The High Court of Justice was a cathedral of cold marble and colder hearts. Today, it was a theater. The gallery was packed with the elite, their fans fluttering like the wings of vultures waiting for a carcass.
Eliza stood at the center of the pit. She felt a sharp, rhythmic stabbing in her wrist. Drip. Drip. Drip. Every heartbeat was a grain of sand she would never get back. Across from her, the Baron sat in the defendant's dock, not as a prisoner, but as a martyr. He had traded his prison rags for a suit of mourning black, looking every bit the grieving patriarch.
The High Magistrate, a man whose face was a map of ancient, etched wrinkles, struck his gavel. The sound vibrated in Eliza's marrow.
"Baron Vane," the Magistrate intoned. "You charge that Lady Eliza has used the dark arts of House Thorne to subvert the Duke's will and frame you for treason?"
"I do, My Lord," the Baron said, his voice cracking with practiced emotion. "I watched that girl grow up. She was sweet, gentle... until she began consorting with Silas Thorne. She didn't find a cure for the Duke; she found a leash. She has bewitched her father into seeing enemies where there are only protectors."
A murmur of horror rippled through the crowd. Eliza felt a wave of nausea. The Hourglass Mark on her wrist flared a sickly, charcoal black.
"Lies," Silas growled from the observer's bench. He was held back by two bailiffs, his knuckles white as he gripped the railing.
"Lady Eliza," the Magistrate turned his cold gaze toward her. "The Baron presents a ledger—not the one you showed at the gala, but a second one. It suggests you were the one siphoning funds into Thorne accounts. How do you respond to the charge that you are the architect of your father's ruin?"
Eliza stepped forward. Her vision blurred for a second, the Collector's smoky silhouette standing just behind the Magistrate's chair, a silent auditor of her remaining seconds.
"My Lord," Eliza began, her voice thin but sharpening with every word. "The Baron speaks of 'protection' the way a wolf speaks of a sheepfold. He claims I found a leash? I found a mirror. And what I saw reflected in him was a man who measured my father's life in gold coins."
"A dramatic speech!" the Baron countered, standing up. "But where is the proof? You claim I poisoned him, yet the 'antidote' you used is an unknown substance provided by a Thorne. You didn't save him, Eliza—you replaced one ailment with a magical dependency!"
"Is that your argument, Baron?" Eliza challenged, her eyes flashing with a terrifying, dying light. "That health is a crime if it doesn't come from your hand? My father stands today. He breathes. He remembers. Are you suggesting the truth is a 'dark art' simply because it's inconvenient for your greed?"
"I suggest," the Baron sneered, leaning over the rail, "that a girl who 'predicts' the future with such accuracy isn't a daughter. She's a witch. How did you know about the safe, Eliza? How did you know about the apothecary? Unless you've been dancing with shadows long before you met Silas Thorne."
The room went silent. This was the trap. If she explained her knowledge, she revealed her regression and the Hourglass would shatter. If she stayed silent, she was a witch.
The pain in her wrist became an agonizing roar. "I didn't need shadows to see your heart, Baron," she gasped, clutching the railing to stay upright. "I only needed to be a victim once to learn how a murderer moves. You ask how I knew? Because a man like you is as predictable as the rot in a fallen tree. You don't innovate; you just repeat your sins until someone is brave enough to stop you."
"She's stalling!" Maryan look s the screamed from the gallery, her face twisted. "Look at her! She's trembling! The dark magic is draining her!"
It was true. Eliza's knees buckled. The sand in her mind was a torrential downpour now. She looked at Silas. He looked ready to tear the building down with his bare hands.
"My Lord," Eliza whispered, her voice failing. "If the cost of the truth is my life, then let the balance be struck. But do not let the man who held the pillow over my father's face be the one to write the verdict."
The Magistrate leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "You speak as if you are dying, Lady Eliza."
"I have died once for this family's honor," she said, a single tear of blood escaping her eye—the Collector's final tax. "I would find it very tedious to do it a second time just to satisfy a Baron's ego. If you want proof of his guilt, look not at my 'witchcraft,' but at his shadow. Even now, he carries the seal he used to liquidate the mines. It's in his inner pocket. The seal he claimed was lost."
The Baron froze. His hand instinctively twitched toward his chest.
"Search him," the Magistrate commanded.
"No! This is a violation!" the Baron shrieked as the guards swarmed him.
They pulled a heavy, gold signet ring from his vest—the Seal of the Northern Mines. The very one used to authorize the fraudulent ledgers.
The silence that followed was absolute.
The Hourglass Mark on Eliza's wrist suddenly cooled. The black sand turned back to gold, but the top bulb was nearly empty. She had won the argument, but the tax had been paid in years, not hours.
Eliza collapsed into Silas's arms as he leapt over the railing.
"The truth is a heavy crown, Silas," she wheezed, her head resting against his chest. "I think I'm ready to take it off for a while."
"Not yet, Eliza," Silas whispered, his voice cracking. "The Baron is down, but the Collector is still standing in the corner. We aren't done until the sand stops falling."
"Then turn the glass over," Eliza murmured before the darkness claimed her. "And let's start a new hour."