The Detective Fourteen
The day they finally meet.
He had dozens of skills that all centred on discovering the truth, on piercing through lies, and on taking disparate facts and piecing them together into an accurate history.
He was good at his work.
He was standing in front of the murderer.
He... she? He wasn’t quite sure. The child was, at his estimation, between ten and twelve years old. A pre-teen. They came up to his mid-chest if he stood, and he wasn’t a particularly tall man. Red hair, freckles, probably weighed no more than seven stone wet.
Their clothes were simple, but clean. A set of overalls, cotton, dyed a deep blue, a knit sweater made of an off-white wool. No obvious pulled stitches on any of the clothes. No obvious stains, or wear. Not a richer person’s clothes, but also not something the average worker would wear. Too clean and presentable.
Magic. They had magic, and it was tightly wound around them. He wouldn’t have noticed except that he was very much trained to. Unfortunately, that was as far as his abilities went when it came to such things.
Then he felt at their feelings and their emotional state.
Calm. Annoyed. This was someone caught in a mistake of their own choosing and who was frustrated by their own lack of attention. A craftsman whose slip of the hand had caused a minor mistake.