{written by ana}
{based off the murdoch mysteries episode, the talking dead (s11e9)}

so i've been wanting to recreate some episodes from this show into lilith oneshots, so i did! enjoy :D

"This is outrageous! What kind of sick joke is this?!"

The man's wife could only chuckle under her breath, peacefully buttering her toast with a small confused look splattered somewhere on her face. "I'm not sure, dear. Perhaps you should go to the newspapers, it's probably just a mistake."

Her husband huffed, straightening his tie. "I'll give them a piece of my mind if it isn't. It's not funny, Lucinda."

"I'm aware." She raised an eyebrow and watched him push back his plate of breakfast. "You're leaving now?"

"No time like the present!" He boomed threateningly, waving the newspaper in his hand as he burst through the door, leaving his confused wife at the breakfast table, alone.

~*~*~*~

"Well the cause of death is obvious." Lilith stuck her hands in her pockets, kicking the shattered pieces of the flower pot.

"The wife says he was heading to the newspapers, and then she heard the crash," Lestrade told her promptly, sighing at the tragedy lying before them. "And before you ask, there is a reason I called you here."

"Oh good, because you interrupted me in the middle of a painting," Lilith spat back, following him as he took her to the front door, where the now widowed wife of the victim was shaking.

He frowned and looked back at her. "I didn't know you painted."

"Normally I don't, and I wasn't, but I needed an excuse for this utterly boring case," Lilith quipped back.

"This is Mrs. Quimbly," the inspector introduced, nodding at the woman. She barely even looked at the two of them as she nodded in return.

"Not that I don't care deeply for what happened to your husband," Lilith began quickly, the woman eyeing her oddly. "What makes his death so compelling?"

"Oh, it's just a mistake," the woman wailed, holding her hand on her head and holding out a newspaper towards the detectives. Lilith made no effort to be sympathetic as she grabbed the paper and looked at it, frowning. But after a moment of scanning the page it was flipped to, her entire expression changed.

"This was from the morning edition?" Lilith asked the now Miss Quimbly, eyeing her with a blank look on her face.

"Yes, he was just going off to report it to the papers. But... well I suppose now it's true."

~*~*~*~

"He died after his obituary was written?"

"Indeed he was," Lilith confirmed, flailing her hands. She still had the newspaper in her hand, and hadn't let go of it since she visited the victim that morning. It seemed to have never left her side, sitting there as a reminder of how bizarre this whole thing was. "Lestrade talked to The Strand and apparently someone left the obituary in a letter mailed this morning. Anonymous."

"Huh." Max was currently poking through the dead man's body, his hands bloody. "Then whoever left the obituary probably was the one who pushed the pot."

"For once you're using your brain, Max," Lilith chimed, leaning against the wall as she watched her friend work. "This is a unique way of threatening someone, I must say."

"You can use it next time someone insults you," Max added, as delighted as someone could be while sticking their hand in a corpse.

"I'll let you know when I do." She grinned at him from ear to ear, and instantly dropped it when she turned around to reread the paper.

"So judging by the clothes," Max told her, gesturing his head towards the pile of clothes the victim was wearing, which was sitting on a small table in the corner. "He wasn't a very wealthy man. I've already determined he's an alcoholic, you can just smell it on him. And there's a great deal of whiskey in his stomach, but I'm yet to determine what actually killed him."

But his words did the exact opposite of helping Lilith, because she immediately looked up at him and gave him a look of flabbergast. "Pardon?"

"Yeah, Mr. Pollon's absolutely drenched in-"

But the detective only threw the newspaper in the air, ignoring it as it fell to the ground in a fluster of papers. "Max, I'm talking about Mr. Quimbly! The banker."

Max blinked and looked questionably at the body he was performing on. "Well I'm doing an autopsy on Mr. Pollon."

"Then where the hell is Mr. Quimbly?!"

Max frowned, secretly finding the whole thing utterly hilarious, and turned to look at a clipboard on his right. "I'm doing him after Mr. Quimbly. The one I'm working on right now is Mr. Pollen, they found him in the alleyway this morning."

Lilith scrunched up her face. "And his obituary was written before he died?"

"Just an hour before."

"That makes two of them," Lilith muttered, sighing deeply and waving the newspaper open. Her eyes scanned the page, but her eyes were wide. "Meaning there are going to be more."

~*~*~*~

Lilith and Jade were sitting in Detective Inspector Lestrade's office, watching the people sitting just outside it squirm in their seats. It was like watching a pile of ants run around after invading their colony.

"That's the three of them," Lestrade was saying mindlessly as he, too, stared at them through the glass window. He didn't seem to notice how he was tapping his pen furiously on the desk, the sound irritating the two girls before him. "A weightlifter, a pawn shop owner, and a nun."

"Any connections between them?" Jade asked, still looking at them all. None of the people sitting outside looked as though they knew each other, both sitting a remarkable distance away. "Besides the fact they both had their obituaries written while they're still alive."

"None that we know of," Lestrade replied sourly. "We also asked them about Mr. Pollen and Mr. Quimbly. They've never heard or seen of them in their life."

"There's going to be a connection somewhere," Lilith huffed, twirling a single curl in her hair, looping it endlessly around her finger. "Whoever's doing this wouldn't pick random people."

"Who knows, maybe they did," Branch shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "That's the thing with serial killers. You can never anticipate motive so quickly."

Jade was watching one of the men tap his foot almost hysterically, as though he was planning to be somewhere. Her eyes turned to the other, who was glaring back at her. She quickly looked away and pretended to be staring at Anderson attempting to carry several documents down the room. But then she noticed the other man raise his hand like he was a schoolchild, calling for the name of the inspector.

He noticed straight away. "Jade, bring him in. He wants to speak to us."

And she did. And the next moment the man was standing angrily in the doorway.

"How long are we going to be here?" he asked. Lilith noticed how his shaggy dark hair covered his eyes and how he was most likely twice her size. He looked rough, and seemed to hold a permanent glare. "I have places to be."

"Until we catch whoever's trying to kill you lot," Branch told him, his voice sarcastically cheerful.

"I think I can manage going out on my own," he scoffed. "Those men who died already weren't even expecting this. But I am."

"Yes," Lilith agreed, her voice smooth. "And... no one intends to get murdered, and yet..." She twirled a strand of hair thoughtfully, irritating the man even more.

He was dismissed, but replaced with someone else who came into the room.

"Sir." The voice was instantly recognizable. "There's someone else here for the obituary thing."

"What? But we've got everyone still alive from the papers!"

Donovon shook her head tiredly. "Not from the afternoon edition."

He finally stopped his furiating pen tapping to toss it across his desk and nearly hit Jade in the face with it. "Oh, hell."

But when Lilith and Jade looked over to who had followed Poppy into the room, both their stomachs sank, and Jade thought she was seeing things.

"Penelope Thompson," the woman quivered, heart breaking before their eyes. Her hand touched the shoulder of the child standing beside her. "is my daughter, and she's in the obituaries." She added hastily, "I'm Katie Thompson."

Lilith crossed her leg over the other and raised an eyebrow questionably. "Well I suppose all I can say right now is that we're glad to see her not brutally murdered."

"Lilith!"

"Would you rather have me say I wish she was dead?" Lilith shot back to the inspector, flailing her hands about in protest. "Look, ma'am." She bobbed her head towards the little girl, who looked no older than ten. "And young Miss. Please tell me, do you know anyone of the name Pollen or Quimbly?"

"Never have in my life," the mother exclaimed, still holding her daughter by the shoulders protectively, as though she were worried she might be murdered right in the middle of the police station.

"What about the two gentlemen sitting outside, and the woman? Have you ever encountered them?" Jade asked gingerly, wishing the child would stop looking so terrified. It only made her feel anxious by the second. She and her mother were both techno trolls, both with long locks of golden hair. Like goldilocks, but if she were a fish.

"No."

Branch frowned, and after telling the mother and her child to go and wait with the rest of the wanted trolls, and snapped her fingers at Poppy like she was a servant, gesturing at the newspaper in her hand. "Give me that."

Poppy, having no reason not to, obeyed.

The inspector, with everyone in the room staring at him blankly, scanned through the list of obituaries on the paper.

Then his eyes widened and his grip on the paper weakened.

"Well, there's definitely someone else on this list who I know for a fact isn't dead yet," he muttered, sucking in a sigh.

"Who?" Both Jade and Poppy joined him from behind his desk, peering at the papers over his shoulders. Lilith watched from her set, picking at some lint on her coat sleeve when she noticed the absolutely frazzled looks on both Jade and Poppy's faces.

"Who is it?" she asked, still looking away and picking at lint. "A baker, a lawyer, a dog walker?"

Branch and the girls stared at her, wide eyed and seeing no humour in the situation at all. The inspector, with his voice serious and struck, like he just chugged back a glass of water and it went down the wrong tube, choked, "It's you, Lilith."

The consulting detective frowned. "Hm."

And then it finally hit. "Wait, what?"

~*~*~*~

"I've only met one of the trolls out there before," Liltih explained for what seemed to be the thousandth time, although really it was just the first. She took pleasure in spinning herself around in one of Lestrade's wheeled chairs until they thought the wheels were going to pop off. "Sister Rosemary was the neighbour of a kidnapped victim about a year ago, she was the one to complain to the police about the loud noise coming from their pod. But other than that I've never laid eyes on any of them in my life."

Jade felt her insides twisting by the second, the whole problem sinking in her stomach like the flu. "Well then that's now the only connection there is between any of the targets."

Everyone glanced over through the glass window to only see the rest of the said targets sitting anxiously in the hall, Miss Thompson holding her kid protectively as she glared at the rest of the trolls, as though she didn't trust them.

"Well since you're a detective," Lestrade began, adding quietly, "-consulting detective, maybe you should go through some of your old cases to see if they connect you to anyone here. Whoever's trying to kill you may be taking revenge because you've wronged them."

Poppy walked in the office only seconds after those words were spoken, Anderson standing quietly behind her. Somewhat glaring at Lilith as though she was a moldy slice of cheese on the floor. "Sir, the trolls outside are getting impatient. They want to know when they can go home."

"At a time when they're lives aren't at stake," snapped back the inspector.

Poppy opened her mouth as though she was about to say something, but then nodded. Anderson, on the other hand, was tapping his foot mildly. "Sir, with all due respect, they're getting rather annoyed with this whole setup and have grown restless."

"Then let them take your desk."

"But-"

"Come on, Anderson," Poppy hissed with a smile. "You can be a friendly gentleman and get them all some sandwiches and tea."

She dragged him out by the ear, miraculously.

"Lestrade," Lilith began, beginning to sit up straight. "I need to go out and visit Mr. Pollen's home. It hasn't been searched yet, and there might be something there valid to this case."

"Have you forgotten that there's someone trying to kill you?" Branch exclaimed, narrowing his eyebrows.

Lilith sighed and shook her head. "Unlike those buffoons outside I can protect myself."

He smirked a smirk that instantly told her he was not changing his mind. "And no one intends to get murdered, and yet..." He mocked her past behaviour by pretending to twirl a long piece of imaginary hair. She scowled at him, leaning back into her chair.

He had other plans for her, though. "Lilith, you and Jade should go and look back into the case you met Sister Rosemary in. It might connect her with the other people here."

"Already done."

Jade was staring at her phone screen, smiling like she was looking at her favourite thing in the world. Both Lilith and Lestrade turned to look at her, confused.

She scoffed in reply to their puzzled expression. "Well I've not been sitting idle this whole time. I wrote about that case last year, although it never got published anywhere. I didn't even give it a name, but I wrote down every detail of it."

"Honestly, you have way too much free time," Lilith mumbled as she spun around for a last time before standing up and swiping the phone from Jade's hand. She began scanning it like a machine.

Jade turned to look at Branch, knowing very well what Lilith was about to read.

And after a few moments, she sighed loudly. "Well, now we have a connection to everyone."

~*~*~*~

Poppy was just getting back into the room when she saw the giant blackboard sitting in Branch's office. The desk had to have been moved back to make room for it, it was so massive. And Lilith was scribbling words on it with chalk like her life depended on it.

She had just gotten back from a rather interesting visit to Mr. Pollen's pod, coming back to the station with some interesting news.

"Alright," she said promptly, dotting the "i" of a word on the board. Jade, Branch, and Poppy all stood in a row before her. "Since you all are too dimwitted I took the liberty of making a visual representation of this case so far, your welcome."

"You just wrote down the names of all the targeted people," Branch spat.

"Indeed I did," Lilith nodded without a moment to lose.

"Hey, what's going on here?" Anderson was at the door, staring at the blackboard with mild interest.

"Lilith's showing us what we can't understand with spoken words," Poppy replied without any sarcasm whatsoever.

Anderson frowned at them all. "Why wasn't I invited here?"

Lilith stared at him, her face truly apologetic. "I'm sorry, Anderson. I honestly didn't think you knew how to read."

"You were saying, Lilith?" Branch held a hand out to her, shaking his head at Anderson.

"Anyways." She drew a big circle around the name Ronald Pollen, one fallen victim. "Ronald Pollen had some rather large stacks of money in his apartment, as I've just learned, which come from the Bank of Rock City, the one established in Trolldon of course. The same bank that Dasher Quimbly worked at. That connects both of them together."

The three others nodded in unison as Lilith drew another circle around Dasher Quimbly.

"Now." She turned around to them quickly, feeling all their attention on her. "There just so happened to be a bank robbery at that exact bank eight months ago. The man who they caught was put behind bars but they knew there was an accomplice to the crime, but they were never found."

"So what does this man have to do with it?"

"That man was named Barry Locklyn. And he's Mrs. Thompson's ex-husband and young Penelope Thompson's father." Yet another circle appeared on the board. "Connecting them."

Jade looked as though she was about to make a comment, but was quickly interested when Lilith turned back to the board and added, "And I looked into that more, talking to the Missus. Barry Locklyn used to work at that bank before he was fired... by Dasher Quimbly."

"What about Andrew Carter and Aiden Greenwood?" Lestrade asked with his arms crossed over his chest, glancing over at the two other men sitting impatiently in the hallway.

Only, that was the thing.

Andrew Carter was sitting there, sipping on some tea.

"...but Aiden Greenwood isn't here-" Jade seemed to echo his thoughts as she noticed the same thing, pointing through the window.

"What?!"

Lilith moved aside from her glorious blackboard to look over and peer through the window, and sure enough, Aiden Greenwood was not there. Andrew Carter, the funk troll weightlifter, was sitting there, looking around in slight confusion, most likely realizing the same thing everyone else was.

"Shit."

~*~*~*~

"They're sending out officers to look for him."

It had been about twenty minutes since they've discovered Mr. Greenwood's disappearance, and frankly, not everyone was pleased with this entire ordeal. Lilith had found fun in spinning around in her chair once again, this time her legs flung over the side and staring intensely at her blackboard. Jade thought about asking her where she got the blackboard from ages ago, but decided not to. Lilith had resources everywhere. Or she stole it, one of the other.

"Well." Lilith swung her chair over to face Jade, who was leaning her back against the wall, wishing she was home right now. "Either Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Carter isn't actually involved with this robbery case, or you didn't include them anywhere." She huffed. "Because their names aren't anywhere in this case."

Jade nodded. "So then why has Mr. Greenwood left the building?"

"That's exactly what compels me."

Jade frowned. "Who was supposed to be watching him?"

"Anderson."

"Ah, makes sense."

"Indeed."

Jade looked directly at Lilith's blackboard. In the center, surrounded by the names of the targets, was a new name. Barry Locklyn. And now, Lilith had written words underneath the names of the targets. As though she was reading her mind Lilith began to read them aloud to her.

"So. Penelope Thompson's his daughter, Dasher Quimbly fired him from the bank, and Ronald Pollen was found with large stacks of money from that bank." She looked thoughtful. "Ronald Pollen was the accomplice to that crime, Jade. It all makes sense."

"What about Sister Rosemary?" She pointed at the name of the nun. "She connects to you, but not to anyone else or this robbery."

"Indeed," Lilith noted. "Maybe from now on you should begin writing down every detail of every case."

"Because this sort of thing will happen again in the future?"

"You never know."

"Lilith!" The voice was Lestrade's, bursting into the room like a newborn flower. "We found Mr. Greenwood, he didn't get very far. Behind him, Mr. Greenwood was standing with his arms handcuffed, looking angry and exhausted. Almost defeated, but he was doing a decent job at trying to hide it.

"Ah!" Lilith took one look at the man and gestured for him to sit down on the chair opposite Branch's desk. "Sit down, Mr. Greenwood. I want to have a chat with you."

"This is stupid!" the man cried. "I didn't do anything wrong, why am I being treated like I am?"

"Because in a situation where we're trying to protect everyone in the hallway," Branch snapped, his blood beginning to boil. "You decided to leave."

"I have a shop to run," he spat back as he grimaced and sat down on the chair. "People will begin to wonder where I am. They probably already have!"

"Do you care more about your shop or your safety?"

"Please, inspector. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself on the streets."

"Two men have already died," Lilith countered, eyes going strict and her face serious. "Sir at this point you-"

She was interrupted by the piercing scream that came from the hallway.

And when she looked over, she saw two adults and a child looking down at the ground, terrified at the sight of a body on the ground. The body was Sister Rosemary.

~*~*~*~

"She died from poisoning," Lilith concluded, kneeling down at the body. "It was a fast acting one."

She sat up straight and looked around at the people gathered around her. "She had tea, but did she have any of the sandwiches?"

"No," replied Miss Thomspon, who was shaking slightly. Her child was waiting on a stool somewhat away from the group, staring at a wall mindlessly. "She only had some tea. Although she was complaining about how disgusting it tasted-"

"So she was poisoned while at the station?" Jade gapped.

"It appears so," Lilith huffed, standing up and shoving her hands in her pockets. "I'm starting to believe that anyone being held here is actually any safer than they would be out on the streets."

She suddenly whipped around to face Andrew Carter and Miss Thompson. "I'm going to need to be looking in your bags."

"What?"

"Lilith, just hang on." Lestrade pushed his way through the crowd and grabbed her arm. "We'll have men doing just that. In the meantime you still need to be talking to Mr. Greenwood."

Lilith looked as though she was about to object, but then nodded. "Fine."

~*~*~*~

"You're hiding something," she said to the man who couldn't keep his eyes off a certain person in the hallway. At first, she thought maybe he was simply concerned about the murder that occured not a few moments ago. But then she saw it, something else in his eyes. She wanted to classify it as fear but thought that would be a step too forward. It was cowardness.

He snapped back his attention to her, eyes wide and mouth slammed shut.

Still in her wheely chair, she rolled up closer to him and stared right into his face without even caring about personal space. "You're not telling us something, I can see it."

"I don't know what you mean," he said delicately.

"Yes you are," she retorted back. Her eyes grew wide as she looked back at the group, noticing one particular person staring back through the window. "You lied to us."

"I did no such thing-!"

"Lestrade, please bring in Andrew Carter," the detective instructed shallowly. "Mr. Greenwood here isn't telling us the truth."

Andrew Carter didn't look any more pleased with the entire thing than Aiden Greenwood. In fact he looked even more annoyed. Both men sat on chairs side by side before Branch Lestrade, who was glaring at them awfully.

"You ought to tell us why you two suddenly forgot to mention that you do know each other," he hissed at them both. Lilith and Jade watched the conversation from the wall across the room, both staring.

"I didn't think it was important," Greenwood stated, sounding equally annoyed. "It was only once, what more could it mean?"

"There is a serial killer out there trying to kill you two," Branch practically shouted, pointing out the window. "Hell, we could even have reason to suspect yourself, Mr. Greenwood."

"What? Why!?"

"Well for starters you tried to escape only a short while before Sister Rosemary was killed." He raised an eyebrow at him. "Fleeing the scene?"

"I have nothing against Sister Rosemary," he growled. "I've never met her. I've never met anyone here except for..."

"Right, about that," Lilith cut in, barging into the conversation like she always did. "Explain to me how you two met."

Carter looked exasperated when he responded. "It was some months ago, in passing. There was this... like, a robbery case going on with the police. The Bank of Rock City was robbed and I was a witness, I was there. Anyways I helped the police find the tool the robbers used to break in, nothing much. I saw Mr. Greenwood while at the police station." He looked at them like his words made up for everything. "See? Only in passing. Never even spoke to him."

"Mr. Carter." Branch's voice was stern. "I'm going to ask you again. Have you ever heard of the name Barry Locklyn?"

He hesitated.

"Yes, I have. He was the dude who robbed the place."

Jade sighed heavily from the back of the room.

~*~*~*~

"Well." Jade collapsed in the wheely chair which Lilith had just got up from, as though she was waiting for her to leave it. "I just looked into it more, talked to some of the officers and detectives working on that case. Sister Rosemary was the one who reported the robbery as well."

"Seems she had a reputation for complaining," Lestrade joked mildly.

Lilith had begun pacing before the blackboard, which was still in the room. Jade knew pacing was never a good sign. "So everyone's connected to the robbery in some way."

"And Greenwood just confessed to me that he was at the police station to confirm Locklyn's identity," Branch added. "He was also a witness to the robbery."

"Quimbly fired, Pollen was the accomplice, Sister Rosemary reported, Greenwood identified, and Carter found the break in tool," Lilith recapped, looking pleased with her work on the blackboard. "All these people played a major part in Barry Locklyn's downfall, which led him to prison."

"So whoever is doing this could be what, avenging Locklyn?" Jade asked, frowning.

"That's what it appears," Lilith agreed, suddenly grabbing a file from Branch's desk and pulling out a mugshot from it. It was Barry Locklyn, and she stuck his face directly in the center of all of her work. "Which makes me wonder why his own daughter is being hunted down as well."

"But then there's Sister Rosemary's death," Branch pointed out. "Whoever did that did it here in the station, Max Hooper confirmed it when he came around."

Lilith's mouth was set into a straight line. "Bring in Miss Thompson."

~*~*~*~

"My husband was a good man. He was a loving and caring father and he loved Penelope more than the world." She was on the verge of sobbing. "I knew something was wrong when he came home that day and told me our lives of poverty were over."

"You were unwealthy?" Lilith asked bluntly, no filter on her words.

Fortunately the woman didn't care for her rudeness. "We were. After my husband was arrested I found a job as a hotel clerk, and managed to make a few pounds. I went back to school and finished my last semester of college; I dropped out when I had Penelope at such a young age."

"How tragic," Lilith dulled, quickly and sarcastically. "What I want to know is why your daughter is on my list on my board." She waved a hand towards it, which Miss Thompson looked at blankly.

"I have no idea," she sighed. "He really did love her, and she adored her father back."

Jade shook her head. "And yet someone wants to kill her."

Lilith looked as though she was planning on saying something. She seemed she was about to, when suddenly a small, petite figure appeared in the doorway. "Mother? Is it time to go to the fair yet?"

Miss Thompson looked over at her daughter wearily. Her expression seemed to change almost instantly when she laid eyes upon her own daughter. Something changed, something drastic, and Lilith and Jade both saw it with their own two eyes. Because the next thing they knew Katie Thompson was on the other side of the room, standing before the doorway, with her arm grabbing her daughter and pulling her close to her body. And there was a gun in her hand pointed at the small child.

"Get away from me!!" she shouted, eyes fierce and bold, tainted with hatred. The commotion caught the attention of several officers on the same floor, yet she didn't care. The girl screamed in her mother's grasp. Jade thought of all the time she saw Katie hold her daughter close in the past few hours, protectively and motherly. Now, she was doing the same thing, with different intentions. "Let me go, and I won't shoot."

"MOM!" Penelope screeched, wiggling and squirming. "Let me go!"

"Miss Thompson, let her go!" Branch boomed, reaching in his desk for a weapon of his own. Jade could see several officers running through the hall, armed as well. "Let the child go!"

"No!" she wailed, almost desperately. The pistol was held directly at the girl's arm. "My husband deserved better! Barry was wronged by so many people, inspector! It's all their fault-!" Her eyes shot at Lilith. "Including you!"

Lilith saw the whole thing happen in her eyes like a scene from a movie, and she saw the little girl crying for help like a little lost baby. She took no hesitation to leap at the mother, who had begun to point the gun at her, ready to shoot. But she didn't even have a second to shoot before Lilith elbowed her in the face, leaving her screaming and releasing the girl. As the woman began to stand up again, she was quickly grabbed by the officers who had stormed through the building to get there in time.

"Katie Thompson, you are under arrest for the murders of Dashee Quimbly, Ronald Pollen, and Sister Rosemary," Branch declared, sighing in relief. "And the attempted murder of Lilith Holmes."

She was taken away within seconds, leaving the frightened little girl in the office without a mother.

~*~*~*~

Jade frowned at Penelope from the window, feeling horrible for the girl. "She just lost a mother."

Lilith was playing with the chalk dust from her board as she began to wipe it clean. "Indeed she did."

"She's an orphan now," Jade added quietly, arms crossed as she leaned back in Lilith's wheely chair. "Both her parents are in prison."

"Thank you for stating the obvious."

Jade looked at Lilith, watching her wipe her finger over the dust and then wipe it on her shirt, as though she didn't know how else to clean it. "Are you not the least bit sorry for her?"

"Absolutely dying inside for the girl."

Jade rolled her eyes and looked back at the girl. "The adoption agency will be here soon."

"Good for her then."

Jade decided that she couldn't sit there and watch Lilith play with chalk dust forever. "I'm going home. What do you want for supper?"

"Something cooked through this time." She was smiling.

Jade grinned back. "Looks like your aunt's cooking tonight then." She left the room, giving Penelope a faithful nod as she left.

And almost the exact minute she did, Lilith dropped the chalk and marched over to her.

"Hello again young miss," Lilith addressed, joining her in the chair beside her. She was sitting proper, her eyes still wet with tears and her face flushed, like she was drained of colour.

"Hello detective."

Lilith smiled faintly and leaned in, whispering, "I heard you wanted to go to the fair today."

She nodded silently, her hair peachy and silky. "It's the last day."

"Well." Lilith found herself using a tone of voice she never used. "The agency won't be here for another hour. How about I take you there myself?"

Her eyes went wide, bursting with hope. "Really?"

"Why not?"

"I'll grab my coat!" she giggled happily, her eyes suddenly dry and filled with delight. Lilith grinned as she watched her leap from her chair and dart for her coat.

~*~*~*~

The fair was downtown Trolldon. Rides and games and street food made up the entire carnival. Trolls of all kinds came together to entertain children on the street, and Penelope was amazed by it all.

Lilith walked behind her, hands in her pockets, and smiling widely at the young girl. Penelope seemed to have forgotten all her problems and took in the colours and smells of street food.

"What's going to happen to my mother?" she had asked Liltih after getting a giant stick of cotton candy. She was wolfing it down her throat like she was starving.

Lilith shrugged as she moved aside to let an elderly couple walk past them. "Prison, definitely. You won't get to see her for a long time."

For some reason, Penelope didn't look the tiniest bit sad. Instead she answered, "She was only doing this for my father."

Lilith nodded. "And she shouldn't have."

Penelope dropped the subject like a bag of bricks. "Ooh! Can we get a hotdog?" She was pointing ahead of the path, where sure enough, a small hotdog stand stood.

Lilith nodded with a shrug. "Sure."

~*~*~*~

"What I'm wondering is," Branch was saying. "Is why Katie grabbed her daughter as a hostage. She was really willing to shoot her?"

"She was panicking," Poppy reminded him, as though he needed to be reminded. "And besides, we know she was really trying to shoot Lilith."

"I suppose you're right," Branch sighed. He stared into the distance, right through the window where the group once sat. "There was just no reason to grab her daughter like that."

Poppy frowned at him in confusion. "You're not actually thinking she didn't do it?"

"I never said that!"

"You were thinking about it."

"Okay, maybe I was-"

His eyes found themselves looking back at the blackboard Lilith had rolled into the room only a few hours ago, half wiped clean, and half covered in chalk and broken words, most unreadable. He could barely even read the words that were once clear and bold there, except he could make out small letters that hadn't been erased.

"What are you looking at?" Poppy asked him, turning to look at the board as well. She clearly didn't see what he was seeing.

"Call Jade. Lilith's in danger." And before anything he began to run for the door in a frenzy.

As he was about to leave, Poppy cried, "What do you mean?"

"It's the daughter!"

~*~*~*~

"Could you pass me some ketchup please?" Her voice was silky and polite as ever. Lilith humbly nodded and turned to grab the ketchup.

The bottle was in the girl's hand.

"And some mustard?"

"Hold this," Liltih instructed, handing Penelope her own hotdog so she could grab the toppings.

Poisoning the hotdog was easier than she thought.

Lilith finally turned around, ketchup and mustard in her hand. "Here you go, young miss."

She grinned a toothy grin. "Thank you, Miss Holmes." Her techno hair bobbed with her as she bounced.

"Of course."

~*~*~*~

"What do you mean she's the killer?" Jade yelled into the phone at an alarming volume. Trolls walking past her gawked and stared at her like she was a maniac. "How could Penelope be the killer? She's just a young girl!"

There was a pause on her end as she listened.

"wHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S WITH LILITH?!"

She sighed, cursing under her breath, and hung up on the call. Then she turned the corner on the sidewalk and saw the fairy not a street away from her.

"Shit."

~*~*~*~

Penelope smiled at the detective, her face glowing with happiness. "You try yours first."

Lilith grinned down at her hotdog, nodding. The background noise was filled with children screaming in joy and chattering trolls surrounding them. "Alright."

~*~*~*~

"Shit shit shit shit shit." Jade kept muttering under her breath as she zoomed down the sidewalk, bumping into trolls as she did. She found herself nearly tripping in the heaps of the crowd and hoped she wouldn't be too late. Lilith was less than a minute away from her.

~*~*~*~

The hotdog was nearing Lilith's mouth. Penelope was smiling like it was the best day of her life, a thousand glimmers in her eyes as she watched hopefully.

~*~*~*~

"Sorry, pardon me, excuse me." A wheel of apologies came through Jade's lips as she practically bulldozed through the crowds of people at the fair. She was blinded by the colours of rides and people, frantically searching for a certain purple haired troll.

When she finally managed to see them, two small figures in the distance, she felt her stomach drop as she saw Lilith about to bite into what will be her ultimate death. She felt her entire body collapsing on her as she screamed her name desperately. And yet she was too far away for them to hear her.

Until she saw Lilith stop, the food was only an inch away from her face. Even from afar she could see the glare form on her mouth and the narrowed eyes as she looked down horribly at the little girl, who was faking a look of confusion.

"On second thought," she said, although Jade couldn't hear what was going on. "I don't feel like being poisoned today."

And she dropped the hotdog into the garbage bin beside her.

"You're coming with me, young miss."

~*~*~*~

"So you knew," Jade worded out, emphasizing every word. "This entire time?"

"Well not the entire time," Lilith shrugged. They were sitting back in their regular chairs at 221B after the frightful events of the day, the fire crackling before them. Jade was glad, she had become so bored of staying at Shortcake Yard for the entire day. "I knew it as soon as her mother pulled the gun. And Lestrade figured it out too, apparently." She frowned. "I'm genuinely surprised he saw my message."

"So you weren't actually cleaning the board."

"Of course not." She smiled. "But I suppose I should have had some faith he would figure it out. I only left some letters on the board, it was easy to see what they spelled."

"It's the daughter," Jade nodded, repeating the message she had left behind. She shook her head. "So why did her mother pull the gun on her own daughter?"

Lilith sipped her tea wistfully. "She wasn't threatening to kill her daughter. She was protecting her. I saw it on her face when her daughter came into the room, she was scared for her. She figured out it was her, so she was protecting her from us. That's why she claimed to have been the murderer, all to protect Penelope."

There was a hesitation in the air, but it was shortly cut when Lilith smirked and said, "Dinner?"

"Starving."