“We will begin again with witness testimony.” Miranda said calmly after everyone had taken a seat, “In this case, I am the primary witness.”

“I witnessed it too~” Misty said, bouncing in her seat, pretending to be sitting down like everyone else was.

“Yes, you did.” Miranda said “But if you told the story we’d be here all day. I’ll tell it as I recall and if you need to add or correct anything, you may afterwards.”

“Now then. I tend to be a night owl, due to my investigative work.” Miranda began, “It was at some point after midnight by my guess that I could not remain in my bed any longer. I went down to the dining hall to see if Misty had recovered from her experience enough to help in my investigation.”

“I was calm!” Misty interjected “I was just so so happy to be back!”

“Right…” Miranda said, “Anyways, she agreed to help me search for secret rooms and we went downstairs together. When we reached the bottom floor, we could hear a soft noise coming from the throne area. We approached it, and saw Eliza and Silvia making out at the end of the hall. Eliza’s dress was laying in the middle of the hallway and… I did not see Silvia’s dress at all.”

“They did not notice us, and given Eliza’s injury they seemed unlikely to escape. I remained in the hall to keep an eye on them and asked Misty to fly up to the dorms and wake everyone. Misty, everyone was in the dorms, correct?”

“Yup yup!” Misty said cheerfully “Every single person was in their dorm room when I found them!”

“Good. Then here is how I believe it happened.” Miranda continued, “When we went to bed, Eliza decided to return to the bottom floor with her mirror. The mirror had been moved from the hallway to the front of the throne and I cannot imagine anyone else who might do that.”

“Somehow, either by luck or our Leader feeling incredibly sorry for the poor girl, it actually worked and she opened a secret passage. Meanwhile, Silvia must have noticed Eliza leaving her room and followed her. Knowing that Eliza would be alone and in no shape to struggle, she decided it would be the perfect time to strike.”

“She followed Eliza into the hallway and used the magic chloroform to enslave her. She ordered Eliza to strip, and used Eliza’s dress to hide the enslavement tool. Her plan was likely to leave the hallway and seal Eliza within. By the time we would have discovered the entrance to the hidden room ourselves, we would have had no idea when or how Eliza had been enslaved.”

“Unfortunately for her…” Miranda concluded, “She must have been too tempted to resist having a little fun with her new slave before sealing the entrance. She likely thought she had all the time in the world… When in reality, she only had enough time to seal her own fate.”

All the women in the room looked over at Silvia. It seemed like Miranda’s story tied everything together. Almost everything. Eliza’s reflection didn’t seem to agree, but at the same time… It didn’t seem like it could have been anyone else.

“Well?” Miranda said looking at Silvia, “I am sorry but you were caught red handed. There isn’t anything I can do for you. Would you like to confess now?”

“I… I didn’t do it…” Silvia said timidly, looking around at everyone else. Her expression read somewhere between guilt and desperation to her at least. But… What the mirror said kept nagging at her. “Please just let me tell my side of the story!”

“We don’t need to waste everyone’s time rehashing the same thing again.” Miranda said, folding her arms, “The leader is watching this for their entertainment, after all. We don’t want to bore them… And besides, most of us haven’t had more than a few hours of sleep and I imagine they want to get back to it.”

“I think we should let her.” Anne said suddenly. She couldn’t keep quiet. “I want to hear it!”

Everyone turned towards her. She could feel their irritation… They had all been disturbed from their sleep and dragging out this out longer than it needed to be was going to irritate them further but…

“B-Boss, back me up!” Anne said, looking towards Olivia “I don’t think Silvia did it!”

“You were the first one to say she did it!” Olivia replied skeptically, “What’s gotten into you?”

***

Anne was baffled as she looked into the mirror. “What do you mean Silvia didn’t do it? We all caught her red handed!”

“Like I said. I heard the whole thing.” Eliza replied from the mirror. “I couldn’t see anything, because it was outside the view of a mirror, but I could hear a voice. It said ‘does this smell like chloroform to you’ and then ‘remove your dress for me’ and finally ‘stand in that room down there, and make out with the first person who speaks with you.’”

“A voice?” Anne asked, “Who’s was it?”

“I don’t know any of you.” Eliza shrugged “But it sounded like this.”

Eliza repeated the lines again in a different voice. But… It was muffled. As though she was listening to it through several layers of fabric. She couldn’t tell who’s voice it was either.

“Hold on! I’ll grab my boss. She’s good with this so-”

“NO!!!” Eliza cried out, freezing Anne in her tracks.

“No? But Boss might be able to figure out who’s voice that was.”

“No… Never tell anyone about me!” Eliza urged. She looked serious. Very… Serious. He expression seemed to float somewhere between angry and… Afraid.

“Why not?” Anne asked.

Eliza took a long deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m… Contagious.”

“Contagious?” Anne repeated, now feeling her discomfort growing. “W-What do you mean?”

“In the world I’m from… We’re from… People like me aren’t… Very uncommon.” She said slowly, “We’re… Mirror people. Puppets, almost. I… I’m aware. I’m alive… Sort of. But… I can only go where Eliza goes.”

“I am a perfect mirror of Eliza. Opposite of her in nearly every way. Identical to her in many ways as well but… The important thing is that I am evil.”

Anne was speechless. Why was she telling her that? She’s evil!? Why would anyone just go and say something like that about themselves?

“Yes, yes. I know. Very shocking.” Eliza said dismissively, “I used to plot to replace her. But… Given that everyone on your side of the mirror are slaves now. I’d rather stay on this side.”

“Okay…?” Anne said, still not getting what she was being told. “So why can’t I tell anyone about you?”

“That is how the curse spreads.” Eliza replied, “Your reflection hasn’t started moving so you’re immune. Your Leader is immune as well. But… Whenever someone learns about the mirror world, if they aren’t immune their reflection will become one of us.”

“Its taboo in our world to speak of it, to keep it from spreading, but by the time they figured out what causes the curse to spread it was too well known to fully get rid of.” Eliza explained, “Eliza would be very displeased if I spread her curse over something as silly as a game.”

“But you put me at risk?” Anne asked.

“That’s right.” Eliza said, no hint of remorse in her voice, “I decided it was worth the risk to expose just one of you to me. If she loses the game here, she might try to educate herself more and… Well… The more intelligent she becomes, the less intelligent I become.”

“You cannot tell anyone how you know what you know.” Eliza said firmly “With so many girls here, at least a few of them won’t be immune.”

“Well, I mean… I heard magic works differently here. Maybe the curse doesn’t even work anymore.” Anne suggested.

“Do you really want to take that chance?” Eliza asked, her voice turning grim.

“I guess not…” Anne relented. “I’ll… Figure something out.”

***

“Boss, please! Trust me on this!” Anne urged, “I know something doesn’t add up. I just want to hear a little more so I can figure it out!”

Olivia took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting out a long sigh. “Alright. Lets hear her out.”

“I’m kinda curious too!” Misty said, bouncing in her chair still.

“I will be cross if this wastes our Leader’s time. However, I will permit the villain to speak.” Dominya growled.

“I have no strong opinions either way.” Raven said flatly “I will do what Mistress says to do.”

Anne let out a sigh of relief. That was a majority… They could hear Silvia’s story. She just hoped Silvia knew something they could use…

“Thank you.” Silvia said softly. “I’ll begin where we split up last night.”

“I lead Eliza up the stairs to the dormitories, and to our room. There wasn’t enough mana in the environment to cast a proper healing spell on her, so her injury hadn’t fully healed and it could have been exacerbated by almost any wrong move.”

“I tried to help her undress herself for the night but… When I tried to help her undress, I noticed that her dress included a corset. It may have been applying pressure to her injury and releasing it could have had unpredictable results.” Silvia recounted, “I helped her get into bed with her dress still on, and I prepared for bed myself. I removed my robes and put them away for the night. I then went to sleep.”

“At some point during the night, I heard a door slam, and woke to find Eliza missing.” She continued, “I peeked out of the doorway, and caught a glimpse of her dress as she rounded the corner to the stairs. The way she was running… It would have been horribly unsafe. So… I followed her.”

“I saw her again on the second floor, rounding the corner to the other stairwell, then on the first floor, I found her in the secret passage… Naked.” Silvia said, pausing for a moment. “I thought it was weird that she was suddenly naked, but if she was in trouble, I needed to check on her.”

“I didn’t see her dress in the hallway, and I don’t think I would have missed it.” Silvia continued, “I was watching my feet as I walked. I was barefoot and wanted to be careful. When I reached Eliza, I asked if she was okay, and she turned around to face me. She… Had a lustful look in her eye.”

Silvia then shuddered “When she stepped towards me, I could see her body contort. She tried to move in a way her injury wouldn’t let her. And… If she kept doing that… She could make it worse. So I let her grab me and I did my best to inspect her back with my hands while she… Kissed me.”

“That’s when all of you showed up.” She concluded.

“Let me see if I have your story straight.” Miranda said after Silvia finished speaking.

“Everything happened exactly the way I described a minute ago. Except, you just didn’t enslave her. Is that about right?”

“That’s right…” Silvia said softly.

“And you saw no one else? You didn’t pass by anyone who could have gotten to her first?”

“No… I didn’t…” Silvia said again.

“And we’re in agreement that everyone was in their rooms except for you and Eliza before I found you two?”

“That… That’s right…” Silvia replied, a defeated sound in her voice.

“I told you all this was a waste of time.” Miranda said, “She didn’t even come up with an interesting story to dissect. If she’s not willing to confess, I think it’s time to go ahead and vote.”

“Hold on.” Olivia said, “Anne said this didn’t add up. We should ask her if she noticed anything. Anne?”

“Th-Thanks Boss…” Anne replied sheepishly. She wasn’t sure she had anything at all but she needed something… Anything she could cling to.

“Um… What…” she stammered slowly “What if Silvia was enslaved?”

“Y-Yeah!” She said, confidence returning to her. It was completely made up. She had nothing to back it up with, but she could keep them talking a little longer. “Maybe she was set up by the real villain! We should discuss that possibility, shouldn’t we?”