Chapter 18 – The Spell That Shouldn’t Exist

The Central Plaza hadn't changed.

Same velvet banners, half-torn. Same scaffold supports creaking under heat-stretched joints. Same burn mark along the stone rail, too small for a real fire, too precise for an accident.

Perry stood where the hanging had occurred. No rope. No blood. No body.

Only the faint scent of magic, like scorched linen and static.

He exhaled, slow.

The crowd had seen it. A man stepping forward onto the platform, a noose tightening around his throat. No cries. No struggle. Just a slow tilt of the head. Then—

Nothing.

The rope had swung.

But the man had vanished.

No one stopped him. They thought it was part of the act.

They applauded.

He examined the support beams again. Nothing unusual in the hook or brace. No signs of magical etching. No shimmer of hidden glyphs.

Perry tapped the platform with the toe of his boot.

Hollow. But not deep. Storage space beneath. Already searched.

He circled the scaffold again. Slowly. Twice.

On the third pass, his eyes landed on something strange.

A splinter near the edge of the rope anchor—angled up instead of down.

He crouched. Pinched it free.

Behind the hook's mount, embedded into the wood, was a small ridge of crushed stone powder. White-gray. Barely visible.

He dipped his finger.

The grit shimmered faintly.

Not chalk.

Rune dust.

He didn't speak. Just leaned closer.

Activated magic residue? But no glow left on the rope. Why only the anchor…

He rose and looked toward the far edge of the platform.

Five steps away, a matching splinter. Same residue. Same composition.

He followed it.

Every five steps—a faint thread. Faint compression in the boards. As if the scaffold itself had been enchanted… not to support weight—but to conduct it.

A circuit. Subtle. Hidden beneath the execution platform's geometry.

But why?

His eyes stopped at the upper pulley beam mounted on the city archway above the scaffold's right corner.

One of the ropes didn't match the others.

It was older. Frayed. But unnaturally clean—no dust on its fibers.

He looked up.

A knot at the beam brace. Different weave. Tied too recently.

No one had mentioned changing the equipment.

He climbed.

Halfway up, he paused. There. In the beam. A carved rune, hidden beneath a shallow wooden cap.

He pried it off with his knife.

The glyph beneath was complex. Concentric lines, temporal sync runes, displacement logic. Dangerous.

"This isn't just a delay rune…" he murmured. "It's a redirector."

He stepped down carefully, eyes never leaving the rope.

Back on the platform, he removed the floorboard near the first dust mark.

A small hollow.

Inside: a snapped crystal rod, half-drained of energy.

Rune scorched.

Perry sat cross-legged at the center of the scaffold and stared at the space where a body should've fallen.

Now he had the method.

The scaffold hadn't just been a place to die. It had been part of a spell. A network designed not to kill—but to erase.

No, not even erase. Relocate.

The man hadn't vanished.

He had been moved.

But that made things worse.

Because the residue... it wasn't something a street spellcaster could've set up. Not this cleanly. Not this deeply.

This enchantment wasn't something a performer or low-level mage could draft. Too layered. Too deliberate. It would take a Master-rank spellcaster, someone with official clearance—or someone who'd been hiding their capabilities far too well.

And this wasn't just high-tier magic.

This was illegal without Bureau oversight.

And no record had been filed.

Hours later, Perry stood at the edge of the plaza, where the spellwork's final arc had touched the audience zone.

He scratched lightly at the border stones. A single strand of thread lifted.

Not fiber.

Hair.

Too short to match the victim's official profile. Darker than the noble's listed traits.

But consistent with…

He paused.

Pulled a strip of parchment from his coat and held it beside the strand. No change.

No illusion displacement. No fadeout. It was real.

"Someone else was here," he murmured.

Behind the scaffold, Perry found the city worker who'd helped set up the execution rig.

"Did you install this before the event?"

The man looked confused. "No, sir. It was prepped already when I got here. Said it was part of the noble's request."

"Who gave the order?"

"Didn't get a name. Just the signed crest on the instruction slate. Looked official."

Perry's eyes narrowed. "Still have it?"

"Uh... no. It vanished after the execution. Literally vanished. Turned to dust when I tried to show it."

"And you didn't think to report that?"

"I thought it was a spell effect. Ceremonial magic. Part of the finale."

Perry didn't respond. Just turned and walked away.

Back at his flat, the evidence lay like a riddle in pieces.

Rune dust.

Temporal redirection glyphs.

Anchor threads positioned like a ritual.

And a rope that never bore the full weight of a body.

He sketched it.

Piece by piece.

One rune to displace mass.

Another to delay the execution of transfer.

But it required a trigger.

The victim's motion? No. Too unstable.

A glyph synced to the rope's tension. That was more likely.

Which meant the subject had to step into it willingly.

Which meant he had to know.

No, they had to know.

He set the paper down.

Then pulled another item from his coat. A badge fragment.

It was the one the noble had always worn. Seen in portraits, worn at events.

They said it was missing from the scene.

And yet here it was.

Recovered wedged inside the scaffold's rear rail.

Bent. Not snapped.

Like it had been placed.

As if someone had wanted it found—but not too quickly.

A planted clue?

A mistake?

Perry looked down at the rune sketch again.

All this to vanish a body.

But now it wasn't about where it went.

It was about why it was never meant to be found.

System.

Active investigation status confirmed. Case ID: Disappearance under false suicide.

Current Phase: Internal deduction. Truth-lock continues to hold.

"Give me all references to teleportation setups with multi-glyph displacement in ceremonial contexts."

Processing… cross-reference complete. Three matches. All illegal constructs. All flagged red. All require Master-rank clearance or higher.

"And were any of them known to cause vanishing during public execution rituals?"

One match. Case: Reilan Displacement Doctrine. Year: 347 Post-Shatter. Outcome: High noble faked execution, vanished mid-event, reappeared three months later with altered identity.

Perry stared at the words.

"Three months later…"

He whispered the phrase once more.

And suddenly, it all made sense.

The noble hadn't disappeared.

He had never existed to begin with.

Not as a person. Not truly.

A construct?

A reanimated body?

No. Not undead. Too smooth for that. Not a puppet either.

But if someone had the ability to create a functioning, behaving replica…

One that could simulate a noble heir. Stand in his place. Inherit. Publicly die.

And vanish without trace…

Then this wasn't a suicide.

It was a decommissioning.

The end of a performance.

The real person had died years ago.

And someone had used his name to step into power.

Now they no longer needed the act.

And erased the proof.

Except Perry had the proof.

Just not all of it.

Yet.