Chapter V

Magi is a hereditary trait that enables people to use magic. Many experts believe that the trait started as a genetic mutation in some people and that all of the magus in the world right now is a direct descendants of them. Though the theory has never been confirmed for sure, a lot of people strongly believe in it.

Babies born with magi are born like a blank canvas. Aside from inheriting their parents' skin colour, they were born with hair and eyes in the lightest shade of grey. If their magi matured and developed, the colour would change into colours that would best suit their magical ability, and in the rare case of people having a "frozen" magi, a case where the magi never mature and develop and thus making the person without magic, the grey would stay for the rest of their life.

Sylva's hair is as dark as the feather of a raven and his eyes are the most striking shade of green. In the past, it was believed that magus with the same colour combination as Sylva's always turns out to be evil, but the stereotype is slowly disappearing today.

For Sylva, though, the stereotype might as well be real, as he was born into a family with a long history of owning one of the kingdom's largest organised crime groups. Everyone knows that they are pulling the strings of most politicians like puppeteer, but it's a secret no one dares to speak aloud.

Sylva Han was born in the Kingdom of Astevell with the name He QingYue; given name QingYue, surname He. His race is of a native ethnic race in the kingdom, and his family has been one of the most influential families there for generations. To Sylva, though, they are still just a criminal.

Listening to Ava's story about her past reminds him of his childhood, to some extent.

Aside from the name-to-number changing and days-long time-out, everything Ava had told them hit close to home. The rigorous study and training, the public shaming, and even the hitting were things that he had to endure throughout his childhood. His parents told him that it would make him strong and tough, and the heir to the He Family has to be both.

Sylva hates everything about his childhood. He didn't get to play as the other kids did, didn't get the affection that children's storybooks told about, and didn't even get appreciation whenever he did something good. It was only natural that the heir of their family is perfect in any way, they would say.

When he misbehaved, though, he would get yelled at, then they would hit him, lock him in a room, and starve him for the night. He could never forget the day he got his father so angry, he hit him until he had broken his arm.

If he had the option, he wanted to have nothing to do with his family. But then, he turned sixteen and they tattooed his back with the symbol of their family, and he knew that he would forever be affiliated with them, it doesn't matter if he had quit his family's organisation, had his name removed from his family registry, and changed his name—Sylva is, and will forever be, affiliated with them.

Ever since Sylva decided to start over and moved to a faraway kingdom, he had never spoken of his family to anyone. To this day, he's afraid of them. He's afraid that even though he is far away from them, they can still hear him. They live inside his head, it doesn't matter where he actually is.

It's brave for Ava to recount everything she had experienced in what must have been hell for her, and Sylva admires her for that. Ava talks about dissociating as her coping mechanism, but he believes that no one can fully dissociate when they're talking, especially when they're talking about their bad memories. He knows that everything that she's talking about is playing inside her head, and she must have been reliving everything as she speaks.

Sylva isn't very good with words. Being raised in a criminal family didn't teach him how to connect with others as much as how to intimidate others. He wants to stop the interrogation, to let the girl rest for now, and continue tomorrow, but he's afraid that he might say something wrong and offend Ava again; after all, she doesn't ask them to stop the interrogation.

Sylva glances at his watch, it is 4 PM and they are in no rush with this case, so he takes his phone and types on it, then slides the phone in front of Seth when Ava is still thinking about what to tell them next. The Alchemist looks at him with a confused look on his face for a second before checking to see what Sylva had written for him, and smiles.

"What do you say we continue this tomorrow, Ava?" Seth asks, "A lot of things happened today, you must be tired."

Ava shakes her head. "I'll be okay. I can continue."

"Perhaps so, but you still need to get some rest. We, all of us in this room, need to get some rest," Seth tries again.

This time, Ava nods hesitantly. "So, what do I do now?"

Seth was about to answer her when Frans held her hand up and approached Ava to explain the procedure to the girl. Nodding, Seth turns to Sylva with a smile.

"I think she got this," Seth says, "Shall we head outside, then?"

One thing leads to another, Sylva ends up following Seth to the autopsy room. He really doesn't know why he agreed on seeing the gargoyles just because he had never seen them before, but Seth had been so convincing in telling him that it would be an "unforgettable learning experience", calling them that doesn't do it justice.

While he is disgusted, he doesn't feel sick at the sight of the deformed creatures. It seems growing up in a criminal household had its use, after all, he thought as he compares himself to the gagging man beside him.

"Are you done with the interrogation, Boss?" A woman, whom Sylva assumes is a subordinate of Seth, asks. She nods to Sylva and he nods back.

"Done for today, yes," Seth answers, "anything new?"

"I was just about to send the medical cabinet contents' analysis result to you." She hands him an envelope.

Seth thanks her and immediately opens the envelope. He hands some of the files to Sylva to read and sighs as soon as he's done skimming the report.

"They are all deadly poison," Seth grunts, shaking his head.

"But not just any kind of poison." Sylva knows what exactly those are. He had his fair share of them when he was younger as well. "The kind of poison that you can take in small doses to build resistance on."

Seth raises his eyebrows, "Do you think these are the medicines that Ava said she took every morning?"

"Should we test her blood?" The woman asks.

"It's a good idea," Sylva nods and turns to Seth, "you should probably be with her when they draw her blood. She'd be less scared, I think."

Sylva is left alone in the autopsy room with Seth's subordinate and some other investigators from the Alchemist and Magus department after Seth leaves in a hurry. He shifts his gaze away from Seth's subordinate who has been staring at him in silence for a couple of minutes.

"Can I help you?" He finally asks her.

"I was just thinking you look very familiar," she says, "but yes, you can help them, actually. Your people are currently trying to find him on the database." She points to a group of Magus in the room.

He nodded to her and was about to walk away to help his colleague when he was stopped by the woman.

"Sorry, I forgot, where is my manner? My name is Erica Wang from the Alchemy Department."

He shakes her hand. "Sylva Han from the Magus Department."

The war with the Alkemian lasted for a hundred years and the Alkemian had their colonies all over the world. Looking into the database of Alkemian war criminals is headache-inducing, to say the least. Even after they eliminated a lot of people based on their search criteria, there are still a lot of them left.

"Father"'s body suggests that he had used a permanent cosmetic transformation spell before he was killed. Although they can roughly transform him into most of his original features, reversing a permanent transformation spell is quite an impossible task to be done to a dead body.

Reversing a permanent transformation spell requires a special potion and since dead people can't drink and have the potion spread throughout their entire body by their blood, the only choice they have is to reverse them through spellwork, and reversing with spellwork can only last for an hour. Not to mention they need to be constantly scanning the person's original face for them to get a match with the faces inside the database, so the Magus takes turns on scanning and turning "Father".

It was eight o'clock in the evening when Seth came back to the autopsy room and dismissed the group of Magus who seemed to have forgotten about the time. Sylva isn't happy about having to leave for the night since he hasn't made any progress on Father's identification, but he obeys and heads for home.

He is greeted by the sight of a rainstorm as soon as he gets to the ground floor. He says his goodbyes and politely rejects a couple of offers from his colleagues for a ride home, and instead, casts a water shield spell on himself and walks.

Taking the long way home, his feet bring him to an Astian restaurant four blocks away from his apartment. The food there is average-tasting, but at least they taste like home. He hates to admit it, but he misses home sometimes. He just doesn't want the chance of passing by one of his family members or lackeys, so he never came home. He orders the same thing as he always does, eats, orders a take-out for tomorrow's breakfast, and heads home.

Sylva loves walking home because he notices a lot of little things when he walks, like how the bakery he frequently goes to in the morning would always forgets to flip their sign every night, or how the stray dog that always sleeps in the corner of his apartment building starts taking care of a kitten.

Tonight, though, he notices something alarming in the dark alley between his apartment and the townhouse beside it. He sees someone lying on the ground, soaked from head to toe.

He takes out his phone, alarms the general department that he found someone, and approaches the person. With a flick of his fingers, he casts a water shield spell on them and crouches down to look closer.

It's a young man around the age of 18 to 20. He is wearing a dirty brown linen shirt and shorts, with his arms and legs full of cuts. But what's most confusing for Sylva is the fact that his shoes look like they have just gotten out of a muddy area.

The City of Westhill has no muddy area, it is the biggest metropolitan city in the Kingdom of Arlinshill. Even the "urban forest" has a lawn and seldom has any soil peeking out of it. The mud on his shoes and legs suggests that he was somewhere with a lot of soil and mud, somewhere not Westhill.

"A runaway perhaps?" Sylva wonders, "At this age?"

The young man's eyes slowly blink open, startling the magus. He steadies himself and shakes him lightly.

"Are you okay?" Sylva asks, "Do you know where you are right now?"

The young man's gaze is bleary, and he blinks slowly a couple more times before closing his eyes and sniffing the air.

"Food," he croaks.

Sylva looks down at his take-out bag and immediately nods. He dries the young man along with the ground beneath them with a spell and puts the bag down before helping the young man sit up. He takes out his water bottle from his backpack and hands it to the other man along with the take-out.

The young man inhales the food given to him at a speed that he worries would make him choke, but he doesn't say anything as he watches, it was obvious that he has not eaten for days. The stranger was a spoonful away from finishing the meal when he suddenly shed a tear, surprising the Magus.

Awkwardly, Sylva reaches out and pats the stranger's shoulder, giving him a comforting squeeze and telling him gently to finish the meal. The stranger nods weakly, his tears are flowing heavily from his eyes and he sobs uncontrollably. Sylva's heart aches at the sight.

Giving up to his soft side, Sylva decides to bring the stranger home and let him stay for the night. He can always bring him to the office tomorrow, he thinks to himself. Making the young man stay in one of their cells feels wrong to him. He was raised in a criminal household, he knows how to take care of himself from danger, he'd be fine, he tells himself.

He told the general department that he would bring the stranger in tomorrow before setting his phone down.

When he's out of the shower, the stranger has cleaned up as well and has changed into his old pyjama. The young man is clearly a magus. It's easy to know this fact by seeing the colour of his eyes; a vivid shade of purple. His hair is a much deeper shade of violet that appears black until it's hit by light. This means he must have been terribly hungry for not even using his magic to shield himself from the rain.

Sylva sits across from the young man. "My name is Sylva Han, I'm twenty-four and I work in the Magus Department with the Royal Crime Investigation Team," he says, "and you?"

The stranger flinches slightly, his finger taps the cup of tea he's holding and he avoids Sylva's gaze, staring into his tea, instead. "I'm- Siv," he says after a moment.

Sylva doesn't miss the hesitation he had before saying his name but chose not to comment on it. "How old are you, Siv?"

"Eighteen," he answers.

"Why are you in the streets?" Sylva asks again.

Siv opens his mouth but closes it again. He looks down at his fingers and unconsciously brings his legs closer to his body. Sylva waits, but it doesn't seem like he would be answering the question.

"Were you kicked out by your parents?" Sylva asks, instead. Siv's eyes widened and he nodded a couple of times.

Sylva sighs. "I can never understand why Arlinese would kick their children before they're ready just because they're of age," he rants grumpily, "it's stupid, I'm telling you."

Siv smiles politely. "Where are you from, Sir?"

Sylva waves his hand nonchalantly. "Just call me Sylva," he says, "I'm from Astevell. Where are you from, Siv?"

Siv hesitates again, and this time he puts down his teacup, pinches the fabric of his pyjama bottom and plays with it with his fingers.

"Siv," he gently starts, "your clothing and shoes are full of mud, there is no mud available in Westhill that can dirty anyone to that extent. So, I know you're not from this city. I just want to know where you came from. You know, I just brought a stranger to stay the night at my house, so I need to know for— let's just say for a sense of security."

Siv nods slowly and takes a deep inhale.

"I'm from," he shuts his eyes before continuing, "Nevieve."

Nevieve is a small town about a four-hour drive away from Westhill. He had only been there once about three years ago, and he remembers the place to be quite traditional. The buildings are at least fifty years old and there were quite a lot of farmers there. Still, Sylva can't help but feel sceptical about his answer, but at least it's believable.

He nods. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" He rises from his seat and ushers Siv to the guest room.

"Rest now. We're going to my office tomorrow, don't try anything, alright? I'm sealing the front door and all of the windows with magic, and if you even try to use your magic to escape, it will alert me. My room is also barred with magic, and if you also try anything to it, I'm afraid we might go to my office tomorrow for a completely different purpose."

Siv looks down at his feet. "I understand, Sir. Thank you for allowing me to stay."

Sylva smiles. "You're welcome, and like I said, call me Sylva. Now, go and rest."