The mysterious figure told him Masford was dead. Right after their drinking session, he had been strangled to death inside his tent.
Soone had tailed the inebriated Masford back into the circus grounds and struck while he was defenseless. In his muddled state, Masford hadn't even cried out or struggled—he simply died, quietly, in his own bed.
When Lake heard the news, his first reaction wasn't shock—it was grief, and a devastating sense of loss.
Last night's encounter had made him believe he'd found a friend he'd t not too late but wished he'd known sooner. Even though they stood on opposing "sides," on the wavelength of clownhood, the two had resonated perfectly.
Yet who could have imagined that in just one night, that resonance had been silenced forever?
Lake refused to believe it. Terrified that soone was using the drinking session as ammunition to upset him, he insisted the mysterious figure reveal their identity before he'd consider believing a word.
The figure was silent for a long ti, then quietly pulled back their hood.
When those curls tumbled free, the horrified Lake recognized the person before him.
Mada Freud!
Morning Joy's ringmaster had co to him at the break of dawn, bearing terrible news that shattered the calm surface of his heart.
"Do you still think this is a prank?"
Mada Freud's eyes brimd with tears.
"Masford died in the night. I didn't have to co here. All I needed to do was report everything to the royal court, and the public's vitriol and abuse would have nailed the Sunset to its pillar of sha.
At this most critical juncture, who would kill Masford?
The answer is obvious!"
Lake panicked, shaking his head and backing away.
"It wasn't ! I didn't kill him—it really wasn't !"
The hatred in Mada Freud's eyes was plain, but she didn't lash out at Lake. Fighting back her grief, she took a deep breath and said:
"Perhaps it wasn't you. But can you deny that the killer ca from the Sunset?"
"I..."
Lake couldn't distance the Sunset from this. He put himself in the opposite position: if he had been the one found dead, would his friends at the Sunset—Ringmaster Fate—believe the killer wasn't from Morning Joy?
No!
Their very first thought would be Morning Joy.
Lake was terrified, desperate—because he knew that once news like this broke, whether or not the killer truly ca from the Sunset, the circus's reputation and legacy would be finished.
People only believed what they wanted to believe. They couldn't care less about the truth. Even if the royal court investigated and cleared the Sunset's na, who would actually buy it?
And could such a clearing even be obtained?
Lake himself didn't believe the killer could be anyone else. He just couldn't fathom who among them would be bold enough to cross over and commit murder.
Still, as a mber of the Sunset, he made one attempt to defend its honor:
"Fate once said that no one is allowed to use underhanded tricks to harass Morning Joy. The Sunset would win fair and square..."
Mada Freud's laughter was frigid:
"He told you not to use dirty tricks. But what if he used them himself?"
"!!!" Lake was stunned. "You're saying the killer is Fate? No! Absolutely impossible! I'll admit there are people in the Sunset who'd rather not see Morning Joy win, but Fate would never do sothing like this!"
Mada Freud said nothing more. She stared at Lake for a long ti, her expression full of anguish:
"I will find the evidence. Until then, I ask you not to make this public.
For your own sake—and for the dead Masford—please, let us all keep so dignity."
With that, Mada Freud turned to leave. But Lake instantly called out to her, his expression conflicted:
"Why tell
all this? Why not go straight to the royal court?"
Mada Freud stopped in her tracks, her shoulders trembling, her voice choked with sobs:
"Why...?
Yes—why!
Perhaps because I, too, was once part of the Sunset!
If I hadn't been stifled, if I hadn't been suppressed, if I hadn't been unable to accept watching circus artistry sink like a dying sun beneath the horizon—who would willingly leave 'ho' and stand against it?
The Sunset... is no longer the Sunset that once was.
To win, they would even kill a prodigiously gifted clown...
Their eyes have long since lost any reverence or pursuit of art. All that remains is corrupt hunger for power and the complacent rot of those who rest on past glories.
But you're different."
With that, Mada Freud turned back around, her eyes reddened.
She gazed at Lake, her eyes holding both fury and gratitude.
"Honestly, I didn't co to notify you. You were my first suspect—I wanted you to be the killer!
That way, I could have seized you and made the Sunset lose its clown as well!
But I can't. Because I can see it—you didn't know. And you wouldn't do sothing like that.
Like Masford, you have the purest love for circus arts. You hold a genuine, heartfelt respect for the art of the clown. You're a good soul—you're nothing like them...
Soone like you doesn't belong in the Sunset. You belong in Morning Joy.
They're like rotting leaves in a swamp of mud... unworthy of soone as vibrant as you."
And then Mada Freud was gone, leaving behind a deeply shaken Lake, standing there as the storm inside him raged on and on.
But she ca back soon.
That very night, she found the killer.
Lake had been cooped up in his room all day when he heard a sound outside the window. He dragged himself over and pushed it open, only to see the hooded Mada Freud standing in the moonlight, slapping a sheet of paper onto his desk.
Lake stared at the footprint on the paper in confusion, not yet understanding what it ant—when her voice reached him:
"No plan is airtight.
The killer erased every trace inside and outside the room. But what he didn't know was that Masford, in order to perfect his footwork rhythm, had replaced the carpet in his tent with a special material that could retain imprints.
He used it to constantly refine his footing and weight distribution. But who could have guessed that before he'd mastered the lightest step, that very carpet would record the killer's footprint!
The entire long path from tent to circus—not a single trace left behind. Only this carpet captured the killer's true form!
Though I despise the Sunset to the bone, I can't accuse anyone without evidence.
So I had to co to you.
Lake, for the sake of that one night you and Masford shared over drinks, please—help . I'm begging you. Tell
whether the killer really is soone from the Sunset.
Does this boot print... belong to the Sunset?"
Mada Freud's tears stread down unchecked.
And so did Lake's.
Because he had already recognized whose footprint it was. The killer was indeed from the Sunset!
Ringmaster Fate!
The killer really was Fate!
He knew this footprint intimately—not because of the Sunset's standard-issue boots, but because of an incident long ago when the clown had been playing a prank on a perforr and accidentally spilled a plu of fire onto Fate's feet. Fate hadn't dodged in ti, and the flas had scorched a divot into his boot sole.
But since the shape of that divot happened to resemble the Sunset's emblem, Fate had declared it an auspicious on—a sign that the Sunset was ever more grounded—and decided never to replace those boots.
This piece of trivia was known to no one outside of Lake, Fate himself, and a few of the acrobats who had been there...
Confronted with the evidence laid bare before him, Lake could no longer contain the psychological pressure that had been building all day. He broke down and wept.
He couldn't understand why Fate would do such a thing.
Did he not trust the Sunset? Did he not trust the clown!?
In his eyes, was the Sunset's clown really that much worse than Morning Joy's?
Why else had he specifically targeted Masford?
And by doing this, what regard did he have for the art of the circus?
The Sunset's century of pursuit—was it truly about reaching the pinnacle of artistry, or was it only about winning?
Lake was lost. He had always thought Fate was the person who understood him best in the world. But now, Fate felt like a stranger—less familiar, even, than a Masford he'd only known for one night and shared one evening's friendship.
But Masford was dead. Dead at Fate's hands.
How ironic. How utterly absurd.
...
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