone planted it,” Mira said.

“I’m saying,” Hedra replied, voice low, “that Thornhollow prefers blame it can point at. A healer is easy. A drifter is easier. Anyone but those who sign papers and call it tradition.”

Outside, mist curled around their boots. Yara’s certainty faltered. “So the tip was meant to send us here.”

Celeste nodded once. “A red herring,” she said. “A believable one.”

Mira looked back at the small cottage light behind Hedra’s window. “We log the vial,” she said. “We keep Hedra on the suspect list, but we treat this as misdirection until it matches the toxicology.”

Hedra watched them leave without pleading. That, too, felt like Thornhollow: pride held even when suspicion pressed in.

On the drive back, Mira stared at the damp road and thought of how carefully the case was being guided. Someone wanted the SCU busy chasing the town’s usual targets while the real mechanism kept turning.

Chapter 6: A Convenient Arrest

By the time they returned, Thornwatch had already provided the town with a villain.

A young man sat in the holding room at the marshal’s station, wrists cuffed, cheek bruised. His clothes were patched, his hair unwashed. The file on the desk labeled him a trespasser and animal baiter. The notes were vague, heavy on accusation and light on detail.

Chief Marshal Halden Creek spoke as if he were offering relief. “We found bait berries near the trail. He has prior trespass on municipal land. He was seen near Dreadpine Vale last week.”

Yara’s voice sharpened. “Seen by whom? And why is his face bruised?”

Creek’s jaw tightened. “He resisted.”

Mira read the statement. No time stamps. No clear witness names. Just “local report,” as if the town itself had testified. She looked at the young man.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Joren,” he said hoarsely. “Joren Vale.” He gave a short laugh that held no humor. “Yeah. Like the place. Bad luck.”

Mira kept her tone even. “Where were you the night of the attack?”

“Under the old bridge,” Joren said. “I don’t go near the vale. Rangers chase me off.”

Yara turned to Creek. “This is bias. Or corruption.”

Creek’s eyes flicked toward the officers standing behind him. “We need stability,” he said. “People are angry. They want answers.”

Mira stepped closer, lowering her voice so it stayed controlled. “Stability built on false arrests is not stability. It’s a debt.”

Creek’s posture stiffened. “You don’t command Thornwatch.”

“No,” Mira said, “but I can document unlawful detention and obstruction. And I can make that documentation public.”

The room went quiet in a way that felt practiced, as if everyone knew how silence could be used.

Elias stepped in, holding his tablet. “With his consent, I pulled location history,” he said. “His device pinged near the bridge all night. Not near Dreadpine Vale. Also, your patrol car GPS logged a stop near the bridge at midnight. That places him there, not at the trail.”

One officer scoffed. “Phones lie.”

Elias did not raise his voice. “Then your vehicle log lies too. Which is it?”

Creek’s expression shifted, not surprise, but calculation. After a tense moment, he ordered the cuffs removed. Joren rubbed his wrists, eyes down.

As Mira guided him out, Joren whispered, “They told me if I didn’t confess, I’d disappear like the others.”

Mira felt cold settle in her chest. The case had teeth now, not because of violence, but because of what the system was willing to do to protect its story.

Outside, Thornhollow’s streets looked ordinary. Damp cobblestones. Closed shutters. Lantern posts waiting. But Mira could feel how quickly a town could decide who counted as human and who counted as convenient.

The SCU had stopped the arrest from sticking, but the damage was already done. People had seen Joren led in cuffs. They would remember that, not the quiet release. Fraud did not only steal money. It stole reputations, and it did it cheaply.

Chapter 7: The Dwyer File and the Echo Pattern

Celeste worked late in the inn’s back room, where the air smelled of dust and old wood. She had a small projector and a stack of copied archive pages, some marked with old SCU seals. Mira joined her as Elias and Yara leaned in, tired but alert.

“I found an unresolved file,” Celeste said. “Eight years ago. Investigator name: Dwyer. Fraud tied to search donations after a cluster of disappearances. The case was shelved before it could name its final suspects.”

Mira’s eyes narrowed. “Shelved by whom?”

Celeste did not smile. “By people who called it ‘jurisdictional sensitivity.’ It brushed too close to local autonomy politics. Someone decided it was better left quiet.”

Elias watched the projector light up the wall. A vendor name appeared: HOLLOWROOT EVENT SERVICES.

Mira sat up straighter. “We saw Hollowroot Supply Cooperative on Lanternway Relief’s ledger.”

Celeste nodded. “The old vendor dissolved after the scandal. A similarly named entity appeared later in a different municipality, then vanished again. Now, a new Hollowroot appears here, right as Thornhollow needs a scapegoat and a rallying cry.”

Yara’s voice dropped. “So it’s a playbook.”

Celeste displayed a simple pattern chart: tragedy, fundraising, vendor involvement, missing funds, public anger, political push for “local control.” “The rhythm repeats,” she said. “Not identical, but familiar.”

Mira thought of Warden Graye’s insistence on monitored interviews, the town’s reflex to blame outsiders, the speed of the Hollow Post accusation. “Someone is using grief as fuel,” she said.

Elias scrolled through procurement links. “The same procurement officer approved Hollowroot and the camera maintenance contract. That puts one signature on both money flow and surveillance oversight.”

Yara paced, boots soft on the floorboards. “And the staged animal attack makes Lysa look cursed or reckless, then the fraud story makes her look criminal. Either way, she stops being the town’s bridge to outsiders.”

Celeste’s expression tightened. “In the Dwyer file, a key witness died in a river. Officially an accident. The case ended without a verdict, and the town moved on.”

Mira held Celeste’s gaze. “Do you think this case is designed to end the same way?”

“I think,” Celeste said carefully, “that someone remembers how close Dwyer got. And they do not want old patterns spoken aloud.”

Silence settled, broken only by the inn’s pipes creaking. Outside, festival workers tested lanterns. Light flickered briefly along Mosslight Row, then went dark again, as if Thornhollow practiced celebration without committing to it.

Mira felt the case widen. It was no longer only about Lysa or Thornhollow. It was about a method that traveled, hiding inside local crises and leaving towns angrier than before.

“We don’t chase the loudest rumor,” Mira said. “We chase the mechanism.”

Elias nodded. “The mechanism includes the blind spot.”

Yara stopped pacing. “And whoever decided the blind spot should exist.”

Celeste clicked the projector off. The room dimmed, and the old file pages looked like pale bones. The past was not dead here. It was waiting, and someone had been feeding it.

Chapter 8: The Blind Spot That Remembers

Elias worked before dawn, when fewer devices were active and fewer eyes watched the street. He mapped Thornhollow’s camera network from municipal diagrams, service logs, and what the system itself revealed when asked the right questions. Mira watched him, letting the quiet sharpen her focus. Yara stood near the window, scanning the misted street like it might step inside.

“The dead zone is engineered,” Elias said. “Not a missing camera, but a controlled loss. It’s too clean.”

He highlighted a section of the network. “There’s a relay box on municipal property that is not on the inventory list. It sits right at the corridor where Lysa was found.”

Mira leaned in. “Could it be old equipment?”

Elias shook his head. “It’s powered, active, and configured to spoof. It makes the feed drop look normal in routine audits. The cameras do not go blind by accident. They are told to forget.”

They drove out while the sky was still gray. Fog swallowed the headlights. At the camera pole near the corridor marker, Elias found a wooden panel carved with knotwork that blended into local decor. Behind it, the relay box sat like a hidden organ.

Elias opened it with a tool kit. The wiring was neat, recent. A small module blinked steadily.

Yara’s voice was tight. “Whoever did this had time, tools, and permission to be here.”

“Or the authority to ignore questions,” Mira said.

Back at the inn, Elias used SCU reconstruction methods within warrant limits: network handshakes, device pings, and municipal radio overlaps. No magic, no mind-reading, just the mundane traces people left when they assumed no one would look.

He projected a timeline on the wall. “At 19:42, a vehicle stops in the blind spot,” he said. “No camera footage because the feed is suppressed. But nearby devices register a connectivity overlap consistent with a vehicle relay boosting local signal. The stop lasts twelve minutes.”

Mira stared at the line. “Enough time to sedate her, stage the scene, and reposition.”

Elias zoomed in on one ping. “A municipal phone is present at the blind spot during that window. Registered to procurement.”

Celeste’s eyes narrowed. “That ties the money mechanism to the staging mechanism.”

Yara pointed at another set of pings. “And those ranger radios?”

Elias nodded. “Two Thornwatch units were within range. Not necessarily guilty, but present. The system wants this to look like tradition and accident. It also wants a uniformed buffer.”

Mira felt a grim clarity settle. The blind spot was the case’s hinge. It was the place where the town’s story had been manufactured, and it was also the place where the SCU could prove intent.

Still, proof did not guarantee acceptance. Thornhollow could decide the SCU had forged the charts, that outsiders had invented technical excuses to ruin the festival. Evidence could be dismissed if it threatened identity.

“We need chain-of-custody on that relay box,” Mira said. “And we need to connect it to a person, not just a system.”

Elias nodded. “Installation requires network knowledge. Municipal access. Likely someone tied to camera maintenance contracts.”

Yara’s face stayed hard. “And someone who knew exactly what the town would believe.”

Outside, the inn’s window fogged with breath and weather. Thornhollow woke slowly, preparing for lantern light while the SCU prepared to bring a different kind of illumination. Mira gathered the printouts and felt the weight of them. The blind spot had broken the spell, but spells fought back. In Thornhollow, truth had to survive not just denial, but the town’s need for comfort.

Chapter 9: Suspects Who Benefit

Mira scheduled official interviews with three people who could plausibly drive the scam. Thornwatch insisted on being present. Mira insisted on recording. The compromise felt like walking with a knife pressed against the inside of her coat.

First came Rellan Soot, Lysa’s manager. He arrived with polished shoes and a restless smile, the kind that belonged on a stage more than in a station.

“You understand publicity,” Mira said. “An attack draws sympathy. A scandal draws attention. Did you orchestrate either?”

Rellan laughed quickly. “I book appearances. I negotiate fees. I don’t drug my clients and toss them into mud.”

Yara’s gaze stayed fixed. “Drama sells. Booking spikes when tragedy trends.”

Rellan’s smile thinned. “If I wanted money, I’d sell interviews. I wouldn’t forge receipts that can be traced.”

Elias slid a map across the table, the blind spot marked. “Were you near Dreadpine Vale at 19:42 on the night of the attack?”

Rellan recoiled. “No. I was at rehearsal. Ask anyone. I’m not stupid.”

Second came Maris Pell, municipal procurement officer. Her hair was pinned tight, her hands folded as if she could keep the world orderly through posture.

Mira’s voice stayed calm. “Your phone was present in the blind spot during the staging window.”

Maris’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “My phone is on municipal property constantly. I manage contracts.”

Yara leaned forward. “Contracts like Hollowroot Supply Cooperative.”

Maris swallowed. “They were recommended. For efficiency. For festival stability.”

Celeste asked softly, “Recommended by whom?”

Maris hesitated, and Mira saw fear pass through her expression before it was replaced by a practiced blankness. “By people who said the town couldn’t afford mistakes,” she said. “I signed what I was told to sign.”

Third came Jerek Fenn, campaign organizer for a localist slate aligned with autonomy messaging. He wore a scarf patterned in Thornhollow knotwork and spoke like someone used to crowds.

“Why am I here?” he asked, polite and faintly amused. “You’re investigating a charity.”

“Because the fraud narrative benefits your platform,” Mira said. “Lanternway Relief is being framed as provincial meddling. Your slate promises to cut ties and ‘restore control.’”

Jerek’s smile did not move. “People want self-rule. That isn’t a crime.”

Yara’s voice sharpened. “Staging an animal attack is.”

Jerek spread his hands. “You have theories. Technical charts. No witness who says, ‘I saw Jerek Fenn in an elk costume.’”

Mira felt the sting because it held truth. The scam was designed to keep responsibility diffuse. Enough involvement to function, not enough clarity to convict without technical reconstruction and careful linkage.

After the interviews, the SCU stood outside the station in damp air. Festival banners fluttered weakly in the mist.

“They all benefit,” Elias said. “Different ways.”

Mira nodded. “But benefit is not the same as authorship.”

Yara looked toward the street where townsfolk walked with eyes forward. “The town wants Lysa ruined,” she said. “Not just robbed. That’s the point.”

Celeste’s voice was quiet. “Lysa is a bridge. A gate between Thornhollow and outsiders. Break the gate, and the town closes.”

Mira felt the case’s moral shape: a scam that used grief, tradition, and local pride as tools. The fraud was real, but the deeper theft was trust. She turned back toward the station.

“We push on the blind spot and the invoice template,” she said. “We force the mechanism into daylight.”

Yara’s eyes stayed on the mist. “And we prepare for them to answer with another convenient story.”

Chapter 10: Lysa’s Confession Without Guilt

Mira visited Lysa at the clinic late afternoon, when the waiting room quieted and the staff’s footsteps softened. A lantern sat unlit on the windowsill, as if even here Thornhollow rehearsed light without offering it.

Lysa looked cleaner than the first day, but not steadier. Her fingers worried the edge of her blanket. When Mira sat, Lysa’s gaze flicked to the door, where a nurse lingered a moment too long before leaving.

“I’m not here to accuse you,” Mira said. “I’m here because the evidence doesn’t match the story Thornhollow is telling. And because the charity scandal is being used to destroy you.”

Lysa’s mouth tightened. “They already decided what I am.”

Mira placed two documents on the bedside table: a lab summary and an invoice copy. “You were sedated with a stabilized compound. Your sleeve was cut before it was torn. And the invoices share a template. Someone manufactured paperwork.”

Lysa stared at the papers as if they might burn. “I didn’t forge anything.”

“I believe you,” Mira said. “But I need to know what you did sign, what you agreed to, and why.”

For a moment, Lysa held herself rigid. Then her face cracked, not dramatic, just exhausted. Tears gathered but did not fall yet.

“I signed blank authorizations,” she whispered. “I know how it sounds.”

Yara, standing near the door, shifted her weight, the anger in her posture easing into something closer to pity.

Mira kept her voice gentle. “Why would you do that?”

Lysa’s eyes finally spilled. “Because the searches were failing,” she said. “Families came to me. They said Thornwatch had no fuel, no overtime, no volunteers left. They said forms mattered more than finding their children. When someone offered to handle logistics quickly, I let them. I told myself it was temporary, that the missing mattered more than perfect paperwork.”

“Who offered?” Mira asked.

Lysa shook her head. “It came through my manager first. Then municipal contacts. People who spoke like they were doing me a favor. Like I should be grateful.”

“And the attack?” Yara asked quietly.

Lysa flinched. “I was warned,” she said. “A call, voice disguised. They said if I stopped signing, there would be a ‘forest incident.’ Something that would make me look cursed, unfit to represent Thornhollow. They said the town needed a clean face, not a provincial puppet.”

Mira felt cold anger settle into focus. “So you stayed silent.”

Lysa wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Because I love this town,” she said, voice breaking. “And it resents me for being visible. If I fought, they’d say I brought shame. If I confessed, they’d say I stole from the missing. I thought if I stayed useful, I could keep searches going.”

The confession hit Mira as an emotional truth that did not excuse the damage, but explained the leverage. Lysa had tried to keep hope alive by compromising her own safety. Someone had used that compassion like a handle.

Mira stood. “We can prove manipulation,” she said. “It may not save your reputation.”

Lysa looked toward the unlit lantern. “I don’t care about brochures,” she whispered. “I care about the missing. Promise me you won’t let them use my name to stop the searches.”

Mira paused. Promises were easy, outcomes were not. “I promise the truth will be on record,” she said. “And we will clear whoever they tried to sacrifice.”

As she left, Mira felt the case’s collateral damage taking shape. Even if they solved everything, Thornhollow’s judgment might not reverse. Fraud could be prosecuted. Shame was harder. It seeped into people and stayed.

Chapter 11: The Machine Behind the Elk Mask

Elias’s final linkage arrived not as a dramatic revelation, but as a line of metadata that refused to lie.

He traced the invoice template artifacts to municipal software, then to scanner identifiers embedded in uploaded documents. Finally, printer queue records matched a single device that produced multiple “vendor” receipts after hours.

“Thornwatch administrative terminal,” Elias said, voice tight. “Same printer ID across receipts tied to Lanternway Relief. Print timestamps align with donation drives and festival planning meetings.”

Grell brought his own confirmation. “The sedative profile matches veterinary-grade tranquilizer used for ranger livestock control,” he said. “Issued through Thornwatch stores. The batch markers match a specific shipment logged to Thornhollow.”

Yara’s hands curled. “So the fraud paperwork and the attack both touch Thornwatch resources.”

Mira requested a recorded meeting with Chief Marshal Creek. Thornwatch insisted Warden Graye attend. Graye arrived composed, but her eyes sharpened when Elias described the relay box and spoofed logs.

Mira laid out the evidence in sequence: staged tracks, sedative source, invoice template, printer metadata, procurement links, and the municipal phone ping at the blind spot. She added the false arrest of Joren Vale and the planted vial at Hedra’s shed.

Creek listened, face tight. When Mira finished, he stared at the table as if it might offer a way out.

“You don’t understand what it’s like here,” Creek said finally. His voice was low, strained. “When someone vanishes, the town looks at us like we chose it. Like we let it happen.”

Mira kept her tone steady. “So you managed evidence to protect the image of control.”

“To protect Thornhollow,” Creek snapped, then seemed to regret the sharpness.

Yara leaned toward the recorder. “Say it clearly, Chief Marshal. Did you participate in staging the incident and shaping the fraud narrative?”

Graye’s gaze cut toward Creek, warning, but the evidence had boxed the room. Creek’s shoulders sagged.

“Evidence was managed,” he admitted. “To keep panic down. To keep the festival from collapsing. People wanted someone to blame, and… we gave them someone.”

Mira felt both vindication and sorrow. “Who coordinated the broader operation?” she asked. “Who benefited politically?”

Creek swallowed. “Maris Pell approved Hollowroot. Jerek Fenn pushed the messaging. They said Lysa was becoming a provincial symbol, that she made Thornhollow look dependent. They wanted the town angry at the right target.”

Graye’s voice went cold. “That is enough.”

Mira did not raise her voice. “No, Warden. It isn’t. Not when a staged attack and forged documents were used to steer public anger.”

With the admission recorded and the technical evidence assembled, Mira filed warrants for Maris Pell and Jerek Fenn tied to procurement abuse, fraud facilitation, and the blind spot staging. Thornwatch officers moved to detain them. Some looked grimly relieved. Others looked furious that the story was slipping from their hands.

Collateral damage arrived immediately. Word spread through Thornhollow faster than formal statements. People shouted on corners. Some blamed Lysa anyway. Some blamed the SCU for “breaking” local order. Some blamed political rivals. Truth did not land as one clean narrative. It shattered into versions.

That night, lanterns flickered to life along Mosslight Row. Festival light against a town’s raw nerves. Yara stood beside Mira outside the station.

“Case is solved,” Yara said quietly. “But it feels like we tore open something that won’t heal.”

Mira watched the mist swallow the far end of the street. “We exposed a machine,” she said. “Machines can be rebuilt. That’s what haunts me.”

Chapter 12: A File Closed, A Town Unsettled

The SCU’s report went to provincial oversight with careful language and hard support: relay box seizure logs, spoof configuration analysis, device proximity reconstruction, printer metadata, bank routing, and toxicology tied to ranger stores. On paper, it held. In Thornhollow, paper was only one kind of truth.

Jerek Fenn was charged for coordinating the fraud narrative and leveraging municipal systems for political gain. Maris Pell was charged for procurement abuse and financial facilitation, with her presence at the blind spot during the staging window documented by device overlap. The relay box was removed and photographed in place before seizure, its hidden panel logged as concealment. The forged invoice template trail was tied to a specific Thornwatch terminal through printer ID and timestamp correlation. The tranquilizer batch audit showed shortages that could not be explained by legitimate use.

Joren Vale received a written clearance. Mira handed him the document outside the inn. He read it slowly, then folded it with careful hands.

“Paper won’t fix the way they looked at me,” he said.

“I know,” Mira replied. She did not offer comfort she could not guarantee.

Sister Hedra Malrow was not charged. Grell’s analysis confirmed the planted vial did not match the sedative in Lysa’s blood. Hedra watched Mira leave her cottage with a tired, level gaze.

“You found people to blame,” Hedra said. “Will the town accept them?”

“Some will,” Mira said. “Some won’t.”

Lysa Kett’s name was not cleared in the way she needed. Even with proof of manipulation, sponsors withdrew. Tour groups canceled. Her face vanished from brochures quietly, replaced by generic festival art. Thornhollow did not like being reminded it could be fooled, and it punished the reminder.

Mira visited Lysa once more before departure. Lysa sat by the clinic window, watching mist drift between pines.

“They’ll keep searching?” Lysa asked. Her voice was small, but steady.

“Officially, Lanternway Relief will be audited and reorganized,” Mira said. “That takes time. Families will keep looking regardless. They always do.”

Lysa nodded, eyes wet but not falling apart. “Time is what the missing don’t have.”

Outside, Thornwatch fractured in quieter ways. Some officers resented Creek’s admission, calling it betrayal. Others admitted, in low voices, that pressure to “keep Thornhollow calm” had been turning them into something they did not recognize. Warden Graye survived the immediate fallout by reframing the SCU as disruptors. She did not deny the arrests, she redirected their meaning into grievance.

At the inn on the final night, Celeste packed the Dwyer file copy back into her satchel. “This case echoes the old one,” she said. “But it doesn’t resolve it. It only proves the pattern existed.”

Elias shut down his tablet. “The relay box had wiped surfaces,” he said. “We caught coordinators, not every hand.”

Yara stared into her cooling tea. “And Thornhollow will decide which version of the story it can live with.”

In the morning, the SCU carriage rolled out under pale daylight. Lanterns for Mosslight hung ready, bright shapes against gray air. Townsfolk watched from doorways, wary but curious, as if the SCU were both necessary and dangerous.

Mira looked back once. Thornhollow softened into mist, almost beautiful, almost innocent. The file in her satchel was stamped solved, yet the ending felt unfinished. The scam was stopped, but the town’s hunger for a simple villain remained, and hunger always looked for a new meal.

As the road turned and Thornhollow vanished, Mira held one thought like a stone in her pocket: sometimes a case closes, and the truth still does not arrive where it is needed. It only waits, haunting the spaces people refuse to light.