The evening had settled quietly over Bellgrave by the time Team One returned to the inn.
They had spent most of the day visiting the families of the previous victims, and although they had finally discovered a meaningful connection, Cassian did not look satisfied.
His notebook remained open on the table in front of him.
Several pages were covered with names, ages, symptoms, church visits, and descriptions of the silver ornaments each victim had received.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Everyone seemed to be waiting for Cassian to explain what he had been thinking.
Cassian slowly turned through the pages until he reached the notes concerning the groom they had seen at the church.
The young man was around twenty-eight years old.
He had the same brown eyes with the faint blue shade around the iris.
He had recently visited Father Alistair and received a silver object from him.
More importantly, he had received it shortly before the next expected occurrence of the coffin.
Cassian placed his finger against the page.
"We should begin by watching the groom."
Damon leaned slightly forward in his chair.
"You believe he might be the next victim?"
Cassian looked at him for a moment before answering.
"I believe he matches enough of the pattern to deserve our attention."
Mira studied the notes carefully.
"But we still don't know whether the pattern actually identifies the next victim."
"That is exactly why we cannot act on assumptions."
Cassian closed the notebook halfway and looked around the table.
"We watch him without interfering, and we continue searching for anything we may have overlooked."
Owen nodded slowly.
"Then what about the missing time between the church and the graveyard?"
Cassian's expression changed slightly.
"That is the other problem we need to understand."
Lyra looked confused.
"You mean the strange difference between the actual distance and the families' memories?"
Cassian nodded.
"The church and graveyard are only a few minutes apart, but the families remember spending almost two hours on that journey."
Damon frowned as he considered the information.
"Could they have taken another route without realizing how long it was?"
"We already checked every reasonable route."
Cassian turned the notebook toward them.
"Even the longest route would not explain nearly two missing hours."
Mira looked at the page.
"Then perhaps they stopped somewhere along the way."
"I asked them about that possibility."
"And none of them remembered stopping?"
"Not one of them."
The team became quiet again.
Cassian looked down at the notes.
"Every family remembers carrying the coffin, walking toward the graveyard, and eventually arriving there."
Damon looked puzzled.
"Then what exactly are we missing?"
Cassian lifted his eyes.
"That is what bothers me."
He slowly closed the notebook.
"If something unusual had happened during those two hours, they should remember something."
Owen considered his words.
"Unless whatever happened did not feel unusual to them."
Cassian remained silent for a moment.
That possibility had already crossed his mind.
Perhaps the problem was not simply where the missing time had gone.
Perhaps the problem was that the people involved had no reason to realize that anything was wrong.
Mira looked toward Cassian.
"Do you think their memories were affected somehow?"
"I think we should keep that possibility open."
Cassian's answer remained deliberately cautious.
"We don't have enough evidence to say that yet."
Damon leaned back against his chair.
"So we have two problems now."
Cassian looked at him.
"Which two?"
"The missing time and the silver ornaments."
Cassian nodded.
"Those are the two things we need to connect."
Mira looked at the list of victims.
"Every victim received an ornament before their death."
"And every victim continued wearing it afterward."
"None of the families ever recovered those ornaments."
Cassian nodded again.
"Which means the ornaments may remain important even after death."
Damon looked toward the window.
"The next victim should still be wearing one if the same pattern continues."
Cassian's expression became thoughtful.
"That is one possibility."
Damon looked at him.
"You don't sound convinced."
"I am not."
Cassian reopened his notebook.
"We have only studied the people who died. We haven't studied everyone who received these ornaments."
Mira looked at him carefully.
"What are you suggesting?"
Before Cassian could answer, Damon suddenly leaned toward the table.
"Wait."
Everyone turned toward him.
Damon pointed toward the names written across the page.
"We are assuming the groom is the next victim because he matches the pattern."
Cassian nodded.
"That is our current assumption."
Damon shook his head.
"But what if he isn't?"
Cassian's eyes narrowed slightly.
Damon continued speaking while studying the notes.
"What if there is another person in Bellgrave who matches the same pattern?"
Mira frowned.
"You mean another person with the same unusual eyes and similar age?"
"That, along with the church visit and the silver ornament."
Owen slowly looked at the list.
"We haven't checked how many people received those ornaments."
Damon nodded.
"Exactly."
He looked back at Cassian.
"We only know that the victims received them."
Cassian remained silent.
Damon continued with a more serious expression.
"What if the groom is only one of several people who fit those conditions?"
The room became unusually quiet.
Cassian looked down at the notebook.
Two possibilities had already begun to form in his mind.
The groom could be the next victim.
Or he could simply be another person who happened to match the pattern.
Then Damon asked the question that made everything worse.
"What if neither of them is the next victim?"
Cassian slowly raised his eyes.
Damon continued before anyone could interrupt.
"What if there is a third person who has the same features, visited the church, and received another silver ornament?"
Nobody answered.
Cassian's expression remained still.
But his fingers tightened around the edge of the notebook.
They had spent days searching for a pattern.
They had finally found one.
And now they were discovering that the same pattern might belong to more than one person.
That meant their discovery had not identified a victim.
It had only identified a group of possibilities.
Cassian closed the notebook.
"We need to search again."
Owen looked at him.
"Across the entire village?"
"Across every place where we can reasonably find the information."
Mira understood what he meant.
"We should divide the team."
Cassian nodded.
"Two people will watch the groom."
Damon immediately looked toward Owen.
"I will take that assignment."
Cassian nodded.
"You and Owen will stay with him."
Owen gave a small nod.
"We will make sure he doesn't notice us."
Cassian then turned toward Mira and Lyra.
"You will continue asking about recent church visitors."
Mira nodded.
"We will look specifically for people who received silver ornaments."
"Yes, but don't restrict yourselves to the ornaments."
Cassian looked at both of them.
"Find out their ages, their eye color, and when they visited the church."
Lyra understood immediately.
"You want every detail that could match the previous victims."
"Exactly."
Damon looked at Cassian.
"And what will you do?"
Cassian picked up his notebook.
"I will compare the village records with everything we have already collected."
He paused before adding one final instruction.
"I want to know how many people could possibly fit this pattern."
The next morning, Team One separated according to Cassian's instructions.
Owen and Damon positioned themselves where they could watch the groom's home without attracting attention.
The young man appeared completely ordinary.
He left his house shortly after breakfast and spoke casually with several neighbors.
Later, he stopped at a small shop near the village square and spent several minutes talking with the shopkeeper.
There was nothing unusual about him.
He looked healthy, relaxed, and completely unaware that anyone was watching him.
Damon kept his attention on the silver ornament around the man's neck.
"He is still wearing it."
Owen glanced toward the young man.
"The previous victims also wore theirs constantly."
Damon nodded.
"That is what makes this difficult."
Owen looked at him.
"What do you mean?"
"We don't know whether the ornament is a warning, a mark, or something else entirely."
Owen remained quiet.
The young man suddenly laughed at something his younger brother said.
Damon watched him carefully.
"He doesn't look like someone who knows he is in danger."
"Perhaps he isn't."
Damon looked at Owen.
"Or perhaps he simply doesn't know yet."
Meanwhile, Mira and Lyra continued their search through another part of Bellgrave.
They did not ask villagers about the deaths.
They did not mention the coffin.
They simply asked whether anyone had recently visited Father Alistair and received a blessing or religious ornament.
At first, their questions produced nothing useful.
Most villagers mentioned ordinary visitors who attended prayers or asked for blessings.
Then an elderly woman remembered a young man who had visited the church several days earlier.
Mira immediately became more attentive.
"Do you remember how old he was?"
The woman thought for several seconds.
"He looked around twenty-seven or twenty-eight."
Lyra exchanged a quick glance with Mira.
"Did Father Alistair give him anything?"
The woman nodded.
"I believe he gave him a small silver bracelet."
Mira's expression remained calm.
"Do you remember what his eyes looked like?"
The woman smiled faintly.
"He had brown eyes."
Mira waited.
"Was there anything unusual about them?"
The woman's expression changed as she searched her memory.
"There was a little blue around them."
Mira and Lyra looked at each other.
Neither of them needed to say anything.
They had found another person.
By late afternoon, the team had returned to the inn.
Cassian was already waiting for them.
Mira placed her notes on the table.
"We found someone who matches the pattern."
Cassian looked up immediately.
"Tell me everything."
"He is around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old."
Mira opened her notebook.
"He has brown eyes with the same faint blue shade around the iris."
Cassian remained silent.
"He visited the church several days ago and received a silver bracelet from Father Alistair."
Cassian's expression became noticeably more serious.
"Is he healthy?"
"According to his family, he is completely healthy."
"Anything unusual about him?"
"Nothing that we noticed."
Cassian looked down at his notes.
A few minutes later, Owen and Damon entered the room.
Damon immediately understood from the expressions around the table that something had happened.
"You found someone."
Mira nodded.
"And he matches the pattern."
Damon slowly looked toward Cassian.
"Then we have a problem."
Cassian looked at him.
"We already had one."
Damon shook his head.
"Now we have two."
He sat down.
"The groom matches the pattern."
Mira added quietly.
"And this man matches it too."
Cassian looked at both names.
One was the groom.
The other was a man who had received a silver bracelet.
Both were healthy.
Both had the unusual eyes.
Both had visited the church.
Both had received silver ornaments.
And neither had any idea that they might be connected to the case.
Cassian remained silent.
Mira looked at him.
"What are we supposed to do now?"
Cassian did not answer immediately.
He turned the pages of his notebook again.
The previous records showed one victim at a time.
One coffin.
One body.
One disappearance.
But now there were two possible victims standing inside the same pattern.
Damon finally broke the silence.
"What if there are two deaths this time?"
Cassian looked at him.
"Then we need to know why the pattern has changed."
Mira shook her head.
"But what if the pattern hasn't changed?"
Cassian looked toward her.
"What do you mean?"
"What if only one of them is actually connected to the next coffin?"
Cassian slowly nodded.
"That is possible."
Damon frowned.
"And what if neither of them is?"
Cassian's eyes hardened.
Damon continued carefully.
"What if there is someone else we haven't found yet?"
The question remained in the room.
Cassian stared at the two names.
His expression gradually changed.
The confusion remained, but frustration had begun replacing it.
They had finally discovered a connection between the victims.
Now that same connection was becoming too broad to trust.
Cassian stood and walked toward the window.
The church could be seen in the distance.
Its bell tower rose above the surrounding houses.
He remembered Father Alistair's calm expression.
The blessing.
The silver object.
The groom.
Everything had seemed ordinary.
Perhaps that was exactly why it bothered him.
Cassian's thoughts moved through another possibility.
What if Father Alistair knew they were searching for a pattern?
What if he had deliberately given similar ornaments to several people?
If one of them died, the others could become an explanation.
If someone questioned him about the silver ornament, he could simply point toward another person who had received one.
He could say that nothing had happened to that person.
And suddenly the connection would no longer look like evidence.
It would look like coincidence.
Cassian's expression darkened.
He slowly turned away from the window.
"What if this is meant to confuse us?"
Damon looked at him.
"You mean the two people?"
Cassian nodded.
"Possibly."
Mira frowned.
"Do you think Father Alistair is deliberately creating false connections?"
"I don't know."
Cassian's voice remained controlled.
"And I will not accuse him without evidence."
He returned to the table.
"But we cannot ignore the possibility."
Owen looked at the two names.
"Then we should watch both."
Cassian nodded.
"Yes."
Damon looked surprised.
"Even if one of them is only a distraction?"
"Especially then."
Cassian opened his notebook again.
"We don't know which one is important."
Mira looked at him.
"And we still don't know whether there is a third person."
Cassian nodded.
"That is why the search continues."
Damon sighed.
"So we watch the groom, watch the second man, and search for anyone else who fits."
Cassian looked at him.
"That is exactly what we will do."
Damon leaned back.
"This case is becoming more complicated by the hour."
Cassian gave him a tired look.
"It was complicated before we arrived."
Damon smiled faintly.
"At least now we know why."
Cassian did not smile.
His attention remained on the two names.
He had expected the silver mark to lead them closer to the truth.
Instead, it had opened another door.
Behind that door were two possible victims.
Perhaps three.
Perhaps even more.
And if they overlooked only one person, everything they believed about the case could become useless.
Cassian frowned.
He finally understood what frightened him most.
The danger was not simply that someone might die.
The danger was that someone might be deliberately giving them enough clues to make them believe they understood the case.
If Father Alistair was innocent, they could destroy the life of an innocent man by following the wrong pattern.
If he was guilty, then he might already know exactly how they would investigate him.
Cassian's fingers tightened around his notebook.
"This case is misleading us."
Nobody replied.
Cassian looked toward the church once more.
One day remained before the next coffin was expected.
Two people now matched the pattern.
And somewhere in Bellgrave, there might be another person they had not yet noticed.
Cassian's expression hardened.
They would watch both.
They would keep searching.
And until they knew exactly what was happening, they would trust nothing blindly.
—by Aurea;"The moment a pattern begins to repeat, never assume it is leading you toward the truth."